Food Psych #273: Diet Culture in the Church, and Challenging Body Ideals in Gay and Queer Communities with Kent Thomas
Introduction & Guest Bio:
Social worker and body-liberation coach Kent Thomas joins us to discuss the harms of gay body ideals, how queer people can use their experience of living outside cultural norms to help in healing their relationships with their bodies, his experience with diet culture in the church, the dance of advocating for the Health At Every Size® paradigm without becoming dogmatic about it, and so much more.
Kent Thomas, MSW is a social worker who focuses on Body Liberation Coaching and is passionate about helping others find freedom and a greater sense of home in their bodies. Kent works with people of all genders and sexualities, and is passionate about working with men to unlearn body shame and toxic body norms. As a gay man, Kent is especially passionate about helping queer men heal and create a fat positive and inclusive gay community. In addition to Body Liberation Coaching, Kent is a community organizer who advocates for queer inclusion in religious spaces and helps individuals tell their stories and heal from religious trauma. All of Kent’s coaching services are on Zoom and are available regardless of the client’s location. Kent can be found on Instagram @KentThomasMSW and his website is KentThomasMSW.com.
We Discuss:
The different factors that influenced Kent’s relationship with food and body growing up
How diet culture messaging and toxic body norms show up in the church
Kent’s experiences with disordered eating as a teen and young adult, and his first steps toward recovery
The “sick enough” myth
How coming out and becoming a part of the gay community affected Kent’s relationship with food and body
Toxic body norms in parts of the gay community, and the systems of oppression that contribute to them
Strategies to help in divesting from diet culture and the Wellness Diet
How queer people can use their experience of living outside cultural norms to help in healing their relationships with their bodies
The grief that Kent experienced with coming out, and how it parallels with some of the feelings that show up in body liberation
Why he decided to pursue a degree and career in social work
What body-liberation coaching means
Community, and its role in eating-disorder recovery
Interrogating the oppressive systems that contribute to our “preferences” when it comes romantic relationships, with compassion and without shame
Why thinking of liberation in moralistic terms is not actually liberatory
The dance of advocating for the anti-diet movement and Health At Every Size paradigm without becoming dogmatic
Perfectionism as a barrier to social justice and liberation
Resources Mentioned
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Subscribe to the weekly newsletter, Food Psych Weekly
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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
Kent’s Twitter thread on interrogating the oppressive systems that contribute to our “preferences” when it comes to romantic relationships