Food blues
What word often comes up when I think about food? I was surprised to realize the answer is “shame”.
I’m hungry, but I’m tired of choosing a menu. What else am I supposed to eat today? I land on a chicken katsu bowl with additional ekkado, and unfortunately they don’t taste very good. I try finishing my food because I don’t want to waste them, but I can’t force myself to. I give up and throw them away.
I’ve always had a dull relationship around food. It just doesn’t excite me the way it does for a lot of people. Eating—the act of choosing, spooning, and chewing food—often feels like a chore to me. Just more energy I have to spend because unfortunately we all need sustenance. Sometimes I wish I could just take a nutrition pill and be done with it. I don’t like it when I have to interrupt my routine to eat. But I’m hungry and it makes me dizzy.
Eating becomes especially hard during depressive times. In the past, I just simply did not eat. I didn’t even feel hungry. Once I lost 4 kgs in two weeks because of it. I was so confused on why I felt so weak and lethargic, then I remembered that I did not eat. After therapy, I got better in listening to my body. Now I’m aware of when I need to eat, even before I’m hungry; and so I can make the necessary preparation for it.
After my partner passed away, I lost my appetite, as expected. Except this time I was fully aware of how hungry I was. During that time, I just let the hunger distract me from my grief. But I knew I was well on my way to self-harm, so I pushed myself to eat, even if it was just one meal a day, even if I didn’t finish the whole dish.
Recently I tried to examine how I got this way. What’s my earliest memory about food? What word often comes up when I think about food? I was surprised to realize the answer is “shame”.
I was a picky eater as a child. I wasn’t adventurous and I didn’t like variety in my food. Once I liked a dish, that’s all I was willing to eat. My grandmother was frustrated because I only wanted to eat cream soup or fried chicken. She used to give me a bunch of supplement to compensate for the lack of food: formula milk, Scott-Emulsion’s fish oil (you know the one), even that Chinese herbal medicine that supposedly could make you grow tall (the one with the giraffe on the bottle). Alas, I remained a picky eater.
We also realized early on that I didn’t like sambal. As an Indonesian—a Palembang girl no less!—eating has become even more restrictive for me, because I could only eat the sambal-less food. At one point, my mom even scolded me for not liking sambal. “Kamu tuh ngerepotin orang, soalnya orang jadi harus masakin makanan khusus buat kamu.” I disagreed with her. Even as young as I was I knew she was being too harsh on me. It still made me feel ashamed nonetheless.
As a kid I used to spend a lot of time in my cousin’s house, a Palembang-Padang household. They loved their sambal there. Whenever I was there, they’d cook me a fried egg to accompany my rice because I couldn’t eat the rest of the food on the table. They also kept a jar of fried shallot just for me, because it was my favorite. I sprinkled fried shallot in everything I ate. And people would comment on how I eat every time.
“Uti makannya cuma gitu doang?”
“Ga mau pake kuah? Piring kamu putih banget, ga ada warnanya sama sekali.”
“Ga pedes kok. Cuma warnanya aja itu merah.”
“Kalo Uti makan memang kering,” my mom eventually observed. And she’s right. I do like my food dry and crispy, which leads to more feelings of shame because I tend to eat fried food. I often berated myself for not eating enough vegetable or for eating too much deep-fried food. Whenever I had digestive problems, I blamed myself for not eating well. But eating is just not a fun activity for me.
Post-therapy, I managed to make myself cook every day. As a result, my food was cleaner and the quality is more controlled. But eventually I stopped cooking because I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to plan my meals long term. I just don’t like doing it. Then I subscribed to a monthly catering, so I didn’t have to think about what I eat. It went great for a while, but the old issue still lingered: I’m a picky eater and often I didn’t like what the catering offered.
I admit, I’ve wasted a lot of food in the course of my life.
Don’t even get me started about my body image issues. Before puberty, I was very thin to the point my ribs were sticking out. My grandmother commented a lot on it, so I think it made my mom adamant for me to gain weight. She used to put a mountain of rice on my plate and told me to finish it before I could leave the table. I sat in that table for an hour, long after everybody finished. I pushed spoon after spoon of rice down my throat until my stomach felt like exploding. I swallowed my own urge to vomit.
Once I left the house for college, I could eat more freely because there was no parental supervision on my meals. I started to eat more albeit unhealthily, and turns out it still brought scrutiny from people I ate with. Being an ectomorph means my silhouette has always been on the lean side. I didn’t have much to do to fit the beauty standards of slimness. Being young also gave me quick metabolism, so no matter how much I ate, I stayed the same weight. It was difficult for me to gain weight, but easier to lose a couple of kgs. And apparently it made people envious. So I kept my mouth shut on my eating and body image issues out of fear of appearing ungrateful.
However, no matter how thin I was, I still managed to feel fat sometimes. Especially after I learned of the term “skinny fat”. That’s definitely what I was. Apparently being a certain weight isn’t enough. You have to lose fat. You have to be toned. You have to have a full chest. You have to have an ass. All of them only add to my eating confusion. So do I eat more or less?
The only person who dares to call me fat to my face is my mom. It doesn’t make me mad, just confused. She will point to areas of my body that she thinks are too big, and I’m just confused because I don’t think we are seeing the same thing. On a conscious level, I don’t think I’m fat, but sometimes I wonder if she’s right. Most of the time I just pity her. My mom never told me who hurt her, but she’s obsessed with her weight. I remember there was a time she was run to the ER for not eating enough. Now in her 50’s, she’s still obsessing over her weight and diet. She laments every single kilogram she gains. I pity her but also understand. This is an issue you don’t resolve easily.
In my attempt to get toned, I started exercising and watching what I eat. I read internet articles on micro and macro-nutrients. I installed a diet app and recorded what I ate, how much calorie I consumed. I weighted myself and measured my waist daily. I obsessed over the numbers until I realized that if I kept this up I was going to develop an eating disorder. It was such a slippery slope, one that I had a predisposition to easily fall into. So I quit everything.
Today I’m at my heaviest. I’m no longer an S size. The other day, I met a colleague whom I haven’t seen for years, and he said I’ve filled out. He said I looked better and healthier. And I just thought, there really is no winning when it comes to body image. Please, world, just let me like my body the way it is because I don’t want to stress over it. Stressing over food already takes a good portion of my time.
I still have a dull relationship with food and I don’t know how to fix it. I didn’t grow up to be excited about food. I dreaded meal times. I was afraid people would criticize my eating. It didn’t help that I didn’t enjoy the small talks around the table either. I didn’t want to participate in any of it.
They say food and collective eating is a culture to many of us. But it often makes me feel ostracized for not being as excited about it as the next person. I barely have any emotional connection with food, and honestly I’m surprised I still manage to eat daily and live until this very day. Don’t get me wrong though, I can enjoy food, especially when I eat with people I like. But in that moment, I see it more as a recreational activity rather than a life-sustaining one. So it’s not about the eating, it’s about spending time with my loved ones. And if I follow this line of thinking, I can already see how it may pose a problem for me when I have to eat alone (which is most of the time). I don’t have a good relationship with food and I think I need to do something about it.
As always, thank you so much for reading my small piece of the universe.
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