I first heard the words
“relationship to food” together some time during middle school. I was a
super-active girl at the tail end of a growth spurt that would dwarf many of my
peers, and not yet coordinated with the new lengths of my limbs. I was the girl
who had always dominated the boys-only games at recesses, made freshly
uncomfortable by my strength and my height, and caught in all of my pubescent
glory prior to my discovery of the sports that would make me comfortable again.
Like most of us, I was unsettled by the imagery of a health and phys-ed
classroom whose message was delivered in “don’t have an eating disorder, watch
this thin and beautiful girl have one instead” format. I have my doubts about
the method’s efficacy, to say the least.
In high school, this terminology
was used increasingly in an unusual physical setting - so
often in the small group components of the Christian youth group I participated
in. Interestingly, I found that in this setting food, and the way we discussed
it, was often an outlet for feelings of both grief and guilt. During the same
period, my participation in sports, fervent exercise and what amounted to a starter
coarse on dietary trends made me a glutton for the state of my glutes, and then
aware of my egocentricity on a vast plane. All of these aspects together began
to really make eating feel like a moral choice, which may be part of why I got
aboard the “health food train” to begin with. Independent at last in college
and quite adept at preparing healthy meals on my own, I was unprepared for the
stress of constantly being surrounded by my peers, and found the
comparison-making so overwhelming that I developed the types of behaviors that
would have troubled my middle school phys ed teacher. Recovery necessitated the
courage and perspective to view myself gently, to non-judgmentally assess the
aggression I was subjecting myself to, and to regain respect from that place.
This post is a little cheesy, but has a decent explanation of mindful eating
practice and doesn’t get overly zen to be accessible: http://naturalepicurean.com/mealtime-mindfulness/.
This sort of reflection has helped me tremendously, though there will probably
never be a time when I don’t “lose it” on occasion.
In thinking about this post,
talking with Josie, and reflecting on some of my personal struggles with eating
disorders, I have been struck by how frequently writers and bloggers equate
nutrition to morality. Some go as far as to equate it to religion: http://news.nationalpost.com/life/food-drink/the-new-religion-how-the-emphasis-on-clean-eating-has-created-a-moral-hierarchy-for-food.
While I can’t say I agree with the entire premise, it’s interesting to me to
consider that nearly every religion I can think of has some tradition related
to food (mainly symbolic meals and a ritual of expressing gratitude before a
meal) and that our national obsession over diets correlates to a decreased
participation in conventional religion. Others have rather lengthy premises
equating food to sex – per our relatively-new “unrestricted” access to both,
and societal rules relating to each. http://www.hoover.org/research/food-new-sex.
This premise I’m not so moved by, but do find it interesting and sort of
funny... until I think about the things students partake in after a night of
drinking, or about the words we use to describe such things.
The fact alone that such studies are
being organized and funded implies brokenness between our present food systems
(well, maybe our thoughts on both subjects, but let’s limit ourselves a bit
here) and our sense of right, natural, and pure. The National Post article relates
many of the same virtues found in religion as being represented in the various
clean food movements. In the sense that the article describes, this similarity
links food and ethics closely and ties both to religious practice and fervor. I
have been thinking for some time not about religion specifically but about
spirituality and food, and about the concept of living beings (plants included)
having a sort of soul, they and we players in indistinct energetic pathways
through which nourishment has psychological, social and spiritual effects as
well as physiological. The very ease of meal acquisition for many Americans
seems to play in to the sense of disrespect to our food sources. In many ways,
strife –like scarcity- yields respect. That consciousness and that respect can
feed back in to our systems and nourish us on a whole-being scale that we have
seen can be also nourishing for our earth, yet forgiving of our occasional need
to simply do our best.
Some things
to reflect on:
Your own relationship with food – this is intimate to many
and by all means feel free to just keep that one in your head space.
Do you think that spirituality (or lack thereof) affects how
we perceive our experiences at mealtimes? What about the choices in meal
production?
How does a moral conception of food sourcing or of dieting
serve the current food systems? How do we remove the “judgy-ness” behind an
otherwise “good” thing?
How do we re-establish respect across a culture that so
dearly values efficiency? What are some practical ways to incorporate mindful
consumption across demographics?
Again I want to thank you guys for bringing food to such a personal level! I definitely connect with some of the ideas brought up in this post, particularly the idea of food in relationship to spirituality. I definitely see a connection to the two, but as I said in response to Josie's post, I think that depends on the person. I would consider myself a spiritual person. I was raised Christian but have questioned that more and more with age. I always knew that I had a longing to connect with the spiritual but couldn't find a belief system to match. I became involved with the chapel program and over the years I have realized that my spirituality doesn't have to connect to a defined religious affiliation; it comes from moments in life. I feel spiritually nourished when I do yoga or have a meaningful conversation with someone or appreciate a good meal. I definitely see food as something ritualistic and nourishing both from a nutrient perspective but also for the soul.
