01/20/2026
You know what I have NEVER heard from a client….
Can you help me fit the dietary guidelines into my daily life?
The truth is the dietary guidelines ALWAYS miss the hardest part of eating. While there is much debate over the newly issued pyramid, the conversations around beef tallow, butter and grains are somewhat irrelevant to me as a practicing RD. While the guidelines themselves are designed to improve public health by influencing what we eat by outlining nutrients and dietary patterns generally associated with better health, they largely ignore the very things most people ACTUALLY struggle with around food.
✅ They say almost nothing about when we eat : irregular schedules, late-night eating, biological rhythms.
✅ Very little about how we eat: slowing down, chewing, digestion, eating in a regulated state.
✅ And virtually nothing about why we eat: stress, emotions, habits, comfort, reward, identity.
Instead, the message many people absorb is simple:
There’s a right way to eat and a wrong way to eat.
And if you’re doing it “wrong,” it can start to feel like you are wrong.
That’s where shame enters the picture.
Shame about body size.
Shame about “willpower.”
Shame about being “bad” with food.
Here’s the part we don’t talk about enough:
Shame is not a motivator. It’s one of the biggest barriers to lasting behavior change.
Most people don’t struggle with nutrition because they lack information.
They struggle because food is tied to stress, nervous system regulation, emotions, habits, and real life.
If we want better health outcomes, we have to move beyond just telling people what to eat and start addressing how, when, and why they eat WITHOUT JUDGEMENT.
Health doesn’t start with eating perfectly.
It starts when people stop feeling like they’ve already failed.
