Tag: diet culture

Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show, can you introduce yourself and tell us where you are.

Dana: Sure I am Dana Baron, I’m an intuitive eating and body image coach and I’m in exotic suburban New Jersey outside of New York City. Yeah and I help women to basically escape the diet mentality that keeps them trapped and cycling through restrictive diets and then binge eating and emotional eating and beating themselves up and really build body image resilience. So that’s the work I do

P: That sounds like we’ll have a lot to talk about. excellent.

D: Yeah. 

P: So let’s talk a little bit about pregnancy, before you got pregnant, I’m sure you had the image of where it would be like, what did you imagine you were stepping into

D: I imagined I you know coming from the sort of, quote unquote wellness industry I imagined the pregnancy glow, and just feeling like a goddess of fertility. And, you know, just being absolutely enamored with my body and the miracle of life and all that kind of stuff it was not the case for me I’ve had two I’ve had two babies. My oldest is three and my youngest is 17 months so, 

P: oh wow, 

D: something fresh for me yeah,

P: good Lord well, people listen to you can’t see, but you don’t look like you have two babies in the morning. 

D: Oh, 

P: you look rested and you know there’s a lot of work at that age, so

D: yeah, I’m glad I look rested, we are. Everybody is sleeping through the night so 

P: oh, nice

D: that is a huge, that’s, yeah so I do get regular sleep but yeah I mean in COVID preschool clothes, no babysitters coming running a business, so it has definitely been a wild ride over here so I’m glad I look rested.

P: Yeah, my kids are older, my kids are teenagers and you know my younger one just got her license so 

D: Wow, 

P: I’m Literally completely superfluous, which is, you know, he relatively easy and COVID, so yeah but my sister has young kids and so I think about your cohort, a lot like, oh my god imagine.

D: Yeah, I mean, on the one hand the physical like manual labor is endless. At this point you know even my three year old can barely get himself dressed just yet. We did potty training in COVID all of that but, so that is a lot but I also think about, you know, the older kids, all the things they’ve missed and all the things they are grieving right now and certainly being setback academically like I, I’m glad I didn’t have to teach my kids math that would have been a real issue for all of us. I think there’s different challenges and especially, you know, a teenager just getting their license I’m sure there’s a whole new world of emotional and anxious, navigating, you know, at that age because right now they’re just always kind of home with me and safe under my care but you know they go out in the world, it’s a different, a different type of exhaustion, I would assume.

P: Yeah, you know, I have two girls and they’re both extremely competent. And so, I’m not super worried, you know, they’re both really cautious so the real thing would be they get pulled over for going too slowly or something, you know, 

D: that’s me. 

P: Yeah, me too. That’s me a good problem to have. Yeah, so let’s talk about your experience did you get pregnant easily.

D: I did, I actually think in hindsight I don’t I don’t think I knew enough at the time but we started trying, maybe in November and I do think I had a very very very early, not even pregnancy detected yet miscarriage because of what had happened with my cycle that month and that was the first time we tried and then, you know, the, I think a month after that I was pregnant or, you know, six weeks or whatever it was so.

P: Oh good Lord I’m glad it happens that way for some people because we all have that story in our head and, and it seems like it may not be true but it is so yeah, thanks for that. Okay,

D:  yeah. 

P: And how was the pregnancy.

D: It was very straightforward and no complications besides for sciatic stuff after you know after I guess that’s more postpartum but yeah it was really straightforward and I was really lucky to just both of us healthy, the whole time 

P: Good

D: and I know she’s was your vision for the birth, something you experienced. It was, I come from a long line of nurses, half of my, you know, half of the women in my family are nurses two of them labor and delivery nurses. Wow, so I always just expected a hospital birth, an epidural, sort of the straightforward Western medicine so I didn’t have. I definitely run on the anxious side especially, I lost my father at 18 and it’s sort of very quickly and he wasn’t sick, it gave me a little bit of my girl syndrome so like a little hypochondria. So I always feel safe around medical establishment. So in my sort of anxious line of thinking I just wanted to get to the hospital and get the baby out safely. That was the sort of the only thing in my mind I didn’t have any expectations really 

P: well that’s like a smooth way to do it.  What was the birth like did you have contractions and did you know what they were like What was all that like,

