Dietitian explains why there is no such thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods
Categorizing food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ won’t help you lose weight, dietitians warn.
Putting certain foods on a pedestal won’t help you lose weight or improve your health, and may increase your risk of developing eating disorders, according to a recent polemic written by clinical dietitian Shyla Cadogan.
She explains that all foods have beneficial properties, even if they only provide energy when you are hungry. And studies show that individual foods do not predict poor health outcomes, but that diets work together.
Even worse, binary views about food are linked to binge eating, which can lead to weight gain.
“A pattern of limiting all your cravings is the fastest way to limit a binge eating cycle,” says Ms. Cadogan.
Dietitians say all foods are healthy in moderation, and putting them on a pedestal can lead to binge eating, increasing the risk of weight gain
She adds that including cravings in your diet “removes the desire to always want it and potentially binge on it at some point.”
What’s more, she writesThe guilt and stress that result from negative self-talk, such as “I’ve been so bad this week,” can make dessert more damaging in moderation — increasing the risk of an eating disorder in which a person restricts food and even starves themselves.
Other experts told DailyMail.com they echo Ms Cadogan’s concerns about the number of Americans taking this attitude towards food.
Kathleen Lopez, a registered dietitian from New Hampshire, said, “Each of us has an individual biochemistry, culture, and genetic makeup, which means we respond to food differently—and like and don’t want to eat certain things.
The holidays often bring feelings of temptation for less healthy foods like cakes and starches, but labeling certain foods as “good” and “bad” denies the fact that food is meant to nourish both the body and health. soul
Food is neither good nor bad. They work for you, or they don’t work!’
Cutting out an entire food group to lose weight – whether carbs, sugar or ultra-processed foods – very rarely works.
And this is backed by science.
In 2012, researchers at Tel Aviv University found that obese adults who ate a high-protein breakfast and dessert later in the day lost as much weight as those who didn’t have dessert.
What’s more, they continued to lose weight after the eight-month study ended, unlike non-dessert eaters. Experts say this is because eating one large sweet treat satisfies cravings, making volunteers less likely to snack later in the day.
Moralizing food also poses serious risks to mental health.
It is an important risk factor for eating disorders, but also for clinical eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.
Disordered eating falls on the spectrum between normal eating and an eating disorder, and typically involves a pattern of restrictive eating, compulsive eating, or irregular eating patterns.
Experts emphasize that eating disorders also carry some of the same risks associated with eating large amounts of highly processed, fatty and sugary “bad” foods, including heart disease, digestive problems, high blood pressure, weight gain and stroke.
Ms Cadogan said: ‘If you beat yourself up for eating ‘bad’ food, you are harming yourself more than the actual food.
“You’re putting pressure on yourself to have the ‘perfect’ way of eating, something that will never happen and is simply impractical.”
Those with underlying medical conditions such as type 2 diabetes or obesity will be encouraged to avoid added sugars and saturated fats, the experts say.
But dietitians say they shouldn’t necessarily avoid these things altogether.
Ms Lopez says many Americans develop these attitudes towards food because of the fear of gaining weight – what some campaigners have called ‘fatphobia’.
Women tend to consider themselves overweight starting at a lower body mass index (23.7) compared to men, who tend to believe that being overweight starts at a BMI of 26.1, indicating that women tend consider themselves overweight than they actually are.
A 2012 study published in the journal Obesity reported that about 16 percent of women said they had been discriminated against because of their weight – up from 10 percent in 1995.