Today's topic is something I was guilty of in my past: the moralizing of healthy behaviors.
Whether you have moralized healthy behaviors before or had someone do this to you, this episode is for you!
Let's delve into the damaging belief that there are 'good' and 'bad' foods and that foods can only be placed into these two boxes.
This oversimplification can lead to self-judgment when you eat 'bad' food or self-righteousness when you eat the 'good' foods, which is not a beneficial mindset.
This episode helps healthy habit moralizers ask themselves, "Am I trying to make myself feel better by looking down on this other person?"
We will discuss food affordability and access and how often these things impact the ability to eat certain foods or have certain lifestyles.
My main takeaway from this episode is that moralizing creates shame, as seen in people of all ages.
By the end of the episode, whether you are moralizing healthy behaviors or have someone in your life who is doing this, I have tools that you can implement into your life to steer away from moralizing and ideas for creating boundaries with those people in your life.
Today's topic is something I was guilty of in my past: the moralizing of healthy behaviors.
Whether you have moralized healthy behaviors before or had someone do this to you, this episode is for you!
Let's delve into the damaging belief that there are 'good' and 'bad' foods and that foods can only be placed into these two boxes.
This oversimplification can lead to self-judgment when you eat 'bad' food or self-righteousness when you eat the 'good' foods, which is not a beneficial mindset.
This episode helps healthy habit moralizers ask themselves, "Am I trying to make myself feel better by looking down on this other person?"
We will discuss food affordability and access and how often these things impact the ability to eat certain foods or have certain lifestyles.
My main takeaway from this episode is that moralizing creates shame, as seen in people of all ages.
By the end of the episode, whether you are moralizing healthy behaviors or have someone in your life who is doing this, I have tools that you can implement into your life to steer away from moralizing and ideas for creating boundaries with those people in your life.
Hi and welcome to the Air we Breathe. I'm your host, heather Sayers-Layman. I'm a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Certified Personal Trainer. I help you get organized and consistent with healthy habits, without rules, obsession or exhaustion. The Air we Breathe the finding wellbeing that works for you is a podcast created to help you establish a trusted foundation of doable, healthy habits and smart self-care skills that can endure every season and last you a lifetime. My guest and I will share ways that you can focus on your physical and mental health with purpose, flexibility and ease.
Speaker 1:
This podcast may contain talk about eating disorders and disordered eating. We minimize mentions of specific behaviors and numbers, but it's still a topic nonetheless. There also could be some swears and or adult language here. Choose wisely if those are problematic for you. Hi everybody, I want to dig in today about moralizing of healthy behaviors. Once again, I've got to throw up my guilty card that I absolutely have done this in the past for sure. If we talk about like food, I'm like this is better, I wouldn't really eat that you go ahead, but I wouldn't. And with exercising, just feeling yeah, I'm so disciplined, I'm so good for exercising regularly, so I'd be lying if I didn't say that I used to use my healthy habits to make me feel better about myself, which is a real statement on why do I feel this way about myself and what is it I need to address, instead of propping myself up by moralizing all of these things. There were definitely a lot more internal. It seems certainly at the time, easier to just go ahead and prop yourself up, and I had exercise for so long and focused on quote-unquote healthier eating, whatever exactly that means and really just made it part of my identity, which is really not helpful. Having healthy habits as part of your identity and that's what you get self-esteem from is certainly a slippery slope, because then we can get carried away with those habits and be doing more than is healthy to do. We can also, if something happens and we can't have those habits, then who am I? And that's absolutely a piece, I would say, of my relationship with exercise.
Speaker 1:
I owned a gym. It was a big part of who I was, so I really got a lot from that. People knew me as the fitness person Ooh, you want a gym. Oh, you're a personal trainer and I definitely pumped myself up with that and certainly as I've gotten older and I can't run anymore. I can't really do a lot of hiking. There's just a lot in fitness that I can't do. I really had to get straight with myself that you've built your identity around things that you can no longer do. Now what? So I do try to encourage people to not think that they are so much because they're doing these things. There's a lot to unpack when people do.
