It’s almost summer! Break out the BBQ, grill too much meat, maybe even (gasp) take your kid for ice cream.
Wait, no, sorry….
You shouldn’t celebrate anything — be it a birthday or the change of seasons or any of life’s blessings — with food. And certainly never reward positive behavior with it.
“After all, you’re not a dog.”
Can we shelve this glib, condescending, diet coach bullshit?
If you disagree, start using your passport. Because when you collect a few stamps you quickly learn that “celebrating” with food is the norm across cultures, even where obesity isn’t an issue.
Fact is, the real “problem” isn’t the food — it’s US!
And it’s multi-factorial: inactivity, relative food abundance, detachment from what real food actually is and where it comes from, distracted eating, economics/poverty vs. low cost hyper-palatable processed garbage, etc…
And of course, stress, lack of sleep, lack of structure, too much overwhelm, and coping strategies to deal with emotional pain blurring the lines between occasional “celebrating” and daily self-medicating.
Suddenly, it’s not so simple.
But addressing all that takes work, introspection, and a lot of humility. It’s much easier just to push that emotional stuff under the rug and find a more archetypal “bad guy,” preferably a corporation (they’re all evil ya know) we can all rally against.
Like those devislish soda companies sponsoring youth sports events. They’re responsible.
Not the dozens of more nuanced reasons, and definitely not the flawed, stressed, beleaguered person looking back at us in the mirror every morning.
Nah, let’s “ban soda.” Then I’ll get to work on a Facebook post encouraging parents to “re-think that once a year birthday cake.”
Feels so good to make a difference.