Shownotes
Episode 006
Handling the Holidays with a Loved One in Eating Disorder Recovery
In this episode of The Other Side of the Plate, hosts Laura Cohen and Jenny Gaines discuss managing the holidays when a loved one is not in residential or in-patient treatment and is able to be with their family at home (or able to travel with family for the holidays). They share strategies for caregivers to support their loved ones and the importance of self-care for caregivers, and the episode concludes with a look ahead to their next guest, Kevin Dunn, who will discuss the role of male caregivers in eating disorder recovery.
Also, the upcoming Weekend Workshop on November 22 will include discussion about handling the holidays when your loved one is in the hospital or in a residential treatment center and unable to be home.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
01:14 The Emotional Complexity of Holidays with an Eating Disorder
04:13 Personal Stories: Spending Holidays Differently
05:01 Preparing Ahead: Planning Meals, Routines, and Responses
08:52 Navigating Challenging Family Conversations
15:30 Setting Boundaries and Creating "Escape Plans"
19:35 Religious Considerations and Creating New Traditions
25:45 Giving Yourself Permission: This Is Temporary
30:12 Practical Tips: Holiday Outfits and Being Flexible
33:58 Closing and Preview of Next Episode
SUPPORT & RESOURCES
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
FEAST website:
FEAST flyer:
https://feast-ed.org/programs-and-services/
Resources:
Episode 3 - The Other Side Of The Plate Podcast
https://player.captivate.fm/episode/4fe0267f-7008-4717-b9bb-f1e3f9d07e11/
Laura and Jenni both recommend going back to listen to this episode for guidance on whether/how to tell family members about the eating disorder.
FEAST Weekend Workshops - F.E.A.S.T.
There’s still time to register for Workshop 6, Handling the Holidays, as part of FEAST’s Weekend Workshop series:
Saturday – November 22, 2025 at 12:00 Noon Eastern US / 5:00 PM UK
Led by Kate Craigen, PhD and Judy Krasna, F.E.A.S.T. Executive Director
Other resources:
- Navigating Ramadan with an Eating Disorder - F.E.A.S.T. webinar
- The Challenge of Holidays - F.E.A.S.T. blog post by Judy Krasna
Transcripts
Episode 006
Handling the Holidays with a Loved One in Eating Disorder Recovery
Host:
Welcome to The Other Side of the Plate, brought to you by FEAST—Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders… Together we'll share personal insights, connect you with professionals, and point you toward helpful resources. And as we say at FEAST: We're here because we've been there.
NOTE:
The content contained in this podcast is not a substitute
for professional or medical treatment, and it may not represent
the views and beliefs of FEAST. Always consult a medical
professional for medical advice and treatment recommendations.
Laura:
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Other Side of the Plate podcast. I'm Laura Cohen, and with me is my co-host Jenni Gaines.
Jenni:
Hi. Today we're going to be talking about a topic that all of us will have to manage: navigating the holidays when a loved one is dealing with an eating disorder.
Laura:
So we're going to acknowledge right now the emotional complexity of holidays. When you think of holidays, they're meant to be joyful, but for families impacted by eating disorders, there's always this holiday dichotomy—they can also be stressful and triggering.
Jenni:
Yeah, I know what you mean, Laura. Holidays are already stressful. They're so busy and there are so many activities and expectations, but then you add an eating disorder to it and it becomes even more complicated. The good news is there are concrete and actionable steps that you can take to support your loved one and yourself during the holiday season. That's what we're here to talk about.
Laura:
Yes. So let's get started. Let's jump right into it and talk about some of the challenges of the holidays. Some of these you may have thought of, some of them you may be surprised by. That's the purpose of this—to let you know what to look out for so you can plan ahead.
Holidays are centered around meals, sweets, indulgence. There's definitely a social and cultural emphasis on food and this in itself can be triggering. And then you add in family dynamics—we can't control what other people do and we 100% cannot control our relatives who may comment on food, body image. Often it's unintentional—they don't realize what they're doing in their everyday vernacular, and during the holidays this gets heightened so much more.