ReplyDeleteBut that is completely my experience. There are moments when I see people feeling very spiritually connected to something and I am completely out of it. We all seek nourishment of our souls in different ways (I realize this sounds super trippy but that's the way I see it). So I don't think there is anything wrong with people not connecting to food in this way. Thinking about the article about food relating to sex, both are basic human desires. Everyone has different sex drives, everyone has different food drives. We all have different levels of needs. Connecting to food-as well as most aspects of my life-in a way I consider spiritually nourishing is important to me. But not everyone feels this need or has had the opportunities I have been afforded being a part of organizations like the Office of Religious and Spiritual life to think about food in this way. There are people who connect to food in a religious way that is much more traditionally grounded. That is nourishing for them. I think it is important to think of food in this context and find what it is that fills that spiritual nourishment we all need to varying degrees and in various ways.
My relationship to food changed dramatically over the course of my life. Since I was in high school until my junior year in college, food was just “energy source” that I had to consume in order to function properly. During this period of time, I didn’t enjoy eating as much. I felt like I was wasting so much of my time for cooking and eating. Additionally, due to many causes, I felt guilty whenever I ate something.
ReplyDeleteOne possible source of guilt is sports activities. During high school, I was doing cross country/ running as my hobby. Because I didn’t want to gain a lot of weight, I restricted my diet as well. Most of the time, I avoided sweets and meat. My diet was mainly composed of rice and vegetables.
Another possible reason is negative body image about myself. For some reason, Japanese people are OBSESSED with the idea of losing weight. Many girls in Japan think that being skinny is a good thing. Drug stores sell a lot of items that support diet… For example, my sister told me about a “diet pill,” which absorbs water inside of your stomach, gets bigger, and makes you feel full without eating too much. Although I have been living in the U.S. and didn’t have direct contacts with Japanese people, my relatives and friends often made comments on my appearance whenever we Skyped.
Thinking back about my high school/ early college life, I did not have a happy relationship with food.
Thinking about my current eating style, I can say that it’s closer to pre-high school period, and I am satisfied with it. Since I became a senior and completed all the required courses for my majors, I now have more free time to focus on my life than ever before. I have more time for cooking, and I actually enjoy cooking and eating warm food. I also stopped caring about what other people think about my appearance. “Being as skinny as possible” is not the right definition of healthy or beauty, and definitely very unhealthy if you need to use things like diet pills.
Thank you for bringing up this important topic Olivia and being open about your own experience. A lot of things came to mind by throughout reading your post. One thing was remembering how two of good high school friends struggled with eating disorders. Bearing witness to their struggle and being a friend to them during that time made me more aware of how I talk to myself about food and how those around me talk about their bodies and food. What I have seen in myself and others (particularly women) mostly is a range of negative emotions from confusion, hurt, fear, guilt. The way we talk about food in this country is contradictory, unclear, and leaves people at a loss and have difficult relationships with their food. For example how do we reconcile the image of the skinny model eating the massive hamburger in the Arby’s commercial? It’s hard to win. I think in some ways connecting spirituality and food could be beneficial. Maybe it could help people feel connected to those they are eating near instead of in competition with them. Maybe it would make it easier for people block out the negative messages we are bombarded with regarding food and vocally protest against them. I think the article you posted about mealtime mindfulness is a good place to start. Additionally, we have tied in our culture the idea of healthy/ healthy food to a specific body type. I think that is a harmful part of our food culture that limits people and breeds judgement and sizeism.
ReplyDeleteThank you Olivia for bringing this up! I think that it is a really good idea for us the talk about the negative relationship established with food, especially in this class! When addressing the judgy factor I would say that there really needs to be a shift from food being so closely associated with the “ideal” body. I know there have been times when I didn't want to eat because I felt fat or unhappy with the way I looked. This, of course, was in no way listening to what my body needed but instead feeding into this idea of food as a tool for something other that nourishment or necessity. I think that it is also interesting that so many of these diets and eating trends first target how it will make you look, what it will improve. From a marketing point I find it interesting that we, as a society, are more instated in how a diet will improve our appearance rather than how it will improve our health. I’m not sure how this shift can be made but I think it goes in hand with the slow food movement, taking time to think of how to grow food and being grateful for that food instead of just getting something to use to be thinner.
ReplyDeleteI think the connections between food and spirituality are very interesting questions to engage in. I was raised by an Agnostic father and a Methodist mother but the only time I can remember my family giving religious thanks before a meal was during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I really like the ritual of saying grace (be it to a deity or otherwise) and I found myself wishing that this had been more of a regular tradition growing up. I think the mindfulness article touched on why this is for me. I like the idea of taking time before eating to be conscious of where my food came from; from the earth and sun that nourished it, the hands the planted, cared, and harvested it, and the loved ones who prepared the meal. I also think eating is a deeply pleasurable and social experience and that being more mindful when eating can add significantly to that pleasure. Finally, I think giving thanks/mindful eating might help combat some of the feelings of guilt and shame that plague so many people who suffer from various forms of disordered eating.
