Podcasts To Help You Free Yourself From Diet Culture
As you may remember, in recent months, I’ve been on a journey to heal my relationship with food and my body. I’m learning to practice a more intuitive and trust-based approach to food and releasing all of the millions of rules I’ve learned my entire life from different flavors of diet and wellness culture.
It’s liberating: I’m grateful for all of those additional hours back in my day, my energy and the creativity that shows up when you’re not starving.
And it’s also terrifying: it means I’m giving up some of the power and privilege that comes along with having a “thin” body in our culture.
If you haven’t thought about how thinness is connected to power, keep reading…and of course listening to all of the experts whose labor and brilliance in this area of education I continue to lean on for support.
With that TED Talk completed, I’m thrilled to share 1) A roundup of podcast episodes with Black experts in the field who are leading the way in this work and don’t have their own podcasts. 2) Some of my favorite podcasts supporting all of us Anti-Dieters from afar.
My favorite interviews with brilliant Black women leading this movement:
Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body Is Not An Apology on We Can Do Hard Things
Sabrina Strings, Sociologist and author of Fearing The Black Body on The Nod
Jessica Wilson MS, RD and author of It’s Always Been Ours on Full Plate
Chrissy King, author of The Body Liberation Project on The Balanced Black Girl
My favorite anti-diet podcasts where I learned about most of the above experts:
Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes are the OG’s of Anti-Diet Podcasting. They dispel countless myths and lies of Diet and Wellness Culture that we often simply accept as fact. Their BMI and “Obesity” Epidemic episodes are wonderful primers for those just getting started in this deprogramming.
The incredibly compassionate Anti-Diet Nutritionist, Abbie Attwood creates space for Anti-Diet practitioners to share their expertise AND also vulnerably tell their stories of how disordered eating and relationships with exercise have impacted their lives. She’s both present and quirky so conversations often go to fun and unexpected places and I always feel like I walk away with some new angle to think about this work.
Sadly this podcast recently ended, but there are many fantastic episodes to check out from their archives. BFF’s and registered dietitian nutritionists Wendy Lopez and Jessica Jones talk to different health & nutrition experts living more balanced lives–from an inclusive - Health At Every Size (HAES) lens
Virginia Sole Smith, author of the recent book - Fat Talk and the Burnt Toast substack newsletter creates this thoughtful and expansive podcast where she interviews activists, nutritionists, MD’s, therapists, Fat Liberation artists, researchers–the list goes on. I’ve learned about so many of the experts I’m following from this podcast and her spotlight on parenting truly hits home for this mom wanting to do all the things differently with my kids around food and body.
Honorable Mentions…
In an effort to force myself to edit, I haven’t included summaries of all of the podcasts that are helping me on this journey and yet I couldn’t help myself from including these others that are also excellent, but either have ended or don’t come out as regularly.
Can I Have Another Snack With Laura Thomas, Anti-diet Nutritionist
Eat the Rules with Summer Innanen, Body Image Coach and author of Body Image Remix.
This work takes awhile to sink in. It’s disruptive. It flies in the face of most of what we will hear from our people. So, I encourage you to find community, support and all the podcasts. If you are listening to any that I’ve missed, please send along.
I appreciate you. As you are.