Food & Me

How I learnt to love eating once again.

Visual by Tara Anand (@taraanandart)

Much of my relationship with myself is, and always has been intertwined with my relationship with food. It only makes sense to me now that the food I ate subconsciously accounted for so much of my sense of self esteem; sense of confidence; and happiness.

Food has always made me happy - somehow bringing about the same sense of pleasure over the years, even as my eating habits changed drastically. As it does for most people, eating evokes good memories of time spent over meals with family and friends; travel; and friendly staff and chefs who my dad always befriended. I have always been an adventurous eater (one with a big appetite at that), so trying new restaurants or eating strange meats has almost always instilled a kind of euphoria in me. It was never a struggle to get me to eat anything, and I definitely think my parents had it too easy. But my relationship with eating and food was not unchanging, and the happiness I felt from eating no longer came from the same place. It became less and less about indulging in foods I liked, and more about the satisfaction that came from knowing that I was nourishing my body with foods that were good for it. And as eating ‘out’ with friends and family became less and less as I grew more fussy, I had to find another way for food to satisfy me. 

How one thinks about food affects (more than we realise) our physical and mental health. And for me it manifested in the form of hyper-anxiety about food, and an extreme obsession with consuming only nutrient dense foods. I grew frustrated with something that had only ever provided happiness in my life in the past. And while I was basking in the glory of clear skin and a healthy physique for the first time in years, it may not have been worth it. 

Being self aware of my choices, and ridding myself of the guilt I felt from ‘indulging’ finally let me have a healthy and stable relationship with food. Destroying ideas that any indulgence was inherently ‘bad’, while not acknowledging that it can be so good for our mental wellness, was one of the best things I could have done for myself. I gave myself permission to draw happiness from any choice I made regarding food - whether it was from a chocolate bar or from a salad. Making intuitive decisions about what I choose to eat has allowed me to indulge happily, knowing that a cookie can occasionally be as nourishing as broccoli.

Building a healthy relationship with the food you eat can be so hard in a world where there are now such strictly defined categories - you’re either a healthy eater or not. And so bringing my food and nutrition ideas to a social media platform via my Instagram blog allowed me to share my perspective and relationship with food, with so many others. We all struggle with food in some ways, and to learn from each other’s experiences, both positive and negative, can hopefully allow each one to build a healthier relationship with the food they eat. 

@maskstarchef

Tara Luthra is a 21-year-old student studying Clinical Psychology and Spanish at Wellesley College. She currently owns and operates the food focussed @maskstarchef to share her experiments with food and nutrition with the world.