Your Body Knows Best!

بواسطة بنك الطعام في هيوستن

يوليو 24, 2026

A young girl prepares to eat her lunch.
A young girl prepares to eat her lunch.

Your Body Knows Best!

Food and Culture

Written by: Abigail Nguyen, UH Intern Spring 2026

From messages like “don’t eat too much” or “finish everything on your plate,” many of us grow up hearing external rules about eating, even though our bodies already provide helpful signals for when to eat and when to stop. Honor Your Hunger and Feel Your Fullness, from the Principles of Intuitive Eating, help us to connect to and understand those signals. When we learn to listen to our hunger and fullness cues, we can prevent overeating and undereating, reduce food related stress, and make meals feel more satisfying. This approach supports an overall healthier relationship with food and mental and physical wellbeing.

Your Body Knows Best - Hunger

Recognize hunger: Pay attention to your body’s physical signals and eat when it asks for food.

Example: “My stomach is starting to growl and I feel low on energy, that means it is time to eat!”

Your Body Knows Best - Eating

Recognize fullness: Check in with yourself during a meal, ask yourself if your body feels satisfied.

Example: “I am noticing that my stomach feels uncomfortably satisfied and the food isn’t as appealing as it was when I first started eating.”

BodyKnowsBest 600x500 emotions

Allow emotions without food: Food can often be used as a coping mechanism to daily stressors. Instead, talk to a friend, take a walk, journal, or meditate to help process these emotions.

Example: “I notice that I want to eat a snack every time I have a stressful day, but I know I’m not hungry so I decided to write in my journal instead.”

Your Body Knows Best - Satisfied

Respect your body: Being kind and respectful to yourself can support healthier habits. Self-compassion = healthier food choices = supports overall well-being.

Example: “I choose foods that nourish my body and avoid negative self-talk!”

Hunger might show up physically as a growling stomach, fatigue, headache, or an irritable feeling. Or it can show up emotionally, the stomach is quiet but there is a desire for food based on anger or stress, or even driven by external cues like seeing food on the television. Fullness can also be physical or emotional, you may feel satisfaction in your stomach, or you may simply notice that food doesn’t taste as “exciting” as it did the first few bites. Busy schedules, diet rules, stress, or inconsistent access to food can make it harder to stay connected to body signals. Over time the food-brain disconnect may lead to eating past fullness or skipping meals until we feel overly hungry. Instead of focusing on strict rules, the ideas associated with the principles of Honor Your Hunger and Feel Your Fullness encourage curiosity and awareness and remind us that it is always possible to reconnect with our bodies one step at a time!