Disclaimer: This article discusses weight-restrictive eating disorders and body issues, which some may find triggering. It does not aim to give medical advice, but instead to encourage a new perspective on society’s fear of fat and ceasing its obsession with dieting.
Heavy, restrictive dieting cannot directly cause an eating disorder, instead, it triggers an eating disorder in a person who is already genetically predisposed to one. It is estimated that approximately 1.25 million people in the UK currently suffer from an eating disorder. However, you don’t need an eating disorder diagnosis to validate your struggles around food and weight.
While not everyone has that predisposition and may be able to get away with various cycles of on-and-off dieting, it isn’t by any means a healthy or happy way to live.
With 2025 now in full swing and the festive season behind us, the talk of diet plans and weight-centric New Year’s resolutions will soon follow, which must be one of the worst perpetrators of the “January Blues.”
Mark, 23, from Newcastle Upon Tyne, has struggled with an eating disorder since he was a child and said: “Around this time of year I feel so compelled to lose weight because everyone else is […] Once it gets to January I tend to really cut back on what I eat”. Mark says he’s felt like that every year for as long as he can remember and has never had a good relationship with how he eats or looks. As a child, “the topic of weight loss was always on my Mam’s and all of Auntie’s minds, with whatever diets they were on, especially when we’d go shopping for clothes.”
“People have been sold the story that there is something wrong with their bodies”
I spoke with Tabitha Farrar, an eating disorder recovery coach who has been helping adults with eating disorders since 2009. On the subject of weight loss being a common New Year’s resolution, Farrar said: “The media focuses a lot on weight loss as New Year’s resolutions because weight loss sells. This is part of a bigger cultural issue where people have been sold the story that there is something wrong with their bodies because when people believe they need to change their bodies they are generally good consumers. Consumers of products and methods that promise change. Be aware of this over Christmas and New Year. You are being marketed to and unhappiness sells products whereas contentedness doesn’t.”
As far back as 2013, Susan Elkin asked The Independent’s readers, “Britain’s diet industry is worth £2 billion, so why do we buy into it?”. More recent data shows that the average UK adult spends £20,000 on weight loss products, fat diet trends and low-fat foods in their lifetime. These companies are profiting from making sure people are never completely comfortable in their bodies and keeping them trapped as easy, unhappy consumers.
“I just want to know if it’ll ever go away”
Most profoundly, Mark said: “I just want to know if it’ll ever go away. Food is something I’ve had issues with since I was little”.
These flawed ideals are engrained in our minds because of society’s obsession with thinness. Farrar addressed these types of concerns, saying: “They need to address their fear of weight gain. Once they teach their brain out of that, it will go away for good. Until then, it will always be there in some form.”
This advice may sound blunt on the surface (and of course comes easier with the support of dedicated professionals like Farrar, who have helped countless people recover from their innate fear of weight gain) but it is true: you’re very unlikely to move away from deep-rooted body and food-related issues if you’re still trying to suppress your weight and change your body.
At this point, some people reading may think, “Well what if someone is overweight or obese, don’t they need to diet?”
When someone diets to lose weight, their body can’t tell the difference between that diet and a famine. So, the body stores extra fat to protect from that perceived famine. This keeps happening each time the person diets because the body’s famine response is repeatedly triggered.
It shows that, overall, our culture towards weight and food is only further perpetuating the very thing we’re told is wrong – and continues to benefit the weight-loss industry.
It’s important to remember that a person can be in a state of starvation without being medically underweight too. Studies have found that anyone who heavily restricts their intake will experience a range of mental and physical problems regardless of their weight and that “the effects of an undernourished brain bring with it fear and anxiety about body shape, weight, appearance, and eating”.
What we need to do is listen to our hunger, stop striving for thinness, and stop allowing false ideals popularised by capitalistic greed to tell us how they think our bodies work.
We need to listen to our hunger, stop striving for thinness, and stop allowing false ideals popularised by capitalistic greed
To put it more succinctly, in a blog post on her website, Farrar says we live in “a culture that is terrified of weight gain and still convinced that dieting is the answer, despite […] the science that shows us that dieting behaviour contributes greatly to weight gain”. Adding “The idea that unrestricted eating leads to obesity is based in fear, not fact”.
