Really, around where I live, there is nothing to do besides go out and eat. You turn on the TV, and there are commercials that make a Big Mac look like a culinary luxury, even when you get it and it's slop on a bun. Even when I'm going out with friends, we have to stop somewhere and eat, like it's mandatory.

Plus, meals are no longer sacred. No kids my age sit around the dinner table and observe the traditional "Happy Days" dinner. Mom bought a pizza last night, sister got Taco Bell, and Dad's getting deep-fried fish down at the bar and grill. There's no sacred meaning to food anymore. The dinner table in my house is not really a place of gathering, but rather an island to stack old newspapers and junk mail and set dirty dishes. And with mom and dad working so many hours, school being a bust, sitting down for a meal can sometimes only cause argument and bantering, and one person's leaving because they're impatient and angry, so the rest get up and go shortly after.

In a sense, the era of the sacred dinner table is over. Even on popular television, the characters are out at a popular joint getting burgers and shakes or doughnuts and coffee. You rarely seen these places on television in the 1950's when the family mom was preparing a meal for their family, and eating generally took place around the dinner table.

In another sense, food morality has kind of waned. When I see dieters, I see two types. The on and offers, you know, the classic Yo-Yo's and the extremists who have almost a diet bible they seem to abide by in their heads. It seems like every chocolate bar says indulge, or Lays says "You can't have just one." I once told my mom I was a food pervert. Meaning my whole relationship with food was perverted, like a sexaholic seeking gratification from anonymous peoples and prostitutes. Except really the only shame was being fat, but overeating was terribly encouraged by my peers and the media at large. It only brought shame when you were fat. I always wondered if thin girls who seemed to eat everything and not gain weight only did it under peer pressure and then returned to some type of anorexic lifestyle outside the eyes of friends and families. I was always trying to justify their thinness because I failed to maintain my weight pleasing others and myself by eating food.

For me, it really took a whole new environment to gain some self control. Moving out of the house, and in some cases, getting rid of friends and contacts that drained me emotionally. It’s hard, because it’s almost like you have to kill a part of yourself to change, and then you really have to want to change your relationship with food, even more so than the strong urges of temptation where you just want to throw in the towel.