D: yeah, so I never went into labor, my OB practice basically schedule you for an induction if you were eight days past your due date, that was just what you agreed to when you went to this practice essentially so it was, I never went into labor, my best friend came out of the city we watched the Office all day on my due date I was like wait, I had no idea what to expect, and I just never went into labor so I went in they scheduled me for a Monday evening, to go in and get, I don’t know cervadil or whatever the, yeah, yeah, well one of the first stage of it but when I went in, they realized that I was like a centimeter or two dilated, so they said we’re going to skip that just go to Pitocin. So, I was given Pitocin and about 930 at night, and then I by one I think I asked for the epidural. I didn’t know what to expect and I, my aunt had my aunt who is a labor and delivery nurse said that if you do have to be induced. You might want to just be able to walk around as long as possible because once you do get an epidural now you’re in the bed, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, you could be in that bed for 18 hours so 

P: yeah, 

D: so I just kind of had that in my mind and then at some point I just said, You know what, and they checked me and I was moving along pretty rapidly, so I just got it at that point and then I think I pushed for like an hour and a half, maybe, and he just kind of came right out by 7am So it was a very quick. 

P: That’s awesome for a first birth 

D: yeah, it was great. I think I got like one stitch it was, it was very straightforward. I was very relieved. 

P: That’s awesome. And then, how long did you say the hospital? Just a day, or?

D: I think we got lucky, because here I don’t know if your audience is global, but here in the states you get like a certain amount, 

P: Yeah, 

D: from one. And we, oh I think it was like if you checked in. I forgot. Anyway, we got the longest amount possible so I think I was there two nights. Yeah and it was really interesting because my grandmother was actually upstairs at the same hospital like going through the process of the end of life. 

P: Oh wow

D: So she got to come downstairs and like me so we were all, it was a very full circle moment because my entire extended family was coming in and out of the hospital to be with my grandmother and then to come, you know, check on me too, so it was very I mean this is obviously all pre COVID

P: yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, That is kind of special and unexpected. Huh. And so two days after the baby’s born, you’re sent home. And what does that feel like was the fourth trimester.

D: It was sort of bewildering, the first really the first change in the emotional space around it was that they very quickly realized that my son wasn’t getting enough nutrition. I was trying to breastfeed. And, you know, I was so out of it, it was sort of like an out of body but you know the pumping wasn’t working his latch wasn’t happening I wasn’t they didn’t seem to see any colostrum, what does that colostrum? 

P: yeah, colostrum

D: So it was devastating to me sort of like 233 o’clock in the morning when the nurse comes in to check and he’s, you know, he’s not. He doesn’t have enough output, so they’re like we have to we need to give him formula he needs to eat this is too long and I was just like, I was beside myself I like just I never imagined that happening, I don’t know why, in hindsight is, feels ridiculous to me in hindsight but I just was so attached to breastfeeding, that was sort of all you hear when you’re pregnant is how good for the baby and my mom and my aunt and everybody my family breastfed it and I’m here I am like in the wellness industry, you know like, and it just wasn’t working so the first like that there was something so devastating about watching this nurse and stranger, give my son his first bottle in the middle of the night because the baby needed to eat and I was not doing well. And I just remember my husband and the nurse standing there with their backs to me like feeding my baby and I just was so like I felt like I had already failed. 

P: well also in your case where everything else had gone smoothly, you think Oh I can I can trust this, this is a process that’s working right. So, do they give you like classes or have a have, lactation consultant

D: we did it all. We did it all they had the lactation consultants in and out my aunt, my mom everybody squeezing my boobs all day. I even went in and I was just so attached to this you know I went in. My mom and I brought him back in maybe like five or six days later for like a lactation specialist and this is like a big Regional Hospital. My mom worked out for 40 years, there’s plenty of support and care here right. They have a whole team there, I went in, they measured the baby, they we breastfed on both sides we measured the baby again like trying to figure out exactly how many ounces and I was basically producing like half an ounce from one of my breasts, and I had had a breast reduction when I was 20, which the work I do now it’s like a very interesting to have done. So they told me, but I was, you know, 20 years old I wasn’t thinking about breastfeeding and the surgeon was like I cannot guarantee like I have to tell you that this could interfere. For most women, it’s not an issue but it could prevent you from being able to produce enough. So I’m kind of assuming that that’s what happened. So all those things combined I don’t know why it was so shocking to me but, yeah, so it’s like coming home my husband having to Google the right formula we had no bottles. It was, yeah, it was a mess. So, yeah.

