Food Psych #232: COVID-19 and Diet Culture, Plus How to Help Kids Hold Onto Intuitive Eating and Resist Diet Culture with Leslie Schilling

Photographer: Khali MacIntyre

Fellow anti-diet dietitian and author Leslie Schilling joins us to discuss how to support kids in eating intuitively and navigating diet-culture messaging, how privilege can affect different aspects of a person’s life and worldview, how diet culture can show up in our “safe spaces” including schools and churches, the process of writing her book and the changes she hopes to make for the second edition, and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a question about the rhetoric around food/weight and COVID-19. 

Leslie Schilling, MA, RDN, CEDRD-S owns a Las Vegas-based coaching practice, specializing in nutrition counseling for families, those of all ages with disordered eating concerns, and professional athletes and performers. In addition to running her practice, Leslie serves as a performance nutrition consultant for the performers and coaches of Cirque du Soleil®. With her warm, compassionate, and entertaining personality, Leslie has been featured in media outlets like Women’s Health, Self, Pregnancy Magazine, The Yoga Journal, Bicycling, BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, US News & World Report, and on HGTV. When she’s not spending time with her family, you can find her spreading non-diet messages to her clients and speaking platforms across the nation. Leslie is passionate about educating ministry, military, health, medical, and fitness professionals about the harms of dieting behaviors. You may know Leslie best as the creator of the Born To Eat® approach and co-author of the award-winning book, Born To Eat. Find her online at LeslieSchilling.com.

We Discuss:

  • How Leslie was introduced to diet culture as a child and teenager

  • Her experiences with dieting and disordered eating

  • Disordered eating in sports

  • Factors that can protect people from eating disorders

  • Privilege, and how it can affect different aspects of a person’s life and worldview

  • How Leslie’s career path led her to the HAES®-oriented, family-nutrition work she does today

  • The role that health professionals can play in spreading the Health At Every Size® message

  • The benefits of supervision and working with therapists for dietitians

  • Leslie’s book, Born To Eat, and the changes that she hopes to make for the second edition

  • Baby-led weaning

  • Christy’s experiences in writing her book

  • How diet culture shows up in our “safe places,” like church and school

  • Helping children build resilience against diet culture

Resources Mentioned

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Listener Question of the Week

Can losing weight or eating in a particular way prevent a person from contracting COVID-19? Which populations are more susceptible to COVID-19? What can a person with diabetes and/or a history of disordered eating do to lower their risk of getting coronavirus? What can everyone do to keep themselves and their community safe during this pandemic?

Resources Mentioned: 

 
Christy HarrisonDiet culture, dieting, disordered eating, eating disorders, privilege, sports, athletes, rebel, health professionals, helping professionals, Health At Every Size, HAES, supervision, dietitians, therapists, psychologists, baby-led weaning, kids, children, book, safe places, church, school, resilience, propaganda, anti-diet, S720