Reclaim You- The Sneaky and Disconnecting Ways of Diet Culture
Season 1: Episode 3- The Sneaky and Disconnecting Ways of Diet Culture with Laura Gordon
Like, subscribe and leave us a comment on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
Join us for another episode of the Reclaim You podcast!
Today Sarah and Laura delve into the insidious and disconnecting ways in which diet culture infiltrates our lives. Laura guides us through an illuminating discussion on the impact of diet culture on our well-being and how we can start reclaim and turn toward ourselves, while turning away from diet culture.
To kickstart the episode, Laura shares her personal understanding of the phrase "Reclaim You" and its profound significance both in her own life and in her work with clients.
As the conversation unfolds Laura reflects on her initial encounter with the concept of diet culture and shares what stood out the most during her learning process. Sarah and Laura peel back the layers to expose the sneaky ways in which diet culture manifests in our everyday lives, often disguising harmful beliefs and behaviors as "normal" or desirable.
Empowering listeners to differentiate between self-care and diet culture, Laura offers valuable insights on how to recognize and challenge the influence of diet culture on our beliefs and behaviors. By reconnecting with our own wisdom, we can distinguish between practices that truly nourish our well-being and those that perpetuate harmful norms.
To end the episode, Sarah and Laura explore how our disconnection from ourselves, our values, and various aspects of our lives is intertwined with the pervasive influence of diet culture. They shed light on the profound impact this disconnection has on our relationship with food, the development of eating disorders or disordered eating, and our overall well-being.
Tune in as we unravel the complexities of diet culture and learn how to reclaim our true selves, foster self-compassion, and establish a healthier relationship with our bodies and food. Together, let's dismantle the insidious influence of diet culture and embark on a journey reconnection and liberation.
To learn more about Reclaim Therapy and how to work with a therapist on the team, head to www.reclaimtherapy.org !
Check out Laura's Blog:
Size Inclusivity: More Than A Number
Thanks for listening to Reclaim You!
To learn more about Reclaim Therapy and how to work with a therapist on the team, head to www.reclaimtherapy.org.
Be sure to comment, like and subscribe here, or on YouTube and come follow along on Instagram!
-
Description text goes here[00:01] Sarah: Hi there. Welcome to Reclaim You, a podcast published by the Reclaim Therapy team. Join us as we share stories, tools, and insights on how to reclaim you in the wake of trauma, disordered eating, and body shame. Grab your coffee, tea, or your favorite snack and get cozy because we're about to dive in. Welcome back to Reclaim You, a show for folks who have experience trauma, disordered eating or body shame. Today we're talking to Laura. Welcome, Laura.
[00:32] Laura: Hi.
[00:33] Sarah: Hi. Laura is one of the therapists at Reclaimed Therapy. She specializes in treating trauma, eating disorders, body image concerns. She also has a special interest in treating folks who experience spiritual trauma and religious trauma. So, so glad that you're chatting today.
[00:53] Laura: Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
[00:55] Sarah: So today we're going to talk about the sort of insidious and disconnecting ways of diet culture. But before we do that, I'd love to hear from you a little bit. Like I've asked everyone so far, what does Reclaim You mean to you in your personal life and in your work with clients?
[01:12] Laura: It's a really good question. I think I have to be honest. When I first even was introduced to this practice as a potential place to work, the name alone was like very intriguing to me because I think there is something in how we live so often where we are so disconnected and not just from ourselves, but from others as well. And I feel like the disconnect just keeps going and going and there's more and more ways that we're disconnecting and we live in this sort of metaverse, right, where it's like not really me interacting with you and now AI. Well, I'm not going to get into conspiracy theories. Yeah, but let's just say that one of the grandfathers of AI is like, dude, you guys better watch out. But I think the idea of Reclaiming You really it's this idea for me that we no longer have to live disconnected from ourselves and others and that we can reclaim our birthright, which is that we're worthy, right? I'm worthy in my mind, in my body, and in my spirit. And it's not just one or the other two and not the other. And so often when we talk about eating disorders, disordered eating, the body is the unworthy place that we disconnect from. But if we dig deeper, it's a disconnect from a lot of other things. And then this idea of coming home to ourselves that there can be a place of safety and deeply embodied love and joy that lives within us that we can come home to and feel safe with regardless of what we encounter day to day in the world.
