Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison

In this episode, Christy shares some personal thoughts on how anxiety impacts the gut, and offers a perspective on how to handle digestive distress that’s triggered by stress without getting pulled down wellness-culture rabbit holes—especially if you have a history of disordered eating. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness . More from Christy: Check out Christy’...

Filmmaker and podcaster Kelsey Snelling joins us to discuss her new podcast, Camp Shame , which exposes the troubling history of a notorious weight-loss camp. We get into the effects of deprivation and starvation, the cult-like nature of the camp, how it weathered its many scandals, whether it’s possible to run a camp for larger-bodied kids that’s weight-inclusive or ethical, how she made the podc...

Journalist, podcaster, and author Elise Hu joins us to discuss her background with modeling and disordered eating, why beauty culture is a cousin of diet culture, Elise’s experience with intense beauty standards in Korea, and the realities of pushing back against performances of femininity. Behind the paywall, Christy and Elise discuss the rise of K-Beauty globally, problematic K-Pop body ideals,...

Therapists and authors Judith Matz and Amy Pershing join us to discuss our new collaboration,  The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Body Image Workbook ; why the typical diet-culture response to emotional eating is unhelpful, and what to do instead; how to know if you’re a chronic dieter (as opposed to just a “healthy eater”); the role of trauma in binge eating; why high body...

In this episode, Christy answers an audience question about organic food. She explains what the science really says about the health impacts of organic food and the environmental impacts of organic farming. Then she shares some important things to consider if you’re eating organic while working to heal from disordered eating. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness...

In this episode, Christy answers an audience question about disordered eating and food rules. She shares two food rules that she used to follow and four eating principles that she now tries to live by. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness . More from Christy: Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet , The Wellness Trap , and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieti...

Body image scientist and researcher Charlotte Markey, PhD joins us to discuss the many factors that impact body image and how parents can help their kids develop a positive sense of self. Christy and Charlotte both share examples from their own parenting, including how to handle tricky conversations about body size, gender, and more. They also unpack the difference between body positivity and body...

New York Times bestselling author and former CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers joins us to discuss her history of chronic fatigue and her experience with dubious diagnoses and wild wellness treatments. She also shares what she discovered about the true causes of her issues, how disordered eating helped mask and exacerbate her symptoms, how she’s rethought her relationship with work in general (...

Pharmacist and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor Sarah-Jane Garcia joins us to discuss how smart people get caught up in wellness culture. She shares her path from the realities of being a pharmacist experimenting with elimination diets to how getting certified in integrative medicine exacerbated her orthorexia to why becoming a parent finally opened her eyes to the fear-mongering happening in...

Writer, speaker, and weight-inclusive health/fitness professional Ragen Chastain joins us to discuss the potential side effects and other downsides of using GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic and its ilk) for weight loss, the massive influence the manufacturers of these drugs are having on the public discourse about them, why the media don’t often report on these conflicts of interest, how drugmakers have...

In this episode, Christy answers two audience questions about period pain, endometriosis, and whether “anti-inflammatory” protocols or elimination diets can alleviate symptoms. This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness . More from Christy: Check out Christy’s three books, Anti-Diet , The Wellness Trap , and The Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge Eating & Bo...

Anti-diet dietitian Leah Kern joins us to discuss how struggling with anxiety made her susceptible to a wellness diet that promised safety and longevity, how that diet quickly spiraled into full-on disordered eating, how being eco-conscious and “earthy” can easily lead into wellness traps, the connection between spirituality and wellness culture, why she finally stopped trying to fix her anxiety w...

Christy offers 5 tips for dealing with diet evangelists and diet-culture messaging this time of year. This episode originally aired in January 2023. If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out  Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course . Pre-order Christy's second book,  The Wellness Trap , for its April 2023 release! Christy's first...