P: And then, it sounds like you got that sorted or what was that process like

D: yeah I mean, about three and a half, four weeks of doing the. Yeah, in hindsight it’s very interesting, doing the skin to skin breastfeeding. And then I’d have to give him a bottle, and then I’d have to pump. And this was around the clock because I was told that you know you got that first few weeks of a window to get a supply going, and it just wasn’t happening.

P: You want to get into the weeds on breastfeeding, you could argue that it starts in puberty when the breast is being formed and is subject to all kinds of influences, but let’s fast forward to birth. Once the placenta is birthed, a bunch of hormones shift your breasts gear up for breastfeeding on demand, but what’s required for successful breastfeeding is the coordination of physical and biological factors. Essentially, you need to breastfeed, to be able to breastfeed because the process releases more hormones that encourage milk production. A study in the journal Pediatrics from 2020 collected all the most recent research about breastfeeding and said that colostrum that thick early milk, usually comes in in the first days, but that milk changes after a few days and consistency and volume. The authors here say that most women, and I put most in quotes, get the second stage of milk supply within 72 hours after birth, but that about 35% of first time mothers didn’t really get this milk in until four days or more after delivery. This delay could be linked to a first birth C section or a higher BMI, or things like gestational diabetes, or the Apgar score for the baby. But for a fraction of women between five and 8% this milk doesn’t really come in at any volume and for these women, the theory is that there might be something wrong with the breast architecture, or it could be consequence of breast surgery, or a hormonal disruption like an issue with the thyroid or PCOS. For more information check out the show notes.

D: And I was just at this point, you know, anyone has that a newborn. Breastfeeding bottle feeding and then pumping, there’s literally no time in between that, 

P: yeah, yeah

D” So I basically haven’t slept in three weeks. Can’t let go of this and finally, like it was like my mom and my husband had like an intervention with me and my aunt came up from North Carolina and it was just like, you can just feed this baby formula like Don’t miss this whole newborn phase because of this like it’s okay to let go of this struggle, and I was just I was a mess. Mess, you know,

P: well also not sleeping at all doesn’t in any way contribute to like a happy, balanced, you know view of the world. So, 

D: yeah, 

P: I’m sympathetic to that. And I’m impressed that your family, many of whom are in the labor and delivery world are supportive because I hear so many stories about people who say, Oh, the nurse said, you have to breastfeed or I don’t know, people just feel the pressure and I, I guess I’m assuming is coming apart from medical establishment. Maybe I’m wrong. Tell me.

D: well, I think I think there’s a I mean, at least in my world there’s that general consensus like even if you don’t want even if you just don’t want to breastfeed, like that’s your right as a woman and a mother and I understand the push for it right to because there’s sort of like, there’s been a sea change around the thinking. But what about the mothers who can, what about the mothers who don’t want to it. Where’s the space for them, especially in the prenatal care, everything is about breastfeeding. There’s no at least in my experience, there was no and if it’s not your choice to breastfeed, here’s how you find the right formula. Here are the different bottle options there isn’t any of that. So you really feel like you’re failing on a profound level as a woman I found maybe that was just my mentality I’m sure not everyone has the same experience but the old I have a generation of women in my family who– do curse on the show. And if you don’t want me to. They just, they could care less about anybody else’s opinions, and they just thought I should just give it up like let go of it like you just need to take care of yourself to like you don’t need to be attached to this. So, yeah,

P: so that sounds awesome that you were supported. And did you, you know, it’s hard to let go of something that you have, you know, packed away in the back of your head and had for a while but it sounds like you were separated from the idea at some point. And what was Do you remember that what that was like did you feel freed were you, you know, was it easy.

D: It was an epic relief. 

P: Okay, good

D: My husband could do middle the night feedings and I could sleep friends could come over and help you I could leave the baby for more than a few hours. So once that relief flooded in I was over it, you know, pretty quickly at least consciously I was over it pretty quickly like it felt like a relief for sure.

P: That’s awesome and it is, it is a lot of pressure. and I hear a lot of women say, No, I was told every woman could breastfeed.

D: yeah

P: it’s what Your body does. So yeah, 

D: and it’s so much better for the baby, that’s all you hear. 

P: Yeah, yeah, 

D: and then my grandmother. Yeah, go ahead. 

