Food Psych #270: Big News About the Pod, Plus Weight Stigma, Money in Diet Culture, and the Evolution of Health At Every Size with Nancy Ellis-Ordway

Photographer: Khali MacIntyre

Introduction & Guest Bio:

Health At Every Size® therapist Nancy Ellis-Ordway joins us to discuss weight stigma in education, healthcare, and beyond; why individual health behaviors are less important than they’re made out to be; the evolution of HAES® over time; the role of money and industry in perpetuating diet culture; and so much more. Plus, Christy shares some big news about her next project and the future of the podcast. 

Nancy Ellis-Ordway, LCSW, PhD, is a psychotherapist with thirty years' experience, specializing in treating eating disorders, body image issues, stress, anxiety, depression and relationship issues. She offers individual, couple, and family therapy through her private practice in Jefferson City, MO. In addition to a Master of Social Work degree from Washington University, she has completed the Advanced Psychodynamic Psychotherapy training program at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. She has written chapters for four books, as well as numerous articles for professional and general publications. Her book, Thrive At Any Weight; Eating to Nourish Body, Soul and Self Esteem was published in 2019. She also teaches classes for professional continuing education. She has a Ph.D. in Health Education and Promotion from the University of Missouri. Find her online at neomsw.com.

We Discuss:

  • Similarities in food customs across cultures

  • The role of food in establishing identity

  • How Nancy became interested in food, therapy, and eating-disorder treatment

  • How beauty ideals and our collective relationship with food have shifted over time

  • The roots of the “freshman weight gain” belief

  • How Nancy started seeing disordered eating as a societal issue connected to weight stigma

  • Her involvement with the Health At Every Size® movement in its early years

  • The trademarking of HAES® and Food Psych® to protect those terms from being co-opted by diet culture

  • How weight stigma and the Health At Every Size movement have changed over time

  • How a focus on weight and individual responsibility distracts from addressing more important systemic issues

  • What happens when social policy is made without involving people with lived experience

  • Nancy’s experiences pushing back against weight stigma while pursuing her graduate degrees

  • Weight stigma in healthcare and education

  • The role of money and industry in perpetuating weight stigma and diet culture

  • Fen-Phen and Redux

  • Christy’s experiences reporting on food and health before she became a dietitian

  • Nancy’s perspective on how HAES® has evolved in recent years

  • Her book, Thrive At Any Weight; Eating to Nourish Body, Soul and Self Esteem

  • The benefits of virtual healthcare

  • Refusing to be weighed at the doctor’s office

Resources Mentioned

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Christy HarrisonFood customs, identity, eating-disorder treatment, eating disorders, disordered eating, beauty ideals, weight stigma, ASDAH, Health At Every Size, HAES, social determinants of health, SDOH, individual responsibility, social policy, fatphobia, medical fatphobia, healthcare, education, money, industry, weight-loss industry, diet industry, pharmaceutical industry, anti-diet, S821