Dealing with Food and Body Image Stress During the Holidays

Do you find yourself stressing about food and your body during the holidays?

You’re not alone. The holidays can be a happy, exciting time of year, but they can also be a source of major stress, especially around food and body image. In a world that glorifies unrealistic beauty standards, it's no wonder that so many of us feel an immense sense of pressure about how we look and how others perceive our bodies. This is particularly during the holidays when food-based social gatherings and family interactions are in full swing. 

Why is body image so complicated?

The term “body image” refers to the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs we hold about our bodies. It’s influenced by a mix of personal experiences, cultural messaging, and societal standards. For many of us, body image is complicated, especially in a culture that idealizes unrealistic and exclusionary beauty standards, particularly for women. 

Our society often equates worthiness with appearance. Our culture values thinness, youth, whiteness, and wealth above all else. These harmful ideals make it difficult—if not impossible—to feel at home in your body. If you've ever felt "not good enough" because of how you look, you're experiencing the effects of these cultural pressures.

The holidays can intensify these feelings. Holiday gatherings often come with comments about appearance from family members, unsolicited advice about food, and the pressure to look a certain way in photos or at events. For those navigating disordered eating or eating disorder recovery, these pressures can feel even heavier.

Why are the holidays so stressful, anyway?

The holidays are supposed to be a fun, relaxing time, but that’s often not the experience people actually have. No matter what holidays you celebrate, the holiday season is steeped in traditions, many of which revolve around food. While sharing meals can be a source of joy and connection, it can also bring up things like: 

• Food Anxiety: Whether it’s facing judgment for how much or how little you eat, navigating fear of certain foods, or feeling triggered by diet talk, food-centric events can feel overwhelming.

• Body Comments: Many people dread the comments they receive on their bodies during holiday celebrations. Relatives or friends may feel entitled to comment on your body, often under the guise of "concern" or "compliments." These comments can be triggering, even if they’re well-intentioned.

• Recovery Challenges: If you’re working on healing your relationship with food and your body, the holidays may stir up old habits, fears, or negative self-talk around your appearance. The holidays tend to be a difficult time for those in recovery from eating disorders or disordered eating. 

• Family Dynamics: Being around family can bring up childhood wounds or patterns, particularly if body shaming or diet culture were a part of your upbringing. These dynamics can make it difficult to maintain your boundaries and values around food and your body. 

It’s okay, and normal, to feel a mix of emotions during the holiday season. You might be excited to see folks you don’t normally get to see while also dreading the food and body commentary. Acknowledging that the holidays are complicated—and not always picture-perfect—is an important step toward treating yourself with compassion. While you can’t control every situation or every comment, you can take steps to protect your well-being. 

Here are some strategies to help you navigate food and body image stress during the holidays:

Be clear about your boundaries

You have the right to protect your peace, and it’s okay to have boundaries about what you will and won’t accept. If you’re not comfortable discussing your body, food choices, or appearance, you can let others know in advance. Remember that boundaries outline what you will do - not what someone else will do. Try phrases like:

• “I’m not comfortable talking about my body. Let’s focus on catching up instead.”

• “I’d rather not discuss dieting. Can we talk about [other topic]?”

• “If you continue to talk about my body that way, I will have to walk away.”

Create a game plan for mealtime

If you’re anxious about food-focused gatherings, it can help to plan ahead. Imagine the event in your head, and come up with options for each different scenario you’re worried about. It can be calming to know that you have a plan in place ahead of time. Think about how you’ll respond to family and friends who bring up difficult topics. Make a plan for how you’ll nourish yourself throughout the celebration. This might include eating regularly throughout the day (even if there’s a big meal coming up), practicing mindfulness during group meals, or bringing a dish that feels safe and satisfying for you, regardless of what everyone else is eating. 

Think about who you can lean on

We all need support, and knowing you have someone you can talk to outside of the situation can be comforting. Choose one or two supportive people to lean on during holiday events that you’re worried about. This could be a partner, friend, or therapist. Let them know how you’re feeling and what you’re concerned about.  Remind yourself that you can ask for help if you need it—whether that means stepping outside for a breath of fresh air or figuring out how to redirect a tricky conversation. Think about what kind of comfort you’d like during difficult holiday moments, and communicate those needs to your support person so they know how to show up for you in a way that feels supportive. 

