Untangling Food, Trauma, and the Body: A Compassionate Path to Healing
If eating has ever felt confusing, overwhelming, or tangled with past experiences, this piece will help you understand your body with more compassion and clarity.
For many people food is comfort, connection and tradition.
But for others, especially trauma survivors’, food can be one of the most emotionally complicated parts of life.
As a trauma therapist, I often see clients who struggle with eating patterns that don’t make logical sense but make perfect nervous-system sense. When your earliest experiences with food were tied to fear, shame, control or unpredictability, your body learns that eating is not safe. It carries that learning into adulthood. This is food trauma. And it’s far more common than we talk about.
“Trust me, I’ve tried to talk about this outside the therapy room with friends, family, and even within my own cultural circles. You guessed it, the conversation almost always shifts to weight, diets, or ‘trying harder.’ And to be honest, I’ve lived in that mindset far too often myself. I’ve blamed myself for not losing weight fast enough or regaining it, for struggling with digestion, or for having sensitivities I couldn’t explain. I didn’t realize for a long time that trauma was part of the picture, that my body wasn’t failing, it was protecting me. So many of us have been taught to view food struggles as a matter of willpower when in reality they’re often a reflection of what we’ve lived through.”
Growing Up When Food Came With Rules, Scarcity, and Fear
I grew up in a time when many households required kids to “clean their plate,” regardless of hunger cues. Adults decided the portions, and children were expected to eat without questioning preferences, texture sensitivities or fullness.
We were also very poor. Food wasn’t always predictable, and “being picky” wasn’t allowed. I had genuine texture struggles, but in a survival focused household, those needs weren’t understood.
On top of that, my stepfather battled mental health and addiction challenges. In that environment, mealtimes weren’t always safe or predictable. Sometimes compliance wasn’t just about finishing dinner, it was about staying protected. The table became a place of tension rather than nourishment for me. I share this gently, without graphic details, because so many people carry similar stories in silence. Those stories matter. You are not alone.
What Is Food Trauma?
Food trauma happens when eating is paired with moments of:
anger or violence in the home
humiliation or criticism during meals
forced eating or punishment involving food
being shamed for weight, appetite, or body size
sensory overwhelm without support
food scarcity, neglect, or unpredictable access to meals
being pressured to “clean your plate,” ignore fullness, or override hunger cues
chaotic or high-conflict mealtimes
a lack of safety during meals
For a child, food is supposed to be safe and nurturing. When it becomes a setting for harm, the body learns:
“Eating is dangerous. My needs are dangerous and unimportant. Nourishment is dangerous.”
These beliefs are stored not just in memory but in the nervous system. They can re-emerge decades later, even when the threat is gone or they may be a familiar daily companion.
How Food Trauma Shows Up Later in Life
You may recognize:
anxiety around eating
having “safe foods”
losing appetite under stress
bingeing or “emotional eating”
avoiding mealtimes
texture sensitivities
stomach pain, nausea, or reflux during meals
eating too quickly
guilt or shame after eating
struggling during holidays or food-centered events
These are not personal failures. These are protective responses shaped by earlier experiences.
Food, Trauma, and Hyp0-arousal: Why We Turn to Eating When We’re “Below” Our Window of Tolerance
Food isn’t only connected to trauma from childhood or mealtime experiences; it also becomes a way many survivors cope with the nervous system dropping into hypo-arousal.
Simply stated, hypo-arousal is a trauma state where the body and brain shut down to protect you. It happens when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed and drops “below” the Window of Tolerance.
In hypo-arousal, people often feel:
numb
disconnected
exhausted
slowed down
foggy
unable to think clearly
emotionally flat or far away
like they’re “checking out”
low-energy but also restless
empty or hollow inside
And here’s where food comes in.
Using Food to Soothe the Shutdown State
When someone hits hypo-arousal, eating especially comforting foods can temporarily:
bring sensation back into the body providing a momentary reconnection.
create a feeling of being grounded
provide eomotional warmth and internal connection
give a burst of glucose, a short-lived “return to life”
counteract numbness
I once heard it stated like this. “Food becomes a tool to climb out of the emotional basement.” If you know who said this let me know. It’s spot on!
This isn’t weakness or a lack of discipline. It is a brilliant survival adaptation from a nervous system that at one point, didn’t have very many tools in its toolbox. For trauma survivors, especially those raised in environments where feelings weren’t supported, food became a form of self-rescue long before there was language or understanding around what was happening in their body. This may even be the first moment you are learning this and that is why I’m writing about it.
Using Food to Numb: When Eating Helps Us Escape Overwhelm
Just as some people use food to bring themselves up out of hypo-arousal (shutdown), many trauma survivors use food to bring themselves down from hyperarousal, the activated, flooded, overwhelmed state often known as Fight or Flight.
