Geneen Roth is a pioneer in the conversion of compulsive eating, perpetual dieting, and the personal emotional connection to food. Through meditation, inquiry, and a set of seven eating guidelines that are the foundation of natural eating, Roth has helped thousands of people transform their relationship with food. The best-selling author is also a faculty member at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, educating our students on emotional eating, food and body image, and our relationship with food. We sat down with Roth to learn more about how we can eat to support our mental health and heal our relationship with food.
Emotional eating is eating when you’re not hungry and not stopping when your body has had enough. It is eating for emotional reasons rather than physical reasons. It is eating to distract or comfort or push away what is asking for attention.
We nurture our relationship with our bodies by being kind to ourselves. Be kind. Be kind. Be kind. Eat what your body actually wants not what your mind wants. And when you are not hungry, give that sweet body of yours some non-food-related attention.
I am not an expert in particular foods. My passion is speaking to people about how they are using food to mediate certain conditions, feelings, thoughts, and situations in their lives. What I do know, both from my own eating and listening to other people is that nutrient-dense foods, foods that aren’t processed, and foods that give you energy rather than take it away support that sense of vitality and aliveness we all want and love.
Food doesn’t talk back, go away, hit, abuse, or otherwise punish you in any way and so when we are feeling at our limit emotionally, there is a tendency to reach for what is available and what is associated with comfort. This can be an array of childhood foods or even foods that crunch. Unfortunately, after eating these kinds of foods, we feel worse, not better.
If we turn to food for comfort, nourishment, pleasure, and joy, we are, by definition, not turning to ourselves or anyone else for those things. It can be scary at first to realize that we—and not that tray of brownies—are the ones we have been waiting for. If you are willing to be kind to yourself, to forgive yourself, and to—here’s the catch—tell the truth about what food is actually giving you in those situations, you will find your way out of the pattern and to what your heart longs for most.
I don’t have rules for eating. Rules, I’ve learned, cause people to “be good” for a while and then rebel. Rules don’t work unless every fiber in your being does not see them as rules, but does see them as support for what you want. I do have a set of Eating Guidelines that are the foundation of natural eating. They involve paying attention to what you eat instead, eating sitting down, eating what your body wants, and allowing yourself pleasure with food.
Believe it or not, most people - even those who say they love food - don’t pay attention to what they are eating after the first bite. When you love something, you pay attention to it. You allow yourself to receive it, or, as I tell my students, to have what you already have.
It’s true that holidays are particularly challenging in the food arena. Cookies abound. Gingerbread houses beckon to be eaten (well, just a corner). So many people celebrate using food as their focus. But what I would say about this is not different than what is always true in stressful situations where food is concerned: Be clear about what you want. Be clear about what truly nourishes you. It’s not a treat if you suffer and have a stomach ache for three days after you’ve eaten it.
On the practical level: