It's Complicated

Food is like in-laws. More accurately, perhaps I should say our relationship with food is like our relationship with our in-laws. It’s a love-hate relationship.

You love your mother- and father-in-law, if for no other reason, because they gave birth to your significant other. What a wonderful human being they brought into this world! Look at those gorgeous eyes; hear that melodious voice; so well-mannered and kind-hearted. They must have brought up their child correctly!

You “hate” them because you didn’t grow up with them, so you’re not accustomed to some of their behavioral oddities. Being raised by our own parents, we take for granted all of our own mom’s and dad’s personality quirks and ticks. When we get exposed to our in-laws, they’re like some foreign body to which our own system either finds a way to adjust or treats like a bad virus that needs expulsion. If one of your own parents visits your home, uses the toilet, and forgets to flush - that’s merely annoying. If one of your in-law parents visits and forgets to put a drink on a coaster, that’s an unacceptable transgression.

Food is the same way.

We all love food. Few things in life can compete with the joys of tasting a rich, sweet, intense bite of chocolate cake; smelling the enticing aroma of a sizzling steak on a grill as a flame sears the meat, juices, and fat; or seeing the perfect geometric patterns and silky smooth texture of a well-made pastry.

On top of these sensual pleasures, food also has an emotional component as well. We associate specific tastes and smells with happy times that we have spent with friends and family. The taste of a beef stew could bring back memories of a childhood spent with family around the kitchen table on cold winter evenings. A lobster roll could conjure up fond feelings of lazy summer days as a teenager soaking up the sun while dozing on the beach. The soft moist airy texture of cake could revive happy moments of birthday parties or a wedding.

But we also hate food. We are a slave to the consequence of calories. Indulge yourself too often and you will find yourself on the losing side of the “Battle of the Bulge”. Also, food can be the vehicle through which you could get hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, and a whole slew of other problems you don’t need. A stark illustration of this is the aptly-named Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, Nevada whose marketing theme is unabashedly serving foods high in fat, sugar, and cholesterol (e.g. the Triple Bypass Burger). The temptation of a juicy hamburger with fries cooked in lard can be overwhelming even when the consequences are literally written in large flashing lights on the building. Having repeat customers doesn’t seem to be a concern for the owners.

In addition to having too much food, there is another dark side to the hate-relationship with food. Too little food is also an issue. While malnutrition is an important problem in many parts of the world, I’m referring to something a bit different; something more insidious - an illness called anorexia. To be clear, an anorexic’s relationship with food isn’t exactly one of hate. In fact, it is characterized by a love-hate duality - but the love is a perverse one.

Think about love-obsessed stalker films and television shows like Fatal Attraction, Misery, One Hour Photo, or You. The antagonist (or protagonist) has “love” for someone, but it is certainly an unhealthy form of love. You might think of it more akin to obsession.

For an anorexic, the obsession can come in many forms.

It might show itself as a distorted obsession with body image. Many women unwisely pursue the elusive goal of thinness to be like the models who adorn the cover of magazines such as Vogue and Elle. When this “ideal” image is taken to an absurd extreme, food becomes the enemy. In this case, an anorexic actually thinks and believes she is fat. If we believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the beholder doesn’t have the healthiest sensibilities, pursuing the image of beauty won’t be healthy either.

Alternatively, the obsession might manifest itself out of the desire for control. An ordinary diet can morph into an extraordinary illness.

An anorexic might start by thinking, “I’m hungry, but I need to stick to my diet to lose weight.”

This becomes, “I’m hungry, but I’ll have something later.”

When *later* becomes *now*, “I’ve made it this far; I don’t need to eat right now.”

Finally, the process of dieting becomes a test of control, “I may be hungry, but I don’t need to act on my hunger.”

Anorexia isn’t the absence of hunger. It’s not like somehow the hunger signs aren’t there. The stomach doesn’t just stop saying, “I’m empty. Feed me.”

On the contrary, many anorexics love food - even crave food all the more because the hunger is present all the time. If you are in a perpetual state of hunger, food is on the brain perpetually.

