Animal Cookies: A Child’s Substitute forFriends
Kristi Folsom
As the movie Eating (1990) portrays, many women of allages, backgrounds, shapes and sizes have problems concerning food.For many women in the film their problems spring from feelinguncomfortable around other women, especially those who felt theirmothers constantly criticized them. For others their problemsarise from not feeling accepted or loved by the men in their lives,both fathers and husbands. However, the stories that affectedme greatest are confessed during the filming of the documentarywhen one woman admits that as a child she spent hours sittingin front of the TV with a giant bowl of oatmeal, just eating away,in an attempt to fill the black hole inside herself. Another confessesthat food and a book were her two best friends. She feels thatfood was the only constant and control in her life. These storiesaffected me the greatest because I myself can connect with them.
I spent many hours as a child alone, I can remember walking outto recess alone, the little girl in “coke bottle” glasseswho no one wanted to play with. I retreated to the swing at thefar end of the playground and watched the other children playwhile I slipped off into a daydream, in which I was the most populargirl in school, glasses and all. Walking home from school wasmore of the same: groups of happy children walked in front andbehind me laughing and giggling, but never inviting me to joinin or even walk with them.
When I got home I always went straight to the kitchen grabbeda snack and sat in front of the tv and ate. Food was the onlything I had control over; it helped to fill the emptiness I feltinside, and provided me with a sense of comfort and allowed meto use my imagination. Animal cookies were always my favorite,because I could pretend they were my friends. I substituted mycookies for human friends, which I could not find in the realword. I used to sit with the cookies for hours talking to themand pretending they were alive. We used to play and go on safarisscouting out all the bad animals of the jungle. My cookie friendswould never tease me because I wore glasses, and didn’t have fancyclothes, and even if imagined that a circus elephant had daredto tease me I could simply bite its head off, which seemed tobe a justifiable punishment for the offense of teasing me. Fortunatelyfor me a new girl came into our class, and we quickly became friendsand for the most part my dependence on food for comfort ended.
Many young children today have this same problem. They grow upfeeling alone and abandoned, whether it is because of the lossof one or both of their parents, parental neglect, or troubleat school. Many are not as lucky as I was. They never grow outof their dependence on food. I am sure many are still sittingat home playing with their animal cookies as a substitute forreal friends. However, in reality it is not only children whichhave this problem. For many adults, friends are rare and relationshipsare often even rarer. Many adults look to food as a substitutefor companionship. I even find myself turning to food for comfortto help fill the black hole of loneliness I often feel growinginside me.