Food Psych - Intuitive Eating, Health At Every Size, Positive Body Image, Eating Disorder Recovery, Smashing Diet Culture

Religious scholar and journalist Alan Levinovitz discusses how diet culture is like a religion, why so much modern nutrition advice is dangerous, why we need to think critically about restrictive eating practices, how suspicion of Western medicine can lead people to believe in harmful "miracle cures," why the "nocebo effect" is causing people to unnecessarily demonize particular foods, and lots more. Alan Levinovitz received his PhD in religion from the University of Chicago where he specialized in classical Chinese thought. He is now assistant professor of religious studies at James Madison University, where he teaches classes on religion, Chinese philosophy, and the connection between religion and medicine. His journalism focuses on the intersection of religion, science, and culture, and has appeared in The Atlantic, Wired, The Washington Post, Slate, Vox, and elsewhere. He is the author of The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat. Find him at James Madison University and on Twitter at @AlanLevin

Fellow body-positive RDs Rebecca Scritchfield and Julie Duffy Dillon return for a special episode in honor of NEDA Week and National Nutrition Month! We discuss our new joint campaign #ChangeTheGame, why the nutrition field often plays right into diet culture, why we need to stop prescribing one thing to people with diagnosed eating disorders and another thing to the rest of the population, how dieting messes with your mind, and lots more! Julie Duffy Dillon is a food behavior expert who helps people enjoy eating again. Award winning with her progressive approach, Julie was featured in TLC’s documentary My Big Fat Fabulous Life. Julie has an active blog on JulieDillonRD.com and a weekly Food Peace Newsletter. Listen to her weekly body positive, diet free, and health promoting podcast Love, Food where she answers listener letters about their complicated relationship with food. Julie received her BS in Nutrition from Ohio University and MS in Mental Health Counseling from The University of North Carolina at Gr

Fellow Health at Every Size dietitian Fiona Sutherland joins us to discuss our bodies' intuitive wisdom about food and nourishment, how diet culture cuts us off from that wisdom and how to reclaim it, why she almost quit dietetics and how she ultimately found her way to the anti-diet movement, why we need what she calls "radical nourishment" to heal from diet culture, the importance of taking pleasure in food, how she's working to bring the Health at Every Size approach into training for dietitians, and lots more! Fiona Sutherland is an Accredited Practising Dietitian & Nutritionist from Melbourne, Australia. She is Director of Body Positive Australia & The Mindful Dietitian, specialising in Mindful Eating, Eating Disorders, eating behaviour and body image from a Health At Every Size and Non Diet Approach. She is also a Sports Dietitian, consulting for The Australian Ballet. Fiona is passionate about supporting people & communities heal their relationship with food and body, and is an advocate fo

Body-positive dietitian Jennifer McGurk shares her history of body shame and disordered eating, her journey to recovery, how her career evolved alongside her own relationship with food, why she's fighting to make Health at Every Size training part of the academic requirements for dietitians and other healthcare professionals, how pregnancy changed her relationship with her body, and lots more! Jennifer McGurk, RDN, CDN, CDE, CEDRD is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist whose mission is to help people heal from diets, and find peace and balance with their food choices. She is the owner of Eat With Knowledge in Nyack, NY. She leads a team of dietitians who support the philosophy, “Feel fabulous about food!” As a Certified Eating Disorders Registered Dietitian, Jennifer combines her expertise in medical nutrition therapy, psychology, and physiology to help clients understand their eating behaviors, and gain the insight needed to make positive changes for their health. She is an expert in the field of eating di

Psychotherapist and HAES activist Hilary Kinavey shares her history of chronic dieting, the role of feminism in her recovery, how she helps her kids develop a healthy relationship with food, how romantic relationships affected her body image, why there need to be more body-positive role models for navigating aging and body changes throughout life, and lots more! Hilary Kinavey, MS, LPC, is a licensed professional counselor and cofounder of Be Nourished, LLC. Her work encourages movement toward a radically compassionate model of healing to address internalized body shame and associated patterns of chronic dieting and disordered eating. She is the co-creator of Body Trust™ Wellness, a Certified Daring Way™ facilitator-candidate, and a transformational workshop leader. Hilary is a popular speaker on topics such as Health at Every Size®, intuitive eating, and body respect in health care communities, and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. Join the new Food Psych Facebook group to connect with fellow l

