Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison

Physician and writer Mara Gordon joins us to discuss diet and wellness culture among medical doctors, why she took Ozempic for weight loss (and what made her quit), how she came to practice weight-inclusive care, and lots more. Behind the paywall, we get into why she was initially reluctant to write about weight inclusivity, her perspective on Ozempic and other GLP-1s now (and whether she prescribes them to patients), her upcoming book, and more. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Dr. Mara Gordon is a family physician and writer based in Philadelphia. She is a frequent contributor to NPR and often writes about size-inclusive medicine, fatphobia in health care, and is at work on a book about body justice. She also writes the Substack newsletter "Chief Complaint" at maragordonmd.substack.com. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers! Our Sponsors: * Join Armoire and get up to 50% off your first month: https://armoire.style/PSYCH Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Eating-disorders dietitian Marci Evans joins us to discuss the current science on “food addiction” (sometimes called “ultraprocessed food addiction”)—and what’s changed since I first interviewed her about this topic for Food Psych back in 2016. We get into how food addiction is defined and measured (and what that definition leaves out), the overlap between disordered eating and high scores on food-addiction scales, how food-addiction discourse perpetuates weight stigma, the nuances behind the research showing that people’s brain scans are different when eating ultraprocessed vs. minimally processed food, and whether it’s really useful to think about food in terms of addiction. In the paid portion, we talk about practical applications: how Marci would help someone who has addictive-like tendencies or thinks of themselves as being addicted to food, what we can learn from this discussion of “food addiction” to help people have a better relationship with food, and more. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Marci identifies as a Food and Body Imager Healer® practicing from a weight inclusive and anti-oppression lens. She has dedicated her career to counseling, supervising, and teaching in the field of eating disorders. She is a Certified Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian and Supervisor and certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. In addition to her group private practice, in 2015 Marci launched an online eating disorders training platform for clinicians. In 2016 she joined the Simmons nutrition department to co-develop a specialized eating disorder internship and teach graduate level courses on nutrition counseling for eating disorders. She loves books more than just about anything. Find her at marcird.com. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers! Our Sponsors: * Join Armoire and get up to 50% off your first month: https://armoire.style/PSYCH Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Filmmaker and podcaster Kelsey Snelling joins us to discuss her new podcast, Camp Shame, which exposes the troubling history of a notorious weight-loss camp. We get into the effects of deprivation and starvation, the cult-like nature of the camp, how it weathered its many scandals, whether it’s possible to run a camp for larger-bodied kids that’s weight-inclusive or ethical, how she made the podcast, and more. Kelsey Snelling is a Philadelphia filmmaker whose work centers social and environmental justice. Her dream is to direct music videos for Billie Eilish, hike the Appalachian Trail, and return to her previous residence of Alaska to live on a farm overrun with cats. “Camp Shame” is her first audio project. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers! Our Sponsors: * Join Armoire and get up to 50% off your first month: https://armoire.style/PSYCH Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Author and activist Amanda Martinez Beck joins us to discuss her experience of taking Ozempic for diabetes while also working to accept her body and break down anti-fat bias in society. She shares her history of dieting and disordered eating, how chronic conditions including diabetes as well as fibromyalgia and post-Covid syndrome have impacted her relationship with food and her body, why she started taking Ozempic in the first place, how diet culture is a new form of religion, and how her actual religious faith has influenced her eating-disorder recovery. Behind the paywall, we get into the tricky landscape of Ozempic and eating disorders, how Ozempic has fallen short of what the ads and influencers promise, her take on all the GLP-1 hype, and more. This episode previously aired on our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Amanda Martinez Beck is a fat activist, educator, and the author of More of You: The Fat Girl's Field Guide to the Modern World. She runs the Instagram account @your_body_is_good, where she combines her love of hand lettering with her vision of fat liberation. Amanda lives with her husband and four kids in northeast Texas, and she writes a weekly Substack called The Fat Dispatch. