Eating Body and Weight Matters

Author: MANDY ATKINSON

  • The Psychology of Food and Eating

    Woman seated at a table by a window with a meal, looking outside.

    Food and eating are interesting areas to explore psychologically. In other words, this is about the connection between food, eating and the mind or psyche. Many people have a complex relationship with food and eating. It can be an area that causes shame or embarrassment and can be difficult to discuss. Yet we cannot be without food: we need it to nourish our minds and bodies and to survive. There are many aspects of the psychology of food and eating to consider. Each person has a unique relationship with food and eating. One of the first areas to consider is different types of hungers. Hunger can be physiological or, as Eric Berne described it, psychological (Berne, 1961). We can be physically hungry for food or psychologically and emotionally hungry, for example, for connection and relationship.

    Kathy Leach (2006) introduced the concept of a food script. She wrote about this in her book The Overweight Patient, which considered psychological reasons why some people may be overweight. The food script invites us to consider historical and current experiences, plus aspects of diet and eating cycle and body size. I see her thinking on the food script as more widely applicable and helpful when considering the wider psychological connections between food, eating and script in a variety of disordered eating, eating disorders and overeating contexts.

    Our relationship with food and eating is influenced by those who care for us while we are growing up, including through the modelling of eating behaviour. If a parent or carer has their own complex relationship with food and eating—for example, they may overeat, binge eat or undereat—this can influence how we think and feel about food and eating. There may be confusion around food and eating. This is likely to influence each person’s relationship with food and how it might develop.

    It can be helpful to reflect on the relationship you have with food, eating and your body. For example, when you are stressed, do you notice whether you overeat or undereat? Can you recognise when you feel hungry and need to eat? Can you recognise when you have had enough to eat? How do you relate to your own body?

    How other people are in our environment, how they relate to us and how we relate to them all have a role to play in how we are influenced around food, eating and the body. Western society has strong views and prejudices about body shape, size, food and eating. Although eating with other people can be extremely pleasurable, some people may find eating socially difficult or feel uncomfortable or ashamed of eating in front of others.

    Our lifestyle plays a significant part in how we relate to food and eating. Working long hours in a high-pressure job can take its toll on food and eating. Eating is a necessity that can appear lower on the priority list, and food may be selected for convenience and availability rather than nutritional value, for example. Food can form part of the rhythm or structure of our day and can be linked to timings and schedules, including the times when we nourish ourselves.

    What do food and eating mean to you? For example, what do you understand about the foods you like and do not like to eat? Are you familiar with what foods bring you joy, satisfaction or provide comfort? Do you think of food as a source of joy or comfort, or is it more functional for you? Is food about love, connection and social activity, or is it something associated with loneliness and done alone?

    For people who identify as neurodivergent, for example autistic people, the actual texture and structure of food can be extremely challenging. We overlook the texture and structure of food when we eat and yet, for some, it can be triggering, evoke emotions or overthinking, and be difficult. Again, the relationship an individual has with food and eating is unique to the person experiencing it.

    How familiar are you with your own emotions and how they might connect with your food and eating? Do you eat when you are happy or when you are celebrating? Do you eat when you feel sad or lonely? Have you considered and reflected on your relationship with food and eating? How would you describe the kind of relationship you have with food and eating?

    It is important to approach our own behaviour and relationship patterns by making space for curiosity rather than self-criticism. Food and eating may be connected with pleasure, comfort, celebration, habit, memory, culture, time, money and the people connected to us. There are usually a variety of reasons why we eat or behave around food as we do.

    Noticing what is happening can be a gentle place to begin. You might reflect on the times of day when eating feels straightforward or more difficult; the situations, feelings or relationships that are present; and what food and eating have come to mean in your life. The purpose is not to judge yourself or to make every meal perfect, but to understand your experience more fully.

    Many messages we hear in society about food and bodies can encourage people to see eating as something that must be controlled, earned or judged. These messages can make it harder to notice what we need, or to speak openly when eating feels complicated. A more compassionate and curious approach recognises that people have different histories, bodies, circumstances and needs.