Other things: there are disruptions to your routine. You may be traveling. Schedule changes. Different environments can heighten stress. If you're going through refeeding your loved one right now, and you're in this set schedule and it's working out for you, and then all of a sudden you've got a holiday and mealtimes are different and you've got different people coming into your house or travel—that is all going to disrupt your routine.
And my favorite one: as the holidays wind down, you start to see the new year, new you messaging, and that societal pressure around weight, dieting, and self-improvement can intensify anxiety.
Jenni:
Definitely. Listening to you talk about all the challenges of the holidays reminds me that at the very beginning of our journey with my daughter—because of the social and cultural emphasis on food and everything about food during the holidays, because of the family dynamics that I knew would be there, and because of the disruptions to the routine when we were just settling into the three meals and three snacks a day and doing well—we chose to spend our holiday season at home with just us: our family, myself, my husband, and our three kids. And we explained to everyone else that we weren't going to be traveling to see them that year.
So I think it's going to depend on you, your family, your situation, where you are in the whole treatment and recovery process about how you're going to do it.
One thing that can be extremely helpful is preparing ahead of time for all of this. Anticipating what is it going to be, what is it going to look like, and how can I make this a better experience for all of us involved? If you have a treatment team, talking to your treatment providers about how to manage the holidays can be helpful in getting prepared in advance.
You can anticipate what some of the setbacks could be, what could some of the obstacles be? You can even, depending on where your loved one is in their recovery process, ask them: What would make you feel more supported or the most supported during the holidays? You can collaborate with the treatment team if your child is under 18. You can coordinate with your loved one if they're an adult and ask them how you can support them.
So making a plan together—does your loved one want to sit next to you during the holiday meal? For example, if someone at the holiday table makes a comment about something that's triggering, how do you want to handle that? Planning it in advance and having those ideas in mind ahead of time will make it so much easier, even if you have to practice a few times. Rehearse what you're going to say when someone says the wrong thing. Then you're more prepared and it takes some of the stress down.
And then planning your meals and maintaining routines. I know for me, once we got going with the refeeding, I definitely didn't want to mess that up because it was so hard to get to the point where she was eating enough to gain the weight that she needed to gain. So maintaining the routine as much as possible, especially on special holidays—a lot of times families will plan for a big meal in the middle of the day instead of eating the three meals a day that they might normally eat. And making sure that those three meals and three snacks still get in there. Even if you're going to go to your relative's house and eat the big meal at two o'clock, how can you make sure that your loved one is getting something every two to three hours, even with that holiday meal in place?
And then if you're going to be traveling, just be prepared that if you're having to stop and eat out or something, just in case that's not anything that your loved one is going to eat, you have snacks, you have extra food, you're ready with everything while you're traveling.
And then it's a good idea also to establish something to do after the big meal, if the big meal is part of your holiday. For example, if purging is an issue for your loved one, having some way to make sure that there's supervision there for about an hour, at least after the meal. Also if it's just stressful still for your loved one to eat and after the meal they're going to be having a lot of anxiety—that can sometimes be one of the most distressing times for someone in eating disorder recovery. So establishing something—taking a walk when we're at this holiday meal, let's just make sure and plan on taking a walk right after, a little slow walk outside, or listening to music, maybe playing a family game or something.
And then if the meal times are still hard for your loved one, being prepared with a distraction list. Ideas to use when there's resistance to eating or urges after eating to compulsively exercise or purge. If you're still in the time of the refeeding where you need those distractions, then just making sure that you have them with you for the holiday meal if you're at a relative's house or something. That can be helpful.
Laura:
Yeah, 100% agree with all of that. One big thing that I know I used to talk to families about all the time, and I had to do it when my daughter was in recovery, was navigating conversations, because they're challenging.