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Registered dietitians and diabetes educators Jessica Jones and Wendy Lopez join us to discuss why weight loss isn’t necessary for managing blood sugar, why the popular wellness-culture notion of diabetes “remission” or “reversal” can be harmful, how the popularity of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs as diet drugs is affecting people who use them for diabetes, the continuous-glucose-monitor trend for monitoring blood sugar in people without diabetes, Jess’s experience navigating prediabetes and other health conditions, and more. This episode previously aired on our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Wendy Lopez and Jessica Jones are nationally recognized Registered Dietitian Nutritionists and Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialists. With over a decade of clinical experience, they have helped thousands of individuals improve their relationship with food and achieve better health outcomes. Wendy and Jessica are the co-founders of Diabetes Digital, an innovative telehealth platform designed to empower individuals to manage and prevent diabetes through 1:1 virtual nutrition counseling. Through their previous work with Food Heaven, Wendy and Jess have made a lasting impact on nutrition and wellness, promoting healthier relationships with food and inclusive health education. The Food Heaven Podcast, boasting 5 million downloads, explores evidence-based nutrition, mental health, HAES, intuitive eating, and body respect. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Journalist Virginia Sole-Smith joins us to discuss how GLP-1 hype has changed the conversation about diet culture, the importance of body autonomy, how “bro” diet culture became public policy, how she handles haters, the “fed is best” approach to parenting, and lots more. Behind the paywall, she shares her experience of weighing herself for the first time in years, what it’s been like to date for the first time in a larger body, how she’s changed her relationship to cardio, and more. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. As a journalist, Virginia Sole-Smith has reported from kitchen tables, graduated from beauty school, and gone swimming in a mermaid’s tail. Virginia's latest book, Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture, is a New York Times bestseller that investigates how the "war on childhood obesity" has caused kids to absorb a daily onslaught of body shame from peers, school, diet culture, and families—and offers research-based strategies to help parents name and navigate the anti-fat bias that infiltrates our schools, doctor’s offices and dinner tables. Virginia began her career in women’s magazines, alternatively challenging beauty standards and gender norms, and upholding diet culture through her health, nutrition and fitness reporting. This work led to her first book, The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America, in which Virginia explored how we can reconnect to our bodies in a culture that’s constantly giving us so many mixed messages about both those things. Virginia’s work appears in the New York Times Magazine, Scientific American, and many other publications. She writes the newsletter Burnt Toast, where she explores anti-fat bias, diet culture, parenting and health, and also hosts the Burnt Toast Podcast. Virginia lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her two kids, two cats, a dog, and way too many houseplants. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Parent coach Oona Hanson joins us to discuss how going to a physical therapist for back pain led her down a wellness-culture rabbit hole, why dietary restrictions to “fight inflammation” just ended up harming her relationship with food and her body, how she got the dubious diagnosis of “adrenal fatigue,” and more. Behind the paywall, we get into how she helped her child heal from an eating disorder (and how that process changed the course of her career), how parents can help their kids navigate pressures from diet and wellness culture, why smart and science-minded people can still fall for wellness misinformation, her experience with perimenopause and wellness culture, and more. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Oona Hanson is a nationally recognized parent coach who supports families navigating diet culture and eating disorders. She is passionate about helping parents raise kids who have a healthy relationship with food and their body. A regular contributor to CNN, Oona has been featured widely, including on Good Morning America, The Washington Post, USA Today, US News & World Report, People, and Parents Magazine. Oona holds a Master's Degree in Educational Psychology and a Master's Degree in English. She writes the Parenting Without Diet Culture newsletter and will publish her first book in 2026 with Cambridge University Press. She is a mother of two and lives in Los Angeles. Find her at oonahanson.substack.com. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Dietitian and diabetes educator Janice Dada joins us to discuss why there’s so much stigma and blame on people with diabetes, the wellness-culture belief that people can “reverse diabetes” by restricting foods and taking a bunch of supplements, why people don’t “give themselves diabetes” by eating too much sugar, the myth that people with diabetes can’t eat sugar or carbs, her new book on intuitive eating for diabetes, and more. Behind the paywall, we get into the myths about diabetes and body size, the harms of trying to lose weight with diabetes, issues with the “prediabetes” label, the GLP-1 craze, and how to practice intuitive eating with diabetes. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Paid subscribers can hear the extended interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Janice Dada is a weight-inclusive registered dietitian with a private practice in Newport Beach, CA. She is a certified intuitive eating counselor, certified diabetes care and education specialist (CDCES), and certified eating disorders specialist (CEDS). She is passionate about simplifying and destigmatizing the nutrition- and weight-based discourse around diabetes. Intuitive Eating for Diabetes: The No Shame, No Blame, Non-Diet Approach to Managing Your Blood Sugar is her first book. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Dietitian and author Jenna Hollenstein joins us to discuss her experience with alcoholism and recovery, the intersection of disordered eating and disordered drinking, the sobriety trend in wellness culture, Dry January, mindful drinking, “food addiction,” and more. (This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness.) Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Jenna Hollenstein, MS, RDN, CDN, is an anti-diet dietitian-nutritionist, certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, speaker, meditation teacher, and author of five books, including Eat to Love and Intuitive Eating for Life. She blends Intuitive Eating with mindfulness to help people transform food and body shame into joyful eating and movement. Jenna received a BS in nutrition from Penn State University and an MS in nutrition from Tufts University. She has trained in numerous integrative modalities, including polyvagal theory, somatic self-compassion, trauma-sensitive mindfulness, and embodied social justice. Jenna has spoken at universities, retreat centers, and extensively online for both consumer and clinician audiences. Her work has been featured in the The New York Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Yoga Journal, Health, Self, Lion’s Roar, Mindful, Vogue, Elle, Glamour, and Women’s World. Learn more about her work at jennahollenstein.com. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Anti-diet personal stylist Dacy Gillespie joins us to discuss diet and wellness culture, her bad experience with functional medicine (and what attracted her to it in the first place), how she’s dealing with her chronic symptoms now, and why she doesn’t think clothes should be “flattering.” Behind the paywall, we get into how to shop for clothes after your body changes, how to start discovering your authentic personal style beyond diet culture’s ideals, the advice that revolutionized Christy’s approach to fashion, the parallels between intuitive eating and fashion, and more. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. As a weight-inclusive, anti-diet personal stylist, Dacy Gillespie helps her clients reject fashion rules and ideal standards of beauty imposed by the patriarchy, white supremacism, and capitalism so that they can uncover their authentic style. Through their work building a functional wardrobe, Dacy’s clients make a mindset shift from thinking they need to wear what’s flattering to unapologetically taking up space in the world. After a lifetime of jobs in high-stress careers that didn’t suit her highly sensitive, introverted personality, Dacy started mindful closet in 2013 in an attempt to create a more emotionally sustainable lifestyle. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Real Simple, New York Magazine’s The Strategist, and Lifehacker, and she is a frequent podcast guest. Dacy lives with her husband and two children in St. Louis, Missouri. Learn more about her work at mindfulcloset.com. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Registered nutritionist, author, and friend of the pod Laura Thomas joins us to unpack the problematic notion that you need to eat a ridiculously large number of plants per week for gut health, and what we actually know about how plant foods affect the gut microbiome. We also get into how to distinguish good science from hype, how ultra-processed foods have become so demonized despite a lack of strong evidence, how anti-fat bias is baked into the discourse about both gut health and ultra-processed foods, and lots more. (This episode originally aired on Rethinking Wellness in March 2024.) Laura is a Registered Nutritionist who helps people feel less afraid of the food they eat and more comfortable in their bodies. Through her work with individuals and families, as well as in her writing, she challenges dominant ideals about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods and ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bodies. She holds a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from Texas A&M University, and worked as a post-doctoral research associate at Cornell University before starting her private practice. More recently she received a diploma in Clinical Nutrition and Eating Disorders from UCL. She has published two books: Just Eat It and How To Just Eat It, both of which focus on healing our relationship with food and our body through Intuitive Eating. Her clinical work is focussed on supporting families to end the intergenerational transmission of body shame and disordered eating. She writes the newsletter Can I Have Another Snack? Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Registered dietitian and author Shana Minei Spence joins us to discuss how a career in fashion affected her relationship with food and her body, her experience with a holistic provider who recommended elimination diets, how values and social norms influenced her use of alternative medicine, her disordered motivations for becoming a dietitian, and more. Behind the paywall, we get into how she recovered from her eating disorder, why she takes an anti-diet approach to nutrition, her experience working in the public-health field, cultural appropriation in wellness, and where she stands on wellness culture and alternative medicine now. Shana is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist based in Brooklyn, New York. She currently works in public health for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, doing community nutrition lessons, and also owns her own company, The Nutrition Tea ®. She describes herself as an "all foods fit" dietitian. and creates a platform for open discussion on nutrition and wellness topics that are inclusive, non-diet, and weight-neutral, all with an intersectionality of social justice. She also writes frequently for publications such as Self, Shape, Outside, and Well + Good Magazines. Her debut book came out in August 2024, titled Live Nourished: Make Peace with Food, Banish Body Shame, and Reclaim Joy (Bookshop affiliate link). Speaking engagements include Peloton, NEDA, Eating Recovery Center, The Rose Retreats, Food Fluence, Eat Well Global, and NBC. She can be seen in media such as NPR, Shape Magazine, GQ, SELF Magazine, Women's Health Magazine, Outside Magazine, ABC Good Morning America, and Healthline. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Endocrinologist Gregory Dodell joins us to discuss myths and facts about hormones, including the problems with doing diets and supplement protocols for “hormone balancing,” why weight-loss recommendations aren’t helpful for hormone health, how to manage thyroid conditions without falling prey to wellness fads, the truth about “adrenal fatigue,” the Ozempic craze, and more. This episode is a cross-post from our sister podcast, Rethinking Wellness, where paid subscribers can hear an extended interview with Greg. Gregory Dodell, MD FACE is a board-certified endocrinologist. He received his medical degree from Albany Medical College. He completed his internal medicine and endocrinology Fellowship at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, affiliated with Columbia University. He is the President of Central Park Endocrinology, PC. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Psychologist and body-image researcher Charlotte Markey joins us to discuss myths and misinformation about body image, how chronic illness and pain affect perceptions of our bodies, the body positivity vs. body neutrality debate, the potential body-image harms of social media (and how to mitigate them), how the discourse about GLP-1 weight-loss drugs is influencing people’s body image, and more. This is a cross-post from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. Upgrade to paid for the whole thing! Charlotte Markey, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology and chair of the Health Sciences Department at Rutgers University (Camden). Dr. Markey received her doctorate in psychology from the University of California (Riverside) and began conducting research on eating behavior and body image over 25 years ago. She has published over 100 book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. The Body Image Book for Girls: Love Yourself and Grow Up Fearless was published in 2020 to enthusiastic reviews and was a recommended book by A Mighty Girl. It was followed up with Being You: The Body Image Book for Boys (2022), the only book about body image for boys. Body Positive: Understanding and Improving Body Image in Science and Practice (co-edited with Drs. Elizabeth Daniels and Meghan Gillen; Cambridge University Press; 2018) offers a scholarly approach to improving body image. Her newest book is Adultish: The Body Image Book for Life (2024). Dr. Markey writes for U.S. News and World Report, Psychology Today, and a variety of other publications. Her research has garnered widespread media attention, and she has been featured in and interviewed by publications including The New York Times, The Economist, The Today Show, ABC News, Time Magazine, The Washington Post, ScienceDaily, and NBC News. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Eating-disorders therapist Shira Rosenbluth returns to discuss how she was able to get into solid eating-disorder recovery after many years of struggling, her experience of recovering into a larger body and how she navigated weight stigma in that process, being a plus-size bride, how the hype around GLP-1s has affected her recovery (and her clients’), and more. Shira Rosenbluth, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker treating clients in New York and California. She has a passion for helping people feel their best in their body at any size and specializes in the treatment of disordered eating, eating disorders, and body-image dissatisfaction using a weight-neutral approach. She’s also the author of a popular body positive blog and has been featured in The New York Times, Insider, The Cut, The Everygirl, InStyle, and Healthline. You can find her on Instagram, @theshirarose. Learn more about her therapy practice at ShiraRosenbluthLCSW.com. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Eating-disorders psychologist Alexis Conason joins us to discuss her background in “obesity” research, how she came to question the conventional weight paradigm and move to a weight-neutral approach, the industry influence behind the American Medical Association’s decision to classify obesity as a disease in 2013, the mental-health effects of bariatric surgery, how to talk about pharmaceutical-industry influence in ways that don’t give rise to conspiracy theories or make it seem like we’re impugning the entire medical establishment, and more. Then, in the paywalled portion of the interview, we discuss how social media makes it hard to have nuanced conversations about wellness and diet culture, the discourse around GLP-1 drugs, and the trouble with the research underlying weight-loss recommendations. This is a cross-post from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. Upgrade to paid for the whole thing! ALEXIS CONASON, PSY.D., CEDS-S, is a clinical psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist-supervisor in private practice in New York City. Her group practice, Conason Psychological Services, specializes in the treatment of binge eating disorder, disordered eating, body image concerns, and psychological issues related to bariatric weight loss surgery. She is the founder of The Anti-Diet Plan, a weight-inclusive online mindful eating program designed to help people stop dieting, eat more attuned with their body, and live more peaceful and pleasurable lives. She is the author of The Diet Free Revolution: 10 Steps to Free Yourself from the Diet Cycle with Mindful Eating and Radical Self-Acceptance (June 2021, North Atlantic Books), available wherever books are sold. Dr. Conason is a fierce advocate for helping people recognize and question the societal norms that encourage feeling not good enough about themselves so they can stop fixating on shrinking their bodies and reclaim the space that they deserve in the world. You can find her on social media @theantidietplan. