Body-image activist Connie Sobczak joins us to discuss recovering from diet culture and body dissatisfaction, her role in creating the concept of body positivity and how HAES and fat acceptance were integrated from the start, the pluses and minuses of the current body-positive movement, why calling it "body neutrality" might work better for some people, why BMI is BS, the beauty ideal and aging, and lots more!

Connie Sobczak is a mentor, writer, educator, and award-winning video producer. Her experience with an eating disorder in her teen years and the death of her sister Stephanie inspired her life’s work to create a world where all people are free to love their bodies. In 1996, Connie brought her vision to life when she created The Body Positive with Elizabeth Scott, LCSW.

Connie is the author of Embody: Learning to Love Your Unique Body (and quiet that critical voice!), a book in which she brings the Be Body Positive Model to life, and skillfully and lovingly reconnects readers to their authenticity and beauty. She is a leader of the movement to prevent eating problems and improve the self-image of youth and adults through her writing, workshops, videos, professional trainings, leadership programs, and speaking engagements.

A California native, Connie currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner, Jim. Their daughter, Carmen, is her inspiration and her joy. Find Connie online at TheBodyPositive.org. 

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We Discuss:

• Connie’s relationship with food growing up, including the experience of being a picky eater at a young age

• Diet culture and body dissatisfaction

• Puberty and weight gain

• The normalization of disordered eating behavior

• Connie’s experience with bulimia

• Intuitive eating

• Determining cravings

• Fear of pleasure

• Doing body-positive work for the next generation

• The power of anger in recovery

• Touch and massage as a form of healing and emotional release

• Her role in creating the concept of body positivity

• Body positivity vs. body neutrality

• Fat acceptance and Health at Every Size

• Sitting with suffering

• The beauty ideal and aging

• Beauty vs prettiness

• Appreciating mistakes

• Meditation

• Intuitive living

• Embodiment

• Finding balance through nutrition

• The importance of cultural competency in health interventions

• Debunking BMI

• Bodily autonomy

• Fatphobia from healthcare providers

Resources Mentioned

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

• Lindsey Hall Cohn of Gurze Books

• The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness by Kim Chernin

• Elizabeth Scott

• Deb Burgard

• Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker

• Bodies by Susie Orbach

• Women’s Therapy Center Institute in NYC

• Intuitive Eating, 3rd ed. by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

• Sonya Renee Taylor of The Body is Not an Apology

• Gloria Lucas and her Food Psych Podcast episode

• Virgie Tovar and her first and second Food Psych Podcast episodes