Intuitive eating
Encyclopedia
Intuitive eating is a nutrition
philosophy
based on the premise that becoming more attuned to the body's natural hunger
signals is a more effective way to attain a healthy weight, rather than keeping track of the amounts of energy and fats in foods. It's a process that is intended to create a healthy relationship with food, mind and body. Intuitive eating, just like many other dieting philosophies, goes by many names, including non-dieting or the non-diet approach, normal eating, wisdom eating, conscious eating and more.
, whose groundbreaking book Fat is a Feminist Issue, was first published in 1978. Geneen Roth's first book on emotional eating, "Feeding the Hungry Heart", was published in 1982. Both identify conventional weight loss diets as the problem, and recommend intuitive eating (also called "attuned eating" or "the non-diet approach") as the solution. There also have been religious approaches to intuitive eating. Gwen Shamblin
founded The Weigh Down Workshop in 1986. Thin Within, another religious approach, goes back to the early 1970s.
Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch coined the name in their 1995 book, Intuitive Eating.
An early promoter in the recent wave of interest in intuitive eating is Lynn Donovan who published a 1971 book called The Anti-Diet: the pleasure power way to lose weight.
Nonetheless, intuitive eating is not a recent idea. "Fletcherism" is defined in dictionaries as eating according to hunger, and is named for American nutritionist Horace Fletcher
(1849–1919).
, made headlines when he claimed to have lost 50 pounds following his version of an intuitive eating program. Hawks claims the underlying philosophies of intuitive eating are thousands of years old and exist in most eastern and some western religions. Intuitive eating is designed to be a "common sense, hunger-based approach to eating," where participants are encouraged to eat when and only when their body tells them it is hungry.
In 2006, Ohio State University
researcher, Tracy Tylka, published a study which accomplished two key outcomes. First, Tylka developed and validated an assessment scale to define key traits of Intuitive Eaters, which are: unconditional permission to eat, eating for physical rather than emotional reasons, and reliance on internal hunger/satiety cues. Lastly, Tylka used that assessment scale on over 1400 people and determined that intuitive eaters have a higher sense of well being and lower body weights, without internalizing the "thin ideal".
Currently, University of Notre Dame
psychology researcher, Lora Smitham, is recruiting people with binge eating disorder to study the effectiveness of the intuitive eating process for treating this problem. Smitham's premise is that dieting triggers binge eating and learning to become an intuitive eater can be therapeutic.
movement. Supporters argue that eating in response to internal cues of hunger and fullness, while allowing all foods to be part of the diet, weight will be maintained to one's "natural" weight. Natural weight is the weight range predetermined by genetics.
When someone is disconnected from his or her internal cues of satiety, it is easier to be trigged by external triggers to eat (which can be emotions, "because it's time", opportunity, and/or perceived rules of eating.)
If someone has rigid rules for so-called healthy eating, he or she is more likely to succumb to overeating, as a consequence of breaking their well-meaning rules. Scientifically, this all-or-none type of eating, built around eating rules rather than internal hunger/satiety cues, is referred to as restraint eating or Restraint Theory.
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
based on the premise that becoming more attuned to the body's natural hunger
Hunger
Hunger is the most commonly used term to describe the social condition of people who frequently experience the physical sensation of desiring food.-Malnutrition, famine, starvation:...
signals is a more effective way to attain a healthy weight, rather than keeping track of the amounts of energy and fats in foods. It's a process that is intended to create a healthy relationship with food, mind and body. Intuitive eating, just like many other dieting philosophies, goes by many names, including non-dieting or the non-diet approach, normal eating, wisdom eating, conscious eating and more.
History
Exactly when the intuitive eating movement began is uncertain, but one of the early pioneers was Susie OrbachSusie Orbach
Susie Orbach is a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, writer, and social critic from London, UK.-Background:Orbach was born in London, in 1946, and was brought up in Chalk Farm, north London, the child of Jewish parents, British MP Maurice Orbach and an American mother...
, whose groundbreaking book Fat is a Feminist Issue, was first published in 1978. Geneen Roth's first book on emotional eating, "Feeding the Hungry Heart", was published in 1982. Both identify conventional weight loss diets as the problem, and recommend intuitive eating (also called "attuned eating" or "the non-diet approach") as the solution. There also have been religious approaches to intuitive eating. Gwen Shamblin
Gwen Shamblin
Gwen Shamblin is an American Christian non-fiction author and leader of the Remnant Fellowship Church. The most distinctive aspect of her writing is its combination of weight loss programs with Christianity...
founded The Weigh Down Workshop in 1986. Thin Within, another religious approach, goes back to the early 1970s.
Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch coined the name in their 1995 book, Intuitive Eating.
An early promoter in the recent wave of interest in intuitive eating is Lynn Donovan who published a 1971 book called The Anti-Diet: the pleasure power way to lose weight.
Nonetheless, intuitive eating is not a recent idea. "Fletcherism" is defined in dictionaries as eating according to hunger, and is named for American nutritionist Horace Fletcher
Horace Fletcher
Horace Fletcher was an American health-food faddist of the Victorian era who earned the nickname "The Great Masticator," by arguing that food should be chewed thirty two times – or, about 100 times per minute – before being swallowed: "Nature will castigate those who don't masticate." He invented...
(1849–1919).
Intuitive Eating Studies
In 2005, researcher Linda Bacon published the first two-year long study demonstrating the effectiveness of Intuitive Eating. Later that year, Steven Hawks, a professor of Community Health at Brigham Young UniversityBrigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
, made headlines when he claimed to have lost 50 pounds following his version of an intuitive eating program. Hawks claims the underlying philosophies of intuitive eating are thousands of years old and exist in most eastern and some western religions. Intuitive eating is designed to be a "common sense, hunger-based approach to eating," where participants are encouraged to eat when and only when their body tells them it is hungry.
In 2006, Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
researcher, Tracy Tylka, published a study which accomplished two key outcomes. First, Tylka developed and validated an assessment scale to define key traits of Intuitive Eaters, which are: unconditional permission to eat, eating for physical rather than emotional reasons, and reliance on internal hunger/satiety cues. Lastly, Tylka used that assessment scale on over 1400 people and determined that intuitive eaters have a higher sense of well being and lower body weights, without internalizing the "thin ideal".
Currently, University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
psychology researcher, Lora Smitham, is recruiting people with binge eating disorder to study the effectiveness of the intuitive eating process for treating this problem. Smitham's premise is that dieting triggers binge eating and learning to become an intuitive eater can be therapeutic.
Diets
Intuitive eating is the opposite of dieting, the latter of which is externally driven. It is a key component of the Health at Every SizeHealth at Every Size
Health at Every Size is an approach to health that focuses on intuitive eating and pleasurable physical activity rather than dieting and weight loss.-Overview:The major components of HAES, as described by Jon Robison, are:...
movement. Supporters argue that eating in response to internal cues of hunger and fullness, while allowing all foods to be part of the diet, weight will be maintained to one's "natural" weight. Natural weight is the weight range predetermined by genetics.
When someone is disconnected from his or her internal cues of satiety, it is easier to be trigged by external triggers to eat (which can be emotions, "because it's time", opportunity, and/or perceived rules of eating.)
If someone has rigid rules for so-called healthy eating, he or she is more likely to succumb to overeating, as a consequence of breaking their well-meaning rules. Scientifically, this all-or-none type of eating, built around eating rules rather than internal hunger/satiety cues, is referred to as restraint eating or Restraint Theory.