For teens struggling with body image or disordered eating, the holidays can be a time they naturally want to avoid. Instead of enjoying spending time with their extended family and friends, these teens might spend the whole holiday season hyper fixated on meals and different food rules.
This is only exacerbated by the fact that many of these holidays are centered around coming together over a meal.
When people celebrate Halloween, they usually focus on all of the candy they receive. When people think of Thanksgiving, they think of families gathered around a turkey and sharing what they are grateful for that year. When people visualize Christmas, they often picture families sitting down around a ham or munching on gingerbread cookies while wearing holiday themed sweaters. Easter is associated with chocolate and fancy Easter dinners. Ramadan has celebrations based around breaking fasts at specific times of the day. People who celebrate Hanukkah often have memories that include food items like latkes, challah, and brisket.
It seems like no matter what holiday a teen might celebrate, they are going to face traditions that involve eating meals with others and breaking many of the “food rules” they may have set for themselves like not eating after a certain time, avoiding foods high in sugar, or minimizing carbs.
While it might seem impossible to completely separate a holiday from the foods associated with its celebration, you can still help your teen navigate these holiday meals by shifting the focus to the meaning of the holiday rather than the food.
Here are a few ways you can help remove the spotlight from food rules and meals during the holidays:
Create new traditions that don’t involve food
Maybe every Christmas Eve, your family typically bakes gingerbread cookies to eat. While this can certainly provide fun memories, it is important to remember that the cookies aren’t the goal, but rather the time spent with members of the family.
Instead of gathering everyone to make and decorate cookies together, try to gather everyone to do a holiday-themed jigsaw puzzle, go sledding, or watch a holiday movie. This way, your teen’s fondest memories surrounding this holiday won’t be ones that are centered around snacks.
When your teen is able to fill their time caroling, making crafts, playing games, watching movies, and doing other activities that aren’t food related, they will enjoy the holiday season more.
Promote family activities
When many kids finish trick or treating, they like to go through their Halloween bags and evaluate the candy they’ve received. For teenagers with eating disorders, this type of isolation provides the perfect opportunity for them to engage in unhealthy or destructive behaviors.
Regardless of the holiday, try to promote activities that everyone can do as a family to keep your teen from having to spend a lot of time isolating themselves from others.
For instance, everyone can compare their candy together after Halloween or open their holiday stockings at the same time instead of on their own.
Don’t police your teen’s eating
You might think you’re being helpful by suggesting that your teen eat more or less food during a holiday, but your advice may be causing more harm than good. By giving your teen “food rules,” you can exacerbate the idea that food is a focus for the holiday rather than family, friends, and fun.
Although it might be tempting to tell the family not to eat during the day to save room for their huge Thanksgiving meal, this could encourage bad habits for your teen. Similarly, encouraging your teen to go for an extra piece of pie or to pile up extra food on their plate because it’s a holiday can be detrimental to their progress.
Make sure you are available to offer validation and support for your teen during this tough time, but don’t police their eating.
Practice gratitude
When you get the chance, make it clear that what you are most grateful for during the holiday season are your loved ones and the time you get to spend with them.
Express your gratitude verbally and make sure that you show your teen that you are thankful for more than just the food that you are going to eat.
Not only will this help shift the focus from food, but it will also remind your teen to practice gratitude and remind them that the holidays aren’t about food, but rather about the people you get to connect with during the holiday season.