My Childhood Relationship with Food.

Love at first bite of my almond magnum.

I was sorting through some old photos the other day and I stumbled across some childhood pictures of eating ice cream and baking with my younger brother. It really got me thinking back to my relationship with food as a younger child.

Sometimes it can be interesting to get curious about our relationship with food in childhood. It can help shed light on the ways we related to food from the very start. I want to acknowledge privilege in my experience in having access to plentiful food, a range of foods, not being put on a diet or having weight talked about at all in early childhood and that this is coming from just one perspective.

For me, food was just delicious and fun, especially ice cream. The ice cream counter in France was one of my happiest past times, the pastels of pistachio, violet and rose, the richness of the chocolate, coffee and caramel. I always preferred a cone to a cup, even when they were slighty stale.

I didn’t really love broccoli and I absolutely loved chocolate biscuit cake, Gu puddings whilst watching the Weakest Link and a dish we called chicken and rice, a mix of pan-fried chicken, onion, lardons and sweet corn with crème fraîche served with rice. I liked having bacon and eggs for breakfast, digestive biscuits at break and pudding with lunch and supper. Nothing bad ever happened. I remember my Mum would leave chocolate bars in our car seat spaces for after school, my favourite was a toffee crisp. I would click in my seatbelt and tear off the wrapper which collected in the little pouch on the back of the seat in front all whilst savouring in the perfect amalgamation of crispy, chewy, toffiness encased in sweet milk chocolate.

 I loved playing sports, especially swimming and netball with friends and the highlight was getting a Powerade from the vending machine after our practice on a Monday. It turned our tongues a delightful shade of bright blue and we would stick them out at each other and giggle in delight. Sometimes my nanny made us finish our plates to get pudding or just in general and I do remember sitting at the table feeling really uncomfortably full. I also remember feeling really hungry on a holiday in Turkey because of general childhood fussy eating. I think it was one of the first experiences I had of genuine hunger. I remember sitting on a big arm chair and clutching my stomach whilst my mum heated up my choice of chicken pie from M&S.

For the most part food was really happy and joyous. I did cooking club as my first school club and we made peppermint creams, which I desperately wanted to like but didn’t. I also remember really wanting to like these natural raw fruit bars one of my friends had at school because they were cool – I thought they were gross.

I remember going to get Krispy cremes the first day they arrived in London. As you queued they’d give you one sticky glazed doughnut to eat for free. The only downside was ridiculously sticky hands until you got a chance to wash them.

I remember that sometimes when we were a bit late for school we would stop at Starbucks. My choice was always a pain au chocolat and hot chocolate with whipped cream. I used to sipping it through a green straw as we drove down the streets lined with red brick houses taking care not to burn my tongue or spill it as the car braked.

I remember my Mum playing a game with us where we’d try one new vegetable a week. I thought this game was frightfully exciting and my Mum succeeded in us munching away on cabbage, celeriac and kale – we were so on trend!! I remember the frustration and why on earth mushrooms had to go in shepherd’s pie and spag bowl and the horror or fishing the slimy things out.  

 I miss the days of the two dairy milk bottles being left outside our front door, going for Chinese on the weekends where my favourite things were prawn toasts and crispy sea weed. I remember my Grandfather telling me that he absolutely loved Octopus even though it tasted rubbery, and so I wanted to like Octopus too (and I do).

I remember how as a child I hated sandwiches and my mum used to pack my Barbie lunch box with golden syrup sandwiches and mini sausages instead. One day, my Barbie lunch box got confused with another girls. I was left with crudités and she got my golden syrup stash. It was her lucky day. I ended up in tears haha.

I remember not liking olives and having to delicately remove them from my pizzas at pizza express as though my life depended on it. I remember how some of friends said how McDonalds was really unhealthy and I felt like I couldn’t really vocalise how much I secretly enjoyed it. I remember the greasy wrappers in the car when we went through the drive through religiously on Friday lunch times on the way to my Grandma’s house.  

I remember lots of things actually. I could probably write for days on some of the happy and hilarious memories.

Things definitely changed as I got older. I remember my loss of innocence and initiation into the world of diet culture pretty vividly too. It was slow and arduous but there were things I picked up in the ways in which food and bodies were spoken about. I don’t think the nutrition education in my biology lessons at school were helpful at all either.

I guess some of the nice part is thinking just how much time food was this happy carefree thing and that it’s entirely possible to recreate some space for that freedom, creativity and fun in our adult lives too. 

If it feels comfortable and ok, I invite you to consider what your relationship with food was like as a child? Is there anything you might be able to take or learn from younger you?