I recently worked with Branded 3 and Wren Kitchens on a little project looking at the reasons behind WHY we eat what we eat. The project is called – Food For Thought. The idea of this project was to survey a number of people in Britain to find out how their relationship is with food and how food makes them feel about themselves.
Body Positivity Movement
For me this was such a timely project as there are currently a lot of positive messages in the media and on social media about the food we eat and our own self esteem. For example, the way we think of food, our own bodies and the amount we engage in behaviours around dieting or guilty feelings after eating, can have serious long term effects on health, weight and our psychology.
Food For Thought
Many people choose to eat because they are bored, stressed or as a reward, and sometimes that’s fine. Other times it may lead to unhelpful patterns of eating and a disconnect with our bodies natural signals of hunger.
Wren Kitchen’s Food For Thought Project surveyed 2000 members of the public in Britain via One Poll, to ask about their own relationship with food and, specifically, about their reasons for eating. There were some really interesting results, such as:
25% of people surveyed said that they eat because they are stressed and it makes them feel better
58% of women say they eat because they are bored, whereas this was only 38% in men
The study also found that 28% said that cooking was a chore
And lastly, 59% of participants classed their eating habits as “healthy” in this survey too
Take a look at the Food for Thought website for more stats and some ways to tackle tricky eating behaviours head on.
Nutritionist’s Role
As the Nutritionist working on this project, I was in charge of overseeing the initial ideas and concept, as well as helping to write the text and offer plenty of tips and support on relevant nutrition areas throughout Food For Thought.
Other medical experts, including GPs and psychologists were also involved and so there are plenty of tips dotted around the website from these guys too.
I genuinely really liked working on this project, Wren did some great research for it and the information, I feel, is new, interesting and also very practical with lots of tips which don’t result in people feeling guilty or negative about their food behaviours.
Do check out the website, have a play around with the sections and let me know what you think!