ReplyDeleteAnother topic that might be worth digging into is the act of fasting for religious or political reasons and how the act of intentionally not ingesting food fits into the bigger picture of food and culture.
Another interesting point you brought up are connections between food and sex. I think indulgence in both has been demonized in similar ways throughout history. For example, both gluttony and lust are considered two of the seven deadly sins within certain Judeo-Christian traditions as they are considered "pleasures of the flesh". Both are also subject to a plethora of moral policing and judgement within our modern societal context. Language surrounding "clean eating" sounds an awful lot like religious rhetoric regarding sexual "purity" as both have connotations about "goodness". While I don't personally subscribe to either type of moralistic framing, I do feel that food and sex nourish the body and soul. Both are experiences that allow us to feel fully present and alive in our bodies and both are deeply human experiences that would benefit from more mindful and purposeful engagement.
Mindful eating is something that I have been deliberately pushing to the back of my mind. I was raised in a family where dinner together was a given. Obviously, there were exceptions with choir rehearsals and sports practices, but I don’t have any memory of it being stated as a priority. I do, however, have plenty of memories of eating with them. For us, I think that by not directly stating the importance of the shared meal made it all the more significant—it was something we didn’t even have to think about. (An aside: I don’t mean to preach about the importance of family dinners; I realized they’re not an option for every family. Hopefully, they will be someday!) We prayed before dinner every night, holding hands and singing the same, repetitive song. We never paid that much attention to the food, instead focusing on each other and the conversation. This had an adverse effect on my younger brother’s eating habits; he would get so wrapped up in his own stories that he forgot to eat. Rules were often instated: no talking to Joe until he finishes five more bites, his broccoli, drinks his milk. Because of this, meals were an intrinsically social experience for me.
ReplyDeleteUpon arriving at K, I never ate alone, especially in the caf. After spending my day in class, the caf became a place for me to relax. I’d be there for at least an hour each night. All of this changed when I moved off campus. Now, for the first time in my life, I eat almost all of my meals alone. I’m often unimpressed with either my own thoughts or the stir-fry I’ve prepared, so I pull out my phone. I’ll read or play a game, but I have to be doing something. Being distracted causes me to overeat, but time spent eating can feel like wasted time. We can attribute this partially to K’s notorious stress culture, but I think my restlessness is much larger than our campus. Efficiency is our society’s first priority, and I hope that we can see mindful eating as an ally of this cause instead of an enemy. Eating can be seen as an investment in ourselves. A healthier relationship with our food will likely increase our productivity in school and work. Even better, it will make us more ready to help those around us. We can create more outlets for mindful meals to be a feasible and desirable option for families by framing it as a beneficial choice, not an inconvenient one. Like eating insects, this idea will likely catch on in more affluent households first. I’m hopeful that as it becomes more and more ‘normal’ to eat slow food again, it will permeate our culture. The process can be expedited, however, through conscious efforts to create opportunities for lower income families to be together. I’m not exactly sure what this would look like, but I believe it would benefit us all and cultivate children to be more productive members of our society.
I want to start off by saying this post is going to be all over the place (who needs transitions?), so I thank you for your patience. Your post and Josie’s hit incredibly close to home through so many different points. I thought about commenting about this on Josie’s post, but when I read yours, it fit so perfectly! I remember in health class in ninth grade, we watched movies/documentaries/dramatizations of young women with eating disorders. I looked at those girls and took note: how thin and beautiful they looked, how in control they were of their own bodies, how they were able to get away with certain eating habits, etc. What an unhealthy, counterproductive act! And when I was invited to youth group in the same class by the most popular girl in our year, we talked about body image and feeling unattractive and learning how to eat “properly” instead of Christianity or being a better person. It’s clear to me now that I was unhealthy, but I can’t say I can look back at any part of my life (save for senior year of high school) and say that I actually was healthy. My relationship to food has always been a very personal one, and these two posts have gone a long way in making me realize we are never truly alone in our thoughts. So thank you for that.
ReplyDeleteSpirituality in our culture can have a huge impact on mealtime. I am not religious, but growing up, my best friend was Catholic. I would eat at her house a lot (her mother consistently made the best meals from scratch and “real” ingredients – and her meatloaf was out of this world), and we always said the same prayer before anyone was allowed to have a bite of food. It struck me as odd, and then I realized such a practice is pretty common in American culture. When I was little, I scoffed at the idea and the time spent with hands folded and eyes closed while a plate of delicious food sat steaming before me. I have learned to appreciate the concept for other reasons – while I wouldn’t thank god, I would pause to be grateful for all of the sacrifices, large and small, other beings had made to bring me such a meal. That “Mealtime Mindfulness” was a wonderful reminder to start doing that again.
