dressing the table
learning to love the company slightly more than the meal
I am truly my father’s daughter in almost every sense of the phrase. We both eat incredibly fast, love all things greasy, and are, as my dad says, “heavy-boned.” My body has always been bigger than most girls in my grade, and I somehow towered over the majority. In other words, I was a growing girl, one who needed a lot of food. Initially, the stares and comments did not bother me, but soon, they consumed me. Even sitting at the lunch table with my closest friends felt like a special type of hell. I was hyper-aware of everyone’s movements and reactions. Did they just look at me because I’m eating too fast? I would ask daily. Every glance, joke, and comment destroyed me.
I know I am not alone in the root cause of this. According to the National Organization for Women, 53% of American girls are unhappy with their bodies by the age of 13, and that jumps to 78% by 17. The worst part is that one day, I just felt this. There was no way to stop it, no warning signs. I remember the exact moment I realized I had a body that was being perceived. Just the thought of my leotard and tights became suffocating in the middle of ballet class. I forced my mom to let me quit about a week later.
The issue never really improved as I got older, I simply got better at hiding and avoiding it. I often refused to eat in front of friends and extended family. Each time, a new excuse. I ate before this. I don’t like eating before working out. I don’t like eating after working out. I’m not hungry. My stomach hurts. I don’t have money. You get the gist. When I would eat with company, all I could focus on was the actual action of eating. I’m chewing too fast. I’m about to finish and everyone else is halfway done. SLOW DOWN. It felt selfish in a way. I never listened to what anyone said.
As I began my health and wellness journey, I dug deep to find the root cause of my binge-eating issues. What I uncovered was that I felt an insane amount of shame regarding food & eating. This shame caused me to eat privately, both enabling my binging and isolating myself from the people who love me the most. To heal, I had to address the shame. And so the exposure therapy began.
Of course, it took a while to tune out the thoughts that once infected my mind. I began to reconnect with friends I had pushed away, truly listening to what they had to say, instead of to all my internal dialogue. I get to hear all about their lives and accomplishments. Their jokes and problems that are entrusted to me. It’s beautiful, how we’re all vulnerable with each other alongside these meals. And during them, I notice we all have our quirks. My boyfriend sneezes when he’s full (and he also eats fast, just like me). Another friend orders huge meals she never finishes so that she can eat half for lunch the next day. Another burps so loud it’s almost alarming, but instead, we laugh about it constantly. If I don’t judge them for these quirks, why was I so quick to assume that they were judging me? Maybe they never really were.
I’ve sort of become the food connoisseur for all of my friends. I get texts from them every time they try a new place, or when they need a recommendation. We often go to certain restaurants based on my opinion alone. It feels great to be appreciated for my spectacular taste, but more importantly, there is an intense comfort around being embraced for something I felt so much shame for in my youth—my love for food. Because honestly, I still am that little girl who watched Food Network every day. Who forced her mother to buy her ingredients to make terrible chocolate cupcakes with a cayenne pepper-fudge ganache. Who yells, “I want junk food” while waving a Cheeto in her mouth. I think this is what feeling seen is like?
And of course, I give my friends the chance to pick where we get to eat—I’m not a food dictator by any means. But I’m sure they’d say the same as me. It’s not really about the food we eat. It’s about sharing time and space as we get older and busier. I recently had one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had at a restaurant (if you’d like to read the review click here), but it didn’t matter in the end. The dinner wasn’t fully ruined because I got to be with my closest friend from college. Of course, I’d rather see her in better circumstances but just getting to fully be present with her was better than any meal we could’ve possibly eaten.
Just in case you thought I was lying about the Cheeto thing: