You Shouldn’t Label Food as Good or Bad
Healthy eating is important, but labelling food can lead to problematic behaviour

Something as simple as labelling food as “good” or “bad” can be problematic. That includes calling something “healthy” or “junk food”, “treat” or “good for you”. I say this from personal experience.
For years, I struggled with a never-ending pursuit of health. I was lost in diet culture and used health as an excuse for calorie counting and disordered eating behaviours, including skipping meals and binge eating with an extra portion of guilt sprinkled with shame.
You need food
Food is energy. Everything you eat provides your body with essential calories to keep it working and functioning properly. Assigning moral value¹ to food (“good” or “bad”) is a direct consequence of diet culture. The ramifications of such behaviour go beyond just disordering eating, ignoring the importance of nutrition and mental health and focusing on a created, and quite often, misplaced idea of what is healthy food.
Worrying about what you eat can become an obsession², which creates unhealthy behaviours and eating patterns. It can lead to guilt and shame for not being good enough, or misplaced feelings of self-righteousness if you achieve the other end of the spectrum.
“Dieters far outnumber nondieters, and those who have never fallen prey to the temptation of food rules are few and far between. People don’t need to have diagnosed eating disorders to struggle in their relationships with food.” — Alexandra MacKillop, in “Fulfilled”
Dieting is the gateway for disordered eating
I struggled with my relationship with food from a very young age. I was a fat kid, and thus the flag of healthy eating was one I could use to try and get thin. I don’t quite remember how old I was the first time I attempted a diet, but I remember skipping meals as young as 13.
I’m not alone, and neither was I an outlier. Unfortunately, dieting is all too common, and not only among adults. I don’t recommend Googling studies on children and diet culture. It’s scary. You’ll find that 81% of 10-year-olds in the US are afraid of being fat and that most girls in this age group feel better about themselves if they’re on a diet. Writing about this makes me emotional, and it might have an adverse effect on you too if you have ever struggled with your own weight and body image (chances are, you have).
Although most dieters will regain the lost weight within five years, a quarter of American men and almost half of American women are on a diet on any given day. I grew up seeing my mom struggle with her body image, attempting one diet after the other. I saw her keeping too-small jeans for when she achieved her goal; I saw her crying after realising she didn’t lose as much weight as she had hoped. It’s no wonder I started down the same route as young as I did. I was very fat when I was ten years old, and I can still remember how ashamed I was of how I looked.
After years of dieting, skipping meals, and counting calories, I sought professional help. You would think that’s when I started to heal my broken relationship with food. But it wasn’t. It was actually a free fall to rock bottom. I saw a doctor who prescribed me a weight-loss diet. I started having shakes for dinner and the most restrictive diet I have ever been on during my entire life. I was limited to 1200 calories a day. At that time, I was going to the gym daily as well. So it’s no surprise I was always hungry and quite unhappy. I also had to face this doctor telling me I didn’t lose weight because I didn’t follow his diet. When my mom backed me up, he flat-out told her I was eating in hiding. Nobody would have lost that little if they were following his diet, and that was proof that I was a liar, not an indication that his diet wasn’t ideal for me. I knew I was following his diet precisely as it was written. Since he didn’t believe me, I couldn’t count on him, so I relied on myself. I started eating half what the diet prescribed. I was so hungry, I would smell food to get some sort of satiety that I couldn’t get from eating as little as I was allowed.
Looking back on that diet, I can’t believe I did it. Not only was the diet not well-balanced and obviously too low in calories, but it was some sort of mental torture. The doctor prescribed me the shake, but never any vitamins or supplements. I remember him checking my fat levels (BIA) and my weight (BMI) and showing me how I fell short of “healthy levels”. I don’t remember any blood tests or mental health questions. There was nothing healthy about that diet, regardless of that doctor’s claims. But I followed it. I followed it for almost a whole year. Although it didn’t work as fast as the doctor expected it to, it did work in the end. I lost weight, I was the skinniest I remember being.
The saddest part is that I wasn’t happy. Of course, it was nice to shop in regular shops, without having to choose baggy clothes to hide my belly. It was great to hear all the compliments from everyone who saw me. They would tell me how great I looked, how nice it was that I was finally looking after myself, and how much healthier I was now (all they saw was how I looked, but people never failed to tell me I was healthy now that I was skinny). The compliments were great — I very much enjoyed all that external validation. But internally, nothing changed. I wasn’t automatically happier after losing weight. And I was so damn hungry all the time. On top of that, I was left with an even worse relationship with food — from extreme dieting to binge eating on the free meal once a week. Feelings of shame, disgust, and inadequacy still haunt me to this day.
Healthy eating habits are important
That’s not to say that eating a healthy diet has no benefits³. Consuming a healthy diet can protect against malnutrition and help prevent several harmful diseases and conditions. But amidst the grip of diet culture, confusing healthy eating with dieting is just too easily done. And using the excuse of healthy eating to excuse food rules and restrictive eating is something I’ve done myself. With over one death per hour directly related to eating disorders in the US alone, this is a subject that deserves to be discussed. While eating more nutritious foods has numerous advantages, dieting and weight-control behaviours can lead to obesity and eating disorders, especially in teenagers.
I’m not a teenager anymore; I’m well into my thirties. But those behaviours from my teenage years and my early twenties still have a hold over me. I struggle to find a good balance between eating healthy and being obsessive about healthy eating. Most days, I get it wrong. It would be a lie if I tried to claim I don’t worry about my body size and shape; I’d be lying if I said I don’t think about diets more often than I’d like. But I am happy to say that nowadays I don’t eat fewer calories than my toddler anymore. Getting rid of labels such as “treat”, “junk food”, and “healthy food” is also helping me get to a better place with my eating habits.
It’s a long journey towards healthy eating habits. Listening to your body and your satiety cues, in what’s called Intuitive Eating, can lead to a healthier relationship with food. I hope my girls won’t have memories of their mom hating her body and punishing herself by not having a slice of cake on her birthday and skipping the chips because “I’m being good today”. I haven’t achieved a non-restrictive eating pattern yet, but I’m on my way there, looking for the benefits it can foster, including increased self-esteem and body satisfaction. For now, I’ll let those labels go, and I’ll try to nourish and love my body, however that looks for me. I hope you can be just as kind towards yourself.
Footnotes:
- I am an ethical vegan, so I don’t consider animal-derived food ethical. That’s not intrinsically connected to the food items themselves but to the exploitation of and cruelty towards animals. So, whilst dairy ice cream is a no-go, soya-based ice cream is alright. It’s not about the ice cream itself but the means which brought it about. On that same note, I do consider the ethics of plant-based food as well — but it’s not about the specific food being “good” or “bad” and more about what it took to bring that food to my plate.
- If you’re struggling with an eating disorder (or disordered eating), it’s safer to completely ignore any ethics related to food. It’s too easy to assign moral value to food and create rules that’ll keep you from reaching the healthy relationship with food you deserve. And, please, seek help: Ireland, UK, USA, and other places.
- This article doesn’t negate the importance of healthy eating. The aim of this story is to highlight that healthy eating can be used an excuse for disordered eating and it can become an obsession, which in turn negates the benefits of a nutritious diet. A healthy relationship with food is as essential as a healthy diet.