    Being kind to ourselves does not mean that food and eating will always feel easy. It can mean allowing space for complexity, including the possibility that our relationship with food may change and evolve at different points in our lives.

    If food and eating are causing ongoing distress, affecting everyday life, or feel difficult to manage alone, it may be helpful to speak with an appropriately qualified service or professional. Talking with someone can offer a supportive space to explore what is happening with warmth and compassion.

    Food and eating are essential to life, but they can also carry many personal meanings. Taking time to understand those meanings can be an important and compassionate part of understanding ourselves.

    Explore TA101: Psychology of Food and Eating

    For a specialist focus on the psychology of food and eating, find out more about TA101: Psychology of Food and Eating: https://eatingbodyandweightmatters.com/ta101-eating-body-and-weight/

    References

    Berne, E. (1961), Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy, Grove Press, New York, reprinted Souvenir Press (1975)

    Leach, K. (2006) The Overweight Patient: A Psychological Approach to Understanding and Working with Obesity, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London

  • When Food Is Love

    When Food Is Love

    INSIGHTS / BLOG · FOOD, EATING AND RELATIONSHIPS

    When Food Is Love

    Food is so often more than food. It can be welcome, comfort, celebration, memory, and care. We may show love by holding someone in mind and making their someone’s favourite meal, bringing soup when they are unwell, baking for a birthday, or placing a warm, soothing drink in another person’s hands. From our earliest days, being fed is often connected with being held, soothed, noticed, and kept safe.

    This is normal and there is nothing wrong about this. Food is one of the first ways many of us experience care. Before we can understand words, we may learn that warmth, closeness, and relief can together. A bottle, a meal, a snack, or a familiar taste can become part of the emotional language of home.

    But what happens when food begins to carry more than its share of that emotional work? What happens when eating becomes one of the few reliable ways to feel comforted, accompanied, rewarded, or soothed?

    Food and the language of attachment

    Attachment is the word often used to describe the bonds we form with the people who care for us. When care is available, responsive, and protective, we can come to learn that our needs matter and that closeness is possible. Relationships and childhoods are shaped by human connection and are therefore never perfect. We need, often enough, to be loved and valued, and to be met with kindness and care.

    For some people, however, relationships have also involved uncertainty, distance, criticism, loss, or hurt. They may have learned early on to manage big feelings alone, to stay attentive to other people’s moods, or to avoid needing too much from anyone. These patterns can continue long after the original circumstances have changed.

    Food can become appealing in this kind of relationship landscape because it asks so little of us. It does not communicate with us. It does not misunderstand us, look away, become impatient, or leave the room. It offers consistency and availability in a way that people may not always have been. It can offer immediate sensation and relief: sweetness, fullness, warmth, familiarity, distraction, or a temporary quietening of distress. It offers a relationship.

    That does not mean that a person loves food “too much”, or that food is the problem. It may mean that food has become a dependable companion in a life where dependable emotional connection has felt uncertain or difficult to find.

    The hungry heart

    In the context of Transactional Analysis, and my therapy work with eating, food and weight, I often consider Berne’s psychological and also physical hungers (Berne, 1964). Both types of hunger are relevant here. Physical hunger is real and deserves to be responded to. It is natural to feel hungry when we need to eat. So too are the psychological hungers that can sit alongside it: the hunger to be seen and recognised, to belong, to feel valued, to be touched safely, or to be accepted unconditionally for who we are.

    These psychological hungers I will refer here to as the “hungry heart”. They are not childish or selfish needs. They are real human needs. Yet they can be hard to name, particularly when we have learned to ignore them or when there has been no obvious place for them in our relationships.

    Eating can sometimes become a way of responding to these feelings when words, support, or intimacy have been unavailable. A person may turn to food after a lonely evening, after conflict, during boredom, when they feel rejected, or when suppressing emotions, for example. The eating may be an attempt to seek comfort or suppress feelings that are hard to express or haven’t been addressed in relationships with self or others.

    Food may bring genuine comfort in the moment. This is likely to be short-lived and further food might be sought to maintain that comfort. Difficulties can arise when food and eating is the only comfort available, or when it is followed by shame, fear, secrecy, or harsh judgments about the body and the self.

