MM: Judgements and Rationalizations

A friend and I were out at the pool recently with our children. It was a Saturday, and since we were going to be there most of the day, we packed a picnic lunch. I even got up early to early to bake brownies for everyone. The kids and I enjoyed them, but my friend didn't have one. It was just on the tip of my tongue to say 'I only eat sweets on weekends' but I stopped myself. Why did I feel, even for a fleeting second, that I needed to justify eating a brownie?

We all have the right to eat what we want, when we want it.  It's no one's business but our own. Yet many people, especially women or the overweight, sometimes act as if they are embarrassed to be seen eating as if they have been caught doing something wrong. 

I've noticed this behavior in other people recently. We were in an ice cream shop a few weeks ago, where an overweight woman declared loudly to the room in general that she knew she 'shouldn't' be eating ice cream, but was getting the  'low fat'. Was she feeling 'guilty' about eating ice cream? Maybe she felt we were all judging her - so much so that she felt she had to make this announcement to a roomful of total strangers that she would never see again. 

Later a very fit, young woman was heard telling a group at large that since they had walked for a while, they could 'enjoy a second scoop of ice cream' at lunch. That they'd 'earned' it. As if we can only have ice cream if we 'earn' it - or that exercise is for no other purpose than to allow ourselves to eat more later? She would have probably found herself in agreement with the woman I overheard later on the trail, telling her husband that surely she was 'burning off the second cookie'.

Why for so many has it become something to be avoided - almost to be feared? I read a comment once by a woman who was so fearful of gaining weight, she said she hated eating and wished she didn't have to eat at all. 

Judging by the brownie incident, there's still a bit of that kind of thinking in me, but I'm working on erasing it. I will  eat good food and I will enjoy it. I will not explain, justify or apologize  and I will not feel guilty (unless, that is, I steal it).  Food is fuel. It is life. It is also meant to be enjoyed. If it was not, then why were we given the ability to enjoy it?