Only now that I am pregnant do I realise how much – and how routinely - women are discouraged to eat!

[SkaterGrrrrl]

I am pregnant and for the first time in my life - or rather, for the first time since I was about 10, I am being encouraged to eat. Relatives press a second helping on me: ?Go on ? have some more?. Female friends/ acquaintances encourage me to order cake rather than a salad or sandwich when we meet in a cafe: ?You?re allowed to! You?re eating for two!? and colleagues offer me the biscuit tin ?Make the most of it while you can!?

It has really hit me how throughout my adult life, I have never been encouraged to eat dessert or take seconds. It?s as if , by being pregnant, a temporary loophole has opened up on the lifelong strict cultural expectation on women to eat very little. (The terrible pressure on women and girls to diet is detailed better than this in The Beauty Myth and Fat is a Feminist Issue).

I am also beginning to realise why some women put on a lot of weight during pregnancy ? a friend of mine put on 55 lbs. Because for the first time ever we are allowed to eat, guilt free, ask for seconds and not be censured.

Kim, this is a thread about how women's social experiences and feelings about their bodies are different before and during pregnancy.

Seahouses I don't know that it increase EDs, they are far more complex than that but I don't think they contribute to really healthy eating either. They seem to have taken on the idea that all fat is bad for example when really we need some fat. Many of teh vitamins and minerams in veg are fat soluble so we absorb them better with a small amount of fat. They also seem to talk about 'good' and 'bad' foods rather than all things in moderation.

WoTmania, I don't mean to suggest that eating disorder= person who wants to look thinner. But I do think some people with particular types of eating disorder have issues with the physical experience of ingesting food, although of course that is caused by other underlying thought processes But the fact those processes focus on food rather than some other, less dangerous area of wellbeing I think it related to how we talk about food. I appreciate though that I'm not very articulate on this.

I did find that pregnancy, and breastfeeding much more so, changed my attitude to food because I saw it as something that created or nurtured something other than my body. After many years of being pregnant or breastfeeding, this feeling stayed with me because I saw food as something that gave me the energy to do all sorts of things rather than something just to do with maintaining the body.

Kim - this is about pressure on women over their whole lifetime with regards eating and how it changes type when they are pregnant. you've obviously had a difficult time but that's not the same as someone born and raised her whole life as a woman.
I'll admit to feel rather annoyed also that you told me upthread that I should just ignore my families comments as I replied assuming you'd had the same pressures and were coming from a similar place.

Seahorses I realise you didn't. I've just come across a lot of people who think that just labelling foods and weighing can cause an eatinf disorder and it's one of my personal bugbears.

I'm well aware that I don't need to be eating any more calories while pregnant and I tortured myself with that Metro front page this morning. But as I am currently constantly ravenous and eating seems to be the only thing that helps with the nausea and disgusting saliva over-production, I'm now in the delightful situation of eating more than I should and beating myself up about it. So in that regard, I don't see pregnancy as much different from non-pregnant life as a woman.

The idea that what/how much you eat is a moral issue is so pervasive now and so very, very wrong. It makes me so angry and sad, even as I get suckered in by it at the same time. Wish I could find a way to break through...

I'm mystified by the advice I don't need eat more. I honestly have no issues with food, ignore the naughty bollox (although I do still recognise those pressures exist, and have seen it stacks now I'm pregnant) but I couldn't get through the night without eating. And this was after having had something before I went to bed, which i don't normally do.

Dinster, it is really difficult to think about anything else than how to stop feeling sick when you have nausea. Thoughts about eating too much or too little just seem a secondary concern.

I found morning sickness really problematic in terms of following any kind of 'rules' about a healthy diet. How are you meant to know how much of anything you have actually digested if you're being sick all day?

And my BMI at 12 weeks or something was still fine, yet I had eaten a huge amount.

another thing I've personally noticed is that at certain times in my cycle (when I'm ovulating and 2-3 days before period starts) I'm ravenously hungry when normally I'm not. Once upon a time I would have either ignored that and been snappy and cranky or 'caved', eaten and felt guilty. Since having children I'm more familiar with my cycle so recognise it for what it is and go with it.
Maybe a lot of these women who 'fall off the wagon'also get this but because we aren't encouraged to chart menstrual cycles or be familiar with our cycles, rathe thay are regarded as something to hide and be ashamed of, they don't realise and of course once they have fallen they might as well give up til tomorrow

disclaimer - I'm tired and waffling so this may be nonsense :o

Maybe I was socialised to care more about other's opinion when I was growing up. I haven't changed to accomodate them but I can still fell upset by them surely. Especially if it's a drip drip of negative comments.

