Reclaiming Body Trust: Reflections from a Dietitian

There are books that you read for information, and then there are books that quietly shift the questions you start asking yourself.

Reclaiming Body Trust: A Path to Healing and Liberation was the latter for me.

While the framework of rupture, reckoning, and reclamation offers a structured way to understand healing from diet culture, what stayed with me most were not the concepts themselves, but the questions they opened up.

Because so much of body image work is not about learning something new.

It’s about noticing what we were taught to accept without questioning.

Control vs Care

One of the reflections I’ve been sitting with is this:

We often mistake control for care.

On the surface, they can look similar—structure, discipline, attention to food, exercise, or body size. But underneath, they feel very different.

Care is responsive. It listens. It adjusts.

Control is rigid. It overrides. It often disconnects us from internal signals in favor of external rules.

And the longer I sit with this distinction, the more I notice how easily our culture blurs the two.

What We Inherit Without Questioning

Many of the thoughts we carry about our bodies did not originate with us.

They were absorbed over time: from family conversations, media messaging, clinical environments, social reinforcement, and industries built around dissatisfaction.

So I find myself asking:

What thoughts about our bodies were never actually ours to begin with?

Not as a way to assign blame, but to create awareness. Because we cannot challenge what we don’t recognize as learned.

The Economics of Disconnection

A harder, but important question:

Who benefits from us staying disconnected from our bodies?

Diet culture is not just an individual experience, it is a system. And systems persist because they are profitable. If we are constantly questioning ourselves, our hunger, our worth, and our bodies, we remain consumers of solutions.

That awareness doesn’t require cynicism, it requires clarity.

Reflection as Practice

Some of the journal prompts I’ve been sitting with:

• Who first taught you that your body was something to fix?

• What did they gain from you believing that?

• What industries profit when you feel like you are never “enough”?

• What would it look like to trust your body more than the rules you were given about it?

These are not questions with quick answers.

They are questions that reveal patterns.

From Control to Trust

Many people don't move from dieting to body trust overnight. Instead, they gradually shift their mindset.

Control says: Follow the rules.

Trust says: Practice flexibility.

Control says: Be perfect.

Trust says: Be consistent.

Control says: Check how your body looks.

Trust says: Notice how your body feels.

Control says: Feel guilty.

Trust says: Get curious.

Control says: Earn your food.

Trust says: Nourish yourself.

Control says: Fear hunger.

Trust says: Trust hunger.

These shifts may seem small, but they can have a profound impact on how we approach nutrition and self-care.

Why Body Trust Matters

Research consistently shows that rigid, restrictive approaches are difficult to maintain long term. When people rely solely on willpower and rules, they often experience cycles of restriction, overeating, guilt, and starting over.

Body trust offers a different path.

When you learn to recognize hunger and fullness, honor cravings without judgment, and make food choices from a place of self-respect, nutrition becomes more sustainable.

Instead of constantly asking, "Am I doing this perfectly?" you begin asking, "What does my body need right now?"

Building Body Trust

Body trust is a skill, not a personality trait.

It develops through small daily practices:

• Eating regularly throughout the day

• Responding to hunger before it becomes overwhelming

• Giving yourself permission to enjoy satisfying foods

• Practicing curiosity instead of self-criticism

• Noticing how foods affect your energy, mood, and fullness

• Letting consistency matter more than perfection

Closing Thought

One of the most important reminders I took from this reading is that healing is not linear. Even as clinicians, educators, or practitioners, we are still unlearning.

We do not arrive at body trust as a destination. We practice it.

And some days, practice looks like awareness. Other days, it looks like returning again and again to the body without judgment.

Both count.