Making It Awkward

What is MSG, and what's with all of the sh*t talking? Jessica gets answers to these questions with the help of dietitian  Cara Harbstreet  and a few research rabbit holes.  Jessica and Cara talk about how a (maybe fake?) letter to the New England Journal of Medicine kicked off decades of hysteria about  "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome."  The  true author  of that letter has been in question for years...

Jessica sits down with Dr. Selina Wang to chat about seed oil hysteria. Dr. Wang teaches Jessica about the health benefits of different oils and what's supposedly so scary about seed oils. The two try to define what makes a seed oil and Dr. Wang discusses what happens when people collapse complex science into a sound bite.  You can buy awkward merch ! Different kinds of fats Podcast about anti-tra...

Jessica sat down with two romance novel reviewers from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books to hear more about the genre and how they got into professional reviewing. They talk about reading romance novels when they were way too young and why they love a happy ending. Jessica asks about the awkward ways that sex scenes can be written and shares what she found when she stepped into the world of dino-human r...

RFK Jr could be in charge of this country's health and it will be…wild. Jessica and Alison Pill sat down to talk about it and who might lead the FDA under a Make America Healthy Again regime.  The two get into the concern about fertility among MAHA supporters and what this really means: more babies on the pale end of the spectrum please! Jessica recently consulted her own book for answers about ho...

The popular vote got us. Jessica and her dad reflect on the election and share a few things that may have contributed. Wilson takes issue with many things including non-white people voting for Trump, and what he thinks would happen if he went to a Klan meeting. He also shares why he's not concerned with RFK Jr and what he thinks this podcast will be talking about in years to come.  Jessica missed...

Dietitian Jessica Wilson is joined by Elizabeth Ayiku to talk about the award winning film Me Little Me , which Elizabeth wrote and directed. The film is based on her experience with disordered eating and the barriers she faced while seeking treatment. The pair get into the mechanics of indie film production including what it's like to write, direct, cast, and financing a film when the rent is pas...

Jessica's Curlfriends, Whitney Totter and Tigress Osborn , return to the show to talk about their hair. They share their hair journeys and chat about how hair continues to inform their identities. Hair intersections with eating disorders, mixed-race identity, health and fat liberation are spiritedly discussed!  Steven on Love is Blind Hannah Frankson's hair routine  Wonderful videos of women's big...

For the first episode about Make America Healthy Again , Jessica is joined by Mr Jeff Hutt, the spokesperson for the Super PAC. MAHA is "a powerful new political action committee dedicated to advancing the health-focused policies championed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. through the re-election of President Donald Trump." Mr. Hutt provides an overview of the PAC and its principles, and the two have a wi...

Jessica is back with fellow dietitian Sherene Chou for an episode about food conglomerates and their connection to the primary dietitian interest organization, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Jessica starts by recapping the past week's hysteria about the Siete food brand selling to Pepsico for $1.2B, and asks what that means. Jessica then discusses the investments that food conglomerates a...

Jessica talks with journalist Vicki Gonzalez , who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer after turning 40. Vicki didn't have a family history of breast cancer or genetic predisposition which made her diagnosis even more surprising. The two talk about mammograms, ultrasounds, genetics, biopsies, lumpectomies, radiation, and Vicki's decision to get a bilateral mastectomy in this interview.  Vick...

Jessica is back with her thoughts on the TIME Magazine article about her ultra-processed food experiment. She shares her takeaways, her favorite feedback and has some BIG FOOD fun! Patrilie Hernandez then joins Jessica to talk about Dr. Kevin Hall's research on UPFs and the intersections of race and class with food. They then dive into Lunchables-gate , and food hysteria overall.  You can become a...

This week is a primer for next week's discussion of the TIME mag article. Jessica revisits a few previous guests and a new critic to have a conversation about the discourse about ultraprocessed foods. Do we know how to define which foods are ultraprocessed? What does it mean if we don't actually know what we're talking about? Who benefits from that confusion?  TIME article  NOVA food classificatio...

Kent Thomas returns to the show to review Netflix's new Japanese reality series,  The Boyfriend . The delightful show follows nine gay men who share a home together and start a coffee truck. They need to budget their daily expenses, all while navigating waxing and waning romantic feelings for each other. Kent and Jessica are fixated on what gets in the way of the men sticking to their food budget....

