Why Do Our Treats Have to Be Bad for Us?
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I've been thinking about this for a while and the more I think about it, the more it bothers me (in a good way).
When did a treat become something that has to be bad for you?
I used to do it more times than I can count. I'd had a hard week at work, the to-do list was temporarily at bay, and the reward I'd reach for was a bottle of wine, a takeaway I'd feel vaguely rubbish after, or something sweet I'd eat too much of and then feel guilty about. It felt right. It felt earned.
Somewhere underneath all of that, though, is an assumption I've started to question. The assumption that a treat, by definition, has to be a little bit naughty.
Where did this come from?
Think about how we talk about food and pleasure in this country:
- Things are "naughty but nice"
- Dessert is something you have to earn
- A Friday night glass of wine is a reward for surviving the week
Treating yourself is almost always code for consuming something you know isn't particularly good for you, and part of the pleasure comes from that transgression.
We've been trained to see indulgence and harm as the same thing, but when harm becomes part of how we reward ourselves, it starts to get complicated.
Because what are we actually saying when we treat ourselves that way? That we deserve to feel good for a moment, even if we feel worse afterwards? That pleasure only counts if there's a little bit of guilt attached to it?
I'm not trying to be dramatic about a Friday night takeaway. Life is for living, and food is one of its great joys. I do think it's worth pausing, though, on why our version of self-care so often involves things that work against us, and why genuinely nourishing choices rarely get filed under "treat."
The thing nobody talks about
Here's what struck me recently. When I do something that's genuinely good for my body; a long walk, a good night's sleep, a meal I've cooked with care, something that leaves me feeling actually well, I don't tend to frame it as a treat. I frame it as effort. Something I should be doing anyway. Something responsible, not indulgent.
Back in the day, before Vigor Vitamins was born . . . a glass of wine on a Tuesday? That was a treat. A bag of crisps on the sofa? Absolutely a treat. A processed meal I didn't have to cook and knew I'd regret? Definitely a treat.
We've somehow organised things so that the stuff that depletes us feels like a reward, and the stuff that nourishes us feels like homework. That's worth questioning.
It has to be earned, and it has to be bad
There are two layers to treat culture that I find really interesting, and a bit uncomfortable.
The first is the earning.
We tend to feel like we only deserve a treat after we've suffered for it. A hard week. A workout. A particularly stressful day. The treat is the release valve, the reward at the end of something difficult. Which sounds fine, until you notice that it means we rarely give ourselves things that feel good just because we want to feel good. It always has to be justified.
The second is the naughtiness.
The treat isn't really a treat unless it's got a slight edge of transgression to it. Something a bit bad. Something your more disciplined self wouldn't choose. This is where I think we've really tied ourselves in knots, because it means the better we try to be the rest of the time, the more loaded the treat becomes when it arrives. It's exhausting, and it's not particularly kind to ourselves.
There's something deeper going on here too, something connected to self-worth. When we habitually reach for things that make us feel worse, I think part of that is not quite believing we deserve to feel genuinely well. Just a quiet, background assumption that real nourishment is for people who have their lives more together than we do. That it's a bit indulgent to actually look after yourself properly. So we settle for the quick hit instead, the thing that feels good for five minutes and costs us something afterwards.
I've written before about how self-worth shows up in how we protect our energy and set boundaries. It shows up here too, in the smaller, everyday choices. In what we think we deserve when nobody's watching.
What if we widened the definition?
I'm not suggesting we all swap wine for green juice and call it self-care. That's not real life and it's not always possible.
I have started to wonder, though, what would happen if we expanded our idea of what a treat could look like. If we allowed genuinely nourishing things to carry the same emotional weight as the ones we reach for out of habit.
What if an early night was a treat? A slow morning. A meal that made you feel good for hours afterwards rather than vaguely sluggish. A walk that cleared your head. Time doing something just for you, with no productivity attached to it.
What if looking after yourself actually felt like a reward, rather than something you do when you've got the willpower for it?
The shift is less about what you choose and more about how you think about it. If nourishing yourself feels like effort, you'll resist it. If it starts to feel like something you deserve (which you do), it becomes something you reach for rather than something you push through.
The honest bit
I haven't got this all figured out, and I'm not suggesting for a second that you should have either. A takeaway with a friend, something sweet after a long day, a slow evening doing absolutely nothing useful, these things are part of life and they're lovely.
I've started to notice the difference, though, between genuinely treating myself and just numbing out. Between something that actually makes me feel good and something that just feels good right now. I've started asking, more often than I used to, what I actually want to feel like tomorrow morning. Just a small, honest check-in with myself.
That question has quietly changed some of my habits more than any amount of willpower ever did.
We'd love to know what your version of a real treat looks like; come and tell us over on Instagram