The Food Of Love

Tackle your unhealthy dating habits and increase your chances of finding  romance

- Eve Boggenpoel

How’s your diet? Your love diet that is. With online dating and smart apps making it ever easier to find a date, ex-editor-in-chief of Cosmo and author of new book Love Rules (Harper, £18.99), Joanna Coles believes just as there’s junk food, there’s junk love.

Fast, convenient, easily available and tantalisingly-packaged, junk love may be superficially tasty, but always leaves you hungering for more and ultimately, you know it’s not really good for you. The solution? ‘You must wade through the rows of cupcakes and potato chips to find the produce aisle, where those relationships grounded in intimacy and trust live – the ones worth your investment,’ says Coles. But it’s not enough to know what a healthy relationship should look like – you need to look inwards, too, she says. ‘It’s about finding yourself and cultivating your self-worth. You need to apply to your love life the same focus you devote to losing weight or getting fit.’ Here’s a taste of Cole’s love rules to help you detox your dating habits and retrain your relationship appetite.