Discussion Thread: Thanksgiving Food/Eating/Body Anxiety

[Content Note: Please be aware that participation in this thread will involve navigating discussion of eating, disordered eating, food and body policing, dysfunctional and/or family dynamics, and anxiety. Proceed accordingly.]

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US, which is an intrinsically problematic (colossal understatement) holiday for many reasons: Its racist history; its implicit enforcement of kyriarchal norms around "family"; its preoccupation with gratitude for consumption that disappears need and entrenches class privilege.

Because it is a day centered around a feast, a day in which we are meant to stuff ourselves until we pass out on the couch in a food stupor, it is also a day that creates lots of anxiety for people with disordered eating and/or people who are obliged to spend the day with family members who food/body police.

Thanksgiving can be a particularly vulnerable day for fat people and for binge eaters in recovery.

Here is a thread to discuss any food/eating/body anxiety you may have leading into Thanksgiving. Please feel free to solicit advice on how to respond to expected food/body policing. Please be sure not to offer advice to anyone unless it has been explicitly solicited.

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