Ronan Oliveira (YouTube video) critiques the catch-all idea of "eating healthy," arguing there is no single definition and that the phrase is often exploited by marketing or becomes obsessive (orthorexia). Using a coaching anecdote about a client frustrated with "healthy" recipes (e.g., coconut sugar in a fish curry) he outlines three problems: (1) health/healthy eating is context-dependent; (2) "healthy" is a marketing label that can mislead behaviour; (3) it can become pathological when it dominates life. He recommends individuals define "health" for themselves via a multi-component model (somatic, psychological, social, semiotic), ask three reflective questions (what does health mean to you; how will a change affect other health domains; is the definition working?), then set eating principles (what/when/how much/rigidity) aligned with that personal definition. Closing includes CTA to comment and a link to Mindvalley courses.
Chapters
Do you believe that eating healthy is improving your health no matter what? I think there are a couple of issues with the idea about eating healthy that no one is talking about, and I wanted to address them in this video to make sure that you don't fall in this pitfall when you are trying to improve your health. That comes from a conversation I had with a coaching client a couple of weeks ago. We were starting to work together and she was in that tone that she said, I am giving up on this whole journey of improving my health because I'm trying to lose weight and I'm already eating healthy for a long time. It just doesn't work. And my first question to her at the time was, what do you mean by eating healthy? Not really. Tell me more, because there's no definition, right? What does eating healthy even mean? And how do you eat healthy? And she says, you know, I changed all my eating habits. Now I cook my own food, which is a great thing. And I go on Google and I search for healthy recipes and I make healthy recipes and I'm not losing weight, something's wrong, and, you know, it's hard to keep up. And we went through a couple of the recipes that she was going through, and that was, for example, this one fish curry recipe that used seven spoons of coconut sugar. And it was labeled as healthy because the sugar was not refined sugar, it was coconut sugar. Now, I have a question for you and I would love to see your comment in the comment section. Do you think that coconut sugar is healthy or do you think that coconut sugar is unhealthy? Let me know which one is your answer and what's your thought behind. When I look at this type of situation in this question, to me is a question with no answer. You know, if coconut sugar is healthy or unhealthy, it can be both or it can be none, depending of a lot of other things. And there are three problems with the idea of eating healthy that I think we need to shed light on. The first one is that there is no definition for what eating healthy even means, and it can be different for different people. If you talk to someone who is following a vegan diet and someone who is following a keto diet, the idea of eating healthy for these two people will be completely different, and still it will work for each one of them. If you're talking to a pregnant mom, to a busy CEO, or to a teenager going through puberty, the definition of eating healthy will be completely different. And then if you Google a recipe of eating healthy, healthy based on whom and for what. So this is the first problem. The second problem is that eating healthy or healthy eating has become a high valuable marketing expression. You will see everywhere eating healthy. And I will talk about eating healthy as well, coming from a specific perspective. But you will see a lot of labels on foods and people selling ideas saying, you know, if this is healthy, it's good for you because this gets a lot of attention. So yeah, it gets a lot of attention. But then you need to define what healthy means for yourself. There's another thing that you see, for example, products that says zero trans fat, zero trans fats are really good thing. And then it calls my attention because I have an idea of healthy eating and zero trans fat is aligned with that. So therefore I should get that product. But then I don't realize that that product may bring me many other ingredients that I'm not trying to give my body. But because I saw that idea of zero trans fat and I connect with my perception of eating healthy and eating healthy is good, this I open a space for the food industry to add, you know, to sneak in other things that I may not desire. And there's the other examp, that is the example of someone who buys a healthy ice cream because it doesn't use sugar, use a artificial sweetener, or use less fat. And because it's healthy, then you eat three times as much. You know, if it is a unhealthy ice cream, I have a spoon, but I get a healthy ice cream so I can, you know, eat until I explode. So yeah, maybe it won't give as much damage to the body, but the behavior that is associated with it also has to do with your health perspective. So this is the second thing, and the third thing about healthy eating is that some people sometimes can develop an obsession with this idea. There is even a clinical condition called orthorexia. That is when your connection to healthy eating is so strong that this becomes your main priority at the cost of other areas, at the cost of the quality of your life, at the cost of increasing stress, decreasing the quality of your connections. And if you look at your life in the big picture, is that type of behavior healthy or unhealthy? So what do you do with all this? This is a perspective of a problem that the solution doesn't come for someone who communicates. The solution comes from someone who listens, who gets the communication. So basically the solution comes from each one of us defining what, what healthy even means. Because