The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America by Virginia Sole-Smith

I read this book for our family book club (which has not been super-regular over the last while, but Camille chose this one to discuss). I like food books, and I really liked the premise of this one: that basically our way of looking at and eating food is broken. We've kind of lost our eating instinct, or our ability to eat without having to second-guess and pre-judge everything that goes into our mouths. We know we should eat healthily, and not too much, and lately we've learned that we should eat organic, locally sourced food. And all of these things come together to make a population of people that have forgotten how to eat for pleasure and how to be normal about our eating.

I want so badly to try and avoid the pitfalls of giving our kids a complex about food. I try really hard to make sure they aren't picky eaters (although her chapter in this book about picky eating was different than anything I'd ever read, and it really opened my eyes--more about that in a second), but I also try really hard to make sure I don't make a big deal about "we have to eat healthy." Of course I want us to eat healthy, but I also want us to eat treats. I want them to know it's okay to eat desserts sometimes--we all do, and we all enjoy it. And it's okay! But I know that I can't stop them from learning these other negative lessons from the rest of the world--everyone does. I remember someone telling me that brownies are sooo bad for you, worse than other desserts, and so much fat. I remember driving to seminary with girls who constantly talked about how they wanted to have a "thigh gap" (I didn't even know what they meant). But I came through it okay, I think. I don't have any sort of complex about my body and I feel totally fine eating dessert. But like everyone, I do pre-judge my food and sometimes feel bad about not eating enough veggies or healthy enough lunches or whatever. I wonder if there's any way to truly remove that sort of thinking, or if you can just try to be happy with wherever you are.

I've heard about the Division of Responsibility when it comes to food with kids, and we mostly use it. It's that parents decide what, when and where we eat, and the kids decide how much (although I do insist our kids try everything and take at least a few bites). I don't make our kids finish their plates if they say they don't want to, but I do make them take a few bites because I don't give them food later if they say they're hungry. We don't have many food battles in our house this way (although I feel like we used to more when Dane was younger and I was more strict), but our kids are great eaters most of the time.

I'm going to just write down a few bullet points of things I'll want to talk about with our family book club:
-I have long been annoyed by the gluten-free, sugar-free, whole 30 trends that have been going around. And in her chapter, she talks about how there is an actual (not-scientific diagnosis) term for people who are obsessed with healthy eating: orthorexia. I feel like this is such a common thing these days, although many people probably aren't actually totally obsessed. It really annoys me how much people follow random "gurus" on Instagram and on the Internet and take their diet and health recommendations as gospel.
-One thing she talked about was that we don't need to cleanse our bodies through elimination diets--our bodies already do this using our liver and kidneys!
-It can be dangerous when people make the case that changing your diet can help with serious health issues. And it doesn't work. (The story about Anna with her MS)
-I love her point that food is linked to comfort from birth. We are born naturally linking needing food with needing comfort, and receiving the two of them at the same time.
-I felt like my high-and-mighty opinions about picky eating really had to get hammered with the chapter on the fear of food. I'd never considered that there are real psychological complexes about having a fear of food or eating, or that they could be so common. I am sure that most picky eaters don't actually have a "fear" of food, but maybe many of them do. I really thought about the question she poses, as to why should people who are picky eaters be considered "less than" adventurous ones? And I'm not sure there's a good answer to that (although I have DEFINITELY been guilty of doing that, pretty vocally to). Particularly in the case of someone who has a legitimate fear or physiological reaction to new foods, then I don't think they should suffer a stigma for eating less than adventurously. But I also don't think that means that parents should cater to their child's every random whim when it comes to food (not that I think she's advocating for that). It's a really interesting question and I would love to talk about it with them.