Food Psych #126: How to Reject Diet-Culture Marketing with Kaila Prins

Kaila Prins

Anti-diet activist and marketing pro Kaila Prins joins us this week to break down the role of marketing in diet culture, the complex ways we consume triggering material, the importance of embracing social justice in the body positivity movement, how she transitioned from her own eating disorder recovery to thinking critically about diet culture, how our personal brand can quickly overtake our personhood, the dangers of working as a coach when you’re still going through your own recovery, and much more! PLUS, Christy answers a listener question about how intuitive eating can help with feelings of overeating as opposed to restriction.

Kaila Prins is a multifaceted, multi-passionate explorer of culture, performance, body image, and marketing. In other words: she has no idea what to call herself, because she does a lot. After recovering from orthorexia, anorexia, and an exercise addiction, Kaila began a career in marketing while moonlighting as a body image coach for recovering women. She is now a speaker on and writer of unpopular opinions about marketing psychology and behavioral economics in the context of body image and is the host of the forthcoming podcast, Your Body, Your Brand. In her “spare” time, she is known as burlesque dancer and drag artist DeeDeeQueen, and she teaches burlesque dance, storytelling, and theatre in San Jose, California. You can find her at performingwoman.com.

Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, to start your intuitive eating journey. You can also text "7STRATEGIES" to the phone number 44222 to get it on the go :)

 

We Discuss:

  • Kaila’s professional journey, from how transitioned into health coaching, to writing about eating disorder recovery and body image

  • The cultural forces that impact our behavior around food and body, AKA “diet culture”

  • Body image burnout

  • The pervasive nature of diet culture and the normalization of restriction, specifically through marketing

  • Kaila’s focus on marketing literacy, and how marketing targets those vulnerable to the diet mentality

  • Surreptitious marketing within body-liberation social media spaces

  • How to market ethically

  • The ways in which our own branding can influence our personal behaviors and decisions

  • Recognizing triggers and calling them out

  • The difficulty of having a public persona that’s attached to a certain kind of eating and living

  • The radicalization of veganism

  • Diet culture and profit as religion

  • The model of fear, uncertainty, and doubt in marketing

  • How to build an ethical body-positive business and brand

  • Eating disorder recovery vs Kaila’s model of discovery

  • The value in change

  • The damage in performing your trauma for the benefit of your brand

  • Finding true body acceptance and true recovery

  • Embracing the social justice aspects of body positivity and moving towards eradicating fatphobia and weight stigma

  • The propaganda of weight loss and politics

  • Body image and body shame in the 2016 Presidential election

  • The distinction between capitalism vs business endeavors, as well as the social justice issues embedded within capitalism

 

Resources Mentioned

Some of the links below are affiliate links. Affiliates or not, we only recommend products and services that align with our values.

 

Listener Question of the Week

How do we incorporate intuitive eating into our lives if we feel we are overeaters, rather than restrictors? How does mental restriction contribute to feelings of deprivation? How does the diet mentality contribute to subconscious restrictive eating (also known as restrained eating)? Does diet culture lead us to judge our eating as overeating, even when our eating is in response to biological need? How does pregnancy and postpartum impact our appetite and food needs? Can medication impact appetite and weight?

Guest Userdiet culture, marketing, eating disorder recovery, disordered eating, eating disorders, ethical marketing, body acceptance, body positivity, social justice, body image, body shame, capitalism, veganism, body liberation, S517