Journalist and professor Mallary Tenore Tarpley joins us to discuss her new book Slip and the realities of life in the middle of eating disorder recovery.  She shares how losing her mother as a young girl led to disordered eating, why residential treatment was beneficial (and not), and how the pressures of maintaining “full recovery” led to years of struggle. Behind the paywall, Mallary and Christ...

Katja Rowell, M.D. joins us to discuss responsive feeding, picky eating, and how to parent without passing diet culture norms on to your kids.  We also explore the science behind a few common misperceptions from parents and doctors including: why playful or gamified tactics to change eating habits can be harmful and backfire, the problems with many “early interventions” around child BMI, and reaso...

Registered dietitian Jackie Silver joins us to discuss nutritional approaches that are helpful for neurodivergence, why neurodivergent people are often the targets of wellness and diet culture, the kinds of wellness-culture messages she’s gotten as a person with a disability, and why the advice to cut out gluten for autism is often harmful. Behind the paywall, we get into why ultraprocessed food c...

Physician and writer Mara Gordon joins us to discuss diet and wellness culture among medical doctors, why she took Ozempic for weight loss (and what made her quit), how she came to practice weight-inclusive care, and lots more. Behind the paywall, we get into why she was initially reluctant to write about weight inclusivity, her perspective on Ozempic and other GLP-1s now (and whether she prescrib...

Eating-disorders dietitian Marci Evans joins us to discuss the current science on “food addiction” (sometimes called “ultraprocessed food addiction”)—and what’s changed since I first interviewed her about this topic for Food Psych back in 2016. We get into how food addiction is defined and measured (and what that definition leaves out), the overlap between disordered eating and high scores on food...

Filmmaker and podcaster Kelsey Snelling joins us to discuss her new podcast, Camp Shame , which exposes the troubling history of a notorious weight-loss camp. We get into the effects of deprivation and starvation, the cult-like nature of the camp, how it weathered its many scandals, whether it’s possible to run a camp for larger-bodied kids that’s weight-inclusive or ethical, how she made the podc...

Author and activist Amanda Martinez Beck joins us to discuss her experience of taking Ozempic for diabetes while also working to accept her body and break down anti-fat bias in society. She shares her history of dieting and disordered eating, how chronic conditions including diabetes as well as fibromyalgia and post-Covid syndrome have impacted her relationship with food and her body, why she star...

Registered dietitians and diabetes educators Jessica Jones and Wendy Lopez join us to discuss why weight loss isn’t necessary for managing blood sugar, why the popular wellness-culture notion of diabetes “remission” or “reversal” can be harmful, how the popularity of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs as diet drugs is affecting people who use them for diabetes, the continuous-glucose-monitor trend for...

Journalist Virginia Sole-Smith joins us to discuss how GLP-1 hype has changed the conversation about diet culture, the importance of body autonomy, how “bro” diet culture became public policy, how she handles haters, the “fed is best” approach to parenting, and lots more. Behind the paywall, she shares her experience of weighing herself for the first time in years, what it’s been like to date for...

Parent coach Oona Hanson joins us to discuss how going to a physical therapist for back pain led her down a wellness-culture rabbit hole, why dietary restrictions to “fight inflammation” just ended up harming her relationship with food and her body, how she got the dubious diagnosis of “adrenal fatigue,” and more. Behind the paywall, we get into how she helped her child heal from an eating disorde...

Dietitian and diabetes educator Janice Dada joins us to discuss why there’s so much stigma and blame on people with diabetes, the wellness-culture belief that people can “reverse diabetes” by restricting foods and taking a bunch of supplements, why people don’t “give themselves diabetes” by eating too much sugar, the myth that people with diabetes can’t eat sugar or carbs, her new book on intuitiv...

Registered dietitian and INTUITIVE EATING co-author Elyse Resch returns to help dispel myths about intuitive eating, including that it means *only* listening to instinct and not the rational brain, that it’s incompatible with eating-disorder recovery, that it’s impossible in an environment rife with “ultraprocessed” foods, and more. She also shares her definition of gentle nutrition, plus some beh...