Junk Food Shame

I have done a lot of things in my life that I should feel embarrassed, guilty, or even ashamed of. I have said horrible things to people. I have broken promises. I have made promises knowing full well I was going to break them. I’ve betrayed trusts. I’ve lied. I’ve selfishly put my needs before those of loved ones. I have done truly despicable things.

The horrible part is that I don’t usually feel bad while I’m doing these things. If I feel any kind of regret, it usually isn’t until much later.

Yesterday, however, something very strange happened. My husband and I went grocery shopping for the 4th of July, one of my favorite holidays, and we made the mistake of shopping while we were starving. As we wandered up and down the aisles buying bag after carton after box of junk food for the celebration, we turned to each other and asked, “What are we going to have for dinner?”

The hamburgers and shrimp were for the 4th. Hot dogs? Too banal. Spaghetti? Not in the mood. Finally I came upon the perfect dish: chili, Fritos and cheese, layered in a baking dish, and topped with flaky biscuits. As I suggested it, both our eyes got bigger and we smiled at each other in gleeful anticipation, and hurried to finish our shopping so we could go home and eat the most white trash dinner we could think of.

At some point we both turned to each and said, “We can’t tell anybody we ate this.” And we were serious. We were ashamed.

I made the dish as soon as we got home, and we settled in front of the television with the kids to watch Ghostbusters, drink beer, and gobble Frito pie. And as we sat there eating, we didn’t look at each other. We ate in silence. Because we were both filled with awful guilt over eating one terrible-for-you, nutritionally vacant dish.

As I sit here typing, I remember the feeling. I remember the guilt I felt serving the food to my daughter (My son wouldn’t eat that crap. He’s only 4 but he has a thing about eating healthy.) I felt guilty that it tasted yummy. And I remember promising myself I wouldn’t eat like this again in a very long time.

As I said up front, I’ve done shitty things in my life and not felt a modicum of guilt until much later. Now, here I am, a healthy, reasonably slender woman who only occasionally indulges in utter garbage eats, and I was virtually wallowing in shame. How did this happen? Why did I feel so overwhelmed with ickiness?

It could be any number of things, really. It could be the social messages I hear playing over and over in my head that say “You must be healthy and thin!” It could be memories of childhood where we ate unhealthful foods because it was what we could afford. It could be that I don’t want to teach my children that it’s okay to eat junk food for dinner. It could be that I worked hard to lose 60 pounds back in ’05 and I don’t want to ever get unhealthy again.

Could be any of those things. Could be all of those things. Could be something else entirely that I haven’t put my finger on. But regardless of what the trigger was, it bothers me. It bothers me that I feel not only guilty but ashamed of what I ate, like it was some kind of moral corruption. The idea that food could be tied to character or morality, even deep in my subconscious, worries me. I don’t have any answers today. I’m just thinking out loud.