In my binge eating disorder, there was a total lack of boundaries with food... Which is a part of the binge eating disorder itself... Not surprisingly, I also experienced a lack of boundaries in my relationships with others, with my own emotions, and how I treated myself (thanks Pisces placements 🙋🏻♀️). Boundaries are important in every relationship, including your relationship with food.
Why reflect on your boundaries with food?
There are countless players in our food systems and they all have their own goals...
Restaurants & Chefs: create delicious food, art, make money, attract guests, reputation, legacy.
Big Food (Corporations, Industrialized Food Industry): create products that sell, that customers will continue purchasing, reach and feed as much of the population as possible, cut cost wherever possible in order to increase their profits.
Farmers, Vendors/ Purveyors (ingredient producers- including animals & plants): raise/ cultivate animals or plants in the food system, partnering or dealing with other players in the food system to purchase their products.
Hospitality Industry (see also restaurants & chefs): To create a particular atmosphere or experience… the experience or service is the product; striking a balance between providing plenty so customers want for nothing, at the same time, leave customers wanting more so they will return.
Culture & Family: specific & unique to a family's culture & heritage. Food is home, love, belonging, & survival. Food or meal times may also be hostile. Food may be a parent's villain or tormentor. Upholding ancestral cuisine, dishes, ingredients and/or loss of ancestral cuisines, dishes, ingredients; assimilation and colonization. Substance overuse vs ancestral traditions; home, belonging, generosity, hospitality, & abundance vs enmeshment & suffocation.
All of these players are already acting on their own boundaries or goals…
Not always exclusively, but many players (often the largest ones with the most power) operate with the primary focus of profit… Not necessarily nourishment, reciprocity, or sustainability.
Therefore it's important to reflect on your values and resources to consider your boundaries with food or substances. Your boundaries may fluctuate moment to moment or day to day (just like any other relationship) but there is a home base you can determine for yourself.
Healing Binge Eating Disorder: 5 Questions to Reflect & Consider Your Boundaries with Food:
1. Consider what is culturally & personally meaningful
2. Consider how your body feels
3. Consider your social/ communal/ political, emotional, physical, & spiritual values (you might have to search "examples of values"- I know I had to at the beginning of my journey)
4. Consider your resources: material & monetary
5. Consider your time
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