    When intimacy feels complicated

    Emotional intimacy is the experience of being known, seen and understood by another person, it involves being able to experience vulnerability with another person. It may look like being able to say, “I am struggling,” and being met with compassion. It may be shared laughter, a difficult conversation, a reliable friendship, or a relationship in which there is room for both people’s needs to be respected and attended to.

    For people who have not experienced enough emotional safety, emotional intimacy can feel risky and at times impossible. Being close may bring a fear of disappointment, rejection, dependence, or exposure. At the same time, the longing for connection does not disappear. It can remain present beneath a great deal of self-sufficiency and often defensiveness.

    Food can sometimes become a substitute for moments of connection not because a person is failing at relationships, but because it is more easily accessible than vulnerability. It may be easier to plan an evening around a favourite food than to contact someone and risk feeling unwanted. It may be easier to soothe oneself privately than to ask for comfort from someone else.

    This is understandable. It is also a gentle invitation to become curious about your own process: What am I needing here, alongside food? Perhaps the answer is still food. Perhaps it is food and rest. Or it may be food and connection with another person: a conversation, a walk with someone, a hug, a message, a support group, or the permission to feel what is there.

    How we learn to fall in love with food

    Our relationship with food begins long before we make conscious choices about it. It begins early on in life and cannot be avoided as it is needed for survival. Food can hold the taste of family, culture, tradition, survival, celebration, and belonging. A particular meal may remind us of someone who loved us. It may be tied to a time when life felt simpler, safer, or more connected.

    It can also become entangled with rules and conditions. When food is restricted, moralised, used as a reward, or made a source of conflict, it may take on even greater emotional power. The more a person is told that certain foods are forbidden or that their body is a problem to be solved, the harder it can be to have an easier or more settled relationship with food and eating.

    A compassionate approach does not mean that food cannot be emotional. Food can be sensual and pleasurable. It can be comforting. It can be part of social connection, love, and relationship. The aim is not to make eating purely functional, but to widen the sources of care and relationship that are available to us.

    Making room for more connection

    If food has become a trusted companion, it deserves compassion rather than shame. We can think of food in TA through Leach’s concept of food script (Leach, 2006). Someone makes sense of how to be in the world through their food script and their thinking , feeling and behaviour in relationship with food and eating. For example, it may have helped a someone get through lonely, painful, or overwhelming life experiences. The food script might help survive painful and difficult experiences and yet psychological hungers need more than food. They need love.

    Building emotional connection can begin in very small ways: telling one trusted person a little more truth; accepting an invitation; spending time with people who feel safe; seeking support from a psychotherapist or counsellor; or joining a community-based group around a shared interest. None of these actions promises instant intimacy, and not every relationship will be right for us. But each can be a step towards a life in which psychological needs are met through relationship and connection rather than food alone.

    When food is love, it is not necessary to reject it. Perhaps the gentler task is to let love become bigger: to include nourishment, pleasure, friendship, safety, connection, tenderness, and relationships in which we can gradually learn that we are allowed to need and be needed.

    If eating feels distressing, compulsive, or difficult to manage, speaking with an appropriately qualified health professional, such as a GP, dietitian, psychotherapist, or eating-disorder specialist, can offer support tailored to your circumstances.

    eatingbodyandweightmatters.com

    References

    Berne, E. (1964) Games People Play, Grove Press, New York

    Leach, K (2006) the Overweight Patient: A Psychological Approach to Understanding and Working with Obesity, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London

  • When Food Becomes the Enemy

    When Food Becomes the Enemy

    INSIGHTS / BLOG · EATING, BODY AND WEIGHT

    When Food Becomes the Enemy

    We cannot survive without food. Yet, food is often presented as simply as fuel, pleasure, celebration, comfort, culture and connection. But for someone living with a food allergy, intolerance, or a condition that makes certain foods impossible to eat, food can also become a source of uncertainty and create significant anxiety.

