How Deal with Diet Talk from Family around the Holidays
Diet culture is rampant all year round, but for many people it gets worse around the holidays. With many food focused holidays and New Year’s resolutions coming up, there can be a lot of focus on dieting and weight. Family is also often a source of diet talk, and while many people have found ways to avoid this throughout the year, the holidays are a challenging time because many people spend more time with family than usual. It can be anxiety provoking to think about how to manage diet talk from family around the holidays, so here are a few ideas:
1.Set boundaries (specifically or more generally)
One of the best ways to protect ourselves from diet talk is to set boundaries. The most effective way to set boundaries is to explicitly communicate our needs and what we will do if the request is not met. This could look like “I am in in the process of healing my relationship with food and body, and hearing talk about dieting and weight loss is triggering. Please don’t talk about these topics while I’m around. If you do, I will have to leave the gathering.” Sometimes saying this so directly can be challenging, or it isn’t safe to share so much with your family, so you can also share more generally. This could look like, “Oh, talking about that stuff is so boring. Let’s talk about something else!” Or just redirecting the conversation to another topic.
2. Leave the room
Sometimes it isn’t possible to talk about this with family, and so removing yourself from the harmful situation is the most effective thing you can do. You can just leave if diet talk starts to happen, or you can come up with a reason like excusing yourself to go to the bathroom or needing to take a phone call.
3.Plan other activities not focused on dieting
Sometimes planning ahead and trying to avoid situations that are more likely to trigger diet talk can be helpful. If you know that going to a restaurant is likely to cause harmful comments about food, suggest a different activity like a family game night or watching a movie together.
4.Remember that this is their issue, not yours
Even with all these strategies, it’s likely that you won’t be able to completely avoid negative comments about food or body. In those cases, it’s helpful to remember that this is a “them” issue, not a “you” issue. It’s easy to internalize these comments as reflective about us or our bodies but remind yourself that people only make those type of comments when they’re caught up in diet culture and struggling with their relationship with food or body themselves.
5.Surround yourself with support/reminders of the anti-diet approach
Having affirming community is crucial part of recovering from diet culture in general, and it’s all the more important in situations like this. Surround yourself with support and reminders of the anti-diet approach in order to combat the diet culture messages you might hear from family. This could look like bringing a friend or partner (who is on board with the anti-diet approach) to a family gathering, or texting or calling one before or after to get those reminders and process anything that did happen with your family. There are also wonderful online communities that offer support around these topics, and even just listening to a favorite podcast episode or re-reading a chapter of an anti-diet book can provide a buffer against the diet talk.
I hope this helps you find ways to cope and take care of yourself during this holiday season. If you want extra support, I would love to help. Feel free to call me at (424) 231-5877 or contact me here for a free 15-minute phone consultation. If you are looking for help with eating disorders, anxiety, or relationship issues, you can read more about how I can help here.