We love food and crave it as much as the next person. We hate food because of our obsession with denying ourselves; food represents a temptation our brains have been tricked into scorning.

Sharp readers that you are - you noticed that I said: “we”. I don’t mean the “royal we” or the “editorial we”, I mean “we” as in “we anorexics”. I mean I’ve been there.

As a “weight-restored” anorexic (not “recovered” anorexic - you’re never fully recovered) I’ve always loved food. During my childhood before my anorexia, I was a “good eater” as my mother would say. I had a healthy weight with a medium build. I could down an entire meatball marinara submarine sandwich, followed by an oversized chocolate chip cookie, and finish with a generous slice of cheesecake. I’m not describing lunch - that was an after-school snack.

My love of food never waned, even during my lowest point of anorexia. I still wanted that oozy cheeseburger dripping with the juices from the fat in the hamburger patties at Shake Shack. I still craved the chocolate-vanilla soft-serve combo on a crispy vanilla wafer cone from the Mister Softee ice cream truck.

In a way, anorexia is an addiction. Just like other addictive vices of tobacco, alcohol, opiates, or sex, we can’t help ourselves. We’re addicted to denying ourselves food in the face of hunger. It’s a constant source of shame and embarrassment because the signs are so readily apparent to everyone. An anorexic will wear loose-fitting clothing - perhaps wide-legged sweat pants with bell-bottoms to try to create the illusion of girth around the legs. The top will invariably be a drapey blouse or long-sleeved t-shirt. During the winter, puffy jackets would be the outerwear apparel of choice. None of this would matter though. No one’s fooled. Even little children on the street, in their innocence, would point and ask, “Mommy, why is that lady so skinny?”

And the inevitable parental reply in a hushed but still audible tone, “Shh! She’s clearly not well. You know it’s not polite to stare at people. Let’s move along.”

Once when I was walking past a construction site in the Chelsea area of New York, I heard a man whistle behind me. Catcall. I didn’t think much of the sound since it was a typical busy day with the drone of pedestrians walking back and forth on the sidewalk, the hectic zip-zip of cars passing by with the occasional honk of the car horn, and the general hub-bub of city noise in the background. Then I heard a voice behind me say, “Oh, man. You can’t like that. She’s way too skinny.”

Then the same voice continued in a slightly louder tone, “How about I buy you a few cheeseburgers?”

I don’t know why, but I stopped and turned around. It was painfully obvious who they were talking about. The voices came from a couple of the workers at the construction site. Leaning against the forest green-colored wood scaffolding on the sidewalk stood two young men in their mid-to-late twenties. They were wearing identical clothing, which identified them as workers on the site: bright neon-yellow t-shirts marred by smudges of grey dust and dirt-covered wide-legged jeans atop honey-colored lace-up leather work boots. They had the tell-tale physique of hulking backs and tree trunk limbs suitable for their line of work. I replied, “Buy me a cheeseburger? Ok, sure.”

The man’s face was frozen with a look of embarrassment, like a child who’d been caught with soiled underwear. Of course, he had not expected that I had heard him - or if he had, that I would actually respond.

“Uh, sure, miss. Uh…”

“Nevermind. It’s fine,” I said dismissively. I turned back around and continued on my way. Was he rude for pointing out my condition? - Certainly. Was he right about what he saw? - Yes, I could have used a few cheeseburgers. The catcalling wasn’t the problem. What was the problem was the mention of cheeseburgers - that just made me even more hungry.

I’ve since recovered weight - all of it in muscle and bone (did I mention anorexia doesn’t help osteoporosis?). It took years of support from coworkers, friends, and family. It took the sheer willpower of believing that it’s OK to have that Danish when your mind is trying to convince you that you’re too fat even though your BMI is lower than a dead man’s sperm count.

The road has certainly been filled with many ups and downs but those are stories for another time. For now, I’ve come to accept that our relationship with food shouldn’t be about controlling it by locking it away in a deep, dark dungeon cell and throwing away the key. Like any healthy relationship, there’s a little give, a little take. In the meantime, pass me a bagel but hold the cream cheese.

How would you describe your relationship with food? Please share your thoughts.