Category Archives: Healthy Lifestyle

Building a Healthy Relationship with Your Food

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Food is omnipresent in our human lives and quite literally fuels our physical bodies every day. It is intertwined with our daily routines, family traditions, our culture, and shared experiences. For these reasons and more, being aware of your connection to food alongside maintaining a healthy relationship with your food is imperative to living a healthy life.

According to the National Eating Disorder Association, forming a healthy relationship with food takes conscious effort, but it is possible. This relationship includes relaxed eating, choosing preferences over positions, and practicing balance and flexibility in your eating. Let’s take a look at these principles a bit more closely.

RELAXED EATING: Relaxed eating is the ability to be at ease with the social, emotional and physical components of food and eating. Relaxed eating is attuned to the body’s hunger and intuitively provides for its needs. It is the ability to listen and satisfy your hunger allowing for pleasurable and whimsical eating with flexibility and the absence of remorse. It allows you to eat when you are hungry and stop when you are satisfied. It incorporates choices and beliefs about food through a filter of self-love and body wellness that is balanced, not extreme or all consuming.


PREFERENCE OVER POSITION: Eating should be a balanced activity that is neither the best nor the worst part of a day. You should enjoy the foods you consume but not worship them. Flexibility, exhibited through the willingness to forego a preference temporarily, is an essential aspect of a healthy relationship with food. Preferences need to remain just that, and not become an unflinching regimen.


BALANCE: Balanced eating means feeling comfortable consuming a wide variety of foods. In addition to variation in type of food, balance indicates an ability to eat both for pleasure and for hunger. Eating for hunger is great because it nourishes your body. Ignoring hunger cues is a dangerous habit that can lead to more disordered eating patterns and health consequences. Eating for pleasure allows us to associate positive feelings and experiences with food and its pleasurable! Finally, balance also means avoiding trendy diets. Diets usually employ some kind of restriction, be it through food quantity or type. It is neither healthy nor logical to deny yourself food groups or to limit your calories.


FLEXIBILITY: Flexibility is another key aspect of a healthy relationship with food. It refers to the absence of strict rules surrounding eating and food habits. Rather, there is more of an ability to “go with the flow” and accept deviations from preferred foods as a natural part of life, instead of viewing those deviations as a judgment of yourself or your worth. Additionally, flexibility relates to the amount of food you consume. Sometimes, we eat beyond our comfort zone. Maybe you’re not completely mindful or conscious while eating one day, and don’t feel your hunger cues until a bit later. This is not a cause for alarm. Doing this every so often will not alter your health. Trust your body; it is much smarter than you give it credit for. It knows where you need to be and can deal with a little bit of variation. The key is
remembering these principles–-having variation, preference, flexibility–and accepting the changes that come with life.


Reference: Kronberg, Sondra. The Comprehensive Learning/Teaching Handout Manual for Eating Disorders © 2001 Sondra Kronberg, MS, RD, CEDRD-S. Wellness Programs Publishing, 3rd Edition, 516-513-1284

Hygiene – A Healthy Life

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The key to a healthy life is a fit body, accompanied by proper nutrition, exercise, rest and hygiene. Our mothers

were right! Eating food is not enough to be healthy. It also depends on good personal hygiene which is essential to promoting good health.

Simple personal habits like washing our hands and brushing and flossing our teeth will keep bacteria and virus causing illnesses away.  Germs are not only tiny but are everywhere and it is amazing how they travel from host to host. 

For a quick visual example of how fast germs can and do spread, gather about ten of your friends together then pour some glitter into your hand. Shake hands with someone close to you.  Then have them to shake hands with someone else and so on until everyone in the room has shaken hands with someone else.  Now look at your hands and you will see how the cycle works.  This is the same mode of transferring germs from one another as we travel throughout a day. 

Washing your hands and keeping them clean is one of the most important steps we can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others. There are a number of diseases that are spread by not properly washing your hands with soap and water.  According to the Centers for Disease Control the proper way to wash your hands is to wet your hands with clean running water and to apply soap.  Rub your hands together briskly to make a lather.  Continue to scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds making sure to scrub the backs of your hands, between your fingers and under your nails.

To ensure you scrub long enough hum the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning to end twice. Rinse your hands well under running water then dry them with a clean towel or allow them to air dry. Practicing good hygiene is not limited to just hand washing it also includes daily bathing, skin care, dental hygiene, and hair care. 

Practicing good daily hygiene helps you feel good about yourself which is important to good mental health.  People with poor hygiene habits are seen as unhealthy and often face discrimination.

Staying healthy and keeping good hygiene consists of about four steps.  Sleep is the first. A healthy night’s sleep always helps you to start your day off right.  A minimum of eight hours rest is recommended. Diet is second.  Make sure everything that you put in your mouth counts. Eat four servings’ fresh fruit, and five servings of vegetables. 

Most Americans consume more protein than needed, which leads to excessive calories and obesity.  The recommended daily amount of lean meat and proteins depends on your age, gender and your level of activity.  You can find the recommended amounts of food needed on the US Department of Agriculture’s website. www.ChooseMyPlate.gov.

Exercise is third.  The Mayo Clinic recommends we make it a goal to get at least 30 minutes of exercise each day to remain healthy.

Positive influence is fourth.   Avoid negative people and seek out people who are encouraging and living the way you want to live.  These are the steps to a Healthy Life!

Berniece Brown, Coordinator of Social Services for Carevide & Hunt County Interagency Network.