Kai and Fatness From A Place of Aroha

As a fat Māori wahine, I have been involved in the anti-fatphobia and body positivity space for a while now. However, I came into the space as very much a baby activist who had grown up in te ao Pākeha, meaning my whakaaro came from a pretty colonised place. The past three years, I have steadily unpacked that and progressed on my journey of reclaiming my Māoritanga in every aspect, including how I view bodies and kai habits. One piece of whakaaro has stood out to me above all - in Māori culture, kai is aroha. It is how we show our love, and our manaakitanga for those around us. 

Last year, I was invited as a speaker to Camp Boom, where I shared my kōrero on a panel discussion on the intersection of fatness and identity. I was asked by Ema Tavola the following question - ‘What do you know and how do you feel about whakaaro Māori around fatness?’  

My answer was as follows - “You go on the marae and you see big people, and no one makes a thing out of it. You can’t leave the marae without eating kai, so it’s just normal in our communities. That’s how we show our aroha. That’s how we connect with each other. We’re not thinking about calories and what’s in this or that.” I can’t speak for all Māori, of course, but that has been my experience on the marae. My size or how much I eat has never, ever been brought up. In fact, getting seconds has often been encouraged, as long as you’re ka pai to pitch in with the clean-up efforts! 

My prior perspectives on kai and fatness are not uncommon; I saw kai as both my best friend and the enemy. I assigned morality such as “good” and “bad” to different kai, and would beat myself up if I ate something in the “bad” category. I tried a multitude of diets to shrink myself, my weight fluctuating ridiculously since I was about 14 years old because none of these diets were sustainable long-term, and again with the beating up because I couldn’t keep the weight off. I wanted so badly to be skinny and eat clean 24/7, heavily restricting myself and leaving no wiggle room, and it was a very sad life to live. 

This whakaaro came from growing up with the desire to be thin shoved down my throat my entire life. But along my Māoritanga journey, I’ve learnt that kai means so much more to Māori than simply a means of survival or a way to fuel our bodies. This is where I introduce the concepts of kai sovereignty and kai security, explained by Christina McKerchar and other researchers as integral to several cultural concepts and practices in te ao Māori. These concepts and practices include mana, manaakitanga, and mahinga kai. Mahinga kai then goes on to incorporate connections between environment and health, as well as reinforcing whakapapa, cultural identity and strength. 

I don’t have a lot of experience with mahinga kai in terms of hunting and gathering. However, as I have started to explore my love for preparing Māori kai, such as hangi, boil up and fry bread, it’s encompassesd all of the above concepts that Mckerchar talks about. I feel a whakapapa connection to my tīpuna, envisioning how they once poured their aroha into a boil up to feed their whānau, and feeling pride at carrying on our cultural identity through our kai traditions. I feel a sense of manaakitanga, cooking kai from my culture for my partner from another part of the world, and sharing those moments in preparing, cooking, and eating together. I develop a deeper appreciation for the whenua, the moana, and everywhere else we gather our kai, reflecting on the environment’s contribution to my hauora. 

Hei aha, not everyone in Māori culture holds the same views I’ve expressed throughout this piece. In fact, people within my Māori whānau have been the most fatphobic towards me, saddening me at how deeply colonisation has trickled into our whānau ways of thinking. I look to Ashlea Gillon and fellow researchers’ whakaaro on fatness in a holistic Māori framework, sharing how obesity isn’t a Māori construct and doesn’t have a direct translation into te reo Māori, yet words for fatness are often showered with positive connotations. Nourishment is also emphasised hugely in relation to both kai and fatness, with Gillon referencing a certain whakatauki - Te toto o te tāngata, he kai; te oranga o te tāngata, he whenua (Food supplies the blood of people, their welfare/wellness depends on the land).  

The te ao Māori lens of looking at my body and my kai habits has genuinely saved me. When I feed myself now, I do my best to come from a place of aroha, a deep yearning to truly nourish my body and treat her well (but also, let her have a little cheeky Macca’s trip, because what is life without a cheeseburger combo?). I also don’t hold myself to ridiculously colonial and Eurocentric beauty standards because let’s be honest, I will never fulfil them! The saying “What’s best for Māori is best for everyone” is a statement I say wholeheartedly with my full chest - our people are SO onto it with whakaaro like this! In the Pākeha world we find ourselves in, we desperately need this type of thinking to decolonise how we look at ourselves and how we look at others. We shouldn’t feel like we need to be punished for enjoying good kai and for being fat (PSA: fat is not a bad word). Kai IS aroha, it IS manaakitanga, it IS whakapapa. Can we just collectively leave the colonial bullshit behind and started counting our lucky stars for the kai we’re blessed with instead? Āmine! 

 

KAI KARAKIA:  

Whakapainga ēnei kai (bless these foods) 

Hei oranga mō te tinana (for the goodness of our bodies) 

Mō ō mātou wairua hoki (and for our spirits as well) 

Āmine (amen) 

Glossary: 

Wahine - woman 

Te ao Pākeha - the Pākeha world 

Whakaaro - opinion 

Māoritanga - Māori culture and way of life 

Kai - food 

Aroha - love, compassion, empathy, etc 

Manaakitanga - hospitality, kindness, support, etc 

Kōrero - discussion, conversation, etc  

Ka pai - good 

Mana - prestige, authority, power, etc 

Mahinga kai - food gathering place, garden, etc 

Whakapapa - genealogy 

Tīpuna - ancestors 

Moana - ocean 

Hauora - health 

Whakataukī - proverb 

 

 

 

 

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