#101 ·
Oh, man. Food!
There’s definitely truth to what everyone has said so far, but sometimes it crosses the line from being a social staple into actual pathology. Let me give you an example.
In my family, food was always the center of gravity for every get-together, conversation, or hangout. My parents loved hosting people; those lunches and dinners would basically revolve around my mom constantly juggling pans on the stove and plates on the table, while my dad kept heading back to the pantry for more cheese, deli meats, sausages, and whatnot. We’d sit down for dinner at, say, 3:00 PM, but out of the 30 minutes we actually spent sitting together, 25 of them were wasted just hovering over plates and pushing food onto people's forks. And then they’d claim they had such a lovely time socializing.
They expected that same level of service when we went to their house, too.
As for raising kids, food was always used as a substitute for actual emotions. If you were sad, scared, or needed encouragement, comfort, affection, understanding, or advice—the response was always: "Just eat something, it’ll make you feel better!" They’d sweep problems under the rug and put a plate of casserole on the table instead.
I didn't fall for it. I was never a big eater; lunch feels more like a chore I have to check off my list every day. It drives my mother crazy to this day. At 5'7" and about 130 lbs, I'm pretty thin. Once, she watched some documentary on anorexia on TV, and it absolutely floored her because she finally thought she had a medical name for my "condition." She nagged me about it for years. Of course, it never occurred to her to actually take me to a doctor if she was so worried; instead, her solution was to try and fix everything by setting the table sixteen times a day.
My brother is a completely different story. In his early thirties, he was 50 pounds overweight, dealing with high blood pressure, blood sugar issues, high cholesterol, and joint pain—everything hurts! He only recently started getting active; he’s taken up hiking, and his girlfriend has been helping him watch what he eats. He says that since he started living with her, he finally feels like a human being rather than just a sack of potatoes.
My parents, naturally, are both overweight. My mom is about 5'5" and 175 lbs. She is dead certain that salt is the one thing making us gain weight. She cooks "healthy," avoiding salt, but it doesn't matter when she’s loading everything with butter and heavy cream. And they can't get enough sweets; there are chocolates strategically placed everywhere. The best part is how she lectures me about salt being a deadly poison while simultaneously shoving a seventh piece of cake into her mouth.
The result of all this is our relationship today. I visit them maybe once every ten days; anything more than that is too much. Our conversations almost always devolve into them criticizing and fussing over me. It gets under my skin like nothing else. I love them, but we were never close, and we never will be. It's sad, but I avoid them because it's exhausting. Honestly, they avoid talking to me about anything meaningful, too; they never had the capacity for it. They treated my brother and me like objects that just needed to be fed and dressed warmly to ensure our basic needs were met. Feelings, opinions, preferences—we weren't allowed to have any of those.
My brother and I ended up at two opposite extremes. He accepted food as a replacement for human connection, whereas I developed an aversion to it. For me, eating feels like a heavy task; I’d honestly love it if scientists invented a single daily pill so I could stop worrying about it. I don't enjoy eating; there are a few things I like, but generally, food doesn't interest me at all. He finds it very hard to trust people, while I am hysterically open with everyone.
Etc, etc.
The point is, neither my brother nor I have a healthy relationship with food, and it’s a direct consequence of my parents' obsession with it.
There’s definitely truth to what everyone has said so far, but sometimes it crosses the line from being a social staple into actual pathology. Let me give you an example.
In my family, food was always the center of gravity for every get-together, conversation, or hangout. My parents loved hosting people; those lunches and dinners would basically revolve around my mom constantly juggling pans on the stove and plates on the table, while my dad kept heading back to the pantry for more cheese, deli meats, sausages, and whatnot. We’d sit down for dinner at, say, 3:00 PM, but out of the 30 minutes we actually spent sitting together, 25 of them were wasted just hovering over plates and pushing food onto people's forks. And then they’d claim they had such a lovely time socializing.
They expected that same level of service when we went to their house, too.
As for raising kids, food was always used as a substitute for actual emotions. If you were sad, scared, or needed encouragement, comfort, affection, understanding, or advice—the response was always: "Just eat something, it’ll make you feel better!" They’d sweep problems under the rug and put a plate of casserole on the table instead.
I didn't fall for it. I was never a big eater; lunch feels more like a chore I have to check off my list every day. It drives my mother crazy to this day. At 5'7" and about 130 lbs, I'm pretty thin. Once, she watched some documentary on anorexia on TV, and it absolutely floored her because she finally thought she had a medical name for my "condition." She nagged me about it for years. Of course, it never occurred to her to actually take me to a doctor if she was so worried; instead, her solution was to try and fix everything by setting the table sixteen times a day.
My brother is a completely different story. In his early thirties, he was 50 pounds overweight, dealing with high blood pressure, blood sugar issues, high cholesterol, and joint pain—everything hurts! He only recently started getting active; he’s taken up hiking, and his girlfriend has been helping him watch what he eats. He says that since he started living with her, he finally feels like a human being rather than just a sack of potatoes.
My parents, naturally, are both overweight. My mom is about 5'5" and 175 lbs. She is dead certain that salt is the one thing making us gain weight. She cooks "healthy," avoiding salt, but it doesn't matter when she’s loading everything with butter and heavy cream. And they can't get enough sweets; there are chocolates strategically placed everywhere. The best part is how she lectures me about salt being a deadly poison while simultaneously shoving a seventh piece of cake into her mouth.
The result of all this is our relationship today. I visit them maybe once every ten days; anything more than that is too much. Our conversations almost always devolve into them criticizing and fussing over me. It gets under my skin like nothing else. I love them, but we were never close, and we never will be. It's sad, but I avoid them because it's exhausting. Honestly, they avoid talking to me about anything meaningful, too; they never had the capacity for it. They treated my brother and me like objects that just needed to be fed and dressed warmly to ensure our basic needs were met. Feelings, opinions, preferences—we weren't allowed to have any of those.
My brother and I ended up at two opposite extremes. He accepted food as a replacement for human connection, whereas I developed an aversion to it. For me, eating feels like a heavy task; I’d honestly love it if scientists invented a single daily pill so I could stop worrying about it. I don't enjoy eating; there are a few things I like, but generally, food doesn't interest me at all. He finds it very hard to trust people, while I am hysterically open with everyone.
Etc, etc.
The point is, neither my brother nor I have a healthy relationship with food, and it’s a direct consequence of my parents' obsession with it.
