Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison

Dietitian and author Jenna Hollenstein joins us to discuss her experience with alcoholism and recovery, the intersection of disordered eating and disordered drinking, the sobriety trend in wellness culture, Dry January, mindful drinking, “food addiction,” and more. (This episode is cross-posted from our other podcast, Rethinking Wellness.) Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the firs...

Anti-diet personal stylist Dacy Gillespie joins us to discuss diet and wellness culture, her bad experience with functional medicine (and what attracted her to it in the first place), how she’s dealing with her chronic symptoms now, and why she doesn’t think clothes should be “flattering.” Behind the paywall, we get into how to shop for clothes after your body changes, how to start discovering you...

Registered nutritionist, author, and friend of the pod Laura Thomas joins us to unpack the problematic notion that you need to eat a ridiculously large number of plants per week for gut health, and what we actually know about how plant foods affect the gut microbiome. We also get into how to distinguish good science from hype, how ultra-processed foods have become so demonized despite a lack of st...

Registered dietitian and author Shana Minei Spence joins us to discuss how a career in fashion affected her relationship with food and her body, her experience with a holistic provider who recommended elimination diets, how values and social norms influenced her use of alternative medicine, her disordered motivations for becoming a dietitian, and more. Behind the paywall, we get into how she recov...

Endocrinologist Gregory Dodell joins us to discuss myths and facts about hormones, including the problems with doing diets and supplement protocols for “hormone balancing,” why weight-loss recommendations aren’t helpful for hormone health, how to manage thyroid conditions without falling prey to wellness fads, the truth about “adrenal fatigue,” the Ozempic craze, and more. This episode is a cross-...

Psychologist and body-image researcher Charlotte Markey joins us to discuss myths and misinformation about body image, how chronic illness and pain affect perceptions of our bodies, the body positivity vs. body neutrality debate, the potential body-image harms of social media (and how to mitigate them), how the discourse about GLP-1 weight-loss drugs is influencing people’s body image, and more. T...

Eating-disorders therapist Shira Rosenbluth returns to discuss how she was able to get into solid eating-disorder recovery after many years of struggling, her experience of recovering into a larger body and how she navigated weight stigma in that process, being a plus-size bride, how the hype around GLP-1s has affected her recovery (and her clients’), and more. Shira Rosenbluth, LCSW, is a license...

Eating-disorders psychologist Alexis Conason joins us to discuss her background in “obesity” research, how she came to question the conventional weight paradigm and move to a weight-neutral approach, the industry influence behind the American Medical Association’s decision to classify obesity as a disease in 2013, the mental-health effects of bariatric surgery, how to talk about pharmaceutical-ind...

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...

Dietitian and author Heidi Schauster joins us to discuss why putting kids on gluten-free diets or other elimination diets in the name of health often backfires; how parents can help kids develop a good relationship with all foods, including demonized ones like sugar; developmentally appropriate ways to talk to kids about nutrition; why pleasure is actually more important than nutrition; and more....

Project HEAL CEO Akiera Gilbert joins us to discuss her relationship with food growing up, why she didn’t realize she had an eating disorder, how she finally began to find healing, the importance of community in disordered-eating recovery, what to do if community feels tricky to you, and more.  Akiera Gilbert (she/her), CEO of Project HEAL, reminds us that eating disorders are more than personal s...

In honor of Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW), we’re sharing a teaser of next month’s episode. It’s with Akiera Gilbert, the new CEO of Project HEAL, whose theme for EDAW is “let your community be your compass.” In this mini-episode, Akiera shares the importance of community when it comes to eating-disorder recovery, her goals with Project HEAL, and a little glimpse of her own process of heal...

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 w...

Hey there! It’s been a minute, but I wanted to pop in and let you know that my Intuitive Eating Fundamentals course is enrolling a new cohort now.   I designed the course for anyone who wants to give up dieting, make peace with food, and see what life is like without diet culture in charge.   The course normally has open enrollment, but if you join now you’ll get a chance to be part of a community...

Katie Dalebout guest-hosts the show to interview Christy about her new book, The Wellness Trap ! Christy shares why she wanted to write a book about wellness, the potential harms of integrative and functional medicine (and why we’re understandably attracted to these approaches), the connections between wellness culture and diet culture, the legacy of the “hysteria” diagnosis and why women are stil...

In the penultimate episode of Food Psych, Christy answers an audience question about the wellness-culture trend of monitoring every bodily function, and whether it’s compatible with intuitive eating. Pre-order Christy's upcoming book, The Wellness Trap , for its April 25 release! If you're ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitiv...

Nutritionist and author Laura Thomas joins us to discuss what it’s like for kids living in the long shadow of “clean eating,” the “almond mom” trend on TikTok, the "wellness to woo pipeline," how parents and caregivers can let go of wellness-culture beliefs about food for themselves and their kids, and more. Laura Thomas is an anti-diet Registered Nutritionist. Her clinical work focuses on...

Christy answers a listener question about Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonist drugs, and why we all should be extremely wary of any new diet drug being hailed as a "miracle." Pre-order Christy's upcoming book, The Wellness Trap , for its April 25 release! If you're ready to break free from diet culture and make peace with food, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals...

Alan Levinovitz, religious-studies scholar and author of Natural and The Gluten Lie , joins us to discuss the problems with framing eating and wellness practices as “natural,” the weird parallels between gun culture and wellness culture, the tricky balance between empathizing with why people are driven to harmful wellness practices and being clear in calling out misinformation, the need for nuance...

We discuss whether autoimmune diets really work, placebo effects and the problem with anecdotal evidence about diets, and the harmful side effects that can come from restricting what you eat. For lots more on wellness culture, check out the new Rethinking Wellness podcast ! Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or sign up to get it in your inbox each week at rethinkingwellness.substack.com . Pre-...

Jenée Desmond-Harris, Slate Magazine's Dear Prudence advice columnist, joins us to discuss her path toward making peace with food and realizing she didn’t have food sensitivities, how infertility can make people desperate enough to try dubious wellness-culture treatments, the harmful wellness messages she’s gotten while navigating her son’s sensitive stomach as a breastfeeding parent, how soci...

Christy answers an audience question about how to avoid eating too little throughout the day and ending up in an unintentional restrict-rebound cycle. We discuss how to reframe the issue so that you’re not forcing yourself to eat or demonizing “overeating,” and explore why tuning into subtle signs of hunger is essential for self-care. (This episode originally aired on June 20, 2022.) Pre-order Chr...

Are you “doing intuitive eating wrong” if you find yourself eating just because you feel bored/tired/sad/otherwise emotional, or just because you *want* to eat, without being hungry per se? Christy responds, with 5 key ideas to consider. (This episode originally aired on June 13, 2022.) Pre-order Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap , for its April 25 release! If you're ready to break...

Casey Gueren, award-winning health journalist and author of It's Probably Nothing, joins us to discuss how to deal with health anxiety, strategies for recognizing and avoiding wellness misinformation online, how to develop greater media literacy, and more. Pre-order Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap , for its April 25 release! If you're ready to break free from diet culture and...

We discuss why intuitive eating is NOT the hunger-and-fullness diet, the real reason many of us eat when we’re “not hungry,” setting boundaries on food talk in a 12-step alcohol-recovery program, how to transition clients from weight loss to intuitive eating, and more. Pre-order Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap , for its April 25 release! If you're ready to break free from diet cul...