Abundance vs. Scarcity Nutrition
Often when I talk to people about food and nutrition, especially about their relationship with food, I notice one of two underlying lenses: abundance or scarcity. Where you are on this continuum likely affects the way you approach any dietary change, so here’s the case for you to move towards an abundance perspective with food.
When you view food as a source of nutrients, joy, satisfaction, socializing, mastery, and experimentation, you can address dietary changes for your health in positive ways. But when you hold a scarcity mindset (think fad diets, fasting, negative body image, having feelings of guilt and shame about certain foods), “nutrition” becomes a form of self-punishment. A scarcity mindset is unlikely to improve your health, and can be harmful (as in the case of an eating disorder).
There are lots of factors outside your control that influence where you are on this continuum right now. Social factors like income, education, social groups and norms, childhood experiences, and access to safe food and water can all affect your relationship with food and your ability to cultivate an abundance mentality. That said, many of the people I talk to are food secure, yet hold a scarcity mentality when it comes to nutrition. Instead of focusing on the nutrients available in all foods, diet culture emphasizes all the things you can’t, or shouldn’t eat—often with no evidence to support the recommended restriction. When I transitioned from public health to private practice, I suddenly realized how many people are unnecessarily avoiding dairy, gluten, sugar, soy, etc, etc, all because the food culture around us has become slanted towards scarcity. Taken to its conclusion, scarcity nutrition demands that you don’t eat at all, and calls it “intermittent fasting.” I’m not sure exactly why scarcity nutrition and food avoidance have become so prevalent lately—there are many possibilities including the isolating nature of the pandemic, and increasingly click-baity and reductive online environments. Dietitian Christy Harrison speculates in her book Anti-Diet that the food rituals of diet culture may even be replacing the rituals and routines of religion for some people.
Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of valid reasons to moderate some foods or nutrients for your health. People working to improve their cholesterol levels, or help their child avoid food allergens are motivated to optimize their health. There are also probably a ton of ultra-processed foods in your environment, and if you’re under-nourished/dieting, they’ll seem irresistable. This might lead you to believe you have a sugar addiction, for example, when really your brain just needs more glucose. There are also signs that the pandemic and the ongoing demands of isolation have played a significant role in disordered eating, and what I’ve called scarcity nutrition. This makes sense: most people enjoy eating with other people, and eating alone is hard. The psychology of food restriction is that often the foods you’ve labelled as forbidden are the foods you most desire. The more you view food from the lens of scarcity, the more you’ll likely focus on food, adding more and more rules, and feeling worse whenever you inevitably break them.
On the other end of this continuum, nutrition abundance can allow you to relax around food, reflect on your diet overall instead of fixating on specific foods, and become less critical of yourself. There’s even research evidence that when you enjoy your food, you get more nutritional benefit from it. Abundance nutrition means you recognize the need to eat food regularly to match your hunger levels, that you have minimal feelings of guilt or shame about your diet, can appreciate what your body does for you (even when things go wrong), and that you can recognize and ignore messages from diet culture. Getting some perspective on healthy eating can be so helpful in making space for other things in life that you care about.
If you feel like you’re trapped in diet culture and a scarcity mindset, here are a few things to try:
Let go of black-and-white or perfectionist thinking when it comes to food. And in life in general :)
Read and re-read the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating.
Know that diet culture (especially wellness influencers on social media) greatly exaggerates claims. Be skeptical, and remember the general rule that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Don’t feel bad about falling for false information on the internet. It’s increasingly difficult to navigate nutrition information, even in mainstream media.
If you come across a new finding or dietary change you want to try, consider how much it’s asking of you, what the benefits and drawbacks would be, and how much it would disrupt your life.
Remember that nutrition works gradually over time, and it’s best to aim for long-term healthy habits rather than extreme but short-lived changes.
Check in with a registered dietitian. We’re trained specifically to assess nutrition information and weigh different kinds of evidence within the context of individual lives.
Consider whether the claim is framed in terms of abundance or scarcity. Examples below.
Examples of red flags for nutrition scarcity:
“10 foods you should never eat”
“Hack your body’s hunger by…”
“Hidden sources of toxins you eat every day”
Do yourself (and your body) a favour and skip this kind of fear-mongering content.
Examples of nutrition abundance content:
“Tips for getting more fibre on a busy schedule”
“Appreciating your post-partum body”
“Foods to support your workout”
It’s hard to embrace an abundance mindset if you’ve adopted many food fears over time. One of my favourite things as a dietitian is helping people loosen unnecessary food restrictions, so remember that I’m here to help!