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Writer, speaker, and weight-inclusive health/fitness professional Ragen Chastain joins us to discuss the potential side effects and other downsides of using GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic and its ilk) for weight loss, the massive influence the manufacturers of these drugs are having on the public discourse about them, why the media don’t often report on these conflicts of interest, how drugmakers have co-opted talking points about weight stigma and weight cycling, how opposition to these drugs in some integrative- and functional-medicine spaces still perpetuates stigmatizing ideas about body size, and more. The first half of this interview is available to everyone, and you can hear the whole thing by becoming a paid member at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ragen Chastain is a speaker, writer, researcher, Board Certified Patient Advocate, multi-certified health and fitness professional, and thought leader in weight science, weight stigma, health, and healthcare. Utilizing her background in research methods and statistics, Ragen has brought her signature mix of humor and hard facts to healthcare, corporate, conference, and college audiences from Kaiser Permanente and the Diabetes Education Specialists National Conference, to Amazon and Google, to Dartmouth, Cal Tech and canfitpro. Author of the Weight and Healthcare newsletter, the book Fat: The Owner's Manual, co-author of HAES Health Sheets, and editor of the anthology The Politics of Size, Ragen is frequently featured as an expert in print, radio, television, and documentary film. In her free time, Ragen is a national dance champion, triathlete, and marathoner who holds the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Woman to Complete a Marathon. Ragen lives in Oregon with her fiancée Julianne and a rotating cast of foster dogs. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Dietitian and author Heidi Schauster joins us to discuss why putting kids on gluten-free diets or other elimination diets in the name of health often backfires; how parents can help kids develop a good relationship with all foods, including demonized ones like sugar; developmentally appropriate ways to talk to kids about nutrition; why pleasure is actually more important than nutrition; and more. Heidi Schauster, MS, RD, LDN, CEDS-S, SEP is a nutrition and body image therapist, Somatic Experiencing (SE)™ practitioner, clinical supervisor, and Embodiment Warrior who writes about whole-self wellness. She has practiced in the Boston area for nearly 30 years and is the author of the award-winning book Nourish: How to Heal Your Relationship with Food, Body and Self and the new book Nurture: How to Raise Kids Who Love Food, Their Bodies, and Themselves (Bookshop affiliate links). Heidi is a lifelong dancer, a plant lady, and the proud mama of two outrageous young women. Join the Nourishing Words mailing list on her website (https://www.anourishingword.com/) or Substack, or follow her on Instagram @nourishingwords. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!

Project HEAL CEO Akiera Gilbert joins us to discuss her relationship with food growing up, why she didn’t realize she had an eating disorder, how she finally began to find healing, the importance of community in disordered-eating recovery, what to do if community feels tricky to you, and more. Akiera Gilbert (she/her), CEO of Project HEAL, reminds us that eating disorders are more than personal struggles—they're a critical public health issue. Project HEAL is recognized as the leading national non-profit focused on creating equitable access to eating disorder care. In 2023 alone, they provided access to over $5 million worth of free services, including treatment placement, clinical assessments, cash assistance, insurance navigation, and meal support. Previously, Akiera founded Body Reborn to foster healing spaces for people of color who struggle with food and body image. Driven by her belief that healing is our collective right, she is actively transforming mental healthcare to be more affirming, accessible, and affordable. To explore Akiera’s vision and the transformative impact of Project HEAL’s work, visit theprojectheal.org. Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap, and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook for a deeper dive into the topics covered on the pod. If you’re ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. For more critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, check out Christy’s Rethinking Wellness podcast! You can also sign up to get it in your inbox every week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Ask a question about diet and wellness culture, disordered-eating recovery, and the anti-diet approach for a chance to have it answered on Rethinking Wellness. You can also subscribe to the Food Psych Weekly newsletter to check out previous answers!