As I continue to listen to the Food Pysch podcast, I have been thinking about my relationship with food. One of the things that the host Christy Harrison does with the guest is ask them about their history with food, how it was when they were kids etc.
And I mean, I am me so of course I thought about it.
I have gone through the expected periods of fearing food, of restrictive eating, diets etc. And I am at the point where for me, eating food is pleasurable. I am not counting anything, I am not demonizing certain foods, I am listening to my body, eating when I am hungry, enjoying my food etc.
It has taken years to reach this place and I am so glad to be here.
Diet culture and the diet industry has really done a number on all of us from always being critical of ourselves, hating our bodies, believing there is something like a “perfect body”, thinking of food as inherently bad or good and also seeing food as numbers and not as all the things it actually is.
Imagine meeting your people for a meal and you are already fearing the food you will eat – already thinking about calories that even the joy from bonding is forgotten – is minimised. A damn shame. And could not be me.
Something that was said in one of the podcast episodes that stayed with me was “would you wish the same body issues on your child?” And so I ask, especially women who are mothers to daughters – would you? We need to stop normalising this generational trauma that has been passed down.
PS: Ask yourself why you treat being fat like a moral failing.
PPS: No one (and by no one I mean me) wants to be bored by how you are being tortured at the gym or how you’ve cut out food and are now hungry. Talk to someone else, not me.