P: Sorry. Go ahead you can tell your grandmother story

D: I was just gonna say she told me, like, in her age, she had too much of a supply but everyone was telling her that the formula was better so she was like, You’re never get they’re never gonna let you get it right, so just do what you need to do for your family and your sanity, basically,

P; that’s a totally interesting perspective. It just so happens that I recently talked to a professor of medicine about the changing cultural appreciation of breastfeeding, I want to include a small clip from our discussion right here, a special welcome to Dr Janet golden, a professor at Rutgers who specializes in the history of medicine, history of childhood, women’s history, and the American social history. She’s the author of several books, including most recently, babies made us modern how infants brought America into the 20th century, which is a very intriguing title, thank you so much for coming on Dr golden. 

Dr. Golden: Oh, thank you for inviting me. 

P: One thing I want to talk about today is breastfeeding and sort of how we got where we are now culturally.

Dr. Golden All right, that’s it, that’s a great question and I think we can say that there’s a very long history of horses, promoting breastfeeding and forces opposing breastfeeding. In the United States by the 19 post war period 1950s Breastfeeding is just out of fashion it seems primitive It seems something that poor women do the modern scientific way is to bottle feed, and then it’s very precise you can measure how many ounces did my baby, drink some baby books had you weigh the baby before you fed the baby and then feed the baby and see how many ounces, they took in, and then people began to push back against that and saying no. Why should this commercialized enterprise these be in charge, why should medical authority dictate over what’s natural for women. Let’s go back to breastfeeding and of course there is good scientific literature that says it’s, it’s a better alternative, you know, cows make milk for calves women make milk for babies, you know it’s it’s a natural correctly designed product, but of course not everybody can do it and not everybody wants to do it so we live in a world now where two things are true. One is that I think we can stipulate that scientifically medically speaking babies are better off drinking milk, designed for babies, which is from human females, but we can also say that. Secondly, we live in a world where we get clean water, we can properly prepare our formulas the formulas are well designed, and not everybody can or wants to breastfeed their babies so both things are true.

P: So why did you, you want to walk us through like how you got to the other side.

D: How I got to the other side of the of the breastfeeding situation., 

P: yeah 

D: Yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was quickly, I thought I was cool, but then I had some like late onset postpartum depression. When you’re in it you don’t recognize that that’s what’s happening. I also think my circumstances played a role in in I, you know, nobody was really around during the week, we had moved close to my mom, but she hadn’t retired yet and she had a sick boyfriend and a dying mother so she just wasn’t she couldn’t physically be there as much. And my husband was commuting and out of New York 5:30am to 730 at night. And so I was just home all winter isolated with this baby, and, you know, it looked like a lot of watching Outlander in my bathroom all day, not realizing that that was not normal. 

P: Yeah, 

D: cuz I just didn’t. I just I sort of felt like this really culminated in the early spring when I just told my mom I felt like I didn’t have anything to look forward to, like I was just so overwhelmed, taking care of this kid, losing myself, having no time to even shower, let alone like have pursuits or a career of my own things like that. I remember I used to like knowing what time my husband would come home, that’s when I would like put normal clothes on so that he wouldn’t like worry about me. 

P: Yeah, 

D: and I think when my best friend who’s single and has this very adventurous sexy life in New York as an actor and comedian, she came out to see me and was just like none of this is okay, like what is going on here and I was just like, Well you never had a baby, you don’t understand she’s like, I have seen plenty of people with babies and like you are not okay. And I just, I just didn’t realize it and in hindsight, my husband, seemed to think that he was on top of it because he knew but he never discussed it with me and my mom is of an old school generation that’s not super open to therapy and mental health care and was just kind of like it’s the baby blues so you’ll get through it, you know, so I was pretty annoyed by all that. But I think moving to a new home having community around me it becoming spring getting involved in baby class activities and meeting other new mothers like just being out in the world again. Certainly was sort of how I got through it like I just think moving to a new place, and honestly spring I always have a little bit of seasonal depression, just before kids too, so I think it was just sort of like I certainly didn’t do anything proactive to get out of it. Unfortunately, I didn’t even really recognize it until it was in hindsight.

P: Well, kudos to your friend and you articulated really well that it’s hard to see when you’re in it. 

D: Yeah, 

P: which is a great explanation for why most people may not usually help comes from the outside because you’re not in a position to be proactive. 

D: Yeah. 

