Raising Fat Kids, Diet Foods and More Top Picks

Here’s another roundup of my top content picks to support you on your journey toward a peaceful relationship with food and your body.

There’s some really good stuff here.

I encourage you to check it out then share it with anyone you know who personally struggles with these things—or struggles to understand those who do.

Embodied Podcast: Resolved—Your Anti-Diet New Year [WUNC.org]
This three-part series does an impressive job with covering everything from diet culture’s racist roots, medical fatphobia and weight-loss science to Intuitive Eating and body neutrality.

Part 1: Deconstructing diet culture: Lessons unlearned from a thin-obsessed society

Part 2: Relearning how to eat: How intuitive eating can heal your relationship with food

Part 3: Becoming body neutral: why it’s OK to not always love your body

The Problem with Poodle Science [YouTube]
As mentioned in the above Embodied podcast, despite what diet culture wants us to believe, a mastiff isn't meant to have a poodle's body. This short, animated video illustrates why.

A Guide to Parenting Fat Kids [Today’s Parent]
“How do you raise a fat, healthy, happy child? I’m not a doctor or a psychologist. I’m just a fat kid who grew into a fat adult, and this is what would have been helpful to me.”

From not restricting and moralizing food to celebrating body diversity and working on your own food and body issues, this is a must-read for parents and caregivers of larger-bodied kids.

Diet Foods of the ’80s Are Out. But Has Anything Really Changed? [Bon Appetit]
“From the moment in 1898 when J.H. Kellogg introduced Toasted Corn Flakes to get our digestion on track, we’ve looked to food to make us healthier, more virtuous, and thinner. Has it worked? Not really. So why do we keep expecting it to?"

This very relatable deep dive into the evolution of diet foods and the diet and wellness industries will likely make you cringe, laugh and curse. It definitely brought back memories of all the “better for you” (yet terribly unsatisfying) foods I consumed when I was entrenched in diet/wellness culture (fat-free cream cheese, anyone?).

As always, I hope you find these recommendations to be informative, helpful, and ultimately, liberating. Huge gratitude to all the folks who are creating this much-needed paradigm-shifting content.

Note: In alliance with the fat-acceptance community, I use fat as a neutral descriptor.