A thought on food and people

this is just a thought i'v been having for quite some time and just wanted to vent it out.

when you walk into a food court and see the amount of people eating there its because they're not worrying as to whether or not the food is bad for them, jow it was cooked or how many calories are in their food.

it just makes me really sad to know that i used to be one of those people. i could happily walk into a food court and go get chinese but now i have to circle it like ten times to end up just getting sushi (not that i don't love sushi).

i went to a buffet yestrday and i was fascinated that people can just keep on walking up and down with full sized plates without having any worry as to whether or not they chose the right food, if its healthy, how many calories and fat ect. i love those people and i hate that i know (not ed talking its logical) i can never be like that again, yes i can eat foods but there will always be a worry.

so my question is would you consider that everyone on a diet has an eating disorder of some sort because they restrict themselves from certain foods because they think its bad for their health or claim it will make them fat? i mean its all in moderation right? no food is essentially bad. yes fast food isn't natural but is it normal? people didn't eat it many years ago but people years ago also probably didn't restrict themselves from having foods they wanted or go on diets.... although they propbaly had limits as to what they could afford to eat.

are the people not on diets the 'normal people' that people like ed recoveres are meant to be like? are we supposed to be teaching ourselves to become the people who don't think of food as anything else but a meal?

 or is everyone meant to be the 'normal people' who ate naturally like the ones long ago. which one would you define as normal?

so many questions i know but i just really wanted to express those questions.

What you are expressing is similar to how women experience many different kinds of traumatic events. There is before and after. Initially in the "after" you spend a lot of time mourning the loss of "before".

Eventually, you hit a new normal.

Let me give you an example: a woman is raped by a previously trusted male colleague. She loses all ability to trust herself and most other men in her life. She sees danger and threat everywhere she looks and marvels at all these other oblivious women who walk around late at night or ignore the way a guy looks them up and down...

With some therapy and some time -- maybe a really supportive man in her life too, she starts to assimilate her new way of seeing things around her. Will she ever be the person she was before? Absolutely not. But she starts to really appreciate that she isn't that person anymore. She is thankful she sees more danger signs now but she is also thankful she has gained a bit of balance so that she is  not always on high alert either.

So back to where your journey will take you. You will absolutely find a new normal. You will eventually embrace the fulfillment of knowing what is nourishing food and what is empty, numbing pseudo-food (processed stuff usually). You will take yourself down from high-alert over time as well and enjoy something knowing full well it has X calories but that it's o.k.

And to the broader question: Overweight people who diet are not eating disordered. However, we know diets trigger eating disorders in some and not others, but we don't really know why or how. It's like playing Russian roulette. This is why only overweight people with immediate health issues should attempt a diet and they should do so with medical oversight.

Normal weighted people who diet are usually not aware of the dangers of dieting because we have a society that assumes it has no risk and only upsides. They too play Russian roulette. And for those that do have an eating disorder triggered it is doubly sad because there was only vanity at the start -- not even an underlying health condition generated by obesity (not to say that every eating disorder isn't tragic, it is).

Because most 'normal' folk today are completely uneducated about the food they consume (and the food industry is built to ensure we are disconnected from the pieces of chicken, high fructose corn syrup and soy that are actually in a chicken nugget, never mind the preservative sprayed all over inside of chicken nugget box), I don't think a person who has suffered an eating disorder should even shoot for that approach as an ideal.

You, like the imaginary woman who was raped, will be thankful you know what you do and have learned what you've learned, but will start to assimilate it all into a new normal.

Everyone has their own "normal" in life.

I was raised eating mostly fresh vegetables, some fruit and nuts/seeds.  We only had meat once in awhile.  We didn't eat at restaurants.  I didn't even know what bacon was until I was 14 and had stayed overnight with a friend.  She thought our eating habits were weird.  I thought hers were. 

Eventually, eating better becomes a habit as well as your new normal.

thankyou so much for your feedback, its exactly what i needed to hear. its just one of those things that bother you for such a long time.

hedgren, your story is a sad but insightful way of how to look at this. i am thankful for what i now know and i actually can see a future for me now. I am finding my new normal and i quite like it. although my normal does have some pretty weird food concoctions, all healthy and nutritious and i am finding a balance with other foods now too.

your very smart and i love your opinion, thankyou

august, not knowing what bacon was? that is strange but its fine because like your family we grow into our own customs, tastes and habits. eating better and eating has become a better habit for me, although i still can't convince my famliy to try my food sometimes but i guess they have their own 'normal' and like being that way.

im soo happy i understand a bit more now!

I am glad the responses connected. On a lighter note in relation to augustnkate meeting up with bacon at 14, my husband and I once overheard the following conversation in a cafeteria.

The mother was taking her child and her child's friend out on a day trip (we're out on the west coast of Canada -- ferry trips feature prominently). The mother was obviously a committed vegetarian and and raised her family that way. Many of the island dwellers are ecologically and ethically committed citizens.

She returned to the table with the breakfasts she had purchased in line then headed off to get all the cutlery and napkins while the two boys began nibbling their food. They were around seven years old.

Mom returns and her son pipes up: "So Mom, I tried some of Taylor's bacon and I really liked it so I'm thinking maybe being vegetarian with bacon."

Mom "Well, honey bacon isn't really vegetarian and so we don't really have things like that. But in Taylor's home they do and so that's fine for him."

Son "But why don't we have bacon and they do?"