As I said earlier, we cannot control what anyone else says or does. We can only control our reactions to it. And when someone has an eating disorder, their reactions are so much more heightened. And it's tricky. Sometimes we talk about—and this isn't what we were going to get into today, but do you disclose to your family or friends about your loved one's eating disorder? I think we did have an episode about that though. I think it was one of our first ones, wasn't it, Jenni?
Jenni:
Episode three.
Laura:
Go back to episode three for that conversation about disclosing to families and friends, because that's an important topic when you talk about navigating conversations. Because if you're choosing to not tell your family and friends, it's harder to tell them what to say and not say, or at least it's not as impactful. And even if you tell them, sometimes they aren't great at it anyway. But at least they know why they're doing it.
So you want to have that conversation with the people that are going to be at the table. Let them know that we need to avoid any conversations about food and body, body comparisons, conversations about "oh my gosh, this is fattening," "oh, I need to go run after this," "I need to go do the Turkey trot"—whatever those things are. Those are normal conversations, unfortunately, that happen over the holidays. Make that point to say, can we not do that this year? Ever, but definitely not this year.
And you may have to rehearse that. You may have to rehearse those responses with your family members—showing how we may just change that subject. Have your kiddos who are in recovery know how to do that, or we will do it for them.
I'll tell you the one group that are challenging is our elder population. Grandparents are tricky. They don't get it. Even if you try to explain it, they don't always get it. And it's hard. So sometimes I would even say to my daughter, "Poppy's going to say this, and we're not going to be able to change it. These are our beliefs, we know what our beliefs are, and I can't control grandma saying this." In some cultures, they are much more body-focused.
So you can try hard to not have someone make those comments, but sometimes it's going to happen. So let your loved one know that this just may happen and what are we going to do about it? That we're going to support you through it.
Modeling neutral language. So if you start hearing people talk about good and bad food—"oh, I'm going to have that decadent dessert," or "this is going to be bad for me," "I'm going to cheat today"—trying to say, we don't talk that way at our table. Negative body commentary. Guilt-based language. "Cheat day" is the big one. Or "this is a cheat food for me." Or "I'm going to let myself go during the holidays."
Any of those type of conversations you want to try to avoid. I've definitely been in one too many of those situations with our family. Even when I tell them and they understand, the comments still come out. I can give them the evil eye, but I just had to work with my daughter and be prepared: it's going to happen. What about you, Jenni? Any situations that you can think of that happened?
Jenni:
Oh, definitely. There were certain family members that I knew would, not on purpose, but just say things mostly referring to themselves: "I'm full. I overate. I'm going to need to work out extra at the gym."
And speaking of rehearsing responses, for me, I always had these intentions. I'm going to say something thoughtful. When they say a triggering remark, in the moment you get a little emotional, you get to where you kind of want to jump on them. I already told you not to say this. I already said we weren't going to have any talk of food or body at the table this season. And you're already falling back into it.
So I just would say something simple: "Let's change the subject." I could remember that—it's just the most basic thing that you can say, even if you find yourself saying it multiple times in the same conversation during the same meal. "Let's change the subject," as matter-of-factly as possible, and hopefully they'll get it and move on. And preparing your loved one for the inevitable fact that it's probably going to happen.
Laura:
I have a family member who's been staying with me a lot recently, and he's older. I never knew this about him, but he makes a lot of comments about, "oh, I've been eating so much here. I'm not used to eating three meals a day. When I go back home, I'm going to have to diet."
And Jenni, I literally looked at him and I said, "We don't talk about dieting in our house." And he was surprised. He knows everything. And he just looked at me and he goes, "Why?" And I go, "Well, A, because I don't want to talk about that. And B, we live in a recovery-focused household." I mean, he knows everything. And he just was incredulous: "I don't understand why those correlate together."
So yeah. Don't think people understand, because they don't. You may just have to have those uncomfortable conversations. In this situation, I'm not changing him. He's 88 years old.