Don’t be a jerk to yourself

You might not get through every holiday moment without feeling triggered, and that’s okay. What’s important is that you treat yourself with compassion. When upsetting emotions come up, treat yourself with the same kindness you’d offer a friend, or even your younger self. If you find it hard to treat yourself with kindness, remind yourself:

• “It’s okay to have a hard day.”

• “My worth is not defined by my appearance.”

• “I’m allowed to take up space, exactly as I am.”

Consider limiting social media

Social media is a highlight reel, but it’s hard to remember that when you’re upset. Scrolling through perfectly curated holiday photos can increase feelings of inadequacy and comparison, instead of being a cheerful reminder of the season. Consider setting boundaries with social media or unfollowing accounts that promote diet culture or unrealistic beauty standards, especially during emotionally vulnerable times like the holidays. 

Get help from a therapist

Working with a therapist who understands food and body image issues can provide a supportive space to process your emotions, identify triggers, and develop tools to navigate the holidays with confidence. If disordered eating, body image struggles, or family dynamics feel overwhelming, therapy can be a game-changer for finding peace and healing.

If you're finding this season especially difficult, consider reaching out to a therapist who practices from a weight-neutral, compassionate lens. You deserve support, healing, and the freedom to exist in your body without judgment—during the holidays and every day.  Contact our office today to make an appointment!

Thanksgiving Survival Guide

Thanksgiving is nearly here, and with that can come a lot of complicated emotions. 

If you’re feeling anxious about the upcoming holiday season, kicked off by Thanksgiving this week, you’re not alone. To help, we’ve gone through our blog to date and gathered up posts we think will help you get through this season: 

For managing a fraught relationship with your body: 

The holiday season is a tough time for folks who struggle with their body image, disordered eating, or compulsive exercising. So much of the season is focused on food, so if you have a hard time treating your body with kindness and meeting its needs regularly, being surrounded by food and food talk can be triggering. Here are some blogs to help you incorporate some kindness toward your body into the season: 

• Keeping Peace with Your Body During the Holiday Season

• Can I Have a Healthy Relationship with My Body Without Loving it?

For help navigating uncomfortable conversations: 

Family gatherings can be wonderful, but they can also remind us how not everyone we encounter will share our world view or values. When hard subjects come up, it’s up to you whether or not it’s the right time to really dive into things, but when you do, remember to do it with care and intention. These blogs can help you move through hard conversations with compassion and respect–for yourself and who you’re talking to. While some of them explore difficult conversations between romantic partners, the basic ideas can be applied to any relationship. 

• 7 Ways to Communicate More Effectively in Your Relationship

• 8 Tips for Hard Conversations in Your Relationship 

• How to Tell Someone They’ve Hurt Your Feelings

• Setting Boundaries: Why You Should & What to Say

• 4 Ways to Practice Accountability in Your Relationships

For moments of high anxiety or emotional disregulation: 

Big gatherings don’t always go smoothly, and it’s possible that when surrounded by family with complicated relationships to one another, that there may be moments where you feel anxious, tense, or like your emotions aren’t quite in your control. Use these blogs to help you work through those moments with self compassion and intention. 

• 5 Strategies for Overcoming Social Anxiety at Holiday Gatherings

• How to Make a Coping Skills Toolbox

• How Grounding Techniques Can Help with Anxiety

Remember, the holiday season doesn’t last forever, even though it seems endless when you’re dreading it. If you’re struggling with social anxiety this holiday season, working with a therapist can help. Contact our office today to make an appointment!

Strengthen Your Relationship with Your Body With These Six Blogs

What does it mean to have a strong relationship to your body?

Does it mean you need to be body positive? What about body neutrality? Or body trust? What do all these different terms mean? Do you have to embody all of them to have a strong relationship between yourself and your body? Where can you even start?

