HW 18 - Health & Illness & Feasting

During this Thanksgiving with my family, feasting and the idea of eating a huge meal with many options seemed to be the focus of the holiday. As each family member poured in to the large apartment, they each made a humorous comment about food. During the wait for the food, other pleasures were also being practiced. Once 8 o'clock hit, my oldest cousin Brandon, and his sisters husband both demanded we change the channel to channel 11 for the Jets game. Up until the food was served around 8:30, that's all everyone was watching. When the food was ready to be self-served, everyone wasted no time filling their plates up.

Their was a major background element of death within the family while we were having our thanksgiving celebrations. My Uncles' sister tragically had a miscarriage about a year and a half prior to this thanksgiving. Everyone in the family knew it, and we've mourned her loss with her last thanksgiving and Christmas. Although we all went through the initial shock of her loss already, we knew she was thinking about it, especially as the two new babies of the family were running around. During this Thanksgiving however, it can be said that the pleasures of being with the family, and feasting together while watching the football game, can be a source of comfort for her, and in many cases with death and illness, food is usually a comforter. The nutrition of the food was not a major concern for us, the major chefs of the family, my uncle, my aunt and my uncles mom, just wanted to create a meal with tons of taste and to fit what we all liked to feast on. My family is relatively healthy, so nutrition was not a concern for just that one day of gorging.

This thanksgiving seemed to be somewhat contradictory of the normal Anti body and body-centered social practices. Along with the other teens in my family, we all were actually working out with the tons of equipment my uncle filled the apartment with. In relativity to last years' thanksgiving, we all on average ate about one full medium sized plate of food, whereas I can remember from last year, that we on average ate about double that, and filled our plates as much as possible twice. Although we weren't making a conscious effort to eat smarter, it seemed like a subliminal message to eat healthier.