Episode description:
Shikha Advani is an incoming master’s student and dietetic intern at Boston University who is passionate about eating disorders awareness, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion in the nutrition and eating disorder fields. As a teenager, Shikha battled anorexia and orthorexia. She hopes her story can help others with eating disorders, no matter where they are in their recovery process.
Episode description:
Dr. Dana Harron is a practicing psychologist, the founder and director of Monarch Wellness & Psychotherapy, and the author of Loving Someone with an Eating Disorder: Understanding, Supporting and Connecting with Your Partner.
Episode description:
Lisa Whalen, PhD, is the author of Stable Weight: A Memoir of Horses, Hunger, and Hope. Her writing has also appeared in An Introvert in an Extrovert World, The Simpsons’ Beloved Springfield, Introvert, Dear, and Adanna, among other publications. Lisa teaches writing and literature at North Hennepin Community College and is an equestrian and volunteer for the Animal Humane Society.
In this episode of Peace Meal, Lisa describes two key components of her eating disorder recovery: writing and horseback riding. Underscoring the multifaceted nature of the healing process, she reflects on how writing and riding each offered unique lessons for her mind and body. Writing, she explains, supported and extended her therapy lessons, while riding provided a space to put the lessons into practice. Lisa introduces us to a few of the horses that served as mentors throughout her recovery, highlighting the lessons they could teach us all about staying present, taking up space, and being imperfect. She then translates how these and other recovery “nuggets”—the wisdom learned from horses, writing, and therapy—continue to serve her life and career.
Episode description:
Emily Layden is a writer and former high school English teacher from upstate New York. A graduate of Stanford University, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, The Billfold, and Runner’s World. She joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to discuss her debut novel All Girls. We explore the depiction of disordered eating and anxiety in the book and society more generally, using Emily’s experience with the co-occurring concerns as context along the way.
We center our conversation on one of the characters of All Girls, Macy, who struggles with clinical anxiety and an eating disorder resembling ARFID. Emily tells us about her decision to write Macy as she did, eschewing graphic descriptions of behaviors to highlight Macy’s anxious thoughts instead. She describes what she hopes All Girls adds to the larger conversation about eating disorders and the adolescent females among whom eating disorders are particularly prevalent. Emphasizing the importance of taking both eating disorders and young women more seriously, we explore how society tends to think similarly of both.
Episode description:
Holly Toronto is a Certified Master Level Coach who specializes in body image. She has five years of experience helping people stop prioritizing other people’s expectations of beauty, belief, or behavior so that they can live their life from a place of wholeness, fully aligned with the truth of who they are. Holly joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to explore factors that impact our relationship with our bodies, as well as some strategies to improve it.
Episode description:
Maddy Walters is a psychology student passionate about eating disorder research and advocacy. She brings her passion and personal experience to this episode of Peace Meal to help us examine the intersection of social media and eating disorder recovery. We explore what it’s like to share your recovery online and to engage with others sharing theirs.
Maddy reflects on what she’s learned by creating a recovery Instagram account and how her recovery has evolved in the time since she did. Highlighting the key benefits and challenges of participating in an online recovery community, she offers insight into both the rewarding and tricky parts. She emphasizes the importance of protecting and prioritizing recovery—online and off—and leaves us with practical strategies for others trying to heal in a social media world.
Episode description:
Katie Price is a registered nurse and yoga teacher whose understanding of what it means to care for bodies—both hers and others’—has been shaped by her recovery from anorexia. She cares deeply about walking alongside others struggling with eating disorders and hopes that by sharing her story, she can offer hope and support.
In this episode of Peace Meal, Katie offers exactly that. She shares the many gifts within her story of illness and healing, revealing the light, growth, and support that can be found in moments of darkness and challenge.
Episode description:
Abby Anderson is a business school graduate who works a corporate job and is passionate about mental health, yoga, and personal development. Diagnosed with anorexia in the summer of 2018, she has experienced a series of ups and downs worth noting to anyone with an eating disorder or disordered eating.
In this episode of Peace Meal, Abby tells us about the process of her eating disorder recovery, including the shifts in motivation she has experienced during it. She begins with the rock-bottom moment she first sought help. Exhausted and physically depleted, she recalls being highly motivated to make a change then.
But, as is typical in recovery, her motivation ebbed and flowed as time went on, and she learned why healing is often described as a nonlinear process. “Your body catches up a lot before your mind does,” she says.
Episode description:
Kenzie Osborne is a mental health blogger, chef, recipe developer, and former NCAA athlete. After battling intensely with anorexia, she was able to find peace with food through cooking, traveling, and learning about the many benefits food has on the mind, spirit, and body.
Kenzie shares her story with us in this episode of Peace Meal. We begin by discussing a label long attached to her—“the healthy and fit one”—and its impact on her identity. A daughter of doctors and sister to high-performing athletes, she felt immense pressure as part of a family defined by health and athletics.
Episode description:
Kesslee is a young professional, part-time coach, wife, and dog mom. She is passionate about serving others to become the best version of themselves and using her journey to help them along the way.
Kesslee joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to share how perfectionism manifested during her eating disorder and recovery. She begins by recognizing the challenges of being a Division 1 distance runner. Under pressure to be small and lean for the sport, Kesslee restricted food while training more and more. The core issue, she says, was a belief that she was not enough—not for her coaches and not her parents.
