Carol’s Comments

Food Culture and Revolutionary Thinking

  There are two things I can always count on in the fall: more clients at the gym and more people dieting.  Angst over body shape and size, fueled by trying to live up to impossible standards, gets worse as we look ahead to the upcoming holiday season with all it’s temptation and stressors.  For our kids, peer-comparison and parental expectations create more stress, not only over body image but academic and athletic performance.  And as anxiety increases, self-control decreases, as well as overall health and well-being.

            Americans spend 42 billion a year on dieting and diet-related products, more than the federal government spends on education.  Talk about funding neighborhood schools!  Instead, by our words and actions, we encourage children as young as 8 to buy into the tragedy of measuring self worth by the numbers on the scale and their ability to be “perfect”.  The results have been an explosion of eating disorders in every segment of the population, but especially teenagers and young adults, accompanied by poor self-esteem, shame, fatigue, self-mutilation, mental disorders and disease.  If you’re my age, you grew up in a time when kids and families ate well, got plenty of exercise, were healthier and more content, and obesity was a rarity.  And no one was on a diet.

            We have allowed food manufacturers and advertisers to usurp our responsibility as parents to provide practical guidelines for healthy eating to the next generation. Faced by an onslaught of processed foods over the last two decades, we’ve seen our waistlines expand and the rates of all major diseases dramatically increase.  Could there be a connection?   Processed foods are sweetened and salted and artificially flavored to appeal to our taste buds, so we’ll want to eat them compulsively.  And these companies aren’t concerned with your health; there’s a lot of money to be made by using artificial ingredients and super-sizing portions.  Real food, with real flavors and natural vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fiber are much more satisfying, so we need and eat less.  Real will always be the healthiest choice.

            According to cross-cultural studies, Americans are the world’s most anxious eaters. We worry more about food and derive less pleasure from eating than any other people on the planet.  We’re also fatter and sicker than any other developed nation.  Perhaps a connection?   Eating should be about pleasure, not fear or obsession.  We’ve forgotten when food was good for us and we approached the dinner table with hunger and thankfulness.

            When media saturates our homes with images of unattainable thinness and “perfection”, courtesy of digital manipulation, we have not only failed to turn away from the foolishness of striving for the “image”, but have chosen to embrace the unreal for ourselves and our families.  We are a nation of plastic food and plastic surgery, endlessly unsatisfied and insecure.

            What about embracing our uniqueness?  What about fulfillment and pleasure?  Not just in eating, but in every part of who we really are. It’s not only time to approach the table with gratefulness, but the rest of our lives, to build a foundation for life that is real and lasting, not fake and temporary.  And to teach the next generation to be not only wiser than us, but healthier too.

            Start your own revolution!