Food has always been the most important sentiment of the holiday season in my household. Any family tradition I can think of has a specific dish wrapped around it and the anticipation of my mom’s holiday desserts was a year round affair. But as diet culture and disordered eating reared its ugly head in my teenage years, the thrill diminished to dread. Gone was the luxury of a guilt free Christmas, my battle with restriction and fear of food temptation had set in.
Sasha Stringer, sophomore at UO admits that she too struggles with this aspect of the holidays. Stringer was diagnosed with anorexia junior year of highschool and has since recovered.
“In college you can eat or not eat whatever you want, so when you’re struggling with disordered eating it can be hard to come home for winter break and return to an environment where you can’t restrict or control what you’re eating,” Stringer said. “Now that I’m recovered, I notice I don’t have that same anxiety around the holiday season.”
Health blogs across the internet recognize the unfortunate parallel between the holiday seasons and the spike in disordered eating. One article for Healthline quotes Heather Russo, a chief clinical officer for an eating disorder recovery program: “Holidays are especially triggering for people in recovery from an ED because many traditions and celebrations are food and relationship-focused.”
This experience is applicable for those with diagnosed eating disorders as well as more minor cases of disordered eating. Kristen Fuller, MD and clinical mental health writer clarifies the difference between the two in an article for Very Well Mind. Fuller defines disordered eating as “behaviors that limit choices, restrict food intake, lead to discomfort, cause a sense of being out of control, or create negative emotions such as shame or guilt.” Whereas she asserts that eating disorders are “a complex condition characterized by abnormal eating habits that impair health and an individual’s ability to function.”
Because disordered eating symptoms exist on a spectrum of severity and category, events such as holidays provoke different responses. While some are prone to stress eating their way through problematic relative reunions, others go through nasty cycles of restricting and binging. Either way, it draws attention. From my family to yours, dinner table small talk is dominated by inappropriate comments on others’ body shape, size and eating habits.
“I see a lot of extended family members I don’t see on a day to day basis during the holidays,” Stringer said. “Hearing comments like, ‘wow you’ve lost so much weight,’ or the most harmful: ‘you look so good,’ at big family events was the hardest part of the holidays for me. Even since I’ve recovered, I’ve had to remind myself that hearing things like, ‘you look so much better,’ is not a bad thing.”
On the other end, some people attribute their lack of disordered eating to family support. “I never really struggled with disordered eating in highschool or college because I never felt that pressure in my family,” Amy Menedez, senior at UO, said. “My grandma and my mom have always made a bunch of sweets around the holidays, and it was always encouraged to eat them simply because it is a way of celebrating.”
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel that doesn’t consist of restrictive new year’s resolutions. Much to diet cultures dismay, indulgence and moderation are the perfect couple for building a healthy relationship with food. Modern day dieticians have rebranded to reject the notion of good and bad foods and encourage clients to eat the foods they love.
“The key is to have a healthy relationship with food and learn to trust yourself around all foods; yes this includes foods that you have labeled bad and off limits,” Bonnie Roney, registered dietician and social media influencer said in a video on her Instagram account. “What we restrict is what we will always want more of so we have to stop restricting if we want to feel at peace with food.”
Roney has a podcast called Diet Culture Rebel, available on Spotify and Apple podcasts, that helps people cope with disordered eating urges.
It can also be helpful to identify the reason we are changing our diets for the holiday season: to give up control for the sake of celebration.
“This time is so special because there are so many more reasons to celebrate, and if food is one of the things that brings you joy, you should embrace that and share it with others,” Menedez said.
While resources like the Diet Culture Rebel podcast can provide comfort this holiday season, for many, the scars of disordered eating run too deep for quick fixes. In such instances, one might consider therapy or other more serious treatment options. University of Oregon offers counseling for eating disorders in forms of both individual and group therapy.
