Hickey: Coping with eating anxiety during Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a harvest holiday, a celebration that very literally revolves around dinner…. Thanksgiving is a harvest holiday, a celebration that very literally revolves around dinner. Many people — myself included — cite “real food” as one of the most anticipated perks of going home for the holidays.

At a time when one in six Americans struggle with hunger, according to FeedingAmerica.org, having plenty to eat is still cause for celebration. But for some people who do have enough to eat, worrying about food during the holidays doesn’t end with putting in a few hours at the local soup kitchen. Even for many of the fortunate, this food-centric celebration is a source of mixed feelings — or even unmixed dread.

According to most clinics, roughly 10 percent of Americans suffer from some type of eating disorder. On college campuses, estimates are even higher. Consider, in addition to these grim statistics, the number of Americans — many of whom are healthy and meet none of the criteria for obesity — who are trying to lose weight, and the number of people whose families are critical of their bodies. It isn’t surprising that chow-down holidays can be anything but relaxing.

A Google search of “holidays with eating disorders” turns up 3,640,000 results. Most emphasize the same piece of advice: Plan ahead. If you’re in recovery and have a nutritional plan, stick to it as well as you can. If you don’t think there will be any “safe foods” — foods you feel comfortable eating even when you’re not feeling your strongest — at your family’s big holiday meal, make or buy something and bring it along.

Have someone you can call for support if you’re in a crisis during the holidays. Discuss your respective schedules before you go home, and alert him or her to the possibility of an S.O.S. call. If someone you trust will be at dinner with you, develop a signal you can give if you need him or her to invent an excuse for you to leave the room and collect yourself.

If you have a loved one who suffers from an eating disorder — or who you suspect does — do not try to force him or her to eat. Do not draw attention to his weight, even to fuss about how thin he is getting. Do not harp on what she eats or doesn’t eat. Don’t be offended if that person passes on your famous apple pie.

In short, don’t badger — feeling scrutinized can trigger eating-disordered behaviors even in people who are in recovery. Attempting to practice tough love is guaranteed to do more harm than good. The best thing you can do for a family member affected by an eating disorder is to find out what his or her safe foods are, make sure those foods are available and then steer the dinner-table conversation toward anything and everything that isn’t body size or food.

Even for those who don’t suffer from eating disorders, Thanksgiving dinner isn’t always a relaxing prospect.

That’s because most people have families. For some people, going home means enduring your less-than-understanding relatives’ ignorant comments about your choice to be vegetarian or vegan, or it means trying to maintain healthy portion sizes while supervised by an Italian grandmother who will cry if you don’t take seconds. And for some people, going home to the family means going home to a never-ending storm of criticism about weight and body size.

I’m consistently shocked at how many of my perfectly healthy and beautiful friends have been called fat, have been raked over the coals for negligible or imaginary weight gain or who simply have been skewered with disappointed looks and declarations of “You haven’t lost any weight” when they went home to visit their families. Mothers seem to be the most common culprits, but fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles can also be guilty.

If this is the type of situation that awaits you at home, go in prepared with a list of affirmations you can use to brush off hurtful comments. If you can tell yourself, “My doctor says I’m healthy” or “I’ve gained muscle this semester,” you can keep rude remarks in perspective.

Remember that critics almost always have their own reasons for tearing you down. Maybe your mom is insecure about her own weight and taking it out on you. Maybe your dad feels weird about how much you’ve grown. These explanations don’t excuse poor behavior; making loved ones feel like crap during the holidays is inexcusable and any adult should know better. But noting the motives behind mean remarks — and how little they have to do with you — makes it easier to identify those remarks for what they are: bulls**t.

Even if you are overweight according to your doctor, any flack you catch for being such during the holidays is still bulls**t. No one ever became healthier because her mother gave her a dirty look and said, “You’ve gained weight,” or her uncle asked if she was sure she wanted dessert. You deserve to enjoy the holidays without feeling bad about yourself — even if you’re pushing 500 pounds.

Email Tracey at tbh15@pitt.edu.