Eating should be about nutrition and staying alive, and food should be a nice part of life and not a problem. But so often it goes wrong.
I have been an academic for 38 years, but my passion has always been getting out of my ivory tower. My new book, How to eat well at every age, is my attempt to make psychology accessible to anyone who wants to eat well and develop a good relationship from childhood, through adulthood and onto being (or caring for) an older adult. It is written using a Q and A format with practical tips throughout, and it reflects my very strong ‘good enough’ principle on everything from healthy eating, to parenting through to being a carer and living a long and happy life.
Here are a few of the take home points.
What is eating well?
Healthy eating means having a diet that is high in fruit and vegetables, moderate in protein and complex carbohydrates and low in fat, ultra processed food and sugary foods. But eating well is not just about what to eat but also when, where, why and how.
This can involve pinning food to specific times of the day and planning what to eat in advance to have make more considered and less spontaneous choices. It involves creating ‘eating spaces’ where you eat and avoiding eating in the car, at your desk or on the go. It also involves trying not to use food for emotional regulation. This may work in the short term but can lead to regret, guilt and shame. So, find other non-food ways to feel better such as chatting, fresh air, music or listening to the radio and use food to manage hunger as much as you can. Then try to eat without distraction and call it ‘a meal’ where possible so you remember it. This way you can manage emotional and mindless eating and put food back into its box where it belongs.
How can I be a good food parent?
Children need to eat the right foods in the right amounts but more importantly they need develop a good relationship with food that can see them through the rest of lives. This involves the three pillars of good parenting:
- Be a good role model
Eat healthily; eat as a family; eat at a table; eat meals not snacks; eat at meal times; eat when hungry; stop when full; be active; be body confident; use exercise to manage your emotions.
- Say the rights things
‘These beans are so crunchy’; ‘This shepherd’s pie is great’; ‘I’m glad you’re hungry. Dinner is at 6.’ ‘Here are some grapes to munch on whilst watching TV.’ ‘That model is so thin. That can’t be healthy.’ ‘I’m tired. I need some fresh air.’ ‘You’re so clever, funny, kind, good with friends.’
- Manage their environment.
Buy and cook healthy food. Persist with it. Buy a fruit bowl. Get a ball or skipping rope. Turn off the TV. Have friends for tea. Manage phone time. Get rid of the bathroom scales and long mirrors.
So, eat the foods you want them to eat in front of them and be seen to enjoy it. Be active and been seen to like exercise and role model body confidence. Next, use language in a positive way that reinforces eating well without demonising food, make positive comments about the value of physical activity and teach them about fake media images when the chance arises. Words matter and what you say gives them their food and body scripts for life. And, finally, manage their environment. They can only eat what food you buy and bring into the house. Buy a fruit bowl, fill it with fruit and place it where they can reach it. Don’t feed them ready meals and takeaways and master quick and easy ‘good enough’ meals that can be cooked from scratch. And keep preparing vegetables even if they say they don’t them. Persistence is most often the key, and they will eventually learn to like what they are familiar with (I have recipes in the book!).
How can I eat well in adulthood?
We live in a world where it is very easy to eat more than we need and gain weight. For many, adulthood is therefore of a time of worrying about weight and trying to lose weight through dieting, medication or surgery which each require trying to eat less. Whilst diets often fail, there are several common factors which seem to facilitate sustained weight loss which offer lessons for both weight loss and other changes such as eating more fruit and vegetables, cooking more or eating less meat. In essence, this means choosing the right time to change, believing that things can change, shifting the costs / benefits analysis, focusing on the investment made so far, creating a new behaviour regimen and embedding all these changes into a new sense of self that becomes part of who you are.
Together, these processes help to avoid any rebound effects and make new habits more likely to be sustained into the longer term without making food into a problem.
How can I eat well as an older adult?
Whilst adulthood can be a time of overeating, as we age, the key problem is often one of under eating, weight loss and malnutrition. Eating well as we age is therefore often about trying to maintain a healthy weight, avoiding weight loss and having a ‘good enough’ healthy and balanced diet and at times this involves trying to eat even when our bodies are not telling us to. We therefore need to build new habits by planning regular smaller meals, making the most of social eating whenever we can, taking supplements, wedging in food throughout the day, being kind to ourselves by eating what we like and cooking food that is good enough to be eaten by us not by a TV chef. Much of life involves minimising emotional and mindless eating, but these can become useful tools when trying to eat a bit more as we age. Further, given the key role that food plays in our well-being, eating well can also help us remain connected to others through giving us an excuse to socialise.
How can I help someone else eat well as they grow older?
As people age, they can start to lose independence and need different degrees of looking after. And food is fundamental to caring for others. Helping someone else to eat well as they age is about making it as easy, sociable and fun as possible – so do the shopping or cooking, eat with them if you can and include food into social events such a trip to the garden centre or supermarket. Also encourage regular smaller meals and emphasise that something is better than nothing.
It also helps to offer words of praise, but in a way that does no harm. So if the aim is to help someone regain weight, given the current preoccupation with being thin, it is better to say ‘you do look well’, ‘you are looking healthier’, ‘you’ve got some of your colour back’ or ‘you are looking stronger by the day’ than ‘well done you have put on weight’ or ‘you have got a bit fatter since I last saw you’. Weight bias exists all the way through our lives and even very thin, underweight people don’t want to hear that they are fatter.
There are also many strategies that can be used in residential care to encourage eating well which in turn can help a person’s well-being. For example, their confidence and feeling of independence can be encouraged by giving them choice and a variety of foods. Their mood can be improved using social interaction to encourage social eating and offering praise for eating well. And opportunities for mindless eating such as fruit bowls or snacks by the TV can help them to eat a bit more. Food can also be used to tempt people out of their rooms to interact with others, giving them a boost to their mood, providing a structure to the day and helping them re-find their sense of self.
To conclude
Eating well is about so much more about nutrition and can go wrong in many ways. This book outlines what is means to eat well and offers practical tips underpinned by psychological theory and research to help ourselves and those we care for develop a good relationship with food. Feeding ourselves and others unhealthy food is not great. But having a problem with food for the rest of our lives is far, far worse.
How to eat well at every age, by Jane Ogden, Professor of Health Psychology (Emeritus), is published by Routledge with the British Psychological Society. Email: [email protected].
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