Indulgence, punishment and family dynamics: Maintaining a healthy relationship with food during the holiday season

They call Christmas sweet, but for some, the holiday season can be a bitter pill. Food plays a central role during these dates, all socializing taking place at a table, with family. We tolerate excesses of alcohol, desserts and hyper-caloric dishes with festive indulgence, though afterwards we may start the new year with Spartan rigidity, signing up for the gym and putting ourselves on a diet. This duality of reward-punishment is not ideal when it comes to maintaining a healthy relationship with food, warn experts.

Holidays can signal a return to the family dynamics from our childhood. Relationships with food are often hereditary, learned from our parents. But what happens when their attitudes about eating are not always positive, and a large family reunion means coming face-to-face with behaviors and comments about our physical appearance?

This is one of the subjects explored by the book How to Eat Well at Every Age by psychologist Jane Ogden (Routledge). In general, food can unite people, improve well-being and create memories, says the expert. “Food can offer a source of pleasure, structure and an easy excuse to spend time with friends and family,” she says. The situation becomes more complicated when we understand that some beliefs that have been passed down to us about food and body image are not constructive, and that food can also be utilized to manage emotions, particularly during stressful family gatherings.

Parents play a primary role in our relationship with food. Having an obese parent triples our risk of suffering from obesity when we are middle-aged, and having two obese parents can multiply the risk by six, according to a study presented at the latest European Congress on Obesity. Genetic factors can’t entirely explain this predisposition, which appears to have both environmental and educational components — factors that can be exaggerated at this time of year.

“Our nutritional behavior is governed by restriction, disinhibition and hunger,” says Violeta Moizé, a dietitian-nutritionist at Barcelona’s Hospital Clínic. “And these three processes vary throughout our life, our day, and even by the time of year. There are many studies that show how we tend to gain weight during vacations.” That happens due to a rupture with routine. We leave the Tupperware and the gym behind, while the dinners out, the drinks with friends and sedentary lifestyle can be on the uptick. It can happen during the summertime, but during the winter holidays this kind of shift, though concentrated into fewer days, can be much greater.

A 2016 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed the weight fluctuations of 2,924 participants from three countries during a 12-month period. The participants monitored their weight constantly, and the pattern of weight changes showed a linear tendency peaking with the Christmas season. Measurements revealed that participants gained between 0.4% and 0.6% of their weight during this time. That means a little over a pound for a 175-pound person. That may not seem like much, but the study showed that practically all participants kept that weight on after the holidays. It can add up. Effects are more pronounced in people who are initially overweight, according to a previous meta-analysis published in the scientific journal Nutrients.

Triple the Christmas

At Christmas dinner, people can consume up to 6,000 calories, triple the recommended daily intake. That can repeat at the office holiday party, dinner with friends, Christmas Eve, and other gastronomically inclined festivities. By the end of it, we are full — and ready for a dramatic nutritional shift. After the excess comes the correction, the compensation. The punishment. In a recent survey by the Orlando Health hospital network, 39% of respondents reported being worried about how they eat during the holiday season. A quarter of them said they would be skipping meals to save calories afterwards. Binge and fast.

This comprises one of the most common New Year’s resolutions. Gyms report a rise in new members at the beginning of January, and more than 12% of annual inscriptions take place during this period. Still, according to several studies, only around one-fifth will continue with their exercise goals beyond the first weeks of the year.

Celebrating with family eating and drinking around the table is nothing dramatic. Nor does it seem all that bad starting the year with new goals and desires to improve. But perhaps it’s interesting to reflect on how these two acts describe our relationship with food: how what happens during the holiday season, its culture of excess and effort, that of the prize and punishment, defines something that goes beyond the parties. “We might ask ourselves why the way we celebrate centers on eating, drinking and shopping,” reflects Moizé. “But in any case, the problem isn’t Christmas — it’s the days that come after it.”

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