Seasonal festivities are not typically associated with healthy eating, but they do provide some interesting opportunities for healthy habit development beyond the holiday period.
Holidays don’t last long enough to create the kind of repetition that new habits need. But they do give us an opportunity to think about which behaviors we should repeat, and an opportunity to do a little planning to make healthy habit development a little more successful.
Coming right before the New Year’s resolution season, the holidays may provide an opportunity to set ourselves up for smart, and healthy changes in the upcoming year.
Holidays can trigger new food trials and discussions of food values and preferences.
An Opportunity For A Healthy Trial
While holiday eating may not be focused on healthy foods, there may be an opportunity to try a few new healthy food trials onto our plates and the plates of children and other loved ones. There is so much emphasis on eating at the holidays, that a “Try this!” approach may be easier to make. This can be an opportunity to create new exposures to fruit and vegetable preparations that can then be repeated in the new year.
Get (And Give) Some Healthy Habit Ideas
With so much eating at the holidays, there is also a lot of talk about food. Healthy eating is a source of pride, a powerful social emotion, so people are happy to share their successes.
Set Up The Post-Holiday Fresh Start
After the holidays and, of course, into the new year especially, people are particularly motivated to do their best, by eating better and exercising more. If the holidays themselves can give people some promising healthy eating ideas, the post-holiday period of health motivation may result in further success.
Holidays can give us a little time to plan.
Pre-commitment Opportunities
Behaviors like committing to bringing the veggie charcuterie tray to the party, or even pre-ordering the side dishes like brussels sprouts or potatoes from your local restaurant, caterer or retailer can help get the veggies on the table. Order that fruit tray from your local grocer or promise to bring the fun and colorful fruit kabobs this New Year’s Eve. We can use the holiday downtime to think about what kinds of regular behaviors might work for us, too, and we can verbalize them to friends and family year-round.
The holidays are a great time to share food and experiences with friends and loved ones. The focus on food experiences at holidays creates lots of opportunities to discuss food values and preferences, and to plan healthy food ambitions. With a little bit of clever nurturing, we can create holiday moments that support successful New Year’s resolutions. Specifically, we can start to move ourselves closer to habitual, nearly effortless and fun fruit and vegetable consumption.