Food Psych #231: The Wellness Diet, Binge Eating Disorder, and Diet Culture vs. Intuitive Eating with Julia Lévy-Ndejuru

Photographer: Khali MacIntyre

Fellow anti-diet dietitian Julia Lévy-Ndejuru joins us to discuss her experience with the Wellness Diet and binge eating disorder, why there’s no such thing as “light restriction,” how pregnancy affected her relationship with her body, how even body-liberation activists can still be triggered by diet culture, and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a listener question about whether home-testing kits for food sensitivities are accurate or bogus. 

Julia Lévy-Ndejuru is a registered dietitian, blogger and MSc. candidate currently living in Montreal, Canada. Her clinical work is rooted in intuitive eating and Health At Every Size. She holds bachelor's degrees in Dietetics and in Psychology, and her Masters research project focuses on the interplay between intuitive eating and the practice of relaxation activities. She firmly believes that everyone deserves to have a good relationship with food and their body, and recognizes the importance of social justice work to get there. Through her writing and occasional public speaking, she hopes to bring the intuitive eating and HAES messages to people who may not be familiar with them. More specifically, she does most of her writing in French, to make these philosophies accessible to francophone communities in Canada and worldwide. Find her online at NutritionPositive.ca.

We Discuss:

  • Julia’s difficult relationship with food growing up

  • How her family’s diverse cultural background influenced her relationship with food and body

  • “Bonding” through dieting

  • The protective power of unconditional love

  • What motivated Julia and Christy to pursue careers in dietetics

  • How Julia got sucked into the Wellness Diet

  • The “Mindful Eating Diet”

  • Why there’s no such thing as “light restriction”

  • How intuitive eating differs from “flexible dietary control”

  • Removing the stigma and shame around binge eating

  • The parallels between bingeing and cravings in diet culture

  • How Julia was able to recover from her binge-eating disorder

  • Recovering while in a romantic relationship

  • How pregnancy affected her relationship with her body

  • Self-compassion

  • Why she asks doctors to not talk about her weight

  • The lack of fat-positive pregnancy resources

  • How body-liberation activists and allies can still be affected by diet culture and fatphobia

  • The need for more francophone HAES® resources

Resources Mentioned

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Listener Question of the Week

Is there evidence behind the use of home-testing kits to identify food sensitivities? How might these kits promote anxiety and a disordered relationship with food? What are some of the problems with IgG food-sensitivity testing? How might a person tell if their food-sensitivity test is based on IgG antibodies? What should a person look for if they are interested in valid food-sensitivity testing?

Resources Mentioned: 

 
Christy HarrisonDieting, love, dietetics, nutrition, Wellness Diet, mindful eating, restriction, intuitive eating, dietary control, binge eating, binge-eating disorder, bingeing, stigma, shame, cravings, relationship, partner, loved ones, grief, pregnancy, self-compassion, fat-positive, activists, allies, diet culture, fatphobia, francophone, French, Health At Every Size, HAES, food sensitivities, food allergies, celiac disease, food-sensitivity tests, IgG, antibodies, anti-diet, S720