From Innocence to Experience: A Story of Womanhood as Filtered through Food

I remember my first day of seventh grade as if it were yesterday.

Well, let me correct myself. I remember my first lunch, on my first day of seventh grade. This meal was special. It was unlike the long train of mom’s bagged turkey sandwiches before this day. As a seventh grader, I was at the ripe age of thirteen. According to sacred middle school law, I was mature enough to leave the hallowed halls of the premises and venture out into the New York City jungle to scavenge for food. Within the confines of Computer School's preteen social hierarchy going out to lunch was a token of superiority. It was used to parade our popularity over the sixth graders’ heads for eternity. After three classes of mind-numbing boredom, I decided to permanently swivel my head towards the clock hanging over the classroom's chalkboard. Minutes remained before the fourth-period bell rang; this was a signal to all upper-class students (fifth-period seventh and eighth-grade students, that is), that the lunch hour had arrived. The piercing sound of vibrating metal was music to my ears as I joined the pack of wild monkeys out the door. 

Emily met me in homeroom and we scuttled down the stairwell towards the exit. Three flights down I took Wonka’s golden ticket out of my wallet and clutched it dearly. If I presented my student ID to the teacher at the door, I could pass through Narnia's wardrobe and rampage the city streets. Time operated differently outside the door. In every other class, I incessantly watched the clock that would never strike waiting for the period to end. During lunch, minutes seemed to pass at hypersonic speed. I remember checking my magenta Flik Flak and willing the arrows to remain frozen for as long as possible. 

Emily and I made it down the block for our first lunch. We ended up in the slightly unoriginal, if not beloved Chirping Chicken - where two orders of six nuggets a piece were placed. While the chicken was moist and the tangy fizz of Fanta delivered the perfect bubbly burn in my mouth, I didn't care nearly as much about the meal as the company I shared it with. Even before entering the restaurant Emily and I were in a fit of laughter. Our level of pure, unadulterated happiness would presumably warrant eye rolls from every mildly disgruntled New Yorker on the street. It was the innocence of girlhood; we weren't yet plagued by exposure to the world’s darkness. Lunch was a time of play. I would mix concoctions of ketchup and mustard and dare Emily to take a bite if she was brave enough. I don't recall sustaining a giggle for forty-five minutes but those glorious chicken nuggets outside of school made even the impossible seem possible. From that day forward I began to daydream about Mondays (in any other context that would be considered obscene) and fifth-period lunch adventures with Emily. The food added excitement to the experience, but it mainly served as a forum where we reconvened and gossiped. While I don't remember much about the various restaurants we tried, I have distinct memories of sprinting back to school before the doors closed, sneaking past teachers with pockets full of candy, and crowding 16 Handles to watch Paw Patrol with friends. 

Eighth grade was the year of free ice cream. It was by and large the ultimate display of prepubescent love. If a boy was interested in a girl - and man enough to make a move - he would swirl her a cup of froyo and pay for as many toppings as her heart desired. I received an impressive medley of sweet treats in my prime but was more interested in sharing the drama with Emily and friends than participating in middle school dating rituals.

