#130: Abbie Answers Your Questions About “Everything In Moderation” and Emotional Eating

Aug 19

“Everything in moderation” has been hailed as the key to healthy eating for decades. It’s been used by diet companies and by dieters who claim to be anti-diet, claimed by medical professionals, and even taught in schools. Similarly, “emotional eating” gets a villainous reputation, painted as a lack of willpower, and something that needs to be fixed, pronto (enter: anti-fat bias, nutrition misinformation, and wellness trends).

On this week’s bonus episode of Full Plate, Abbie is answering two questions submitted by our Patreon subscribers to dig into these two topics.

To listen to the FULL episode, make sure to join Patreon right here.

Here are the questions from our Patrons:

Moderation:

Hi, Abbie. As someone who has been trying to heal from diet culture, I've heard a lot about the concept of moderation. Can you explain whether practicing moderation with food can actually be helpful or if it might still perpetuate some of the restrictive and harmful aspects of dieting? Really curious to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks so much for all you do. Jen

Emotional Eating:

Hey there, Abbie, I have identified as an emotional eater pretty much all of my life. I've obviously heard that emotional eating is a bad habit and something that I need to fix, something that's wrong with me, and something that requires more willpower. But lately I've been wondering if it's really that simple. I've been starting to see my emotional eating in a different light. But I'm obviously still struggling with the experience because of how long it's been demonized. Could you explain your views on emotional eating? Can you talk about whether or not it's harmful, and is it something that I need to address? And how does restricting food contribute to feeling like an emotional eater? I've started realizing the two might be connected. Thanks so much, Alex.

Tune in here to hear more about:

How moderation results in guilt and self-abandonment.
The similarities between striving actively for moderation and actively dieting.
What happens when you break your moderation rules?
How the idea of moderation complicates holidays, vacations, and spontaneity.
How moderation creates a moral judgment around eating past a certain arbitrary limit of foods that diet culture arbitrarily calls “bad”.
The results of ignoring our internal cues in favor of following external rules.
How food is a source of physical safety, which is inherently emotional.
Why we cannot separate feeling emotions from the availability of eating.
Food scarcity contributes to us feeling chaotic around food because if we've gone from a period of deprivation to a period of suddenly having food available, and how that is a very emotional experience.
How aiming for moderation creates food scarcity.

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