And the mother at this point has to dodge because she doesn't want Taylor heading back to his mother with the gory details of where bacon comes from..."Well, we can talk about that later honey, have you offered Taylor any of your potato patty yet?"

And crisis averted (my son would've persisted in the line of questioning and I would've had to encourage them both to go on deck with me to see if we could see whales as an ultimate distraction) -- I'm sure she had back up plans if he had persisted!

I ate the bacon.  I ate almost a pound of bacon because it was sooo good.  I'd never tasted anything like it.  Then I got very sick.  Very, very sick and had to go home.

I had baked fish and chicken but never saw meat fried and never had pork at all!  I'd heard people talk about bacon and sausage but I'd never actually seen it or eaten if before.  My mom got a good laugh when my friend's mom told her what had happened.

I still eat a mostly vegetarian diet, but encourage my kids to at least try other foods.

I loved reading everyones thoughts and opinions on this and its wierd because sometimes I am in restaurants or food outlets and I see people eating so happily and so freely, yes they might be completely messing up their bodies in the long run but they are happy, they don't have a sense of panic around food and they are actually ENJOYING food. In a way I kind of wish I still had that naievity around food-I think it would make me a lot happier.

Also you have to consider the question of what is normal?? In this day and age, really, what is normal?

To answer your first question, no, I don't think people on diets have eating disorders. Some dieting is unhealthy but I think eating disorders are another step further than that.

There are a lot of steps in recovery, many of which are very gradual. Committing to recovery and a weight-gain diet, reaching a healthy weight, eating regular meals again; these things feel like recovery and they are! But there's more to it than just that.

In the last year I have relaxed a lot in my eating habits. I thought I was recovered before, but this feels more real if that makes sense. I am one of those people at a buffet who will go and pick whatever they like and eat happily without thinking of calories. I thought I would have to nitpick over calories for the rest of my life, but with a lot of hard work I learnt to get over that and eat intuitively. I no longer count calories. I eat chocolate, sweets or a dessert most days. I don't eat to a timetable or have a prescribed number of snacks.

I don't think there is one normal that fits everybody. Some people like to eat 6 mini-meals a day, some - like me - have 3 meals plus some snacks. We all have different likes and dislikes and eat different food depending on where we are in the world.

I would say an "ideal" eater knows about the food they eat and makes healthy choices most of the time. I would also say they only eat food that really tastes good to them, they enjoy their food, and they listen to their hunger and fullnessness signals. But again, even an ideal eater will enjoy food for its own sake and not purely for hunger. Food is a wonderful part of life and to enjoy a treat or eat because you are in the company of others is no bad thing.

In regards to buffets:

I used to as a child ignore my "your full now" signal because my eyes were bigger than my stomach.  At buffets there can be a bunch of stuff you like that you really want to eat.  So I would go and get it all.  Now I scale back.  I pick the stuff I most want to try and get that.  And I make sure to stop at the salad bar first.  And I still stop by the dessert bar.

In regards to food courts:

I hate the paranoia now.  I liked it when I could just go up to the McD's and get a double quarter pounder meal and eat it.  Now I worry about the sodium content and what goes into the food they serve and the calories.  I still eat occasionally at McD's but it's a much more stressful process now.

I like my version of normal.  I eat what I feel like, which is healthy most of the time.  But let me tell you, I really want to try a Five Guys cheeseburger.  I think I will pick one up for lunch the day I drive back home for my school break.  I'll get all the good veggie fixins on it of course and I'll bring my normal lunch side of an apple and baby carrots and a dannon lite yogurt.  I just turned a "bad" thing better.  It is going to be a lot of calories but who cares?  It is a treat.  Five Guys makes great burgers.

'There are no bad foods, only bad diets'.  The trouble with 'dieting' by and large is that the person starts labelling certain foods as 'bad'.... setting up all kinds of situations for guilt, anxiety, and - of course - natural cravings.  People with eating disorders take this several hundred steps further because the mental illness that is an eating disorder converts 'anxiety' to 'phobia' and 'guilt' to 'irrational self-hatred'.  

So the people in the food court most likely are enjoying their trayful of food as a treat.   Anyone who reads my posts knows that I'm a big advocate of healthy eating and home-cooking but that doesn't mean I eat that way 24/7....  You will occasionally find me in KFC, enjoying a Crispy Strip as much as the next woman.   I have to watch my weight so I can't indulge too often, of course.

Not everyone on a diet has an eating disorder, no.  But should they find that a natural (and healthy) desire to eat well and keep their weight under control is turning into something more obsessive then they should take note and take steps to address it.  This 'SCOFF' questionnaire is used by some doctors to assess whether someone is at risk of an eating disorder.  'Normal' dieters are unlikely to answer 'yes' to 2 or more of the following

• Do you make yourself Sick because you feel uncomfortably full? 
• Do you worry that you have lost Control over how much you eat? 
• Have you recently lost more than One stone in a 3 month period? 
• Do you believe yourself to be Fat when others say you are too thin? 
• Would you say that Food dominates your life?

thankyou for all the replies. it definitley has helped to clear up my thoughts and i love that everyone had their own way of seeing it. is it just me or is it always the burgers which people will claim to be the worst thing in a food court?

gi-jane, you have answered so many questions for me before and i really like your replies. i did the questionarre and a year ago i would have been the COFF of that test but now im not any of them. I do worry about C but its not that i have lost control, just that i will. although thats no better. thankyou!