Nourishing Your Body When Comfort Foods Feel Complicated This Holiday Season
Holiday comfort foods often evoke feelings of warmth, familiarity, and togetherness. Whether it is a recipe you remember from childhood, passed down through generations, or a seasonal treat you’ve been craving, these foods can bring happiness, joy, and connection. However, comfort foods may also stir up guilt, anxiety, or confusion, especially when navigating how to nourish your body during the holiday season.
Navigating Comfort Foods During the Holidays
Holiday comfort foods come in many forms and can spark different emotions for each person. These seasonal dishes can be a way to nourish your body while evoking positive memories and traditions. However, during eating disorder recovery, these foods may also trigger emotional spirals or feel like a “slip-up” instead of enjoying your favorite foods. This can make your relationship with holiday comfort foods feel messy or complicated, but you are not alone, and your feelings are valid.
Here are three tips for learning how to combat these feelings so you can continue to enjoy your favorite comfort foods during the holiday season:
Redefine “Comfort Foods”
During the holiday season, following your intuitive hunger cues with the support of your treatment team can help you recognize what your body needs and how you feel in the moment. Maybe your body is craving warmth from a cozy seasonal meal or rest after a busy day of festivities. Comfort foods can be a meaningful part of your holiday toolkit, but you can also engage in your favorite end-of-the-year traditions, hobbies, or relaxation techniques to help you feel comfortable throughout the holidays.
Take A Neutral Approach To Food
During the holidays, diet culture often pushes the narrative of labeling seasonal and comfort foods as either “good” or “bad,” which can create feelings of shame and guilt. These thoughts can make it harder to feel truly nourished or present during the season. Instead, try viewing all holiday foods as morally neutral and focusing on what they mean to you. This can look like the joy they bring in the moment or the special memories and traditions they represent with friends and family.
Focus On Adding Instead of Restricting
During the holiday season, diet culture often perpetuates the idea that we should restrict certain festive foods to meet unrealistic beauty standards. This can create a painful paradox between wanting to nourish your body and enjoying the comfort foods tied to holiday traditions.
Talking with your treatment team and loved ones can help you find ways to create holiday meals with comfort foods that are enjoyable, and nourishing. This can also be an opportunity to practice tuning into your feelings as you reintroduce or try new seasonal foods, allowing you to build a more peaceful relationship with them.
Get Eating Disorder Support This Holiday Season
If food anxiety is making the holiday season feel overwhelming, help is available. BALANCE’s 14-Day Winter Program is designed to help you find food freedom in a compassionate, supportive environment while navigating the unique pressures of the holidays. This short-term, structured program provides evidence-based care.
BALANCE eating disorder treatment center™, located in New York City, offers free consultation calls to help you explore next steps. We provide in-person programming seven days a week and are in-network with UnitedHealthcare (UHC), Cigna, Emblem, and Oscar, with Aetna coverage coming soon. Support is available, and recovery is possible. Schedule a free consultation call with our admissions team here and stay connected with BALANCE on Instagram here.
This post was written by BALANCE Blog Contributor, Regina Colie (she/her).
Regina Colie is a blog contributor for BALANCE, where she has written posts covering a wide range of eating disorder topics. She has received her Master’s degrees in Psychology and Healthcare Administration, and currently works at Mount Sinai Hospital. After attending Marymount Manhattan College, she had the opportunity to be published in Dr. Nava Silton’s book, The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Child, Adolescent, and Adult Development.