I asked Farrar what she thought a better New Year’s resolution might be, aside from trying to lose weight. She said, “Take the focus off your body and look at having a resolution that increases your skill set. Resolve to learn something, or get better at doing something. Or just don’t have a resolution at all!”
Taking the focus away from the body will likely take a huge weight off the shoulders of anyone who has struggled with an eating disorder. The extreme power of relaxing, eating what your body really craves, and blocking out the noise that tells you to do otherwise is such a relief, and I hope that anyone reading knows that it’s possible to reach that point.
Here are some links to some relevant support services and information:
The UK’s Eating Disorder Charity – Beat
What is Health At Every Size? — Isa Robinson Nutrition
Eating Disorder Recovery for Adults by Tabitha Farrar
Full Interview with Tabitha Farrar.
Kai: You’ve been helping people with eating disorders for some years now, do you think that the Christmas/New Year period is a particularly rough point of the year for people with eating disorders and those on restrictive diets who struggle with body issues?
Tabitha: It can be. For a person actively engaging in a restrictive eating disorder, Christmas is a bit of a nightmare because there is food everywhere. Humans bond over sharing food. Hence, you are not going to get any sort of Christmas gathering without food and or drink present. For most people, this is one of the delights of Christmas. For a person with an eating disorder, it can represent added pressure and stress.
People with eating disorders are hungry all the time. We want to eat all the time. Having food surrounding us is stressful because as much as we want to eat we are terrified of weight gain. Being surrounded by all of the delicious food all around at Christmas usually leads us to increase our engagement in bodyweight suppression behaviours such as exercise as we anticipate being tempted to eat more. I remember when I had an eating disorder I resented Christmas because I felt that it forced me to have to increase my rigorous exercise and restriction even more.
A lot of this is what l term “Event Restriction.” This is when a person restricts more in anticipation of eating more later. Most people with eating disorders will even restrict leading up to Christmas day. So they will try and increase their restriction in the weeks preceding Christmas. I would start event restricting at the beginning of December and after a number of years this caused me to dread December. Because I was restricting even more than usual in December, I was more agitated, irritable, and tired. I wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs at the best of times when I had an eating disorder but I was even more miserable in December.
Kai: Some people may think “Okay, I’m not going to focus on losing weight or dieting” and really try to break from that toxic culture. But, once they do, that feeling of needing to go to the gym, needing to cut down on snacks, and other typical, nagging feelings of guilt start to creep in. What should people do or think to keep pushing through that?
Tabitha: People need to be able to identify the fear of weight gain that is the core of an eating disorder. Once you understand that the feeling of guilt, shame, disgust, and regret after eating are due to fear of weight gain, then they are more able to ignore and act in opposition to these feelings. Just because something feels true doesn’t mean that it is. Understanding that these feelings are generated by fear assists us in being able to override them.
Kai: Losing weight tends to be the New Year’s resolution of someone who wants to feel better about themselves and thinks that weight loss is the best route. What would you argue is a better and healthier New Year’s resolution?
Tabitha: Pretty much anything. Take the focus off your body and look at having a resolution that increases your skill set. Resolve to learn something, or get better at doing something. Or just don’t have a resolution at all!
Kai: I’ve recently reread your book, ‘Love Fat’, and there is a section where you talk about how you made excuses not to eat the gravy or the roast potatoes at Christmas. How did that affect your mood around Christmas and your relationship with your family?
Tabitha: When I had an eating disorder, it dominated about every family meal. It was on everyone’s mind. My family always desperate for me to eat more, and I was desperate to avoid eating more. When there is an eating disorder at the table it is never a good time.
Kai: I recently interviewed someone who has struggled with an ED since they were a child but have periods of relative normality. They said “I just want to know if it’ll ever go away. Food is something I’ve had issues with since I was little”. What would you say to this?
Tabitha: They need to address their fear of weight gain. Once they teach their brain out of that, it will go away for good. Until then, it will always be there in some form.
Kai: On this subject, is there anything else that I haven’t asked that you’d like to say or you think would be important for me to discuss in this article?
Tabitha: The media focuses a lot on weight loss as New Years resolutions because weight loss sells. This is part of a bigger cultural issue where people have been sold the story that there is something wrong with their bodies because when people believe they need to change their bodies they are generally good consumers. Consumers of products and methods that promise change. Be aware of this over Christmas and New Year. You are being marketed to and unhappiness sells products whereas contentedness doesn’t.
Words by Kai Palmer