Speaker 1:
But I wanted to talk today about this piece if you are doing it as well as if you are receiving it, because now and probably just because I was such a turkey when I hear it or people are doing it in front of me, I just have no patience for it. So if we're looking at food and nutrition, this is absolutely everywhere, because food and ways of eating are good or they're bad. It's so black and white. This is completely social media oriented, because when I started in fitness that would be 34 years ago it wasn't really that much of a thing. I watched people around me certainly changing their diets and at different times I did the same, especially like in undergrad, like in a very unhealthy way. I don't know if I talked about it as much I think I don't think so, but I would have anybody from Indiana University from 1989 to 1993 correct me if I'm wrong, but this good or bad is. It's more new, I think, and it's so deeply entrenched as a belief system and find me anything that doesn't uphold this, because this really fits so easily with people like stuff to fit in two buckets it is good or it is bad. So therefore, pizza, oh, what bucket does it go into? That depends, is not a great answer. It goes into the bad bucket. And Twinkies, which bucket does that? I don't know. It depends, because am I enjoying a Twinkie on top of my general diet? Yes, did I eat 23 Twinkies in one day and now have completely disrupted my entire GI system? Maybe that's not so good. Anyway, I think that this really gives people a lot of identity of I'm a good eater and you can get a lot of applause for being a quote unquote good eater. And even certainly in my most disordered days where I wouldn't, couldn't eat food that was being served and either didn't eat or brought my own, or the applause for that was stunning, which now I look back and I do have a debilitating eating disorder. So, thank you so much. I appreciate you watching me.
Speaker 1:
There is a lot of literature now about how harmful this is to kids. People try to teach their kids about nutrition because they think it's going to make them make better choices. That goes in quotes as well, and that is absolutely not true. It creates anxious eaters, kids that feel confused around food or when they're in other spaces they might start binging on food that they're not permitted to have. It is so harmful to kids. I really can't emphasize that enough, and I know people think that they're doing a great thing by teaching their kids what's good and bad, and you couldn't be doing a worse thing, honestly, because although kids will absolutely moralize and with their differing cognitive levels, they will say that if I'm having this bad food, I am bad, and that creates shame, creates embarrassment, it creates hidden behaviors. They're doing things in secret now because they don't want to be shamed, because they start creating their own narrative like that. This means I'm bad and they will still do it, but really hide while they're doing it.
Speaker 1:
So again, I think it's important to obviously look at what you are doing around food. Are you turning your nose up? Is that inside of? I wouldn't eat it, but you go ahead and maybe that's around foods you don't like, like somebody's literally eating sauteed mushrooms in front of me. I wouldn't eat it, but you go ahead just because mushrooms are disgusting and they grow on the dark, moist sides of trees. Can't say any more about mushrooms, but I think it's good to cue into. Where am I being snooty about this and is that something that I would be better off without? Am I trying to make myself feel like a better person by looking down on this other person? Super easy to fall into and not helpful to create that identity for yourself around food, because anytime we're using anything to feel better about ourselves or, more importantly, to feel better than other people, that is a slippery slope and we see that in politics and you can see how polarizing that is and how awful that is for our society, where people are constantly needing to feel better than other people.
Speaker 1:
I think one piece that I used to not really identify with, but I was reminded somebody had a post on LinkedIn the other day and it was very cringy talking about maybe we don't need obesity drugs. We need to change our in this term, obesogenic environments. I just can we not? That feels very unnecessary, anyway, and one of the comments was just short bursts of, eat real foods, don't eat any sugar, just the whole thing that you can imagine, just protein and vegetables, and don't eat anything with more than three ingredients, just the whole thing. And for me, the superior-ness that wafts off of that is always mind-numbing, because one absolute reality that exists is people can't afford to eat like that. I would have said that 10 years ago, I knew that 10 years ago and today, because most of the time my husband does the grocery shopping like we go to Costco together, so I don't see the prices as much, and when I go I am stunned stunned at how much stuff costs. And then there are people out there that are just like oh, you just need to eat real food and I would never eat like frozen vegetables, I only eat fresh. Good for you Again. Why do you need that? Why do you need to feel better than other people for your food choices and their food choices?