    A meal that was once simple to prepare then may require much more planning. A familiar ingredient may become something to question. An invitation to eat with friends can be a tremendously social experience and bringing warmth and anticipation, but also a quiet layer of vigilance.

    This is not fussiness, failure, or a lack of gratitude. It is the reality of having to negotiate food and eating differently.

    When eating stops feeling straightforward

    There is an important distinction between food allergies, intolerances, and other medical conditions that affect eating. Their symptoms, causes, and risks vary. For some people, exposure to an allergen can lead to a severe and potentially life-threatening reaction; for others, certain foods may bring discomfort, pain, digestive symptoms, or other distressing effects. Medical advice is important.

    Yet alongside the practical differences, there can be a shared emotional experience: food no longer feels reliably safe or uncomplicated.

    Many of us have foods that belong to our family and our history. They may be connected to family meals, holidays, particular people, places, or moments of comfort. Discovering that a much-loved food causes harm can involve many lifestyle changes. Shopping can become arduous rather than a simple change task. It can bring a genuine sense of loss. Meal times require more care and attention to protect the body – and may never feel quite the same.

    There may be grief for the food itself—its taste, texture, ease, and familiarity. There may also be grief for spontaneity: being able to accept a biscuit with a cup of tea, choose freely from a menu, or share a meal without first asking questions.

    It is understandable if this brings sadness, frustration, anger, or even envy. These feelings do not mean that a person is not coping well. They are often a reasonable response to a real change.

    The confusion of knowing what to trust

    The beginning of this journey can be particularly confusing. Symptoms may have been dismissed for years, or they may seem inconsistent. Advice from friends, social media, and the internet can be plentiful but conflicting. Packaging changes. Ingredients have unfamiliar names. A product that appears suitable may carry a warning about cross-contamination.

    In this environment, it is easy for eating to become mentally exhausting. Every decision can feel loaded: Will this be safe? Have I understood the label correctly? Will I be unwell afterwards? Will someone think I am being difficult?

    Where there is uncertainty, people may start to restrict more broadly than necessary in an effort to feel safe. Sometimes this is temporarily unavoidable while seeking medical assessment. But when fear begins to shape every food decision, eating can become smaller, more isolated, and less nourishing in every sense of the word.

    Clear, individualised guidance from an appropriately qualified health professional such as a dietician can help separate necessary care from unnecessary fear. It can create enough certainty for a person to protect their health without losing every source of ease and pleasure around food. Support groups and forums can also offer invaluable support.

    The social cost of eating differently

    Food is woven through our social lives. We meet for coffee, celebrate over dinner, bring dishes to gatherings, offer food as care, and share family traditions through recipes. When someone must eat differently, these occasions can become more complicated. Individuals with food intolerances or health conditions that affect what they eat can feel alienated and ashamed.

    Eating out can become much more complicated. It may mean checking menus in advance, telephoning the restaurant, explaining needs to staff, asking about preparation, or deciding that a particular place does not inspire confidence because it does not feel safe enough. Even when an eatery takes allergies and dietary requirements seriously, it can be tiring to have the same conversation repeatedly and keep checking the safety of a restaurant’s food offering.

    The anxiety is not only about ingredients. It can be about being visible: worrying about holding up the order, appearing demanding, disappointing someone who has cooked, or having to decline food that has been offered with love.

    Friends and family can make a meaningful difference here. The most helpful response is often simple: listen to the person, do not minimise the risk or discomfort, and do not make them justify their choices. Ask what would help. It may be choosing a restaurant together, sharing the call ahead, keeping ingredients visible, or accepting a “no, thank you” without debate.

    Inclusion is not insisting that someone eat what is available. It is helping create a situation in which they can take part safely and comfortably.

    Searching for confidence in eateries

    Confidence in eating out can be difficult to build. It may grow through finding a few places that communicate clearly, answer questions respectfully, and have reliable procedures. It may mean looking for menus with allergen information, contacting an eatery before booking and assessing both staff knowledge and your own confidence in their responses.

    It can also help to remember that leaving, changing a choice, or deciding not to eat at a particular venue is not a social failure. It is a decision in the service of your safety and wellbeing.

