Introduction & Guest Bio:

SEASON 8 PREMIERE! Therapist and body-image coach Brianna Campos joins us to discuss how to improve body image and fight internalized weight stigma, her concept of “body grief,” how body image is connected to what’s going on in the world around you, and so much more. Plus, Ask Food Psych co-host Savala Nolan answers a listener question about how to handle scarcity mentality with special-occasion foods that are typically served at holidays or parties.

Brianna Campos is a fat-positive, Health At Every Size provider. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in the state of NJ and also does virtual body image coaching sessions, groups, and workshops. Find her on Instagram at @BodyImageWithBri.

Savala Nolan is a writer, teacher, and social justice attorney. She is the Executive Director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law, convening scholars, activists, lawyers, and community members at the best public law school in the country to tackle social justice problems. 

Savala and her writing about race, gender, bodies and culture have been featured in/on Time, NPR, Forbes, Bust, The Nation, Detroit Free Press, San Francisco Chronicle, and more. She is a regular keynote speaker and panelist on social justice issues, including body-based bias, implicit bias, structural racism, and understanding Whiteness. 

She has practiced law in San Francisco and Detroit, MI, and was a law clerk in the Obama Administration’s Office of White House Counsel, where she focused on constitutional law. Before becoming a lawyer, Nolan worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Find her online at SavalaNolan.com.

This episode is brought to you by ThredUP, the world’s largest online consignment and thrift store. Sell your old clothes and get new-to-you pieces at up to 90% off retail prices. Visit thredup.com/FOODPSYCH for 30% off your first purchase. Terms apply.

We Discuss:

• Brianna’s complicated relationship with food growing up

• Her experiences with medical fatphobia, body shame, and dieting as a child

• Her weight-loss surgery experience

• The factors that protected Brianna from developing an eating disorder

• How she first started questioning the conflation of weight and health

• Cognitive dissonance in eating-disorder recovery

• The trauma of medical oppression

• Why you don’t need to be weighed at the doctor’s office

• How medical fatphobia leads to poor health outcomes

• Body-image healing, and why it is important in eating-disorder recovery

• Body satisfaction, and how it differs from body image

• Brianna’s concept of body grief

• Intuitive eating as a path to body connection

• Shame and body image

• Sitting with, rather than “fixing,” grief and discomfort

• Letting go of controlling our body and moving toward body peace

• How body image is connected to what’s going on in the world around you

• The role of thin providers in body-image work

• Respecting a person’s desire to lose weight without actively promoting weight loss

• Building resilience against pushback from diet culture

• How to shift toward positive self-talk

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

• My book, Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating

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

• Fiona Sutherland’s work, and her Food Psych® episode

• Brené Brown’s work (TW: Brené is not HAES-aligned and has spoken about going on diets herself)

• Jes Baker’s work, and her Food Psych episodes #112 and #154

• Judith Matz’s work, and her Food Psych episode

• Brianna’s website, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

• This episode is brought to you by ThredUP, the world’s largest online consignment and thrift store. Sell your old clothes and get new-to-you pieces at up to 90% off retail prices. Visit thredup.com/FOODPSYCH for 30% off your first purchase. Terms apply.
  

Ask Food Psych

Listener Question:

“How can I, as someone who has recovered from an eating disorder, help my family avoid the scarcity mindset around special-occasion foods when budgetary limits and the number of people in our household do make those foods more scarce?”—Amy

We Discuss: 

• Savala’s own experiences as a mom who has recovered from disordered eating

• Accepting the scarcity mindset and changing our reaction to it

• Normalizing excitement around food

• Occasional scarcity versus food insecurity or prolonged restriction

• How to make food lose its “power”

• How Savala normalizes treats in her household

• The different facets of appetite

• How Savala manages her internalized diet mentality around her daughter

• Inner and outer work in eating-disorder recovery

• Communicating to your child and others that you trust them with food

• Creating abundance within budget constraints

• Practice not perfection

Resources Mentioned: 

• Savala’s Food Psych episode 

• Savala’s website, Instagram, and Venmo