How to Survive Your Diet
and Conquer Your Food Issues Forever

by Linda Moran

Excerpt adapted from the chapter "How Children Eat"

Consider a child from a family with no food issues. When that child stops playing to eat, it's because his stomach is literally growling, begging to be fed. As he chatters his way through the meal, all the while picking at the lumps in his potatoes, eating around the crust of the bread, and banging his fork on his glass, he thinks of something fun he wants to go and do, and since his stomach isn't growling anymore, he leaves. Hopefully he asks to be excused first. And isn't it amazing that he can leave half a cookie on his plate?

It doesn't have to be so amazing. I've learned to eat the way children eat. I stop when I'm not hungry anymore. I'm eager to move on to the next thing in my busy life. Like a child, I can report that I'm either "starving" or "full." But now I've expanded my tastes to include more grown-up foods like sauerkraut and orange marmalade. I just love those little pieces of orange in the marmalade. Kids usually hate that.

What are your beliefs right now about what I've told you? Write them down. Then replace any irrational beliefs with new ones. Examples of rational beliefs are:

I would like to eat like a child.
It's okay to have a little stress while I'm learning how to do it. Stress is tolerable.
I would like it to get easier over time.
I can replace fear with courage.
My family's opinions have no power over me.
I can learn from watching how children eat and how they think about eating.
Even as an adult, with adult responsibilities, I can find ways to eat more like a child.
I can learn to stop when I'm not hungry anymore instead of when I'm "full." (For adults, "not hungry" comes before "full.")

Over time, the child I've described will grow into an adult with a healthy belief system about food. He will not become obese, and will pass on healthy attitudes to his own children. However, if this child lives in a family with distorted food beliefs (and their resulting patterns of behavior) he will eventually become like his family. From the outside looking in, what you see can be quite deceptive. You see obese parents, obese older siblings, and a small child becoming obese. The explanation of genetics or metabolism sure does seem to fit. But to explain it away as a family trait is to cover up an important consideration. Closer inspection reveals a different reality.

I observed an overweight child from just such a family. He was at a children's party which centered on the activity of making chocolate candies in little candy molds. All the children were in a flurry of activity. This boy paused, turned to the nearest adult and announced, "I don't get in trouble at home for eating chocolate because I hide it." Consider the child's beliefs behind such a statement:

Eating can get you in trouble.
Eating chocolate is bad.
Eating is bad.
Avoiding trouble over food is good.
Hiding food is okay.
Hiding food is a solution to problems.
Deceiving oneself about food is good.
There are good foods and bad foods.
How things appear is what is important.
It's normal for families to have control issues over food.

Clearly, there is something more operating here than metabolism or genetics. There are beliefs being passed down from one generation to the next, which lead to the eventual external evidence of obesity.

On the other hand, I've observed a family in which both parents are obese, and both are learning to undo their irrational beliefs. Over the months, their weight has been slowly melting off. When I asked the mother about her diet, her response was music to my ears, "Oh, I'm just being more careful about how much I eat." And "Oh, I've decided food isn't much of a friend." You can imagine this mother permanently losing weight! Sure enough, the two children are not becoming obese. No doubt they are learning new habits of thinking from their family. They are lucky children indeed.

Tired of dieting?