Enjoy every bite! – Positive approach in eating

When was the last time you really enjoyed a meal? You consciously savored the taste of it and felt not only satiated but happy at the same time? When you felt the need to close your eyes to fully concentrate and appreciate the sensation in your palate?

Have you ever stopped to wonder if your hectic lifestyle has turned you into a “rusher”? Someone, so busy that only rushes to eat something quickly, absent mindedly and, more often than, not standing or walking? Or a “comforter” who turns to food for comfort, stress relief, or as a reward rather than to satisfy his/her hunger?

Is your eating behavior mindful or mindless? Do you focus your attention and awareness on the here and now of enjoying a meal with all of your senses? Or is your eating Emotional perhaps? Using food to feel better-eating to satisfy emotional needs, rather than your stomach?

What are your eating habits doing for your physical, mental and social well-being? What do they say about your culture, traditions and personal history? In what way do the eating behaviors and practices of the people in your school contribute to a healthy school environment? Do your school curricula on nutrition include topics on eating-related pleasures that go beyond nutritional facts and figures? Does it explore the meaning of eating beyond the primary function of food which is the provision with all the nutrients and elements necessary for the body to survive, grow, function and perform?
This sequence was created to ask similar questions that serve as starting points for reflection and discussions.

It may also broaden your perception and take it a bit further from the basics of nutrition and text-book contents to the forgotten art of gastronomy as Lang (1983), defined it ‘‘the art of selecting, preparing, serving and enjoying food’’ that has after all been celebrated for centuries.

Possible additional reading/websites that can be found free online:

• Lang, G.: 1983, Gastronomy In The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropaedia, Vol. 7 (Ency-clopedia Britannica Inc., Chicago), pp. 940–947.
• http://thecenterformindfuleating.org/
• http://www.helpguide.org/articles/diet-weight-loss/emotional-eating.htm