    Over time, some people find a small circle of trusted cafés and restaurants, learn which questions are most useful, and develop confidence in the eateries they use. Others prefer to take food with them or suggest activities that are not centred on a meal. There is no single right way to do this.

    The aim is not to become fearless. It is to build enough trust—in information, in supportive people, and in one’s own judgement—to make room for connection again.

    Food can be complicated and still be enjoyed

    When food has caused pain, frightening reactions, or repeated stress and uncertainty, it makes sense that it may begin to feel like an enemy. This changed relationship you now with food and eating deserves gentleness, and empathy, not judgement.

    Adapting to dietary restrictions is both practical and emotional. It can involve protecting health, learning new routines, mourning what has changed, and slowly discovering new foods and new ways of sharing meals. There may still be pleasure, belonging, and nourishment available—but they may need to be found differently. Knowledge and information are key; forums and support groups can be an invaluable resource.

    No one should have to choose between their health around food and feeling included. With clear support, considerate companions, and places that take dietary needs seriously, food does not have to remain a battlefield.

    This article offers general reflection on the experience of food intolerances. For a wider range of material addressing eating, body and weight matters, look at eatingbodyandweightmatters.com

  • Exploring Therapist Anxiety When Working with Eating Disorders

    Exploring Therapist Anxiety When Working with Eating Disorders

    INSIGHTS / BLOG · FOR PROFESSIONALS

    Exploring Therapist Anxiety When Working with Eating Disorders

    I remember the first time I brought the case of a client with an eating disorder to supervision. As I talked about my client and presented their case, I noticed anxiety in my supervisor. Anxiety is a frequent visitor for therapists working with disordered eating and eating disorders. There are many reasons for this. Working with eating disorders is challenging. We are often working with entrenched behaviours that may have been present for a long time. Safety and protection are paramount. It is therefore understandable that this work can create anxiety. However, I think there are a number of reasons why anxiety might arise in the therapeutic space.

    The therapist's anxiety about safety and protection is one reason. Another may be the impact of the client's experience and therapeutic process on the therapist. Disordered eating and eating disorders can evoke difficult emotions for clients and therapists alike. As therapists, we may experience some of these feelings as intensely countertransference. Feelings such as shame, disgust, repulsion, or rage may arise in the therapeutic relationship. As a psychotherapist, I may experience these difficult feelings as part of my countertransference. Tolerating difficult countertransference can be challenging. This, in turn, can increase anxiety. Good supervision from an experienced psychotherapist who understands the Specialism of eating and weight is important

    On many occasions, in a supervisory context, a therapist presents a client who is experiencing eating-related difficulties. I am often struck by how the focus is placed on the person's behaviour. Yet we would not usually approach other presenting issues in this way. We would look at what may underlie the behaviour. We would consider how psychotherapy might help address what underlies the behaviour and, where appropriate, support change. However, perhaps because of the countertransference and anxiety associated with eating-related difficulties that I am describing, the therapist focuses on behaviour. I see eating-related behaviour as a possible indication of a person's psychological struggle. It may communicate a struggle that feels difficult to express in other ways. Alongside practical and medical considerations, it is this psychological struggle that may need compassionate attention.

    Alongside ongoing attention to safety and protection, we can be curious and look beyond the anxiety that arises. What meaning might this eating-related behaviour hold for this person? What may be contributing to their psychological distress?

    There are multiple possible meanings of the anxiety that is stirred in the therapist within the therapeutic relationship. Reflectively exploring that anxiety for example in clinical supervision may help us make more meaning of the anxiety we present with as therapists and find a more appropriate approach to the therapeutic work and support the client's healing.

    When we can be curious about our own anxiety, while remaining attentive to safety, we may be better able to meet the person in front of us with steadiness, compassion, and clinical care.

  • Celebrating Life in a Fuller Body

    Celebrating Life in a Fuller Body

    INSIGHTS / BLOG · EATING, BODY AND WEIGHT

    Celebrating Life in a Fuller Body

    There is something quietly powerful about seeing a woman in a beautiful red dress, smiling and celebrating her life. Not apologising for the space she takes up. Not waiting to become a different size before allowing herself pleasure, beauty, connection, relationship or joy. Simply being.

