In the world of eating disorder recovery, Intuitive Eating (IE) is often held up as the ultimate “gold standard”—the finish line we are all supposed to be sprinting toward. We can certainly appreciate why. As a framework, IE was game-changing; trailblazers like Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole created a powerful antidote to diet culture that has helped countless people reclaim self-compassion and shift their anger from their bodies toward cultural bias. For many, it is a life-saving tool. But as we dive deeper into the nuance of clinical practice, we have to ask ourselves: by presenting IE as the only “correct” way to recover, are we inadvertently being ableist? Are we setting our most marginalized clients up to fail?
The hard truth is that “trusting your body signals” assumes a world that is safe to inhabit and a body that is safe to feel. As Lucy Aphramor and Maxie Castle poignantly suggest, the concept of intuition often assumes a level of privilege and “sanity” that ignores the reality of trauma. For many of our clients, disconnecting from their body wasn’t a mistake—it was a survival mechanism. In a world that is often fatphobic, transphobic, or inaccessible, the body can feel like a site of conflict rather than a source of wisdom. For these individuals, being told to “just listen to your body” can feel like being asked to return to a house that is currently on fire.
This is why we don’t place Intuitive Eating as the “opposite” of an eating disorder on our spectrum of care. We have to make room for the neurodivergent client whose interoceptive signals are muted or overwhelming, and for whom “mechanical eating” or sensory-seeking routines are actually the safest, most stabilizing tools they have. We must hold space for the trauma survivor whose nervous system is too activated to feel subtle hunger cues, or the person facing food insecurity who cannot simply “eat what they desire” because the pantry is empty. For these clients, using food for dopamine, self-soothing, or eating by a clock isn’t “disordered”—it is a functional, adaptive, and necessary way to navigate an inequitable world.
Our job as practitioners is to move away from one-size-fits-all outcomes and toward true, individualized care. Recovery doesn’t always look like “honoring your hunger” in a sun-drenched kitchen; sometimes it looks like using external prompts to ensure you’re nourished while taking stimulant medication for ADHD, or accepting that your sensory needs mean you eat a limited variety of safe foods. When we let go of the rigid expectation of Intuitive Eating, we open the door to a much broader, more compassionate version of health—one that respects the lived experience of the person sitting right in front of us.
We’re Jo and Christie—Accredited Practising Dietitians and Credentialed Eating Disorder Clinicians with a shared passion for disordered eating, eating disorders and body image work.
Our resources are developed alongside people with lived experience and designed for health professionals who want to deliver high-quality, client-centred care.