Body-positive photography coach Vivienne McMaster shares the joy she took in food as a child, how she got pulled into diet culture in adolescence, how food shame manifested at her family dinner table, how she used self-portraiture to heal her relationship with her body, why certain types of photos can be more harmful than helpful in recovery, and lots more! Vivienne McMaster is a photographer, workshop leader and positive body image advocate from Vancouver, Canada. She who helps folks around the world see themselves with compassion through their own camera lens. Her photographs have been seen in such places as Oprah.com and The Huffington Post. The camera and self-portraiture helped her heal her own negative body image and she's now on a mission share these tools and help folks choose compassion over critique, one photo at a time. You can more about her at beyourownbeloved.com. Join the new Food Psych Facebook group to connect with fellow listeners around the world! To learn more about Food Psych and our g

Body image coach and registered nurse Sarah Vance shares how competitive bodybuilding triggered a disordered relationship with food and fitness, why getting praise for her looks and "healthy lifestyle" only led to unhappiness and pain, how she finally made peace with food and her body, why she now takes a Health at Every Size approach in her nursing practice, why body positivity is really a social justice movement, and lots more! Sarah is a body image coach, host of the Reclaiming You Podcast, and founder of the Breaking Boundaries program. Through her writing, speaking, or personalized one on one coaching - she helps women all over the world ditch the diet mentality, body-hate, perfection, and self doubt while helping them cultivate a positive body image, self-love, and confidence to show up in the world as their most authentic self while knowing that who they are is enough. Find her online at SarahVance.com, and grab your free taste of freedom HERE. Join the new Food Psych Facebook group to connect with f

Intuitive eating coach Daxle Collier shares how food insecurity affected her relationship with food, how a series of health problems led her down the path of restrictive dieting, how she got back in touch with her intuition, why perfectionism around food is so destructive, and lots more. Daxle Collier is an intuitive eating coach who helps people heal their relationship with food and create an authentic self-care practice. She offers remote coaching, online courses, and local San Francisco Bay Area workshops. Daxle blogs about intuitive eating, mindful eating, self-care, joyful movement, stress reduction, and the process of change. Her work is rooted in mindfulness, self-compassion, and the HAES principles. She holds a masters in health education with specialization in nutrition from John F. Kennedy University, and has also completed Intuitive Eating Counselor Certification, Training and Supervision with Evelyn Tribole and Coach Training with Linda Bark of Wisdom of the Whole Coaching Academy. You can fin

Yoga teacher and body-positive activist Dianne Bondy shares how a body-shaming father led her to develop an eating disorder in childhood and adolescence, how yoga helped in her recovery, why the yoga industry needs to be more welcoming of all bodies, why body positivity is a social justice issue, and lots more! Dianne Bondy is a celebrated yoga teacher, social justice activist and leading voice of the Yoga For All movement. Her inclusive view of yoga asana and philosophy inspires and empowers thousands of followers around the world – regardless of their shape, size, ethnicity, or level of ability. Dianne contributes to Yoga International, Do You Yoga, and Elephant Journal. She is featured and profiled in International media outlets: The Guardian, Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, People and more. She is a spokesperson for diversity in yoga and yoga for larger bodies, as seen in her work with Pennington’s, Gaiam, and the Yoga & Body Image Coalition. Her work is published in the books Yoga and Body Image, an

Anti-diet coach Anne-Sophie Reinhardt shares why she turned to food for comfort in childhood, how she quickly spiraled from dieting to an eating disorder in adolescence, why "willpower" isn't actually a good thing, how she discovered the body-positive movement and healed her relationship with food, why trauma is such a trigger for disordered eating behaviors, and lots more. Anne-Sophie Reinhardt is an anti-diet coach and body confidence expert who wants you to know one thing: your weight does NOT determine your worth. A firm believer that you don’t (and shouldn’t) have to wait to start living because of your weight, Anne-Sophie works with women around the globe to help them escape diet prison and make eating fun again (because life is a lot more delicious when food doesn’t rule your life). Now a Certified Eating Psychology Coach and Martha Beck Life Coach, Anne-Sophie struggled with disordered eating, yo-yo dieting and bingeing and purging for over 14 years. After a serious health scare, Anne-Sophie entered