Hyperarousal feels like:
anxiety
racing thoughts
tension
fear or panic
irritability
restlessness
emotional intensity
feeling “too much, too fast”
being overstimulated or on edge
When the nervous system is overloaded, the body looks for something that will quickly:
quiet the mind
soften the intensity
create heaviness
slow everything down
distract from emotional pain
bring temporary comfort or warmth
interrupt spiraling thoughts
For many people, food becomes that tool. Food, especially sweet, fatty, creamy or heavy foods can create a momentary sense of:
numbing
quiet
escape
emotional “padding”
distance from distress
shutting off overwhelming sensations
This isn’t a failure of willpower. It’s survival. It’s the body saying: “This is too much. I need to shut down the noise.” Trauma survivors often grow up without safe co-regulation or emotional support, so the nervous system learns to cope in the fastest available way.
I’ve used food in different ways throughout my life, long before I understood the nervous system or trauma responses. As a child, I remember hiding ice cream in a tall glass of milk and quietly slipping away to my room with it. That wasn’t about hunger. It was about creating a moment of comfort in an environment that often felt tense and unpredictable, especially for a highly sensitive child like me. And later in adulthood, during my divorce and the death of my mom, after the initial inability to eat anything, I “treated” myself to comforting meals. I can see now that they weren’t indulgences. They were attempts to wake myself up from the numbness or reward myself for simply getting through the day. They were my nervous system’s best efforts at regulation before I had language for it.
These patterns make so much sense now. Food was never the problem, it was the tool I had at the time to cope, survive, and self-soothe.
Why the Holidays Can Be Triggering
The holidays can bring old family roles, pressure to eat certain foods, comments about weight or appearance and even overstimulating environments. We can have emotional memories tied to food and expectations to act “fine” or “festive”. Be kind to yourself. Returning to the places where food or even the environment once felt unsafe is hard for some. Even joyful celebrations can activate a body’s memory.
If your relationship with food becomes harder this time of year, you’re not “backsliding.” Your body is remembering.
A Gentle Note About Holiday Meals
If you live with food trauma, disordered eating, food sensitivities, or gut challenges, holiday meals can bring an added layer of stress or vulnerability. The mix of expectations, rich foods, comments about eating, and the sensory or emotional weight of family gatherings can make this season especially overwhelming. If this is true for you, please know there is nothing wrong with you. Your body is doing its best to protect you. You’re allowed to honor what feels safe, choose foods that support your well-being, and create boundaries that help you stay grounded. Healing is not about performing at the holiday table. It’s about listening gently to yourself.
If You’re struggling With Disordered Eating or an Eating Disorder, You’re Not Alone
Food trauma can evolve into disordered eating patterns like restricting, “emotional eating,” avoiding meals, or using food to regulate your emotions (cope). Many people live with these patterns for years without realizing they’re trauma related.
Eating disorders are not willpower. They are complex nervous-system responses shaped by trauma, stress, shame and survival. Eating disorders are serious, sometimes fatal illnesses, not lifestyle choices or phases. According to a common statistic used by advocacy groups, about 10,200 deaths each year in the U.S. are directly attributed to eating disorders. That’s roughly one death every 52 minutes. ANAD-Eating-Disorders-Fact-Sheet-v2.pdf
Common Eating Disorders Include:
Anorexia Nervosa
Bulimia Nervosa
Binge Eating Disorder
ARFID (often connected to sensory issues or trauma)
OFSED (significant symptoms that don’t fit neatly into one category)
This is important. You don’t have to meet criteria for an eating disorder for your personal struggle to matter.
When to Reach Out for Help
It may be time for support if:
eating feels overwhelming
you ignore hunger cues or skip meals
guilt or panic shows up around food
textures, smells, or certain foods cause anxiety
holidays feel emotionally loaded
you’re hiding eating habits
you have chronic stomach issues without clear medical explanation
you use food to regulate.
You deserve support long before things are “sever.”
Where to Get Support
Trauma-informed Therapy
EMDR, CBT, ACT, Lifespan Integration, somatic work, and parts work can help untangle food-related trauma and rebuild safety. If you’re in Washington State, I offer this type of support and know others that do too.
Your Primary Care Provider
They can assess medical concerns and refer to specialists if needed. This is not a step to miss. If I’m working with a client that has a diagnoseable eating disorder, I contract with the client to have their physician on board.
Eating-Disorder Informed Dietitians
Look for those trained in intuitive eating, HAES, or trauma-informed nutrition.
