Lindsey Averill, writer, activist, and film maker, comes on the show this week to discuss the release of her new movie, “Fattitude,” how she found intuitive eating and discovered body acceptance, the issue of weight discrimination and size bias in media and the medical community, her work in body image, the problem with mainstream body positivity, and more! PLUS, Christy answers a listener question about binge eating and navigating trigger foods in recovery.

Lindsey Averill is many things - a filmmaker, an academic, a writer, an activist, an aspiring novelist, a sake and sushi lover, a notorious trashy television watcher, an odd beauty secret keeper, an amazing dancer... really, the list is endless.  

Lindsey completed her M.F.A in Writing from Emerson College and is A.B.D in the Comparative Studies Ph.D. Program at Florida Atlantic University. The focus of Lindsey’s research is feminism, fat civil rights and the representation of fat bodies in popular culture. Since 2005 Lindsey has worked as a college professor teaching women’s studies, literature and writing courses.

In her spare time, Lindsey writes stuff for lots of cool media outlets, like CNN, xojane, Time.com, The Huffington Post, Alternet, Refinery29, Bustle and the up and coming women’s lifestyle magazine, Muses and Visionaries. Lindsey’s also written academic stuff where she speaks to feminism – or a lack thereof in young adult novels – like Twilight and the Hunger Games.  

Basically, Lindsey is one of those public intellectual types, who has dedicated her life to ending the hateful relationships people have with their bodies and changing the national conversation about body image so that it focuses on effect the very real issues of bias and systemic prejudice. Find her online at FattitudetheMovie.com.

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We Discuss:

• Lindsey’s relationship with food growing up, including the urge to diet at a young age

• The invisibility of anorexia and restrictive tendencies in fat bodies

• Fatphobia in the medical community and the double standard in care

• Lindsey’s exploration into fat studies and weightism, and unearthing fat activism

• The myths surrounding the thin ideal

• Body changes and romantic relationships

• Current medical opinions and myths about body weight and pregnancy, and the potential influences of diet culture on pregnancy cravings

• Navigating intuitive eating and nutrition

• Finding joyful movement

• Coping with weight gain in intuitive eating and embracing body acceptance

• Exploring the joy and pleasure in food

• Normalizing all kinds of food and overcoming bingeing behaviors

• Lindsey’s work in media, and her exploration of the representations of women and body image

• Body image issues among all populations and life stages

• Watering down body positivity, and ignoring its roots in fat activism

• Weight-based discrimination and systemic prejudice

• Lindsey and Viri’s project, "Fattitude"

• The importance and impact of media representation on internalized weight stigma

Resources Mentioned

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

• Deb Burgard and her Food Psych Podcast episode

• The Fat Studies Reader

• Marilyn Wann

• Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby

• Viridiana Lieberman

• Claire Mysko and NEDA

• Substantia Jones

• Jes Baker, “Lisa Frank BoPo,” and her Food Psych Podcast episode

• BEDA Conference

• Ragen Chastain and her first and second Food Psych Podcast episode

• “New Voices are Striking a Blow Against Fat Shaming” by Lindsey Averill on CNN

• Fattitude’s Facebook page

• Submit your questions for a chance to have them answered on the podcast!

• My online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals, which includes monthly listener Q&A podcasts and access to my private Facebook support group

Listener Question of the Week

How do we handle bingeing? Are there foods that we will always have bingeing tendencies with? What if we experience binge eating in a smaller body? Are there ways we can increase satisfaction throughout the day to prevent binges in the first place?

(Resources Mentioned: Christy’s private coaching, Christy’s Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course, and the Certified Intuitive Eating Counselors Directory)