[02:55] Sarah: Really beautiful. I'm like soaking all of that in. I can feel it in my bones.
[03:02] Laura: It's real, right? Actually, there's a painting that was my mother's. It's called I'm coming home. And it's this woman traveling this road to this cottage, like on the Irish seaside or something. And I remember my mom who struggled that meant so much to her, she hung it on her wall, especially at the end of her life. She was bedridden basically for six years. And just that idea that home can mean a lot of different things, but that the home can be within.
[03:31] Sarah: So let's dive into diet culture a little bit. When you started doing this work and when your eyes kind of opened to diet culture, because I think that's kind of what it is sometimes. It's this awakening of like, oh, ****. What stood out the most to you? Or, what kind of shook you the most?
[03:50] Laura: I think, honestly, what shook me the most was like, wait, there's something different than what I know.
[03:55] Sarah: Yeah.
[03:56] Laura: Seriously, I was like, what is this? Because diet culture was just so woven into every aspect of who I was, and I had no idea that there was this other way to live free from it. And that was the big shock, I think, in all of it. And then as I stepped into it, I was like, Wait, I no longer have to define myself, my life, my worst, my value, all that stuff, by my weight, by the size that I wear. And I think also later on in the journey, especially because I became aware of this when I was in treatment. And so I was, like, in this bubble, right, where everyone was talking this language and then going out into the world, and then also during the pandemic, being shut off from the world and having that as my grounding, if you will, and then having to go back out into the world. The challenge that it is to continually each day choose anti diet culture, if you will, to choose to embrace, accept an anti diet lifestyle. There are parts of me, and still are parts of me that struggle to let that go. Right. It was terrifying at first, and at times it still is hard because the rest of the world, so much of the rest of the world, at least this world in which I live, it is such a part of what the world is and what people talk about and what they live.
[05:26] Sarah: Yeah. That choice piece feels really huge, right. That we don't know that there is a choice until we know. And then sometimes choosing to stay resilient or to reject or to work the anti diet side of things can feel really overwhelming and disconnecting. You're one person standing alone on a desert island.
[05:49] Laura: Exactly.
[05:49] Sarah: Isolating yeah.
[05:51] Laura: And the more that you are choosing the alternative, right. The more that you're countercultural, the more the culture fights back and you're like and so the idea of also having places of safety and support as a part of that, that can reinforce what I know now, to be truth. And what I know now is the only path for me that really led to true healing and continues to right.
[06:17] Sarah: Yeah.
[06:19] Laura: Are we ever healed, per se? I think healing is a process in and of itself, totally.
[06:24] Sarah: It just kind of expands and deepens. The path keeps going.
[06:31] Laura: Yeah. And trees keep falling and rock slides and all that stuff. And after a while we're like, ****, I've been down this way before. I know how to climb over this, or I know how to move this out of the way. Oh, I have some people who can help me. Yay.
[06:43] Sarah: Yeah. So what have you seen? Or what do you talk about with folks when we're thinking of the really sneaky ways that diet culture shows up in just our everyday? I know there are really kind of blatant ways of Weight Watchers commercials or whatever they call themselves now, but what are the sneaky ways that you've come to know or notice that it just kind of creeps in and tries to hook us in?
[07:06] Laura: Yeah. A conversation that often comes up with clients is this idea of from the moment we wake up and we feel ourselves in our bodies, one negative moment can shift the whole trajectory of our day. So I could be getting up on the happiest day of my life, per se, or what should be like my wedding day. And I have a moment where I feel a certain way in my body, or I catch a glimpse of myself, a mirror. Or I try on something that doesn't quite fit the way that I wanted it to. Right. And all of a sudden, anything positive goes away.
