This week is all about how our childhood experiences with food shape adult eating habits.

I cover:

• emotional connections to food, attitudes developed during childhood, and the impact of social media on dietary choices.
• Exploring the complexities of food associations, family mealtime dynamics, parental influences.
• Suggestions for self-reflection and mindful eating practices are provided, to help you consider your past interactions with food and how it influences dietary behaviours today.

Work with me

• Group Gut Reset - https://www.goodnessme-nutrition.com/group-course-ibsc/
• 1:1 Gut Reset - https://www.goodnessme-nutrition.com/consultations/

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The information in this podcast is not medical advice and is not designed to treat, diagnose or provide personalised health advice. This podcast content is information only and any changes you make are at the user's own risk. Please consult with your doctor or healthcare provider before implementing any new treatment.

If you've ever decided to change your

diet to better support your digestion,

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but struggle to stick to this new way

of eating, then this episode is for you.

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There are lots of reasons why we

struggle to make changes to our diet.

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Could be down to time, lack of

clarity on your goals, or just feeling

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really confused about what to eat.

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But the other area I'm going to cover

today is our attitudes to food, and

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how our childhood experiences of eating

can influence what we do as an adult.

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This week I'm going to talk about how

meanings are linked to foods, and how

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this can play a part in how challenging

we find it to follow a new diet.

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And

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welcome to episode 53 of the

Inside Knowledge podcast for

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people with IBS, I'm Anna Mapson.

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In my work as an IBS nutritionist, I

work with people all over the world who

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have all different kinds of relationships

to food I find it so interesting.

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The things that we think are

completely normal and just, this is

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how I've always done it, could be

completely alien to somebody else.

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And once you get into understanding

a little bit more about how people

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come up with these habits, ideas

and attitudes about food and feeding

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ourselves, Then we can sort of dig a

little bit deeper and see whether it

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is linked to how they've grown up.

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Is it linked to bad experiences?

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All of these things help

shape our food landscape.

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The reason I wanted to run this episode

of the podcast about this topic is

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to try and reassure you really that

sometimes It's not just that you

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haven't understood a topic properly.

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So, for example, if you've got IBS, maybe

you've tried to do the low FODMAP diet.

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In this case, it's quite a tricky

diet to follow, it's a little bit

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unintuitive in terms of understanding

what to eat, but it's not necessarily

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down to how clever you are and

whether you've understood it or not.

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sometimes, it's down to our emotional

connections to food and changing

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things about the way that we eat.

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It can feel so much more difficult

than just following the instructions.

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Logically, you understand them, you

know them, and yet at the time how

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to make the change and how to make

it stick feels very difficult.

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So this week it's a bit more of

a loose format for this episode I

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suppose, just me talking really.

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But I do have a couple of tips at

the end and some things that you can

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focus on if you want to give this bit

of exploration a go in your own life.

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Once we know what habits we actually

have, or what attitudes we actually

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have towards food, we become aware

of them, then we can think about,

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okay, well, where did this come from?

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Why do I have this attitude

about the way I eat?

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And then you can start to think

about how to change that in order

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to make life easier for yourself.

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Maybe there's this sort of overriding

Need to be more healthy and yet

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the healthy food that you Desire in

your mind to be a healthy person is

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Upsetting your stomach and that can

feel really challenging It's like you

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want to be eating lots of vegetables

and lentils and whole grains But those

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are the foods that upset your tummy.

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And so there's this Cognitive dissonance,

I think it's called, where you have

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a set of beliefs or attitudes, but

your actions don't line up with them.

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So you believe that you are a healthy

person, you've always eaten healthily, and

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yet now you cannot eat in that way, and

it feels really emotionally challenging.

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And I know a lot of people I work with

have this really difficult set of beliefs

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thoughts and you go round and round in

circles just thinking I want to be this

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healthy person because you know that

you maybe have done it in the past.

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That can be quite common.

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Or the other side of a lot of people I

work with is this kind of thinking well

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I don't really want to follow a diet.

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I don't want someone

to tell me what to do.

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I don't want to be beholden

to a set of rules about food.

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And, these rules, they're not

rules that someone's just put in

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arbitrarily about what's a good diet.

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It's based on like scientific biology

around how things are digested.

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And yet when you look at it, this

is, there is a set of rules and

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that can also feel very challenging.

