Food: -It's a Love/Hate Relationship

My relationship with food is a love/hate relationship.  I can relate in some way to all three of the articles that we read this week.  “Fat is a Feminist” issue really invoked feelings of uncertainty, history, and how stereotypes affect women and their relationship with food and how women feel about being overweight.  “Don’t Blame the Eater” brought up debate our personal responsibility versus the food industry and its effect on the health and well-being of American children.  “Having It His Way” highlighted advertising and direction of fast food toward men, showing how masculinity and meat-eating are related.  I say that I have a love-hate relationship with food because I love food, food is a passion for me, however, it can also turn into an obsession; almost an addiction leading to unhealthy habits.  The word hate is harsh.  I hate food because I can very easily overeat well past the point of when I feel full, make unhealthy food choices, and eat when I am bored.  I hate that food equals fat and weight gain when you don’t make the right choices.  I love the taste of food, trying new foods, cooking food, the smells of food, and how eating makes me feel.

I learned about food and nutrition from my parents.  They taught me how to cook and we did have mostly home-cooked meals when I was young.  When we did enjoy the chance to go out to eat it was on special occasions, but I always sought out to try something new to eat.  When I was old enough to be at home alone after school before my mom came from work, I would start to prepare dinner for the family so that my mom would have less to do when she came home.  I would experiment with different recipes, ones that were familiar to the family already but others that I looked up in cookbooks that were new.  I enjoyed the feeling of the appreciative and “full-belly” responses I would get to the meals I cooked.  It felt very rewarding to see the family enjoy my creations.  This is where my passion and love for food and cooking began.  I ended up going to vo-tech school in high school for culinary arts, and this led me to college for culinary arts.  I attended the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, New York and achieved an associate’s degree in Culinary Arts.  I worked in the food service industry as a Chef for many years.

While working in the food service industry I had to overcome stereotypes about women being Chef’s and being a leader in the kitchen.  This was challenging and rewarding at the same time.  While working with food and always tasting my work, I would say that I had an unhealthy relationship with food because I really did not eat well.  When I would work I would be working so many hours and days I would not take the time to eat a normal healthy meal at normal times.  During these years even though I was around food constantly, I was very thin.

For many different reasons I took a different career path away from the foodservice industry.  I got married and became a mother.  In having my children losing the weight after pregnancy was challenging for me because prior to this I never really had a weight challenge.   There a few of my extended family members who are morbidly obese and have many health conditions.  This scares me.  In watching those family members eat while growing up, they truly would just eat to eat.  A person should eat for nutrition and when one’s body is hungry.   I have witnessed the opposite in these family members; eating to completely clean your plate, eating unhealthy foods, overusing butter, and eating when bored.  When I was younger and very thin, they would ask me whether I ate at all, which of course I did, but because I was thin they thought I wasn’t eating enough.  In fact I was able to eat a lot, have second helpings and eat those same unhealthy things that they would and not really gain weight. 

Even though I was thin when I was younger I struggled with self-esteem for other reasons.  I always compared myself to other girls.  I never thought I was beautiful enough.  Now that I am having struggles with my weight my struggle with self-esteem continues.  As a younger person I feel in the traps of comparing myself to the women in magazines, skinny and large chested and clear skin.  The advertising in America and that is targeted at young American teen girls really stresses the fact that you are “supposed” to be thin,  have long, flowing hair, a large chest and clear skin.  The pressures of media transfer into peer pressure at school which is even harder to handle because if you don’t fit the accepted norms you are an outcast.

In my adult life I feel that I am a prey to the predators of TV media, magazines, social media, work pressures, and family pressure.  I am responsible to teach my children about food and health and I do.  I am proud of my oldest children who are not afraid to try new foods and will choose vegetables and dip over potato chips and dip.  My hate relationship with food is because I am victim to stereotypes, social pressures, and I feel due to some addictive traits in my personality.  Though I don’t feel that overeating can be as bad a drug or alcohol addiction, it can be related and maybe instead of addiction a better word is a disorder.

Some people have eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia and overeating is just a detrimental to one’s health.  I feel under eating and overeating all are caused by some combination of social pressure, self-pressure and mental health issues.  Ultimately, I am responsible for my health.  In the last four months I have made healthy eating and exercise a priority in my life.  I feel great.  I don’t feel as afraid of falling toward the habits that lead to obesity.  I want to be healthy for myself and for my family.  Portion control, retraining my brain and stomach on what healthy amounts of food for one meal, and making sure I am being physically active are paramount to maintaining a healthy life.  If I can live a healthy lifestyle and be a role model for my children I hope that this what they learn from and that they do not choose to fall to society’s pressures and stereotypes.  Ultimately, I am working on learning how to love and hate food at the same time.  There has to be balance found between love and hate, that “thin” line.  I do believe that you can love food for what it does for your body and health, and keep that hate part of your relationship as the reminder of what unhealthy eating can do to your body.