    For many people living in fuller bodies, that freedom can feel hard-won and limited. We live in a culture that too often treats body size as if it were public property: something to assess, comment on, advise or joke about. A glance, a remark, a piece of unsolicited advice, or an image considered as the “right” kind of body can all carry the same message: you should be different.

    But every body deserves dignity. Every person deserves to live fully in the body they have now.

    When bodies become public conversation

    People live in larger bodies for many reasons. Bodies are shaped by genetics, health, hormones, life stage, psychological well-being, access to care and food, disability, medication, culture, and countless experiences that are not visible from the outside. Yet strangers, friends, family members, and the media can behave as though they know a person’s story simply by looking at them.

    Comments such as “You just need to eat less and exercise more” may be offered as if they are helpful. Often, however, they carry an assumption: that a person is unhappy with their body, that they have not thought about their health, or that their size reflects a lack of effort. Other familiar stereotypes suggest that people in larger bodies are lazy, undisciplined, or less worthy of admiration. These are not harmless observations. They are forms of prejudice.

    A person’s body is not an invitation for evaluation. Nor is it evidence from which we can draw conclusions about their character, their habits, or their wellbeing.

    The daily weight of judgement

    Weight stigma can be loud: a cruel comment, exclusion, harassment, or openly discriminatory treatment. It can also be subtle. It may be the clothing shop that offers few options, the encounter with a medical professional—perhaps at a GP appointment—in which every concern is reduced to a focus on weight, the restaurant chair that does not fit comfortably, or the repeated message online that thinness is the route to acceptance.

    These smaller moments are sometimes described as microaggressions. They can accumulate. When a person repeatedly receives the message that their body is wrong, shame and self-consciousness can become familiar companions. They may begin to hide, delay opportunities, avoid photographs, or put joy on hold. No one should have to earn the right to participate in their own life.

    Social media can intensify this pressure. It often presents a narrow and limited version of beauty and makes it seem normal, desirable, and achievable for everyone. Bodies, however, are diverse. The images portrayed in the media that we see most often are not a measure of what is beautiful, healthy, successful, or deserving of love and care.

    Celebration is not denial

    Celebrating life in a fuller body does not mean that every day will feel easy. Body image can be complicated, especially when we have lived for years with criticism, comparison, or a sense that our worth depends on how we look. Shame can build within us over time. Celebration does not require constant confidence. It can begin with something quieter: treating yourself with the same care and respect you would offer another person.

    It might mean embracing wearing the red dress now, rather than saving it for a future version of yourself. It might mean taking part in the photograph, going swimming, accepting an invitation, or allowing yourself a meal without turning it into a moral test. It might mean noticing the language you use about your own body and gently choosing something kinder and less cruel.

    Joy is not a reward reserved for particular shaped bodies. It is part of being human.

    How we can be more thoughtful

    We can all help create more opportunity for people to live freely in their bodies. We can remember that shame is easily evoked in others and people require our sensitivity. That might begin with awareness and pausing before we comment on someone’s appearance, food, weight, or exercise. Even a remark intended as praise can reinforce the idea that a person’s body is there for public assessment.

    Instead, we might notice someone’s warmth, creativity, kindness, humour, style, or presence. We can challenge casual jokes and assumptions about larger bodies. We can make space for body diversity in the accounts we follow and the conversations we have. And when someone tells us that a comment has hurt, we can listen without defensiveness.

    A closing invitation

    The woman in red invites us to consider a different possibility: a life that is lived and not postponed. A life in which beauty, celebration, intimacy, movement, rest, nourishment, and belonging are available in the here and now—not after a body has changed.

    May we be more tender with our own bodies, and more thoughtful with other people’s. May we notice the judgements we have inherited and choose not to pass them on. And may every person, in every kind of body, have the freedom to celebrate their life.

    Want to explore your own relationship with food, eating and weight?

    TA101 Eating and Weight offers a thoughtful introduction to the ideas and approaches that can help us understand the connections between food, bodies, feelings and relationships.

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