Rhiannon Lambert: Understanding your relationship with food is key

Leading nutritionist, podcast host and author Rhiannon Lambert joins Happiful’s podcast to discuss debunking myths and the link between food and psychology

Rhiannon Lambert is my absolute go-to when it comes to discussions around nutrition. She’s open, honest, highly qualified and very ready to challenge misconceptions around food and wellbeing.

Rhiannon’s book The Science of Nutrition: Debunk the Diet Myths and Learn How to Eat Well for Health and Happiness was published at the end of 2021 and it immediately became a bestseller, with many stockists needing to re-order as quickly as they’d filled their shelves.

There’s a good reason for this. Rhiannon’s encyclopedic book is full of evidence-based information about nutrition and covers a whole spectrum of subjects from the aging brain to IBS, eating for the menopause, sugar, the FODMAP diet, children’s nutrition and everything in between. It’s more than a book, it’s a lifelong nutrition reference tome – written and presented in a way to make the complex accessible.

This is what motivates Rhiannon, she shares, to get up and go to work everyday. Helping people to understand that while nutrition can be complicated, there’s scientifically proven information that can be broken down by anyone, maybe with a little support, and applied to day to day life with positive results.

Busting myths

Beyond her brilliant new book, Rhiannon is the host of the chart-topping Food for Thought podcast, the Rhitrition platform and leads a team of clinicians in her private practice. She’s determined to counter the poor and untrue nutritional advice that exists across online platforms.

Rhiannon has seen the impact of this ‘advice’ up close and personal. “I’ve witnessed the damage that misinformation can cause through my work in the clinic,” she explains. “Nutrition is an area where we can become really vulnerable because we want to take control of our lives in one shape or form and we want to make a difference.

“When you’re in a particular position to be looking for answers, sadly search engines or your favourite influencer might, at that time, be pedal pushing some miracle diet or product that seems to be the answer, when it’s not at all. That can have really devastating consequences on people’s relationships with food, as well as their physical health.”

More than what we eat

From the beginning of her career in nutrition, Rhiannon was aware of the inextricable link between our minds and our attitudes to diet in the broadest sense. “I understood very quickly that food is so psychological. Everyone has a different journey, a different outlook, social norms, barriers, languages, cultures, ethnicities – you name it,” Rhannon explains. “All of these factors shape how we see the world of food, our relationship with it and our ability to digest information about how and what we eat”.

Not factoring our personal and cultural history with food into the picture, Rhiannon notes, is missing out an important element of any potential solution to issues with our individual diet. “I feel that one big barrier that comes to getting behaviour change when it comes to dietary aspects is that this isn’t taken into account,” Rhiannon continues. “In order to eat well, you need to understand your journey and what’s happened. So much of what we eat is linked to enjoyment and emotions and a whole spectrum of those.”

Hear more from Rhiannon’s on her episode of I am. I have

Visit Rhiannon’s website and buy The Science of Nutrition Debunk the Diet Myths and Learn How to Eat Well for Health and Happiness.

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