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Mindful Eating vs Body Positivity: Finding a Balanced Approach
- Shawn Mackin
- 12 minutes ago
- 7 min read
I want to talk about this because there is a lot of debate online between body positivity and the anti diet culture that is important to talk about. The problem is many don’t hear it because all they see is the incorrect parts of the industry. So I want to talk about it because there is truth to the anti body positivity movement and truth to the body positivity movement and my goal is to find the wisdom and let what’s true be what we follow.
1. What Body Positivity Gets Right: Diet Culture Is Damaging
Body positivity is right here. Diet Culture is damaging. Mentally, it makes people focus on numbers, focus on meals, times and following rules that are stated by others rather than listening to the body and letting the body dictate what is best.
Restricting food for the sake of weight loss is also incredibly damaging. Seeking a picture in our head from billboards, advertisements, and influencers, are not healthy motivators. Motivators shouldn’t be needed to stop us from eating foods that disrupt our upbringing and culture. If a diet forces you to change everything about your life, such as, hangouts with your friends, deny other healthy habits like reading scripture in the morning to go to the gym, are also not beneficial in the long run for you.
The diet world also makes your body the “goal”. And what a lonely goal it is. We chase a nice looking body that requires you to eat only meat, certain veggies, hours in the gym, to go home to what? A mirror to look at yourself in? Sure you look good, but where is the rest of your life? What about travel? That will disrupt the diet. Travel will disrupt your workout. What about starting a family? Marriage and family is a whole different world than being single and having 4 hours to dedicate to perfect meal preps and 2.5 hour workouts everyday.
What is the point of having a nice body? Just to look good in a mirror? To get complements from others? Now I personally believe having a healthy BMI has meaning but not in the way the diet industry glamorizes. The body positivity industry sees that many diets create anxiety, disordered thinking, and a constant sense of not being enough.
That critique is valid.
2. Where Body Positivity Can Drift: Acceptance vs. Avoidance
Body positivity did something important.
It reminded people that their worth is not measured in pounds. It pushed back against the idea that thinness equals virtue and weight gain equals failure. It exposed the damage of shame-based motivation and the obsession with shrinking ourselves to be more acceptable.
That was necessary.
But there is a subtle place where the message can drift.
Acceptance is powerful. Avoidance is not.
There is a difference between rejecting shame and rejecting health conversations altogether. Human dignity is not tied to body size — but body size can still influence health outcomes. Severe obesity is associated with higher risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, joint degeneration, sleep apnea, and reduced mobility. These are not moral judgments. They are physiological realities.
We do not help people by shaming them. But we also do not help people by pretending risk does not exist.
True compassion tells the truth gently.
When acceptance turns into silence around health, we move from empowerment into passivity. And that does not serve anyone in the long run.
It is possible to say:
“You are worthy as you are.”
And also say:
“Your body deserves care.”
Those two statements are not enemies.
There is a difference between body respect and body denial.
And navigating that difference requires honesty, not hostility.
3. What Anti–Body Positivity Gets Right: Health Matters
If we want to have an honest conversation, we also have to acknowledge why some people push back strongly against body positivity.
Their concerns are not always rooted in cruelty or judgment. Often, they are reacting to very real health trends that are difficult to ignore.
Rates of metabolic disease have risen dramatically in recent decades. Conditions like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, joint degeneration, and cardiovascular disease are becoming more common and appearing at younger ages. These conditions can affect mobility, quality of life, and long-term health.
When people see these trends, they naturally ask questions about lifestyle, nutrition, and body weight.
Health matters.
Bodies are resilient, but they are also biological systems. They respond to how we eat, how we move, how we sleep, and how we live. Ignoring that reality doesn’t make the body more free — it simply disconnects us from important feedback.
The concern many critics raise is that if we only talk about acceptance without also talking about health, we risk losing the motivation to care for the body at all.
But this is where the conversation often goes wrong.
Concern for health can quickly turn into shame. And shame has never been a sustainable driver of change. It may produce short bursts of discipline, but it rarely produces long-term peace or stability.