[07:44] Sarah: Yeah.
[07:46] Laura: From the very time we wake up in the morning and throughout the day. So that the course of my day was changed so dramatically with any type of moment where something was triggered in me and then also just not being aware of why I was feeling so irritable or angry or what have you or down or sad and attributing it to somehow it was my fault or why can't I get my **** together? Just not understanding that there were other forces at work beyond me that were contributing to those triggers. And instead just the self blame and shame that just then further turned my days and my weeks and my months and my years into really challenging, difficult times, I think as well. I think about health care and I talk about this also my clients who avoid health care. I'm not going to the doctor. It caused me anxiety. And I remember even growing up when I first started going to the doctor, and I don't know if they use these anymore. You would know probably better than I, but they had those weight and height charts and like the percentile that you fell into. And I remember from a very young age, I was always skewed to the top or almost off the chart. Right. And that that was always a bad thing. Right. Yeah. I mean, my mother my mother was six foot tall, but that didn't matter.
[09:14] Sarah: Oh, my gosh.
[09:14] Laura: Yeah. My father was like a football player, but that didn't matter because I didn't fit some sort of random determination of what the average person should fit into. Which, anyway, I hated going to the doctor as a kid, and it wasn't about the needles. I mean, you can give me all the needles and shots and all that stuff. It was about, where am I going to be on that weight chart? Exactly. And so from a very young age, that embodied shame that then lived in me getting weighed at school in front of your classmates, which they I don't know if they still do that, but my God. And then going to dance class. Here I am, I'm in dance class, and I'm like five, six years old, and already I know I'm already comparing myself to others, and already I know that my body is bad because it doesn't look like the other bodies in the room.
[10:09] Sarah: Yeah.
[10:13] Laura: I don't know if that's sneaky, per se, but it was just there always I don't remember a time when I didn't feel body shame.
[10:20] Sarah: Yeah. It feels like the sneaky part of it is that internalized shame that develops from these messages. Right. Like, we take it on as our own because it feels like there's no other options when really it doesn't belong with us. We didn't consent shame to develop or these beliefs to take hold and root in that's from out there.
[10:41] Laura: Yeah. And the way that our families play a role in that or where we grow up, how we grow up, who we grow up with. My mother herself had her own major issues with body shame and being in a six foot tall body as a woman, a larger body. And so she was always dieting, and there was always yoyoing, and I mean, I was taking diet pills from a young age because they were there, and it was like, well, yeah, try it. Why not? Not understanding what person of five, six, seven gets that this is a problem? And I'm not blaming my mother. She was a product of the same. Right. And that just like family members, oh, you've lost weight. Or we meet up with someone we haven't seen in a while, and the first thing someone says is like, oh, they really gained weight. There's nothing else interesting about them. That's all you have to say, right? That's the observation.
[11:34] Sarah: Yeah.
[11:35] Laura: And so there was just so much shame. I didn't believe in myself. I wouldn't do things. I never thought I could be an athlete. I never thought that I could do so much. The impact was beyond, I think, as well, like, the way that people just casually comment, as I said. So I was a pastor for a number of years, so I had bariatric surgery and had been going through weight loss at that time, and I remember people always feeling like they had a right to comment on what I looked like. And that happens as a woman who's a pastor anyway. People sort of feel like they have that liberty to do so. Privilege? Yeah, whatever invitation.
[12:24] Sarah: I don't know, we could use it like a million words, but like, no.
[12:28] Laura: Do I go into your workplace and talk to you about your body? No, but I just remember people saying, oh, you're just so beautiful, and now that you're losing this weight, the men are going to be coming out of the woodwork. And even when it came to am I worthy of a partner? And that was so normal. It was so normalized is so normalized. And just like then, the isolation, the refusal or not refusal, the resistance, rather, to engaging in any aspect of life, whether it's travel or dating, going out to dinner, just because I felt like I wasn't worthy of it and I didn't know what I would encounter.
[13:06] Sarah: Yeah. And that pulls into self care, right? The hesitation to engage in self care, because are you worthy of that? Are you deserving of that? Especially when self care behaviors have for a lot of people for a lot of years, what we consider self care is actually rooted in diet, culture, body shame.
[13:25] Laura: Oh, yeah, because self care for me for so many years, and the people around me who thought they were supporting me and their intent was good. Right. Self care was always about eating less, exercising more.
[13:39] Sarah: Yeah.
[13:40] Laura: It was always about shrinking my body. I remember being in a meeting with someone who was a leader, spiritual leader, if you will, instead of talking to me about some of the internal struggles that were happening. It was like, well, maybe you need to focus on your body and losing weight. There was this moment where that was brought up, and I was like, I already feel a lot of shame. This isn't helping. So, yeah, I think that self care. That's all it was. I didn't understand self care beyond that. Like, if I would take a day to rest, I was being lazy.
[14:11] Sarah: Yeah.
[14:12] Laura: Right. Yeah. If I had to functionally eat because my schedule was crazy for so many years, then I was bad. I ate poorly, I ate badly. I wasn't being healthy. I needed to get back on the wagon of Weight Watchers or whatever the latest fad was. And in the end, it just made me sicker and sicker. I mean, it got to the point where I actually had weight loss surgery and experienced what it was to be in a smaller body for a while. But in the end, what it did was it further intensified eating disorder symptoms that I already had, and I relapsed. And there I was in a much worse off position than had I never had this surgery to begin with.
[14:54] Sarah: Thank you for sharing that. And I'm curious how you see the evolution of beginning to be able to take care of yourself in ways that aren't rooted in diet culture when that's what you've done in the past. Like, how do folks shift from what's rooted in shame and intention for body change or acceptance or love or whatever to self care that's really rooted in worthiness and enoughness and turning towards yourself?
[15:22] Laura: Yeah, no, that's the big question, right? The big challenge for me, it started personally, and I think that this is what I try to bring into my work with clients. It really started with learning to listen more deeply and broadly. That wisdom was not just that which we in our brains were told was the right thing to do or what have you or had learned growing up, but that our bodies had other ways to communicate to us, right. That we can move into our emotional space in a safe way in the right setting. And I think it's that listening beyond the thoughts when it comes to diet culture type stuff or when it comes to self care, like, is this self care behavior in which I'm engaging, if I really listen deeply, am I feeling better or do I just feel shittier? Right? I think that's a really good place to start.
[16:19] Sarah: And what is better when it doesn't have to do with weight loss or body change or whatever? What is better?
[16:25] Laura: What is better? Yeah. How do we even define that? And if I've been told that feeling that way is bad, how can I even let myself feel that way? I mean, it's really complicated. Also, the language I'm so curious and I listen deeply to the language that people use. And whenever there's all those shoulds needs healthy, whenever there's those buzzwords coming into the conversation, for me, that's a really good indicator that there's some trapped, stuck thinking and doing and I should it all over myself for years. And I think that also comes back to the behavior. If this behavior in which I'm engaging, which I'm calling self care, let's say for some reason it can't happen, let's say something comes up and I can't engage in it or I have to flex or something, what is the impact on me? Can I flex? And I'm like, okay, no big deal. I'll just do that later or tomorrow. Or am I all of a sudden my entire day is ruined because I can't do this thing? That flexibility piece for me is also some indication as to is this really self care or is this a ritual, a rule that I'm holding myself to and now I feel ashamed and irritable because I can't do it.
