Food Psych #252: Why Diet Culture Starts in Infancy, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater, and the "Big Fat Lies" About Body Size with Leslie Moniot

Photographer: Khali MacIntyre

Introduction & Guest Bio:

Certified lactation counselor and writer Leslie Moniot joins us to discuss diet culture in the infant-nutrition field, trying to raise an intuitive eater, the difference between intuitive eating in children and adults, why we shouldn’t judge people regardless of how they choose to feed themselves or their kids, and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a listener question about how to talk to diet-culture-entrenched family members about Health At Every Size.

Leslie Moniot is a Certified Lactation Counselor and single mother of a 5-year-old daughter, who writes about motherhood, breastfeeding, body liberation, food and more as The Way At Home Mom. After getting pregnant, Leslie moved back to her hometown on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and through a winding road began working for a government program that serves low-income families, where she does prenatal counseling, breastfeeding classes, and peer support for breastfeeding mothers. Leslie has been living the Intuitive Eating and Health At Every Size life for several years after struggling with dieting and disordered eating for too long. Leslie's parenting, dating, and pregnancy pieces have been published on Momtastic.com. She was also the New York contributor for the now shut-down entertainment blog Allie is Wired, may it rest in peace, where she covered pop culture, movies, tv, fashion, beauty, and celebrities. She will probably always be most proud of, for a brief time, writing, producing, and directing her own plays at The People’s Improv Theater in New York. Find her online at WayAtHomeMom.com.

We Discuss:

  • Leslie’s peaceful relationship with food and body as a child, despite body ideals upheld by her parents

  • How she began to blame her eating habits for her body size

  • Her experiences with dieting, disordered eating, and the restrict-binge cycle

  • How she learned about the fat-acceptance movement

  • Moms and eating at kids’ birthday parties

  • Reclaiming the word “fat”

  • What changed for Leslie when she started practicing intuitive eating and fat acceptance

  • How intuitive eating often improves other areas of life

  • The desire to diet as a sign of unmet needs

  • What Leslie refers to as the “Big Fat Lies”

  • Self-compassion, and its role in Leslie’s recovery

  • Pregnancy, hyperemesis, and how they affected her relationship with food and body

  • Why she decided to breastfeed her baby

  • Diet culture in infant nutrition

  • Trying to raise a child to become an intuitive eater

  • Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility

  • The difference between intuitive eating for adults and for children

  • Leslie’s experiences with taking a nutrition course as part of her public-health degree

  • Approaching nutrition from a neutral point of view

  • The need for compassion for both breastfeeding and formula-feeding parents

  • The history of infant formula

  • Why breastfeeding is a privilege

  • The benefits of breastfeeding outside of nutrition

Resources Mentioned

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Ask Food Psych

Listener Question:

“How can I explain the Health At Every Size® movement to my parents who are entrenched in diet culture?”—Mckenna

We Discuss: 

  • How to tell whether others may be receptive or reflexively opposed to the HAES® paradigm

  • Signs that someone may be struggling with their relationship with food and body

  • Focusing on your emotions and lived experience, rather than abstract concepts

  • Setting and reinforcing boundaries around diet talk

 
Christy HarrisonDieting, disordered eating, restrict-binge cycle, recovery, eating-disorder recovery, fat acceptance, intuitive eating, self-compassion, pregnancy, hyperemesis, breastfeeding, infant feeding, infant formula, Ellyn Satter, Division of Responsibility, children, kids, parenting, motherhood, nutrition, public health, lactation, compassion, history, privilege, non-judgement, diet culture, Health At Every Size, boundaries, lived experience, anti-diet, S820