#83: Our Mothers, Our Bodies, & Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture
Welcome to season 2! This episode deals with a lot of nuance. Because we get into how our relationship with food and our body is shaped and influenced by our parents. I have Virginia Sole-Smith here and I couldn’t be more thrilled for you to listen to this episode.
Things we discuss...
The questions and conversations that led to Virginia's new book
What you need to know about THE cheese
The Gilmore Girls effect
How to have compassion for our moms and their influence on our body image and relationship with food
Why the eating disorder research focuses so heavily on mothers
Mothers bearing the blame of eating disorders and/or fatness
What we’re leaving out about dads (the conversation and the research)
The difference between how fat kids and thin kids are fed
Family dinner and diet culture (helpful or harmful?)
Having conversations with kids that don’t center on weight
Parents fearing kids appearance, but placing that on “health” concerns
Weight is not a matter of personal responsibility
Why is it so important that we talk about fat?
About Virginia
She is the author of the NYT-bestselling FAT TALK: Parenting In The Age of Diet Culture and The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America. As a journalist, she has reported from kitchen tables and grocery stores, graduated from beauty school, and gone swimming in a mermaid’s tail. 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. Motherhood inspired a reckoning, and led to her first book, The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Scientific American and many other publications. Virginia now writes the popular anti-diet newsletter Burnt Toast and hosts the Burnt Toast Podcast.
Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Patreon for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at Patreon.com/fullplate
Patreon is also home to the episode transcripts (which are publicly available to everyone, not just our patrons!). If you’re looking for those, head over to Patreon.
FIND THE SHOW:
Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness
LOOKING FOR MORE SUPPORT?
Looking for more support and concrete steps to take to heal your relationship with food and your body? Apply for Abbie's next 10-week group program: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/group-coaching
Already been at this anti-diet culture thing for a while, but want community and continued learning? Apply for Abbie's monthly membership: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group