How does that sentence make you feel?

Most people struggling with food, eating and body image have the underlying toxic belief that food is their enemy, that somehow, they are “not really” allowed to eat.

On an intellectual level, we know we have to eat to stay alive, but there is also a deeper belief that, somehow, eating is also a forbidden sin.

If only we ate less, we would finally be the “good” girl, the “good” boy (yes, men struggle with this, too).

And “good” means, we finally fit in, will be accepted, maybe even loved.

But how can love be love if it is tied to conditions, particularly conditions on how we look and what our body shape is?

Our bodies change all the time. From newborn to toddler, our bodies grow and change. We enter puberty, and everything is completely different again (including our mood!). We might become pregnant, and again, our body does its own thing. Not to mention peri-menopause and menopause.

One thing is certain: change.

If we couple our worth, our lovability to hoe qe look, then where does this lead us?

What if we fall ill, lose our hair, or gain weight due to medical treatment? Will we be less lovable because of that? If anyone stopped loving us because of that, would it have been love in the first place?

You know the answer.

And yet.

When it comes to our daily life and daily eating, we treat ourselves as if eating were a crime.