'Tis the Season to Eat Cabbage

“You can never please everyone” is not a revolutionary realisation by any means, but it certainly is true. It’s a truth I’ve spent my life trying to disprove, and which I have gotten close to at times, but which fundamentally always will be.

I am reminded of this more and more in the lead-up to Christmas and New Year… a time which is supposed to create connection, harmony and unity. But somehow it always seems to remind me that no matter HOW hard I try, I always fail to meet expectations in one way or another.

December and January are quite possibly the most difficult months for many of us. Whether it be grief, loneliness, remorse, the change of routine… the list goes on.

For someone with an eating disorder, the notable increased focus around food, sharing food, ‘indulgence’ and the moral heaviness of food over this period is always a hard one to stomach (ha ha).

I have come to anticipate that this time of year enhances society’s already suffocating diet obsession. It seems that diet culture is invited to every Christmas function and New Year’s Day celebration almost universally and cross-culturally, be it through the second cousin who is in denial of their own disordered eating habits, the mother-in-law who insists you “look slimmer than last year”, or even your cousin’s new boyfriend who gloats that ‘calories don’t count over Christmas’.

No matter what the holidays bring, one thing that is guaranteed is that unassuming albeit well-intentioned strangers, acquaintances, relatives, friends, colleagues or what-have-you will bring along reminders of these misaligned ideals whether or not you invite them.

That said, it’s also by no means reserved for the holidays. It’s EVERY day.

As someone who has lived pretty much half my life with a restrictive eating disorder, I am hyper-aware of diet conversations going on around me. I can hear someone talking about their sugar-free, low-carb, keto, paleo, organic, low-fat, high-fiber and 100% joy-free diet from the other side of a cafe. It’s kind of impressive, honestly. Maybe if it weren’t so damn annoying, I’d consider it a superpower.

But it also means that I’m lucky to make it through a day without hearing someone proudly gloat about how much weight they’ve lost or how their diet starts tomorrow (even as someone open about my own experiences of said eating disorder).

The truth is that jokes about being ‘naughty’ when the food comes out aren’t really jokes at all. When it comes down to it, anyone whose life has been affected significantly by an eating disorder knows it’s a mask for seriously repressed self-loathing we’ve been conditioned to feel that probably could do wth some work in therapy.

In the last few weeks, however, I’ve found myself confronted with countless comments and conversations more obviously tainted with diet ideals. Here is an example so shocking to me that I took notes to assure myself I wasn’t imagining the it (and because poking fun of the ridiculousness heals something inside of me).

Scene: elderly man and women sat at a cafe, drinking coffee and eating their lunches.

Woman: see below transcript

“Cabbage is your friend” or “you have to be careful of the onions” is not something I thought I’d ever hear exiting the mouth of a 70+ year old woman in 2025, but I suppose here we are.

Another example I love (hate) was the man behind me during my Monday morning coffee run, who decided to warn me how ‘bad’ almond milk is. As if that wasn’t enouh to make me clench my fists so tightly that my nails dug into my palms, he then proceeded to repeat it to the barista like he’d discovered I was drinking asbestos.

For some of you, maybe these examples don’t feel all that outrageous. For others, I’m sure you are equally as gobsmacked as I was hearing them.

Christmas and New Year likely always will bring an elevated degree of fatphobia. That will never change so long as thinness is conflated with moral superiority… which I don’t see changing for quite some time, especially with the current ‘ozempification’ of Hollywood. Yet another reason that banning young people’s access to social media won’t actually solve the problem, it will just divert it elsewhere (in reference to the recent social media ban).

This is something deeply ingrained within the world. The reality is that weight loss and deprivation masked as ‘wellness’ and pushed to us whilst weaponising fear of fatness are such effective sales tactics that there are entire thriving industries built off them (redacted reference to some of the problematic yet incomprehensibly successful brands saturating the diet industry)

…But my point of writing is to emphasise that this bias is there throughout the year, often in more subtle ways that are arguably even more damaging, because they are far more difficult to notice and more controversial to contest.

I’m sorry to break it to you… but if you can’t see the extent of diet culture and its insidious nature, you’re probably part of the problem. That’s not said out of shame or as a call-out, but as an invitation to call-in, reflect, and unlearn the harmful ways you speak, think and (sometimes subconsciously) project.

It is the overwhelming majority of the world who still make subtle remarks about ‘getting their steps’ in and ‘earning’ their dessert. It might sound minor, but these kinds of conversations serve up an enormously painful reminder that the dominant way of thinking, behaving and showing up in the world is one that perceives food on a moral hierarchy.

Unless you have consciously and deliberately unlearned diet culture norms and then gone on to disentangle them from the ways you show up in the world, you more than likely reinforce and perpetuate norms that can be harmful just the same. From what I’ve seen, this process often only happens out of necessity when someone has been so deeply affected by these perceptions and ideologies that they have to shake up and challenge the society, culture and normalities around food and nutrition.

Again. Not said with judgement, but with recognition.

Recognition that we need to do better, and that this is the responsibility of everyone.

Recognition that the burden to educate and challenge currently lies mainly with those who have already been deeply harmed by the beliefs they seek to challenge, and that this needs to change.

Recognition that we all play a part in quashing diet culture.

Don’t allow yourself to perpetuate these harms. Don’t allow yourself to speak of foods as ‘naughty’ or to instill shame over something as simple as eating.

Not just this Christmas and New Year, but all year round.

Every day.

p.s. yoghurt is NOT like butter.