Having a strong relationship to your body helps your health holistically. It helps you tune into your physical and your emotional needs, and tend to them consciously and intentionally. But getting there isn’t an easy journey and it can be hard to know where to start. 

These six blogs are our starting point for you if you’re looking to strengthen your relationship to your body. 

They’re all about reflecting on your relationship to your body, learning to adjust your perspective and expectations, and practices you can take with you as you learn to engage with your body's needs and cues moving forward. Check them out below:

What Does it Mean to Engage in Self Care When You’re Chronically Ill

Your practice doesn’t have to be perfect all of the time. No one is keeping score at how well you’re taking care of yourself or what you’re falling behind on.

Determine for yourself what you can maintain, and try your best to maintain it–and trust yourself to know when you need to just relax.

Keep reading. 

3 Ways to Build Trust with Your Body

You might not even realize the messages that you’ve taken in about bodies throughout your life. There may be cultural messages that you disagree with on an intellectual level but have a hard time disconnecting from for yourself. You’re not alone. It’s hard to disengage from the constant messaging that your body is not good enough and that you can’t trust what it’s telling you.

When you don’t trust your body, you might have a harder time picking up on body cues like hunger or thirst. You might ignore your body’s needs, like needing to take a break, because you feel you should push through.

Keep reading. 

Separating Healing from Healthism

Your health is not insignificant–when you are sick or injured or unwell in any way you deserve care and medicine and support. The rejection of healthism isn’t a rejection of taking care of yourself, but shifting the motivations behind it.

Instead of caring for yourself because you want to be healthy so you can deserve love and care and support, can you care for yourself because you are alive and deserve it? Can you shift your habits of caring for yourself so they come from a place of love and joy, rather than guilt and shame?

Keep reading. 

Learning How to Connect Emotions & Body Sensations

Do you know how emotions feel in your body?

Emotions aren’t only felt in the mind. Our bodies react to our environments just like our brains do, and it can be helpful to connect emotions with body sensations so we can better understand what’s going on within us.

Keep reading. 

Can I have a Healthy Relationship with my Body Without Loving it?

While it would be wonderful to get to a point where your relationship with your body is a loving one, it’s possible to have an emotionally healthy relationship, even a caring relationship, without love. Think of human social relationships–you might not love your coworker or your neighbor or your barista, but you’re likely able to at least provide them the respect and dignity they deserve, and possibly even have a positive, friendly relationship with them. You care about not being rude to them, you don’t think they are unreasonable for having boundaries, and you probably don’t think they’re shameful for asking for what they need!  

Keep reading.

Gentle Movement tips for a Healthier Relationship with Exercise

Gentle movement or moving our bodies in some way that feels good is important for our health–not for the reasons we often hear about in intense fitness environments, where fitness is more of a sport focused on pushing your body to extremes–but because our body and our brain feel better when we find ways to incorporate movement into our routines. Keep the purpose of feeling good at the center of your search for a gentle movement routine: if it starts to feel like drudergy or punishment, it’s time to find something new. 

Keep reading. 

If you’re looking for support as you heal your relationship to your body, therapy can be a great place to start. Contact us today and our expert clinicians can help. 

3 Ways to Build Trust With Your Body

Do you trust your body?

Body trust might not be something that you’ve ever considered much before. It might seem like a strange concept, but working toward trusting your body can be helpful with self-image, confidence, and self-compassion. 

When we’re born, we know to trust our bodies. When a baby is hungry, they don’t question the hunger cues they’re feeling. They just feel hungry and cry for food. When that baby gets older, though, they might not be as able to tune in to what their body is telling them to determine that they’re hungry. Why is that?

Over time, they began to question the trust they have in their body and their trust in themselves to listen to and care for it. 

Body trust is the concept of feeling connected and compassionate toward your body, and trusting its innate wisdom. Our bodies know a lot more about what they need than we think. Our bodies send us messages all of the time, but it’s often tricky to pick up on them when you’ve grown up learning how to tune them out. 

