I’ve been thinking a little bit about the significance of food. It is after all, is a sacrament of every society.  It is its own language – a metaphor for everything from authority to love. It’s an act of defiance, a past-time, a comfort, a marker of status and identity. All the major passages of our lives – from weddings to wakes, are punctuated by feasting and fasting. For our ancestors, life was shaped and determined by the search for food. Our need for it remains unchanged, but particularly in Western cultures it has come to ... Read More

Much as it pains me to admit it, perhaps Gillian McKeith’s got one thing right: we are what we eat – or even, what we don’t eat. I was reminded of this by a brilliant article in the Sunday Observer, ‘Let’s End Our Obsession With Making Food Sexy‘, by Steven Poole.  The piece was inspired in part by the furore surrounding Nigella Lawson’s cover shoot on ‘Stylist’ (pictured), where she’s covered in toffee sauce. Poole writes; ‘The fact that food-talk slips so easily these days ... Read More

In a famous 80s comedy  routine, Ben Elton   mocked telephone sex lines by comparing them to telephone food lines. ‘No-one’ he declared, ‘would phone a restaurant merely to ask the chef if they’d describe the menu.’  It was met with uproarious laughter.  Not any more. ‘Food porn’ is everywhere. Switch on the TV  and one programme that’s always playing is  ’Come Dine With Me’. A show where we tune in to vicariously enjoy someone else’s feast and social life, forks poised ... Read More

A salutory reminder from yesterday’s Mail on the danger of treating just the physical aspects of an eating disorder. Four years ago, Malissa Jones 21, used to weigh 34 stone. After a gastric bypass operation, she has lost 26 stone and is now battling with anorexia. Doctors have warned her than unless she increases her food intake, she could die within six months. Where Malissa used to gorge on sweets and chocolate, now she says that she would ‘rather die than force myself to eat’. Commenting on her situation, clinical ... Read More

The biggest reason for giving up on an eating disorder is because you’re loved, accepted and bought by the Lord of the universe. Whatever those voices tell you, the truth is this: it’s not too late you’re not too sick other people (and God Himself) care it’s worth it you’re not a burden or a waste of space and there ain’t no part of your past that God can’t use. There’s nothing more important – or more hopeful. Check out this link for more info. But even if you think that religion is a load of bunkum for the soft-brained, ... Read More

Why is food so often the focus of our feelings – especially for women?  Why can’t a plate of pasta or a slice of cake be enjoyed as a simple physiological experience? Instead it often seems like the answer to our problems – whether as poison or panacea. But is this a modern preoccupation? And as Christians, what are we to make of it? Writing on ‘The Psychology of Food’, ( Harper’s Bazaar Jan/Feb 2011), Stephen Garratt gives this explanation for our conflation of food and emotion; After leaving the safe environment of the womb, the ... Read More

In recent posts we’ve been thinking a little about the confusion of appetite (for physical food), with hunger (for emotional wants or needs).  So, let’s say I’ve had a really rotten day.  I’m in a foul mood.  Glen or a friend tries to engage me in conversation, to find out what’s wrong.  But I don’t want to talk. I’m emotionally constipated – there’s a whole barrage of competing feelings coursing through my veins, but they’re in a big, amorphous and threatening mass. I haven’t got the energy to deal with any more and ... Read More

So… we’ve been thinking a bit about binge eating. You might not term it an eating disorder as such, much less admit it to others – but there’s a problem. There’s something in there – in you – that won’t be silenced. And you don’t have a name for it. But it’s big and dark and most of all, it’s Hungry. Starving. No amount of cookie dough will satisfy it completely. But it quietens the growls, at least for a bit. You know it’s not ‘healthy’. But here’s the ... Read More

When you think about it, ever since the Garden of Eden, humanity has been experiencing the effects of a cosmic eating disorder. In choosing their own sustenance, Adam and Eve rejected the Lord and experienced nakedness and shame, for the first time. Since then, we have followed in their footsteps by seeking more creative ways of making our own coverings. Separated from the Lord, from each other and even from ourselves – our bodies have become foreign to us, vessels for uncontrollable longings, guilt and shame. Often in the modern world, ... Read More

Continuing on from yesterday’s post .. What is it that makes us binge-eat? It’s a practice we rarely discuss and yet it affects one in fifty of us. I wonder if, as a culture, we embody a kind of eating disorder -  an ambivalence towards consumption which drives us to new levels of excess, followed by restraint. But why? To begin with, let’s look at some of the traditional ‘risk factors’ for binge-eating. These are similar for those with any eating disorder and may include; past criticism of body and eating ... Read More