Certified Body Trust® Provider, anti-diet nutritionist, and yoga teacher Meg Bradbury joins us with her daughter Carson to discuss how Meg’s orthorexia affected their relationships with food and with each other, why Meg decided to share her recovery journey on social media, how the restrict-binge cycle can show up in children, how The Wellness Diet affects people of different identities, and so much more! Plus, Christy answers a listener question about Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, gluten, and “leaky gut syndrome.” 

Meg Bradbury (she/her) is certified as a holistic anti-diet nutritionist, Body Trust® Provider, Accessible Yoga™ Teacher, and registered Yoga Alliance™ yoga and meditation teacher. Meg is in private practice working with individuals, groups, and families, advocating for body acceptance, eating disorder/disordered eating/body shame recovery, freedom with food, joyful movement, and stillness/breathwork. She hosts Elderqueer, online gatherings for queer folks aged 40+ to connect & build community with conversations about aging in body, mind, relevance, culture, & relationships. Meg’s work is guided by the principles of Intuitive Eating, Health at Every Size®, and the Ellyn Satter Institute through a social justice and intersectional feminist lens. Meg’s practice is fat positive, weight neutral, and Q/T/GNC affirming. As an eating disorder and exercise bulimia survivor, Meg’s work is centered in the tenants of Relational Cultural Therapy; she holds space for clients of all ages with compassion, empathy, and humor. Meg is a member of the Association of Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH) and the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). Meg lives and works in the Los Angeles area. Find her online at Lamplight.Space.

We Discuss:

• Meg’s experience with having her food restricted growing up

• Her first “official” diet, and how it led to her eating disorder

• Carson’s experience growing up in an environment where The Wellness Diet was normalized

• How restrictive food rules can lead to obsession and binge eating in children

• How Meg’s orthorexic beliefs affected the way she raised Carson

• The pressure to be a “good parent” in diet culture and patriarchy

• Why orthorexia can be more insidious than other eating disorders

• The sneaky ways that The Wellness Diet and orthorexia can affect your beliefs

• Carson’s perspective on Meg’s orthorexia

• Meg’s disordered relationship with exercise

• What started her on the path to recovery

• Teenage rebellion

• Expressing love to our family members

• How Meg’s recovery affected her relationship with Carson

• Why Meg decided to share her recovery journey on social media

• How her eating disorder motivated her to become a nutritionist, and how it has actually helped in her recovery

• Tools and strategies for grounding and recovery

• Varsity athletics, and how it can hinder recovery

• How diet culture upholds people with certain body types as “nutrition experts”

• Nutrition science, and how it is constantly misinterpreted

• The classism inherent in The Wellness Diet

• Diet culture as The Life Thief

• The importance of levity and humor in recovery

• Intersectionality in recovery

Resources Mentioned

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

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

• My online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals

• Pre-order my forthcoming book, Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating, and be eligible for exciting bonuses

• Help spread the anti-diet message by subscribing to the podcast

• New Moon Girls magazine

• Be Nourished, co-founder Dana Sturtevant’s Food Psych® episode and co-founder Hilary Kinavey’s Food Psych episode

• Scientific Article: “The Challenge of Reforming Nutritional Epidemiologic Research” (CW: Weight-stigmatizing language and other diet-culture rhetoric)

• Meg’s website and Instagram

Listener Question of the Week

Can eating gluten cause or exacerbate “leaky gut syndrome,” particularly in people with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis? What is “leaky gut syndrome?” How does celiac disease relate to “leaky gut” and Hashimoto’s? Why is it important to be critical of our information sources?

Resources Mentioned:

• Food Psych episode 186

• UK National Health Services (NHS) article: “‘Leaky Gut Syndrome’”

• Science-Based Medicine article: "Leaky Brain, Leaky Gut: Are They Real?"