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Body Wise By Kamalamani Consuming Passions “To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.” Simone de Beauvoir (2010, 355). “I'm learning how to taste everything.” Laurie Halse Anderson (2014, 276) I've puzzled over the psychology of food, body image, female identity, and sexuality since I was little. I grew up with a beautiful mother and grandmother who were absorbed by fashion and being attractive. The language around food consisted of 'being good' versus 'being naughty'. As a girl, I found fashion and food pretty boring; I was a tomboy, roaming the countryside and trotting around on borrowed horses, enjoying freedom and wildness. Freshlygroomed horse was my favourite smell, rather than Chanel No. 5. Fashion-conscious wise, I was a bitter disappointment to my elegant female folk. These days I am repeatedly saddened by the self-hatred and self-harming of so many of my female clients, and a few of the male ones. I'm sickened by the suffering of teenage girls Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall 2014 | Volume 4 Number 2 | page 56
and the rising numbers of boys who are starving themselves, some to death, whilst millions of other humans in the world are dying of malnutrition, against a backdrop of rising obesity. The politics of food and confusion around eating, consumption, and nourishment have never been more bewildering in a world full of beings hungry for love and connection. In writing this article, I find it impossible to talk about the psychology of food without touching on the themes of body image, gender, and identity, and notice the old echoes of fear and shame that go with this territory. I know I'm not alone in this; in fact, I'm in good company. I haven't met many women who grew up with a healthy, balanced attitude to food, eating, and their bodies. I've met a few women who reached womanhood largely unscathed but sadly they're in the minority. Since my girlhood, I've been familiar with the latest fad diets. I witnessed my Mum's valiant efforts with the: Mayo diet; F plan; and Hip and Thigh diet, to name but a few. I became a child-expert in food-asthe-currency-of-love through day-to-day culinary interactions with my grandmother. Woe betide anyone who didn't clear their plates and come back for seconds. Food was not only the currency of love but sadly a powerful bartering tool in the lovehate relationship between my mother and grandmother, who traded quite ferociously. Then puberty happened. I realised, with some shock and resistance that my body was changing, and I, too, was expected to join the world of women. I wasn't ready to swap my wellington boots for heels and handbags so I didn't. But, I did realise I was severely ill-prepared for understanding the unspoken Sketches drawn and donated by Kamalamani assumptions and expectations of what it means to be a woman and how muddled that was in my head: a rich cocktail of food, nourishment, body image, love, and nascent sexuality. My embodied defense was the layer of retained puppy fat between me and the world keeping others, particularly the opposite sex, at bay. This messy thinking and armored defense was compounded by a routine visit to my local doctor. He confirmed what I already feared in my belly: I was ‘socially unacceptable’ – I was a stone and a half overweight. In fact, his full verdict was that: "it's socially unacceptable for a teenage girl to be overweight." He didn't ask me about eating habits, or exercise, or nutrition. Instead he lectured me about social unacceptability. I failed to check out what his judgment would have been had I been a teenage boy. What was also emerging for me at that point was a genuine interest in nutrition and the workings of the body. Studying biology, and later for an exam in nutrition and cookery, I was fascinated by nutrition and health. I also realised that I was a good cook, which remains a creative, relaxing outlet. I was amazed by the workings of the body. I loved the intricate diagram-drawing of biology classes and have memories of crazy experiments, in particular, boiling a peanut in a test tube to find out its calorific value. Not long afterward, I decided to become vegetarian and became increasingly interested in the ethics of food and eating. It has taken me the best part of three decades to unlearn some of my distorted behaviour around food and eating and to notice how I used food Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall 2014 | Volume 4 Number 2 | page 57
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Fall 2014 Somatic Volume 4 Number 2
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Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Fall
Page 5 and 6: Our Usual Fare 10 Across the Pond B
Page 7 and 8: From the USABP President Dear Somat
Page 9 and 10: Diane Cai has been with us for two
Page 11 and 12: Several other authors have books on
Page 13 and 14: Movement-Based Embodied Contemplati
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Page 41 and 42: Real Whole Traditional Foods are As
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Seven books written by Malcolm Brow
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Dmochowski continued from pg. 55 we
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Scott continued from page 43 Colzat
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