When … Food and Love are imprisoned-by Lucia Vespertino

When …Food and Love are imprisoned

Prison

Food Affectivity

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What does it mean?

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Food Subjectivity

With this aforism, L. Feurbach puts in a close relationship food and subjectivity, connecting them intimately. In fact, if we think of food

and subjectivity, of our identity, we can realise that they are organised around the same factors

waywhat

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Tasteas

Subjectivity

Biological

Social

Religious Cultural

Educative

Psycological

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When we eat we assimilate the world….when we eat, the distance between us and the world becomes shorter because all that we eat becomes a part of us, materia of our body. In other words,

everytime we eat we metabolize

the World

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If we comprehend this concept it’s easy to understand that our choice for the food is unconsciously and consciously oriented by all these factors which

organize our identity

Eraclito said :

All That we choose

All That we think

All That we do

Is all That we become !!!

• Our identity is absolutely attached to food. Hunger and satiety, or appetite which regulates their relation, is not only a fisiological problem about nutrition, but it’s also a step of connection between our interior and exterior world. So appetite becomes appetite of the world, appetite of living . And this is clearer if we think of all those Eating disorders (e.g. anorexia, bulimia) which lead a person to have an unhealthy relationship with food caused by poor self-image, a fear of weight or an inability to stop eating.

• Such disorders are often coping mechanisms for other personal (psychological, emotional and relational) problems.

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So we can consider food like a:

1. REPRESENTATION OF THE EXSTERNAL WORLD

and, at the same time,

2. INSTRUMENT OF COMMUNICATION OF OUR INTERIOR WORLD

Appetite IS Affectivity In Action

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On the front line of Food a battle between Id and the world,

Between Nature and CultureTakes place;

The fight between Control and Impulsiveness,Between Health and Desease

Takes place.On the front line of Food, Borders, Control and

Subjectivity are positioned.

On the front line of food. Body, control, subjectivityDonatella Cavanna, Luisa Stagi (1341.31)

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Eating habits and behaviors

WORLDEXERNAL CONTEST

INTERIOR WORLD (SUBJECTIVITY

Affectivity

The ability or tendency to experience (positive or negative) feelings and to react to them.

INPUT OUTPUTEating habits behaviours

FOOD

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Food and Affectivity :A relashionship of reciprocal influence

So there is a circular relation between emotions and eating habits that influence eachother.

Particular emotional experiences can lead to the desire of certain foods and these are in turn able to influence, at least in part, the

emotional state of the individual.

AFFECTIVITY(Emotions, Feelings)

FOOD

EATING HABITS

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Therefore, it is possible to state that alimentation follows people’s state of mind and their interior conflicts and it acquires, in the interpersonal relationship, the symbolic

value of Affectivity, of Love.

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In PrisonPrison and its rules modify the eating habits of a confined person and they influence with their strong restrictions this relation between food and affectivity. Controlling the diet of a prisoner and the entry of food in prison means, indeed, imprisoning a part of his emotional life; it means not to apply the principle of Individualization of the treatment programme.

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Prison deprives prisoners of the chance of:

• Getting food• Choosing the food to eat• The pleasure of cooking it (how)• Using some tools•Tasting it in the right place (where)• The quantitative choice to eat

(How much)

Loss of their abilities and competences

•Self-determination (We are what we want)

•Self-esteem– •Compromised sensoriality•Masking of Affectivity

In the meeting with food they lose the Expectation because everything has

already been estabilished.

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Tastes• of their own land• of their own traditions •of memories of past emotional events

Distancing from the personal story of life

Impossibility of living and transmitting

• the tradition• their own culture

Prison deprives prisoners of the chance of…

Moulinn «We eat our memories because they give us Security, dressed with that

Affection and that Rituality which characterised the first years of our lives»

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•Loss of sense of family care

• The eating function doesn’t represent only the behaviour related to malnutrition, but also that of an interpersonal experience which implies emotional, affective and intellectual meanings for all the ages. During a meal, people convey values, traditions, habits.

•Eating rituals strengthen and promote the evolution stages of the life-cycle of the family itself

•

• Influencing the relationship of care from relatives

• Increasing concearns of relatives who often see them malnourished

Prison deprives the prisoners of the choice of…

The truest Love sentence,

the only one is

Have you eaten?Elsa Morante

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Food asEducative instrument

because….1. It can contribute to diminishing the Emotional pain states (that clearly show

themselves through acts of self-harm, suicide and hunger strikes)

2. It rehabilitates the emotional experiences of prisoners and contribute to promote lifestyle changes

3. It increases the competences, abilities and self-esteem of prisoners (ex «The Taste Laboratories)

4. It contributes to the improvement of the affective relationship with relatives and among the prisoners themselves (increasing the horizontal solidarity that already exists among prisoners)

5. It isn’t any longer the element that creates inequality among prisoners (in prison, food is the first factor that creates inequality everyday. There are prisoners who have disposable income and so they can buy food products, and others who don’t receive any economical support. Food and wine trade.)

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Food and Lovereveal

the Man

To himself

Thank you for your attention

Licia Vespertino

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