#9: Pause at the Plate: The Role of our History at the Plate
Why our upbringing and training matter
Before we start, I have two questions that I would love to hear from you about:
First, regarding how you prefer to interact with the posts so I know if it is helpful to provide the listening/voice-over option.
Second, How would you very generally rate your eating style & speed for MOST of your meals?
Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback.
Today’s post is one of reflection about how your upbringing influences our eating habits. It is a tough one for me as I as sure it is for many readers. So the goal with this last of 3 articles on the factors that influence our eating habits is first and foremost to be gentle with yourself as a perfectly imperfect human, sibling, parent, intern and professional who needs to eat and is often placed in positions that make mindful choices a challenge. With the next post we will look at how these factors influence our health followed by what we can do to more mindfully approach these factors. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this post and the topic of Pausing at the Plate.
Pause to Consider #1
The conclusion of this 2021 article examining birth order, number of siblings and its effects on eating speed.
…first‐born children were twice as likely to eat faster compared to children who were not first‐born.
…only‐child adults reported eating slower than adults who were not first‐born.
…higher number of siblings was associated with faster eating rate in children
Pause to Consider #2
The conclusion of this 2020 CDC study:
Immigrants (to the US) may be shifting toward eating behavior that is characterized by less time spent food shopping, preparing meals, and food consumption as a primary activity and more time spent eating while engaged in other activities such as watching television.
Pause to Consider #3
The conclusion of this small 2011 article - one of the few examining the eating habits of physicians:
In addition to identifying practical barriers such as lack of time to stop and eat, inconvenient access to food and poor food choices, the physicians described how their sense of professionalism and work ethic also hinder their work nutrition practices.
Does this reflect your upbringing and training?
Similar to many readers, it’s complicated. I will take my history as an example: As the youngest child of two and having an older sibling almost 7 years older, I have all the odds of being a slower eater. As I remember I was in many ways a slow eater growing up in Iran where meals where often long, mult-generational affairs which lasted hours.
Fast forward to traveling/escaping to get to the US after the Iranian revolution through many countries often living out of hotels and becoming more accustomed to grab and grow meals and rare home cooked ones. You add to this, as in the CDC article, a transition to convenience eating after discovering the wonders of packaged cereals and foods upon landing in the US.
One of my favorites was Hostess “Fresh Fruit Pies” which were neither Fresh nor Fruit and really not even a Pie as much as a hard-glazed oval that was stuffed with an amazingly addictive and oozy filling that I am sure is now outlawed in some European countries. What’s more is that I remember purchasing these at a convenience store/ gas station named “Husky.” That’s right “Husky” as in what you may become if you eat too many of these pies. From what I know Huskies are largely out of business in the US other than a few locations realizing, probably, that their name should have had more market testing…
The additional important influence of this childhood chapter was my upbringing in Las Vegas which had plentiful and cheap buffets.
Many communities of the 80’s (and some still today) had similar options (albeit not in a casino) such as Hometown Buffet and Sizzler where there was an overubudance of high calorie, high volume foods available which made the more basic whole food salad bar portion of the experience a ghost town.
The final and ultrapowerful influence towards becoming a full fledged mindless eater was my medical training. As with most readers who went through this type of fast pased training, the unspoken theme regarding food was to shovel in what you can, when you can.
While there were certainly meals such as during journal clubs and other “lunch” and learn meetings which were not as rushed as eating on overnight call, they were similarly problematic for the reasons we mentioned in the last post regarding distracted eating. The experience and dysfunctional relationship to food that developed for me an many others is often unrecognized but extremely powerful.
It is perfectly summed up and is the most problematic conclusion of the physician nutrition article above in that while physicians freely admitted that poor nutrition affected their practice, there was a theme that “professionalism and work ethic,” were not possible simultaneously with good nutrition. Because there is always another chart or task to catch up on, it creates a scenario where work will always come out ahead and continually push healthy eating to the side. One of the solutions we will explore is how to dismantle these nonproductive constructs so that being professional and eating mindfully do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Over time these factors spilled over to the home environment. I would often “win” the dinner race with my wife and kids commenting. “What’s the hurry?”
In many cases, there was no reason to hurry, other than the history that had through many rushed meals, buffets and call nights brought me to this eating pattern. And to be clear, I do not blame anyone or anything. Many of these factors brought me a better life that I an grateful and I certainly had amazingly mindful meals prepared by my family which I ended up eating at times UN-mindfully.
With that as my background I invite you to reflect on the factors that created your eating pattern which, similar to mine - are complicated - and are a blend of many influences which at times may be contradictory or embarrasing to recall. So as we end this post - just as we started - I first want to point out the importance, as you reflect on your own history and how it has influenced your eating habits, to do so gently without blame or shame.
Second, as we close the chapter on some of the key factors that influence our eating, namely:
What we Eat (The Food)
When, Where and When we Eat and with Whom we Eat (The Environment) and
The Patterns we learned at the Plate (The History)
I would like you to think ahead to our next post which will be about the health consequences of our eating habits and ask yourself in what way they have contributed to your health trajectory, either positively or negatively?
As alway, I look forward to your comments and messages on this post as we continue this topic.
Until we meet again, May you find Pause in your day (and meals), RB 🙏