31: Gentle Parenting Has a Diet Culture Problem with Eloise Rickman

This is a teaser of a subscriber only-episode. Head to canihaveanothersnack.com to upgrade your subscription and access the full episode.Today I’m joined by CIHAS audio engineer and host of the podcast Lecker, Lucy Dearlove, to answer listener and reader questions. Tune in to hear us:Revive and old classic (DSMG fans, this one’s for you!)Share non-lame-gym-bro snack ideas for pre/post workoutExplain why a certain gut health shot is a lot like a bad night outTalking about why it’s important to be calm in the face of a new medical diagnosis rather than falling into diet cultureOffering some advice towards handling the challenges of co-parenting with someone whose views on diet culture are very different from your ownAnd lastly, why you should ignore influencers who boast about their kids eating stilton and sushi

In today’s episode, I’m speaking to writer and parent educator Eloise Rickman. Eloise’s work focuses mainly on challenging adultism, championing children’s rights, and helping parents and educators rethink how they see children. In this episode, we touch on how diet culture shows up in gentle parenting spaces and how mainstream ideas of gentle parenting don’t always challenge where power comes from and how it’s leveraged. We’ll also talk about kids’ embodied resistance and Elosie’s new book, It’s Not Fair.Don’t forget to leave a review in your podcast player if you enjoy this episode - or let me know what you think in the comments below.Find out more about Eloise’s work here.Pre-order Eloise’s new book here.Follow her on Instagram here.Follow here on Substack - Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura’s newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here. Here’s the transcript in full:INTRO:Laura: Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast where we talk about appetite, bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter.Today we’re talking to . Eloise is a writer ( ) and parent educator. Her work focuses on challenging adultism, championing children’s rights, and helping parents and educators rethink how they see children. Today we’re going to talk about how diet culture shows up in gentle parenting spaces and how mainstream ideas of gentle parenting don’t always challenge where power comes from and how it’s leveraged. We’ll also talk about kids’ embodied resistance and Elosie’s new book, It’s Not Fair.But first - just a quick reminder that Can I Have Another Snack is entirely reader and listener supported. If you get something from the newsletter or podcast, please consider a paid subscription - it’s £5/month or £50/ year which helps cover the cost of the podcast,  gives you access to our weekly subscriber only discussion threads, the monthly Dear Laura column, and the entire CIHAS archive. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to subscribe now. And thank you to everyone who is already a paid subscriber.Alright team, here’s this week’s conversation with Eloise Rickman. MAIN EPISODE:Laura: Alright Eloise, can you start by telling us a bit about you and your work?Eloise: Yeah, of course. And whenever I do these, I'm always absolutely terrified, that I'm gonna forget something really big , like “I'm a writer” or “I work with parents”. So yeah, I'm a writer and I work with parents. I write books about children and about children's rights.And I've just finished writing my second book, which is on the idea of children's liberation. which looks at all different sorts of topics from parenting to education to children's bodies. And alongside my writing work, I also work with parents running courses on home education and on rights-based parenting and on workshops as well.I'm also – at the same time as doing this – home educating my daughter, who at the time of recording is eight, which also kind of feels like a full time job and just because life is not complicated enough, I'm also doing a Masters in children's rights at the moment, which is brilliant.Laura: Okay, I have no idea how you find the time in the day to do all of those different things, but I am in awe. And you mentioned that you just finished writing your second book, but you didn't say what it's called.Eloise: Sorry, I didn't, you’re right! So it's called It's Not Fair. Which is a title we deliberated over for a really long time, but I really like it because it's something which we hear so often from our children's mouths.It's not fair, this isn't fair. So it's called It's Not Fair: Why it's Time for a Grown Up Conversation About How Adults Treat Children. And that really does sum it up. It's really looking at how we treat children in all different aspects of life. And why a lot of that treatment isn't fair and why we need to rethink it as adults who have more power than children.Laura: Yeah, and I mean, that's really what I want us..we're going to explore these ideas a little bit in a second. But yeah, I've had a little sneaky peek of the book so far. And what I read is incredible. And I'm so excited for this book to be in people's hands because – we'll talk about this a bit more as well – but unlike a lot of just, you know, gentle parenting, like, more prescriptive books, I think that just tell you how to parent, what I really appreciate about your work is that you bring in the kind of socio-political lens, which I feel often gets missed out of a lot of these conversations. So, yeah, I'm really excited about your book coming out and we'll pop a pre-order link to it in the show notes so that people can have that little happy surprise delivered to their doorstep. There's nothing better than, just like, a book showing up that you've forgotten…  Eloise: Oh, I love it. Laura: …that you ordered six months ago! Okay. A lot of your work centers on the idea of dismantling adultism. I'm not sure that people will be completely familiar with that term, so for anyone who is just coming across it, can you explain what even is that and where do we see it show up in our kids’ lives?Eloise: Absolutely, and I think you're totally right that it's not a term that most of us are familiar with at all, and I think that's a huge problem actually.You know, we are now, I think, generally, as a society, getting better at spotting things like sexism or racism or ableism, and that is really important, you know, being able to name injustice when you see it is the first step to dismantling it, to tackling it. Otherwise, how do you really know what it is that you're dealing with and why it's a problem?But yet, when we think about some of the treatment which children experience at the hands of adults, whether that's the fact that in England, at the time of recording, it's still legal to hit your child, even though we would never dream of women being allowed to be hit by their partners, or the fact that, you know, it's still really normal in so many school settings for children to be publicly humiliated, to be losing their break times and so on.All of these seem to be quite disconnected from one another because we don't have the language to join them up. And I think th...

Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast where we talk about food, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I’m Laura Thomas, I’m an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter.Today I’m sharing part 2 of my conversation with Professor Karen Throsby, author of Sugar Rush.  If you’re just joining us then make sure you go back and listen to part 1 of this episode before you jump into this one. We talk about mortified mothers, how removing sugar from the diet is gendered work that falls on women, and how the certainty around the ‘badness’ of sugar belies a lot more doubt and ambiguity coming from the scientific community. So go back and check out part 1 if you haven’t listened already. Today we’re getting into why the so-called ‘war on ob*sity’ has to constantly reinvent itself to stay relevant, and how it fails to meet its own objectives. We also talk about how ultra-processed foods are quickly becoming the new sugar and how that conversation fails to acknowledge the role that convenience foods play in offering immediate care or the privilege in being able to eat for some nebulous future health. And we couldn’t talk about sugar and not talk about Jamie Oliver and the sugar tax.INTROBefore we get to Karen, a super quick reminder that all the work we do here is entirely reader and listener supported and the podcast is my biggest operating cost. I will do everything I can to keep it free and accessible to everyone, and you can help by becoming a paid subscriber - it’s £5/month or £50 for the year (and you can pay that in your local currency wherever you are in the world). Paid subscribers get access to the extended CIHAS universe including our weekly discussion threads, my monthly column Dear Laura and the whole back archive. You also support the people who work on the podcast, and help ensure we can keep the lights on around here. You can sign up at laurathomasphd.co.uk and the link is in your show notes. As always, if you’re experiencing financial hardship, comp subscriptions are available, please email [email protected] and put the work ‘snacks’ in the subject line and we’ll hook you up. Thank you as always for your support and for making this work possible.Alright team, I know you’re going to love the second installment of this episode so let’s get straight to it - here’s part two of my conversations with professor Karen Throsby.  Here’s the transcript in full:MAIN EPISODELaura: Karen, I want to come back to this idea that you articulate so well in the book. You say that “the so-called war on ob*sity has been unable to warrant its core empirical claims” – I'm quoting you now, “and has been a notable failure when measured against its own goals of sustained population level weight loss.”Can you explain how in order to sustain itself, the war on ob*sity had to reinvent itself like Madonna? By casting a new villain…and kind of talk about that arc a little bit? Karen: Yeah. So if we think about, I mean, obviously the sort of attack on fat bodies has, has a very long history, but if we think about its most recent history in, in the form of the war on ob*sity, which dates to around the turn of the millennium as a new kind of intensified attack where dietary fat was seen as the core problem.Sugar has always been seen as a problem. We can even go back to the 1960s and the rise of artificial sweeteners. and their take up in the diet industry. So it's always been there as a problem, but it was really fat, fat, fat, fat, fat. And that's why, when I looked at the newspaper articles, sugar was hardly talked about because the focus was different.And I think what we get is then with that repeated failure, where there has been a base, I mean, there's…in the UK, there's been a leveling off of ob*sity rates, but it doesn't meet the aspirations of the attack on ob*sity. It has been a failure. And I think it runs out of steam because it's not achieving the change.And, and yet you get this kind of constant hectoring and sort of constant renewal. I can't…there's been…I can't remember. It's like 17 policies or something, you know, in the last 20 years. And it's, you know, none of them are successful, have been successful. And then, so we get to about 2012, and one of the things that happened in the UK, of course, was the Olympics, where there was a lot of anti-ob*sity talk.It was seen as a way of refreshing the war on ob*sity, and I think that partly opened the door. Laura: Yeah. I'm sort of smirking, because I was in the States at that point doing my PhD, so I kind of, like, missed a lot of what was going on here, around 2012 in the Olympics. So yeah, it's really interesting that you're, you're not, you noted that, that that kind of anti…Karen: Like a core, a core justification for the, for funding, you