Blogs

Why Do We Eat Dinner?

by Sue Bary, Certified Health Coach
March 08 2010

Why do we eat dinner? I’m talking about the last meal of the day - you know, the one around 6 p.m., or 8 if you’re not into the early bird special?

We eat this, usually large, meal, and then we retire for the day - most of the time without utilizing all, or even a decent fraction, of the energy we’ve just consumed. Rather than enjoy the energy, we relax after our busy days by sitting in front of the TV or reading until bed time comes. 

If we’re not using the food for energy - at least optimally - why is there such a large focus on the last meal of the day? In some cultures lunch is the big meal of the day, which makes quite a bit of sense since we need all of the energy from a big meal to get us through the second half of the workday.

However, in many other cultures, like American and Australian cultures, dinner is a big meal because of the social component - it’s when the family reconvenes and members talk about their days and socialize. But why does this ritual center around such a sizable meal when the food itself is less essential for nourishment and energy.

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately, and I am very keen to hear from you about your thoughts on dinner.  Do you make this meal the biggest focus of the day when it comes to food? Or, do you make one of your other meals the main gastro-focus of the day? Either way, why, and what do you think about the emphasis on dinner?
I’d really love to hear from the community and then think about people’s comments before coming back to this subject in the future. Please share your thoughts in the comments!

As a personal trainer who's always loved her body, Sue Bary was tired of being classified as 'mildly obese' and wanted to help others experience Enjoyable Body Movement without being subject to the usual verbiage of weight loss and dieting. Thus, she created enarji, a personal training practice steeped in the Health at Every Size approach and attitude. To learn more about Sue, click here. Because you are a special More of Me to Love member, Sue wants you to enjoy a FREE consultation through enarji's Virtual Health Coach services. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to schedule your free consultation today!

Comments

• Miriam Heddy | posted March 08, 2010

  From a HAES and FA perspective, I’m really troubled by your use of the words “optimal” and “decent fraction” here, and by the many assumptions you make along the way.

  Flipping your terms around, you have essentially asked your readers (many of whom are fat and some of whom are likely to have histories of eating disorders) to justify their reasons for eating when they know they will be “utilizing” an “indecent” (the opposite of decent) fraction of the calories they’ve consumed.

  Is that HAES? In what sense?

  What do you mean by “enjoy the energy”? Is food energy only something we “enjoy” by expending it after the fact? Is energy never restorative?

  Many Americans skip breakfast (or are encouraged to eat a very light breakfast—a bowl of cereal, and a diet bowl at that), then wait until lunch for the first real meal of the day. Dinner, then, comes after some six hours or more of work (plus the commute home).

  And do you really believe that most of us go to bed right after dinner, or after watching television? When, precisely, do you see the dishes getting done? The laundry? The homework? Children’s bath-time? What types of female-dominated second-shift work are you ignoring in your sketch of the day? Why? Who is this “we” you speak of when you generalize? While men are encouraged, still, to be “hungry,” women are still, by and large, encouraged to provide sustenance to a family they only ever see grouped together during the rush of mornings and during the slightly more relaxed evening hours.

  Would you encourage your readers to parcel out their food and restrict their eating to only those times when they are sure they will be utilizing an “optimal” (and not sub-optimal) amount of energy?

  What do you see as the opposite of “enjoying” food-energy? Fat women, for example, are regularly told to feel shame if they eat more than they can justify by expenditure through exercise.

  And finally, do you see mental health as a part of HAES? If so, can you imagine re-framing these questions in ways that don’t so easily slot into the calories in/calories out, “explain yourself and justify your eating patterns” model with which women struggle every day?

• Jay Solomon | posted March 08, 2010

  It’s funny how we read things when we want to read them from a HAES and FA perspective.

  I’ve been battling with this idea for a while now, not only in reference to this post, but also in reference to the general dialogue that exists in various communities, particularly “academic” communities, if you will (not that it doesn’t exist elsewhere but the nature of analyzing the usage of words and phraseology is more an academic approach than one that everyone takes).

  What interests me is the degree to which trying to make sure that we’ve said things just right can sometimes be crippling to our ability to express ourselves simply and succinctly. That is, the question that I read in this post, is, “What are your thoughts about the meal we call dinner and how do you ‘do dinner?’” By creating every kind of caveat around the terminology and focusing on everyone’s different life-styles and patterns, we end up writing the question until everyone’s included, all the while losing everyone else’s attention as they get tired of moving through ideas until they hit the one that appeals to them.

  Alternatively, there’s this post, which may not be any better in terms of isolating those who can’t connect with enough because their ‘mention’ isn’t there, but that is not meant to offend, just ask the question and move on.

  Rather than think about restricting dinner and caloric intake, something I can’t imagine Sue supporting, I started thinking about how I need to take more time for lunch and eat a bigger one because I need the energy (in fact, I eat a half dozen meals a day or I’ll never make it out the other side). I’d also been thinking for a while how big dinners were making me miserable.