My father had a particular ice cream order as a child. It required a large spoon of Betty Chocker chocolate sprinkles in a medium bowl. This was proceeded by fudgy dark chocolate ice cream and topped off with more sprinkles - just enough to lightly cover the scoop and splay over the sides of the bowl. A glass of milk was his second in command and with that, he was properly able to enjoy his frozen dessert. While fussiness with food started in childhood it never quite went away. A sixty-four-year-old Gerald must have his eggs sunny side up with a slice of sourdough slathered in Bonne Maman raspberry preserve. He will only have pasta if it is angel hair, any other spaghetti is “too thick,” and salad will not be ordered unless the dressing is on the side. The degree of his pickiness is fascinating yet infuriating to observe. He must extensively look at reviews for every restaurant the family is considering. If he is unable to complete the research, he passes the job over to me or my siblings. It must be said that exhausting my computer with websites and PDF downloads of menus pays off for my dad’s approval - provided that the food is excellent. If the meal, service, or any other part of the experience is less than outstanding, he deems the restaurant subpar, and like clockwork, announces he will never eat there again. I secretly believe that he makes note of the sibling who found the restaurant and we all feel a particular sting of shame when he is handed the check. My father’s idiosyncrasies have quite an impressive range. He organizes his closet with the precision of Marie Kondo and must have guaranteed air conditioning wherever he travels. My dad is a creature of habit. We have been going to the same pizzeria since the day I was born since it is the only coal oven restaurant in the city. Every Sunday we get bagels from Zuckers and Lox from Zabars and G-d forbid one of those two locations is closed, we must forego brunch that weekend. Food offers a window into how my father moves through and interacts with the world. His micromanagement of pasta and pizza mirrors his deceptively calm disposition and extremely rational perspective on life. He likes being in charge, whether communicated through food or otherwise. 

When I moved into a dorm during my freshman year of college, I expected a fully functional kitchen. It is truly miraculous that the stove is still broken to this day. Relinquishing my dream of cooking made me resort to Tuft’s prepared meals. In doing so, I developed an impulsivity to check the nutrition labels of food listed in the dining halls. It was an itch I had to scratch. I had never encountered food that felt unsafe to me. Despite a vehement appraisal of my father, which may have teetered on the judgmental side, I have followed his directive in a subversive yet similar way. It boils down to one thing - the act and pursuit of control. Like my father, I am disposed to control my surroundings. If I can successfully manipulate the circumstances of the external world, I free up space to cope with my inner world. I can describe this compulsion as an economic strategy. If I allocate more time trying to appear perfect, it may seem like I am spending and losing more in the short term, but I am actually saving in the long term. At least that is what I tell myself. I criticize my father’s Type A personality since he reflects what I refuse to see in myself. It is pure psychology. Condemning others often arises from projecting one's insecurities onto them. Even so, as I am writing this, I recognize what I am doing. Instead of peeling back the layers of my problems, it feels safer to do so with my father. I won't deny that the enduring urge to control - something- comes from him. Regardless, I think his relationship with food remains uncontaminated, relative to mine. The extent to which Gerald is picky with it is used as a tool in his life. It epitomizes his distinctiveness in a sea of uniformly regular eaters. It makes my father - my father, someone I can always rely on for having those quirks. I envy Gerald's ability to lay forth his peculiarities as an eater, and more importantly, as an individual. He is a self-assured man whose outlet is food to communicate it. 

My relationship with food is more nuanced. It doesn't define me the same way it does my father. Upon graduating middle school, Emily and I remained in contact but relocated to opposite ends of Manhattan for high school. The transition was difficult without her as a daily safety net. I had to adjust my reliance on our weekly lunch outings to a new environment. I eventually made friends and began to eat lunch with them, bonding over a mutual love of sushi and the Leonidas chocolaterie around the block. The restaurants were upscaled compared to the informal eateries I would frequent with Emily. At any rate, the excitement of walking to restaurants, venting about a bad day, or giggling about an obnoxiously indecipherable menu evoked the same rush of enthusiasm as in middle school. I began to romanticize lunchtime in all its glory. Everything was an activity. Whenever I went to a cafe I would order a cappuccino and sprinkle it with cinnamon. Nothing was more delicious than a cloud of sweet almond foam to soak up the rich spice glazed atop the mug. A book was my companion; sitting in a park with a sweet treat and my favorite novel was the best way to spend the afternoon. There was something uniquely sensual about indulging in the minutiae of life. The attention allotted to the little details of the day to day made the bigger moments remarkably more glorious to experience. I coined these observations as glimmers- moments of joy nestled within the silence of an otherwise blaring city. 