know, a mega event like the Olympics was that it would boost sport, which would boost attempts to reduce ob*sity. And so you've got that in the background, you've got the fact that it is losing steam, you know, and so it needs to find another, another enemy, something to pick it back up again. And sugar, I think…because at the same time, as I mentioned earlier, we've got austerity measures being consolidated through the Welfare Reform Act in 2012, all of those welfare cuts in place. So then the idea of sugar, and the kind of an austerity worked really well together, the idea that individuals should make small economies to get by to manage their own consumption, that you shouldn't over consume because it costs the state, it costs other people money. And so those narratives came together perfectly and sugar just became this, this model enemy for the moment.And then what we see then is the rise of interest in the sugar tax. which was announced in 2016, which is the peak in the newspaper coverage, and then was launched in 2018. So in a, in a sense, the history of the social life of sugar during this moment is an arc that sort of covers the rise to the sugar tax and then its implementation.But all of the expectation that had been laid on fat is then laid onto sugar as the problem. If only we can solve this problem. And so again, as I said before, it creates this erasure of the absolute complexity of food and eating. The idea that food is only ever swallowing and metabolising, it's, you know, it's so social, it forms so many social functions around love, care, comfort, you know, all of those things that it’s just completely inadequate.And then what we've got now is a tailing off. And actually it tailed off during the pandemic, there was a little peak at the beginning, if you can remember when Boris Johnson launched an anti-obesity policy, when he came out of hospital, he was blaming his own body size on the fact that he'd been very unwell. And so we saw a little peak then, but it's basically dropped off now.So in sort of 10 years, we've had a sort of complete focus on sugar and then this tailing off of interest in it. And I think now what's coming in instead is ultra processed food is now filling that gap, but it's folded sugar into it because obviously ultra processed food is, as almost all, I mean, has always got sugar in it. And so it's picked up the sugar as it's gone. So it's, all of that is still there, but it's now being talked about in terms of ultra processed food.<...

Hey everyone! Happy New Year and welcome back to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we talk about food, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I’m Laura Thomas, I’m an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter.I am really excited to share this week’s conversation; it is the perfect antidote to the January diet culture hellscape that we’re all living through. My guest today is gender studies professor and author Dr. Karen Throsby, whose book Sugar Rush (affiliate link) was an absolute highlight for me in 2023. I have been recommending it to everyone. Karen’s thesis in the book is essentially how the public health and popular science discourse around sugar obscures the social and structural inequality responsible for health disparities and by doing so, actively embeds it further into the fabric of society. I’ve split this conversation into two parts - so you’ll get the second half of the conversation in two weeks. But today we talk about how the conversation around sugar being bad for you is framed with so much certainty, whereas the science holds a lot more doubt and ambiguity. We talk about how nostalgic fantasies of a past where nobody ate sugar and everyone climbed trees all day long erases the unpaid labour of women, and how even modern day efforts to eliminate sugar are dependent on unequal distribution of household labour and are framed as work that is pleasurable, or else women get scapegoated as bad mothers. So much great stuff in this episode and like I said, I’ll share part two soon, where we get into the rhetoric around ultra-processed food, how the so-called war on ‘obes*ty’ fails to live up to it’s own aims and loads more. Before we get to Karen just a quick reminder that the entire CIHAS universe is reader and listener supported, meaning I literally can’t do this work without your support. If you like what we do here and want to help keep the lights on then you can upgrade your account to become a paying subscriber - it’s £5/month or £50/year. Not only do you support the time and labour that goes into producing the newsletter and podcast, but you get access to our weekly community discussion thread Snacky Bits. You can comment on posts, and you get access to my monthly Dear Laura column and the full archive. You’ll also see a bit more bonus content on free essays that’s just for paid subscribers in the coming months, so make sure you’re signed up to get in on that action. Head to laurathomas.substack.com or check out the show notes for that link. Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura’s newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here’s the transcript in full:MAIN EPISODELaura: Karen, I'd love if you could begin by sharing a bit about you and the work that you do.Karen: Yes, thank you. So I'm a sociologist, I'm a professor of gender studies at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. And throughout my 20 plus years of career, I've been looking at issues of gender, bodies, technology and health.So I've done work on reproductive technology, on surgical weight management, I've done work on endurance sports and what you do to a body when you engage in endurance sports socially, what does that mean? And then most recently, I've been working on what I've been calling the social life of sugar. How can we think about sugar in a moment when sugar is being attacked as a kind of health demon, the constant in my career has been this idea about bodies and how we try and change bodies or how bodies change and then most recently in relation to food and particularly sugar,Laura: Tell us a little bit more about that because, you know, you kind of say this almost quite flippantly. “Oh yeah, I’ve been doing sugar”, but that's like a whole like undertaking in terms of research and then the book that came out of that. So, could you maybe tell us a little bit about the research that you did that went into, you know, studying the social life of sugar and, and maybe a little bit about the process of writing the book as well?Karen: Yes, of course. So, it started from observation, which is where a lot of research comes from – of noticing just a lot of sugar talk in the media, for example. And so, I decided to look at it more formally. So, I actually did a, I started with newspapers and I looked at newspaper coverage from 2000. So I ended up looking to 2020 when I searched for newspaper articles in nine UK newspapers. So across the political spectrum and broadsheet, tabloids as well, looking for articles of quite substantive articles like sort of 500 words or more with the word sugar in the title.And then I filtered those. So I took out all of the irrelevant things. So there's lots of mentions of Alan Sugar, uh, for example, lots of sugar metaphors, like a ‘spoonful of sugar’ that you get in business reporting. And I took all those out. And then I kind of looked at the pattern and what you see from 2000 to about 2012, it's very, a very low level of coverage, just trickling along very low.And then in 2013, it starts to shoot up. And then by 2016, it's really high and it peaks there. And then it drops off a little bit, picks up again at 2018 and then slowly falls away. And so I took 2013 through to towards the end of 2020 as the period of study, and that ended up with about 550 newspaper articles that then became my objective analysis of what's happening with sugar.And then I dug out anything else I could find. So policy documents and newspaper, medical articles, self-help books, popular science tracks – anything I could find about sugar. And that became the body of data that I then was analyzing just to see: how is sugar being talked about? Who is being excluded when we talk about sugar?Trying to see it, not literally, but thinking about what is sugar doing socially when we talk about it.Laura: Yeah. It's, it's an, I'm just thinking of this from a research perspective. It's a huge undertaking. I'm just imagining you going through your Nvivo now, it's just like,Karen: exactly. You're right there. I mean, it was an unusual project for me, because all my other projects have been broadly ethnographic. So I've actually gone and observed groups, a social, social organization, and so on, um, or done interviews and things like that. So this was a departure for me that it's very text based. It's looking at how it's reproduced and represented in text, in different kinds of text.But you ask the same questions, what is a newspaper trying to achieve in writing in this particular way? What is a popular science track trying to achieve in writing about sugar in a particular way? And then you can start thinking about, so what does sugar mean in different contexts, but also what kind of work does sugar enable us to do socially?Laura: Mm hmm. So can you tell us a little bit more about the sort of, maybe just like the headline conclusions that you drew out with this and then and we can kind of get into some of the more specifics in a second. Karen: Yeah, I mean the bottom line for me was that sugar and wh...

Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast. This week I’m talking to specialist diabetes dietitian Erin Phillips about all things insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Erin shares some background on what happens in the body that leads to type 2 diabetes, why ‘prediabetes’ is a dubious diagnosis and the things the keto-bros often leave out this conversation. We talk about why sugar and higher weight aren’t the cause of type 2 diabetes, and how there is so much more we can do to care for diabetes outside of cutting carbs and losing weight, especially if you have a background of an ED or disordered eating. Lots of you have requested more content around this topic - let me know what questions you still have after listening to this episode!Find out more about Erin’s work here.Follow her on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura’s newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here’s the transcript in full:INTROErin: I think sometimes a diagnosis of prediabetes or type 2 diabetes can be a traumatic event, especially when it's not in the presence of someone caring and that you trust. Or especially if you have a family history of diabetes where you've seen…maybe some scary things. Which I will – now that I said that – I will add that it's, that's not a definite outcome either, those scary things, yeah.But it can be, that can be really stressful, and that's the opposite of what is helpful for blood sugars.Laura: Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast where we talk about appetite, bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter.Today's guest is registered dietitian Erin Phillips. Erin's work is grounded in health at every size and fat positive nutrition. She has an advanced certification as a diabetes specialist and has spent most of her career working with people living with all types of diabetes. She has a private practice that focuses primarily on the intersection of diabetes and eating disorders. She works with people living with diabetes through individual counselling, as well as providing consultation to clinicians looking to be more grounded and confident in supporting their clients and patients with co-occurring diagnoses of diabetes and eating disorders. So I've had a lot of feedback from newsletter readers and people who listen to the podcast saying that you'd like more information about weight-inclusive approaches to so-called prediabetes – which we'll get into in a minute – insulin resistance and elevated glucose levels as well as type 2 diabetes. Most of the advice out there centers on carbs. So I was excited to talk to Erin about why these approaches are not only unhelpful for a lot of folks, but how they can be harmful. And why you don't need to get sucked into diet culture to care for yourself. In this episode, we discuss why type 2 diabetes isn't caused by too much sugar or having a bigger body, why pre-diabetes is a fake diagnosis, and why you don't need to cut out carbs to manage your blood sugar. I'm so excited for you to hear this episode. But before we get to Erin, I want to remind you that the Can I Have Another Snack? universe is entirely listener and reader supported. If you get something out of the work that we do here, please help support us by becoming a paid subscriber. It's £5 a month or £50 for the year. And as well as getting you loads of cool perks, you help guarantee the sustainability of this newsletter, have a say in the work that we do here and help ensure I can keep delivering deeply researched pieces that provide a diet culture-free take on hot nutrition topics like ultra processed foods, the Zoe app, and the deep dive on folic acid and folate that I just did recently.All of those you can read at laurathomas.substack.com if you haven't already. And if you're not totally sold yet then maybe this lovely review that I got recently will help convince you. So one reader wrote: “I feel so lucky that I found your work around the same time I started feeding my kid real food. It saved me so much angst and has allowed me to relax and really enjoy seeing him explore eating. Your essays on sugar especially was a game changer. I'm sure it won't always be plain sailing, but I feel so much more prepared to ride the waves of his changing appetite. and tastes as he grows, accepting them as a feature and not a bug.So hopefully he can have a much more relaxed relationship to food than I had for a long time. And I pay my £5 a month because I so value the work you put into your writing and think it's worth paying for. There's a lot of free advice out there, but I never know what I can trust. This is such a safe haven.”So yeah, it's £5 a month or £50 for the year. You can sign up at laurathomas.substack.com or check out the show notes for this episode. And if you can't stretch to a paid subscription right now, you can email [email protected] for a comp subscription. No questions asked. You don't need to justify yourself. Just put ‘Snacks’ in the subject line. This is actually going to be our last podcast of the year. I'll be back in your ears in January with brand new guests. Paid subscribers will continue to hear from me in your inboxes and in the group chat, where I'm going to be holding space for all the venting and screaming at diet culture shit that gets dredged up over the holidays and into January. If you'd like to join us, you can sign up at LauraThomas.substack.com. Otherwise I'll speak to you in January. Okay, team. Over to Erin. MAIN EPISODE:Alright, Erin. Can you please start by telling us a bit more about you and the work that you do?Erin: Yeah. I am a registered dietitian. Well, in the United States, based in, um, the Seattle, Washington…I was gonna say, the ‘state of Washington’! And I'm also a certified diabetes care and education specialist. It used to be a certified diabetes educator and they wanted to add more letters. So I'm in private practice and I focus on working with people with diabetes and eating disorders at the same time, or people who had a history of an eating disorder and then were recently diagnosed with diabetes but don't want like It wouldn't be helpful or safe for them to go to just any diabetes educator.So those are the folks that I work with.Laura: Oka...

Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast. I have been so excited to share this week’s episode with you. Our guest today is Kirstie Beaven from Sonshine magazine - a publication dedicated to raising boys for a more equal world. Kirstie and I talk about how seemingly innocuous things like dinosaur t-shirts and shark pants send a message to our kids about who they can and can’t be, how they should expect to be treated, and how they should treat others. Kirstie gives us a fascinating history lesson on how kids’ clothes became gendered (spoiler, colonialism and capitalism have a lot to do with it) and why these have massive repercussions for gender equality. We also talk about why Kirstie is low-key obsessed with pants (the underwear kind), and why we can’t just empower girls in a vacuum; we also need to be teaching boys emotional literacy and allowing them to have an identity outside of the ‘big boy’, or the sporty one. Just a heads up that we talk about some distressing statistics around sexual harassment, suicide, and violence towards women and girls, but not in explicit detail.This is without a doubt one of my favourite episodes we’ve done on the CIHAS pod - if you’ve never listened before then this is a great place to start, even if you don’t have kids. Don’t forget to leave a review in your podcast player if you enjoy this episode - or let me know what you think in the comments below. Find out more about Kirstie’s work here.Follow her on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura’s newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here’s the transcript in full:INTROKirstie: That's one of the things I really want to do, is just gently point out the things that we take for granted that we say are normal or natural, but they're not. They're totally constructed. Many of the things that we just take for…oh yeah, pink and blue. Pink is a girls’ colour, blue is a boys’ colour. We think of that as completely normal and it's totally made up and it's so recent.Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we talk about appetite, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter. Today I'm talking to Kirstie Beavan.Kirstie is the founder and editor of Sonshine Magazine, raising boys for a more equal world. Sonshine is a print and digital quarterly, as well as a social profile for parents who want to change the way we talk to and about our sons, to create a better society for all children.I've been so excited to share this episode. We recorded it a while back and I'm really glad that you're able to finally listen to it. It's such a great discussion about gender inequality and why seemingly innocuous things like how we dress our kids have really long term implications for their emotional development and the roles that they learn to occupy in society. Kirstie is a wealth of knowledge about the gendered history of kids clothing, which you won't be surprised to hear is entirely rooted in capitalism, rather than any real biological or physical differences between sexes. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation, and if you don't already, you need to get your hands on a copy of Sonshine Magazine, which is available in print and digitally. I'll link to it in the show notes so you can order yours. It would make a really lovely holiday gift for your co-parent or some other parents that you have in your life, maybe even for yourself. But before we get to today's episode, I'd love to tell you all about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter. And of course there are cool perks like being able to comment on posts, our Thursday threads, Snacky Bits, and exclusive posts on intuitive eating, weight inclusive health, and responsive feeding. But more than all of that, being reader and listener supported means I can better control who comes into this space. In other words, we can keep the trolls and the fatphobes out. And if they do sneak in, at least they've had to pay for the privilege, and I can still boot them out. Having control over who comes into the space is essential for creating a safe, nurturing space away from diet culture where we can discuss difficult topics like how we deal with diet-y friends, gender division of labour, and body shame. All the way through to more light hearted stuff like the weird shit that mummy influencers say. If you're still not convinced, then here's a recent testimonial from someone in the CIHAS community. So they wrote: “I wish I had access to the advice and information you share when my kids were little, but it's still valuable now that they're nearly adults for a couple of reasons at least. Firstly, having only been diagnosed as autistic in middle age, I have had a complicated relationship with food for most of my life. From childhood fussy eating, through stigma over my higher body weight and internalised fat phobia, to temporary success with dieting, followed by the inevitable return to my previous size. Your writing has helped me cast off many of my own hang ups about food, weight, and health, making me a better role model for my kids. Secondly, your advice helps me to support and advise my kids with their own food, health, and body image issues, and to advocate for them to family and friends. I believe in showing my appreciation for people who provide me with help and support, at least by saying thank you, and where possible, with feedback and or financially. I can't financially support everyone I'd like to all of the time. But I do what I can when I can. Thank you for all you do Laura.”So what are you waiting for? You can sign up today at laurathomas.substack.com or find the link in your show notes. It's £5 a month or £5 for the year and if you can't stretch that right now just email [email protected] with the word “Snacks” in the subject line and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription. No questions asked. You can also gift a subscription to a friend for the holidays to give them unfettered access to the CIHAS community. I can even send you a gift certificate. Just email [email protected] and we'll hook you up.  Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.All right team, let's get to today's conversation with Kirstie Beavan from Sonshine Magazine. MAIN EPISODEAll right, Kirstie, to start with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?Kirstie: I'm Kirstie and I run Sonshine Magazine, which is a quarterly print and digital ma...

