Celebrate With Food – Valentines Day!

Another holiday and another excuse to eat.  I avoided blogging about Valentines Day yesterday, as I did not want to sound like Mr. Grinch.  However, I can’t avoid my feelings toward food and celebrations.  Why are the two so closely connected? Why is it that we celebrate major events with food? Whether its Valentines Day, Christmas, Easter, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Canada Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, or Kwanzaa, we celebrate with food.  No matter what the culture it seems as though we all celebrate with food. 

So why do we celebrate with food? What is the connection between food and holidays? Take birthdays and Valentines Day for example.  Why do we celebrate these big two events with high sugar foods.  What does celebrating age have to do with food? In the case of Valentines Day, what does the celebration of caring have to do with chocolate? How are the two events connected? In the case of Valentines Day, shouldn’t it be the exact opposite.  If we truly care for someone, why would we buy them high sugar foods that will contribute negatively to their health? We might as well say, “I love you so much, I bought you 200 grams of sugar, I hope this makes you morbid so we can live a short unhealthy life together.” Really though!!! – Why would we give someone, we care so much about, high sugar candy? It makes absolutely no sense.  We do not give the ones we love cigarettes, so why would we give them candy?

Celebrating with food makes absolutely no sense. When we celebrate with food it is an excuse to overindulge.  By “treating ourselves” we are killing ourselves. If we continue to convince ourselves that eating unhealthy foods is acceptable on holidays, we will continue to produce unhealthy kids and adults.  The message we sending young people is quite clear, “we celebrate success/holidays with food.  If we think about it logically, there is always something to celebrate. Whether its Birthdays, Valentines Day, or the accomplishment of a family member, we can always find excuses to overindulge. Lets stop celebrating with food and start celebrating the meaning of the event…that’s if you can take a moment to put down that piece of chocolate cake?