ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes the term "foodway" as an alternative to the word "diet," both because "foodway" avoids connotations of deprivation and restriction, and also to highlight the many different functions and purposes food can serve in people lives. It deliberately avoided the value of health enhancement as a place where clients might wish to develop a new foodway. One intriguing aspect of our own contemporary food culture, affected so severely by fat stigma and the thin ideal, is the notion that "food is fuel," that food is and should be nothing more than the minimum caloric sustenance required to get through a day. Exploring food programming and identifying what we want to eat for is essential work for the clinician, as well as the client. Clinicians should be prepared to support clients in dropping unworkable or ineffective health-related diet changes and in working on other food-related values if they would prefer.