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If you're someone who Has always in

the past really enjoyed eating and

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been a real foodie and now you've got

to follow all these boring rules and

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all the food you love, you can't eat.

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It's very individual and it's

very personal how all these

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Associations with food come about.

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A lot of it is from our childhood and

thinking back to how we were brought up

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around food can be quite transformative.

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If you think about how babies are

fed, there's a real element of food

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being wrapped up with love as well.

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So with breastfeeding, like the

mother is literally feeding the baby

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and passing through a lot of those

oxytocin hormones, which are relaxing.

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It's like the love hormone passing

from a mother's breast into the baby.

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And there's a real sense of connection

through feeding a baby as well.

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You're holding them in your

arms, you're looking them in

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the eye, you're gazing at them.

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That is basically One of the first

experiences that we have as a newborn is

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the love and the food coming together.

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And, um, It's no wonder that we

have a complex set of emotions

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about that as well depending on your

relationship with your mother and

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general family life in the early days.

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I know I just mentioned, breastfeeding,

but obviously You can still get that

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connection through bottle feeding.

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I just meant that that's originally how

humans started being reliant on a parent.

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Obviously nowadays we do have the option

for bottle feeding and I used to teach,

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uh, before I was doing, this job I used to

teach baby massage and teach baby weaning.

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So I did a lot of work with mums

and newborns and spent a lot of

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time thinking about how we can set

up a good healthy relationship with

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food and trying to support people

to do that in their own families.

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I think the reason I'm quite passionate

about it as well is because we tend to

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eat The way that we've been brought up.

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We tend to eat what we're familiar

with, what we know about, and it's

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important, if we can, to try and

create a good healthy environment for

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children to eat from the beginning.

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So, thinking back to your childhood,

maybe just thinking about how you

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were brought up around food, were

your family mealtimes enjoyable?

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Were you forced to sit at the table

till you could finish everything there?

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Did you have to finish your broccoli

before you were allowed pudding?

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Did you actually hate

the food that you had?

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You know, what was the

vibe around the table?

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Did you have chats about

what was going on at school?

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Or did children have to eat first

and the parents ate later and you

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didn't actually have family mealtimes?

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Sometimes people ate their meals

on their laps, watching telly.

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And again, that can be a good social.

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There's no judgement in all of this,

I'm just asking you to think about

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how you were brought up, and how that

might have shaped how you feel about

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food generally and eating today.

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Maybe also you had other people in the

house who had health conditions, either

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food allergies or celiac disease, And

there could have been a sense of fear of

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food, of contamination, that we had to

be really super careful about food, and

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obviously that was to meet another family

member's health conditions, but perhaps

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that's also influenced your feelings about

food, and a cautiousness and a kind of

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health anxiety that could run beneath what

you're feeling now about your digestion.

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People who have IBS can often feel

this, what you're eating is bad for

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you and is damaging you somehow.

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And particularly for people who have small

intestinal bacterial overgrowth, there's

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this real sense that food is something.

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can make things worse, so

of course, you're going to

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have some worry about that.

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And it's like fueling your

attitude that certain foods are

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good for you or bad for you.

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And actually just even me using those

words, good for you, bad for you,

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leads me onto the next area that I

wanted to talk about, which is really

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around clean eating the thoughts that

often are influenced by social media

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making food out to be, more moralistic,

I suppose, than it actually is.

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I know I've talked about this a few

times on the podcast before, but people

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calling food toxic or inflammatories

or using words like nasties around

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food, and it's just not actually

very helpful for our attitude towards

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eating and to fueling ourselves.

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But that is a big influence as well

over our relationship with food is

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what we're consuming mentally online?

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What social media accounts are

you following that are shaping

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your attitudes towards eating?

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One of my clients a few years ago said he

really wished that food was not wrapped

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up with all social occasions because

it was putting him off socializing.

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And if you think about it, quite often

when we invite people over, we'll make

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dinner for them, or you go out for

a meal, or even just go for drinks

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and then food might be available.

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Food is often part of our celebrations.

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I have clients for whom this is a

really big part of why they want to

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work on their digestion and get better.

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Because it's affecting their social life.

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So when.

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You can't join in with everyone else.

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It does feel really difficult, and

it can feel more emotional than the

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logistics of actually bringing your

own food and getting out and eating

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it at the same time as everybody else

because it's about joining in, feeling

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part of the the social event, maybe

the family birthday party, whatever.

