Spring Break in Eating Disorder Recovery: Prioritizing Your Recovery
Spring break is a one- to two-week academic vacation at many American colleges, often associated with travel, relaxation, and socializing. Stereotypes around beach destinations, partying, and appearance can create intense pressure, especially when conversations turn toward weight, bodies, and food. For many students, spring break in eating disorder recovery can feel particularly challenging, as diet talk, crash dieting, starvation, and weight-loss supplements are often normalized both before and during travel.
Spring Break in Eating Disorder Recovery: Understanding the Challenges
With all of this, it’s easy to see how spring break culture can be damaging for those working toward recovery.
In this blog, we’ll discuss ways to prioritize your recovery and stay committed to your future self amid harmful “spring break” talk.
Take Personal Responsibility
As difficult as it can be to acknowledge, recovery is a personal decision and responsibility for those with eating disorders. No one else can make you choose or pursue recovery. This is why setting boundaries and taking ownership of your decisions and actions, whether recovery-oriented or not, is so important. While recognizing that you are responsible for your recovery and future can feel intimidating, it can also be liberating and empowering. Even during spring break, you still have the choice to prioritize healing, despite diet talk or external pressure.
Surround Yourself With Supportive People and a Supportive Environment
As the saying goes, “you are a product of your environment,” meaning your surroundings and the people you spend time with can strongly influence your beliefs, habits, and behaviors. When your environment aligns with your values and goals, it becomes easier to make choices that support your well-being.
This is especially true during spring break in eating disorder recovery, when travel, social plans, and peer pressure may increase. Surrounding yourself with supportive people and recovery-aligned environments can help you continue moving forward, rather than feeling pulled back into harmful patterns.
Reflect Upon Your “Whys”
When the people around you are talking about weight loss, crash diets, and extreme exercise, it can be incredibly difficult to stay grounded in recovery. During spring break in eating disorder recovery, reflecting on your “whys” for choosing healing can be especially helpful.
You chose a different way of thinking and living for a reason. Take time to reflect on the freedoms recovery has brought into your life. Are you happier? More focused or clear-headed? More present in your relationships and experiences?
Practice Gratitude
Instead of focusing on perceived “failures” or “shortcomings” of your body, practice finding gratitude for what your body allows you to do rather than how it looks. Shifting your focus in this way can be grounding when body image pressure feels louder.
Appreciating your body for helping you experience the world and create memories can lessen the urge to fixate on appearance. This might look like journaling gratitude for your legs because they carry you through daily life, or for your arms because they allow you to hold loved ones close. Keep it simple, there is no need to overcomplicate gratitude.
Spring Break in Eating Disorder Recovery: When Extra Support Can Help
If you or someone you love is struggling with food and body distress, seeking eating disorder treatment as we move into the warmer months can be especially important. BALANCE, an eating disorder treatment center in NYC, is in-network with UnitedHealthcare, (UHC), Cigna, Emblem, and Oscar, with Aetna coverage coming soon. BALANCE offers a short-term Spring Break Program to support eating disorder recovery during spring break and seasonal transitions. With programming available 7 days a week, including weekends, clients receive consistent support during times of increased stress. This 14-day intensive eating disorder recovery program provides an opportunity to strengthen your recovery with BALANCE’s expert, compassionate care. 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, Tori Barkosky (she/her).
Tori is a graduate of St. Catherine University, having earned a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Nutrition Science. Tori is passionate about all things related to intuitive eating, HAES, mental health, body respect, eating disorders, and disordered eating. Tori currently works as a Mental Health Practitioner at an eating disorder clinic and teaches yoga. Outside of work, Tori enjoys finding new coffee shops, exploring nature, and spending time with family and loved ones. She is also a self-published author of a memoir, Release, concerning her recovery from anorexia nervosa.
