4 Tips to Navigate the Transition Back to School
It’s hard to believe summer is over and back to school is here already! Transitions are especially difficult for someone in eating disorder recovery. As we prepare to transition from summer schedules and slower days into the schedule of school, fall sports, and after school activities, we have 4 tips to help you with the back to school transition, whether you’re a teacher, a student, or a parent of someone with an eating disorder.
Choose Easy to Prepare and Eat Foods
If you’re in eating disorder recovery, you’ve likely worked with your dietitian to develop some go-to meals and snacks. This might include having a meal plan, utilizing the Plate by Plate approach, or another way to ensure you’re getting adequate nutrition often enough. When you’re transitioning to a new schedule, we want to emphasize that eating something is better than nothing. Choosing easy to prepare and/or eat foods is a way to get regular meals and snacks when time and energy are spent setting up a classroom, shopping for school supplies, or figuring out your locker combination. Purchase some ready-made meals, satisfying granola bars, or order a second entree the next time you go out to eat, so that prepared food is available to you with minimal effort. Talk to your dietitian about some quick and easy options. We aren’t looking for the “perfect” meal or snack, we are looking for food to keep you nourished.
Eat Consistently
As we mentioned in our blog, Emotional Versus Physical Hunger, your body can send out physical sensations to indicate hunger about 2-3 hours after eating. These sensations can come sooner if the snack or meal wasn’t well-balanced, or in an undernourished body. Eating this often can feel opposite of what everyone else is doing, but eating every few hours, or so, is important, especially in eating disorder recovery, so that your body can learn (or re-learn) hunger cues, and get out of fight or flight mode. As you transition into the new school year, your eating disorder voice will tell you that you aren’t hungry, but that might actually be anxiety, nerves, or adrenaline putting the mute on your hunger cues and physical sensations.
Eating consistently is important for both your body and your brain. It is a catalyst to keep you calm, emotionally regulated, and feeling your best while you figure out everything new. We often recommend our clients set alarms on their phones to remind us to eat, and always have snacks with them (see the above point), so that food is readily available to provide their brains with the fuel they need. Figure out what works best for you to eat consistently. If alarms aren’t your style, try blocking off times on your calendar. Advocate for yourself or your child to make sure your new schedule allows for eating breaks. Talk to your supervisor or your child’s teacher, along with your dietitian to make a plan together for the new school year.
Keep Up With Your Appointments
Starting a new school year with new faces, schedules, and demands is exhausting. It can be easy to take a break from therapy or dietitian appointments, but consistency with your care team is especially important this time of year. Keeping up with your regular appointments and check-ins helps for accountability, so that others can be an active part of your recovery during this transitional time. It’s also a great place to talk through any challenges you’ve discovered with the new school year. Your care team is here to support you, and if that means writing a letter to support that you need a snack break in the middle of class, or you need to be excused from gym class or sports through the nutrition rehabilitation phase, we are here to support you. Regular appointments and open communication will prevent small slip-ups from becoming unmanageable. If your new schedule doesn’t allow for you to keep your current treatment appointments, reach out to your team to find options that will work for you.
Rely on Social Support
Social support is an incredibly important part of eating disorder recovery, and reminding yourself that food is about so much more than food. Find your lunchtime social group – this can be one trusted friend, a group of friends, coworkers, or a teacher or staff member you trust. If you’re a teacher or parent, find someone you can eat with regularly who actually eats lunch and skips any triggering conversations. Having something to look forward to at lunchtime is a helpful way to break up your school day, ensure you are eating, and help take the focus away from the food itself. While we are in favor of all meals, eating lunch has fallen away in recent years. We want to remind you Why Lunch Matters, and encourage you to eat lunch with people, every single day. Your body and brain will thank you, and the rest of your school day and year will go smoother as a result.
If you need extra support this school year, please reach out to us today. Our team of eating disorder dietitians are here to help ease the transition, and can help you make a plan to feel good in your body. You deserve that!