Enjoying food is a form of resistance 

I’ve always loved food. Gratefully, I never missed a meal growing up. My family is equally passionate about food; we’d plan our days around meals, talk about what’s for dinner before we even had breakfast, and geek out over the delicious pastries my dad frequently brought home after work. I think, at least partly, that it’s a cultural thing; Jews are often known to be big foodies.

 

I remember having a pretty good relationship with food until right after college. Then, things changed as I started buying into diet culture, depriving myself and feeling ashamed of what and how I was eating. I felt like I couldn’t be too publicly excited about food. I didn’t want people to think I had an obsession. The thing is, I did.

 

I had an obsession with food because I wasn’t eating enough, and because I deemed certain foods off-limits (and then binged on them). Food insecurity leads to a fixation on food and disordered eating, and the body interprets even self-imposed restriction as food insecurity. In her book “Tired as F*ck,” Caroline Dooner cites an article discussing “how calorie restriction makes food extra appealing, increases the brain’s chemical reward for eating food, and makes us more fixated on food.” I now understand what was really going on. My problem wasn’t “food addiction.” My problem was dieting. 

 

Diet culture teaches us to fear food. It also teaches us that we should have temperance and restraint around food, which are colonial, Euro-centric values that were used to discriminate against Black people in the colonies who ate with indulgence. 

We’re taught that we shouldn’t enjoy food too much: “Oh God, get this away from me before I eat any more!” “This is too good. It’s sinful.” (There are also all kinds of interesting parallels around “purity” between religion and diet culture and healthism.)

 

Women especially are expected not to eat “too much,” or to avoid indulgent foods because the patriarchy wants us to be thin and “beautiful” and demure. And so we have women laughing alone with salad and talking about “maintaining their lady-like figure” (which men have also disgustingly adopted, ugh). 

 

The patriarchy also attempts to control women’s pleasure. We’re only just starting to learn more about female anatomy and sexual pleasure, because for so long those things were ignored. Speaking from experience (unfortunately), many men completely miss the concept that women can have orgasms too – or they just don’t care. The virgin/whore dichotomy perpetuates the idea that women shouldn’t be too interested in sex (and the double standard that they also shouldn’t be too uninterested in sex). As we learn all of this, it makes sense that we tend to temper our pleasure whether from sex or from food.

 

You are allowed to get pleasure from food. It’s an act of resistance. When you fully enjoy your food, you’re say “fuck you” to the patriarchy, to diet culture and its racist roots. 

 

Pleasure is healthy. Having a variety of pleasure sources in life is important, and food is an absolutely legitimate one. Allowing yourself to truly enjoy any food in any amount without guilt can help anchor you to the moment, improve your relationship with food, and dismantle the oppressive systems that make us feel wrong for doing so in the first place. 

 

Now I’m cool with people knowing I love food. I think it’s actually healing to show that. And now I’m not obsessed with it in the way that a starving or restricted person is. I’m just a foodie! It’s possible to love food while also being relaxed around it and having a healthy (i.e.: unrestrictive) relationship with it. I no longer allow diet culture to rob me of this freedom and pleasure. And I sure as hell won’t let it dampen my cultural enthusiasm for food!