There is so much more to say, and I know I didn’t answer a few of your questions, but I’m really excited to dig into them in class tomorrow! Thank you again for this topic. I have so much to consider.
Thanks for sharing all this, Olivia. I think for me the times when my relationship with food was the most difficult or dysfunctional were times in my teens and twenties when I was dealing with a lot of sadness, self-doubt, and anxiety that I didn't have ways to safely express. So eating became a way of stuffing those emotions back down inside. Overeating was a sad and painful way to cope, but I didn't have another way at that time. That's really changed for me; now I have much healthier ways of listening to my feelings and working with them in positive ways. It took lots of years of counseling to learn to make those changes but I don't need to use food as a drug in that way anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe connections between food, sex, and spirituality are fun to ponder. I have to say that the Hoover article is a little hard for me to swallow--the author makes some assumptions and leaps of logic that I just can't buy into. The other article is interesting in the connections it makes between religion, morality, and judgment--it seems to be claiming that we need something to make us feel self-righteous and if we can't have religion we'll project that onto another area of our lives.
But I wonder if there is a different way to frame the connections between eating, the sacred and the erotic. I DO experience eating as a sacred act--I am taking another being's body into mine. That's as intimate as it gets and as close to the mystery of life. Life and death at every single meal. That's amazing, isn't it?! What if we approached our tables with the wonder, joy, and love that can be found within religion rather than the judgment and moralizing?
I do think there are moral issues involved in eating, though, just as there are moral issues involved in sex. In engaging in sex, I want to make sure I'm not hurting another person--physically, emotionally, spiritually, or mentally. In engaging in eating, I want to do the same, as much as possible. I like the Wiccan code for such things: "Do what you will but harm none." And I think it's important to extend that "harm none" to ourselves as well.
My relationship with food isn't as intimate as it could be. Thinking about what I am eating doesn't bring it closer to me. I don't view the food that I grow much differently than the food that I buy. I definitely think that there is a difference in the way that food is produced but I do not think about it when I am eating. I don't know if I really pay that much attention to what I am eating as I am eating it. I don't think about where the food came from while I am eating it as much as I probably should. To me, eating meals is about the people who I do it with and that is where the intimacy of food comes in for me, drawing people together. It brings me closer to my family and friends. It brings us together to laugh love and talk. This is what food is to me, I think about the sources and things like that as I am buying it but once it hits the table its time to be with the people.
ReplyDeleteChanging gears a bit, I feel like study abroad really changed how I view food from a moral standpoint. We don't need to discuss it in detail in class again but the pig slaughter in Thailand really changed my perspective on meat. It was an eye opening experience and helped shape what I view as acceptable in our food systems. Treating your food with respect as you are growing and caring for it became much more important to me. I definitely source the meat that I buy differently than I would have after his very intimate interaction with my food.
Thanks for sharing your own experience/relationship to food, Olivia. The discussion of food choices assuming moralizing tones and sentiments has made me think about how my relationship to food has developed along moral lines in the past four years. I come from a Christian tradition (United Methodism) that doesn’t practice Lenten fasting or “elimination diets” in the same way others do. Nonetheless, I’ve adopted the practice of “giving up” some aspect(s) of my diet in a more intense and intentional way since I’ve moved to Kalamazoo (in high school I’d stick to not drinking pop/soda (which I already drank so rarely) during that forty day period preceding Easter whereas in recent years, I’ve cut out both meat and sweets). I haven’t thought incredibly deeply about why this shift has occurred, though I think it has to do with not being a part of a Christian community in the same way I was at home; with much of that “community” element of my religious practice removed, I adopted the highly personal practice of Lenten practice more intensely. For me, this choice is very much “morally driven,” though not in a proselytizing, social manner, but a more individualistic sense; without delving too much into my theology, “giving up” a part of my diet is contemplative prayer. But, I’ve also encountered this social moralizing in my practice. I don’t freely and openly preach that I have eliminated a certain food during Lent—because for me that’s not the point—but I do tell others when they ask or offer something I’ve chosen not to partake in during that time (as to not offend them). Yet, sometimes when I offer this information, these individuals that are “in the know” take on a policing role, telling me that a certain food that I choose to eat is “cheating,” or make light of my religious choice, joking that they might sneak something that I’ve “given up” into my food. I know that the intention is most often good, but that brand of moralizing can be highly offensive in a way that isn’t always easy to confront. Because my Lent practice is personal to being with, explaining/rationalizing my choices can add a “social” element that is uncomfortable and that compromises the personal intimacy of the choice.
ReplyDelete