Everything came to a halt when our country was put under lock-down on 11th August. Though Government ensured delivery of all services needed but there were still things to worry about. The access to essential goods became difficult by the day.
Yet, surprisingly, nothing deterred many folks on Facebook to experiment new dishes or treat themselves with one’s favorite. A slice of irony on a plate full of National Crisis? May not be. If food and its implications are to be considered seriously- there are many underlining biological and psychological reasons for our indulgent on eating as well as sharing photos of our meals on social media during this lock-down.
Interestingly, after lockdown relaxation was announced last Monday (31stAugust), not many people on social media shared photos of meals they have cooked for themselves. What could be the reason? The apparent reason could be a sign of relieve on hearing about the relaxation of lock-down. It could be also due to mundane thoughts revolving around getting back to daily routine so costumed to most urbanites which might have diverted their attention and their other-wise food-frenzy mind prior Monday.
According to science, people hardly eat when they suffer from short-term stress because it shut down our appetite. The anxiety triggers our nervous system to send messages to the adrenal glands to pump out the hormone ‘epinephrine’ which helps activate our body’s fight or flight response, and fast-track our physiological state that temporarily puts eating on hold. This could be one scientific evidence why we also didn’t see many meal photos shared by fellow Bhutanese on social media in the first week of our lockdown.
The science also says that if stress continues, the adrenal glands release another hormone called ‘cortisol’ and cortisol increases appetite and may also ramp up motivation in general including the urge and the motivation to eat more. Thus, we prepared and did a lot of experiments with food and then we all engaged in so called ‘Emotional eating’ or ‘stress eating’ to make ourselves feel good, comfortable and above all relieve stress by eating more than usual. The lock-down continued so did the stress level, and you guess it right, the change in our appetite also became apparent. Eating more often and thus sharing photos of meals became quite rampant after the second week of the lock-down.
It’s not a new trend to post photos of meals on social media. In fact, in western world it has become an obsession. This fancy trend is often referred as ‘Food Porn’ or ‘Gastro Porn’ because of the avalanche of meal photos shared and how additive people have become of watching these meal photos. This addictive behavior leads to ‘visual Hunger’ meaning your urge to eat those meals (beautifully presented and seen frequently on screens of your gadgets) become so strong you bend over backwards to get it prepared and eat the meal irrespective of its implications on your health.
There is another shocking food–fact. Many food survey done abroad also indicate that when we strongly feel distress we increase the intake of food high in fat and sugar or both which is detrimental to our health in long run (Check your posts and feeds to cross-check on this).
So what really made us flung photos of our meals on social media (especially on Facebook) and what could be the best guess to justify this recent online rebellious behavior of ours?
Apparently, one reason is our ‘Herd mentality’ that makes us do what others are doing and make ourselves feel good and happy about being in a league of people with similar tastes and likings. We also share photos to announce to the world that we are so proud that we could prepare the food ourselves. Sharing photos online of what we have cooked also is an attempt to showcase our personal preferences and tastes, and cookery skills-Making your Photo of meals represent you, at least virtually, and uphold and guard your personality on social media.
Many may argue to protect their justification on recent online ‘food fiesta’ by saying that it was just a perfect time to connect with family members through home cooked food and sharing photos online was just a spontaneously act. But If aforementioned food statistics is to be taken seriously, we have to be mindful of eating whatever we see on our screens and also be equally sensible enough to not share so you don’t influence others.
All said and done, the recent ‘food fiesta’ on Facebook tells us one thing very loud and clear: We relied heavily on food to lessen the burden caused by all the difficulties string-in by Covid 19. Through Food experimentation and sharing the photos online we made ourselves feel good, happy and important and above all we managed our emotions and succeed to certain extend in de-stressing our 21 days of in-house quarantine during this historic National Lock-down.
(My personal reflective piece ( inspired by self- realization of the bitter truth)written suppossively for a newspaper a week ago...this is just an opinion..and I am equally guilty for the wrong doing 😜😜. Enjoy reading and if you like it/finds worthy of sharing please do so. Thank you)
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