Mindful vs Intuitive Eating: What’s the Difference?
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Whenever I think of mindful eating, I think about a time when I was in a class and was asked to do a mindfulness exercise using a chocolate chip. In all honesty, I found the activity frustrating because the teacher was having us slow down to the point where the chocolate chip in my mouth was melting faster than I was allowed to get even one satisfying bite in. Alas, the point was to notice the taste, observe what our bodies felt, and observe any thoughts, emotions, and urges without judgment.
The point of slowing down is to notice and gain more awareness, and there’s a big place for this in intuitive eating. But there are some differences between mindful eating and intuitive eating.
This post is the 5th article in our guide to intuitive eating. You can find more information in this guide by visiting these links:
What's the Difference Between Mindful and Intuitive Eating?
The difference is that mindful eating is a broader concept, while intuitive eating is a specific approach to healing our relationships with food and body, as well as healing from diet culture. Mindful eating to me is more like the chocolate chip experiment, but it also doesn’t have to be exactly that, or done that slowly! Intuitive eating is more comprehensive, and brings in a lot of mindfulness concepts.
The concept of mindfulness originates from buddhism, but became more mainstream when Jon Kabat-Zinn put together a mindfulness program aimed at treating illness and stress. Since then this concept of mindfulness has been expanded on and commercialized, and mindful eating has been used in research and different eating programs including weight loss programs. If you’ve read any of my posts, you can probably predict that I don’t abide by any mindful eating program aimed at weight loss.
Mindful eating concepts are woven throughout intuitive eating, because mindful eating includes being present with the eating process as well as your body. And intuitive eating definitely includes nonjudgmental awareness of body sensations and eating behaviors.
How Mindful Eating and Intuitive Eating are Similar
Mindful eating and intuitive eating are similar in that they both involve bringing your attention to what’s happening in the here and now, without judgment.
An example of using mindfulness to approach eating could be:
Diffusing from your thoughts and emotions (“my food thoughts/feelings” don’t define me), acceptance of body cues, and being present to what is happening right in front of you (hunger/fullness cues, what the food looks and tastes like…)
The intuitive eating approach uses concepts from mindful eating including:
Paying attention to how you feel physically and emotionally with food
Tuning into (without judgment) to body cues
Acceptance, but focused more on one’s body and body size/type
So yes, there's crossover! And depending on the person, using a mindfulness approach to eating might be sufficient for someone to feel like their relationship with food/body has improved. But from my experience, for people with eating disorders, histories of chronic dieting and high levels of shame with eating/body, intuitive eating offers more healing because it addresses more of the common stuck points.
Benefits of Mindful and Intuitive Eating
It seems that the specific research on mindful eating practices (which is defined differently depending on the research study) varies and can be somewhat inconclusive. That said, there are observed benefits associated with mindful eating including:
Improvements in binge eating
Improvements in eating in response to hunger/fullness cues
Intuitive eating has pretty extensive research behind it. Some of the associated benefits observed with intuitive eating include:
Improvements in binge eating
Improvements in lab work like blood sugar and LDL cholesterol
Decreased weight cycling/more stable weight over time
Improvements in mental health and self esteem
Less disordered eating like fasting and meal skipping
How to Practice Mindful or Intuitive Eating
I suggest practicing mindful eating as a part of the intuitive eating process. Here are some simple ways to incorporate mindful and intuitive eating:
Before you begin eating a meal or snack, take your attention to your body and see if you can notice where your hunger lies.
For example, on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being really full, and 0 being empty, where are you? Where in your body do you feel this?
Acknowledge (without judgment!) what sounds best to eat as you approach your next snack. Don’t fight or judge the answer!
While eating something you typically feel more out of control eating, slow down to notice how the food tastes as you continue eating it. Hold back judgements, just notice the tastes, if they change, and how your body feels throughout the process of eating it.
If you are interested in learning more, consider my other blogs on intuitive eating, as well as my online course for restricting and binging. And no, I won’t be asking you to slowly eat a chocolate chip ;)
References:
Tapper K. (2022). Mindful eating: what we know so far. Nutrition bulletin, 47(2), 168–185. https://doi.org/10.1111/nbu.12559
Smitham, L. 2008. Evaluating an Intuitive Eating Program for Binge Eating Disorder: A Benchmarking Study. University of Notre Dame, Dissertation. 26 November 2008.
Quansah D, Gilbert L, Gross J, Horsch, A, Puder J (2019). Intuitive eating is associated with improved health indicators at 1-year postpartum in women with gestational diabetes mellitus. J Health Psychol doi: 10.1177/1359105319869814
Quansah D, Gross,J, Gilbert L, Helbling C, Horsch, A, Puder J (2019). Intuitive eating is associated with weight and glucose control during pregnancy and in the early postpartum period in women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM): A clinical cohort study. Eat Behav 2019 Aug;34:101304.
Mensinger JL, Calogero RM, Stranges S, Tylka TL (2016).. A weight-neutral versus weight-loss approach for health promotion in women with high BMI: A randomized-controlled trial. Appetite. Oct 1;105:364-74. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2016.06.00
Hazzard, V. M., Telke, S. E., Simone, M., Anderson, L. M., Larson, N. I., & Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2021). Intuitive eating longitudinally predicts better psychological health and lower use of disordered eating behaviors: findings from EAT 2010-2018. Eating and weight disorders : EWD, 26(1), 287–294. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-020-00852-4
Warren, J. M., Smith, N., & Ashwell, M. (2017). A structured literature review on the role of mindfulness, mindful eating and intuitive eating in changing eating behaviours: effectiveness and associated potential mechanisms. Nutrition research reviews, 30(2), 272–283. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954422417000154