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If you have that gap between you

and them, and of course, there's the

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social embarrassment of explaining

it's to do with your IBS, or this

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is the reason you can't join in, you

know, it feels like you're putting

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a barrier in place when you do that.

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Sometimes, not everybody will feel

this, but I know people I work with

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feel like they're being awkward by

bringing their own food or suggesting

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that they go to certain restaurants

because it better suits them.

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And I suppose I just wanted to just

highlight it really, not to say whether

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it's good or bad or whether you should

or shouldn't feel like that, but just

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acknowledging it sometimes can almost

think, Oh, that's why I'm feeling so

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wrapped up about this food changes is

because I'm putting some pressure on,

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or I'm trying to change the social norms

within my family or my friendship groups.

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So a couple of the sort of situations

that I was going to talk about as well,

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thinking about how we grew up around food.

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I've had a client recently

that grew up in a very healthy

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household with limited chocolates

or biscuits, crisps in the house.

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They were really, really healthy and

it was always vegetables, you know,

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healthy snacks, hummus and raw carrots

and that sort of thing after school.

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And then he became a student, went off on

his own to live on his own and suddenly

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had a bit of money to feed himself.

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No parental instructions.

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And he kind of lived off

fast food, McDonald's.

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He also really didn't eat what

I would consider enough food.

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So we talked about, you know, how to

increase up his food, but the key.

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The thing I want to mention is this sense

of control, like this sense of, there's

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certain foods that you're not allowed,

just really backfired because as he got to

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his own place to live and his own money,

he just wanted to eat all the foods.

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He wasn't ever allowed growing up, it

was kind of rebelling against that.

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So for you, like, is there a sense

that you, don't want to eat lots of

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vegetables and things because you were

forced to eat so many as a child and

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you're kind of rebelling against it or

somewhere in your head it feels that

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you're conforming to other pressures

that perhaps your family put upon you

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and you, you want to be your own person.

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But eating that way doesn't

necessarily mean that you're all alone.

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following your family's guidance.

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The general healthy guidance

about eating vegetables.

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It is important.

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However, it's trying to unpick

like, where's my resistance to

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that sense of eating healthy?

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Is it coming from wanting to be

different from my parents, wanting

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to rebel, or is it something else?

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Another example of somebody I've

worked with who had parents who very

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much controlled their intake of food.

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They were just very controlling and

always would not put out enough food.

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So she ended up eating very, very fast.

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Having this thought at the back of her

head that she needed to stuff down the

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food as quickly as possible because

it was often taken away or not enough

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food was given as she was growing up.

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This can also be a problem for people

who have had food insecurity, so

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maybe you haven't had enough money

to have sufficient food on your plate

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on a regular basis, and there's that

insecurity of knowing where your next

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meal will come from, or whether you

will have a proper dinner this week.

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So, In those senses, either whether

someone is overly controlling your

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food, or whether you don't have enough

money for the food, that can also lead

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to different approaches to eating.

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Maybe every time you see food now,

you feel like you have to eat,

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you have to get it down because in

your head, you don't know where the

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next meal might be coming from and

you're trying to protect yourself.

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The opposite of that is also true.

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So I have also had a client

I worked with a few years ago

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and she had a Mediterranean.

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herritage, they had a slow, long meal

with everybody sitting around the table,

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you know, lovely sociable time and a

lot of pressure from the mother to eat.

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So constant pressure to fill

up your plate, eat more,

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come on, eat more, eat more.

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And actually then, um, In later life,

she found it quite hard to be on a diet

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because, in one way, she wanted to lose

weight, this person, she wasn't massively

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overweight, but she wanted to get into

a smaller body and, um, wanted to lose

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a bit of weight and yet she had this

voice in her head of being always told

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you need to eat more, you must finish

everything that's on your plate, have

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more portions, you know, and, and that

meal time should be a really big part

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of, you know, Family life that you must

have a long meal time with extensive

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foods and lots of different plates and

you know Everybody's eating all the time

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throughout this two hour dinner time.

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So I mentioned there that we have

sometimes this sort of Parents voice

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in our head telling us what we should

eat and actually in sort of psychology

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terms We have these three ego states.

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So these three kind of parts of ourselves.

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So one is a parent that

is telling us what to do.

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One is like an adult, which is

the rational adult following

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the logic and the facts.

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And then we also have a child,

which is more responding as

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your inner child might have.