Just reread your post. but you were upset but the comments? How is that any different. the only time I cahnge my behaviour is when my mum has cooked. And that is also because I'm aware they are always concerned about my EDs possibly returning.

Alice - I wouldn't worry about it or if you are get advice from your midwife. There are papers saying pregnant women need more calories and women are putting at their babies at risk by dieting and papers saying the opposite.

What a woman who is very thin at the start of a pregnancy needs to do is going to be different to what an average weight woman needs to do, which will be different to what an overweight woman needs to do.

WoT, yes, that is another thing that has changed with me as I have got older. I have related eating and drinking to my actual mood - headaches and sugar consumption, changes around ovulation and so. Before pregnancy I just related food to something my body 'meant' rather than what I was actually doing with my body.

AliceHurled - maybe you're just eating to hunger? Which surely is sensible? I ate a lot in my first trimester too but vommed most of it back up so gained no weight.

kim147 "I was wondering when that would come up.
I'm trans - read some of the other threads and you will see some of my thoughts."

After your first couple of comments on the thread, I thought 'this Kim is clearly a male troll.' But didn't say it. I'm glad to see that it is just male privilege you exude and not that you're a man using a woman's name to cause trouble!

WoTmania "I ate a lot in my first trimester too"

Same here - and because my baby & bump were huge it was probably a good thing. From 6 months on I just didn't have the room to put food - my stomach was squashed. I was absolutely ravenous after the birth when my internal organs started to fall back to their normal position again!

Oh you're trans, Kim.

So my point stands. You haven't been bombarded with messages about how you mustn't eat. You were bombarded with different messages which you rejected.

But this thread is about the messages women are bombarded with and how we respond to them.

WoTmania, I totally agree about menstrual cycle having an influence on appetite - I always get hungrier before my period and also, when exercising, I notice that it's harder to run, etc., than after or mid-cycle.

There's some research to show that women alcoholics who have a bingeing pattern (as opposed to the topping up steadily every day or nearly every day pattern) are more likely to go on a bender just before their period.

We are encouraged to completely ignore our menstrual cycles when it comes to how we respond to our physical needs - a large percentage of women disguise their cycles with hormonal contraception - but it can be really important in giving you an idea of why you feel like fainting at 5PM when you ate the same at lunch time last week and weren't really hungry at 7PM.

hang on Kim, OP starts a thread about the messages women are being given, ie something she thinks is wrong with society; you inform us that actually the problem is with how some women respond to those messages and that's what we should be talking about. In other words you seem to be saying we shouldn't be criticising society, just ourselves.

Since this is a thread about eating, have a

Call me a woo old hippy, but I'm a strong believer in really listening to your body with food, drink etc., unless you have some illness or problem like addiction in which case you prob shouldn't listen to your body that much.

Paul McKenna has remarkable results (70%+ success rate, compared with the FatFighter type orgs 90% failure rate), because that's all it basically is - eating consciously, listening to the signals your stomach sends to your brain, to tell it that it's full). Basically, getting back in touch with your body.

When I was pregnant, for the first time since childhood I trusted my body. I found I couldn't stand the smell of coffee and no-one needed to tell me not to drink it - my body decided for itself, that it wouldn't, even though I'd always been a big coffee drinker beforehand. I'd also drank far too much wine, but again found that when I was pregnant, my body rejected it - it decided that I didn't want more than half a glass at a time, weeks apart. No-one needed to tell me because my body was capable of telling me.

All this instruction and prescription to women what they need to eat and drink is just more policing of our behaviour with the excuse that it's for the sake of our babies, as it would be socially unacceptable to come straight out and tell us directly what to do with our bodies. It's a load of bollocks. Women are totally encouraged to be disengaged and alienated from our bodies all the bloody time. It's not that surprising that body dysmorphia, over-eating and under-eating, is a more female problem than a male one.

"So - why the different responses and attitudes towards food? How should women respond to the messages they are given? That's what the conversation should be about."

I am actually more interested in having a conversation about why women as a class are targeted and pressurised about food rather than discussing individual women's responses. It is a feminist thread after all :)

LOL at being told what the conversation should be about.

I think women eating in public was considered vulgar at one stage wasn't it?

I remember reading the details of Anne Boleyn's coronation and a screen was put up around her, so tht no one could see her eat at the celebratory dinner.

Wierd.

I think it's something to do with the idea of men as food-givers - t hat they own food. They "bring home the bacon".

Except that we know that's not true. Women were always the primary gatherers of food, until patriarchy took hold and men took charge of the food supply. One of the way they've controlled women, is by withholding food from us as punishment for wayward behaviour.

Katharine in Taming of the Shrew has food withheld as one of Petrucchio's method's of getting her under his control.