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 

• Submit your questions for a chance to have them answered in the weekly newsletter

• 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

• Liberating Jasper

• Dr. Jeff Iovannone’s work, and his Food Psych episode

• Kent’s Twitter thread on interrogating the oppressive systems that contribute to our “preferences” when it comes to romantic relationships

• Kent’s website, Instagram, and Twitter