Fellow Health At Every Size dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield shares how her family's identity as "emotional eaters" led to their embrace of diet culture, how childhood poverty and food insecurity affected her relationship with food, how she finally discovered the anti-diet movement after starting to work as a dietitian, how she developed the idea for her new book, Body Kindness, why the concept of kindness is so essential in relating to your body, why weight loss isn't a path to health, and lots more! Rebecca Scritchfield is a well-being coach, registered dietitian nutritionist, certified health and fitness specialist and author of the book, Body Kindness, which Publisher’s Weekly calls “a rousing guide to better health.” Through her weight-neutral mindfulness-based counseling practice, she helps people create a better life with workable goals that fit individual interests. She is the co-founder of Dietitians for Body Confidence, www.RD4BC.com, a website and free bi-monthly e-mail dedicated to shared learning

Body-positive dietitian Emily Fonnesbeck shares how her family helped her develop a healthy relationship with food in childhood, why that went awry and led her down the path to orthorexia, how she overcame her disordered eating and discovered Health at Every Size, why she thinks elimination diets and food-sensitivity testing are dangerous for most people, and lots more. Emily Fonnesbeck is a Registered Dietitian and owns her own private practice in southern Utah. Her nutrition passion consists of helping individuals free themselves from diets, food anxiety, poor body image and obsessive exercise. She has a non-diet, weight-neutral, client-centered approach to help people make peace with food and their bodies. Find her online at EmilyFonnesbeck.com. To learn more about Food Psych and our guest, visit christyharrison.com/foodpsych Join Christy's intuitive eating online course at christyharrison.com/course How healthy is your relationship with food? Take the quiz and get free resources at christyharrison.c

Fellow anti-diet dietitian Jonah Soolman discusses how being an athletic kid and being restricted from sugar led to a troubled relationship with food, how he learned to trust his body to guide his eating and exercise choices, why food insecurity can lead to a "clean-plate club" mentality, why it's essential for health professionals to adopt the principles of Health at Every Size and intuitive eating, and lots more! Jonah Soolman is a registered dietitian specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, disordered eating, and cardiometabolic conditions using a HAES perspective. He and his wife, Joanne, co-own Soolman Nutrition and Wellness LLC, a private practice where they offer individualized nutrition counseling, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA. Most commonly, Jonah works with people who have tried numerous diets and are sick of seeing their weight temporarily drop only to inevitably rebound. Fed up with failing diets and being at war with food and their bodies, they come to Jonah because he offers the

Body image coach Rachel Cole shares why we lose touch with our bodies in times of distress, how to start coming back into embodiment, why the 2016 election has caused so much pain for people struggling with food and body issues, how she recovered from eating disorders and embraced body positivity, why feminism and social justice are so integral to making peace with food, and lots more! Rachel Cole is a certified life coach, celebrated teacher, and women’s empowerment expert. She has spent ten years guiding women to identify, understand and feed their truest hungers – at and away from the table. As an eating disorder survivor herself, Rachel speaks with great wisdom, sensitivity, and authority about what it takes to live as a well-fed woman in the modern world. She has traveled across the United States and internationally speaking and teaching to sold-out gatherings of women on how they too can find ease and fulfillment in their lives simply by honoring their own hungers. Rachel holds a Masters Degree in Holi

Fellow body-positive dietitian Marci Evans shares how she developed a healthy relationship with food in childhood, when it started to go awry, why it's so important that eating-disorder specialists NOT also try to sell weight loss, why some people feel "addicted" to food, what the science actually says about so-called food addiction, and lots more.  Marci Anderson Evans MS, CEDRD, cPT is a Certified Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian, ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, certified Intuitive Eating Coach, and owner of Marci RD Nutrition Consulting. By combining her passion for food, nutrition, and fitness her goal is to take help each of her clients find a healthy and happy relationship with food and exercise. She works exclusively with clients with eating disorders, disordered eating, or those interested in intuitive eating counseling. Marci has two professional passions. The first is empowering individuals to find a healthy relationship with food, exercise, and their bodies. The second is teaching and supervis

