Hunger & Shame

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

—Genesis 1:27

I’ve always been hungry. I remember being hungry as a small child, as an adolescent girl, as an adult, and just after I locate those feelings and memories of hunger, in my peripheral vision another thing buzzes up, like a flash of heat or pain: shame. Hunger, then shame. Always hungry, always ashamed.

It took becoming pregnant to finally say out loud and without embarrassment, I’m hungry. My first pregnancy shifted my understanding of my body and, with it, shifted my view of hunger. Even if I couldn’t claim my own hunger without experiencing a shiver of shame, I could claim hunger on behalf of my baby, and that small step might as well have been a mile for all it unlocked inside me.

Several years later, I’m learning to practice gratitude for a healthy body, even if it’s rounder than I’d like it to be. I’m learning to take up all the space I need, literally and figuratively, even though we live in a world that wants women to be tiny and quiet. To feed one’s body, to admit one’s hunger, to look one’s appetite straight in the eye without fear or shame—this is controversial work in our culture.