When my son was yound and in distress, my first thought was always, "He's hungry." I would sit down and nurse him. He would calm and nurse for a while.
I did the same for my daughter. But, sometimes, she wouldn't take my breast. Eating did not calm her.
Later, when the kids would hurt themselves, I found myself offerring a cookie to them. My son would take it. My daughter would look at me as if I were nuts with that clarity only a three year old has. That was when I realised I was perpetuating my family's cycle of using food for comfort.
Comfort: It is only one aspect of my relationship with food. Our relationship needs to be redefined and renegotiated in order for me to lose weight--and for it to stay lost.
This is interesting. I would have thought that it is a learnt thing to get comfort from food. But since your children are different in this matter, maybe it's more genetic than a learnt behaviour.
ReplyDeleteI have quite different approach to food than you do. To me food is just mandatory thing to survive. I don't like to eat in general, I do not hate it but I'd rather do something else. I especially don't like eating in restaurants, I feel that I'm stuck there with huge amount of food and I have no way to escape, I used to get anxiety attacts in restaurants (it was when I was a teen, I don't know why it happened). Now it's better, I've learned that I don't have to eat if I don't feel like it. I'm not saying my approch on food is any better than yours, just very different.