How to Share Nutrition and Safety

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“Nutrition requires nuance—it’s personal.” – Meg Bowman

I’ve spent a good portion of my career helping people organize data in a way so that it is informative. For example, saving a file to a misnamed or wrong location makes the content practically useless. So much of passing on wisdom and goodness requires it to be in context to be helpful.

I’m thinking of context and the bigger picture because of the How to Share podcast episode this week. Vicki Atkinson and I were fortunate enough to talk with licensed nutritionist and author, Meg Bowman. Meg’s newly released book, This is Your Body on Trauma, is incredible because in it she maps out how nutrition is interconnected with our other systems. Meg explains why safety is the most important nutrient for our nervous systems.

She also explains why how you eat is as important as what you eat. She encourages us to understand that we need two strategies at play. One is the toolkit we build for when we are underwater and the second is for when we are feeling safe.

Meg tells us about how to meet our bodies with more care and less judgment. We talk about how this extends to others, especially in the food season we are in with the holidays ahead.

This is a fantastic conversation about a topic that affects us all. As Meg says, when we are well-nourished, it lessens our experience of stress at any age. This is an episode that will leave you feeling satisfied. We know you’ll love it!

Takeaways

  • Safety is the most important nutrient for the nervous system.
  • How you eat is as important as what you eat.
  • Understanding your nervous system state can influence food choices.
  • Food is often a reflection of deeper needs for safety and stability.
  • Nutrition requires a personal and nuanced approach.
  • Creating a safe eating environment can enhance well-being.
  • The FIGS protocol helps assess individual nutritional needs.
  • Storytelling and emotional state impact our relationship with food.
  • Removing shame from food choices is crucial for healing.
  • Self-care should focus on centering individual needs.

Here’s Meg’s compelling elevator pitch for This Is Your Body on Trauma:

Here are some ways you can watch this fascinating and informative episode:

Links for this episode:

How to Share Nutrition and Safety transcript

This Is Your Body on Trauma — Meg Bowman

This Is Your Body on Trauma | Book by Meg Bowman | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster

This Is Your Body on Trauma on Barnes & Noble and Amazon

Nutrition Hive

From the Hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

My book about my beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

(featured photo from Pexels)

58 thoughts on “How to Share Nutrition and Safety”

  3. Thank you Wynne and Vicki for this very insightful conversation with Meg. It is so timely for me as we just set up a checkin with a nutritionist to discuss how we can motivate T as he is such a selective eater and as you know, his disability itself is a form of lifelong trauma.

    So interesting and helpful to hear Meg’s comments around the role nutrition plays in our wellbeing and how resilient we are to face stress. And to be kind with ourselves to remove the shame in food. A good example for us is that research has shown that certain food dyes in processed foods exacerbate disregulation for kids with T’s diagnosis.

    The concept of food as safety – and story as state – is also an interesting one to think about – and how the brain and nervous system sets the tone with food, life and community.

    Wishing you both a good Thanksgiving and holiday ahead – as healthy nutrition will become even more timely and important. We’re in it to win it, indeed!

    Liked by 4 people

    1. As always, Ab, you have such wonderful and interesting feedback. Thank you for your incredible deep listening. I was thinking about Meg’s lens in my approach to feeding my kids. Miss O is a selective eater as well and we’re about to go into those teen years. Keeping it safe whether we are in Trauma or trauma seems so important!

      Thanks for tuning in and the great comment! Hope you all have a great Halloween!

      Liked by 1 person

  5. The the extent that food is connected to safety, I wonder if one can address the food issue without also addressing the world as it is, with a large, terrified population without means to buy good food (or any) food, without nutritional instruction in school, who are facing a loss of SNAP, food deserts, possible loss of medical insurance, and an economy that seems to having trouble, as well.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. It was a good talk, full of helpful tips. I agree with Meg’s approach and try to live with acceptance (the how) as more important than the what for eating and living. In fact, I stopped trying to fix or improve myself about 10 years ago, switching to accepting myself as the highest goal.

        Liked by 2 people

  7. “Safety is the most important nutrient for our nervous systems.” Wow, that’s something I’ll need to chew on. I’m looking forward to listening and learning more.

    Liked by 3 people

  10. Well, Meg’s comment about diabetics often having lived through childhood trauma made me sit up straight, as I am indeed a type 2 diabetic. Wow. It helps me and others to make that connection between your body and how it functions in different states and eating. Completely fascinating, amd Meg’s sincerity and mastery of the subject shines through. Thanks so much for this conversation, Wynne and Vicki.

    Liked by 2 people

  12. I cannot wait to listen to this episode, we know that we carry trauma within our bodies and the food we put in them, is a part of making this better or worse. what a perfect time to be discussing this with food being such an insecurity issue for so many right now

    Liked by 2 people

  13. This is another fantastic interview! In our trauma flooded society, this makes perfect sense: “Safety is the most important nutrient for the nervous system.”
    Also, thank you so much for the takeaways and the link to the transcript. I don’t always get the important points from videos; I understand things better in written form.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. “Safety is the most important nutrient for the nervous system.” – This one stuck with me too, Wynne. I think it is 100% correct, and to be honest I never confronted that fact until now. Very interesting guest and ep.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Very interesting, particularly the how you eat part. During the introduction I assumed this meant something along the lines of fork vs. spoon (or spork if you’re a Renaissance guy like me), but I see it’s so much more than that. Timely, with the holiday food glut approaching!

    Liked by 1 person

  19. I appreciate this post particularly your first paragraph about organizing. The advice I often give students is 1) create a folder for each academic year. 2) Please label your assignments appropriately, for example “Course Name. Title of assignment. Date” the older you will thank you. During my academic years I often labeled assignments “due x date” Yes, helpful in the moment, but not in the long run because one subject often ties in with another which will eventually leave one wasting time hunting down that information and data.   

    Liked by 1 person

  21. I like to be educated about nutrition, too. What we eat affects our overall well-being; hence, it’s so important to observe and choose what’s best. This is a wonderful topic, Wynne.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Okay, this is fascinating. What an intriguing and wholly unique (at least to me) perspective. I’m glad you’ve made this book and author more accessible to the rest of us. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

      1. It does make sense. It’s one of those things that you sort of know but don’t realize you know it until someone says it. Then it clicks like, “Oh yeah…”

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