harborshore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
harborshore) wrote2010-04-01 11:01 am
harborshore) wrote2010-04-01 11:01 am
Entry tags:
on eating in company
Short meta on eating and the pressure women put on one another. As usual, I'm starting from myself, I make no claim to have all the answers, and I'm very open to be disagreed with. Warnings: mention of very severe eating disorder without discussing it in detail.
ETA: as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
unlurkster points out, this isn't even about weight, so I took the word out of the first sentence above.
There was a moment during the Israel trip that I particularly liked: Saturday night, when sitting down to dinner with four other women in all shapes and sizes and ordering food, I suddenly realized none of us had made a comment sounding anything like "I really want that, but I shouldn't--" or "Are you sure you want to eat that?" and fuck, it was such a relief. We just ordered! One of us had a tofu salad, one of us had lasagna, one of us had pasta, one of us had a goat cheese sandwich (ME, and it was EXCELLENT), and one of us had vegetable soup. It was done, just like that.
Because this isn't about what you eat. This is about judging someone else based on what they're eating or feeling like you're failing at something because you're on a diet or because you're not on a diet, because I just--every woman I know has some kind of body image issue. Every woman I know. They range in severity, but still. We really could stand to skip the part where we make each other feel guilty about what we eat (the lunches at my old job, for instance, were hell on earth), because the last thing we need is to make food more difficult.
I recognize the incredible privilege I've had of growing up in a house where food was a joyful thing, a healthy thing, something we loved and enjoyed. Dad's sister nearly died from anorexia when she was sixteen and mom was a dancer--those two things together made them try very hard to keep food being not scary. I wish I could give others that feeling. Barring empathy manifesting as a Heraldic power (yes, I read Mercedes Lackey at fourteen), I want to ask at least this much: is there a way that we can keep from making it worse for others? Accept people's food choices, let them eat without feeling guilty about it being a salad/a hamburger/a dessert? Maybe?
ETA: as
unlurkster points out, this isn't even about weight, so I took the word out of the first sentence above. There was a moment during the Israel trip that I particularly liked: Saturday night, when sitting down to dinner with four other women in all shapes and sizes and ordering food, I suddenly realized none of us had made a comment sounding anything like "I really want that, but I shouldn't--" or "Are you sure you want to eat that?" and fuck, it was such a relief. We just ordered! One of us had a tofu salad, one of us had lasagna, one of us had pasta, one of us had a goat cheese sandwich (ME, and it was EXCELLENT), and one of us had vegetable soup. It was done, just like that.
Because this isn't about what you eat. This is about judging someone else based on what they're eating or feeling like you're failing at something because you're on a diet or because you're not on a diet, because I just--every woman I know has some kind of body image issue. Every woman I know. They range in severity, but still. We really could stand to skip the part where we make each other feel guilty about what we eat (the lunches at my old job, for instance, were hell on earth), because the last thing we need is to make food more difficult.
I recognize the incredible privilege I've had of growing up in a house where food was a joyful thing, a healthy thing, something we loved and enjoyed. Dad's sister nearly died from anorexia when she was sixteen and mom was a dancer--those two things together made them try very hard to keep food being not scary. I wish I could give others that feeling. Barring empathy manifesting as a Heraldic power (yes, I read Mercedes Lackey at fourteen), I want to ask at least this much: is there a way that we can keep from making it worse for others? Accept people's food choices, let them eat without feeling guilty about it being a salad/a hamburger/a dessert? Maybe?
no subject
You see, I used to be skinny. Like, very very skinny despite all the food I ate. All my life I had to deal with people (who weren't family, my family always knew that I didn't have any eating disorder) spying on how many food I had in my plate, if I ate it all, if I went to the bathroom right after - I always tried to not go peeing after a meal in public because of that. I mean.
Last year doctors eventually found out that it was a thyroid issue, gave me pills to correct it and since then I've been gaining 13 kgs. I'm incredibly happy, mostly because I proved everyone (think co-workers, acquaintances, some doctors) that I didn't have any eating disorders. But it's been hard, especially dealing with some people who felt entitled to judge without knowing anything.
no subject
But yes--part of this was prompted because I lost a lot of weight because of medical issues last fall, and I just feel this simultaneous pressure to gain the weight back AND keep it off--which is obviously impossible. And I want to keep food angst-free, because food is one of my favorite things about being alive, you know? FOOD.