  I don’t eat that late but the ritual around dinner - especially if it includes meeting up with my parents and making it a more family meal - always makes it a huge to-do. I often overeat and feel uncomfortable. It sometimes impedes my ability to enjoy the rest of the evening or to feel like doing things like the chores Miriam mentioned. 

  I’m not saying that I gorge myself at dinner (not that there’s anything wrong with that if I want to), and I do my best to eat intuitively. That said, I find that at dinner that’s more of a challenge than the rest of the day because restaurant’s “lunch portions” aren’t being offered (which are more than enough for me) and because we sit around the table (at home) with food in front of us, talking and munching. Again, all of this is fine, and I hardly felt that the suggestion of the post and the questions around it were meant to tell me: “restrict caloric intake at night and feel shame about your body and energy usage.” I felt like this was just a means of starting a conversation to get us thinking about meal patterns and why.

  Indeed, isn’t part of Health at Every Size promoting intuitive eating and part of intuitive eating considering how and why we eat, not in order to restrict calories or optimize energy but to feel good and happy and comfortable?

  I absolutely understand Miriam’s concern because our word usage is important, but I don’t think that anything contrary to HAES or FA was being encouraged here, even if we can read it into the post’s subtext because we are reading with certain requirements in mind.

• Sue Bary, Certified Health Coach | posted March 08, 2010

  This is another channel of communication that us as Bloggers and emailers will have to better educate ourselves on as not to offend any other readers. 

  As per Miriam’s post, everything Miriam mentioned is infact very true, however, the words in my blog did not come across that way in her eyes and I am sincerely sorry for this.

  Miriam, I will try my very best to re correct myself because I hear everything you are saying and you are extremely correct in this matter.  Let me try to explain myself again a little clearer hopefully.

  As a HAES Fitness Trainer, just in the past 8 weeks, clients have requested for their sessions to run from 6.30pm - 7.30pm Mon - Thurs.  I would come home to a cooked dinner that I had prepared prior to the session and find myself eating this meal at 8pm at night, watch a little TV then go to bed.  From doing this in the past 8 weeks, I personally noticed, that I could not have a restful nights sleep, was getting indigestion and gaining more weight, even though I was doing 5 sometimes 6 days a week fitness training.

  And Miriam as you write;
  (Many Americans skip breakfast (or are encouraged to eat a very light breakfast—a bowl of cereal, and a diet bowl at that), then wait until lunch for the first real meal of the day. Dinner, then, comes after some six hours or more of work (plus the commute home).

  Sue…
  This also affects me in many ways, skip breakfast is one of the worst things we can do for our bodies.  Break Fast means to break the fast from not eating continually for up to or more than an 8 hour period.  I have now made this meal the main focus of the day and is helping my health tremendously in the past week.  I am sleeping better, no more indigestion and feeling alot healthier.

  Also Miriam I am hearing you in more ways than one from this in your post…
  (And do you really believe that most of us go to bed right after dinner, or after watching television? When, precisely, do you see the dishes getting done? The laundry? The homework? Children’s bath-time? What types of female-dominated second-shift work are you ignoring in your sketch of the day? Why? Who is this “we” you speak of when you generalize? While men are encouraged, still, to be “hungry,” women are still, by and large, encouraged to provide sustenance to a family they only ever see grouped together during the rush of mornings and during the slightly more relaxed evening hours.)

  Sue…
  My comment to you from this post is “YEEEEAAAHHH!!!  I am not the only other mother that has to deal with all of this as well.  My partner leaves for work at 5.30am and arrives home just intime for me to hand over the kids at 6pm so I can get to my sessions.  Yes, it is very true, we still have to run the house and a job don’t we?  I also have to find time to run & manage my business.
  However, as a family, why can’t we have a light meal in the evening and still all be together, but not focusing on this meal to be such a big sometimes heavy dish (depending on your origin) that is why it sounds like I am generalizing, because I also want to factor in all cultures.

  And finally let me also explain your much needed comment Miriam which is at the crux of my HAES Fitness Business.
  (What do you see as the opposite of “enjoying” food-energy? Fat women, for example, are regularly told to feel shame if they eat more than they can justify by expenditure through exercise.)

  Sue…
  This hurts me in so many ways you would not believe possible unless you new me persoanlly.  You need to understand the crux of my business and me as a person about the words which have been written here.  The words “SHAME” and “EXERCISE” have been taken out of enarji Personal / Group Training vocabulary since March 2009.  The reason for this is my business runs on positive belief in every being that comes in contact with enarji and myself.  If I ever hear any of this talk around my clients, I nip it in the bud immediately due to my own personal past experiences.

  We need to be thankful for the food that we are given and to be enjoyed with the people we love.
  We need to move our bodies for enjoyment.  This is the only encouragement of have for everyBODY.

  Thank you Miriam for helping me out with the wording, I appreicate and hear everything you are saying.  You are a GEM and don’t ever think differently!!!