Food Does Not Have Moral Value
Can we stop pretending that it does?
Last December, back before life as we knew it changed forever, my office was having a potluck.
Generally, I don’t participate in potlucks. I have celiac disease and therefore can't eat gluten. Unfortunately, I can’t eat most dishes served at these kinds of events. So, I baked a gluten-free lasagna and pretty much just ate that. I didn't touch any of the cakes and pies that some other people brought for dessert.
Of course, plenty of other people did.
As I was getting up to get a second plate of my own lasagna, which remained largely untouched once word got around that it was gluten-free, I heard women in the office bemoan the selection of food.
“Ugh,” I heard one woman say. “I’ve been so bad this week. I don’t deserve any of this.”
“Same,” another woman commiserated. “It’s hopeless trying to be good this time of year.”
These comments were nothing I hadn’t heard before. Countless people, women in particular, frequently talk about their behavior value in relation to what kind of food they have been eating. We assign a kind of moral value to food, even though it doesn’t actually have any.
This has always rubbed me the wrong way. And because I’ve been hearing people freak out recently that they're going to put on “the Quarantine Fifteen,” I’m getting downright sick of it.
Food is not “good” or “bad.” It simply is. It’s just fuel that we use to give our bodies enough energy to get through the day.
Insisting that different foods have different kinds of moral values is harmful for a few reasons.
Classism
It’s no secret that healthier foods, foods that will help you lose weight, are significantly more expensive than unhealthy foods. As a result, people with lower incomes often have to stock up on “junk” food (which is another instance of people assigning moral value to food) instead of more costly, healthier food. That unhealthy food can sometimes force people to gain weight, or at least have serious trouble losing it.
When you can only afford to make a trek to the store every few weeks or so, you have to be smart about the kind of foods you buy.
Food insecurity plays a big part in this as well. Some people, especially those in lower-class communities, live farther away from a grocery store than those in the cities or suburbs. In rural neighborhoods, the nearest Wal-Mart is not for several, perhaps dozens of miles.
When you can only afford to make a trek to the store every few weeks or so, you have to be smart about the kind of foods you buy. You have to stock up on “junk” food that will not perish and will last until the next grocery run, as opposed to buying lots of fresh produce that will rot after a few days.
Calling someone “bad” for their food choices can be a direct insult to their class status. You often don't know the reason why someone is eating something you deem “bad.” So, be a nice person and don’t judge.
Shaming Leads to Eating Disorders
There have been multiple times in my life where my mother, although well-meaning, shamed me due to my eating choices.
“You’re really going to have a second serving of that?” she would ask. I knew she was only trying to “help” me lose weight, but in my experience, fat-shaming has never worked on that front.
Instead, I felt intense shame surrounding my eating habits. Whenever I would eat something “unhealthy” (or a large portion of something often deemed “good”), I would hear a voice in my head that sounded a lot like my mother’s say, “You don’t deserve this. You’re just a fat piece of shit.”
Ironically, the only thing that would make me feel better after this immense shame was eating. I have binge-eating disorder and will likely continue to have it for the rest of my life.
My mother attempting to get me to eat healthier always had the opposite effect of what she desired.
I felt like a piece of shit every time I ate a cookie or an extra helping of whatever she cooked up. I felt like I would never be worthy of love if I didn’t get my eating habits under control and start losing weight.
Not to mention, shaming people for their eating habits could spur the onset of other eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia. It’s all too easy to purge after eating “bad” food or even avoiding food altogether when you've been conditioned into believing that certain foods make you a failure as a human being, with no willpower to be “good.”
So, how do we combat this good/bad dichotomy when it comes to the value of food?
It’s not going to be easy. Diet culture is so ingrained in our society that it’s going to be damn near impossible to extricate it from our way of thinking. Disordered eating habits are so common that the majority of American women (and even some men) engage in them daily without even realizing it.
Food contains the calories that we need to go to work and provide for our loved ones, to enjoy our hobbies.
One thing that may help is listening to your body’s natural hunger cues. Following your body’s cycle and eating whenever you’re hungry, instead of when you’re just bored, can help you avoid the self-deprecating thoughts of being “bad” for eating when you’re not supposed to.
It may also help to think of food as what it really is: fuel for your body. Food contains the calories that we need to go to work and provide for our loved ones, to enjoy our hobbies. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.
I realize that trying to get society to stop referring to food as “good” or “bad” may be a lofty goal. But if this article helps even one person stop shaming themselves or others for their eating choices and habits, then I will consider it a success.
