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Internal conflicts and mixed societal messages make mindful eating harder than it seems.

The fantasy that weight loss brings happiness fuels unhealthy eating behaviors.

Occasional "junk food" can fit into a healthy eating pattern without shame.

For years, eating disorder specialists have been telling us that we need to eat “mindfully,” that we need to “listen to our bodies,” and that we need to sort out emotional causes of overeating from genuine hunger. My PT colleague Mitchell B. Liester recently wrote a post about research showing that healthy eating can improve depression in some cases as much as an antidepressant. But despite the panoply of available therapies to address these issues and find a way to be comfortable in our bodies, minds, and lives, these sensible directions can be difficult to follow.

Although I no longer work specifically with eating disorders, I have found that many of the clients I work with in psychotherapy have a troubled relationship with food and with their bodies. That’s not really surprising to me. Most of the people I know outside of my work have similar difficulties.

You know what to do. What makes it so hard to do it?

Which brings me to the question: what makes it so hard to follow the healthy suggestions of so many psychotherapists, nutritionists, and, increasingly these days, psychiatrists? And my answer is: the psychological underpinnings of food and eating issues are widespread and complex.

But they can be dealt with.

The universal fantasy about weight loss

One factor is an almost universal fantasy, as Mary Anne Cohen, author of Ozempic for Smarties: A Psychotherapist Tells the Straight Skinny, writes in a recent post, “that weight........

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