How to tell everything about someone by the way they eat

She should have known it when he reverently cut his burger into quarters and carefully ate it one piece at a time, instead of grasping it with his hands as usual and savoring it. His companion should therefore have foreseen that the relationship with him would have no future, since he was, as his eating manner indicated, a self-contained man with serious commitment issues. There is also the example of a girl who ordered a four-cheese risotto when she went out to dinner with her partner, even though she herself detests…cheese. So why did she order this dish? To look like him, to show him that they have the same taste, and therefore that they fit together and that’s why they should stay together.

How to tell everything about someone by the way they eat

Dr. Andrea Oskis is a psychotherapist and Lecturer in Psychology at Middlesex University.
Food and emotions are inextricably linked. They are the field in which Dr. Andrea Oskis specializes and she has been a psychotherapist for the past 12 years and a lecturer at Middlesex University. Oskis has also studied at Leiths School of Food and Wine. In her new book “The Kitchen Shrink: How the food we eat reveals who we are – and who we love” she addresses this very dichotomy – food and relationships. After all, our care and love for a person is also reflected through food, whether we cook, whether we like to eat with another person, whether we share food and let ourselves enjoy the moments and life.

Food is directly linked to emotions

“The reason for such a close bond is due to the fact that food is part of our lives from the moment we are born and is directly connected to the person who cares for us. Food is part of our relationships, whether we like it or not. No one has summed it up as aptly as author M. F. K. Fisher: “For me there are three primary needs, for food, for security and for love, and they are so interrelated that it is impossible to think of one without the other,” Dr. Andrea Oskis tells Fine Living. According to her, the clues to how we cope with life’s challenges has to do with how secure we felt within those primary relationships with our caregivers when we were infants. Fortunately we can “earn” security in our later close relationships as we move on in life. After all, creating good close relationships is the best thing we can do for our mental health.

Her book mentions several cases, extremely interesting ones. Such as of a couple tested by the husband’s infidelities. The husband had been having extramarital affairs, although the wife had also kept him away for years. When she found out he “sprinkled” chilli on his food and took a mini revenge directly. The paradox is not that, but the fact that while he left the house she continued to cook for him and they continued to eat together. In fact, her husband swore that he never ate food from another woman’s hands. So Dr. Oskis feels optimistic about this relationship -because they are still “at the negotiating table”. For the couple’s wife, cooking is part of who she is and how she expresses herself. And the fact that they ate together even during the time of crisis in their relationship testifies to intimacy and love, the foundations of any good relationship. So perhaps food keeps them together so that they can begin to build their relationship as well.

How to tell everything about someone by the way they eat

I wonder if people with very different habits and approaches to food can co-exist in a relationship? “There is some research that confirms that the way we approach food reflects the way we approach relationships. We know that people who love closeness share food, as well as cooking for others. Sharing food shows trust, cooperation, empathy. In contrast, those who prefer distance and want less intimacy don’t like to share food or eat with others. Also, the latter stated that the eating habits of a potential partner could be a reason not to go out with them, so food is used here as a “wall” towards the other person. Let me tell you what won’t work; if one person seeks closeness and likes to share and the other prefers to be self-sufficient, independent and distant – in the kitchen or anywhere else,” replies Dr. Andrea Oskis, who has Cypriot and Greek roots, and by extension, a great love for food.

In fact, she once worked with a patient who had been eating only one particular sandwich for lunch since he was 11 years old, every day the same thing. And not because it was his comfort food. This man had a history of abuse from his parents and at first did not want to talk in depth about either his eating habits or his feelings. For him, this sandwich was his protective shield as to try something new you have to feel safe.

“Sometimes staying attached is a way of covering up traumas that are very painful and working with them in depth can take time. In therapy, we always try to bring out the emotions underneath the behaviours,” explains Dr Oskis. “The key word is appetite, in other words dreams and desires; these are what people seeking therapy are grappling with, perhaps because they are frustrated and don’t feel it is safe to want something. But during therapy and as one works with pain and understands their experiences and themselves on a deeper level, they begin to want things for their lives and their appetite “opens up” in various ways. And there are no limits to this, it can be food or sex. As they go on people’s vitality increases and they start to feel and experience a wider range of emotions.”

Relationships, comfort food & Ozempic

But this is an oxymoron in a society that universally wants us to be thin, as reflected in the appeal of drugs like Ozempic. Treatments that aim for the exact opposite: to turn off our appetite, to make us not want food, to make us skinny. “Drugs like Ozempic reduce our interest, our desire and our emotional intensity. So yes, they may affect our soul. Of course, on the other hand, when the tension is lowered, then maybe it creates a space to think more clearly about what’s going on with our relationship with food. But for this search we need security in our relationship. For example, Ozempic can never replace a person, which is why it is very important to do therapy alongside medication so that we can talk,” the psychotherapist explains.

Another interesting aspect of the book and her own philosophy is that Dr. Oskis is all for comfort food, foods that we love and even momentarily meet our need to feel better. “Usually comfort food contains fat or sugar, generally they are ‘heavy’ foods. Such foods make us feel good because they activate the brain centre associated with reward. But feeling good is different from feeling safe. And it’s the feeling of safety that helps us manage complex and stressful events. That’s why we usually associate food with the people who provided that feeling. So comfortfood should more properly be called “safety food”. For example, mine is pasta with tomato sauce, it’s the food my mom used to make for me. It’s simple, but has Greek touches like cinnamon and mint. It makes me feel safe and reminds me of my bond with her.”

We close our conversation with Dr. Oskis and a hopeful message that through therapy we can change our habits, dare and open ourselves to the world by “trying” more things and experiences. “The problem with habits is that they are automatic behaviours that we do because we don’t want to feel what’s underneath. My therapists and I discuss what the benefits of keeping certain habits are. Some people prefer the security of repetition and so they stick to certain behaviours. People don’t like change because it is a risk and seems an unsafe option. But what happens in therapy is that people start to understand themselves and their feelings more and so they feel safer to take risks and break out of comfort zones, both in terms of food and other things in life. Change occurs when we become curious and want to explore.”