The Importance Of Food

Food. Our necessity to life. Every day, we eat 3 meals, snacks, drinks, desserts, and so on. It keeps us alive, and food is one of the most important items necessary to stay alive. But what a lot of people don’t think about is- what if food gets taken away from you? We tend to think about homeless people who don’t have access to food, or others that simply cannot GET food. But what if you can’t eat? What happens then? Since 2019, I have struggled with the simple task of EATING. I eat food, but my body rejects it. Nothing stays down when I eat, and I simply cannot sustain myself by eating food. This is because of a horrible disease called Gastroparesis. A normal person eats, and their stomach empties food into their small intestines by 4 hours. With Gastroparesis, the stomach is paralyzed. The stomach cannot empty food into the small intestine, so food just sits in the stomach for hours at a time, then finally empties the food by making the person sick. No matter what you eat, when you eat, how you eat, you get sick. What happens then? I never thought about what happens in this scenario until it happened to me. After losing weight because I was unable to sustain myself with oral foods, my doctor told me I needed a feeding tube or else my heart could begin having severe issues. I got a NJ tube in my nose, and began getting nutrition again. An NJ tube is a tube that goes in your nose, down your throat, past your stomach, and into your small intestine. This tiny tube allows you to put formula (similar to what babies eat) into the tube, and it bypasses the stomach and goes into your small intestines. This gives you the ability to get nutrition and “food” without eating or using your stomach. As a teenager, I never thought about the fact that you can lose the ability to eat food. In an instant or over a matter of months, something that is a basic necessity to life could be taken away and your entire life changes. The one simple thing we need, food, can create a handful of issues for many people regardless of if they have a medical condition or not. While I have my own medical issue regarding food which makes it difficult to get proper nutrition, so many people struggle with food and eating in different ways. People that don’t have as much money go to the store and buy cheaper foods like ramen and chips, causing obesity and a handful of issues because people don’t get the right nutrients. These small factors can make such a big difference on someones life, no matter the reason. In my next blog post, I will be covering how to manage these circumstances.