Making It Awkward

Tigress Osborn debated Jillian Michaels about the health and wellness field on Jubilee Media's Surrounded –and won! Tigress, the Executive Director of NAAFA , comes back to the show to talk about her experience being one of (supposedly) 20 body positivity activists to debate Jillian . The two talk about her experiences including the production and editing of the show, how she ended up in one of th...

Jillian Michaels is a one hit wonder who keeps trying to make a comeback. She also is also loud about her changing politics. About her becoming a Conservative in 2020, "I was forever gone. Took the red pill." Today is a prequel to next week's episode with NAAFA Executive Director Tigress Osborne who got to debate Jillian for the newest episode of Jubilee Media's Surrounded .  In today's episode ed...

Would you ever add chia seeds to your latte? Levels Health , a health-tech startup co-founded by presumptive Surgeon General Casey Means , is a deeply unserious company and provides both hilarious and irresponsible guidance on its app.  Public health dietitians Selena Salfen and Meghan Cichy return to the show to discuss our 30 days of using a CGM paired with the Levels app .  Jessica didn't find...

Dr. Casey Means went to Congress last week. On February 28 2026 she went before the Senate's committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to make her case to be the next Surgeon General .  During the hearing Casey was asked about her statements on vaccines, her medical license , birth control, and her social media sponsors, but were those the questions that needed to be asked? Today public h...

RFK told us that  "We are ending the war on saturated fats" with the release of his food triangle and accompanying Dietary Guidelines . Dr. Selina Wang , Faculty Director at the UC Davis Olive Center, returns to the show to talk about the triangle which emphasizes "healthy fats" like olive oil, butter and tallow. RFK has told us over and over that saturated fats are actually healthy for us, but is...

Tigress Osborn , Executive Director of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance returns to the show to discuss Mike Tyson's Super Bowl ad for MAHA and the inverted food triangle . The fat shaming ad is part of an ongoing appeal to the manly man, providing us with boxer Mike Tyson telling us about how he wanted to kill himself when he was fat, and telling us all that "something needs to b...

Lindsay Lee Wallace returns to talk about why she thinks women who have sex with men are drawn to Heated Rivalry . She wrote in, Yearning and Submission in 'Heated Rivalry ', "Women who yearn and submit are often main characters—but they are simultaneously seen as frivolous and typical. Their yearning and submission aren't treated as meaningful, or as specific to them and their relationships… So i...

Blake Flaugher, MPH returns to the show to chat about all things Heated Rivalry . He shares some topics that have been left out of the discourse, and teaches us about the importance of seeing romance in gay relationships, the role of hags in gay men's lives, and representation of bottoming. Blake and Jessica share their coming out stories, discuss if we're beyond conversations about coming out,  a...

F*** ICE. This bonus episode shares the stories of immigration and ICE occupation from Making it Awkward guests. Hear stories of immigrants in LA, what it's like to be on the ground in Minneapolis right now, and a story from a mom in Charlotte deliverying groceries to neighbors too afraid to leave their homes.  HCMC protest  https://www.kare11.com/ article/news/local/breaking- the-news/hcmc-doctor...

Jessica Wilson, MS. RD. made a social media ad for Dr. Robert Lustig 's Monch Monch; a fiber supplement that's supposed to act like a sponge in our digestive tract. Now listeners get to hear the ins and outs of the partnership and about the supplement from top to bottom. Our favorite podcast editor Jen Jacobs returns to this side of the show to hear about the whole commercial making process, behin...

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are out RFK Jr decided to give us an inverted food triangle and tell us it's a new and improved food pyramid . Dietitian and public health badass Meghan Cichy, MPH RDN returns to the show to discuss the new dietary guidelines and the focus on "real food". She walks Jessica through all of the public health language and limitations and also asks who all of this i...

Have you been thinking clean thoughts and manifesting for 2026? Lindsay Lee Wallace returns to the show to talk about the idea of thought hygiene, OCD, magical thinking and manifesting. Lindsay shares the highlights of the conversation she had with a manifestation coach and she brings her thoughts about wellness as a line item in your budget. Lindsay and Jessica start the episode with a discussion...

Re-release!  Chrissy King joins Jessica Wilson, MS RD for a conversation about being childfree by choice. Chrissy talks about how she made her decision and how Jessica didn't ever think it was a choice she needed to make. Chrissy got to share her thoughts on many things including the marketing of parenthood, the idea of it taking a village to raise a child and aging like the Golden Girls. The two...

