Watching people eating, gathering up items from the table in the middle of the room. then receding to their chosen tables to consume. there is an unspoken governance where when deciding how much, how little, you ration yourself with what you have been told is normal portions. other eyes watch your plate and then make assumptions, oh of course she eats all that bacon, look how fat she is. Or wow, he’s an athlete, so thin. So he must need all that bacon. And even now as I write that, what gender assumptions do I make? If I swop those he’s and she’s around. He’s so fat, he shouldn’t eat all that bacon. She’s the athlete, she should eat the pile of bacon on her plate.
How little do we really make contact with ourselves. If a child unbeknown to these taught codes of conduct would walk around the food table, how would their behaviour be different. We could imagine. But quickly, parents will corral their children to conform. I’m not advocating for loss of control. But rather do we ever really do what we want?
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