Fashion
How I’m Using This Pared-Down Holiday Season to Rewrite My Relationship With Food
It’s crushing to realize that the holidays won’t look quite the same this year, but maybe the lack of tradition will help binge-eating disorder sufferers break out of the harmful food patterns that often accompany Thanksgiving and Christmas….
This year, I’m grateful merely to be physically healthy and employed when so many Americans are not, but I still often find myself succumbing to the loneliness and anxiety that so many ED sufferers experienced in isolation this spring. If I have to give up my joyful, jam-packed holiday rituals, though, maybe I can also part with the binge-eating spirals that they often lead to; if Thanksgiving isn’t going to look the same this year, is it possible that my disordered food intake doesn’t have to either?
“Holidays may trigger eating disordered behaviors and disordered eating due to the set of stressors that the holidays present; relationship stress, travel, finances, and holiday fatigue are the usual culprits,” explains psychotherapist and addiction specialist Cecille Ahrens. No, I won’t get to stream Lifetime rom-coms with my aunt or watch my cousins open presents this year, but I also won’t have to deal with jam-packed holiday flights or “well-meaning” comments about my weight from family friends at potlucks. As much as I wish things were normal, maybe the absence of those stressors could help me chart a relationship with the holiday season that is defined by genuine connection (even if it’s over Zoom), rather than escapism through food.
Of course, I don’t want to be overly optimistic about my ability to get through this year’s holiday season without ED triggers. “The 2020 holiday season could be hard on many of us because of the rules and limitations that the pandemic has brought,” cautions Ahrens. “Feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger, powerlessness and hopelessness can be so overwhelming that it can make those who suffer from an eating disorder turn to ‘known’ coping strategies and self-regulation skills.”
As of now, I’m hopeful that I can keep what I love about this pared-down holiday season—rom-coms instead of football on Thanksgiving, a Secret Santa exchange with my roommates, a snowy walk through the neighborhood on Christmas morning—without succumbing to the food-as-coping-mechanism framework that has often defined this time of year for me. If my disordered eating does flare up around this uniquely isolated holiday, though, I’ll try not to beat myself up over it; instead, I’ll do my best to meet myself with the love and compassion I know I deserve.
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