National Resources
NEDA (National Eating Disorders Association): Call or text 988 and request the eating disorder line
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for immediate support
Local or Online Support Groups
Body-neutral and trauma sensitive spaces can be healing.
Can Trauma Cause Food Sensitivities and Gut problems? Research Says Yes.
Because of my own struggles with digestion, food intolerances, autoimmune symptoms, and sensory sensitivities, I became deeply curious about why my body responded to food the way it did. What I found, both in research and in my clients is that food sensitivities often have roots that go far beyond the food itself.
Trauma doesn’t just live in the mind. It lives in the nervous system, immune system, and gut.
One of the clearest explanations comes from the ACE Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences), the largest and most important study ever conducted on childhood trauma. About the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study |Violence Prevention|Injury Center|CDC Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire for Adults
The ACE Study found that early traumatic experiences don’t just affect emotional health. They affect immune function, gut health, metabolism, stress hormones, inflammation, and long-term physical resiliency.
This means that many adults digestive problems; IBS, inflammation, food sensitivities, and autoimmune symptoms are not random. They often reflect how the body adapted during unsafe or overwhelming childhood environments. Trauma researchers, gastroenterologists, functional medicine and integrative doctors are all pointing toward the same conclusion:
What I understand is that trauma reshapes the gut. The gut reshapes health. Food sensitivities can be learned in the body long before we know what they are.
If you have a high ACE score or are noticing chronic health concerns, the most important step is to approach yourself with curiosity rather than fear. Trauma informed therapy, a well-versed doctor, nervous-system regulation, supportive relationships, and nutrition that honors your body can all play a profound role in reducing symptoms and improving long-term health. In my own life and in this current season of healing, I’m learning how caring for my nervous system, gut health, and emotional well-being shows just how interconnected and resilient the body truly is.
A Note on Weight, Health, and Compassion.
We live in a culture that talks endlessly about weight, losing it, controlling it, fearing it. Diet culture teaches us that thinness equals worth, and that our value is tied to our appearance. But healing from trauma, improving gut health, and creating a peaceful relationship with food are far more complex than a number on a scale. As both a therapist and someone on my own health journey, I’ve worked at gaining a more balanced and compassionate view:
Weight is not a measure of worth AND you’re allowed to care about your health.
Wanting to feel better in your body, reduce inflammation, support digestion, improve health conditions or move towards habits that increase well-being is not the same as pursing weight loss from a place of shame. It can be an act of self-care. Many people with trauma, gut issues, autoimmune concerns, or food sensitivities experience weight changes throughout their lives. These shifts often reflect the nervous system, stress, inflammation, medications, survival patterns, or the body’s attempt to cope, not personal failure.
Healing isn’t about trying to force your body into an ideal. Healing is about listening to your body with gentleness, noticing what it needs, and supporting it without punishment.
The truth is, I was late to this realization. I haven’t always been nice to my body. I know now though that when we shift from "How do I control my body?” to “How can I care for my body?” everything changes in a positive direction.
You’re allowed to nourish your body, honor your health goals, and unlearn the weight-shaming messages that were NEVER meant for you. You’re even allowed to explore health at the size you are now or explore health while losing weight. It’s whatever is best for your body and psyche.
You can hold both truths:
You can pursue well-being.
And you can treat your body with compassion every step of the way.
A Final Reflection
Food is supposed to nourish us, but for many trauma survivors, it becomes tangled with fear, memory, sensitivity, and survival. When we understand how trauma, gut health, chronic health issues, and emotional coping patterns intersect, we can finally stop blaming ourselves for what our bodies have been trying to communicate all along. We live in a culture that often pressures us to shrink ourselves, perfect ourselves, or ignore our own needs to fit in. True healing asks us to do the opposite, to honor what our body has lived through and what it genuinely needs. Healing isn’t about forcing yourself to “eat normally,” whatever that is. It’s not about performing at the holiday table, it’s about creating safety where there once was threat, listening to your body with compassion, and honoring the experiences that shaped you.
Your relationship with food is not a flaw; it’s a story. With the right support, it’s a story that can be rewritten with gentleness, understanding and hope.
At Heart of Grace Counseling, I offer a trauma-informed, compassionate space for children, teens and adults navigating trauma, Grief and loss and Anxiety. What isn’t always advertised is that working with individuals with trauma often include their food-related struggles, digestive distress, nervous-system overwhelm and emotional complexity that comes with disordered eating. While this blog post focused on food and the body, chronic pain is another part of the trauma story and one I hope to explore in a future post.
If this post resonates with your story, please know you are welcome here.
You don’t need to be in crisis to reach out. It’s enough that food feels hard.
Wherever you are in your journey today, may you meet yourself with kindness.
Tina