Re-release! Jessica talks with  Sherene Chou about the whiteness of the Mediterranean Diet and its origins. The two chat about their mixed reviews of speaking at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health's Healthy Kitchens Healthy Lives . Sherene discusses a variety of "healthy diets" out there and how they fall short of meeting the moment. She also spills the beans on the next superfood. Jessica is...

Dietitian Sherene Chou returns to the pod, this time to talk about her experience having a confinement nanny for a month after giving birth. Confinement nannies families in the post-partum period, to help manage household tasks, and prepare nutritious meals according to Chinese postpartum rules, and also helps with feeding of the infant.  Leslie Voorhees Means, wife of White House food and nutriti...

Calley Means has returned to the White House as a Senior Advisor supporting food and nutrition policy. Since his return the Dietary Guidelines have been delayed and should(may) now be delivered to us in January 2026. Additionally, TIME has reported that there may be a return to the Food Pyramid in the updated Guidelines.  Selena Salfen returns to the show to share the many reasons why Calley shoul...

Cheryl Hines, wife of RFK Jr, wrote a memoir and "wrote" is used loosely in this context. Her publication team didn't do her any favors with this lightly edited, sprawling account of Cheryl's life and path to becoming the unwilling wife of the Secretary of HHS– or is he the secretary of HHR?  Cheryl doesn't understand that her choices have consequences, even as they continue to pile up, including...

Selena Selfan, MPH, RD is back for the next installment in the re-grifting series! She is the resident Means Siblings Scholar and talks to host Jessica Wilson, MS RD about her deep dive! Dr. Casey Means is currently the presumptive nominee for Surgeon General. Her brother Calley Means is a special advisor to RFK Jr and cofounder of Truemed . The two are fervent MAHA supporters and foot soldiers in...

Jocelyn Green of @ audhd_academic joins Jessica to discuss the concept of "losing an autism diagnosis" and what's often missing when discussing autism research. The two discuss the limitations of autism statistics and how their misuse can become unethical. They also talk about disability, what conditions may present to make someone seek an autism diagnosis later in adulthood, support needs for aut...

Today Dr. Theresa Lyons, founder and CEO of Navigating AWEtism joins Making it Awkward. She reached out to Jessica sharing that as an Ivy League scientist and mom to a non-speaking autistic daughter, she's used her expertise to guide other parents of autistic children. Dr. Lyons introduces a study that says 37% of kids can go on to lose their autism diagnosis and Jessica has follow-up questions. T...

Dr. Bethany Johnson returns to the show to share the deep history of the plague, and how we should be thinking about it today. She talks about how anti-Chinese and anti-Mexican sentiment impacted the mitigation and spread of the plague in the early 1900s. Bethany also talks about how climate change may impact infectious disease, antibiotic resistance, lyme disease, pet safety, mitigation measures,...

We've been a lot of places with RFK Jr, his conspiracy theories, magical thinking, lies, his meltdowns in front of Senate committees, and seen that he doesn't understand half of the things he talks about. Exhibit A: He thinks babies are grown in placentas Let's make sure we're clear on RFK's indisputable, irrefutable cause of autism going forward. Today I share his gold standard science-certified...

Kyle Davis, MSW, LICSW, joins the show to talk about his experience with Assertive Community Treatment for supporting people with severe and persistent mental illness. He shares details of that model today and what autonomy can actually look like when people are out of institutions and living in society. In Jessica's interview with psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, Dr. Carole shared her belief th...

MAHA and Cuteservatives are okay with spending millions on measles outbreaks yet want to control people's food choices in the name of "health." People are able to buy raw milk with SNAP, yet shouldn't be allowed to buy a candybar? The math is not mathing. Today's episode is a follow up to the episode released 10/1/25, "Fauci Needs to Be Locked Up!" with Dr. Carole Lieberman. Jessica responds to so...

Jessica Wilson, MS. RD. is joined by Blake Flaugher, MPH , to give Jessica a full breakdown of poppers and RFK Jr.'s AIDS denialism. Jessica is very curious about butt stuff and Blake expertly answers her questions. He also answers a listener question about the spectrum of asexuality. The two have this conversation at a brewery and got the opportunity to make things awkward! Blake updates Jessica...