When I think of the word “nutrition”, the image of a small, somewhat bird-like middle aged woman who practices holistic medicine in New York pops up in my mind. This is probably because the first time I had heard that word was when it came out of my kindergarten teacher’s mouth, and she looked like she belonged in the ’70s. When she mentioned “nutrition” she was handing out snack and talking about the benefits of echinacea tea instead of cough syrup.
Especially when I was younger, I thought of nutrition as lots of vegetables, teas and vitamins. I thought of stores like GMC and The Vitamin Store. It was never really mentioned in my house. It almost seemed like nutrition was an embarrassing subject, which was possibly because at the time my mother was severely overweight after having twins.
When I was 12, my view of nutrition changed. My mother decided to cut sugar entirely out of her diet, and she lost over 70 pounds in 4 months. I started to think of nutrition as some sort of complex magic. It also confused me (and still does) because my dad has been able to eat enough for 7 men and eat enough sugar to turn them all diabetic, but he has never had any weight issues and has a remarkably healthy heart.
Now, my view of nutrition is once again changing. Now I think of nutrition as the labels on the backs of packages of food. After loosing so much weight so quickly, my mother is now extremely health conscious, and always makes me look on the label of whatever I’m eating to see if it has an inordinate amount of any one thing, like sodium or calories. I think of nutrition as the practice of trying to balance your diet and eat healthily in order to help your body perform as best as it can.
My relationship with nutrition could be better simply because I know that I often don’t choose the option that is the best for me and I sometimes feel slightly guilty. However, I really like to learn about how nutrition affects the body and how things like dehydration can affect organs.
Don't Cry for the Lost, SMile for living 
