Healthier Life Through Menopause Podcast with Catherine Shelton | Nutrition & Lifestyle Tips for Women · Catherine Shelton | Health & Wellness Coach

60 \\ How menopausal women have been socialised to have a distorted relationship with food and with their bodies - interview with Elizabeth Sherman

·53 min·3 clips

Elizabeth says women inherit “good foods and bad foods” from Weight Watchers, Slimming World, and even overheard conversations.

Episode 60 of the Healthier Life Through Menopause podcast opens with a personal catch-up after a long summer pause. The host talks about A-level and GCSE results, her eldest daughter's gap year, and time spent helping her mother recover from hip replacement surgery. She also describes a family camping trip in Cornwall that turned miserable when the tent leaked in heavy rain. There is a brighter memory too. She recalls a 15-mile trail run with her running club along the coast near Southampton. The mood then shifts into the interview with Elizabeth. The conversation focuses on how menopausal women have been socialised into a distorted relationship with food and their bodies. The host and Elizabeth revisit the old idea that health is mostly a matter of eating less and moving more. They question why that message has been delivered so neatly for so long. They also note that ordinary advice about vegetables and water can start to sound patronising when it is framed as basic elder wisdom. The discussion connects that resistance to the feeling many women have that they are not old, even while their bodies are changing. Menopause education comes up as a major gap. They point out that puberty is covered at school, but menopause usually is not. That leaves many women unprepared for what arrives in their forties and fifties. The episode also widens out into the history of medicine. Elizabeth notes that women's bodies were explicitly excluded from research until the 1950s. That makes the modern study of women's health, and menopause in particular, feel very recent. The host and Elizabeth name the patriarchal patterns that have shaped medicine and health and fitness for years. They also acknowledge that change is happening. More information is available now. Women are speaking up more in medical settings. Public voices are helping menopause feel less hidden and less private. The conversation stays warm and steady rather than sharp or alarmist. It keeps returning to practical care, body respect, and a healthier relationship with food.

As heard by us

A steady look at the food and body stories menopause can surface.

This episode looks at menopause through the stories women inherit about food and bodies. After a long opening catch-up, the conversation settles into diet culture, the old eat less, exercise more script, and why those ideas can feel off in midlife.

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Why you'd press play

When calorie counting stops making sense and your body story needs a reset.

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