The Hidden Weight of Fearing Food.
- Damara Loewen
- Nov 3
- 7 min read
Updated: Dec 8
I’m not afraid of food, I just…
…want to be healthy.
…want to honor my body.
…don’t want to get sick or wreck my body.
…want to love my best life.
…need to watch what I eat.
Fear of food is so normalized in our Diet Culture that we don’t even realize when it’s there. A lot of the time, it even seems like we need it there.
It keeps us in line. It keeps us motivated and focused. It helps us to stay hypervigilant against temptation or overeating. Food could be a big threat to us, so we need to fear it. It really is scary.
I hear you. That’s what we’re taught. That’s the environment we live in.
And I just disagree.
I think it’s important to call out the fear where it lurks in all its disguises and justifications. Then we can discern which pose a real threat and which are just Diet Culture's fear mongering.
Why take the time and energy to do that?
Because living with that fear takes a toll on us. It takes up our capacity and our bandwidth.
The strain - the weight, the burden- of living with the fear of food is something that we should take into account when counting the cost that Diet Culture demands we pay.
Any significant investment of our time and energy could be thought of in terms of a cost benefit analysis. We do it all the time. Maybe not in those exact terms, but almost every decision we make involves some kind of weighing.
I think that’s especially true when - like in the case of Diet Culture- we’ve been sold one Cost-Benefit Analysis Package only to find out that the benefits have been grossly inflated and the costs drastically minimized 😮
So let’s look at that cost. Where might you have hidden fears when it comes to food? And how much is living in that state of fear taking out of you?
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Some quick disclaimers and important odds and ends before I get to the list below.
You’ll see that I mention different forms of fear - anxiety, panic, hypervigilance, and dread. We have to broaden our understanding of what “fear of foods” looks like if we’re going to recognize it.
I also mention some feelings that we might be afraid of feeling. Some of the really uncomfortable ones like shame, the burden of crushing expectations, sensory and emotional overwhelm, and fear of judgment and rejection.
Because as much as Diet Culture loves to frame food, weight and health as something subjective and scientific, the narratives around all of that are very much social and personal. They very much affect our identity, value and sense of belonging.
I think it’s also important to recognize that these fears, and all the ways that we manage them, don’t happen in a vacuum. These are all added on top of our daily lives.
These fears get piled on top of everything else that we’re already holding onto. So now we’re juggling even more, with even less capacity.
This can all have a compounding effect. It can turn stress into overwhelm and pressure into burn out. It could be the invisible last straw that broke the camel’s back 🐫
Finally, you’ll notice in the list below that I didn’t just include fears about food directly.
Diet Culture teaches us that our food and exercise choices are the primary determinant of our weight and health. That’s why I’ve also included fears here around our weight and health.
They are so inextricably linked in our Diet Culture’s imagination. Thoughts of weight and health quickly get translated into changing the way we eat and exercise. And the way we eat and exercise cue us up for fears about our current, or future, weight.
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Okay. We’re finally almost to the list.
Feel free to pause here and take a couple of deep breaths. However valid the concerns are, the fear is very real. This stuff can be scary.
If you need some space before getting started, you can download this list in a self-assessment form.
You can print it off and come back to it later. Maybe with a cozy blanket, a cup of tea and some soothing music quietly on in the background 🍂☕️
Whichever way works for you… whenever you’re ready… let’s go.
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These are common fears that we have around our food. Do any of these describe how you feel about food?
Fear of fattening, or bad, foods. We are afraid of what they could do to us if we eat them- both to our weight and to our health.
Fear of how food can make us feel. Negatively affecting our mood, energy level, productivity, etc.
Fear of ourselves around fattening, or bad, foods. We are afraid to be around them because we don’t think we can trust ourselves. We don’t even let them in the house.
Anxiety of eating the wrong thing that could impact our health in some way other than impacting our weight. We can feel panicked when we eat anything perceived to be unclean, dangerous, ultra processed, or toxic.
