The Crunchy Wellness Spiral: Anxiety, Orthorexia, and the Pressure to Be the "Healthy One" with Anti-Diet Dietitian Leah Kern
Anti-Diet Dietitian Leah Kern joins the pod to discuss her experience with all the ways that the “crunchy granola identity” can create a funnel into disordered eating, body image struggles, and overall suffering. She and Abbie share their experiences with anxiety, the intersection of spirituality and environmentalism, and how the personal responsibility narrative can become harmful with food choices.
Listen to hear more on:
- Leah’s experience with disordered eating
- Her path to becoming a dietitian
- How she found healing through intuitive eating
- Orthorexia and being "the healthy one"
- How "clean eating" intersects with spirituality
- The complex relationship between anxiety and eating disorders
- Choosing medication for anxiety
- When environmental awareness contributes to restrictive eating
- Whether cannabis use can coexist with intuitive eating
- The importance of social connection in a fulfilling life
- The themes of authenticity and self-identity with food choices
- How societal pressures and diet culture can distort one's sense of self
- The emotional aspects of eating
About Leah: Leah Kern is an Anti-Diet Dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor who helps people make peace with food and body using the Health At Every Size (HAES) and Intuitive Eating frameworks. Upon graduating from UVM and earning her RDN, Leah built a thriving private practice, doing the exact work she feels she was put on this earth to do. Leah believes that the work involved with unraveling years of conditioning in diet culture and learning to come home to one’s body is deeply spiritual work and she treats it as such. She currently lives in Northern California with her partner and their two kitties.
Leah’s podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shoulders-down/id1616910063
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Podcast Cover Photography by Anya McInroy
Podcast Editing by Brian Walters
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