When my parents started talking to me about their new diet, I set boundaries with them to support my recovery from disordered eating

• When I was a teenager, I developed disordered eating patterns.
• I'm in recovery now, but hearing about diet culture is still triggering to me.

I started dieting when I was only 15 years old. From then until my early 20s, I became obsessed with losing weight and being thin, and my dieting habits caused me to develop a disordered eating pattern. I lost interest in hobbies I'd previously loved, and I stopped enjoying going out with my friends, all at the cost of wanting to fit into smaller jeans.

Last year, at the age of 23, I recognized how dangerous this habit was for me and made the resolution to stop dieting. I've never looked back.

At the same time I made this decision, my parents began dieting. Anytime I called them, they would attempt to discuss what they're eating with me. While I appreciated that my mom and dad want to share their lives with me, I started to worry that a subject I struggle with and am trying to leave in my past might lead me on a downward spiral into diet culture again. I needed to find a solution.

Setting boundaries with my parents

Before getting on a recent call with my parents, I decided that the best way to care for myself was by setting boundaries around "diet talk." This included outlining specific topics that are off-limits for discussion, such as how great they feel while intermittent fasting, the number of pounds they've lost, their pride in regularly eating salads, and their desire to be thinner.

From my experiences putting boundaries in place with others, I knew that it doesn't always happen successfully the first time. This proved to be true with my parents; I had to have multiple conversations for them to understand where I was coming from.

At first, my dad was confused by my desire to avoid talking about food, weight, and dieting. He claimed that very few of the conversations we have are about their diet journey, and while that's technically true, the frequency is not the problem for me; it's the fact that they're happening at all.

When we talk about their diets, they get specific about things like the food they eat and how they've been tracking their weight loss, and I don't like how it makes me feel. After talking to him a few times about how I feel, he's been intentional about not discussing dieting with me. He still slips up every now and then, but I appreciate that he's making an effort, and it's been working well for us.

My mom hasn't taken my boundary-setting quite as well. She has pushed back on several occasions, and has claimed that I wasn't being supportive of how she manages her health. She's said that by setting boundaries, I was being "sensitive" like my sister, who's been adamant about not discussing diet culture with my parents.

When my sister and I tell her our personal experiences and try to set boundaries, because our views about dieting do not mesh with where she is in her journey, it often leads to arguments, and my dad has told us that it makes my mom feel "isolated." But I wish my mom could see that I feel the same way when she doesn't respect my boundaries.

Prioritizing my mental health helped me get closer to my parents

I expressed this to my mom and tried to make her understand that though I can be a bit assertive with my approach, I don't mean to hurt her. Instead, what I want is for her to understand how painful dieting has been for me not just physically, but emotionally. The restrictive eating, constant comparisons to my thinner peers, inability to enjoy the clothing I want to wear, and overcompensating with exercising on a loop for over a decade has damaged me. I've told her that setting boundaries around the topic has nothing to do with me not caring about her.

As her child, I do care about her health and want to know that she's healthy, but I also have to look out for myself. I admire when my mom talks to me about the holistic ways she's caring for herself, like how meditative it is for her to water the plants in our garden or how she enjoys spending downtime making soap bars, essential oils, and face masks. Talking about those activities together creates more fruitful conversations than talking about dieting ever will.

Reinforcing these boundaries has brought me closer to my parents and deepened our relationship. We talk way less often about diets and more about things that matter, like their retirement plans or what it's like for them to raise an energetic one-year-old cat. I look forward to talking to my parents now more than I did a few months ago. At the end of the day, maintaining a relationship with my parents is supporting my mental health, and setting these boundaries is a huge part of that. We've always been close and there's no part of me that wants to change that.