Now. You should all go read this super thought-provoking article from Rookie Mag (and go check out the rest of the site, because it is probably the best thing on the Internet, and it does not matter one whit if you do not fall within the target demographic - hell knows I'm a few hundred miles away from "teenage girl" by this point). There are some problematic aspects within the writer's ideas (chiefly, the tendency to over-generalize) but it did get me pondering pretty hard.
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| image from Eating : A Manifesto |
" Girls and women of the world, could we stop apologizing for wanting and eating food? Because this is one of the most ridiculous things that we do collectively as lady-people, and not only does it annoy the shit out of me personally, but it is also INCREDIBLY SAD. Could we stop feeling “guilty” for wanting an effing brownie? Or a plate of fries? Could we stop actively seeking permission from our friends to go ahead and “be bad” and order the cheesecake? Could we all just go ahead and order whatever it is that we feel like eating, instead of saying, “Oh, I feel like a pig, you guys are just getting salads”?
...I want women to allow themselves to want food. I want women to be hungry and ask for what they want to eat without apologizing. I want women to stop looking for permission from others before they eat something that is not a carrot or spinach."
Food, and women's relationships with food, is a topic I've been chewing on (HA see what I did there) for the last few days, and this article is nearly a perfect summation of all the food-related experiences I've had with the women in my life, particularly within the family circle. GUILT is the primary emotion I associate with food, in general. Many girls and women I know either justify or rationalize what they choose to eat ("I'll only have half a plate of rice", "I was at the gym for hours yesterday so it's okay to have one slice of pizza, right?") or nitpick about calories, or try to laugh off the social stigma of having an extra helping of chicken curry or nasi lemak by making jokes about how many rolls of fat they'll gain by the end of the week.
Why, only a couple of days ago I was at the movies with my brother, and we decided to have cheeseburgers and fries for dinner. I spent most of my meal wondering if people were staring at me and my burger in disgust, probably thinking shit like "Oh god look at her stuffing her face, does she really need that". SHAME. I was ashamed to be eating a cheeseburger in public, and I felt a sick desire to run up to everyone who even so much looked in my direction and start justifying why I had decided to purchase said cheeseburger ("You don't UNDERSTAND I had a very small LUNCH please stop JUDGING me OH MY GOD"). And yet I knew it was ridiculous to feel the way I did. Why apologize for your food choices? You certainly don't owe perfect strangers a justification for your daily calorie consumption.
I spent years and years at various family functions watching aunts and girl cousins hanging around at the buffet table, talking about how they are either on a diet or planning to go on one.Watching them fish around for the tiniest piece of masala chicken they could find. They would refuse to take any servings of rice, because the CARBS are EVIL, and they'd come up to me and tell me how much thinner they had become since they cut rice entirely out of their diet. My cousins would hover around, talking about how much they'd love to go for a second helping of mutton briyani but they were too embarrassed to walk up to the main table and put any more food on their plate. And their shame would bleed into me, too. I am still not 100% comfortable with eating in public.
It was always heartbreaking and frustrating to watch, because these girls genuinely loved food, but were held back by shame and the fear that some family member would walk up and make some half-joking but profoundly damaging comment like "Hey isn't that enough crab curry for a girl your size? LOLOLOL, etc.". It is equally heartbreaking and frustrating to watch my perfectly healthy-sized 17 year old cousin examine herself in the mirror and sigh about how FAT she is, while other cousins, in some sort of bonding session, also poke at their arms and bellies and legs and cry out that they are UGLY and DROOPY and FAT and EWW LOOK AT THE STRETCH MARKS while another 8 year old cousin watches in the background, already learning the Say-No-To-Rice-And-Hate-Yourself-In-Front-Of-The-Mirror routine. And I won't lie - I've taken part in these sessions myself, and sometimes still do. It's a seemingly never ending cycle of shame and guilt and depriving yourself of things you like but hating yourself anyway. It doesn't help that there are various other assorted family members who have no qualms about making casual comments to let you know that you've put on weight, or that you should lose weight, or that this outfit fits you better since you've become less fat. Is it any wonder why we have such fucked up levels of body positivity? Our relationship with food is not only tied up with the usual things, like the pressure of conforming to an ideal body shape or size, or being able to fit into certain clothes, but also the fear of looking piggy or greedy or indulgent or poorly-disciplined in public.
