Food Guilt
Strategies for Managing Food Guilt During the Holidays
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… for the few of you that don’t have body image concerns.
For the rest of us, it’s stressful af. This is your guide to navigating the holidays, and any guilt around eating and drinking that might arise.
First of all, food guilt is the emotional experience of feeling guilty for eating or drinking certain foods, or certain amounts. The holiday period can be quite triggering for people as more social events occur, and there is a natural increase in eating and drinking.
Secondly, we need to recognise that controlled overeating is different to bingeing. Controlled over eating is what we do on birthdays, christmases, or family lunches. Bingeing is associated with an episode of eating food at an increased rate, that causes distress.
When it comes to managing food guilt, we need to consider the internal and external stressors perpetuating this notion.
External stressors enabling food guilt may include:
Societal messages about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods. Labelling food in this way implies you should feel guilty for eating certain foods. This is silly.
Antidote: Allow food to just be food. Some food is nutritious, and some food is delicious. Some are both! Remind yourself that we all engage in controlled over eating. Don’t vouch for low calorie drinks because otherwise it’s ‘empty calories’. Drink the fun cocktails or wine, because they’re full of JOY!
Diet culture. We are constantly receiving unhelpful messages about beauty ideals, bodies, and dieting. Remember that these tropes are designed to keep us feeling insecure, and spending money on shit we don’t need.
Antidote: Come back to your personal values. Ask yourself, do I value thinness over joy when sharing time with loved ones? Do I want to fixate on the calories in this, or on the conversation with friends?
Unhelpful comments like “oh you’re going back for seconds?”. Fuck you Aunty Karen this Pavlova is delicious.
Antidote: Whenever I hear an unhelpful comment, I chant this affirmation in my head:
“That comment is a mirror for society. It is not a reflection of their values, me, or my worth.”
Remind yourself that other people’s unhelpful comments are NOT a reflection of you, but a reflection of their social conditioning.
You can also set a boundary here like, “please don’t comment on what I’m eating, I’d like to think we are capable of discussing almost anything else.”
Internal stressors enabling food guilt may include:
Having high standards for yourself, that you wouldn’t apply to others. This might manifest as eating the ‘right’ foods, having rituals around eating, or ensuring you compensate somehow by restricting later, or engaging in exercise
Antidote: Remind yourself that normal eating is not perfect. When we engage in rigid eating patterns it generates an expectation to uphold, and this usually causes some distress or anxiety. By relaxing our standards, we also help to minimise anxiety in the long term.
When there’s an urge to compensate, I invite you to ask yourself; “would I make my younger sister/daughter/friend do this?” If the answer is “No”, don’t do it.
Body Image concerns. A fear that engaging in controlled over eating/drinking will lead to weight gain, or fatness.
Antidote: Feelings of fatness usually represent other emotions. This is because ‘fat’ is not a feeling. Are you feeling overwhelmed? Anxious? Guilty? Consider some of the other strategies noted to help with this. Otherwise, consider being prepared with some affirmations to help ground you if these intrusive thoughts/feelings arise.
TL;DR Strategies for Food Guilt
Fact Checking: remind yourself the holidays are a period for celebrating, and that controlled over-eating is a thing we all do.
Values: return to your values, often the values behind food guilt/body image concerns don’t reflect our personal values.
Use affirmations to ground yourself: feel free to use mine, or come up with your own little reminders as to why you’re okay, and food guilt is unjustified. Write them down in your phone so they’re accessible.
Externalise: if you’re becoming critical, ask yourself; “would I say this to my friend/daughter/sister?”
Opposite Action (DBT): If you have the urge to restrict/avoid, do the opposite! Order that cocktail, go back for seconds!
Emotional Check In: if you’re ‘feeling fat’, take a second to notice what emotion underlies that.
Set Boundaries: Tell people to STFU, walk away from them, change the subject, hang out with the cool cousins. Don’t be afraid to protect your peace.
Happy Holidays and take care of those precious flesh vessels!
