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
For me, its all about trying to stick with those amazing people who make me feel comfortable. Or turning it into a "fuck you jerkoff, I'll eat what I want - how dare you judge me with your eyes." It's in my head though. My sister was heavy growing up - I was thin, and my father was a fucking asshole about food whenever he was around - which was rarely. It rubbed off and then I was the victim of a category 4 hurricane when I was a senior in high school and was stuck unable to eat anything but restaurant food for an entire year because we had no kitchen (because we had no house). So I gained my freshman fifteeen out of stress/pain eating before I got to college. And then I got chronically ill and clinically depressed and the freshman fifteen and lept to from 135 to 180 in less than 3 years. Then everyone had something to say about my weight. I'm back down to 165 - being happy again has helped with the weight loss- but it is still 10 pounds over the ideal weight for my Body Mass Index so people keep talking. IDK, my father saying shit like "You're pretty but if you could lose 20 pounds you'd be gorgeous again" sorta gets to you, you know? I dont know what the solution is.
no subject
I agree that anger and sticking to the people who don't do this are the best solutions. BMI is a fucking stupid measurement of anything, as is ideal weight--human bodies are so different, there are so many variables to how we're put together that 10 pounds is absolutely nothing, in the greater scheme of things. But I know you know that--it's the part where we have to apply it to ourselves that makes it difficult. And having your father say shit like that certainly doesn't help.
I don't know what to tell you except that there is a way to develop your own self-image and hold on to it despite people being assholes. Beauty isn't about weight. It really, really, really isn't. No matter what people like to claim. And the people who do judge? Their own issues are often through the roof. Even if they never talk about them and pretend they don't exist.