In her book Pursuing Perfection, eating disorder expert Margo Maine writes: “Clearly, the passage of time isn’t helping aging women feel more at peace with their bodies, or making things better for younger women following them into adulthood. The legacy of body image and weight obsession is passed down from one generation to the next, […]

When you first encounter intuitive eating and Health at Every Size (HAES) principles, you might find yourself feeling unusually skeptical, defensive, or even angry. If you’re experiencing these reactions, you’re not alone – and there’s actually a scientific explanation for what you’re feeling. Let’s explore why this happens and what you can do about it. […]

In an interview with Kate Bowler on her podcast, Everything Happens, psychologist Lisa Damour said the following: “Language on its own reduces distress.” She continued, “We have objective physiological measures that tell us that the mere utterance of a feeling word reduces the intensity of the emotion. Is kind of an extraordinary and actually in […]

I’ve been talking to folks a lot lately, in this time of “fresh starts” and resolutions, about something that comes up often in eating disorder recovery, that is, how to tell the difference between a health-promoting goal and a goal that is motivated by something more disordered. It’s easy to confuse the two (or for […]

I have often said that my patron saints are the feisty ones, the irreverent ones, the people who think deeply and compassionately about the human experience but aren’t afraid to curse a little. As far as I can tell, if we’re paying attention and telling the truth, cursing is hard to avoid.  Nadia Bolz Weber […]

Diet culture equates hard with healthy.  It tells you that exercise needs to be sweaty, grueling, and regimented, come hell, highwater, below freezing temperatures, or winter bugs.  It tells you that eating needs to be premeditated and mechanical and that meal prep is a nonnegotiable, never mind the fact that you’d rather be sledding with your […]

For decades, we have heard about the “war on ob*sity.” Alongside that rhetoric, we have witnessed, been complicit in, or helped to fund the creation of what is now a $4.2 trillion worldwide wellness industry (Wellness, 2018). But a fat body – a term used descriptively and in recognition of the fact that “ob*sity” is […]

I recently had a client tell me, simply, “everything is a lot.” The snow is a lot. The darkness is a lot. The shopping, the presents, the travel, and the parties are a lot. The state of the world is a lot. The global crises (plural). The kids who can’t do a damn thing about […]

When my son was three-ish years old, he would regularly ask me, “Are we here, Mama?” He did so not in the way most kiddos do, not half an hour into a 14-hour car ride, but rather at the most unexpected moments: sitting on the floor stacking Legos, propped on my hip as I stirred […]