#122: Virginia Sole-Smith on Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture

Jun 24

On this incredible episode, Virginia Sole-Smith and I dive into the relationships between media, our parents, food and body, and parenting. We examine the beliefs many of us held, the fears our parents had, and how we can challenge stereotypes about all of this.

This episode is so good. And it 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.

Listen to hear more about…

Hard questions and conversations that led to Virginia's new book
“I don’t want my kid to have a messed up relationship with food, but I also don’t want them to be fat”
The Gilmore Girls effect
Holding compassion for our moms and their influence on our body image and relationship with food
Why mothers bearing the blame of eating disorders and fatness
How dads are left out of the conversation and ED 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
…and so much more

Resources Mentioned:

Her book Fat TALK: Parenting In The Age of Diet Culture
Her book The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America
Her podcast The Burt Toast Podcast
Her articles we mentioned on the pod

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.

Learn more about Virginia on Instagram and on her website.

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