What is bio-individuality and why is it so important?
A crucial puzzle piece in your personal wellness story.
Think about yourself and your best friend. What is each of your ancestry? What are your daily lives like? What makes you each happy? What stresses you each out? The answers to these questions vary quite a bit. Though there are likely also some similarities (why you two are a great match!), it's important to remember that we are all unique beings, made up of different genes that respond to diet, lifestyle, and environment in very different ways. This is bio-individuality.
Bio-individuality, in simple terms, is the concept that "what works for me won't necessarily work for you." It's a component of wellness that strays us from a one-size fits all approach to our diet and allows nutrition to become flexible and integrative.
"Well, she's eating this and looks like that, so that should work for me too, right?" This may sound familiar to you. When you don't have the same success as someone with a particular protocol, that's probably because it wasn't right for your body or what is going on around it. Plus, so many diets and fads out there are simply not sustainable for anyone and lack serious nutritional variety.
So what is right for you, and how do you even know?
Every day, we are flooded with new studies that contradict the previous study you read about a particular food. Perhaps you wonder if you'll ever be able to enjoy life again because "chocolate is the reason you have a migraine" or you think you have to rethink breakfast because "you should only eat eggs once a week." Mark Hyman, MD, in his book "Food: What The Heck Should I Eat?," explains that many of these studies are funded by big food companies that are simply trying to boost sales. In addition, information that isn't even relevant in modern day is still being taught in schools and used in these studies. For example, there was a recent study that deemed coconut oil as "bad" and a link to heart disease because of the saturated fat content. Hyman writes, "The demonization of coconut oil is based on an outdated theory that saturated fat causes heart disease. More than seventeen meta-analyses have found no such link. If we accepted the recommendation of the American Heart Association that we eat less than 5 percent of our calories as saturated fat, we would have to ban breast milk."
Now, let's look at a broad concept like "fruits and vegetables are healthy." There are definitely some blanket statements, like this one, that are based on facts (in the same way "tobacco is unhealthy"). We have enough well rounded scientific evidence that both of those statements are true. However, as we breakdown "fruits and vegetables are healthy", we can say yes, our body obtains essential vitamins and minerals from whole foods. However, how our bodies digest the sugars in the fruit, metabolize the carbohydrates in the vegetables, and absorb the nutrients in these foods is not the same for every person.
In addition to keeping perspective on studies you read and understanding the variance in how our bodies breakdown food, there are so many other factors that play into a bio-individual approach to health.
Bio-individual Factors:
Ancestry: What did your ancestors eat?
If you have European decent, for example, a piece of high-quality meat was likely at the center of a meal. Perhaps this is an indicator of how you should arrange your plate. Regardless of where you came from, all of our ancestors probably had a couple of things in common when it came to diet: they ate what was in season, and they ate whole foods. Lucky for them, the processed foods culture hadn't been born, and they weren't consuming ingredients made in a factory.
Health Hurdles: We all are dealing with something, ranging in severity, and though we can't necessarily understand each other's struggles, we need to respect and support one another. Whether someone is dealing with an autoimmune disease, PCOS, diabetes, depression, etc., these factors truly affect what we should be putting in our bodies every day.
Stress Level: Stress plays such a huge part in what our bodies need. Cortisol, the notorious stress hormone, plays a major role in blood sugar regulation, digestion, and our needs drastically vary when this is an issue.
Activity Level: Does a lawyer and an NBA basketball player eat the same thing in a day? A bit of a drastic comparison, but of course they don't! One person is probably sedentary most of the day and the other is under high physical demand. Therefore, the dietary needs of these two individuals are going to be very different.
Environment: Ranging from the air quality you breathe, to how many toxins you're exposed to, to what your work environment is like, these are also factors that need to be examined in big picture wellness.
So where do you start to get in touch with your bio-individuality? Here's a guide.
How to navigate your own bio-individuality:
Tune Into Your Body: How we respond to food, movement, our environment, and stress is the best insight to our needs. Do you feel particularly anxious after you eat a specific food every time? Do you get a headache after running? This is really helpful information that maybe we aren't paying enough attention to. Start a journal. Document this information and see what kind of parallels you can learn about your body.
Say NO to Fads: While there are some diets out there that provide really great framework for a healthy lifestyle, there is no one-size fits all diet! It simply doesn't exist because of the factors listed above.
Think Quality, Local, Seasonal: Choosing grass-fed meats, pasture raised poultry, wild-caught seafood, and organic produce will optimally nourish our bodies. Our ancestors likely grew the food they ate, and while we can't necessarily do that, eating foods that are grown near you and are in season will allow our bodies to get maximum nutritional value.
Be Mindful: Try to be present and tune into what makes you happy and what doesn't. How can you bring more of the former and less of the latter into your daily life? Happy is healthy.
Work with a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner: Bio-individuality is something they’ll focus on when working with you. It's a tool that's lifelong and truly changes your outlook on what makes you your healthiest.
Bio-Individuality is so important.
Understanding bio-individuality is a great navigation tool. It allows us to gain perspective on the studies that usually leave us overwhelmed, prevents us from going down the rabbit hole of comparing ourselves to others, and serves as an important reminder that diet is not a one-size fits all plan. Bio-individuality is also an opportunity for you to look in the mirror and feel more unique and awesome as ever because in case no one told you today, you are beautiful.
