how does it begin?
So many women have fallen victim to our culture’s disturbed adherence to one definition of beauty: tall, extremely thin, sexy every waking moment. This narrowly defining definition often has a way of negating anything of value a young girl or woman has associated with herself.
Due to our ubiquitous media hype regarding the ideal woman, so many have struggled from a very early age regarding looks, body image, and how and what to eat in order to appear to be like models and stars. And yes, by now we know these women are starving and their images are air brushed and digitally manipulated, but young girls and teens still buy into this ideal because developmentally, they aren’t able to withstand the pressure and the need to fit in, be pretty, be attractive, be normal. “Normal” being emaciated.
The media sets up a chaotic warfare within us. In this land of abundance images of food arise alongside super thin women. “Eat this, eat this, eat this”, oh but wait, you mustn’t gain an ounce of weight, you mustn’t allow your girl body to mature into your woman body. What is a girl to do? She begins a pattern of dieting, and when we deprive ourselves of certain foods, these are the very foods we yearn for, crave. Inevitably, this leads to overeating the “forbidden foods.”
Even as we grow older, maturing into intelligent human beings, we have great difficulty not buying into the diet mentality and one ideal of beauty because we have been culturally brainwashed. Boys and men are now developing distressed patterns of eating and obsession with attaining a particular physic.
Add to the cultural scenario the messages about our bodies we receive as a child, and it is inevitable that emotional eating is a phenomenon like no other. Bent on taking over our bodies, it disconnects us from our spirit. Food becomes the drug for numbing our emotions. Each time we numb our feelings with food, we abandon ourselves. The more we abandon ourselves, the less authentically we can live our lives, we lose touch with who we are.
Developing intuitive eating skills allows you to stay present to yourself, it’s the path back home.