Fear of not being able to control our food selection, food quality or our food environment. We feel anxious when we go out to eat at a restaurant that we didn’t pick, at somebody else’s home, on a work trip or retreat, etc.
Fear of feeling full or any sensations associated with fullness (i.e. bloated, sluggish, stomach protruding, clothes fitting differently after a meal, etc.). We’re afraid of experiencing the shame spiral on top of any physical discomfort.
Feeling anxious to eat and exercise in a way that optimizes our body’s capacity, feeling of wellness, or productivity. We feel responsible for staying in the “perfect peak” zone so we’re afraid of what it says about us as a person, and what it means for the efficiency of our daily lives, if we aren’t constantly operating at max efficiency or peak optimization.
Fear of becoming ill or developing a disease or a chronic condition that we brought on ourselves. We feel responsible for controlling our health with our food and exercise so anything other than “perfect health” means that we did something wrong.
Anxiety and overwhelm from trying to navigate all of the health and wellness advice. We’re just trying to do it all right. Navigating and controlling this can feel overwhelming and leave us feeling powerless and ashamed.
Hypervigilant to always do the right thing. Every single choice feels like life or death. It doesn’t feel acceptable to take a wrong step - or a wrong bite. Because what doesn’t lead us towards health, leads us towards unhealth.
Fear, or panic, of not being able to burn off the calories. Compensatory, or compulsory, exercising or body movement is a common (often unconscious) coping strategy that we use to manage the anxiety that comes with eating. We might not notice how much anxiety we have around food until we’re not able to compensate like we want to.
Creeping anxiety when we slide into the mindset of our compensatory exercise “never feeling like enough”. We need to do more. We need to burn more calories, walk farther, spin on the stationary bike longer, swim more laps. The more we feel out of control with our food or our weight, the more we might try to compensate by controlling our exercise.
Dread that comes with starting another diet. Anticipating the deprivation we’re going to feel.
Dread of keeping up with our regular exercise regime, no matter what. We can feel like we need to stick to our routine no matter how tired, busy, fatigued, sore, or hungry we feel. We can dread the feeling of shame, regret and negative self-talk that comes when we skip a workout.
Fear of the rigidity of our exercise routine- fear of needing but not being able to take the break from exercise our body needs to recover when sick or injured. We can be afraid to skip a workout because it feels like we’ll give in to our laziness and miss more and more workouts.
Fear when anticipating a weigh in - whether it’s the bathroom scale or the Doctor’s office. Afraid of what the scale will say and how it will make you feel.
Anxiety when the number on the scale goes up or doesn’t go down as expected. This can throw us into a shame spiral, feeling hopeless like our hard work isn’t paying off and we’re just not capable of doing what needs to be done to control our weight.
Fear of eating in public. We fear the shame and judgment that comes from eating in front of people. This can feel incredibly vulnerable and uncomfortable.
Fear of being rejected for not caring enough about your health. We fear being outcast or judged for not performing the right healthy eating behaviors. The “Personal Responsibility Narrative” can make us feel like we owe our health to society. We have to work hard to prove that we’re doing everything in our power to not be a burden on “society”.
Fear of being judged for the size of our kids’ bodies. There’s a crushing burden of expectation on parents, moms in particular, to ensure our kid’s bodies measure up. There’s incredible shame put on mom’s to perfectly control our kid’s food and bodies.
Anxiety and panic for harming our kids with what we feed them.
Anxiety of living in a body, or at a body size, that puts you at an increased risk of developing a “weight related illness”.
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Whew. That was a lot. How are you?
Did a lot of those resonate with you? Did they remind you of somebody you care about?
If so and you want to get a clearer picture of just how many of these fears are affecting you, click below to download the free self-assessment. You can use it for yourself or pass it along to the person that came to mind for you.
Download this list as a PDF self-assessment here.
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Want to go Deeper?
If you want to take it a step further, and get freedom from the weight of these fears, then click ‘Schedule Now’ to schedule your free 15 minute phone consultation with me. On that call we can talk about what next steps could look like for you.
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