Speaker 1:
Food access is also a huge problem. Not everybody has a big market near them. Many people are stuck shopping at the only places that are near them and that could be dollar stores that have limited, different choices, and I think that looking at access and affordability is kind. It makes you cognizant of what is going on around you, even if you live in a financially stable bubble. Consider that a privilege, because they're absolutely people right now. Right now, it's about the time that school gets out. They're not going home to a snack and they might not even have dinner. There are kids, certainly that the only place that they can eat is at school. There are adults going hungry so they can feed their kids. The problems with access and affordability to food are prolific.
Speaker 1:
Several years ago, as part of Christmas this is when I was single and just had my two kids we donated a couple years in a row to their schools and they were in different schools their school's lunch programs, because we just wanted to do something more altruistic as part of our Christmas celebration. And one school let kids keep eating and I can't even remember what their debt was. It was really high. So I gave what we were planning to give and a little dent in that, and the other school did not. They didn't let kids owe more than $8. If they owed $8, they couldn't get anything else. So that was it. Sorry, you're hungry. And when I paid off the debt for the entire school, it was only about $300. And then they sent a note to each kid that had their debt paid that they could come and get food again. I had no idea. I just was under the impression that then school would let a kid keep eating, and that's not true at all, and that's something that you could find out in your own neighborhood, because absolutely you can call and ask how can I pay off some of this debt for these kids? Because I can't imagine trying to be in school and to be hungry and not be able to focus and watching other kids just get bags of chips and fun stuff and you're just hungry society.
Speaker 1:
It's so tacky and unaware to really be moralizing like what people are eating when they're absolutely people who are starving. Have you ever felt like the do-it-yourself approach to improving your healthy habits ends up doing nothing except making you feel overwhelmed, guilty and defeated? Have you been struggling to find sustainable routines that work for your responsibilities, lifestyle, budget and personal preferences? You don't need more rules, influencers or structured programs. Let me help you discover what you want, what works for you and how to maintain healthy habits during the ever changing circumstances of your life. If you're ready to create systems that stick head to heathersayerslaymancom backslash health dash coaching and click, let's do it. The whole foods and this many ingredients and I never eat sugar, which like good for you. That's great if that's important to you, but having food morality is really missing a large piece of a much bigger conversation that we all should be having.
Speaker 1:
The next piece is really how moralizing creates shame, and I talked about it a few minutes ago, but at all ages. But man, oh man, does it start with kids? When there is a, why are you eating that? And oh, you shouldn't be eating that, or strictly prohibited. I absolutely know of people who, oh, my kids aren't allowed to have this, they can never have soda, they can never have birthday cake. We leave birthday parties early before they have the cake.
Speaker 1:
And I'm just like, are you trying to create somebody who binge eats? Because all signs point to, yes, you are really just creating a forbidden fruit, but then also so much shame around the other choices so that when that kid does partake in those things, which is a normal activity, it's normal to be able to just go and have a soda, yeah, and then move on and live your life. If you're creating a forbidden fruit, then absolutely you're going to create somebody who can't stop drinking soda because they don't know when they're ever going to get it again, because it's prohibited. So I think it's just something to really be cognizant of. Even if you're not saying anything, do you have a face? Is there a tone, is there a certain thing that you say that makes people bristle about it? Because this also affects if you're an adult, affects other adults, if you're like oh my gosh, that's so many French fries, are you going to eat them all? Wow, I could never eat that many French fries. I would never want to eat that many French fries, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:
So I think, also with the moralizing piece creating shame. I see that with exercising as well, whether somebody's pontificating on quote unquote the way to exercise or they are just feeling good about what they're doing. So it's easy just to crap on what everybody else is doing. That can create shame in people that then maybe feel like they're not doing enough and they're not doing this right, and especially if somebody is in a larger body, those conversations are rampant about what that person should be doing and that they're probably not doing enough or they're not changing their body fast enough, you're not making their body small enough, and then that creates a lot of shame, which shame is not a motivator to have healthy behaviors. Shame is a motivator to have behaviors in secret, to hate yourself, to feel bad about yourself, and shame doesn't create positive changes. So that's one piece that I really wish people knew is or looking down on someone either makes them think that you're a real jerk or makes them feel bad about themselves, or both. So it's not a win-win situation. It's really mostly a lose-lose, because people don't respect you when you're making them feel bad.