To be fair to my cousins, they are absolutely wonderful and supportive when it comes to other girls' bodies - mine, for instance. They are effusive with their compliments and cries of "No no you're totally gorgeous!" or "OMG you look so good! But here let me suggest a colour that would look even better on you". They are intelligent, confident, assertive and bold in every other way. It's the loathing of their physical selves that really seems to get them down, even if they appear to be half-joking about it most of the time. And it isn't their fault in any way, shape or form. It's the world - starting with our own families, unfortunately - screaming at them to be thinner, but not too thin, to have meat in all the right places, but not actually get fat, to eat more but stay skinny, to be more acceptable, because the way they are isn't good enough for some reason.
My saving grace lies in the form of my friends. They all have varying issues with their body and image, because we are all not perfect. But body shaming or using food to send each other on guilt trips is a no-no, and I am supremely thankful for this. We order whatever we want. Feel like a cheesecake? Let's go have some cheesecake. Want a milkshake? Order the damn milkshake. Salad and mineral water for lunch? Your call, it's all good. You're boycotting fast food restaurants for health and/or ethical reasons? No problem, we'll just have Thai food or some shit like that. There is no shame-induced calorie counting, no talk of "OMG I am so fat!" or "I really shouldn't be eating this but...". There is plenty of conversation about everything else on the planet, and when food is mentioned, it's always along the lines of "can I have a bite of that?" or "are you going to finish those fries or what?" or something. The only time anyone chooses to order small portions or skip dessert is when we're on a budget, not that hungry, genuinely monitoring what we're eating, or if that's just what we want.
In fact, I am almost insanely lucky to have, in the last couple of years, friends at uni who have built up such a warm, healthy friendship around food. Food and eating is our primary bonding mechanism ; sharing recipes, telling each other about new dishes we've tried, making plans to visit interesting restaurants and food stalls around town (without them, I would have never known about the awesome joint in Subang Jaya that serves pork patty-wrapped-in-ham-wrapped-in-bacon burgers and sweet jeebus it is the best thing ever). It's healthy, and positive, and most importantly we all help each other stay in moderation.
And so here's what I think A Healthy Relationship With Food should ultimately be about : a positive relationship with food, in the sense that you know and eat what is good for you and your body, and have an Oreo milkshake or something once in a while if you want to, without beating yourself up about it. Moderation and positivity. And also exercise (bleerrgh). [Being a perpetually broke college student, I still reserve the right to do stupid things like skip breakfasts and eat instant noodles until all my hair falls out, though. So there.]
Not to go out and eat ALL the chocolate cake, no. Stuffing yourself with sugar and refined carbs just to defeat The System, or thinking that indulging in a brownie makes you inherently better or smarter or more evolved and liberated than a woman who is eating a celery stick is not the point. There are no winners here. Thin women don't necessarily have it any easier than any other-sized woman. As I mentioned earlier, we are living in a world that is screaming at us to be perfect, when absolutely no one is. And it's also the same world that shows us ads for like, oh I don't know, double deluxe jumbo chocolate syrup chip fudge chocolate pudding deep fried cake ice cream, with buzz words like "INDULGE!" or "SURRENDER!" or "LET YOURSELF GO!" and generally wraps all our food up in layers of shame and guilt and loss of control and makes it seem like eating dessert is the most sinful, depraved thing we could do, and usually we should feel bad for wanting the double deluxe jumbo chocolate syrup chip fudge chocolate pudding deep fried cake ice cream, but hey it's okay to INDULGE! just this once. It's a very fucked up relationship with food and eating (and by extension, our own bodies) that society has ingrained into us ladypersons, and in my experience it affects us all in different ways, with different levels of intensity. Like I said, there are no winners here.
On the other hand I really and truly cannot speak for the struggles of those girls and women with eating disorders or other food-related mental/physical health issues. In fact, I can't speak for ALL women at all. I don't have enough knowledge about your personal experiences or world views to be able to make one sweeping generalisation of EAT WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT LADIEZZ! But I can at least try to start with myself. And the thing is, it's all probably so much easier said than done. Food and eating can be a very loaded, sensitive topic, and a lot of people are going to have to work through issues and emotions that are a lot more complex and cannot be solved by just telling them to stop feeling bad and eat the damned cookie already. Which is why the other really really important thing, I think, is that we've got to try and never judge, shame or criticize other girls for what they choose to eat, whether it's a cupcake or a carrot, a hamburger or hummus. Our bodies, our choices. And mutual respect is key. As that Rookie article so succinctly puts it, for girls "to take pleasure in food [whatever that food may be], without punishing ourselves [or each other] for wanting it."
