Do You Judge Foods As ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’? It Could Be Harming Your Mental Health

Once you notice, there’s no unseeing it: As a culture, we assign moral value to food.

While we refer to fruits, vegetables, and other unprocessed foods with words like “clean,” “pure,” and “honest,” we describe desserts as “sinfully delicious” or “indulgent.” Foods marketed as lower in calories or fat than the originals — banana ice cream or black bean brownies, for example — are “guilt-free.”

“Somehow, we decided that some foods are good and some are bad, and that if we eat them, then our behaviors — and even we as people — are good or bad,” says Jillian Lampert, PhD, RD, vice president of strategy and public affairs for Accanto Health and executive director for The Emily Program Foundation, which provides eating disorder treatment across multiple states.

While many people might not think twice about this kind of labeling — assigning guilt to some foods and purity to others — experts say it’s actually unhealthy to view food through this lens.

But Wait, Isn’t There Such a Thing as Healthy Eating?

Healthy eating is nuanced, and it looks a little bit different for everyone. Certain foods do contain more vitamins and minerals than others, and it’s often beneficial to eat a balance of macronutrients — protein, carbs, and fat, that is.

But the guidelines leave a lot of wiggle room. For example, they recommend limiting your intake of added sugars and saturated fats but don’t recommend avoiding these altogether. They also discuss overall eating habits and food groups rather than labeling specific foods “good” or “bad.”

“Healthy eating depends on your own unique needs,” Dr. Lampert says, giving the example of a mango as a food that’s great for most people, but life-threatening to those who are allergic.

Similarly, sugary drinks aren’t usually the most nutritious choice, but they can be extremely helpful to maintain energy during an endurance sports event or as a way for someone with diabetes to reverse low blood sugar quickly.

Meanwhile, salads are filled with nutrient-dense veggies and other foods. But eating only salad for every meal could lead to deficiencies in other nutrients, like fat and protein, and might even be a sign of disordered eating.

Because of all these complexities, there’s no one way to eat healthfully. Every food has its own nutritional makeup, but no single food is inherently good or bad.

Fatphobia Is Foundational to the Moral Code We’ve Built Around Eating

So when did “good” and “bad” come into the conversation around food?

“Messages we get around ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods and the way morality has been put on food — it’s largely rooted in anti-fat bias and fatphobia,” says Paula Atkinson, LCSW, a private practice psychotherapist based in Palm Springs, California, who focuses on helping people with eating disorders.

“Fatphobia fuels our culture’s belief that a good human is one who keeps their body small,” Atkinson says.

“One of the most profoundly obvious privileges that thin people have is the ability to eat what they want in public without immediate judgment,” Atkinson says. “When I was in a larger body, I felt so much shame for eating an ice cream cone on the street. When I was thinner, I didn’t feel any of that.”

Some examples are more explicit. “I’ve had clients in larger bodies tell me that strangers at the grocery store will comment on what’s in their cart,” Atkinson says.

Where Did Fatphobia Come From?

Sociologist Sabrina Strings, PhD, North Hall Chair of Black Studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara and author of Fearing the Black Body, traces anti-fatness back to European culture in the late 17th and 18th centuries.

The argument: Race scientists and colonists created a link between Blackness and fatness — which wasn't backed by data — to justify enslavement. “They claimed fatness proved a (racialized) lack of self-control,” Dr. Strings explains. By extension, eating less was seen as virtuous, while taking pleasure in food was seen as gluttonous, she says.

Factors Beyond What You Eat Can Affect Body Shape and Size

Morality implies choice. Making the right choices is “good,” and making the wrong choices is “bad.” But some evidence suggests we don’t always have as much control over body size as our culture leads us to believe.

“That means two people could eat and exercise exactly the same way and still have different bodies,” notes Lindsay Wengler, RD, owner of Olive Branch Nutrition in New York City.

Additionally, factors like what you eat and how you exercise aren’t always within your control.

So while most of us make choices every day about food that influence our weight and body size, we’re definitely not choosing from the same buffet of options — nor do the consequences of those choices affect us all in the same ways.

Beating Yourself Up Over Food Choices Can Significantly Harm Mental Health

Judging someone (or yourself) based on how they eat is also incredibly reductive, Lampert says. Whether you choose the salad, sandwich, or pasta dish has no bearing on your worth as a person.

“Viewing food as good or bad tends to create shame and guilt towards consuming certain foods,” Wengler says. But, despite what diet gurus may say, you’re so much more than what you eat.

In fact, fixating on eating a certain way, or berating yourself for not eating a certain way, can come with its own health implications.

“When it comes to mental health, an obsession with ‘good’ foods and ‘bad’ foods is unhealthy,” Atkinson says. For example, feeling shame and guilt every time you eat a burrito or an ice cream cone because you consider them “bad” foods can have a significant negative impact on your mental health.

Orthorexia: When Healthy Eating Becomes a Disorder

Too much focus on eating “good” foods can even be a disorder in and of itself. Orthorexia, a term coined in 1998 to describe obsession with “healthy” eating, is still on the rise, says Wengler.

When we view foods as good or bad, it can create stress and anxiety that make simple tasks like grocery shopping or cooking dinner more difficult, says Wengler. This habit can lead a person further into disordered eating patterns that impact mental health, she adds.

How Do We Take Morality Out of Eating?

One better approach is to give ourselves permission to eat what we want without judgment, and to pay attention to how these foods make us feel during and after eating them, Lambert says. “It’s important to fuel our bodies, and it’s wonderful to enjoy eating.”

But personal mindset shifts alone aren’t enough to fix the problem, because it’s also embedded in the broader culture. “Toxic messages surrounding how we eat and how our bodies look are widespread and integrated into advertising, social media, schools, and even healthcare systems,” Wengler says.

It’s impossible to opt out of all this messaging, and it’s going to take some big cultural changes before we can truly stop thinking about foods as good or bad. Then, the highest levels of influential industries like advertising and social media will have to reflect those changes.

In the meantime, try tuning out some of those messages by giving yourself permission to eat the foods you want and paying attention to how they make you feel.

The Takeaway

• Classifying foods as “good” or “bad” assigns moral values to foods rather than seeing them as inherently neutral.
• Viewing food through a moral lens creates shame and guilt around eating, which can contribute to eating disorders and other mental health conditions.
• It’s possible to move beyond this type of thinking — you can start by focusing on how foods make you feel physically rather than emotionally.