Communicating Boundaries in Holiday Eating Disorder Recovery
Written by Tiffany Lepa, NCC, LPC-Associate
With the holidays quickly approaching and 2023 nearing closure, many emotions like joy, grief, stress, and overwhelm may be coming up. For those in eating disorder recovery, the holidays can hit especially hard. Joyful celebrations centered around food can leave room for triggering body talk and shaming, New Year’s resolutions often go hand-in-hand with diet talk and weight loss goals, and complicated feelings around family gatherings may have you reaching for past unhelpful and disordered coping behaviors such as restriction, binge-eating, purging, or compulsive exercise.
Whew - it’s a lot! However, we’re here to help you navigate this season and keep both recovery and self-preservation at the forefront. Continue reading for tips around assembling your support team and communicating your needs and boundaries this holiday season.
Assembling Your Support Team + Coping Toolkit
Now is a great time to begin developing a holiday self-care plan with your therapist, dietitian, and treatment team. (Read our past blog post on managing mental health around the holidays for an outline of what to include in your self-care plan.) Reflect on who you plan to turn to for support and connection throughout this time whether it’s a family member, friend, peers, or professionals. Consider who you can reach out to if you need additional support and your usual go-to people are busy. We recommend keeping a crisis line in your phone such as Crisis Textline, 988 Lifeline, Trans Lifeline, or the LGBTQIA+ Trevor Project Hotline. If possible, prioritize keeping up your therapy, dietitian, and psychiatric appointments and plan to attend a support group. Both the National Alliance for Eating Disorders and Center for Discovery provide a variety of accessible and free virtual options.
It’s also important to have conversations with your support team about how they can best support you and what your needs are. What moments might be the most triggering for you? When might you need the most support? How can your support team step in? In what ways can they show you support (emotional, practical, sharing comedic memes, etc.)? For example, maybe you need your best friend to send a check-in text every other day or set up a Facetime chat to connect if you’re away or traveling. If you’re attending an event, you can let the person you’re going with know how they can advocate for you, challenge diet talk from others, and step in when needed.
Tips for Communicating Boundaries
For those whose disordered eating story begins with their family of origin, going back home (or making the choice to not to) can be challenging, especially if your family still participates in diet culture. Be prepared to soothe your inner child through difficult moments and think about what “little you” may have been needing and how you can meet that need. For example, let’s say your brother recently lost weight and your mom keeps congratulating him and telling him how great he looks and saying “Doesn’t he look great!?” to you. This highlights her belief that weight loss is good and is an accomplishment. You may need to remind yourself that your worth is not determined by your body and that those beliefs don’t align with your values anymore.
We get it, drawing boundaries and speaking them aloud is hard! There are some go-to silent ones, however, such as changing the subject or removing yourself from the conversation or the space. We’ve broken down even more ways to communicate boundaries and to prepare for common challenging situations!
How to Challenge Diet Talk This Holiday Season
Hear something untrue? Say something.
If you’re up to it, disrupt the narrative! This is the perfect time to say “Well, actually…” Use this as an opportunity to educate when your uncle tells you that his keto diet is working unlike any other diet he has tried before, or when your cousin who has recently fallen deeply into fitness culture says losing weight is “simply calories in, calories out,” or when your mom keeps insisting that sugar is bad and she feels guilty for eating pie.
Commenting on bodies. Whether someone is commenting on their own body, your body, or the bodies of others around them, you can draw a boundary. Here are some options:
“I don’t like to hear you talk about yourself that way.”
“That’s really unkind.”
“Wow, I’m surprised you’d say that aloud.”
“Please don’t comment on my body.”
“I’m embracing body acceptance, and hearing that is not helpful.”
“There are way more interesting things to talk about.”
“Can you explain what you mean by that?” (When someone makes a comment that someone shouldn’t be wearing a certain outfit or what they should or shouldn’t be eating.)
“Why is that funny?” (When someone makes a joke about someone’s body.)
Talking about food morality and categorizing food.
“Food just is. There’s no good or bad.”
“You don’t have to feel guilty for enjoying that.”
“What makes you say that food is bad?”
“I’ve been working with a dietitian, and they actually told me that categorizing food like that can be harmful and promote disordered behaviors.”
Talking about their new diet, weight loss, or someone else’s weight loss/change.
“Talking about dieting and losing weight is really triggering for me, so can we not?”
“I’m working on body neutrality and acceptance right now. Want to hear more about that?.”
“Diets don’t work.”
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Just because someone loses weight doesn’t mean it’s a good thing or something to celebrate. It could be because of something unpleasant (grief, illness, eating disorder, stress, etc.).”
“Let’s not make assumptions about someone else’s health based on how they look.”
“I’ve actually found intuitive eating really helpful in healing my relationship with food and body image rather than focusing on weight loss or dieting. I’m happy to talk more about that with you!”
Talking about exercise/movement. We know the classic “Oh, I’m going to have to work this piece of dessert off!” or “I can eat this much because I skipped breakfast” comments that come along with holiday meals.
“You don’t have to compensate for eating more!”
“This dish is amazing! I’m going to ask (name) for the recipe.”
“It’s okay to enjoy food and not think about weight.”
Prepare Physical + Time Boundaries
Beyond, “in-the-moment” boundary setting, you can plan ahead as well by setting both physical and time boundaries. Here are some examples of what they may look like:
Knowing when to walk away or take a break
Not attending certain events if boundaries have already been established and crossed or disrespected
Determining how long you’ll stay at a place and communicating that beforehand
Carving out time for self-preservation activities (napping, watching TV, reading, joyful movement, hanging with friends, etc.)
Maintaining important appointments
Going to support groups
Provide Resources to Loved Ones
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We’ve compiled a list of resources below to share with your loved ones and alleviate some of the emotional burden of educating others about eating disorders, diet culture, and more. Feel free to share these beforehand and share after interacting with someone. It can also be helpful to send these to a safe buddy so that they can jump in and advocate for you as well!
Maintenance Phase (Podcast)
You Just Need to Lose Weight + Other Myths about Fat People (Book)
Support groups for loved ones of those in eating disorder recovery (Alliance Groups, Center For Discovery)
When Your Partner Has an Eating Disorder: How To Support Yourself to Support Them (Blog)
How to Support a Loved One Struggling with an Eating Disorder (Blog)
Check out our favorite resources page for even more options!
In closing, these are all suggestions, so feel free to adjust to your needs and to check in with your bandwidth and who might be safer or more amenable to boundary conversations. Share this post with your support system too so that they have anti-diet talk tools ready as well!
Needing some additional support around approaching the holiday season? Our team of eating disorder therapists is ready to work with you virtually across the state of Texas or in person in our office located in North Austin. Fill out a contact form or schedule a call with our client care coordinator to get started!
