How To Deal With Social Pressure to Consume | an herbalist's guide

Navigating holiday happenings while maintaining your health goals, plus my clients’ most relied-on lines for politely declining.

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Do you ever feel pressured to eat or drink things that don’t make you feel good? Because of family affairs, peer’s partying, brunch culture, happy hour, anti-diet culture, intuitive eating, or really good marketing? This one’s for you.

Have you ever been urged by others in a way that caused you to forgo your wellness priorities against your will—or felt conflicted about refusing to consume something you didn’t want? Most of us have been on both sides of this situation—both pressured and pressuring—many times.

There’s a playfulness and connectivity involved in the rituals of consuming together that makes these scenarios common. Our culture has come a long way when it comes to not shaming folks around unhealthful eating, but for those who are wellness-—or who have allergies and sensitivities—the influence to eat or drink against our will (especially during the holiday season) can be intense to say the least. There’s also the point that for many, declining to co-consume can feel like passing judgment on those who do. For some, this is a life-long struggle; for others, just seasonal; and, of course, for some it’s a non-issue.

Personally I’ve dealt with criticism about my consumption (and non-consumption) choices for nearly my whole life—from the bags of raw vegetables to seaweed cracks that I brought to school to the sometimes downright mean comments about my lunches (“that looks like dirt,” “how can you eat that?”). I was so young when I quit drinking (which was also way before it was cool or acceptable to do so) that everyone thought I was either sick or …