Most people who struggle with food believe the real problem is their body. They think they're too fat, too unhealthy, not toned enough. The solution, we’re told, is to lose weight, tighten up, eat cleaner. And then—finally—we’ll feel happy. At peace. Comfortable in our skin.

But after more than 40 years of working with people with eating problems, I can tell you: that promise doesn’t hold up.

If weight loss were the ticket to joy, we’d get happier with every pound shed. But no program says, “Lose 50% of the weight and gain 50% more happiness.” You only get to feel good once you hit the goal weight. And what happens when you do?

You lower the goal. Move the target. Because the discomfort doesn’t leave—it just shapeshifts. The food worry and body shame still hum beneath the surface. And often, it simply continues as an all consuming preoccupation.

What’s Behind Food and Body Angst

Over the years, I’ve come to believe that struggles with food—even the belief that “I must eat healthy”—are rarely about food. Same goes for body dissatisfaction. These are symptoms. Symbols. Clues pointing toward something deeper.

I first stumbled upon this idea back in 1984, when I read Breaking Free from Emotional Eating by Geneen Roth. In it, she writes:

“What is happening on your plate is happening in your life.”

At the time, it sounded strange. But I soon saw how true it was.

That idea changed everything for me. I began looking at eating issues through a symbolic lens—asking not just about food and weight, but what were those struggles standing in for?

Eventually, this led me to pursue a PhD in Symbolic Anthropology*. I wanted to explore the idea that food and body concerns could be decoded to reveal the real, often hidden, emotional or existential hungers beneath them.

And here’s what I found: they can. Even among women who didn't have clinical eating disorders, food and body struggles were rich with meaning. The surface-level distress almost always mirrored something deeper: grief, longing, fear, a sense of inadequacy, a yearning to feel worthy.

Here’s an example.

What Does It Mean When a Person "Can't Say No to Food?"

Let’s take a situation most of us have dealt with; for instance, having difficulty saying “no” to food when you are full. You want to quit eating, but can't. You blame yourself that you are weak-willed and ramp up your control. Or try to avoid these situations.

When you ramp up your control to “do better,” you miss the opportunity to transform the situation - to change your relationship with food, so that the issue quits presenting itself. If you “decode” what is happening, the transformations come more easily.

Each situation is deeply personal, but let’s generalize.

If you have a hard time saying “no” to food when your body has had enough, chances are you also find it difficult to say no in life. You may be afraid of hurting someone else’s feelings, or afraid of the repercussions. You find yourself saying, “Sure I can make something for the bake sale,” or “No problem, I’ll take care of that,” or “Of course I’ll do that for you,” when you do not have the time or energy.

If you are unable to say, for instance, "No, I won't be able to stay late tonight," or “I’m so sorry, but I won’t be able to do that,” or "No, I can't help you with that now, I've scheduled some downtime for myself," you become depleted. In this depleted state, as your body seeks rest and replenishment, a deep "hungering" may arise as a normal consequence.

It is easy to confuse this hungering for physical hunger. But because food is not what you are actually hungry for, no amount of food will be enough, despite your efforts to care for yourself by eating.

And so, of course, you will not feel "full."

If you try to stick to an eating plan, you may miss the opportunity to explore underlying issues, which can also make it more difficult to heal emotional eating. These underlying issues can persist and, as in the example above, mimic physical hungers, making it harder to control your eating.

Therefore, the work of detecting and responding to physical hunger or fullness must include tuning in to your unmet needs on an emotional and spiritual level. Food and body angst is a signal that something off balance in your life. In the situation above, you may find you need to tend to your needs—with strong boundaries and mutually respectful "no’s" to others and "yeses" to yourself. An eating plan may distract you, but your needs are still there.

When you are able to avoid mental, emotional, physical or spiritual depletion by saying "no" in life, it becomes much easier to say: "No thank you, I don’t want more food, I’m satisfied.” And then it becomes easier to walk away from food when you are done.

Food and body angst is a signal that something is off balance in your life, and can always be decoded! When you do decode it, you will find it much easier to reach your eating and weight related goals.

When you learn to decode food and body angst, you will discover that your discontent is actually a beacon guiding you to learn more about yourself. A way of discovering more about yourself. Decoding is a wonderful tool to help you stay on target in your life.

* What is Symbolic Anthropology?

My PhD studies in symbolic anthropology changed my approach to nutrition counseling. Symbolic anthropology is the study of how people create meaning out of their experiences or construct their own concept of reality through the use of shared cultural symbols, such as myths or body language. A culture's unique combination of cultural symbols — and their meanings — creates meaning for the individual, which in turn prompts that individual to react in culturally specific ways to symbolic behavior and communication

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