156 – Could you be an extreme eater?

If you create rules around food that mean you can’t eat a wide and balanced diet then the answer might be yes.

What do you consider to be extreme?

I’m guessing your initial reaction to the question was no. We think about extreme eating as people who have an unhealthy relationship with food that is affecting their lives, you might think of an anorexic person, who is controlling the amount of food they eat. Or we’ve all seen the TV shows when they talk about people who live on junk food and won’t eat anything green.

However, there is an emerging band of people that are controlling in their dietary habits that you might not consider to be extreme. I see food diaries that look healthy on first investigation, but then you realise that they are eating the same three breakfast, lunches and dinners on repeat. This is known as orthorexia, a growing group of people who are extremely controlling over their food and will only eat foods that they consider to be good for them.

Are you unable to stop eating a certain food if you start? I’ll often hear friends commenting that they won’t open a pack of biscuits as they will eat them all – that’s definitely a bit extreme but also extremely common.

Food Rules

From childhood we are given rules around what we can and can’t eat, and when we can eat it. Whilst these are often done with the best of intentions, they can lead to more extreme eating as an adult.

Do you have rules over what foods can be eaten at certain times. One of the most difficult things with clients is to change those rules, it might be that they always have cereal at breakfast and would find having fish strange, sandwiches are lunchtime meal but not yoghurt and muesli. What would happen if we ate whatever we wanted at any time?

Do you have food fear?

Is there something that you ate as a child and won’t try again? Our taste buds develop over time, as children we prefer sweet things but as we age we can enjoy more sour and tart foods. Lots of people have negative connotations with food they were forced to eat as a child.

It might be that you are fearful of eating something incase you have a reaction. Digestive issues are becoming more and more common and many people will exclude huge waves of foods.