[17:36] Sarah: And when we think about eating disorders and the intersection or I mean, so much, I could say so much, but the intersection of eating disorders and diet culture, what does this mean for folks who are struggling with disordered eating or a diagnosed eating disorder who have just really struggled with their relationship with food over the years.
[17:55] Laura: Well, I think it's not their fault, is what I want to my immediate response is it's not your fault.
[18:02] Sarah: Yeah.
[18:02] Laura: Right. Sometimes I do feel like I'm Robin Williams in Goodwill Hunting when he's sitting with Matt Damon, like, it's not your fault. Matt Damon just, like, falls apart finally, after all the Resistance. They did a good job there, I think. Because there are days where it's not our fault. And diet culture spends bazillions of dollars bazillions trying to convince you that it is your fault.
[18:27] Sarah: Yeah.
[18:28] Laura: And plant or that. Yeah. How I think about it is this idea of the way that diet culture just continues to shame us, continues to bankrupt us financially, socially, physically, emotionally, to the point where we're so desperate that all we feel like is we have diet culture to turn to, that that somehow is our savior. Right?
[18:53] Sarah: Yeah.
[18:53] Laura: And let me tell you, these new medicines, too, like in the commercials now that they can have wood govi. I think it is. I am really angry because the song they use in their commercial, which is from The Greatest Showman, right, this Is Me, they sort of take it and turn it in the commercial. That song was like a pivotal song for me in my recovery. And this idea of stepping out from this is the bearded lady singing this song in the movie.
[19:18] Sarah: Yeah.
[19:18] Laura: And she's stepping out and embracing fully who she is. And like, this is Me and I can show up with the beard and in this body, and I can own myself. And the diaculture gets into those places and steals. That really ticks me off. And so they're really adept and have been doing for years. And all I can say is this, if diets really worked, then why do they still exist?
[19:40] Sarah: Yeah.
[19:41] Laura: Why are they repackaging? Why do we go back to them? How many times are you going to go on Weight Watchers before you realize that maybe Weight Watchers is the issue?
[19:50] Sarah: Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And something that you said earlier, too, about the shoulds or the kind of fear mongering around health and things like that. I was just thinking about how those are those little other sneaky ways that just kind of like hook people back in. Right. Even eating disorder treatment centers who are operating on very old paradigms of weights and food structure and things like that. Those are still very rooted in diet culture and are really harmful to folks who are actively trying to recover and shift to a different paradigm.
[20:30] Laura: Well, and even the stuff around the food industry and some of these rigid behaviors that have come out of trying to sell food to people, if you will, and create orthorexia and things like that, where it's oh, where's this source? It has to be sourced here. It has to be and all of a sudden, there's all these other rules that we can create for ourselves. And then the shame of, well, if you don't eat the way that I do, then you're somehow morally responsible for the care and concern of animals, or this and that. I'm not saying there's not a tie into that, right. But there are some places and spaces and folks who really take that to the nth degree and there can be a lot of further shaming around that.
[21:13] Sarah: Anything else that you feel like would be helpful or supportive for folks to think about or consider comes to diet culture and how it kind of sneaks in and disconnects us from ourselves.
[21:25] Laura: Yeah. I thought about how diet culture just really for me in my work and in my own personal journey, the way that diet culture teaches us to completely reject ourselves and to choose to do so all the time, every day, that I'm always seeking to change myself. I'm always seeking the latest, whether it's a diet or the latest healing modality, the latest what have you, the latest fat exercise, right? To try and change myself. This is the answer to all of my prayers because the only thing that matters is that I will be in a thinner body. That's all that matters. It doesn't matter who I am as person, it doesn't matter what gifts I have, it doesn't matter my relationships. None of that matters because my life was not allowed to be lived. My life was not allowed to begin until I lost the weight. And that was the narrative for me. Well, when I lose weight, I'll do this. And to just let folks know that it doesn't have to be that way. Right. Like that. First of all, I want to normalize that. If you're thinking that way, you're not alone.
[22:35] Sarah: Right.
