I'm not very good at sharing food. I am much better than I used to be, but really don't eat my first bite or last. Unless I offer, of course. And I am offering much more these days as I work through my food "issues". At some point I figured out that the sharing thing came from not feeling that I had enough food to eat. Odd, considering my upbringing. We had plenty of food around the house, but where the enough comes into play is desserts. We had them around occasionally, but apparently we were all supposed to be as controlled as my dad and eat the proper amounts on a regular basis. That didn't work for me and I started sneaking food from a very early age. When my husband talks about having cookies around as a kid he talks like they were always there and he never really that about it. Still is like that - he lets the cookies I send with him to work (so I won't eat them all) go stale. That is interesting to me. At various times I have tried breaking myself of this enough or not-enough mindset. In "Overcoming Overeating" they say that you should have a Brooke-shelf and that you should make a list of your favorite foods. You are then supposed to eat the one the you really like until you don't want it any more. Oh, I can't even imagine how many oreos I hate in 2005. I finally feel like I have control over my food right now. I don't feel the pull of sweets and when I eat something my naturopath said to observe, not judge. When I do that life is quite good. Maybe I needed that food in that moment. Was that my body talking? Or my mind? Maybe, just maybe I needed squash instead. (I'm still waiting on that one :).
Now, it seems my son has this enough thing too I'm afraid. I was so glad when I heard he was a boy, I was relieved that I wouldn't have to model food for a girl and deal with all of this. Can't stop unless the food is done. How could this be genetic? I share my food with him all the time as does my husband. He'll share his food too, but he doesn't listen to his stomach, he eats until it is gone. Even when the result of eating that many craisins could NOT be good. I'll have to keep watching, hoping, and providing as much of good role modeling as possible. I don't wish this on anyone.
Your son has picked up on ALL of your food issues. Children notice so much more than we think they do. They pick up on your neurotic thoughts and actions, on the self-hating, on the food obsessions, on the labeling foods as "bad" and on all the other things that we do to distort food. I hope he and you are doing better from when this was written.
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