"She's at a precious age, no longer a toddler and still just on the precipice of childhood proper. She interacts with the world without self-consciousness and has not yet learned that society may expect something different from her. When she expresses hunger and when she eats, she does so with joyful abandon. When she takes a mouthful of something delicious we can see a whole-body response: she closes her eyes, tilts her head back and dances her shoulders up and down."
"I find these moments most affecting when they happen in social settings with celebratory food. I've watched her so completely zero in on potato-on-a-stick at a football game that not even a big strong purple Wiggle appearing would have broken her focus. I've watched her happily dance back to a party table for her third, fourth, fifth slice of fairy bread. She is completely unburdened by self-surveillance."
A one-year-old granddaughter ate with joyful abandon, egg smeared across her cheeks, bouncing in her high chair and shoving fritter into her mouth. By almost four she remains unselfconscious, interacting without self-surveillance, expressing hunger openly and showing whole-body pleasure when tasting something delicious. At social events she focuses on celebratory food with single-minded joy, returning repeatedly for more. Cultural messages teach many girls to hide visible hunger or ambition, whether for food, career, art or relationships. Memories of adolescent years shaped by misogynistic pop culture prompt uneasy reflection about when comfort with oneself is lost.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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