Someone who struggles with food or body image may need extra support to get through family gatherings, holiday meals and overall social activities. Below are some tips on how to support a loved one during family or food centric events.
1. Acknowledge that these holidays may be stressful
Sit down with the person and identify the stressors that they may experience in these situations. Listen to their concerns about what they may experience or have anxiety about in these situations. If the person is seeing a mental health professional, this is also a great time to encourage holding a session to discuss these concerns and develop coping strategies for these encounters.
2. Validate, acknowledge and listen
Listen to their concerns and make an attempt to understand their perspective. Holidays can often create stress for your loved one when eating and body image concerns are present. These types of events can cause familial conflict and stress for your loved one as well with other family members. Additionally, making time to check in with your own feelings and validating your own experience is important during holidays as well. Family and supporting people often experience the same amount of stress when supporting family as it is for the person who is directly struggling with these issues. Be aware of being compassionate towards your loved one as well as your own needs during this time.
3. Come up with a plan
Come up with a plan on how to get through each event. This may be having strategies on how to prepare for, manage through and decompress after an event. There may need to be a plan for how to communicate or how much is communicated to family about these struggles. Additionally, how to manage through food related activities as well as comments from others. Lastly, devise plans if there is a need for in-the-moment support or unforeseen stresses. This can be as simple as coming up with a timeline and sticking to it or having a neutral word to signal to use if the event is causing too much distress for the person in the moment.
4. Keep things structured as much as possible
Outside of these events, making sure that moderation, balance and variety is unkempt can help weather the impact of these celebrations. As much as possible, creating stability in between can help with easing anxieties and offer consistency that can help lessen the impact that these events can create.
5. Create a purpose for holiday events that do not center around food
Take time to identify with your loved one a different purpose for these celebrations that are not food centric. Some examples can be looking forward to spending time with family members or certain family activities during the celebration (i.e. building a snowman, family get-together games, etc). Remembering that the holidays can be fun for different reasons that do not include food can be an essential part of supporting a loved one through these events and serves as a reminder of what the true meaning behind such celebrations are for all.