Jessica welcomes Shana Spence , MS RDN, of The Nutrition Tea, to the show to talk about food elitism, Wellness culture and her new book Live Nourished ; Make Peace with Food, Banish Body Shame, and Reclaim Joy.  Somehow we always get back to anti-diet dietitians making cereal ads. And this time we mention the connection to Anahad O'Connor and his Lose It app. Also, Jessica is in Time Magazine!! Je...

Jessica welcomes Dr. Naima Reddick who played rugby for the women's national team. She was part of the community that started https://www.rugbyforall.com . The two talk Olympics, women's sports, gender equity and the gender panic that seemed more prominent at these Olympics than in previous years. Naima shares what should really matter in women's sports. Jessica realizes that she got swept up and...

Making it Awkward is turning 1 and Jessica celebrates by looking back at the first season's highs, lows, most awkward moments. She returns to a very puzzling conversation with Amy and then reminds listeners of her dad's message for all of you. You can send pitches and awkward moments to makingitawkwardpod@gmail.com You can become a podcast patron ! You can rate and review this show! You can email...

Re-Release! In this episode Jessica shares the results of her month of eating 80% of her diet from ultra processed foods. She was surprised to find that her experience was far different from those of Dr. Chris van Tulleken. She talks to Amy, a chemical engineer working in food processing, about lessons learned and how the narrative about UPFs fit into society. NOVA classifications of food You can...

Jessica wraps up the conversation about food addiction and ultraprocessed foods that began with her interview with Dr. David Wiss. She thinks that Dr. Wiss's message is one that the nutrition field has shared for years.  You can read Dr. Wiss's ⁠4500+ word blog entry⁠ about cancel culture in the eating disorder field.  You can find the first episode here . The second episode is with Molly Robbins....

Molly Robbins joins the show for a follow-up interview to Jessica's conversation with Dr. David Wiss, about his article , Dismantling the Myth of "All Foods Fit" in Eating Disorder Treatment." Molly Robbins is a researcher and clinician with lived experience having gone through treatment for atypical anorexia while in a larger body. Molly has questions about whether Dr. Wiss and his coauthors were...

On today's episode Jessica is joined by Pablo Sarmiento, NP , a family nurse practitioner working in the Department of Medicine subspecialty of Infectious Diseases. Pablo is a PrEP provider and the two discuss PrEP research, HIV incidence, disparities, updated language, and HIV disclosure. Resources: https://www.hiv.gov/ https://www.thebody.com/ https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/prep/index.html Email t...

Dr. David Wiss joins the show to talk about his recent comment in the Journal of Eating Disorders, "Dismantling the myth of "all foods fit" in eating disorder treatment." The two talk about eating disorders, ultra-processed foods, food addiction, and hyperpalatable foods. Dr. Wiss discusses his idea of a harm reduction meal plan, and shares how he applies nutrition to mental health.  Additional ar...

Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈 Jessica's spouse, Elisha, joins the show for a relationship quiz. Afterward Elisha shares how she started thinking about her autism and shares a device that she's found helpful in monitoring her overwhelm. Mentioned in the episode: Whoop Jessica's dad trying Liquid IV Email the show: makingitawkwardpod@gmail.com Follow Jessica on Instagram @jessicawilson.msrd and TikTok @byjessi...

Dietitian Dalina Soto of @your.latina.nutritionist joins Jessica to talk about getting spicy on TikTok when a dietitian decided to tell us that salsa isn't a vegetable. The two talk about how so much of her work is correcting misinformation about cultural foods, and helping people to reclaim them. They chat about curves and a time she was told she was "too sultry" for a company's campaign. They al...

NPR launched its NPR's Living Better series a year ago. It spent a year investigating health disparities with a goal of bringing us solutions and hope. The lead story was from  journalist Allison Aubrey, the number 1 nutrition journalist in the country. Jessica shares what  she learned from this series, and what that means for the public.  Dr. Kevin Hall Dr. Robert Lustig episode Email the show: m...

Jessica is joined by Dr. Deb Burgard, a psychologist and one of the co-founders of the Health at Every Size approach. The two of them talk about Jessica's recent keynote presentation in which she discussed an ad for an eating disorder treatment center. She was not expecting the backlash she received. Deb and Jessica are often labeled as people who are divisive, or being mean to people in the eatin...