Food Psych #221: Riots Not Diets with Becky Young of Anti-Diet Riot Club

Photographer: Khali MacIntyre

Anti Diet Riot Club founder Becky Young joins us to discuss how diet culture intersects with other forms of oppression, how to respond to people who push back against the anti-diet message, why anger is important in eating-disorder recovery, how unconditional permission to eat can free your mind to focus on things other than food, and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a listener question about the definition of the term "people in larger bodies.” 

After almost 12 years of dieting, Becky Young gave it up for good in 2016 and founded the Anti Diet Riot Club with the intention to host support groups and meet-ups in London for people wanting to do the same. Now the project has grown into a massive online community and hosts panel discussions, creative workshops, and fashion fairs to empower people struggling with low body image. They recently crowdfunded to build the Anti Diet Riot Bus to take their workshops on the road across the UK. Find her online at AntiDietRiotClub.co.uk.

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We Discuss:

  • How Becky’s parents’ history of scarcity affected her relationship with food growing up

  • Her mother’s influence on her relationship with her body

  • How dieting led to disordered eating habits

  • How unconditional permission to eat leads to freedom from thinking about food

  • Becky’s experience with dieting as The Life Thief

  • Why the diet industry continues to thrive despite evidence showing that diets don’t work

  • How diet culture intersects with capitalism and other forms of oppression

  • Privilege, and how disadvantaged people can also be privileged in other ways

  • How having fibrodysplasia affected Becky’s relationship with her body and with movement

  • The desire to “fit in” or assimilate

  • How Becky was introduced to the anti-diet movement

  • Anger as a tool for recovery and activism

  • How she healed her relationship with her body before her relationship with food

  • How oppressive systems shape-shift over time

  • Responding to people who push back against the anti-diet message

  • Why it’s important for people, especially thin allies, to call out fat shaming

  • What led her to start the Anti Diet Riot Club

  • The importance of in-person communities in eating-disorder recovery

  • How she plans to spread the anti-diet message through the Anti Diet Riot Bus

Resources Mentioned

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Listener Question of the Week

What does it mean when people say “larger bodies?” Why does Christy use quotation marks around the words “overw**ght” and “ob*se?” When might you hear the word “fat” used on the podcast, and why doesn’t Christy use it all the time? What is thin privilege? How might a person who has higher BMI or wear plus-sized clothing have thin privilege? What might thin privilege not protect a person from? What is the root cause of fatphobia and thin privilege?

Resources Mentioned: 

 
Christy HarrisonBody image, dieting, disordered eating, The Life Thief, unconditional permission, food freedom, diet industry, diet culture, privilege, capitalism, intersectionality, oppression, chronic disease, chronic condition, anger, recovery, activism, community, thin privilege, anti-diet, S720