P: So, this regrettably sounds like an all too common story where many people are sent home from the hospital told they have to breastfeed, there’s no other way. And it doesn’t work out for one reason or another, and they just feel terribly. and there are bunch of other things that contribute to women feeling overwhelmed in the postpartum period, taking care of themselves and a new baby, maybe taking a break from work, and that world they knew well, and dealing with your post pregnancy body, whether it’s fatigure or brain fog or pregnancy weightSo can you talk to us a little bit about like what your work is focused on and how maybe you help women in this circumstance.

D: Yeah, I mean, so we generally work with women around their relationship with food and body. And from my perspective, a contributing factor to the postpartum issues women face is the pressure we’re putting on ourselves to return, quote unquote, to this pre baby body this expectation of losing the weight quickly getting back into exercise very quickly. And I think that that contributes to this feeling of failure because especially with your first child. It is such an overwhelming experience that you literally don’t even have time to shower so how you going to prep keto meal plans or whatever the hell you’re trying to, you know what I mean. Yeah, so there’s this added layer and I think what’s really sad about it is that it’s not. It’s a moment that we dread for our bodies. Typically, and it should be a moment of celebration its a rite of passage like this becoming like this journey from made into mother should be celebrated, and instead we have hardly any support in any area and there’s all these different ways that we’re already, it’s sort of baked in that we’re not going to meet these expectations in some way, whether it’s breastfeeding or being able to stick to a diet or whatever it is. So we really help women around, letting go of the diet mentality in the first place so that they can actually nourish themselves instead of restricting themselves, and also starting to see our bodies as more than a body, right, like we are full human beings and our bodies deserve respect and appreciation and care and nourishment, even if we don’t currently find them beautiful right so it’s a really it’s a, it’s mostly a shift in perspective, this is all an inside job as opposed to, like I said meal planning or something like that.

P: That seems super valuable and super useful and now that you’re talking about this, I do remember being worried getting pregnant that I’d gain all this weight, which. And what would happen after and you know who knows why, then, so I definitely somehow I’ve gotten that message too. Do you have a sense of like where it comes from or like how we change it, you know, more broadly.

D: Yeah I mean it’s a narrative of diet culture. The diet culture that we live in and this expectation that women’s bodies are never supposed to change. Right we’re battling our bodies from puberty on most of us in our culture, battling weight gain which is very normal in puberty and then, you know, pregnancy, it’s just this idea it’s this narrative we all subscribe to because of our culture and the way that we were raised, and it tells us that we should have the same body after children that we had before, which, if you really think about it like all women’s bodies do is change throughout our lives. And this idea that we’re all supposed to get back like where did your body go What do you mean you have to get it back like you’re still in your body it’s just this new version of your body. Right so again it’s the expectation thing right like there’s this myth we’re all living by that we’re supposed to look the same, our entire adult lives like why do I have, you know 38 After two children, why would I expect to look like I did when I was 17 before I had children or even if children are involved, you know. So it’s really just starting to wake up I think media literacy is really important and also just waking up to this narrative that we’re all living by right like I think I’m supposed to get my body back. Like what does that mean why, you know starting to ask those questions.

P: Yeah, when you see it that way it does not take account of all the massive changes that pregnancy brings and watch a dramatic change in everything is wrought by pregnancy as if it’s this easy thing that you just 

D: bounce back from, 

P: yeah. Oh my god. Yeah, that is kind of a crazy story that I can’t imagine who wrote that script because somebody who never had, who was never pregnant is my guess

D: I always pictured Don Draper 

P: poor Jon Hamm….

D:  So handsome. He’s doing fine…

 P: I’ll worry less about him… It does, it does sound like a, like a 1950s ad executive kind of thing to sell diet pills or some something crazy right that does not,

D: well yeah I mean, you know this, I think it was Naomi Wolf who says like this, these a culture obsessed with female beauty and this is not her direct quote but it’s not about beauty, it’s about obedience right if women spend all of their time and energy and resources and mind space, trying to control their body that doesn’t want to be controlled, then they don’t have that time energy resources mind space to look up and recognize that there’s so much wrong in our world that if we use those resources, maybe, like what would the world look like if women didn’t diet.

P: yeah, That’s amazing. That is a really good question because there is a lot of a lot of energy. I can imagine that is super prominent in the postpartum period and I hear a lot of people say that they did have body image issues when they were pregnant, and I, I’m not sure I had body image issues but I definitely said to my husband as I started develop a belly, I’m doing this wrong, this can’t possibly be what’s supposed to happen because I’ve never heard anybody talk about how weird this feels and how strange I look right this is such a weird feeling

D: I couldn’t wait to fit in to pregnant to maternity clothes because I felt like that in between, I was, you know, with my first pregnancy, it’s like you just don’t look like yourself. 