the whole food industry and education and me even we will talk about healthy Habits and healthy eating. But then you need to make sure if that matches your definition of what healthy is. So whenever I, for example, look at healthy eating ideas, there are a couple of questions that I ask myself. First, the first is what does health mean to you? And this is, this is an important question because there's no real definition of health. We have many, many theoretical models. And back in the day we had a definition that says that health is the absence of disease and injury. And yeah, that definition can work for a lot of people, but that definition is only taking into consideration your physical body. For example, my perspective, something that I really like, is a model that talks about the somato psycho social semiotic model of health. It's a mouthful, but what this means is that you have one. We have four pillars, four components of health. The somato component means your physical body. If your physical body is healthy, that contributes to your health. But there's another component that is your psychological and emotional health, all thoughts and feelings. There's another component that is your social component of health, your connection with family and friends and other people. And then there's this semiotic component that is your perception, the alignment with your values. So what is it? That's the definition that works for me. What is the definition of health that works for you? This is the first question. And if you're thinking about should I cut coconut sugar or not, in that case, that's the first thing that I want you to think about. What's the definition of health for me then? Based on that, what does healthy eating mean? Let's think about the decision of removing coconut sugar from someone's diet. If I am removing coconut sugar, most likely this is a decision that will improve my somatic health, my body's perspective. But then I need to think about how I make this decision in a way that also improves my psychological health. If I make this decision saying sugar is wrong and I'm restricting myself, maybe that increases stress and at the end of the day it decreases my psychological health. And I need to think about how I make this decision in a way that also improves my social health. If I cut sugar and then I'm not sharing meals with my family anymore, that's probably also a step back. So how do I make that decision that goes in alignment in helping increasing that type of health as well? Maybe sometimes the answer is that's not possible at the moment. And so the question that comes with it is, what does healthy mean for you at the moment? If you're going through a period that is super stressful and you're already restricted with so many things. Maybe cutting one more thing and putting one more rule of restriction may not be the healthiest thing that you can do, especially if that leads to behaviors of binge eating later on. Maybe at the moment, this is not the healthiest decision in the whole panorama of what healthy eating means for your own definitions. And finally, the third question about this is, how is this definition working for you? Because you know you can make the decision and say, hey, I am not going to remove the coconut sugar because this is good for my psychological health. I'm going through a stressful moment and then I don't want to add one more layer. But then three months down the line, your body is more inflamed or you gain more weight and now you are a bit more sad or disappointed. So then you may understand that your definition of health and healthy eating was clear is just not working for what you want. So after a couple of weeks or months, you need to revisit and ask yourself, is this definition of health with this rule that I'm applying for myself, is this working to take me where I want to go? So after we look at these three questions, then you can think about the intricate principles for healthy eating and you'll be looking at things of what do you eat and what don't you eat? Do you have any restrictions of things that are in and things that are out? When do you eat? You eat only when you're hungry, you eat when you feel like for the pleasure of eating, or you have an intermittent fasting scheme schedule. All of this is fine, depending if that matches with your health definition. How much do you eat? Some people eat until they feel 80% satiated. Some people prefer small meals, some people prefer big meals. And then lastly, how rigid are you with these principles? Does this apply 100% of the time or does it apply most of the times? Any answer to these questions is fine as long as you have clear how. What is your definition of health and therefore what does healthy eating mean to you in this context? So this is what I want to ask you in this video. What is your definition of healthy eating and is this working for you at the moment? Or is this something that you think you want to change? Because right now it's clear, but it's not working. Let me know in the comments because we can have this conversation if you want to. To go deeper into this, I'm gonna leave you a link in the description for a whole library of mindvalley courses. Because it can help you increase your awareness. It can help you increase your knowledge about nutrition or even about exercise. That can contribute to your definition of what health and healthy eating means to you. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the comments below. If you know someone that is going through a journey of understanding more, changing their bodies, and improving their health, please share this with them. Because I think this is a conversation that we don't have too often. If you like videos like this, subscribe and hit the bell button so you know when the next one is coming. And until then, I'll talk to you in the comments. I'll see you in the next video. Sam.