Speaker 1:
And back to food morality it really contributes to eating disorders. Again, like I said earlier, it creates so much anxiety around food. And I will say when I was diagnosed with thyroid disease and then changed my eating and we'll just say it was next level, clean eating, not that's good at all, it wasn't. I thought I was doing the right thing for my health because I listened to a lot of fear mongering people about what I should not be eating and I cut tons of stuff out and I developed an eating disorder and I couldn't stop cutting things out. I couldn't just go to a regular dinner. I stayed home a lot because if somebody wanted me to go somewhere then I've got to research the menu online what can I get, what can I not get and a lot of people applaud that type of behavior.
Speaker 1:
It is disordered, it is debilitating. It has so much anxiety within it because you're always afraid of doing the wrong thing, so you make your world smaller and smaller until you literally just can't go out. You sit at home and eat your own food or don't eat food. So I really caution this tsk-tsk, this tone, this good or bad talk, because it contributes to a lot of different eating disorders. I know so many people that grew up in a dieting household, which was fairly typical, and their relationship with food is so fraught and it causes them so much distress that they either overcorrect into the eating disorder category or they're just like forget it. I'm not even going to worry about food or my health at all because it reminds me so much of all this traumatic experiences that I had around food, dieting, health when I was younger. If I had a dime for every woman that I know that did Weight Watchers in elementary school, middle school, high school I would have a lot of dimes. Kids don't need to be on diets. Nothing good happens with it. Diets nothing good happens with it.
Speaker 1:
And the last piece, which I've also alluded to, is the moralizing makes you really tedious to listen to. I again, I was the tedious person, so I will own that when I am listening to people and it is the good or bad. If you say naughty in my presence, I'll probably lose my mind. That is a word I just cannot with. But people will talk about oh my gosh, I'm being so bad, I'm being so naughty and you're not. You're having a Dairy Queen blizzard and living your life, it's fine, you're not. You're having a Dairy Queen blizzard and living your life, it's fine. But depending on where the other people are around you, if you're moralizing, all of these different things could be triggering shame for them, they could feel embarrassed or if it's bringing up bad memories, they're just not going to like listening to you at all.
Speaker 1:
And I know many people that struggle with this relationship with their parents now because they can't stop talking about dieting. And I was just having a conversation and somebody was talking about how their parent is 72 years old and still talking about dieting. So I think that understanding like I'm talking about something that makes me look really good might not be the case. And that goes back to if I'm needing validation and so I'm like bragging about either my workouts or my food and have an edge to all of it about how great I am and how great I'm doing. That would absolutely make you tedious to listen to. That can also go for workouts, where they're like I just don't understand how these people don't work out. Hello, go take a walk. Again, if we go back to privilege, not everybody lives in an area that's safe to walk in. Not everybody has the physical ability to walk. There are a lot of disabilities that somebody can't just go take a walk. They might not have the time or ability because they might have small children, they might be caring for a sick family member, it just might not be top of their list.
