Wormtongue is a manipulative character in the Lord of the Rings who represents the Dieting Mentality. The King trusts Wormtongue.

But in reality Wormtongue uses his voice to keep the King weak.

Wormtongue worms into your mind and convinces you of all sorts of wrong ideas about yourself.

It makes you feel like a failure for having that piece of cake.

It makes you feel awful if you have too much dessert. And it will do anything to keep you from eating any more than the bare minimum required for survival.

With Wormtongue in charge, food is no longer something that brings happiness, joy, or contentment, but rather feelings of guilt and shame.

In your head, there might be one restrictive dieting voice talking at a time (there may also be a dozen other conflicting voices).

But when the time comes to eat, Wormtongue has plenty of opportunities to bring his dieting mentality messages. He can get you to believe that another piece of cake is bad for your health.

Or he can make you feel like a failure if you eat something other than salad. Wormtongue always whispers in our ear. He’s not loud nor is he necessarily convincing (if you know better).

His main job is just to keep us from listening to our true voice because this ensures that we won’t do anything dangerous or foolish…like EATING!

The more Wormtongue talks, the stronger the Dieting Mentality becomes and eventually we become famished and depleted.

And when we are famished and depleted, this is when a binge occurs. This video explains how to catch this dieting mentality voice and more!

• See here for another post that explains more about Why You Can’t Stop Thinking About Food.
• See this article if you would like to read a character analysis of Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings.