Although the idea of ‘body positivity’ has become more mainstream in recent years, we’re still firmly stuck in a culture that is obsessed with dieting and thinness. While many semi-savvy companies have hopped on the body posi bandwagon, it’s easy to become disenchanted with the idea of body positivity when it’s advertised to you as a way to sell more products, including diet products (looking at you, WW). Instead of using the words body positivity as a cheap way to lure in new customers, they should focus on the foundations of the fat positivity movement and work toward creating an actual cultural change in the way we view dieting and bodies.
However, even though the culture at large can be disappointing, there are fantastic resources that you can find with a little digging on the internet. It’s easy to be wary of what you find related to body positivity and anti-diet resources, since the movement has been flooded with people trying to cash in without spreading the actual message of the anti-diet movement. When looking for a trusted resource online, make sure that they mention on their website (hopefully prominently!) that they believe in dismantling diet culture, center larger bodies, and don’t mention weight loss anywhere on their site. Even with those starting points, it can be tricky to find people doing the work sometimes, though.
If you’re looking for true anti-diet mentality resources, here are some of my favorite podcasts to listen to on the topic:
Body Kindness® with Rebecca Scritchfield
As the name suggests, the purpose of this podcast is to teach you how to be kind to your body in realistic, gentle ways. As you are probably aware, the preoccupation with diet culture leads us to treat our bodies pretty terribly as a society. We ignore the messages our bodies send. We try to change its shape. Sometimes we let it be hungry. We punish it when it doesn’t look the way we want it to.
Rebecca interviews guests on a wide variety of topics, like diet culture, weight stigma research, fat activism, and the Me Too movement, just to name a few. The mission statement of this podcast is basically “Health is about being kind to your body,” as the Body Kindness® website states, and this podcast will give you permission to be kind and gentle with yourself as you make peace with your body.
FoodPsych® with Christy Harrison
Christy Harrison is a big name in anti-diet circles. She just released a fantastic book called Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating. Christy has been doing anti-diet work for years through her practice and through her podcast, FoodPsych®. Each episode is a conversation with interesting and thoughtful guests, and Christy is a talented interviewer. She uses the podcast to ask her guests about their relationships with food, their own body image, fat acceptance, and recovery from diet culture and eating disorders. This podcast has been going strong since 2013, so there is a massive backlog of episodes to listen to. If you’re ready to dive in to anti-diet culture, FoodPsych® is a fantastic place to start.
Dietitians Unplugged Podcast with Aaron Flores and Glenys Oyston
Like the podcasters above, Aaron Flores and Glenys Oyston are registered dieticians who use their podcast to focus on health and wellness from an anti-diet perspective. They discuss topics like Health at Every Size®, Intuitive Eating, fat representation in popular culture, thin privilege, and self-care in a larger body. Aaron and Glenys often have guests on the show to talk about a particular topic – past guests have included Jes Baker, Dr. Lindo Bacon, Ragen Chastain, Rebecca Scritchfield, Christy Harrison, and dozens more. This show doesn’t have quite as large of a backlog as the others mentioned, but there are still over 70 episodes to listen to!
The BodyLove Project with Jessi Haggerty
Finally, the BodyLove Project, hosted by Jessi Haggerty, focuses on discovering what body love means. This is different for everyone! Jessi interviews guests on topics like Health at Every Size®, Intuitive Eating, eating disorder recovery, body image, and mindfulness in each episode, and often dives deeper than just those topics. In each episode, you get to listen in as Jessi and the guest discuss what body love means to them and how it can transform lives in general. This show has almost 70 episodes currently, so there’s plenty to listen to!
In a culture that is constantly talking about dieting, these podcasts are a wonderful way to tune into a perspective that will uplift and inspire you to abandon diet culture. Each one of these podcasts offers valuable information on diet culture, our relationships to our bodies, and on being kind to ourselves.
