Weight Loss and Relationships
Developed by Dr. Jessica Yu, Clinical Psychologist
Navigating relationships and social interactions can bring new challenges during weight loss.
Food is culture. Families may have a recipe that’s been handed down from generation to generation. A friend group may frequent the same restaurant every week. And when it comes to Christmas and other holidays, food is a huge part of the celebrations.
Sometimes changing our eating habits can cause friction in our relationships, and food is a topic that can cause anxiety for many, including our loved ones. This might result in feeling pressured to continue behaviours that aren’t in line with our goals—or worry we’ll be left out at mealtimes.
With the right skills, we can still have the best of both worlds: happy relationships, and our goals.
The following skills from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) can help us communicate our needs effectively and maintain our boundaries throughout the weight loss journey.
Skills we’ll learn:
Assertiveness: How to express our honest thoughts, feelings, and needs to others in a clear and respectful way.
Alternative activity scheduling: How to plan interactions and activities that don’t undermine our goals.
Social support seeking: How we can identify, seek out, and ask for the right support.
Weight Loss and Relationships
Before we can communicate our needs, it’s important to identify what those needs are in our relationships. Let’s look at the different ways relationships can negatively impact our weight loss efforts:
Shared norms about body size: Social interactions can foster shared norms about body size, where a greater tolerance for overweight and obesity can undermine our efforts to lose weight.
Social control and influence: When friends or family members exert social control or influence, we can feel pressured to conform and change our behaviours.
Behaviour modelling: We may observe and adopt the unhealthy behaviours of those around us.
Once we’ve identified a specific problem area, we can use assertiveness, alternative activity scheduling, and social support seeking to navigate difficult and tricky relationships.
It looks like this:
Assertiveness requires us to be clear and confident about what we want or need. In weight loss, assertiveness can help us cope with peer pressure to eat in a certain way or express our commitment to weight loss in the absence of support.
Alternative activity scheduling requires us to be more creative in planning social experiences that don’t revolve around food—and opens the door for new ways to connect with friends and family.
Social support seeking helps us gain clarity on what kind of support we need from others, and how to ask for it. Sometimes, family and friends want to help but they just don’t know how. Communicating our needs can get everyone on the same page.
Skills to Manage Weight Loss and Relationships
Now that we have a framework, we can practise putting our new skills into place.
Assertiveness
Overcoming social situations that may impact our weight loss goals starts with assertiveness. It means expressing our thoughts, feelings, and needs in a way that is clear and direct—while still being respectful of others.
Step One: Remember what matters to you.
Our motivation, values, and priorities can remind us what’s important—and help us communicate our needs more clearly. Whenever we feel unsure of ourselves because of others, we ask:
What makes our weight loss journey important to us?
What would be different if we met our weight loss goals?
Step Two: Use DEAR MAN to communicate your thoughts, feelings, and needs.
DEAR MAN is an acronym and communication skill that can help us effectively ask for what we want or need from others.
“DEAR” helps us create the script for ourselves:
D = Describe the current situation.
E = Express our feelings about the current situation.
A = Ask for what we want.
R = Reinforce the person to increase the likelihood of getting what we want.
“MAN” helps us remain calm and confident when communicating our needs.
M = Be Mindful of our goals.
A = Appear calm, competent, and confident.
N = Negotiate if necessary.
For example, we might receive pressure from a family member to break our diet. Using DEAR, we could say: I’m working on losing weight and you’re asking me to break my diet. I’m feeling stressed. I’d like to stick to my diet. Thanks for understanding. While we’re saying this to our family member, we can remember our motivations for weight loss, keep our head held high, and agree to disagree if we continue to get pressure from our family member.
DEAR MAN doesn't guarantee that you'll get what you want, but it does help you ask for things in a way that you can feel good about.
Alternative activities scheduling
Alternative activities can be a great way to interact with family and friends without having to focus on food. Choose a few that seem fun or interesting and invite family or friends. This can help us avoid the topic of eating and weight loss while still maintaining our relationships.
Social support seeking
There are at least five different types of social support when it comes to weight loss:
Informational support: Receiving helpful information on things like diet, exercise, and support groups.
Emotional support: Receiving expressions of care and concern. This could be questions like, “How’s your weight loss journey going?” “How can I help you?”
Esteem support: Receiving words of encouragement.
Social network support: Finding a weight loss partner or support group.
Tangible support: Receiving tangible, helpful support. This can include a lift to the gym or help food shopping for healthy meals and snacks.
To cultivate the right social support:
We can consider the kind of social support we need and be as specific as possible. If we need tangible support, for example, define what it means: “I need my partner to pick up specific items for me at the supermarket.”
Next, we can use DEAR MAN to ask for the support we need. With the above example, we can say: “I’m following a different diet from the rest of the family. It’s hard to eat differently than everyone else and I could use some support. Could you add X, Y, Z items to your weekly shop? Thank you.”
Finally, we can reinforce others when they support us. This can be through expressions of gratitude (a simple “thank you” can go a long way) or finding ways to support them with the things they need.
Relationships don’t have to hinder the weight loss journey. With the right communication and planning tools, we can build stronger relationships that don’t revolve around food—and keep our goals on track.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. The information contained herein is not a substitute for and should never be relied upon for professional medical advice. Always talk to your GP about the risks and benefits of any treatment.