The Fat Diaries: Too-Fast Food
Everyone’s heard this one right? “It takes twenty minutes for your stomach to feel full. You should eat at a slow pace so you don’t stuff yourself.” In theory it makes perfect sense. There’s only one problem: Most Americans have been trained since kindergarten to consume an entire meal in 15 minutes.
It’s pretty much true of all of us who went to public school, and most private schools. We were given a full half-hour for lunch, but very little of those 30 minutes were actually devoted to eating. This was my particular breakdown:
- Getting from classroom to cafeteria: 2 min.
- Waiting in line and retrieving food: 7 min. (some days it was closer to 15)
- Finding a place to eat (where I wouldn’t be teased or asked to leave): 3 min.
- Socializing with my friends and eating: roughly 15 min.
- Cleanup and fetching books for the next class: about 3 min.
Now, keep in mind that while it’s possible to eat and socialize I preferred not to. It’s rude. This meant I had to bolt down my food in approximately seven minutes to make it to my next class on time. And while in elementary school, I had time on the playground to socialize with my peers; that stopped immediately after 8th grade. Lunch was the only chance I had to talk to my friends openly about how much Kurt Cobain sucked and who was going to be at the mall on Saturday. So I talked in-between shoveling french-fries into my mouth which the USDA says counts as a full serving of vegetables).
It was basically the same thing during my high school summers, when I worked at the mall. I was only working part time in those days which meant I was submitted to one of the cruelest minimum-wage indignities: the 15-minute break. The 15-minute break was the company’s way of saying, “we acknowledge that you have to eat, but that doesn’t mean we’ll budget time for it.” Usually my break was right around lunchtime and I was starving. If I felt I was REALLY running slow, I’d shop at the closest 2 kiosks which sold food, namely, the ice-cream stand and the hot butter-soaked pretzel place. If one of the crooked bosses was working (GOD, I loved them), or if I desperately needed a lunch that wasn’t a glorified 3,000 calorie snack, I’d run to the food court.
I’d jog as fast as I could down escalators, dodging the nail-buffers and the hair-flippers, and occasionally catching my handbag on railings or ornamental fountains. (If you see a person in uniform booking it through a mall like their car might be on fire, chances are they’re on their 15 minutes). I’d then do the “anxious-oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-be-late” dance while waiting in some horribly long line for burgers, or hotdogs, or greasy noodles. Upon retrieving said food I had one of two options. I could stand in front of a table (I didn’t have time to sit!) and unhinge my jaw so I could force the food down my gullet without chewing, OR I could run back to work with food in hand, and leave it in the employee’s area. I would count to 100 and then announce that I had to go to the bathroom. Then I’d grab my food and eat it in a leisurely 3 minutes while locked in the can. The only thing I really gained from my experience in retail was another pants size and frequent heartburn.
In college I had it much easier. Several days a week I had up to two hours between classes to get my daily sustenance (again subsisting of greasy noodles, fried chicken fingers or heavily processed burgers, washed down with Code Red Mountain Dew). But by age 18 the damage had been done. After twelve years of public/private school and various part-time jobs I was trained to scarf my food down at lightning speed. There was no real way to deprogram myself! Those vital twenty minutes necessary for my stomach to tell my brain to stop all traffic were by-passed completely. Only after I was done with my shark-like feeding frenzy did I get those “Uh-oh, shouldn’t have eaten that last bite of lasagna” signals. By then it was too late and all I could do was regret and reach for the TUMS. I still have this problem today. I’m at the beck and call of two toddlers at meal-times so every time I sit down it’s, “Mommy, can I have chocolate milk? Uh-oh! Mommy, I spilled! Mommy, can I have catsup? Mommy, oven’s going beep-beep!” By the time they’re done, I’ve taken maybe three bites. I can’t finish my meal afterwards and leave the kids unsupervised so I wolf down the food and chase after them. Last weekend, I went on a date with my husband to an upscale restaurant for dinner. The food took 20 minutes. We were done in ten.
So you can see two facts from this. ONE: Don’t hire me to work part-time retail in “Shirt-Folding Store Ltd.” TWO: From K-12 and beyond, most Americans are eating too fast to sense if they’re hungry at all, which is why we’re one of the most obese nations in the world. We’re trained to think that lunch is an inconvenient pause in life so we can get eating “out of the way.” Eating is something we do as we’re running out the door, or on the way to soccer practice, or between intermissions in Little Tommy’s band recital. Meal should be more than a lull in our frantic activity. The French and Italian public school programs ensure that students not only get time to eat, but also something healthy and delicious as well.
I know it’s going to be hard but we have to start trying to take back meal times. Since dinner is usually when I have the most time, I’m to try one thing tonight: I’m going to pause. Just for a moment -- I don’t know when -- but maybe before I reach for another bite, or seconds, or dessert. It’ll be too soon to ask my stomach if it’s hungry, but I will stop eating and talk to my kids. I might share a profound thought, share a mundane thought, share a joke, share an event, but I’ll just take a break from eating and spin out my time a little. I will try to make my 10-minute dinner last 12 minutes. Then I will ask myself again: Do I really want more chicken? Do I really need some ice cream? I might still say yes, but maybe I’ll say no this time.
Then tomorrow I’m going to do this twice.
Monica Marier’s “Fat Diaries” appears on FrumForum every Friday.