Virginia Sole-Smith woke up to the impact of diet culture when her daughter had a significant health crisis that drove her to not eat when she was 2 months old because she didn’t feel safe. This was the catalyst for Virginia to examine her own relationship with food and to decide that she needed to make food joyful and her home a safe space for her family.
On the podcast, Virginia and I discussed what it’s like to not believe we’re dieting, but are. Virginia talked about the Noom app, which is essentially a diet for smart people in different packaging. She wrote an informative and insightful article here.
We talked about the so-called obesity epidemic and how the Body Mass Index, politics and the pharmaceutical industry have played a pivotal role in how we look at obesity. And we talked about white feminism and its origins with equal pay and abortion rights.
Connect with Virginia on Instagram and Twitter @v_solesmith
Virginia Sole-Smith is the author of The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.
Check out Burnt Toast, which explores questions (and some answers) around diet culture, fatphobia, health and parenting.