The Value of Teaching Mindful Eating to People with Diabetes

Mindful eating is more than a way to eat. It is a practice that develops self-compassion and decreases all forms of oppression.

Apr 09, 2024

In the previous post, we talked about what mindful eating is and isn’t. In this second part, explore the benefits of mindfulness and mindful eating.

Mindful eating can’t fit the familiar reductionist view of nutrition, specifically the good/bad binary of eating behaviors and weight. Why? The roots of Mindful Eating are based on mindfulness, not nutrition. Therefore, the focus of mindful eating is essentially the adoption of a compassionate, nonjudgmental view of the eating experience. Keep reading to see how this works!

Mindful Listening

Listening nonjudgmentally to our direct experience has an unexpected benefit. In fact, the ability to be with ourselves is an essential skill. It is one of three key skills associated with self-compassion, as defined by Dr. Kristine Neff, and includes:

Self-kindness vs. Self-judgment
Common humanity vs. Isolation
Mindfulness vs. Over-identification

The second root is mindfulness practice - the practice of reflection. Many people are unfamiliar with the benefits of learning and engaging in mindfulness practice. Reflection allows us to practice Metacognition, or noticing and viewing thoughts about our thoughts, which changes the mind and our view of life. Being mindful of our own experience, nonjudgmentally, has decreased anxiety and depression, reduced stress, enhanced coping, and improved sleep! When the skill is repeated, meaning we intentionally make time to compassionately observe our own experience via meditation, prayer, or any reflective practice, we transform our thoughts, shifting them from what isn’t to what is. When people practice mindful eating, they have identified a specific time to practice metacognition. Dietitian Dalia Kinsey explains that eating mindfully is setting aside time to be with ourselves fully.

The final root of mindful eating is self-kindness, which includes evaluating both the present moment and the distant outcomes of a choice with a compassionate awareness that is unfamiliar to most people. The ability to compassionately distance ourselves from our thoughts deepens our ability to practice metacognition, ultimately allowing us to break free from our habitual patterns of thinking and acting.

Common Mistakes of Mindful Eating

The most common mistake about mindful eating is to think of it as static. When we do so, we fail to recognize the conditions that have influenced our eating choices, including internalized bias, stigma, distress, and shame of diabetes, food, body size, body image, eating, gender, and sexuality, to name a few.

Being ‘with’ our experience is a radical change in thinking because it helps to shift a person’s identity to the felt sense of belonging. For individuals with painful or traumatic experiences associated with food and eating, including internalized weight, sex, gender or racial bias, and disordered eating, belonging is a precious experience. Neff’s work shows that belonging connects us to others and joins us to humanity rather than isolation.

Being ‘with’ our experience often uncovers unmet needs, including the need for ease. Having a sense of ease and sustainability surrounding food and eating shifts the goal from eating a specific item to having an enjoyable eating experience. Having a clear intention for ease and sustainability erodes many perfectionist thoughts and behaviors.

Being ‘with’ our experience also cultivates a sense of being seen and heard, which supports a sense of belonging and provides an empathetic response to rigid, internalized thoughts resulting from internalized bias.

Being ‘with’ our experience nonjudgmentally creates the trust needed to quiet the critical mind, often resulting from internalized bias, stigma, disordered coping, distress, and shame of diabetes.

Being ‘with’ our experiences allows us to expand our thinking to consider what would create a felt sense of wholesome kindness. The desire to expand the focus of nutrition, eating, and food selection to include more than a look, number, or simple action but to accept the present moment is complex, dynamic, and includes many ambivalent feelings.

The Future of Mindful Eating

Mindfulness and mindful eating have many benefits. Speaking personally, I have witnessed the dismantling of internalized bias within myself through my practice of mindfulness and mindful eating. It isn’t just internalized bias regarding weight or dieting, but all internalized and implicit bias. It isn’t hard to imagine how mindful eating can help make the world more inclusive because we eat many times a day; adding the pause, the reflection, the nonjudgment, and the kindness, over time, changes the brain. The ability to pause, notice my direct experience, and reflect on my deeper intention has given me the space and grace my younger self craved. Mindful Eating has made me a kinder, more empathetic human being.

Consider the possibilities that could emerge if ALL INTERNALIZED BIAS was reduced by mindful eating. Mindfulness and mindful eating are ways to see our biases compassionately. In doing so, we develop the ability to help ourselves dissolve the internalized racial, weight, or gender bias that dominates our thoughts, beliefs, clinical practices, and healthcare institutions. The real research needed to understand the power of mindful eating looks beyond calories or weight change toward how mindfulness can dissolve our fixed view of food and nutrition.

Learn More About Mindful Eating

The Center for Mindful Eating (TCME.org) offers professionals and consumers resources to start a mindful eating activity.
Health professionals looking to understand the Core Concepts of Mindful Eating may find the book by the same name helpful.
The 3 Roots of Mindful Eating is a downloadable resource that reviews the initial three chapters of this book.