How to Handle Triggering Comments about your Body, Weight, Shape and Dieting.

If you've been following my blog or social media, you may already be questioning diet culture and exploring a non-diet approach. Yet, even as you work toward healing your relationship with food, there’s often external pressure—from friends, family, or society—that can make you second-guess your progress.

It’s common to feel body shame or envy when someone around you has lost weight, if you're still struggling with body image issues. These feelings are often triggered by the constant chatter surrounding weight loss and dieting, even if you've already started to move beyond the traditional dieting mindset.

Why Comments About Weight Are So Triggering

The reality is that many people—including loved ones—are still deeply entrenched in diet culture. It’s not uncommon to hear remarks about body dissatisfaction, new diets, or weight loss in nearly any social setting. This can be particularly painful if someone comments directly on your appearance, possibly reigniting old feelings of failure or inadequacy.

For many, these comments start at home. Perhaps your mum has commented on your body for as long as you can remember, believing it's helpful or out of love. In reality, she may be passing down the same critical attitude she was subjected to herself.

Our Reactions to Weight-Related Comments Matter

For the women I work with, these triggering remarks from family, friends, or colleagues can derail progress if they don’t have a plan in place. If someone hasn’t yet dismantled their own belief in diet culture, they’ll continue to share those beliefs with you—possibly without realising the harm they’re causing.

But here's the good news: you can take control of how you react.

Our emotional responses to these situations are driven by our thoughts. Understanding this can help you manage how you react to triggering conversations.

An Example: Sally’s Story

Let’s consider Sally. Every time she visits her mum, she's told about a "great new diet" and hears comments like, "Shouldn’t you be trying this too?" Despite Sally's efforts to heal her binge-restrict cycle and practice mindful eating, these remarks cause a flood of automatic thoughts: “She’s right. I should be losing weight. I’m a failure.” These thoughts lead to feelings of shame and guilt, which trigger unhealthy behaviours, like skipping meals and bingeing later.

5 Steps to Handle Triggering Comments

1. Offer Yourself Compassion
   This is crucial. Your current thoughts and beliefs likely stem from years of external influence—whether from caregivers, peers, or the media. Your reactions aren’t your fault, but they are within your power to change.

2. Extend Compassion to Others
   Often, the people making these comments are unaware of the harm they cause. They may also be struggling with their own relationship with their body. Remember, they need to go on their own journey.

3. Prepare Your Response in Advance
   Decide ahead of time how you'll respond to specific people. For Sally, this might sound like, "My mum’s only solution is to diet because she feels ashamed of her own body." Repeating this to yourself can help keep you grounded during difficult conversations.

4. Set Boundaries
   You have the right to step away from triggering conversations. You can walk away, politely change the subject, or firmly state that discussions about your body are off-limits. If you’re prone to people-pleasing, remember that you are entitled to protect your mental and emotional health.

5. Work on Your Thoughts
   Rewiring your automatic responses takes time, and you may benefit from professional support. In my work with clients, I spend a great deal of time focusing on mindset. This includes becoming aware of automatic thoughts, challenging them without judgment, and replacing them with a healthier way of thinking.

Reframing Your Thoughts and Reactions

Sally’s experience highlights how our thoughts shape our reality. By changing how we think, we can also change how we feel and respond to triggering situations. Remember, you have the power to control your reactions and to rewrite the story in your head.

If this resonates with you, check out Maeve’s Story for how she overcame binge eating with her work on mindset and creating healthier boundaries.

You’ll discover how to break free from the binge-restrict cycle and develop a healthy relationship with food in my upcoming book, The Binge Freedom Method. Drawing from science, eating psychology, and nutritional wisdom, this book will equip you with practical strategies through the four pillars—Nourish, Balance, Think, and Feel.

Along with real-life success stories and a downloadable workbook, you’ll have everything you need to regain control of your eating habits and embrace lasting food freedom. Stay tuned for its release!

In the meantime you can begin your journey by downloading my free guide, Breaking the Cycle - Your First Steps to Healing Your Relationship with Food.

This valuable resource will help you:

✔️ Recognise true hunger versus emotional hunger

✔️ Learn the most effective eating patterns to regulate your appetite and enable stability

✔️ Discover the ideal snacks to curb your cravings and regain control