The line dividing romanticism and perfectionism progressively began to blur when COVID forced the world indoors. In addition to schools closing nationwide, my dance studio also shut down. The seven years of intense training came crashing to a halt with one apologetic email announcement. Ballet made up the majority of my free time. The pandemic took it all away. Without the bustle of life outdoors I was alone with my internal world. With the advent of TikTok, mind-numbing distraction became second nature. Soon enough I was happily overstimulated by sixty-second recipes and girls sharing what I eat in a day. I can't pinpoint when I began internalizing the messaging from those frivolous videos, but I progressively shifted my food rules to mirror the pretty girls I saw online. Every trend and diet fad was fair game as I sifted through hours of TikTok per day and started to notice how differently others behaved around food. A considerable catalyst was the newfound lack of movement and connection in my life. This stage of my life, coupled with the information about food online, was an entryway that did not exist before - the diet culture door. 

Social media and diet culture are symbiotic. It became the key that opened the door, replacing food as a source of connection with a narrative predicated on how to consume less. The crux of diet culture revolves around scarcity. I consider it deeply gendered. Societal broadcasting invites women to direct greater attention to their eating habits. Tracking calories is an act of control. It tempers our appetite for food, desire, and personal needs. Decorum assumes a hearty appetite for men, but women must curb consumption to remain feminine. Women are historically disempowered, and I was the cliche continuing the long lineage of those before me.

Scarcity does not only refer to food. While I noticed the healthy but discernible changes in my body, I unconsciously looked towards the media to navigate the terror that was puberty. My shift in awareness was most likely caused by the loss of dance, which, unbeknown to me, stunted my growth with its intensity. Little changes like the amount of spaghetti on my plate or whether I had dessert that night began to veer its ugly head - but it was the scarcity of newfound mental restrictions that pushed me over the edge. I had somehow subscribed to the notion of taking up less space. My mind betrayed me as I began to see food as a number and meals as something to be denied at a whim. The simplicity of birthday cake or a late-night ice cream run became overcomplicated by an endless disordered narrative. My body became my only source of worth and praise for an increasingly shrinking physique was fuel to the fire. There was no room for romanticization when my perfectionism reinforced strict adherence to these new rules. Deviating from them to sit in a park and enjoy a cookie would disrupt all progress. The irony lies in the fact that I was attempting to alter myself to match the idealized standard of health advertised online. But in doing so, the allure of aesthetics became more important to me. I hadn’t realized that the girls I was trying to emulate were idealizing a lifestyle of freedom that I already possessed, and they only pretended to have. For a short time, I enjoyed the control I wielded. It activated the same perfectionism I experienced with dance. Ballet aesthetics favored shapes created in thin, flat, bodies. I put this mentality on a pedestal supported by unaware family members validating my new look. I was already an expert in contorting my frame to compete with the extreme hip turnout, hyperextension, and high-arched feet that ballet demanded, so adding the pursuit of skinny to achieve the gold star in womanhood became my addiction. What I failed to realize was the same control I wielded over my pleasure could also be exerted over my pain. 

The trials and tribulations of restriction were akin to swinging a pendulum. The indulgence of one extreme - the obsessive restriction and unyielding rule following lent itself to the other extreme. The binging and overeating until I felt physically sick. The pendulum would yo-yo in a failed attempt to find equilibrium. I had no conception of balance during the time so my body recovered from the scarcity of nourishment - both nutritionally and emotionally- through overcompensation. I was caught in a perpetual negative feedback loop, oscillating between “eating good” (yes, food had morality) and relinquishing control through binges. 

Some part of me enjoyed the extremes the pendulum ensued. I was chasing a high of restriction, the high of eating perfectly. I not only pieced together that the highs must be accompanied by the lows but the lower the lows, the higher the highs. My special skill was deep-sea diving. I would hit rock bottom, (which one would think is enough to drive anyone back to the surface) but I managed to remain there swimming around and reveling in it. This was all to experience that much more exhilaration when I finally managed to swing the pendulum to the other side. Maybe I figured that residing between the extremes was a life of stability. There is a sacrifice that comes with stability. The ecstasy of highs and pain of the lows are replaced by the neutrality of emotional regulation. I was not ready to give it all up. I was incapable of sitting in the in-between of my own discomfort. I did not feel happy unless I facilitated my own failure. It was easier - almost comforting. I preferred to live in the hell I knew then a heaven that remained unknown. 

