the
washington
post
.thursday,
november
11,
2021DC12
Wellness
CHANELLE NIBBELINK FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTBY PAM MOORET
he holiday season means holiday gather-
ings. Gatherings, of course, mean food,
and food — especially the treats that make
an appearance at only certain times of the
year — often leads to talk about the effect
on our waistlines. For people with a fraught relation-
ship with food and their bodies, these conversations
can be stressful, draining and sometimes toxic.
Marquisele Mercedes is no stranger to such talk.
When she was accepted to her first-choice graduate
program, a close family member offered congratula-
tions along with unsolicited advice: “Now you reallyneed to start to focus on your health and your
weight.” “That was like a gut punch,” she recalls.
Mercedes, whose research at Brown University looks
into how racism and fatphobia affect public health,
is among the 9 percent of Americans who experience
an eating disorder at some point in their lives.
Whether you’re in treatment for an eating disor-
der or simply trying to cultivate a healthier relation-
ship with food and your body, diet talk surrounding
holiday meals — particularly around the Thanksgiv-
ing table — can be hard to digest.
And this year, the pressure to physically “glow up”
certainly hasn’t helped. Mercedes says that, because
of “a very specific fixation on the quote-unquoteAn unsavory season of diet talk
For those with a fraught relationship with food, holiday meals can be stressful. Here’s how to navigate harmful discussions.