Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Grocery cart judging

Say you're in a checkout line and the chick in front of you is about 50 pounds (or more) overweight. As you wait for the teenage cashier to figure out how to break a $20 bill, you glance around and your eyes fall on the contents of said overweight woman's shopping cart. Frozen pizza, donuts, two cases of pop, maybe some Hamburger Helper. There's a kid beside her (also overweight) and you notice the Lunchables and Lucky Charms.

Do you judge?

Most people do. They feel her shopping habits reflect back onto her appearance and therefore, her health. Add in the assumption that's she's responsible for another mouth to feed and is possibly continuing the cycle and it ain't good. And maybe it's deserved silent criticism to a certain extent.

I know I used to feel eyes on my shopping cart all the time. It's as if when people saw me, they were interested in what I was eating to make myself look the way I did. Especially the women, especially the thin women.

Once, there was a mother and daughter in the aisle where I was shopping. The girl was trying to get her mom to buy certain pasta sauces. I reached for our usual, a four-cheese blend - just after the girl had requested it. The mom said, pointedly looking right at me "I'm not buying anything that says FOUR-CHEESE!" I just walked away but figure after I was out of earshot, the mom used my appearance as an example of why one did not want to eat four-cheese pasta sauce. Lesson learned.

What's really funny is the way I now buy all this healthy stuff and am so proud to have it in my cart and put it on the belt at the cash register. LOL! But buying tampons and chocolate together - often by themselves - I figure the cashier and women behind me must get a chuckle out of that.

On the whole, I'm more relaxed about the grocery-cart judging than I used to be. It's usually a pretty good mix these days anyway. You'll find frozen pizza but you'll also find fresh fruit and skim milk; low-fat cheese and nonfat yogurt but there will probably be a bag of fries as well. Nothing in there will kill me unless I eat it every day, all day. Moderation is the key, right?

So if you find yourself morphing into the Judge Judy of the grocery store, think about this: Maybe all those nachos and beer are for a party! Maybe the waif with the "sensible" cart full of greenery is anorexic. And yep, maybe the mom with the cartload of donuts and pop has a problem, too. But don't be disgusted by her; you'd feel sorry for the anorexic woman, right? Feel just as sympathetic for someone who suffers from food addiction.

If there's one thing I've learned throughout this journey is don't jump to conclusions. You never know what other people's stories are. Everyone has their own pain and their own journey.