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By Suzanne E. Harrill
Do you eat to live or live to eat? We all
have a relationship with food and it can represent much more
than nourishment to keep our bodies alive and healthy. Take a
look at your eating habits. Do you eat just the right amount of
nutritious food to maintain a healthy weight, to feel good, and
live your day energetically? Do you have favorite comfort foods
that you reach for when unhappy or feeling off center? Do you
know when you are eating to provide emotional nourishment? Many
of us under- or overeat when we have unresolved emotional
issues, which is at the bottom of associating food with love.
Let’s take a look at our personal eating patterns and see what
might be brewing below the surface. In that way we can make
wise adjustments that support a healthier relationship with
food.
Begin by looking at yourself in the mirror.
What do you see? Are you overly self-critical? Are you satisfied
with your basic form? I am not talking about wishing you had
something that is impossible, such as a different body type or
hair texture. Next, ask yourself how you feel inside, your
energy level, your mental attitude. Are you in balance much of
the time or not too often? Do you know how to get yourself
feeling good again and to get back in balance when you eat
poorly? We all make poor choices some of the time. The important
thing is to know yourself and how to get back into a healthy
balanced internal state which produces a healthy outer state.
Now take a look at your eating patterns. Do
you go from one extreme to another, skipping meals and then
overeating later in the day or evening? Are you a social eater
and eat more when at a restaurant or with others? Do you hide
your eating? Do you cook meals for yourself when alone? Some
people eat three meals a day no matter what, even when they are
not hungry. Some eat much more food than their bodies can use
while other people eat less, not being able to stomach much
food. Some people set overly rigid and strict rules about eating
foods in their “bad” category, such as sweets or bread and
butter, and then punish themselves when they break the rules. Do
you make promises to yourself about what and how you will eat,
but then continually break those agreements?
Go deeper now; what are some of your early
memories around food? Maybe you see family dinner time as
unpleasant where your dad dominated the conversation and you, as
a child, wanted to eat and run, but had to sit and listen beyond
your patience level. Or maybe you remember family reunions with
lots of smiles and hugs and loads of wonderful, heavy foods like
mashed potatoes with gravy and delicious deserts. Maybe when you
hurt yourself or cried as a young child your mother gave you
something sweet to quiet you. These early memories affect us
today because they have an emotional component that stays with
us, many times at the unconscious level. That is part of the
reason why we find ourselves associating food with either love
and comfort or the opposite.
To make a positive change in our relationship
with food, we benefit from seeing how these early experiences
drive us today and how we must override some of them. Think
about your eating patterns, your beliefs about food and eating,
and the spoken or unspoken rules behind them. What do you
already know about your psychological relationship with food and
its effect on your satisfaction with your body, energy level,
and emotional/mental health? Focus on the unhealthy aspects to
build awareness so you can make more aware choices that move you
in a positive direction. Spend time pondering your true needs,
especially when you are eating to fill yourself emotionally. Ask
yourself what risks you need to take to meet these needs so you
do not misuse food when looking for love or security. It is
normal to feel resistance with this inner process, but it does
not have to stop us from building a new relationship with food.
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