This post is excerpted from Lewtan' s New Book "Busy, Stressed, and Food Obsessed!" available HERE.
I have a theory. I think that many women think about food the way men think about sex.
We have all seen those studies where they say that men think about sex every seven seconds or thousands of times per day. I don't know if those studies are true or not but most men I have asked agree that they think about sex A LOT! Yes, many women think about sex a lot too, but many women think about food even more. Some women even think about food while having sex. Why is this happening?
My guess is that somewhere along the way, our wires got crossed, and food became our go-to, easy-to-get, always-available form of pleasure.
Traditionally, in our society, it has been the responsibility of women to figure out the food thing. We have had to think about food all the time simply to feed our families. We needed to determine what our tribe wanted to eat. We had to choose which recipe we wanted to follow. We had to buy the ingredients for the menu we planned. We had to prepare the food and cook it for others, not just ourselves, multiple times per day. We had to figure out what to do with the leftovers. Food HAD TO BE on our minds because it was our responsibility to figure the food thing out.
These days, however, we are thinking about food even more. Cooking shows are more popular than ever, and cookbooks with beautiful food photographs are always on the bestsellers lists. But to really get a sense of what is going on with food, take a look at Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Facebook feeds and you will see food at its finest. Food, glorious food. Magnificent photos of everything from kale chips to ooey-gooey snickerdoodle chocolate pretzel stuffed brownies to sushi burritos! Is it any wonder that this is all referred to as Food Porn?
Just like watching porn works to excite its viewers to want more sex, food porn excites its viewers to want more food! As a result, we are thinking, planning, and dreaming about food all day long. Is it any wonder we are all food obsessed?
Unfortunately, the more we think about food, the more we want to eat it. No, it's not weakness. We are programmed to see food and want to eat it. It's a survival mechanism sewn into our DNA so that we don't starve in times of food scarcity. When food was actually scarce, this ability to eat anytime was probably a lifesaver, but now, everywhere we look food is calling to us saying EAT ME, EAT ME.
Fact is, there isn't a street you can drive down in any city that isn't strewn with billboards offering restaurants or fast food or ice cream. There isn't a magazine you can pick up, a show you can turn on, a conversation you can have where something to put in your mouth isn't mentioned. There isn't an airport that isn't filled with fifty versions of cake for breakfast or a drugstore that doesn't have rows of every candy bar you might crave right there at the checkout counter.
We can't escape thinking about food. On any given day, we are shopping for food, preparing food, packing food, cleaning up, cooking more food, driving thru, eating out, planning menus, hiring caterers, trying our hand at baking or doing our best to avoid the bakery.
For those of us who are food obsessed, much of our joy, pleasure, and fun is in talking about food, thinking about food, taking pictures of food, and eating food. Food, food, food, food, FOOD. This food obsession, dear friends, is taking up a lot of valuable real estate in our brains.
Is food the new sex?
"Busy, Stressed, and Food Obsessed!" is available HERE on Amazon.com. Also visit www.healthyhappyandhip.com for more information about Lisa Lewtan.
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