Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison · Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CEDS

How to Handle the Onslaught of Diet Culture This New Year

·23 min·1 clip

Christy Harrison says work meetings can devolve into diet talk, but you still have more agency than you think.

1. Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison focuses on how to handle diet culture this New Year. 2. Christy Harrison is the host, a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor, and Sharon is the listener whose question drives the episode. 3. The episode asks how to protect mental and physical health when diets, weight loss talk, and New Year messaging are everywhere. 4. Sharon describes work meetings, a sister talking about intermittent fasting and WW, and friends obsessing over COVID weight gain. 5. Christy Harrison says the first step is noticing the onslaught for what it is instead of getting pulled in automatically. 6. She frames this awareness as a hard-won accomplishment for someone recovering from decades of food, weight, appearance, and self-worth issues. 7. The first strategy is internal dialogue, including self-compassion when diet thoughts return. 8. She advises noticing the diet-culture voice, thanking it for trying to keep you safe, and reconnecting with values. 9. She also urges taking the long view, noting that diets are unlikely to be sustainable over time. 10. She cites research that people who lose weight on diets often regain it within five years, and up to two-thirds regain more than they lost. 11. The second strategy is setting boundaries with colleagues, friends, and family. 12. Christy Harrison suggests changing the subject, leaving the room, or saying that diet talk makes you uncomfortable. 13. For workplaces, she offers practical moves like grabbing a notebook, stepping out for the bathroom, or starting a side conversation. 14. She says someone receptive in the room could become an anti-diet ally, and she also raises the possibility of speaking to a boss or HR. 15. The third strategy is selectively unplugging from social media and ad systems. 16. She names The Facebook Files, Frances Haugen, YouTube, ad-blocking software, DuckDuckGo, and muting or unfollowing accounts as specific tools. 17. The fourth strategy is marshalling support through anti-diet friends, an online support group, an individual therapist, or her audiobook Anti-Diet. 18. The fifth strategy is nourishing yourself by eating enough, bringing snacks, and adding variety and pleasure so restriction does not trigger a binge-rebound cycle. 19. The tone is practical, direct, and advisory, with a listener-question format and a long closing monologue from Christy Harrison. 20. Listeners trying to resist January diet talk will get the most from it; people wanting quick slogans may skip it.

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