Jenni:
Definitely. Yeah. That's a good example of why we need to remind them repeatedly and just keep going, keep moving forward.
Another way that you can plan to have your holidays be less stressful when there's an eating disorder is to set some boundaries and maybe have some escape plans in place. This is something that we did even within our own family. My daughter was very new with refeeding and I was considering the entire family at the holiday meal, and so I came up with a way ahead of time for her to let me know that she just could not eat, that it was too stressful for her and she needed to leave to go eat her food.
So we talked in advance that if it got too hard and she didn't want to put her siblings through the whole thing, I would notice and say, "I need some help in the kitchen." I think I just said, "Do you want to come help me in the kitchen?" And if she said yes, that meant she needed an exit. And if she said, "I'm okay," then we could keep going. But that was our code word or signal or code question to let her know: let's go and eat just me and you somewhere so that you can get through this meal, because she knew she had to.
Holiday food was harder for her than what we were eating every other day. And it was just a heightened distress situation for the entire family. And because I knew it was going to be hard, we scheduled some pre- and post-event stress-reducing activities. Depending on you and your family situation and what you do, you can build this in. It could be something—some quiet time with music or something before you eat, and then a walk after you eat.
What we did is that we had a thousand-piece puzzle. My daughter loves puzzles. The more challenging, the better. She absolutely loves puzzles. So we had already started one ahead of the holiday season and that was a good place to go before something holiday was going to happen. And then after she got through one of her meals, and then the whole family could join in, and it was just a helpful way to diffuse what could be a stressful situation.
That's what helped us. And then also there's so much stress with family members and friends and all of your normal holiday obligations. You kind of have this pull toward, let's keep the holidays as much the same as we can. I want it to be the same traditions, the same experiences, do the same things.
And what I learned through my experience was I needed to put a lot of that on hold, including my own expectations. And I needed to prioritize my daughter's recovery over everyone else and over everything. So if it was going to make people uncomfortable that I wasn't going to go visit them during the holidays, that was okay. I just let that be okay so that we could focus on what we needed to do, even if people said things, even if people didn't understand.
And during probably the first couple of years of my daughter's treatment and recovery, I did very few holiday events that I used to do—parties and gatherings and traditions just kind of stepped aside and I knew it was temporary. Giving myself permission to do that without the guilt helped me focus on my daughter and getting through that time.
Laura:
Yeah. I always say to families, this is for now, it's not forever. It feels forever, but it's literally for just now.
Jenni:
Exactly. Yeah.
Laura:
I remember one thing someone once said to me, and it's so true: in every religion or every culture, there's some type of holiday that incorporates fasting or some type of food restriction. And what do you do about those? You can have Ramadan, you can have Yom Kippur, you could have Lent—you're giving something up. So these all get tricky with someone with an eating disorder or someone in recovery.
Know that fasting is not good for you. Speak with your religious leader and let them know. I only know my own situation. It's actually not supposed to fast in the Jewish religion for the holidays if you have a medical condition. So I know in other religions you could do the same thing. So speak to your religious leader to get that feedback, because it's also a way for the eating disorder to get sneaky. It may be, "oh, I need to do this because I need to fast. All of a sudden I'm very religious." And you're wondering, is that the eating disorder? Make sure to have those conversations because it's actually a better thing to not do the fast.
And we know for the eating disorder, but also even for the religion. So definitely speaking with your religious leader there. We also want to think about creating new traditions. If you think about holidays culturally, so much is around food, right? Jenni was talking about different things that she may not do. I know a lot of families may do cookie swaps or just different things, and there are things that maybe you look forward to every year. And you know what? There are things that you can do that aren't related to food—create some new traditions, right?
I know a family friend invited us over the holidays and they said they watch a particular movie at that holiday. You could start something—focus on a movie or go out and see the Christmas lights or whatever it is. Go out and see some holiday lights. Driving around looking at decorations—that could be something to do that's not around food. The puzzles or you could do a game that you guys can all play. But that's not based around food. And these can be new traditions and these could also help bring your loved one into something without having to accommodate them. It's got to be exhausting when someone's accommodated all the time. So if you do something that has nothing to do with food and bring some joy into the holiday and the togetherness that's so special.
