Eating Under Peer Pressure
Who you eat with can have a big impact on how and what you eat. Here’s how to stay true to your healthy-eating plans regardless of the influences dining around you
Rita Lambias, a film festival organizer in Portland, Ore., is a vegetarian who eats mostly healthful, whole foods and, despite the plentiful local microbrew, keeps a cap on her alcohol intake. But when she went to visit her fiancé’s family at their lake home in Michigan two summers ago, she was met with a menu of white bread, pasta salad and pie, and happy hour started at noon. Not wanting to appear high maintenance, she opted to eat and drink like everyone else. She came home with a tan – and shorts that had become uncomfortably snug.
Whether it’s family functions, work lunches or dinner with friends, the people we dine with can have a super-sized influence on what we end up putting in our mouths. According to Bonnie Taub-Dix, MA, RD, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and director of BTD Nutrition Consultants, New York City, this influence can be either very positive or very negative. On the positive side, friends and family can have common healthful eating goals or support each other in losing weight – they can share tips for incorporating exercise into a busy schedule or go out for meals in which they order oatmeal or salads and not feel like they are the only one.
However, on the negative side, friends, family and coworkers also can aid and abet you in less than stellar calorie-spending habits. According to a study published recently in the “New England Journal of Medicine”, detailed analysis of a large social network of 12,067 people who had been closely followed for 32 years, from 1971 until 2003, found that people with obese friends have a greater chance of becoming obese themselves. This is due not only to friends developing similar habits, but also from friends acting as food pushers. Food pushers are the people who don’t listen to you when you say you’re full and tell you things like “Come on; have some more, have another piece,” often because they want to feel OK about eating more themselves.
In these situations, Taub-Dix recommends saying, and perhaps repeating, “No thank you – that looks fantastic but I’m so full. Maybe later.” The simple phrases “maybe later” and “not right now” can politely shut down a food pusher, and serve as a positive reminder that although you are forgoing a treat right now, you can always have it later if you really want it.
But sometimes the situations in which others influence your eating habits are subtler. For instance, someone who doesn’t normally eat dessert will end up downing a slice of cheesecake at an office birthday party without thinking simply because everyone else around them is having some.
“Despite our best intentions, we want to join in, join the group,” says Keri M. Gans, MS, RD, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and president of the New York State Dietetic Association. “We don’t want to be different or appear high maintenance, even if it’s as simple as having a salad if everyone else at the table is having calamari.”
In these moments, it is important to not lose sight of your own personal health and weight goals, and remember that you don’t have to eat food just because it is there.
“In life, there are leaders and there are followers, and the same goes with food,” Gans says. “Many people blame their poor choices on their friends – they ordered it! – but you are the one who chooses to eat it. You can’t expect your friends to set a good example; you have to be responsible for yourself.”
Being responsible means planning ahead for social situations that might be laden with temptation. Don’t attend these events when ravenously hungry, Gans says. Before you leave eat a few whole-grain crackers with a piece of string cheese, a bowl of broth-based vegetable soup or a yogurt with fruit and nuts. The goal is a moderate snack with some carbohydrates for energy as well as filling fiber and/or protein so that you won’t eat half the bread basket when you get to dinner.
Once you’re at dinner, portion sizes are usually the biggest problem, Taub-Dix says, so she recommends having a salad and splitting an entrée with one of your dining companions. Or you could share an indulgent appetizer, such as that calamari, Gans says, and have a big salad as an entrée.
Once you’re full, stop eating and have any leftovers removed or wrapped up. Pour yourself a big glass of water and refocus on the people around you and enjoying their company. It may make your nervous if everyone else around you is still eating fettucine alfredo, but why not take a stab at being the trendsetter?
“Instead of letting others dictate your dining behavior, be the one that other people know they can out with if they want to eat healthier,” Gans says.
And last summer, Lambias did just that. She returned to Michigan, but this time with a list of tasty, healthy vegetarian recipes to share (such as Vietnamese salad rolls), a new pair of running shoes and a resolve to drink only water until 5 p.m. She ended up losing five pounds on the trip, and her steak-and-french-fries-loving father-in-law will walk a marathon with her this fall.
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