Episode 25: Diet culture is everywhere you look. Do you remember the first diet you went on? How old were you? What was the instigator?
Me. I was about 12. It was 40 days before Easter, also known as Lent if you’re Catholic.
I like to say I grew up half-Catholic – my mom was religious, and my dad was supportive, but not converted. At 12 years old, I can’t say that I was fully committed to religious practices for any other reason than it’s what my Mom did and she wanted me to grow up with a religious tradition. As a kid, you have to go along to keep the peace.
Every year my mom gave up chocolate for Lent.
But she’d still eat chocolate chip cookies, because “they’re cookies, not chocolate.” I never figured that one out. It felt like a copout in a way.
So, when I was 12, I decided I was old enough to give up something too. But I wasn’t going to be willy-nilly about it. I was ALL in. I gave up desserts. All of them. Period.
I don’t remember thinking that I put this food restriction on myself because of how I thought about my body. But I do remember being one of the bigger girls in my class and being less “desirable” – whatever that means when you’re 12. So, I bet there was some secret hope lurking in the background that I’d lose weight by giving up desserts for God.
It worked. After 40 days of no dessert, no candy, or anything remotely related, my body changed. I lost weight. Not a bunch, but enough to be noticeable to people. Noticeable enough to get comments like, “It looks like you’re losing your baby fat” and “Well don’t you look all grown up and slim.” Noticeable enough to have my secret hope of weight loss validated. The seeds of diet culture and diet mentality had been planted and would flourish from then on for the next 15 years.
Shocking but true. Diet culture shows up even in safe spaces like churches, medical offices, schools, sports, family, and friend relationships.
If you have a similar story, about being introduced to diet culture through a “safe place” then this week’s podcast episode will have you nodding “Yep that was/is me.”
This week on the Savor Food and Body Podcast, my guest is Leslie Schilling MA, RDN, CSCS, CEDS-S, owner of a Las Vegas-based practice specializing in nutrition counseling for families, people with disordered eating concerns, professional athletes, and performers.
Leslie has served as a performance nutrition consultant for Cirque du Soleil® and the NBA and an expert contributor to U.S. News & World Report. With her warm, compassionate, and entertaining personality, Leslie has been featured in media outlets like Health, Women’s Health, Self, Pregnancy Magazine, The Yoga Journal, Bicycling, BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, and HGTV.
As a registered dietitian certified as an eating disorder specialist and supervisor, Leslie spends much of her time supporting professionals across the nation through supervision.
When she’s not spending time hiking or playing board games with her family, you can find her sharing non-diet messages on social media and speaking platforms. Leslie is passionate about educating ministry, military, health, medical, and fitness professionals about the harms of typical dieting behaviors. You may know Leslie best as the creator of the Born To Eat® approach and co-author of the award-winning book, Born To Eat.
Listen as Leslie describes where she’s seen diet culture show up in safe spaces, including the Christian faith.
She talks about how her career as an anti-diet dietitian has shape-shifted over the years from working with athletes, treating eating disorders, working with families, and feeding young kids, to now taking down diet culture within Christianity.
Leslie talks about how Christian religious practices can be helpful or harmful to your relationship with food (including fasting), and how Intuitive Eating is a gift of grace that we were all born with.
Finally, Leslie shares her passion for how nourishing your body by feeding yourself is essential to standing up for what you believe in and doing the work you were meant to do in this world – especially as a woman.
If you’ve been taught by any religious tradition that eating must be restricted to be closer to God or that uber-healthy eating makes your body more worthy as a temple of God, this episode will help you start nourishing your body knowing that all bodies are divine – independent of size, health status, or capabilities.
Learn more about Leslie’s work via her website and social media @leslieschilling
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