Browsing by Author "Maijala, Laura"

In nutrition science, food and nutrition are generally seen primarily as health promotion and disease prevention tools. One of the critical health promotion activities has been weight loss. However, the desired health goals are rarely achieved, even though health information is abundant, and dieting is widespread. My study aimed to find out how people struggling with weight management and challenges in their food relationship describe their food relationship, the factors that influence it, and how they see learning to eat intuitively, i.e. by listening to their bodies, as part of their food relationship. I aimed to increase the understanding of the different factors associated with eating and dieting and to consider whether there might be alternatives to traditional weight loss methods focusing on overall well-being and strengthening body connection rather than simply tracking weight. The research material was collected through semi-structured thematic interviews. The interviewees (=9) were selected from the participants of the "Farewell to yo-yoing" online course using intuitive eating methods. The interviews were organized using Teams’ video conference app between April and August 2022. The interview material was transcribed and analyzed using theory-based content analysis. The theory and analysis of the study were based on the food relationship framework of Talvia and Anglé (2018) and its five different aspects: behaviour, thoughts, feelings, senses and values. Body image challenges, often stemming from childhood and adolescence, were perceived as the main factors influencing the food relationship. Comments about body image and eating, as well as social comparison, were crucial factors that contributed to developing a perceived problematic food relationship. For some, eating had also become a way of regulating emotions. On the other hand, childhood was also associated with positive experiences, such as eating together and regular eating rhythms, which helped to connect with bodily sensations. Different food-related rules and diets emerged as common factors that undermined the ability to eat according to the body’s signals and were also associated with guilt about eating and binge eating. Similarly, training in intuitive eating was described to increase well-being, psychological flexibility, and decreased black-and-white thinking. In contrast, trust in the body's messages had become more central. However, learning to eat according to the body’s signals and challenging previous beliefs was still a work in progress for many. My thesis brought together the concepts of food relationship and intuitive eating in a new way. It helped highlight experiences rarely seen in the health promotion debate. The results suggest that the factors perceived to have negatively impacted the food relationship were the same factors that undermined the ability to eat based on the body’s signals. Therefore, supporting a positive relationship with food appears to be a key factor for intuitive eating. Future work should explore whether intuitive eating methods could be one way of promoting public health more widely, using standardized measures such as the IES-2 questionnaire. More research is also needed on using of the food relationship framework to promote health and support a positive relationship with food.