P: Yeah, 

D: but you don’t look that cute pregnant look at, you know, and just the fact that we all think about this so much as is the problem, right. 

P: Agreed

D: But yeah it is and I would say that we, you know, the postpartum space is really is really vulnerable and I think a lot of times what happens is women come to us after that and are thinking that they, their whole battle against food in their body is a lot of times wrapped up in wanting to get their body back right like wanting under this illusion of control that we have that we can eat our way back into our pre baby bodies right and that comes up a lot in pregnancy is a massive body image disruption, right, just like trauma can be a body image disruption or illness or, you know, a comment from your mother or something about your body right there’s so pregnancy and childbirth alone are massive body image disruptions because your body is so foreign to you after you give birth, right, nothing is in the same place nothing feels the same, you know, and I think, especially if you are breastfeeding, you feel like your body’s not even yours anymore, so it’s sort of this out of body experience. So, you know, working to heal that body image and to start to respect your body for everything it does and is outside of the way that it looks right and I’m starting to think in terms of body respect, especially when it comes to what’s going on in your brain. How am I speaking about my body, how am I speaking to myself about my body. That’s really sort of where the work is for sure. 

P: That’s amazing. That sounds so valuable. I have never heard anybody else talk about it in the terms that you’re using,

D: really. 

P: Yeah and it’s, I mean not maybe because I live under a rock like. But, but it is like now that you’re saying this I realize all the stories I’ve been telling myself are basically the wrong thing right. I’m not sure I I’m like not organized enough to do, to stick to a diet, or, you know, eat 1000 calories a day or something crazy like that but, but I definitely, I definitely have that voice, I definitely have that voice telling me to Oh, don’t eat

D: it would be uncommon not to have that voice right because we have it from the beauty ideal side but now we also have it from the medical and wellness industry side where we have these food police and we’ve moralized food choices right we think we’re good or bad around eating clean and dirty all these things so there’s, there’s a lot going on in our brains about food and our culture for sure there’s a lot of anxiety and guilt and shame around food choices.

P: Is there any international example where you think they’re doing it right. 

D: Wow. Not that I know of no so there’s an interesting study done in Fiji, a while back where you know the culture there had historically preferred in terms of beauty ideals, a more robust figure food and eating and being in a larger body were seen as a positive thing. And then Western, they got Western television, and basically eating disorders were virtually non existent in the culture there, and then they got Western television and eating disorders skyrocketed they’re seeing the girls on 90210 Right, so the beauty ideals shifted. And it’s become a problem there as well so I think any corner of the world where Western culture and media has reached, because these are European beauty standards right that are really impacting everybody in terms of their body image. So, yeah, there’s a lot tied up in it but not that I know of, maybe, you know that I’m sure there are so many cultures that haven’t been touched by Western culture at this point but not that I know of. 

P: Is there any other measure of the degree to which we’ve strayed from, you know, just have a healthy body other than like eating disorders, any other way to recognize like oh this is like eating disorders is a clear measure that we’ve done something wrong.

D: Yeah, so we look at it as like and I think it’s interesting because I think that the issues around alcohol have some parallels here in terms of we no longer see it as an alcoholic or not an alcoholic, there’s this gray area spectrum right of substance abuse, right. And I really believe that a clinical eating disorder. The difference between that and actually you know just the average woman who diets is really just the behaviors and the mind and the thinking is very similar, right, but it’s the frequency and severity and percentage of time and energy right, so I like to look at it as a spectrum, right and most women in our culture have dieted or will diet at some point in their lives, and it’s really, it’s not a question of like do I have an eating disorder or not, but the average woman diets, I think the latest data I’ve seen is 25 to 60% of her time each day thinking about food in her body. 

P: Oh, that’s a crime

D: that’s just the average woman that diets right because someone’s suffering from anorexia could be dreaming about it 110% of the time, right, yeah. That is the mind space and the energy we’re talking about here and that is just the average woman who’s googling Paleo Meal Plans. Right, so it is something that impacts everyone really and essentially it’s anti fatness, it’s a fat phobia that we have, and it’s just drilled into us, you know, from, from the womb, basically.

