I’m sitting at a coffee and bagel shop in the airport right now and there is someone a few tables down from me eating lunch. I’ve glanced over at them a few times now and it occurred to me that none of us know what we look like when we’re eating.
This person seems to have an unhappy look on their face, a scowl even. They’re not so much ‘eating’ as shovelling the food in and their mouth seem to be perpetually full…as in the next fork full of food goes in before the last one is fully chewed or swallowed.
Of course I don’t know anything about this person or what is going on in their life so I cannot make any judgement about this event and what it ‘appears’ like to me.
But it does raise in interesting question.
What do you look like when you’re eating?
Does it look different depending on your surroundings, if you’re eating alone, or with company. Maybe it depends on who you’re eating with.
Right now I’m trying to imagine what I look like when I’m eating and I couldn’t guess at all. I have no idea if I look calm, anxious, happy, sad, distressed…whatever. I really got no clue.
My guess is that it’s related to your current emotional state, your dietary/health/fitness goals (if you have any) and how the selected foods fit with those goals.
I’ll bet you got a different look on your face after eating half a pizza on a day when you didn’t plan on having it at all (and it conflicts with your diet and fitness goals) vs a day when you planned on eating it and it fit into your diet and fitness goals for that day. And I’ll bet that expression isn’t necessarily a proud or happy one!
I’ll bet that expression changes again when you’re eating alone vs eating with company.
To me the goal would be to look like the Panda’s in the picture above. They look totally happy, relaxed and stress free while they’re having a snack. When you can get to this state then you know you’ve got control over your diet and your emotional reaction to it. If you think that you may be displaying any other look than this, then you likely have some work to do on your relationship with food.
John
