Conditioned Food Avoidance & Sensitivity
My interest in this topic developed over the last thirty years of food sensitivity counselling. Many clients described a vicious cycle of food restriction and worsening symptoms, which devastated their mental and physical health. My research into this cycle led to exploring behavioural conditioning– an excellent framework for understanding this vicious cycle, as I describe in the video below.
Based on the behaviour conditioning model, I developed two terms to discuss this topic with clients. The Conditioned Food Avoidance & Sensitivity Trap (C-FAST) is a model I developed to capture this vicious cycle and show how FS-H develops.
Conditioned Food Avoidance
Diet restriction driven by food-symptom associations. The associations can be:
Accurate: leading to a beneficial restriction (i.e., driven by a component in the food).
Inaccurate: leading to over-restriction.
Conditioned Food Sensitivity
Reactions driven by inaccurate food-symptom associations.
In other words, fear and negative expectations create or intensify unpleasant sensations.
As time goes on conditioning can worsen symptoms and suffering.
