When Food Is Love Language Analysis

Julie Duffy Dillon’s words “we were all born knowing how to eat” have been echoing in my head since they rolled off her tongue at Southern Smash. A thought that has never before crossed my mind, but now can not seem to leave it. This major theme of the role that food plays in our lives is immense. To babies, food is food and nothing more. When they are physically hungry, they cry, and when they are fed, their need is fulfilled. Food provides babies with physical pleasure and comfort. However, something happens as people grow older and food begins to satisfy other needs. People begin to manipulate food to fulfill a psychological need rather than a physical need. This is where it becomes essential to differentiate the types of hunger. Physical

It is a learned response, more commonly known as cravings. Emotional hunger fulfills a psychological need and correlates uncomfortable feelings with food. People with eating disorders often submerge themselves into emotional hunger, although they most likely also experience the other two typesas well. This made me wonder why people use food, of all things, to fulfill a psychological need and, in fact, Geneen Roth (1992) answered that exact inquiry in her novel When Food Is Love. Food is there when people are not. It tastes good, it makes people feel good, and many people use food to replace love, or to replace confronting other negative emotions. People manipulate food by eating or not eating to give them a sense of control when they feel like they do not have control over other things in their life (p. 19). However, there are better ways to cope with emotions without using food. This is one of the principles of intuitive eating. Tribole & Resch (2012) emphasize that manipulating food, eating or not eating, ca not fix any feelings. It may provide short term comfort but it will not solve any problems. Finding appropriate outlets for emotions makes food actually satisfying (p.

I was in awe, surprised, shocked, and amazed all at the same time. All of the points that the speakers raised left me wanting to hear more. As I previously mentioned, the concept of being born knowing how to eat had the greatest impact on me. It is such a basic concept, but something that I, and I assume, many others have never thought about. It made me contemplate at what point in my own life I started experiencing the different types of hunger and makes me more aware now of my experiences. I have nothing negative to say about the entire presentation. However, I think that there may be a more gentle way to discuss the fact that diets do not work. One of the people that I brought to the event is currently on a diet. Although she was never very overweight, she is now much healthier and in shape. Perhaps for her, dieting has worked. However, I think that if I were in her shoes listening to the conversation about dieting, I would feel uncomfortable. Since our class has already learned about it, we understood all of the background information and research. However, my friend for instance, does not necessarily know any of that, but instead may feel like she is being criticized. I might just be too sensitive of a person, but this was my one critique. I wish I was able to attend the event during the day, as I was so excited to participate in the scale smash, but I can imagine that it was just as powerful as the