Intuitive Eating co-author Elyse Resch shares her history of emotional eating as a child, how going on a diet in her 20s triggered an eating disorder, why studying nutrition science and becoming a dietitian helped her recover, how she got the idea to write an anti-diet book, why satisfaction is so central to intuitive eating, how to raise kids as intuitive eaters, and lots more! Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDRD has been in private practice in Beverly Hills as a Nutrition Therapist for 34 years, specializing in eating disorders, Intuitive Eating, and preventative nutrition. She is the co-author of Intuitive Eating (St. Martin's Press, 1995, 1996, 2003, third edition--2012), and is the co-author of Intuitive Eating, audio version, 2009 (Sounds True). She has published journal articles and does regular speaking engagements and extensive press, radio, and internet interviews. She is nationally known for her work in helping patients break free from the diet mentality through the Intuitive Eating process. Elyse's phil

Therapist and yoga teacher Lauren Ezell Minear shares why embodiment is so important to healing from trauma, how feminism and yoga helped her recover from an eating disorder, how she's learned to listen to her bodies cues for movement and rest, and lots more. Plus, Christy shares an aspect of her story publicly for the first time. Lauren Ezell Minear is a psychotherapist and yoga instructor with a private practice in New York City. She specializes in the treatment of eating and body image problems from a feminist relational perspective grounded in mindfulness-based interventions. Lauren also offers integrative body image workshops and yoga therapy for anxiety, depression, exercise compulsion, and traumatic stress. She is the creator of InBodied Yoga, a body positive method of movement as self-care. To learn more about Food Psych and our guest, visit christyharrison.com/foodpsych Join Christy's intuitive eating online course at christyharrison.com/course How healthy is your relationship with food? Take t

Fellow Health at Every Size dietitian Joanne Soolman shares how weight stigma manifested in her family, how she overcame body shame and discovered Health at Every Size, how she handles having a sister who's a prominent Weight Watchers leader, and lots more! Joanne Levy Soolman, MS, RD, LDN, is a registered dietitian and co-owner of Soolman Nutrition and Wellness, LLC located in Wellesley, MA. She and her husband Jonah, who is also a registered dietitian, provide outpatient nutrition counseling services for those in southeastern New England. Joanne got her BA in Psychology from Brown University and her MS in Nutrition and Health Promotion from Simmons College. Joanne specializes in nutrition counseling for individuals struggling with eating disorders and disordered eating. In addition to being a professional member of the Multiservice Eating Disorder Association, she is a proud member of the Association for Size Diversity and Health, promoting the principles of Health At Every Size®. Check out Joanne's blog p

Dana Sturtevant, HAES dietitian and co-founder of the Be Nourished wellness center in Portland, OR, shares how her desire to be thinner manifested as a child, how a vegetarian friend introduced her to the idea of nutrition, how she began her career as a dietitian in the traditional "weight management" paradigm, what drew her to the Health at Every Size approach, and lots more! Dana Sturtevant, MS, RD, is a trainer, mentor, Kripalu Yoga teacher, and dietitian specializing in Health at Every Size® and intuitive eating. She is the cofounder of Be Nourished, a revolutionary business helping people heal body dissatisfaction and reclaim body trust. Dana loves incorporating mindfulness and self-compassion practices into her work. A member of the International Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, Dana has facilitated more than 300 workshops throughout the United States for health care providers looking to enhance their skills in behavior-change counseling. Her work has been featured in the Huffington Post.

Fellow anti-diet health and wellness coach Melissa Toler shares how she began dieting and fighting against her body, what led her to give up the fight and embrace body positivity, why she no longer sells weight loss (and what that means for her business), and lots more! Melissa Toler is non-diet, weight-neutral health and wellness coach, speaker and writer. Her goal is to help women connect the dots between our culture's ridiculous beauty standards and our personal struggle with self-acceptance. She helps women unlearn the toxic messages and behaviors from lifelong dieting so they can learn a new set of skills. Melissa uses her background as a pharmacist, a certified health & wellness coach, and her 25-year history with dieting in her work. Melissa gave up the weight loss quest years ago and it was one of the best decisions she's ever made. Find her online at MelissaToler.com, and check out the blog post we discussed, "Why I Stopped Selling Weight Loss."  To learn more about Food Psych and our guest, v