Discover Your Dietary Personality: Which Type Are You?
Many individuals are unknowingly engaged in dieting, whether by adhering to "health-oriented" meal plans or by categorizing foods into "good" and "bad" groups.
In a society where body diversity still faces challenges, influences from family, education, and media shape our eating habits significantly.
Join us as we delve into the four "dietary personalities", offering insights that may resonate with a part of your own experiences. Understanding your dietary mind and eating habits is key to fostering a healthy relationship with food.
1. Meticulous Clean Eater
Motivation: "Health".
They are the epitome of a perfect eater, meticulously scrutinizing everything they put into their mouths. They prioritize nutritional content, cleanliness, and overall health.
Food they consume is under strict control, often spending hours planning their meals each day and frequently worrying about what to eat. For instance, even when dining out and there are no specific dietary restrictions, they will inquire about the ingredients and preparation methods from the server to ensure the food meets their standards. They don't necessarily restrict their food intake but rather tightly regulate it in the name of "health." They may go through periods of meticulous eating followed by indulgent breaks.
They also tend to be advocates, eager to inspire those around them with their "healthy" lifestyle and dietary advice. Encouraging others to adopt their eating habits becomes a source of their self-esteem.
2. The Dedicated Dieter
Motivation: Weight Loss
Weight loss is prioritized over health for them. They are always trying out different types of diets, such as intermittent fasting, juice cleanses, and more.
They have a deep understanding of portion sizes, calories, and dieting tricks. They would seek for new dieting methods as past approaches may have not yielded the desired results. Each morning, they hope for a fresh start, a new opportunity.
They are likely to binge on forbidden foods because they truly believe they will never eat them again in the future. Tomorrow is a new plan, a fresh start, so it's better to indulge now because this is the last chance.
Long-term dieting is related to a higher risk of eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder.
3. Unconscious Eater
This type of eater can be categorized into four subtypes.
I. Chaotic Eater
They often multitask while eating, losing track of what they're consuming. There are two scenarios:
a. Eating while doing other activities: For example, watching shows, reading, studying, working, etc. They feel it's a waste of time to focus solely on eating and prefer to multitask to be more efficient.
We've probably all experienced moments while watching a movie, holding a full bag of chips/popcorn, only to realize suddenly that our hand has reached the bottom of the bag.
b. Overloaded lifestyle: Usually very busy and with many commitments, they focus more on their tasks than on what they're eating.
As they have so much on their plate, they may sometimes forget about hunger altogether, continuously dealing with tasks and going long periods without eating.
II. “Why-not” Unconscious Eater
Motivation: Availability of Food
Regardless of whether they're hungry or not, whenever they see food on the table, they'll eat some, like grabbing a biscuit during a meeting or snacking on candies at home.
Most of the time, they're not even aware they're eating. For example: They might grab a piece of candy from the living room table while heading to their room.
III. No-waste Unconscious Eater
Motivation: Save money & No food waste
They view maximizing food consumption while minimizing waste in the same light as maximizing financial gains—eating more and wasting less benefits them the most. They often finish off leftover food, even if it's from their family members.
IV. Emotional Unconscious Eater
Motivation: Emotional highs or lows
When experiencing stress, anger, fear, or loneliness, they cope with it by either overeating or completely avoiding food. They are aware that this stems from deeper psychological issues.
4. Mindful Eater
Motivation: Biological signals & satisfaction
They prioritize their body's hunger and fullness cues, focusing on enjoying the eating process. They don't harbor feelings of guilt.
They are eaters unaffected by today's dieting culture, body ideals, or notions of good and bad foods.
Think of infants and toddlers who haven't yet been influenced by trendy diet culture or societal norms. When they're hungry, they cry; when they're full, they stop. They don't follow dieting rules but instead adhere to their body's natural rhythms and needs.
We may find a part of ourselves in one or multiple or none of the categories above. This is closely tied to the habits we grow up with & our medical and psychological conditions & societal influences & and more.
Let's embark on a journey of self-discovery and navigate through the challenges we face, forging our path to balance while prioritizing our well-being.
Reference: Book <<Intuitive Eating>>
Author: Jin Fu