A thought I have been dwelling on is how disordered eating behaviors should be regarded as normal, even expected, considering expectations placed on women. It is simply an understanding of insurmountable standards that can only be met with radical action. We have been groomed to think this way, taught to distance ourselves from our sense of being and restrain all that can bring us back in tune with it. I once watched my brother having a bagel. He sat alone without the distraction of his phone. After eating half, he gingerly wrapped the leftovers in foil and placed it in the fridge. Men are not socialized by diet culture the same way women are. That makes most of them naturally intuitive eaters, whereas I am still learning how to reconnect with my own internal sense of hunger. For all of Gerald’s nuttiness, he also practices mindfulness when eating. He is always satisfied with his favorite scoop of chocolate ice cream - just so long as it is sandwiched by sprinkles.

I was first introduced to the intuitive eating approach through Instagram. This was unforeseen considering my past experiences with socials. The media landscape has changed tremendously since COVID-19, and I am currently exploring the world of twenty-something-year-old wellness influencers. From podcasts to holistic health-based accounts, empowered women are sharing stories like my own and changing the narrative around food and body peace. While I have no intention of negating the good these platforms have done for me, and countless others, I still feel skeptical about their intentionality. There is an overlooked catch-22 enveloping these women. They revolve their lives, vocations, and leisure time around food, which I perceive as a reflection of an unresolved disorder they have yet to heal from. There remains an obsession with food. It is constantly being placed at the forefront of their lives, a remaining symptom of the control that they can't quite let go of. Looking at my personal history there is one similarity that runs through all of my experiences. It was never about the food. Connection with those I loved happened around the food, over the food, and even through venues involving food. Food was once in the background since there were no stories attached to it. I associate a certain level of indifference to food with childhood. It wasn't that I didn't care about it, but rather there were no consequences for eating, I was free to consume what I wanted in the guiltless, unknowing bliss of prepubescence. Giving myself permission to eat, even unknowingly, made food something to enjoy. However, it was the strength of my relationships, especially with myself, that wove together all my beautiful memories with food.

It is unrealistic to aim for a relationship with food mirroring my childhood. There must be something that lies between the innocence of girlhood and the disrupting experience of disorder. I refuse to become a woman who makes food empowerment her only identity. Something about that focus is triggering to me. I wouldn't be a good role model anyway; I feel like my experiences have shattered a tiny piece of my soul and I have sadistically enjoyed indulging in the darkness that separated me from everyone else. For the past few years, all experiences of pain and pleasure have been filtered through food. It is improbable to eliminate all feelings of malaise and unworthiness, nor the crippling sensation of shame and disgust. They are part of the human experience and will inevitably help me grow. However, I do hope to build up the courage to feel with authenticity. I want to tackle a challenge by facing the discomfort of my emotions without needing a cupcake to catch me when I fall - or in this case, feel. I must be grateful for the time food served as my buffer and numbing agent when I was trying my best but had no other tools to assist me. It gave me what I needed but I must let go of how it served me in the past to focus on how to rebuild my relationship with it in the present. It makes sense to mourn the dysfunctional bond between food and me; there will be a gaping hole, called emotional regulation, which food once covered in all its glory. At the very least I have managed to convince myself that adversity has given me an edge. It is all about resilience fostered by past challenges, right? Nevertheless, there is something I can borrow from my girlhood. It is the link connecting all my positive associations with food. It is not about the food. I am striving to keep the ones I love close to my heart. For it is connection that nurtures abundance… and abundance is the ultimate release of control.