When breaking bread doesn’t bring together

With anorexia, bonding over food is lost

Marie Lamensch
Nov 4 · 4 min read

The week before Canadian Thanksgiving, I felt deeply sad, may was on the verge of depression. I hadn’t felt so lonely in long time. Because I grew up in Europe, Thanksgiving has little meaning in my family but I know the importance it has here: a big family affair around the communal table.

It is common knowledge that food is not simply about nutrition and survival. Food is visceral and emotional. It connects us to hearts, bodies and mind. When you eat a slice of cake for example, it’s not about nutritional value but about joy.

There is a reason for the saying “Breaking bread together”. Eating is social. Eating together is a basic human expression of friendship and community. In every culture or religion, eating with others has a social function. For centuries, it has built or reinforced bonds between family members, friends and communities.

Food also connects you to a culture. My sister-in-law is orthodox Roman Catholic. Every Easter, we have a gathering during which specific dishes are served. Similarly, when one of her family members passed away, churchgoers offered various breads and food items as a sign of respect and love. There is something deeply touching about these moments of sharing and giving, whether you are religious or not.

Even in times of hardship, the act of sharing food is important. It shows that there is more that unites us than divide us. When I was in Rwanda 10 years ago, a family I had grown close to invited me for dinner. I knew they not well-off but they nonetheless decided to serve meat and killed one of their few chickens. The symbolic importance of that act still makes me emotional today. Despite our cultural differences, this dinner created a new bond between us as we each stepped out of our cultural bubble.

As someone with anorexia, I notice more than ever the connections that the sharing of a meal forms between people. It seems to facilitates social bonding. Growing up, eating together in the evening as a family was extremely important. The kitchen and the dining table were the command centres where we found each other at the end of a day. It’s where we shared stories, good and bad, where we bickered, laughed or solved problems. I truly believe that it strengthened our bonds as a family. It was also this time spent with my family in the kitchen or around the table that created my love for food. My mother and I went to the market together, looked at recipe and cooked. I cherished these moments of engagement because it made us stronger as mother and daughter and as a family. This is what legacy is about.

But herein lies the problem when you have anorexia. These moments are gone right now. Eating with other people is extremely uncomfortable, if not impossible for me. I’m simply unable to do it. Even when I sit with family or friends at the table, the mere fact that I do not eat, disconnects me from them. I can feel the discomfort.

I mourn simple dinners around the table with friend as much as big feasts at Christmas. As each important gathering passes by, I feel as if the bonds between me and others are weakening. Yes, I have formed new friendships but I don’t take part in dinner parties the way I should. I may join a picnic in the park in the summer but my incapacity to eat with other often makes me feel awkward and lonely.

Even my bonds with my family are, I feel, sometimes breaking. My brother is a fabulous cook but I have yet to be able to show him how much I appreciate this important part of his personality by eating one of his dishes. I also did eat dinner at his wedding. What horrible person does this? At my nephew’s baptism this summer, we hosted a feast in his honour but, unlike everybody else, I couldn’t eat. As much as I wanted to, my eating disorder was stronger. This was my nephew’s only baptism and, although I’m not religious, I was missing out on an important moment of his life. The guilt that I experience from these lost moments is immense because I know their request is simple: “I’m asking you to share joy with me.” Every time one of these communal moments passes, I feel as if something is breaking between me and others.

I also miss the personal pleasure some of these gatherings brought me. Birthdays were always important in my family. We were allowed to decide where or what to eat, and most of all we decided on the cake. What is a birthday party without a cake? Now that I have an eating disorder, there is something truly missing on my birthday. My birthdays bring me little joy not only because it makes me think about another year passed with anorexia but also because there seems to be little point for a gathering.

The American author and food lover M.F.K. Fisher wrote in The Art of Eating, “With good friends and good food on the board, we may well ask, ‘When shall we live if not now?’” This one sentence summarizes my current reality. There is a part of me that doesn’t live in the moment, that doesn’t experience the pleasure of living and connecting with others. When will I live fully again?

Photo: Abel Chuklanov, unsplash.com

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