The Best Tips for Navigating Diet Culture During the Holidays
The holidays can be a time of joy, yet they also come with a set of challenges. One persistent and often damaging challenge during the holidays is the presence of diet culture, especially at holiday gatherings. In this article, we’ll dive into what diet culture is and how it shows up during gatherings. Most importantly, we’ll provide you with concrete strategies for protecting your peace, with expert insights from Dyad Psychology’s licensed psychologist, Dr. Miriam Khiari Millan, PsyD.
Understanding Diet Culture
“Diet culture” is a pervasive social framework that encourages weight loss and often enforces rules around food and movement. This culture stigmatizes people with larger bodies, attaching moral value to thinness and falsely equating thinness with health. It can harm anyone, and may especially harm people who have previously had eating disorders, dieted, experienced body shame or insecurity, or had medical issues.
As Dr. Miriam Khiari explains, diet culture can affect mental health by “[reinforcing] judgmental and critical thoughts and feelings of anxiety, guilt, and shame.” Diet culture is also a large cause of eating disorders: “It pathologizes and dehumanizes certain bodies and can contribute to disordered eating behaviors, such as restriction, compensatory exercise, purging, or skipping meals as a form of self-punishment.”
Physically, dieting often produces negative health outcomes as well. Dieting often causes cycles of weight loss and gain, which cause stress to the body and can increase the risk of inflammation, bone weakening, hypertension, and more. Moreover, the weight stigma caused by diet culture can lead people to avoid seeking healthcare and can perpetuate weight bias in healthcare.
Diet Culture and the Holidays
Many people struggle with diet culture during the holidays. As Dr. Miriam Khiari notes, one reason that diet culture “can be particularly destabilizing” during the holidays is that the holidays are an emotional time: “During the holidays, folks may already be navigating disruptions in their routine, tough family dynamics, grief, loneliness, social comparison, financial stress, or unresolved relational wounds within their family system.” The many food-centric activities during the holidays, and the disruption to routine due to travel or time off, can also make diet culture tougher to navigate.
Diet talk is particularly rampant during the holidays. Family members might engage in talk that idealizes thinness (e.g., “You look so beautiful. Have you lost weight?”) or that assumes dieting behaviors (e.g., “I’m going to have to burn off this meal!”). They might comment on other people’s eating habits or weight, or talk about “good” and “bad” food.
Strategies for Navigating Diet Culture
Dealing with diet culture can be challenging, but you can equip yourself with tools to maintain your well-being. Here are five expert strategies Dr. Miriam Khiari recommends for navigating diet culture this holiday season.
1. Know the Problem
Awareness of what diet culture is and how it harms people can be your first line of defense against it. Here are two alternatives that can help you reframe the false narrative that health requires thinness or dieting:
Health at Every Size is a movement that centers holistic well-being for people of all body sizes. This approach focuses on self-acceptance, eating for well-being, and life-enhancing movement.
Intuitive eating, if it is appropriate for you, is a useful approach that rejects diet culture and focuses on eating according to body signals such as hunger and satisfaction. By practicing intuitive eating, you can choose food that looks delicious to you while trusting your inner hunger, satisfaction, and fullness cues. You have the option to practice gentle nutrition to create a balanced meal, but the goal should be to eat in a way that feels satisfying.
Above all, remember that the diet culture talk of others does not impact what or how much you should eat, or how much you should enjoy your food.
2. Communicate preferences
Setting boundaries around diet talk, if possible, can be key in navigating comments that reinforce diet culture around the holidays. For instance, you can communicate your preferences and expectations ahead of time by asking friends and family to please avoid discussing weight or dieting at a holiday gathering. Another idea is to recruit a trusted family member or friend who can help deflect the conversation away from diet culture when it comes up.
In other cases, you may want to come to holiday gatherings with a few prepared comments to redirect discussions that center on diet culture. Dr. Miriam Khiari provides some examples:
“Why would I feel guilty about having more pie? The pie is delicious, I feel joy.”
"Please don't comment on my body's size.”
"No food is good or bad; all food has nutritional value and purpose.”
"I don't talk about my body that way, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about it that way either.”
"I don't find this conversation helpful or kind.”
"Talking about food and weight feels a bit vulnerable for me right now; can we change the subject?"
"I get bored with the topic of dieting. Can we change topics?"
"My focus is on enjoying the holiday.”
3. Dress comfortably
“Dress comfortably so your clothing supports your ability to eat and move without discomfort,” advises Dr. Miriam Khiari. Wearing clothes that allow you to feel physically comfortable can help you sit, move, and eat without distraction, and help you feel more confident during gatherings.
4. Take breaks
Sometimes, the conversation is simply too much. Give yourself permission to step away from unhelpful or triggering situations by creating “physical and mental space between you and others.” Dr. Miriam Khiari suggests “simply [going] to the bathroom or another quiet space for a few minutes to check your phone or regroup.” You can also go for a short walk, text a friend, or even take some deep breaths.
5. Prioritize rest
Between travel and time off, holidays frequently change routines. It’s okay to rest. Gentle movement can support you if you genuinely want it, but it’s never required as compensation for eating.
Conclusion
The holidays can amplify the stress of diet culture, a framework that harms physical and mental health. Tips for navigating diet culture this holiday season include understanding and reframing the problem, communicating expectations around diet talk, dressing comfortably, taking breaks, and prioritizing rest. If the challenges seem overwhelming, seeking support from a therapist can also help you support your well-being during this season.
FAQs
Why is diet culture particularly difficult to navigate during the holidays?
Diet culture can be particularly challenging during the holidays because it collides with already heightened emotional vulnerability and numerous events centered around food. Many people are navigating disruptions in routine, family stress, grief, or loneliness, which makes the negative judgments and commentary associated with diet culture more destabilizing.
What are some alternatives to diet culture?
There are many alternatives to the stigma that diet culture places on bodies. For example, the Health at Every Size movement centers holistic well-being for people of all body sizes. Similarly, intuitive eating is an approach that rejects dieting and focuses on eating according to internal hunger, fullness, and satisfaction cues, while also practicing gentle nutrition.
What should I do if the diet talk at a gathering becomes overwhelming?
If you are finding a conversation unhelpful or triggering, take a break. If possible, excuse yourself, create physical and mental space by going to the restroom or another quiet area to regroup, talk with a trusted loved one, or even step outside for a short walk and practice deep breathing.