Stop Commenting On Other’s Eating Habits: It Can Have Detrimental Mental Health Effects
As we enter the fall season, we’re getting closer to big holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas.
All of these holidays typically involve some form of eating and celebrations with food, from candies on Halloween to a big turkey dinner on Thanksgiving.
Many of us have been involved in or witnessed that horribly uncomfortable moment when a relative or friend comments on how much we’re eating during a holiday dinner.
Comments surrounding other people’s eating habits, like “Wow, you’re going back for seconds?” or “You’re so skinny, you should have some more,” can be way more harmful than you think and are a surefire way to kill any positive vibes at the dinner table.
Whether it’s a holiday meal or not, you should never comment on someone’s eating habits. Pointing out how much or how little someone is eating, especially at a table full of people, isn’t going to help them. It’s going to humiliate them.
When someone says something with negative connotations about your food and how much you’re eating, it often sticks with you for the rest of the day and can make you insecure in a matter of seconds.
Stigmatizing someone’s eating habits and making passive-aggressive comments about the amount of food they’re eating and how they look can have detrimental effects on a person. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, weight discrimination can lead to depression, low self-esteem, and body dissatisfaction.
Millions of Americans, both male, and female, suffer from eating disorders, and you never can know for sure who has one just by looking at them or how much they’re eating. Therefore, it’s best to keep your thoughts about their eating habits to yourself.
You don’t have to necessarily comment on the amount of food to make a negative impact on someone. It can be any comment related to the food. If your cousin sat down at Thanksgiving dinner with a big plate of stuffing and you said, “Oh, I can’t have stuffing because there are too many carbs in it,” who is that helping?
brizmaker – stock.adobe.com- illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
We want our loved ones to feel safe and secure when they sit down for a meal with us, no matter what they choose to eat. If we make them feel insecure or unsafe, they won’t want to spend time with us anymore.
So, here’s what you should do as the holidays roll around and you start sharing more meals with people. Unless you’re a professional dietician or doctor and your loved one confides in you and asks for your opinion on what they should be eating, don’t say anything about what they have on their plate and how much they eat.
No one needs to hear unsolicited opinions on their meals or bodies during what’s supposed to be quality time together, whether it’s a holiday or not.
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