How to stop your friends ruining your healthy eating efforts!

Every week expert nutritionist and clinical hypnotherapist Lowri Turner answers your health, fitness and wellbeing questions. This week, how to stop your friends ruining your healthy eating efforts!

Q: ‘I’m trying to eat more healthily, but my friends keep derailing my efforts. What can I do?’

There is a concept in psychology called ‘fat contagion’. This is the theory that people can become overweight because their friends are. A sort of group dynamic develops where you give each other permission to overeat. You egg each other on to take on that takeaway pizza, pudding or extra bottle of wine.

There is another concept, the ‘feeder’. This is the person, usually slim themselves, who sublimates their own desire to eat by feeding others. The anorexic who cooks huge, elaborate meals for family and then sips a glass or water is an extreme example.

I’m not sure which one you are the victim of, but the solutions are the same.  First, you need to establish a boundary between yourself and others, so that you can withstand pressure from them to eat. One way to achieve this is to imagine you are inside a protective bubble. You can see through it, breathe and eat through it, but others’ negative comments just bounce off the outside. Close your eyes and visualise this. The more you practise it, the more it can help you.

The second is to learn to say ‘no’, without explaining, justifying or apologising. You can be polite, but firm. So if you’re offered that slice of cake, or that cocktail, you can say ‘no’ and mean it. If you stick to this, people will eventually stop wasting their energy trying to persuade you.

Thirdly, you need to look at who your friends are and who you are to them. Are you the ‘fat friend’ (a horrible phrase, but you know what I mean)? If your role in your friendship group is to be the one who makes everyone else feel slimmer then you are being subtly exploited. If you are surrounded by friends who have issues of their own with food and your role is to ‘enable’ their unhealthy behaviour than that too needs to be challenged.

Your number one priority has to be your health and happiness. If fat contagion exists, so does health contagion. Be the one to pick up the health ‘bug’ first and try to pass it on to your friends. If they don’t want to be healthy like you, carry on with your journey. Along the way, you will find some new people to hang out with who do.

If you have a question for Lowri, please email lowr@lowriturner.com

Lowri Turner is a nutritionist and clinical hypnotherapist. She sees clients in North London. To make an appointment, please email lowri@lowriturner.com or go to www.lowriturner.com