And ask your loved one—have them come up with the ideas with you. Maybe you have some type of arts and crafts project that you're going to do, or a competition you're going to do with something. But don't think about—I mean, do think about acknowledging yourself during the holidays. As I said in our intro, holidays are joyful and they're stressful. So they're stressful on a regular year with all the dynamics that happen. And sometimes holidays are hard times when you don't have family. If they remind you of missing family or missing things that aren't the same anymore, holidays can be hard. And then you put the eating disorder on top of it.
So trying to give yourself that self-care and that space is going to be essential. Always being flexible. Being flexible—I wish you could just get that tattooed somewhere to remind you. Just being flexible despite all the preparations, challenges still may arise. You may not even think about it. It may be something that comes up that you did not anticipate.
One thing that just came to my mind that I wanted to bring up, which again, this could be a challenge or it could be a known challenge, is you may be having a holiday with your extended family. And maybe your kiddo's cousin also has an eating disorder. Maybe if that family's not getting treatment for their daughter's eating disorder, even though it could be clear as day that this child is struggling. And that's challenging because eating disorders do that whole comparison game.
And I've worked with families so many times that are struggling because—we're going to have a hard time on this family trip because this particular family member, the way she looks in a bathing suit naturally triggers my child. Or they could just be someone that diets a lot or that has an eating disorder. Just talking about that beforehand. You're not going to be able to change another family member if they've got a challenging behavior, but acknowledge that to your loved one: you're getting the treatment, you're getting the help, it makes sense that that's going to be triggering for you. Because that situation has come up multiple times.
Also not forgetting the siblings. This is where sometimes it gets hard because everything winds up being around the person in recovery. Naturally they're getting all the attention, but also thinking about the siblings that are being impacted. So you don't want to take everything or stop everything. And also letting them know the same thing, that this is just for right now, this isn't forever. And maybe they can go have some special time during the holidays as well.
Modifying rituals. I kind of just talked about that. If your holidays include faith-based rituals fasting, talking with your loved one's team about that and your religious leader to come up with some modifications for that.
Jenni:
Yeah. I love that you reminded everyone about this just being temporary because I think for me, heading into that first holiday season, I was wanting everything to be the same as it has always been. I wanted my daughter to enjoy all the things that she had always enjoyed, and I could clearly see that wasn't going to happen.
And I think looking back on it, if I had just been able to accept that this is temporary. So this holiday season isn't going to look like it usually does, but that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be some meaningful moments sprinkled in there. And that I actually had some agency there—how could I create some meaning that was different than it usually is? That was new. That didn't have to do with the food traditions, that didn't have to do with some of the holiday events that we normally attended or participated in.
And I think if anyone right now is about to go into a holiday season, just giving themselves grace on what their holidays might look like. Maybe they're not going to decorate this year. Maybe they're not going to have the holiday party that they usually throw for everyone in their community. Maybe they're going to say no to all the invitations. Maybe they're going to have to tell their mom, "No, we're not coming this year. We're not going to be able to make it."
But just giving yourself kind of that permission for it to be different and then allowing for there to still be some joy somewhere, even if you have to create it in a unique way. Well, we talked about a lot today, and it's going to be different for every single family, just like it is with every other topic that we talk about. But hopefully some of this was helpful.
I'll just recap some of the things that we suggested. First of all, listening, validating, and supporting your loved one through this, through the holidays, and even asking them: How can I help? Sometimes asking them and including them can be one of the most powerful tools you can use.
Also encouraging collaboration with your loved one if they're an adult and/or their treatment team in advance. Doing everything you can to anticipate what could happen and planning ahead of time. Planning the meals, planning how to respond in conversations when people say things that you've already asked them not to say. As Laura said, even if you've told them multiple times.
