Show Notes

Listeners’ Letter

Dear Food,

I’ve always loved you. Even those ten years I feared you, I loved you. Growing up I didn’t think twice about you. I ate when I was hungry, stopped when I was full, never over thought my decisions about you, wasn’t guilted into eating certain types of you, or eating less or more of you. We were good! Something changed around high school. My body was changing, yes, my stress changed too, and my thoughts about myself definitely changed. I’m sure it was a combination of external factors like TV shows and subtle messages about food and my body, but also having a mother who was constantly “trying to lose ten pounds”. So many things came together to make me, what seemed like over night, fear you. I started weighing and measuring you like it was my job to limit you and only have so much of you. I became obsessed with not eating anything with fat, feasting mainly on egg whites, broccoli, cereal with skim milk, and rice cakes. I pretended I was completely satisfied, but the truth was, I wasn’t. This disorder carried me through my best years, college, where things got worse, but I believed I was fine, saying my eating was completely normal, my relationship with you was fine, and I was indeed eating plenty. I truly believed that. At a certain point I couldn’t restrict you any longer, I needed more. I started binging on types of you like peanut butter, my favorite food that I never allowed myself to eat. I felt out of control but fixed things by over-exercising, thinking there was no way I would allow my moments of weakness to change me, change my body. I’d go to the rec for hours. I’d study for exams while pedaling on the recumbent bike, never leaving until I burned a certain amount of calories and repented appropriately for what I considered a sin. Fast forward to now, twenty years later, and I have trouble even remembering my life as someone who feared you. Instead of fearing you, and fearing hunger, I embrace it. I’m raising a daughter now and can’t help but wonder, “how will our culture shape her relationship with food and her body?”. She’s already begun making comments about her body and I feel blessed to have the skills to help her through these moments, but what if that’s not enough? What if social media, movies, TV shows, her friends, their families, what if somehow her relationship with you shifts, almost over night, like it did with me? I can’t and I won’t live in fear. I know I can only do so much. I know what I’m doing now, raising her in a house where I and her father love and appreciate you, food, and don’t comment on her food or our bodies, I know this is helpful. It may not be enough. But, I can and always will say I did my best. Food, I just want to say that even though we had a rough ten years, I thank you now for nourishing me, bringing me so much joy and satisfaction, helping me grow two beautiful kids, and of course, thanks for nourishing them now. I hope they can always look at you with love, not fear.

Your friend and admirer, Gina