Tonight on the evening news I looked in the eyes of children starving. Of people living in a famine that is being called the worst since World War II. It made me feel awful that I think about food the way I do.
I hate to grocery shop. It is my least favorite “chore.” To think that I dislike wandering the aisles loaded with food while others starve is pretty horrible.
In this country, although there are pockets of “food deserts” where there are few if any grocery stores, for the most part there is food available year around on the shelves of markets. We not only have choices on which food we buy, but we have different brands of the same item to choose from.
While teaching my workshop and helping kids get into their costumes, I heard lots of small talk from the girls. Most of the girls were in the 9-11 year old range. One girl that I heard was 13. They all commented on how ugly their legs were, how “big” they were (although most of them are stick thin) and how they hated their bodies.
I tried to do what I could to make them realize that their bodies were so wonderful and worked so beautifully. These girls just wanted to look perfect, like the models in the magazines (which we know don’t look as perfect as their photos would have us think.)
I was reminded of the day a few weeks ago when I heard grown women saying the same thing. It was troubling then- it was horrifying now.
As a young person I was raised to eat what my father thought was healthy and I realize now was not so much.
When I was 19, we had a trauma in our family which led me to gain weight. I was highly criticized by my parents for this and once the traumatic incident was resolved I decided to start researching and studying nutrition.
As I began to lose the weight something clicked into my brain and I realized somewhere inside of me that I finally had some control in an otherwise uncontrollable life. I could control every bite that went into my mouth. And I began to do just that.
Every bite was measured, every calorie counted, every morsel was recorded. I cut the calories more and more, ate less and less and worked out harder and harder. I lost all of the weight I wanted to lose and decided to keep going. I was living at home yet I could fast for days, eat tiny meals and nothing was said. I became emaciated.
Eventually I heard my body screaming for food. My heart would beat really fast for no reason and I realized that something was wrong. Still not saying anything to anyone, I began to do more research and it led me to start eating healthy and to quit starving myself. I was one of the lucky ones. I survived and got better.
I still feel awful if I eat a big meal or when I eat something I know isn’t good for me. I try to work out most days and I am careful not to eat too much and not to eat too little. It is a balancing act.
I wonder when I will be old enough to not have this issue anymore. I really don’t think age has anything to do with it. As with people who overeat, I don’t think food really has that much to do with it either. It is the loss of control, it is the idea of letting down my guard for a minute and how awful it would be if I did. It is an illness that I feel again and again when I hear women old and young complain about their bodies and food.
And then I see those kids from the news. The ones struggling to survive a famine. The ones who can’t eat because there simply is no food and their bodies have gotten so weak and used to no food that a regular meal could kill them. The ones who stare at the camera blankly as they wither to nothing.
I send the money to try to buy them sustenance and wonder how we got so far off track. How we tend to be either gluttons who suffer from health issues because we overeat or we starve ourselves to exercise a little control over our lives or so we can be like the unattainable images in the magazines.
I wonder how something so simple and so necessary as eating can be such an issue that most people spend far too much time thinking about their own food and not enough time thinking about anyone else’s.
With the government trying to take away the idea of healthy food in schools and food at all for some kids, it is beyond me how we can have so much, be so gluttonous and yet not be concerned for those who don’t.
Fighting demons of any kind can be tough. But looking into the eyes of those babies with nothing to eat makes me want to say to everyone I know, shame on us. Shame on us.