[22:36] Laura: And it's not your fault.
[22:37] Sarah: And it's not your fault. I was going to say that. And it's not your fault. Still not your fault. Never your fault.
[22:42] Laura: Exactly. And that your life is now. So how do we embrace the present moment in whatever body we're in? Because our bodies are going to change inevitably for various reasons. And it's not all about just food and exercise, which we want to boil it down to. There's so many genetic factors involved. There's so many other factors involved. And then also there's just the stuff of life. Right. Having a baby is going to change your body. My husband completely tore his quad from the bone and had to rehab for 18 months. That's going to change your body. Right. And we need to normalize that. Women who are in their seventy s and eighty s and ninety s are still having and men, I'm sure, too, but in my circles, women are still having these conversations about trying to shrink their bodies. Like, you have lived a lot of life and this is still the conversation.
[23:32] Sarah: Yeah.
[23:33] Laura: My goodness. I mean, it's just so sad.
[23:36] Sarah: Yeah. And you deserve so much more, right?
[23:39] Laura: Yeah. How much of life have we put off or have we let pass us by because we didn't feel worthy, because we didn't happen to fit a certain size or body? And I think that the other thing I failed to mention earlier is as a person who's always been in a larger body, something as simple every day as going clothes shopping and never knowing if I was going to be able to fit into anything, if they would have my size. And then eventually when I got into larger sizes, having to go to special places and pay more money and feel shame around that and not having the variety thrift shopping, even I love thrift shopping. I love vintage shopping. But even then, I'm like, the odds are if it's clothing, I'm not going to find something in here. And if it touts like, there's this lingerie shop I just saw when I was down the shore, and it was like for women of all sizes, but they ended at a size that I would say is there's a lot of sizes above it, so all that stuff. But I think the bottom line for me, what I want people to know is you do not need to buy this anymore. That indeed, it's like Darcy, right? You always have the answer inside of you. We have the wisdom inside of us, but it's buried under all of this bullshit. And so I'm here, you're here, others are here to help you. We'll get the shovels out, we'll start to dig through it again. It's going to suck, right? It's going to suck at times, but it's so worth it because in the end, what we uncover is this life that is so worthy of being lived and embracing and a place that we can call home that's reclaiming our lives. That's what this is about.
[25:23] Sarah: And I'll just add real quick that Laura just wrote a blog all about size inclusivity and some considerations for folks who consider themselves size inclusive. So I will link to that blog post in our show notes if it would be supportive or helpful for folks to look at or share with people in their lives. It's a really great piece.
[25:43] Laura: Yeah. And I don't know if we have this capacity, and if not, people can feel free to reach out to me individually, but I'd love to hear other people's stories because mine was but one experience that I was lifting up. I'm sure there's other wisdom out there and to just invite that conversation, like, what are ways that would help you to feel more safe wherever you are, more at home, less like you didn't have to constantly be, oh my gosh, am I going to encounter another barrier here to the point where you can't enjoy anything?
[26:15] Sarah: Absolutely. Send messages, contact Laura. We'd love to hear more about that from folks directly.
[26:22] Laura: Yeah, sure.
[26:23] Sarah: Okay, everybody. Well, that does it for today's episode. We'll be back next week with more. We'll talk to you then. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Reclaim You. Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast and check us out on YouTube at Reclaim You. We'll be back next week with another episode, so until next time, take good care of yourself.
Reclaim Therapy is a group of eating disorder and trauma therapists in Pennsylvania who are passionate about helping folks reclaim their lives from disordered eating, body shame and trauma.
We are driven to help people heal from the impact of trauma, complex trauma and eating disorders. Our therapists provide EMDR and trauma-informed treatment to support people in moving through triggers, urges, behaviors that no longer serve them and reconnect to the wisdom of their own minds and bodies. If you’re looking for eating disorder or trauma therapy in Pennsylvania, we would be happy to support you.