Christmas food guilt, and how to enjoy the festive table without it

Christmas food guilt is how I describe the food rule you carry all year, turned up loud in December. In my work it tends to ease when you eat at your usual times, the day after included, with nothing to make up for. Mela Theory, the framework behind Nutrimelab, reads such rules as learned, mostly through culture and habits.

Say it's Christmas Day, a little after four. The light has gone, the paper hats are folded on the table, and someone passes the pudding round again. You take a second helping and it tastes lovely. Then, before the spoon is down, a sentence arrives in your head. "That's it, I'll be good in January." Nothing about the pudding has changed, and the sentence stays with you for the rest of the afternoon.

This article belongs to Week 3 of my series, which starts with why food is the quickest comfort. In this one I look at the festive version of the guilt, what it costs you over the weeks that follow, and what you can say to yourself at the table instead.

> Key Takeaways > > - Mela reads Christmas food guilt as the year-round food rule at its loudest, learned mostly from culture, which means it can be questioned. > - The cost I see is the restart cycle of overdoing it, feeling guilty and restricting in January, and a review of restriction research links self-imposed dieting with later eating binges and preoccupation with food. > - The day after a big meal, eat your usual meals at your usual times, and answer each food judgement with one neutral sentence.

Why does Christmas food bring so much guilt?

Mela describes Christmas food guilt as the same rule that speaks after any meal, given more to talk about. December brings richer food over several weeks, and usually other people's comments about it too. Each extra helping or remark tends to hand the rule another chance to speak, and by Boxing Day it can feel as though it never stops.

Think about what the season puts on the table. There are mince pies at work from the start of December, a box of chocolates open on the side for a fortnight, and meals that run long because nobody is in a hurry. Most of that is what Christmas is for, and the rule judges it anyway. It was often learned somewhere else, from a diet or a parent's careful voice, and it measures a festive table by the standards of an ordinary Tuesday.

Then there are the voices around you. A relative says "Ooh, you're going for seconds", someone else sighs that they "really shouldn't", and by the evening of Christmas Day the television is already showing adverts for January plans. Mela places all of this in the culture layer, the food talk we absorb from the people and media around us.

Some people search for this as holiday food guilt, the American name for the same feeling. Underneath the tinsel it is the ordinary guilt that can follow any meal, and I've written about the guilt that turns up after any meal on its own.

What festive food guilt costs you

The cost I see most often in my work is the restart cycle. You overdo it over Christmas, feel guilty about it, restrict in January, and then find yourself back where you started a few weeks later, ready to go round again.

A 1996 review of research on food restriction by Janet Polivy found that starvation and self-imposed dieting appear to be followed by eating binges once food is available, along with preoccupation with food and eating (Polivy, 199600161-7)). It is a review of older studies, many of them on strict or long restriction rather than ordinary festive weeks, so read it as a direction rather than a forecast for you.

Mela reads the cycle as one that feeds itself, with the guilt asking for a January plan and the plan tending to turn food up until it ends, leaving fresh guilt for next December. Mela also sees each turn chipping at your trust in your own hunger and fullness, which the rule never mentions. So the measure of a good Christmas here is how the days felt, with nothing to count afterwards.

What to say to yourself at the table and after

When the guilt speaks, answer it with a plain description of what happened, without the verdict. The aim is a sentence that is true and neutral, which you can say once and then get on with your afternoon. The next day, eat your usual meals at your usual times, with nothing to make up for.

These three pairs are fitted to the season, with the judgement first and the more neutral answer second.

• "I've ruined it." becomes "I ate a festive meal and enjoyed it."
• "I've had no self-control all week." becomes "I've eaten more rich food than usual this week, because it's Christmas."
• "I'll be good in January." becomes "I'll eat as usual tomorrow."

The neutral sentence may feel flat at first. You are practising saying it, and believing it can come later.

One study gives this some backing. Kuijer and Boyce asked people whether they linked chocolate cake with guilt or with celebration. Those who chose guilt did not report more positive attitudes or stronger intentions to eat healthily than those who chose celebration, and they reported lower perceived behavioural control over healthy eating (Kuijer and Boyce, 2014). It measured an association in one group of people, and the abstract does not say how many took part or who they were, so I'd hold it lightly. It is consistent with the approach above, though it did not test it.

The day after works the same way. Breakfast at your usual time, lunch at your usual time, with no meal skipped. Christmas Day is ordinary eating on an unusual day, and the days around it can stay ordinary too. The same goes for the morning before the big meal. If other people's comments about your plate are the harder part, I've written about saying no to food politely.

A practice for the festive weeks

From now until the New Year, try this once a day. Nothing is weighed, counted, restricted or made up for.

1. Keep a note on your phone called "December".
2. When a food judgement appears, write it down as it came. On Boxing Day that might be "I've been awful, I'll sort it out in January."
3. Underneath it, write the plain version, something like "I had cold turkey sandwiches and some chocolate, and I enjoyed them." Then close the note.

By the end of the festive weeks you'll have a short record of what the rule said and what actually happened. Tonight, if a judgement turns up, write your first pair.

If the festive weeks feel heavier than this

Everything here is education, not treatment. If food or guilt over the festive weeks has started to feel frightening, or takes up much of your day, please talk to your GP, or contact Beat, the UK's eating disorder charity, at beateatingdisorders.org.uk, where you'll find their free helplines.

Next step

See the 7-week programme