My Pledge for Racial Justice & Body Acceptance

Racism & Body Discrimination

There's a strong connection between racism, diet culture, and body discrimination. Diet culture is rooted in the ideal that thin bodies are better; that thin promises health, love, and acceptance. Diet culture does not tolerate the inherent and healthy diversity of body shapes and sizes in the human race. But science shows there are healthy people in large bodies and unhealthy people in small bodies.

I help my clients cultivate a mindful, non-diet relationship to food and body, and I promote a weight-neutral, Health at Every Size approach. My food therapy process strongly emphasizes self-awareness and emotional resilience as the foundation for making peace with food and correcting the self-judgment that perpetuates a dissatisfaction with oneself.

Broadening our Perspective

Inherent in this process of making peace with food and our body is broadening our perspective so we can understand the confluence of factors that fuel food fear, emotional eating, and body dissatisfaction. There are “internal” factors that include strengthening the relationship with ourselves; how we relate to our own thoughts, emotions, body image and how we respond to hunger for food and non-food nourishment.

There are also “external” factors. Social connections, family history and the built environment in which we live are proven to influence physical and mental health. Access to health care and fresh food, loneliness, belief systems about body and self-worth passed down in a family, safety in one's community, racism, and weight discrimination are external factors too often overlooked when supporting individual change.

As a former epidemiologist, with a Master of Public Health, I was trained to understand the psycho-social-environmental determinants of health. And having this holistic view is crucial for successfully meeting, and supporting, my clients in their world. But have I fallen short in adequately helping them navigate race and weight discrimination? I have.

I am committed to being a better ally for my clients by holding safe space for them to acknowledge and transform the pain, anger, grief, and shame they may experience as a result of systemic racism and body discrimination. I will do this by continuing to invest time learning and applying approaches that allow us to integrate this broader context of one's life into the healing process.

Mindset Psychology

As a Behavioral Food Therapist, I am trained to address the psychology and mindfulness aspects of one's relationship with food. The latest "wave" of mindset psychology embraces a more comprehensive model. This model considers the unique inner and outer landscapes mentioned above that influence one's beliefs, choices, and habits. It draws on mindfulness, spirituality, observation of one's own thoughts, radical acceptance, self-compassion, clarifying values and making values-driven choices.

I remain committed to using this comprehensive model to support my clients because it helps us consider how experiences of weight and race discrimination shape one's relationship with food and body. I will continue investing time to further my knowledge and skills in these areas. You can read more about my comprehensive approach here.