“Nourishing Your Body and Soul”: A Review of Why Am I Eating This? Is This the Nourishment I Need? (2nd ed.) by Sandy Robertson, RN, MSN, CHTP, CMIP

(Self-published, 2009/2023). ISBN: 979-8-85775-271-5

In 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report with the following statistics on the prevalence of obesity in America: 39.8% among adults aged 20 to 39 years, 44.3% among adults aged 40 to 59 years, and 41.5% among adults aged 60 and older.

The CDC defines obesity as a Body Mass Index of 30 or above.

A few weeks ago, I reviewed a book linking eating disorders with past life traumas. As I say in that review, although the case studies are compelling and the past life exercises had a lot of value, the first step is to explore what is happening in your current life that may be leading to overeating.

Why Am I Eating This? provides resources for those ready to find answers to the question posed in my review. This is a new, expanded edition, covering cutting-edge topics such as the gut–brain connection. It offers additional questions Robertson has devised since the book’s original release in 2009.

Using words like obesity can sometimes be fraught. Positive body image is a genuine approach to life. What I like about Robertson’s approach, which reflects her background as a nurse and other credentials, is that it centers on health issues. This is not so much about how you look but how you feel, health wise. It seems clear from decades of medical studies that extra weight puts a strain on our hearts, other organs, and skeletal structure, and leads to a variety of diseases and, sometimes, premature death.

As an advocate for storytelling outside the worlds of theatre and film using techniques and data from neurosciences, psychology, and spirituality, I love that Robertson focuses on self-awareness, attention, and mindfulness. This is not a book about diet fads and strict physical discipline and exercise as cure-alls. Instead, this approach puts you in conversation with you, asking questions like the one in the title. 

Building on the need for self-awareness, attention, and mindfulness, Chapter 2 asks a series of What If? questions, which are the start of telling any story… most importantly here, your own.

Ensuing chapters look at fundamental aspects of the compulsion to overeat. The first is cultural. Growing up Sicilian, food was the center of everything. Not eating, even when you were not hungry, was an insult to the cook and by extension to the family.

Family dynamics are another powerful driver in overeating. Maternal pressure to look a certain way causes many teenage girls to develop eating disorders, often with serious, lifelong consequences. Parents use food to impose authority—not leaving the table until you cleared your plate, eating things you do not like, and getting sent to bed without supper were all prevalent in my family. Eating peas or finishing what is put in front of you might not be terrible on their own, but this weaponization of food can lead to rebellion—eating what you want (and too much of it!) or refusing to eat at all. When families use food to manage their power structures and dynamics, harmful things occur.

Eating to manage emotions is another unhealthy aspect, which often stems from the two above.

After giving us this information, Robertson poses a series of questions, such as, What does food mean to me? She offers abundant bulleted and numbered lists to guide your exploration after sharing her personal experiences. Just asking these questions and answering honestly slows the eating process enough to get you started. Instead of reaching for another Dorito, ask a couple of questions.

Proceeding through the book, there are exercises paired with meditations, and plenty of lined spaces to journal about the questions you encounter. This is a powerful triadic approach. Ask, reflect, act, ask, reflect, act…  With each triadic set with which you engage, you dive a little deeper. Your history begins to unfold, further illuminating the unhealthy aspects of why, when, and what you are eating.

By half way, Robertson introduces us to positive psychology, self-talk, and other tools to facilitate the process of discovery, such as practicing gratitude.

Having helped the reader to generate data and insights regarding one’s relationship to food and signs of unhealthy eating, Robertson guides us through the design of an Eating Blueprint, with additional journaling opportunities and a powerful meditation/visualization.

Chapter 8 features the second edition material. New questions and reflections help you slow down even more and make considered decisions about what goes in your grocery cart, mouth, and body. The big message is Food Is Fuel. Eat what you need to run your body. After all, we have all heard that the best way to lose weight and maintain a healthy BMI is by burning more calories than you take in.

I am a believer in HeartMath Institute’s message that the heart has a much more powerful energy field and greater “wisdom” than the brain. I can now pair this message with the growing research on the gut–brain connection. Mood and emotional health depend in part on diet. Although I cannot go into specifics due to rules for content matter and medical claims, I have seen vast improvement in my cognitive capacity, physical stamina, and levels of stress by attending to what is happening in my digestive system after a long illness and its prolonged effects that recently affected the global population.

Again, without specifics, I can say Robertson offers suggestions for specific foods for gut health.

If you are curious about or practice intermittent fasting (I have for nearly a decade), there is valuable information provided.

In the final pages of Why Am I Eating This? Robertson focuses on the importance of Self-Care. There are other kinds of nourishment than food. Remember… nature abhors a vacuum—you will need to replace food with healthier emotional nourishment. By the end of the book—after working through the journaling, exercises, and meditations and creating your Eating Blueprint—you will have the tools and inner wisdom you need to make excellent choices about what, why, and when you are eating.