Jon Barr’s Reviews > Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach > Status Update

Chapter 6 covers the first of 10 Principles, "Reject the Diet Mentality." Included in this chapter is the first mention of an IE journal, which I'm glad to hear of. The amount of introspection necessary to carry of this method will certainly require a means of tracking your feelings. The authors also clarify their definition of "diet" painting with broad strokes to include a variety of strategies.

Chapter 5 outlines the stages of becoming an Intuitive Eater. Along the way the authors make sure to further demonize dieting at every chance. In this 9 page chapter alone, dieting is to blame for: your belief that your weight is a measure of your worth, pressuring you to meet unrealistic goals, feeling stuck, frustrated and discouraged, disconnecting you from your internal eating drive and true food preferences, etc

Chapter 4 quickly introduces the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating. These range from the terrific "Feel Your Fullness" advising the reader to stop eating when they're full to the self-defeating "Movement - Feel the Difference" which advocates regressing your exercise routine to simple movement. Exercise without a plan is a waste of time and will get no results, so suggesting removing the science is bad advice.

The authors are beginning to slowly replace common terminology with more gentle words and phrases. If they had a glossary explaining these terms or at least parenthetically explained their usage, that would be fine. Instead, it feels sneaky when the terms "overweight" or "obese" are suddenly replaced by "people in larger bodies." I have no problem with the phrase, but it feels like I'm being tricked.

The end of Chapter 1 - "The Science Behind Intuitive Eating" features a chart summarizing the research findings of characteristics of Intuitive Eating. In two columns, they list "Intuitive Eaters Have Lower" and "Intuitive Eaters Have Higher." Combined, there are 20 characteristics. Only 4 (20%) are quantitative factors (lower triglycerides, lower blood pressure, higher variety of foods eaten, higher HDL).

Chapter 1 - "The Science Behind Intuitive Eating" recounts a multitude of studies that support the idea. However, most of these studies rely on self-reported feelings and emotions. Only two mentions of measurable data (BMI in both cases.) I understand IE is not about weight control (the idea is demonized repeatedly) but if you're writing a chapter about Science, there must be some math involved.