So the question is not whether health matters.
The question is how we pursue health without turning it into another form of body hatred.
And that is where mindful eating offers a different path.
4. Where Anti–Body Positivity Fails: Shame Is Not Sustainable
If we want to have an honest conversation, we also have to acknowledge why some people push back strongly against body positivity.
Their concerns are not always rooted in cruelty or judgment. Often, they are reacting to very real health trends that are difficult to ignore.
Rates of metabolic disease have risen dramatically in recent decades. Conditions like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, joint degeneration, and cardiovascular disease are becoming more common and appearing at younger ages. These conditions can affect mobility, quality of life, and long-term health.
When people see these trends, they naturally ask questions about lifestyle, nutrition, and body weight.
Health matters.
Bodies are resilient, but they are also biological systems. They respond to how we eat, how we move, how we sleep, and how we live. Ignoring that reality doesn’t make the body more free — it simply disconnects us from important feedback.
The concern many critics raise is that if we only talk about acceptance without also talking about health, we risk losing the motivation to care for the body at all.
But this is where the conversation often goes wrong.
Concern for health can quickly turn into shame. And shame has never been a sustainable driver of change. It may produce short bursts of discipline, but it rarely produces long-term peace or stability.
So the question is not whether health matters.
5. The Alternative: Mindful Eating
Both sides of the conversation are reacting to something real.
Diet culture created an unhealthy obsession with shrinking the body. Endless counting, restriction, and sacrifice promised happiness but rarely delivered it.
Body positivity pushed back against that harm by reminding people that their worth is not determined by their weight.
But when the conversation swings fully to either side, something important can get lost.
One side tries to control the body. The other risks ignoring what the body may actually need.
This is where mindful eating offers a different path.
Mindful eating does not start with shame, and it does not start with denial. It starts with awareness.
Instead of asking, “What does the plan say?” the question becomes, “What is my body communicating?”
Hunger, energy, digestion, satisfaction, and even emotional state all provide information. The body is constantly giving feedback, but many of us have spent years learning to override those signals in favor of external rules.
Mindful eating invites us to rebuild that relationship.
It doesn’t require obsessive tracking. It doesn’t glorify unhealthy patterns. It doesn’t treat the body as a project to fix.
Instead, it treats the body as something to understand and care for.
Health is still valued. Nutrition still matters. Movement still matters. But the motivation shifts from punishment to stewardship.
When we begin listening again, something interesting happens. Food stops being the enemy, and the body stops being a problem to solve.
It becomes something we can work with instead of something we are constantly fighting against.
And that shift — from control or denial to awareness — is where many people finally begin to find peace.
Conclusion: Finding a Better Way Forward
The conversation around body size and health has become deeply polarized.
On one side, diet culture taught us that the body must be controlled, restricted, and constantly improved in order to be worthy. On the other side, body positivity tried to restore dignity and acceptance, pushing back against years of shame and obsession.
Both movements are reacting to something real.
But when the conversation becomes extreme in either direction, we can lose something important: the ability to simply listen to our own body.
The body was never meant to be managed entirely by rules, nor ignored entirely in the name of acceptance. It was meant to be understood.
Mindful eating is not about perfection. It is not about having the “right” body. It is about learning to pay attention again — to hunger, to satisfaction, to energy, to how food actually feels in your life.
That kind of awareness takes time to rebuild. Many of us have spent years following plans, counting numbers, or trying to silence the signals our bodies were giving us.
So the real question may not be which side of the debate is correct.
The question may be this:
What would change if you began trusting your body again?
If this perspective resonates with you and you’d like to explore these ideas further, I share more about the principles of mindful eating and how to rebuild that relationship with food in my book:
And if you’d prefer to continue exploring these ideas slowly, you can also subscribe to receive future articles as I write more about mindful eating, health, and learning to reconnect with the body.
However you choose to continue, the goal isn’t another plan.
The goal is learning to listen again.
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