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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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Entertainment

A$AP Rocky Turned An Entire Manchester City Kit Into His Album Rollout

A$AP Rocky at South by Southwest 2019
Photo: DannyB Photos / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

A$AP Rocky doesn’t do album rollouts quietly, and this one recruited an entire Premier League club to help. Manchester City, PUMA, and Rocky teamed up on a limited apparel run tied to “Don’t Be Dumb,” his 2026 album, timed around his September 5th show at Co-op Live.

The centerpiece is a long-sleeve PUMA King jersey in black and archive gold, with “DON’T BE DUMB” running down the sleeve and AWGE branding worked in throughout. A bold “MANCHESTER” graphic covers the back. Fans could also add limited “A$AP 11” name-and-number printing onto the club’s actual Home, Away, or Third kits, while supplies lasted at retail.

There’s a players-only version too, and it never went up for sale. That one sticks closer to City’s usual sky-blue identity, with its own sleeve detailing and back graphic — the kind of piece that exists purely because a handful of people got lucky.

The whole rollout kicked off with a one-night pop-up on September 4th, when PUMA turned a spot in Manchester’s Northern Quarter into a pop-up cafe for the night, mixing football, music, and street style into one room before the wider release hit the stadium store the next morning. Some of those jerseys even came with golden tickets to the concert or that Saturday’s match.

Rocky has called the project true to his own design language, and it’s not even his only club collaboration this cycle — a similar drop with AC Milan landed around the same time. At this point, the line between fashion week and matchday has basically disappeared.

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Quavo And Lids Are Going All In On Atlanta With Their New Cap Pack

Quavo photographed in 2019
Photo: Finish Line / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Quavo has never been shy about his hat obsession, and Lids just gave him another outlet for it. Their new “Atlanta” pack drops September 12th, marking another round in a partnership that’s been running strong since 2019.

The collection is a love letter to the city, spread across three very different caps. One mashes up pinstripes, script lettering, and Braves branding into a single design, working navy, red, white, and light blue into the mix. Another goes the opposite direction entirely — fully iced out in crystal detailing, done up in black and red, with both the Falcons and the Braves showing up in the design. The third strips things back to an old-school “ATL” trucker cap in red, white, and gold, the kind of understated piece that lets the city’s name do the talking.

None of this is new territory for Quavo. He’s talked before about waiting on hat releases as a kid, and that same excitement seems to be what’s kept this partnership going years past most celebrity collabs. His earlier Lids run leaned on one moment — the Braves’ 1995 World Series win — but this pack pulls from the city’s whole sports history instead of just one highlight.

Lids has called Quavo one of the rare voices who can blend music, fashion, and sports without it feeling forced, and this drop backs that up. Given how fast his past releases have moved, Atlanta might want to set an alarm for September 12th.

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