Food, glorious food

What I'd give for this right now

Those post-Ziggy's Chico's and Two for One Dominoes Pizzas were getting me down. I’d had a year and a half at Uni eating what I liked, when I liked, and forgetting completely about the scales. So, roll out the diet wagon and in comes healthy eating and exercise; suitable portion sizes and absolutely NO SNACKING… right?

Now, as much as I hate to admit it, I am a fundamentally lazy person.

Except when I'm not.

It’s difficult to explain, but I have two settings: lazy… or obsessive. So if I couldn't be lazy this holiday, I was going to get obsessive.

It was just t like during my A levels when I couldn't just do four hours of revision a day, but had to do eight instead. I soon found that if I wanted to diet, I couldn't stop myself from turning just a tiny bit anorexic. With everyone out at work all day it was surprisingly easy to simply keep the water glasses topped up, and drink my hunger away.

Not good; not healthy; and not sensible.

Luckily, I managed to draw myself out of this particular obsessive phase. Instead, I turned to eating three meals a day and just eating 1/4 of what I would normally eat. The problem with this was that eating only a tiny bit on my empty stomach made me the most ravenous person ever. It was harder to only eat a little bit than it was to not eat at all.

And I began to think about food a lot. In fact, all the time. And I got wondering; why is it we are so obsessed with the stuff? All it is, at the end of the day, is fuel for our muscles to continue to function. Okay, so it's vital to our existence, but why are we so determined to make so many variations on what are essentially a collection of basic building blocks: protein, sugars and the like? Why are there so many recipe books, cooking programmes, recipe websites and adverts like that annoying M&S one? It’s become like porn to a reformed sex addict – only with food to a compulsive eater on a diet. I am forbidden to have it, so I’ll just look at it. Of course, you can never just look.

We live in a culture of food; yet simultaneously in a culture of always having to look like we don't eat that much. And now that’s been taken a step further, in eating little, being skinny, but showing the world we actually eat loads, honest! Come on, society, make up your mind.

There was an article in the Style magazine (The Sunday Times) the other day describing how actresses are increasingly being photographed eating huge meals - which would be fine, if they, like most normal people, were doing it because they were hungry. But this article explained how ‘celebrities’ are feeling the pressure to present a more homely and less anorexic/weight-obsessed image. This is the culmination of this bizarre culture: people should look toned and slender and elegant... but at the same time, create the illusion that they do so because they eat huge meals? Seriously people! Be honest. If you like exercising a lot and not eating very much, then let us see that - it will make those of us who have to make equally concerted efforts to lose weight feel a hell of a lot better about ourselves.

There’s far too much concern with appearance these days. I know that seems like a really obvious comment to make, but I don’t think we quite realise what it means. It means that even if you don’t think you care about appearances, you will, subconsciously. This goes for my sister who, when I turned down some cake with the words ‘nah, I’m on a diet’, immediately responded with, ‘you look fine!’ In actual fact, my diet has nothing much to do with looks, it’s a medical thing, but I thought it was interesting – and a little depressing – that people instantly jump to the conclusion that I’m worried about looking bad. Of course, being able to fit into last summer’s clothes will be a plus, (not to mention save me some money) but it’s not the point.

But in a society where appearances –whether to be skinny or to be ‘homely’ – are everything, it is worrying that most of the time, we can’t see past them.

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