FOOD AND ASSOCIATED PRACTICES

I have always had this preconception that food and its consumption went far beyond a means of survival. That it entailed a certain gaiety, lots of fun and could create exceptional, life long memories, which could cheer you out of any sour mood. Except, taking into consideration when one is being forced as a child, to gobble up boring looking, green vegetables; all for the sake of a balanced diet.
However, this notion of mine took a hit with an object far bigger than a pin and burst when I got here in spring of this year, moved into USI apartment complexes and met one of the most beautiful girls one could ever meet who alas, viewed food and its consumption, not as I did, but in a totally different way. She was my flat -mate, and Cassandra was her name.
Food and its practices are an inherent part of every culture, and it varies from country to country, all the way down to an individual level. Having visited a number of countries known to be the western world such as United Kingdom, Australia, France and Canada, I have gotten to understand that there is a great difference between how physical beauty is viewed back home in Nigeria as well as in most parts of Africa, and in these countries. These variations are at its maximum I believe, within the United States; both for the female and male, wherein the standards of these are pretty set; and conformity is expected and almost seemingly mandated.
While a female back home is generally expected to be well rounded, having all the female curves as it were, here, the opposite is the case. Physical beauty of a woman is depicted here, as being skinny, as is often portrayed by the media, in countless ways. The urge to conform to these standards of physical beauty, which is not being touted for the sake of being healthy, or for the medical benefits but more so for physical looks much to my amazement, is what drove my flat mate Cassandra to her extreme, bizarre, food practices.
Cassandra is not your average next door girl. She is pretty, tall, svelte, and athletic with a seemingly great outlook on life. She maintains one of, if not the healthiest diet regimen I have ever come across. She had oatmeal with non-salted crackers for breakfast; her mid day snack was either a banana or eight grape fruits or 2 strawberries, whichever suited her mood for the day. Her lunch comprised of lean turkey or chicken breast sandwich and dinner, which was eaten no later than 7pm, was almost always lean chicken with mixed vegetables and gluten free pasta. My eating habits however, were the direct antithesis of hers and she never let me hear the last of it. What with my eating a big mac meal at least five days a week, for the five months we were flat mates. She once likened me to the ‘devil sent to lead her into temptation.’
I noticed early on, that virtually after every meal Cassie ate, (she almost, always cooked her own meals), that she had the habit of going to the rest room and thereafter followed retching sounds which I could hear even though I was in a different room.
It went on and on for the first couple of weeks, until I asked her if she was pregnant. I can still remember her puzzled expression, as she could not for any reason understand why I asked her that, and I also remember her candid immediate response to my question was ‘oh my God I look fat right?’ I told her that was not the reason, after all she was slimmer than I am, an answer, which seemed to please her for a few seconds until I told her that the reason I asked was because
I always seemed to hear her throwing up incessantly and that I assumed that was tied to pregnancy.
This brought about a long discussion into our eating habits. Cassandra decided to enlighten me on food, its constituents, caloric content, good and bad food sources, the monster that is carbohydrate (‘carbs’ as she called it) and most amazing off all a calculator which she called ”weight watchers calculator” which helped do a caloric count of everything she ate.
Although I know it is beneficial, at least health wise, to try to maintain a healthy weight through monitoring what you eat and teaming that up with good exercise; Cassandra took it to another level.
For every food she consumes, she does a caloric count of it, and for every time she feels she has gone in excess of her projected caloric count, she makes herself throw up and then goes jogging or doing some other exercise routine to burn down the extra calorie. She even went as far as knowing how many calories she burnt by whatever exercise routine she did and the duration she had to endure to achieve the caloric loss she aimed for. Of note however, is that the few times she ever went over her projected caloric count, I led her to it with what she termed ‘tempting offers’, but what I regarded as regular food such as take outs from a Chinese buffet.
After this insight into her food and eating practices, I decided to probe a little deeper to find out her reason for this extremity. If I had found out that her reason was health wise, then it might have been a little bearable but to know that it’s all because she is trying to conform to the world’s standard of physical beauty; I decided to step in to give a little advice.
I went on to tell her about the fact that her self-induced bouts of vomiting were a sign of bulimia nervosa, a fact she refused to agree with. I disregarded her non-acceptance, and went on to tell her that the actions she was taking, especially her throwing up to achieve a particular weight goal, or beauty standard had negative side effects. Which effects could prove to be long term and even in some cases catastrophic. These effects include but are not limited to tooth decay, gum disease, metabolic acidosis and alkalosis and even osteoporosis when it becomes extreme.
Most fascinating however, is that while in the process of listing these effects, she joined in and added in some side effects that I was not even aware of. This puzzled me and led to my asking her, and wanting to know, why she then carried on this practice if she knew the side effects. Her response was even more puzzling. Her insistence that she was not bulimic was her answer. She claimed she knew she was not because she did not have all the characteristics that a person who was bulimic had, and that she knew the side effects associated with bulimia because she had done extensive research, just to reassure herself that she did not suffer from this disorder, by eliminating characteristics such as binge eating which is generally associated with it.
Although I persistently tried to make her imbibe my notions of food and its consumption as opposed to her view of eating as just a necessity for survival by having intermittent discussions about her food and eating habits; even while knowing that I am not the best possible role model with regards to eating healthy; I was unsuccessful. Cassandra up till when we parted at the end of the semester, kept up with her eating habits.