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And I think this is quite an interesting

way to think about your food and

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your approaches to eating as well.

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So, for example, your parent voice

in your head, your, might be telling

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you, you shouldn't eat that, that's

bad for you, or, on Sundays we have

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a roast, this is just what we do.

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The adult voice might be thinking, okay,

well, I know I need to eat protein, so

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therefore, I'll eat this much chicken

for lunch and I'll have fish for dinner.

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You know, that is a sort of logical

approach to putting together your meals.

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You might think about

food in that way as well.

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And then your sort of inner child

might have either a real, like, disgust

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of certain foods that you were fed.

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And like, I can't bear to

eat that or just, I want it.

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I eat it.

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Um, so.

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It's really normal for us to have

all of these three states in our

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head all the time and sometimes

they're conflicting which can also

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feel really difficult when you've got

different voices inside your head.

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I'm obviously not talking about, you know,

real voices like schizophrenic voices

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but they are thoughts and different parts

of ourselves and once we can kind of see

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where some of these things are coming from

it can help us unlock these ability to

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change the way we eat or change the way

we respond to ourselves, even if we don't

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change the actual habits and actions.

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We might just be a bit more

gentle on ourselves knowing where

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those thoughts have come from.

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A little example of that personally for

me is that I have got a real thing about

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wasting food and or just wasting anything

in general like I, you know, really use

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up all the toothpaste and scrape it out

before we'll throw the toothpaste away.

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I don't really like wasting food and that

came definitely from how I was brought up.

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My mum's parents were, Immigrants to

this country and didn't have a lot

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of money and definitely instilled

in her a sense of do not waste.

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You know, we must make and do.

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And then that has definitely

been brought over to me as well.

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Not necessarily only about money,

but like using the Earth's resources,

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making sure we don't waste.

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As part of my eating disorder training

that I did over the last year.

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One of the activities that we

had to do was to throw away a

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piece of food that was good.

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There was nothing wrong with it.

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We had to do it as part of,

like, exploring our own sense

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of whether you waste food.

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And the reason it's important in

terms of attitudes to food is that

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If you eat everything on your plate

because you don't want to waste it,

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effectively you're kind of wasting it

into yourself, because you don't really

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need it, you don't actually want it,

but you're still eating it anyway,

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just in order for it not to be wasted.

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So, interesting, very interesting,

and I actually found that experiment

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quite difficult but it really helped

me think about, well, where did this

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come from, why did I grew up with

that sense that waste is really bad.

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And obviously like logically, we

only have limited resources in

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each family and within the world.

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So we don't want to waste loads of

stuff, but at the same time, it's

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like, what emotions is that triggering?

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Is it.

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triggering emotions that are larger

than the actual activity should warrant.

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So, if you've got to the end of

this episode and thought, oh, this

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is interesting, I think I might

like to do something about this.

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I was thinking about some specific things

that you might be able to put into place.

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In your own life to help you with this.

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One of them might be to write yourself

a little essay or journal entry

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or kind of picture, it could be a

lifeline of how you were brought up.

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brought up around food, what

was going on around all of these

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different points in your life?

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How was eating at school, for example?

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Think about it and about

whether that has influenced your

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attitude to the way you eat now.

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Also just being really mindful

about What might be coming out

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of that life story of eating?

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Maybe you want to be mindful about

eating and if you want to go back to

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episode 2 where I talk a lot about

mindful Eating that can be helpful.

307

Just really focusing on the mechanics

of eating a little bit But also

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thinking about mindful shopping, you

know, are you actually buying foods

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that are gonna be right for you?

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Are you planning meals that are

So just, investing a bit of time

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in it, I suppose, which is really

tricky if you're already time poor.

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You're very busy.

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And then, I guess the other thing is,

if you're trying to make changes to

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your diet, is actually having a plan,

knowing where your, what your end goal

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is, and trying to work backwards from

that in mini steps, so little things

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to break it down into achievable steps.

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So I know that's quite high level actions

this week, and there's not anything

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necessarily specific that you should take

and do at the end of this episode, but

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it's probably worth just thinking about,

even if you don't actually do anything,

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is just have a little think about it.

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Whether these have brought up

anything for you, and whether

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you'd like to do anything about it.

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So, I'll leave it there for this week.

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Thank you very much for listening to

this episode of the Inside Knowledge.

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Better digestion for everyone.