Food Psych #80: The Truth About "Food Addiction" with Marci Evans

Marci Evans - Food Addiction & Eating Disorders Dietitian

Fellow anti-diet dietitian Marci Evans shares why some people feel "addicted" to food, what the science actually says about so-called food addiction, how intuitive eating and Health at Every Size can help you recover from disordered eating behaviors, why it's so important that eating-disorder specialists NOT also try to sell weight loss, and lots more.

Marci Anderson Evans MS, CEDRD, cPT is a Certified Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian, ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, certified Intuitive Eating Coach, and owner of Marci RD Nutrition Consulting.

“Food is meant to be pleasurable. We are meant to enjoy it.” [Click to Tweet]

By combining her passion for food, nutrition, and fitness her goal is to take help each of her clients find a healthy and happy relationship with food and exercise. She works exclusively with clients with eating disorders, disordered eating, or those interested in intuitive eating counseling.

Marci has two professional passions. The first is empowering individuals to find a healthy relationship with food, exercise, and their bodies. The second is teaching and supervising dietitians on how to effectively counsel people with eating disorders. Marci finds great satisfaction in utilizing a psychologically informed approach to counseling and feels grateful for a career that helps her to learn and grow every day.

Find Marci online at MarciRD.com, and learn more about her online training for dietitians.

“Eating disorder recovery has to go hand-in-hand with Health at Every Size, body positivity, and intuitive eating.” [Click to Tweet]

We Discuss:

Marci’s relationship with food growing up, including funny food quirks, her natural inner wisdom relating to food, and the pleasure factor with food
Marci’s introduction to dance, food shame, and a preoccupation with “healthy eating”
The arc of Marci’s relationship with food as she grew older, including panic over weight gain during puberty, induction into diet culture during her teenage years, and the eventual bingeing of her college years
Marci’s reaction to her weight gain, including shame, and how the unconditional kindness and body-acceptance of others helped her to heal
Marci’s experience in her nutrition education, which luckily encouraged balance and moderation, and her eventual introduction to Intuitive Eating through an eating disorder treatment center
How long eating disorder recovery truly takes
The impact that culture has on our relationship to food and our body, and the importance of not including weight management in eating disorder recovery
Marci’s immersion into the books and resources surrounding HAES, body positivity, rejecting diet culture, and intuitive eating
How intuitive eating and body positivity are often co-opted by the diet industry for marketing purposes, and how navigating the HAES philosophy can be very difficult for private practitioners and clients who are so used to the diet mentality
How important it is for dietitians and nutritionists teaching HAES to do their own intuitive eating work, especially as it relates to rejecting the goal of weight loss
The ways in which we can self-select the media and conversations we engage in to better ensure that we are surrounded by body-positive messages
How intuitive eating seeps into all areas of our lives, including personal relationships
Dealing with the health media as a HAES dietitian
The complicated topic of “food addiction,” including interpreting food addiction from the perspective of HAES and intuitive eating, interpreting the research in the context of our cultural food beliefs and history, and validating those who feel addicted to food while simultaneously guiding them away from disempowerment
The importance of giving people intuitive eating tools before they try legalizing all foods without the proper support
How to have realistic expectations for ourselves in eating disorder recovery and intuitive eating practice