And then just keeping the routines, making sure you're still meeting all the requirements of their meal plan, even if the holiday schedule is different than the everyday schedule. Have some distractions and some grounding techniques ready and available. I think my favorite go-to grounding for myself and my daughter when emotions ran high was just walking outside.
I remember when my babies were little, they were crying and I tried all the things and it didn't work. For whatever reason, if I just took a step outside the door into nature, they automatically calmed down. And so that's something I used then for emotions that I couldn't regulate. And then I used it a lot—especially if you don't have anything with you or you don't want to do a grounding exercise right in front of everyone, you can just leave and step outside for a few minutes and see what you can see, smell, hear, and that can help.
And also what Laura reminded everyone of is taking care of yourself during the holidays. A little self-care can go a long way toward protecting your well-being so that you can keep going after the holidays and you can keep being there to support your loved one.
And so I think overall, just remembering holidays even without the eating disorder can be a lot. With the eating disorder, they can be even trickier, but with preparation and advanced planning, they can also still be wonderful memories that you build with your family. And it can give you something to look forward to, knowing that this is temporary and we will be able to do all of the things in the future and celebrate in all the ways that we used to celebrate if we prioritize recovery today.
Laura:
Yeah, that's all so important. There was one thing we forgot to talk about that came to me after you summed that up so beautifully. I'm going to pop one more thing in there: outfits, holiday outfits, and getting dressed. I know for us, my daughter, what would usually spark everything off would be she would have to go get dressed for dinner or going out or whatever. And it was just the crying that she couldn't find anything. And that would just set off the whole tone.
So if you could try to figure that out before the moment they have to get dressed, because listen, clothes fit differently and they're very self-conscious. So it's a combination of both of those things. And you know, because our holiday clothes are not necessarily our sweatpants that we're wearing all the time, right? And also it would be awesome if you have a holiday that you can wear sweatpants, right? So even if it's at your house, maybe make it more casual, and we can't always control that. But definitely if you can't control it, thinking about having that discussion beforehand. Maybe you're going to have to go get a stretchy skirt or something that is going to feel more comfortable on your loved one going through treatment—going through recovery. So just something we didn't think about until you were talking.
Jenni:
That's a very good point. And then also just maybe allowing some extra time. If you anticipate that getting dressed and leaving, there may be some distress there. That can cause stress for everyone in the family, depending on how extreme it gets. And maybe having multiple backups—the stretchy skirt, maybe backups for backups. And allowing that extra time so that if you needed to be somewhere at a certain time and she or he wanted to go, that it's not going to make everyone unable to go.
Laura:
It could even be hair. I mean, the whole thing. The whole thing unravels once it starts, so yeah.
Jenni:
And then also, now that we're talking about this, being okay with some things not going totally the way that you hoped they would go and not making that a failure on anyone's part. It's no one's fault the eating disorder interfered. We had countless memories, not even around holidays, but just around important events that definitely didn't go the way we had hoped they would go. And at a certain point, you just have to let go of those and say, the most important thing is that we make sure she's okay and we missed out on this occasion. But it's okay. So I think just accepting that.
Laura:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So remember this holiday season, your support matters more than ever. Take it one meal, one bite, one conversation, and one moment at a time.
Our next episode, we are going to have a conversation with a dear friend of mine who is a male caregiver, who is going to share his perspective of the role of how male caregivers can help in eating disorder recovery, because there are a lot of things that we don't think about. A lot of things are always focused on the moms and the women. Let me tell you something, dads, male caregivers—they make a huge difference. So I'm excited for Kevin Dunn to come speak with us in our next episode.
Jenni:
I am too. I cannot wait to talk to Kevin.
Closing
Thank you for joining us at the Other Side of the Plate. If today's episode gave you hope or guidance, we invite you to explore more resources and peer support at feasted.org. Remember, you are never alone. For more conversations of hope and help for families facing eating disorders, please join us for our next episode.
