A Relationship with Food.
Fresh Life Question: What leads to your food choices during the day/week?
“All living beings have a relationship with food.”
Diving into the definition of relationship is a fun process. The word relationship has several definitions, especially in the realm of the connection between people. Digging into several dictionary sources, the definition provided by Collins Dictionary [1] is a connection, association, or involvement. The definition broadens our relationships outside of the realm of interactions with people and expands into the relationships with have with what shows up in our daily routines.
All living beings have a relationship with food. Every living being needs food to survive, and all need nourishment to thrive. Evaluating our daily relationship with food allows us to be mindful of how our food intake impacts our quality of life.
“Evaluation of our relationship with food is necessary if our food choices are having adverse impacts on our health.”
Our relationship with food begins from the womb. We develop physically based off the foods someone else chooses for us until we are old enough to make the decision for ourselves. There a various factors that influence when we can choose what food to feed our bodies. If our sole financial support comes from a parent, we may for many of our formative year eat what is provided for us without knowledge of options that are available. Once apart of the school system, we have options provided to us and we can choose from those options. Options may expand once entering higher education institutions – especially when living on a college campus – we choose from the options presented to us.
Daily routines that have been set for us are the origins of our relationship with food. Digging a bit deeper, our relationship with food is influenced by our parents’ relationship with food, and our family’s relationship with food. Collectively, our relationship with food is influenced by availability, environment, finances, and again the routines set by family environment during developmental years. The widespread concept of these factors that contribute to our lifestyle factors that influence or individual or community health is called social determinants of health.
“Our relationship with food begins from the womb. We develop physically based off the foods someone else chooses for us until we are old enough to make the decision for ourselves.”
Reflection question: How does my relationship with food affect my health?
Evaluation of our relationship with food is necessary if our food choices are having adverse impacts on our health. Adverse impacts can consist of:
Lack of energy for best performance during the day
Eating until physically uncomfortable
Reduced quality of sleep
Development of chronic conditions
The bullet points listed above impact our quality of life. Self – awareness, mindfulness, is needed to recognize where we are currently in our relationship with food. Once we are aware of the current relationship we have with food, we can assess how we want to move forward with meeting our holistic health goals through what we eat.
Flourishing Forward: Does my relationship with food support my best health? Why or why not? Is there anything I want to change about my relationship with food?
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