Speaker 1:
Versus actually focusing on understanding why, what is that person going through? Do they need anything? Do they need some help? I think having the wherewithal to understand not everybody has your life, not everybody has your drive, people might not care about what you care about, which is fine. So I just want to make people cognizant of like bigger pictures, and I was just blessed with this information from doing a lot of health coaching and listening when I'm talking to somebody about what about some roasted vegetables. That's a good way to make your veggies early in the week. And she's like I live in a trailer and I just can't turn the oven on, no matter what time of year. It just makes the whole thing hot. I was like, oh, shut my mouth. So we all talked about steaming and microwave steaming, which some people are like. Oh my gosh, that's so awful to steam your vegetables in the microwave, okay. But I think having the empathy and understanding why people might not have all of these super healthy habits you have, but also the biggest thing is that we can all mind our own business, because it's not really for me to dissect somebody's life and understand why they're doing something and why they're not doing something. None of that is my business at all. But I would encourage you to look and see oh my gosh, am I doing this?
Speaker 1:
And then, if you are somebody who's on the receiving end of this, there are some things and I love a snappy comeback, but there are things you can do to signal subtly or more forcefully that you're not interested in this moralizing conversation. Always just a good eye roll, maybe a sigh with it. That's a message when somebody is talking about it. I'm not saying that any of these are created by a therapist that focuses on effective communicating techniques. I'm just saying they're options from me. You can say a statement like I don't really attach morality to different healthy habits. I don't necessarily think it makes somebody good or bad, and that's a statement.
Speaker 1:
You can ask someone like what is it that creates this interest in moralizing food or exercise? And you is really interested in things being bad or good? Hopefully create some self-reflection, maybe conversation Also. Do you mean for this to make you sound better than these other people? Just a clarifying question Are you meaning for this to sound snide? Because maybe people don't realize? I'm sure that you could ask me that a while ago and I would have been flummoxed and probably embarrassed. Oh my gosh, because that was what I was doing.
Speaker 1:
You can also just change the subject Weather is my jam, weather is my go-to. Oh boy, did you see? Next weekend it's supposed to drop like 20 degrees. I know, can you believe it? That's always like my nice safe conversation which, unfortunately, living in Phoenix, it's hot. Safe conversation which, unfortunately, living in Phoenix, it's hot, and so then you're just like going to be another scorcher tomorrow. Yeah, I know, can you believe it? Sunblazing, who knew.
Speaker 1:
But there are things that you can say. Or if saying it in the moment doesn't work for you, is it something that you can text to say that I really struggle when you talk about this. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I think that you might be thinking negative things about me, but you could put some stuff out on the table. I love some communication to just clear up Am I misunderstanding? Or to let someone know.
Speaker 1:
This is hurting my feelings and I definitely know a lot of people who have created boundaries with their parents about this. I don't want to talk about what you think about what I eat. I don't want to hear anything about what my exercise program and have you weigh in on that? I'm not interested in these conversations and, again, that might be hard in person. But you can absolutely text, email, write a letter, send up some smoke signals, but get your point across because your feelings are important, your feelings are valid and if this is really causing you a lot of distress, you can absolutely communicate that to somebody else that this topic is not one I want to keep having.
Speaker 1:
All right, I hope that this helps. Hopefully it's interesting. Maybe you see yourself in it and maybe you don't. I definitely am just talking about my experience as a moralizer and how it all came crashing down, but I hope you do give it some thought, because we obviously don't want to be hurting people with things that we're saying, and I personally like to be the light and I want to be supportive and I want to be a person that's helping someone feel better about themselves, about where they are, about whatever they've got going on. That is what delights me.
Speaker 1:
All right, keep thinking about it. I will see you next time. Thanks so much for listening today. Do you know what would be really fun If you popped over to my Instagram at Heather Sayers Lehman and dropped me a DM and let me know what topics you want me to cover? Something bugging you, something holding you up? Please just let me know and I will tweak some content and get an episode out just for you. As always, please follow show, or you can leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify. That would be fun to see in the next episode.