P: So what would be a healthier mind space for like to think about food just obviously this is a long term project and you can, you know, if it could be crystallized in a sentence, we don’t know what it was but, like, just give me a sense,

D: yeah sure so intuitive eating and Health at Every Size, are the framework that we work with and intuitive eating is essentially eating based on your body and your body’s cues, instead of what’s going on in your brain. Right, 

P: so that seems like retraining, 

D: it is if you look at a toddler dieting yet or hasn’t had their food controlled, they eat when they’re hungry they stop when they’re full. Many of them eat a variety of balanced foods right and they just listen to their bodies. 

P: Yeah, 

D: we’re the ones who have all these rules in our heads and really the dysfunction begins when we try to make our bodies something they’re not right, our natural genetic makeup has a weight setpoint determined by our genetics our bodies want to be in this certain range healthy and whole. We try to manipulate that and that’s where the dysfunction begins right it’s the binge eating the emotional eating the diet rock bottom of like, I can’t stick to it was 30 days now it’s 10 days and that was one day and now I’m just thinking about starting a diet all the time I’ve never actually dieting, and you feel addicted to food you feel out of control certain foods are off limits you’re cutting your food groups down to nothing, right, and all of this is sort of in the name of health, but at the end of the day, it’s really about weight, and everything tangled up in that for women, which is a lot

P: I’m grateful to you for doing this work because that sounds like literally your audience’s everyone, and 

D: yes, yes, well a lot of mothers for sure. Oh it is it is 

P: as I mentioned before the phrase bounce back is like she’d come with like a trigger warning or something because it, I definitely that’s planted somewhere in me. So I know that that is out there a lot. And,

D: yeah, I mean all we see is celebrities how they lost the baby weight all over every magazine like women’s weight somehow makes national headlines, Adele Gwenyth gaining weight and in quarantine, I mean, the world makes our weight news. There’s a global pandemic we’re talking about Adele’s weight. So like, of course, we think that, of course, we think about our body, our own bodies and, and whether or not we’re going to be able to lose the baby weight or the pandemic weight and all that stuff. 

P: Yeah, that does seem like a colossal waste of time and energy for the person who wrote the article the personal research theoretical everyone who’s reading it right, 

D: a lot of money to be made, though, as you know, the stuff about what is Wait comes out at the same time she promoted the book about I’m not even gonna say the title because I don’t want to trigger people into. 

P: Yeah, yeah, yeah…

D:  that’s what you follow the money and it’s a $72 billion industry that selling things to women to change their bodies and all the mind space and energy follows.

P: yeah, At the same time you’re supposed to have a beautiful pregnancy to the you know, 

D: goddess of fertility, no hemorrhoids no sciatic pain, none of that. 

P: Yeah, no kidding. That, that is such a de legitimization of, you know everything you’ve actually gone through. 

D: Yeah, absolutely. 

P: If you could go back and talk to your younger self and give her advice. What do you think he would tell her.

D: Just stop messing with your body and just eat. I mean I came to this word through my own struggle with disordered eating and body image and the term that comes to mind the most for me is waiting on the wait, like not feeling qualified for the life that you want to live or the person you want to be until you reach this expectation in your brain about how your body should look or be, and it’s usually not something that’s attainable for anybody because we know from our own lived experience and from the research that we can’t actually manipulate our weight, so just let your body be, stop messing with yourself is what I would say you know and to really stop seeing yourself as an object and be in a dynamic relationship with your body so that when things like illness or pregnancy or weight gain happen, you still have the same level of self respect and self worth that you had in a smaller body.

P: So, that’s amazing advice. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story, Where can people find you if they want to dive more deeply into this work that you’re doing. 

D: Sure, so we’re at wellness lately.com We have a free masterclass at wellness lately.com slash masterclass that will take you through the five shifts to start to relate to food and your body differently to start to heal from this diet rock bottom that you might be in. So that’s why obviously the.com slash masterclass and everything can be found on our website.

P: That sounds amazing. I’m going directly. 

D: Fantastic. Yeah, 

P: thank you so much for talking, I totally appreciate our discussion. 

D: Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.

P: Thanks so much to Dana for sharing her story and for her work to help women appreciate their bodies in whatever size and shape they find themselves in. You can find more about Dana’s work at wellnesslately.com And thanks also to professor Golden for her insight about the historical context of today’s breastfeeding culture.