The Center of Body Trust has a great explanation: “You were born with an inherent trust for your body. Somewhere along the way you became disconnected from that way of knowing. Body Trust is disrupted by many things including and not limited to trauma, oppression, illness, and social constructs of gender, race, sexuality, beauty, health, and weight. Body Trust is an invitation to return to a relationship with your body and yourself that you want to be in for your lifetime—flexible, compassionate and connected.”

It might seem a little odd to have a term for what is essentially just listening to your body, but it’s necessary for many reasons. As we grow, we become influenced by the culture that we live in. We experience discrimination and oppression in some cases. Many of us experience trauma. These experiences teach us to disconnect from our bodies as a way to fit in, and often to stay safe. For example, someone in a larger body might internalize the message that they can only get help from medical professionals if they ignore their body cues for hunger and rest. To avoid substandard medical care due to anti-fat bias, they work to change their body size. 

This is just one example of the ways that we lose trust with our bodies. Any time you have felt that your body isn’t good enough or felt pressure from someone other than yourself to change your body, it reinforces the concept that you can’t trust your body. After a lifetime, it is hard to unlearn. 

What does a lack of body trust look like?

You might not even realize the messages that you’ve taken in about bodies throughout your life. There may be cultural messages that you disagree with on an intellectual level but have a hard time disconnecting from for yourself. You’re not alone. It’s hard to disengage from the constant messaging that your body is not good enough and that you can’t trust what it’s telling you. 

When you don’t trust your body, you might have a harder time picking up on body cues like hunger or thirst. You might ignore your body’s needs, like needing to take a break, because you feel you should push through. 

For many of us, it’s a habit to tune out what our bodies are telling us. It will take time and practice to learn how to tune back in. If you’re working on rebuilding the trust you have with your body, here are 3 things to try:

Notice and appreciate what your body does for you

Lots of us are disconnected from the ways our bodies support us. When we learn how to ignore the messages from our bodies, it makes it harder to appreciate all of the ways our bodies show up for us, day after day. The truth is that there’s probably something you can find to appreciate about your body. Maybe you really appreciate the way your senses allow you to experience the world. Or maybe you really love how your arms allow you to snuggle your pets. 

Take some time to tune in and notice what your body does for you. It’s gotten you this far, after all! Chances are, there is something, even if it’s small, that you can find to appreciate about your body. This will take time to learn. It’s taken a lifetime to learn how not to trust your body, and that won’t go away overnight. 

To get in the habit of tuning in to what your body is telling you, try doing a body scan. Take a few minutes to close your eyes and mindfully imagine your gaze scanning over each part of your body. Take a pause at each area to listen to what your body needs. Does your body need something to eat or drink? Does your body need a hug or to move around a little? Listening to the messages that you get from your body and meeting your body’s needs will help to reinforce that you can trust each other. 

Remind yourself that your body is not the problem

Most of the messages that we get about our bodies being a problem come from people trying to sell us something. If marketers can convince us that it’s our bodies that are the problem, then it’s much easier to sell us a solution. When you notice negative thoughts about your body creeping up, try to remind yourself that there are a lot of people who make a lot of money making you distrust your body. Who is profiting from you feeling this way? It’s probably not you. 

All of our bodies are different. They don’t always work the way they should, but that doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to always hate your body. Sometimes feeling positively about your body is not possible, but body neutrality can be helpful in those moments. Your body doesn’t have to be perfect and you don’t need to be its biggest fan. You just need to treat your body with respect, because you’re on the same team. 

Treat your body like a friend 

Your body is the only body you’re ever going to have. You’re in this together for as long as you’re here, so you might as well treat your body well. Try to connect with it like you would a friend. If a friend expressed a need to you, would you ignore it? Probably not! When you receive information from your body, don’t ignore that either. 

It takes time to build trust, so it will take time for you and your body to learn that you can trust each other. When you show up for yourself and consistently listen to the messages that you’re getting from your body, you reinforce the trust you’re building. When you get a cue from your body that you need something to eat and you eat, you teach your body that it can rely on you to meet its needs. Over time, it will become a habit to meet the needs of your body. Being consistent with listening to your body is a powerful way to rebuild body trust. 

If you’re looking for support as you rebuild trust with your body, therapy can be a great place to start. Contact us today and our expert clinicians can help.