Episode description:
Christie Dondero Bettwy is the Executive Director of Rock Recovery, a nonprofit that uniquely combines clinical and community care to help people overcome disordered eating.
In this episode of Peace Meal, Christie shares with us her personal and professional experience with eating disorders. She first traces her path through illness and healing, highlighting the risk factors that contributed to her disorder as well as the community that helped her find freedom from it. Then she unpacks her decision to enter the eating disorders field–including how and when she knew she was “recovered enough” to translate her personal experience and passion into a career at Rock Recovery. Finally, Christie helps us reflect on the tremendous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on eating disorders. We discuss how COVID-19 has triggered and exacerbated these illnesses, and how we, as a field, must work collaboratively and creatively to meet the tremendous need for care now and beyond the pandemic.
Episode description:
Charlotte Markey, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology and Health Sciences at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. She has researched body image and eating behaviors for nearly 25 years, and is the author of The Body Image Book for Girls: Love Yourself and Grow Up Fearless.
Charlotte joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to discuss adolescent body image. Offering research and practical insight into the multifaceted topic, she notes that body image encompasses far more than whether we like our bodies. She touches on its various dimensions and implications in the everyday lives of adolescents and teens.
Episode description:
Melissa Louise Johnson is a Marriage and Family Therapist, adjunct professor at Bethel University, and the founder of the Impossible Beauty blog and podcast. Through her work at Impossible Beauty, Melissa is on a mission to expand and renew beauty, as she believes the American brand of beauty is divisive, destructive, and far too narrow.
Melissa explores the concept of beauty with us in this episode of Peace Meal. She describes how cultural beauty messages impacted her childhood, adolescence, and the development of her eating disorder, as well as how she recognized and reckoned with these messages in recovery.
Episode description:
Jaeden Luke is a singer-songwriter who wrote the single “Beautiful” for his older sister Kianna, who experienced and fully recovered from an eating disorder. Kianna is a graduate of St. Martin’s University, a young adult group ministry leader, and the author of a forthcoming book about her healing journey, The Cross That Set Me Free.
Jaeden and Kianna join us in this Peace Meal episode to explore the sibling experience of eating disorders. The brother and sister pair recall how Kianna’s eating disorder impacted their relationship as well as how their relationship—and “Beautiful”—helped her heal.
Episode description:
Rachel Wilshusen is a dynamic writer with liberal arts degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, University College London, and the University of Cambridge. After an extensive battle with anorexia, she wrote Emancipated Love Junkie: Liberating Myself From Anorexia to embolden others to follow her path toward recovery.
Rachel shares with us her experience of eating disorder recovery in this episode of Peace Meal. She illustrates it as a multi-step, nonlinear journey that began the moment she first reached out for help and continued well into and after her stay at an eating disorder center.
Episode description:
Kiera Russo is a student at The University of Notre Dame, studying Film, Television, and Theatre. An eating disorder survivor, she hosts the podcast Heavier Than I Look, which aims to empower other survivors, educate listeners, and foster conversation surrounding eating disorders. By finding meaning in her own suffering, Kiera hopes to fight against the silence that eating disorders demand and to liberate others from the same demand.
In this episode of Peace Meal, Kiera shares with us her eating disorder and recovery story. She traces the beginning of her illness to the time following eighth grade. During this period of transition, stress, and anxiety, Kiera started running to prepare for her school’s track team. But, she says, “it easily and quickly turned into…a mechanism for me to control not only how many calories I would allow myself that day, but also how much weight I could possibly lose.”
Episode description:
Dr. Shauna Frisbie is a Licensed Professional Counselor, an approved Supervisor for Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC-S), a Certified Eating Disorders Specialist (CEDS), and a National Certified Counselor (NCC). She has taught psychology, family studies, and counseling since 2001 and is currently a Professor of Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Lubbock Christian University.
Shauna joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to discuss the value of sharing and discussing visual content in therapy. Her phototherapy techniques are described in her 2020 book, A Therapist’s Guide to Treating Eating Disorders in a Social Media Age.
**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. This episode includes mention of sexual assault. Please use your discretion when listening and speak with your support system as needed.
Episode description:
Miranda Snyder is a student in the Honors College at the University of Maine, where she is studying to be a high school ELA teacher. A strong proponent of storytelling-based advocacy, her past and current advocacy efforts emphasize the power of lived experience.
The power of Miranda’s lived experience is on full display in this episode of Peace Meal. She shares with us her eating disorder story, charting it from illness to “quasi-recovery” to full recovery.
Episode description:
Brittany Braswell is a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist (RDN) who runs a virtual private practice for those struggling with food and body image concerns. In both individual and group settings, she helps clients reduce their anxiety and disordered behaviors so that they can achieve lasting freedom from the bondage of their eating disorders.
Brittany joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to explore recovery from a faith-based perspective. For many, she explains, faith is a belief system more powerful than an eating disorder, one in which people can trust when distancing themselves from their illness.
Episode description:
Kezia Reeder is a former Emily Program client and staff member and a continual advocate for eating disorder recovery. In this episode of Peace Meal, she joins host Dr. Jillian Lampert to describe her holidays with an eating disorder.
“I feel like I was constantly stressed from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve,” Kezia says. “It’s supposed to be a time of celebration and… in the United States, a lot of our celebration centers around gathering for a meal.”