Today on the podcast I’m joined by Dr. Molly Moffat - A GP who practices medicine from a weight inclusive, neurodiversity affirming lens, celebrating both diversity of bodies and of minds. In this episode, we are talking about how Molly moved away from recommending diets and weight loss to her patients, towards an anti-diet, weight-inclusive approach, focused on treating individuals with care and compassion. We get into what exactly medical anti-fat bias is and why it's so harmful, and she has some really lovely suggestions for how to talk to patients who come in with the idea that they have to lose weight for medical reasons. Find out more about Molly’s work here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura’s newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here’s the transcript in full:INTRO:Molly: Fat folk don't go and see their doctor when they need to. And you know, I don't need to explain why that is a concern. That is a concern. It means that diagnoses are missed, diagnoses are made late, and it absolutely contributes to stress, mental health, physical health and health inequity in an already marginalised group of people.Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we talk all about appetite, bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter. Today I'm talking to Dr. Molly Moffat. Molly is a GP with a special interest in learning disability and autism. She practices medicine from a weight inclusive, neurodiversity affirming lens, celebrating both diversity of bodies and of minds. She's neurodivergent herself and has three children. In this episode, Molly and I are talking about how she moved away from recommending diets and weight loss to her patients towards an anti diet, weight inclusive approach, focused on treating individuals with care and compassion. We get into what exactly medical anti-fat bias is and why it's so harmful, and she has some really lovely suggestions for how to talk to patients who come in with the idea that they have to lose weight for medical reasons. I really loved talking to Molly and I think you're going to enjoy this episode.But before we get to today's conversation, I want to tell you real quick about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter and community. Now, I know we're not used to having to pay for content on the internet. and why would you pay for something where 85% of the content is free anyway?Well, because without paying supporters, this work just wouldn't be possible. None of the newsletter, not the podcast. As well as supporting me in the time it takes to research, interview contributors, and write articles, your support goes towards paying guests for their time and their labour, as well as a podcast and a newsletter editor, so it's a whole team effort.You also help me keep the space ad and sponsor free, so I don't have to sell out to advertisers or exploit my kid for freebies. Plus, keeping the community closed to paying subscribers only means that we keep the trolls and the fatphobes out. I recently asked the CIHAS community why they support the newsletter, and this is what one reader had to say:“I'm a mum of one fairly adventurous, self proclaimed vegetarian and one theoretical omnivore. The latter survives almost exclusively on added sugar and butter, but mostly sugar. I consumed all the picky eating advice, some of it really well meaning and pretty mellow, but by seven years in, I was more frustrated, confused, and full of self doubt than ever.Enter CIHAS. The no nonsense, cut through the bullshit, science backed content is exceptional. The content about sugar is especially helpful to me, and the anti diet lens is an antidote to my extremely anti fat/diet culture conditioning. And as an American, the British references are just an added bonus. To say your work is actively changing my life is not an understatement. Thank you.”Well, thank you to the reader who sent that really lovely review. Becoming a paid subscriber is a fiver a month or £50 for the year. And you get loads of cool perks as well as just my undying gratitude for supporting my work. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to subscribe now.  All right, team, here's my conversation with Dr. Molly Moffatt. MAIN EPISODE:Hey Molly, can you start by telling us a little bit about you and the work that you do? Molly: Sure, yes. So I'm a GP, although I actually only do one day of general practice at the moment. I have a special interest in learning disability and autism. I've been working in that field for a few years, and I've recently started working in paediatrics, doing some neurodevelopmental assessments, and I also do some teaching for medical students. The reason I'm here is because I do my very best to practice in a weight inclusive manner, so I'm not worried about fat bodies, but I'm really worried about the way fat bodies are treated, particularly when they're trying to seek healthcare.Laura: Yeah, that's what you're here to talk about today, but I feel like we could probably have a whole other conversation about neurodivergence and feeding differences and all of that stuff, but I will try and rein myself in because, yeah, like you said, I really wanted to talk to you about how fat bodies are perceived and how they're treated in medical settings.So I'm wondering if you could kind of take us on a bit of a journey with you. Can you set the scene for us? You're a medic, straight out of training, going into your GP specialisation. At that point, what do you believe to be true about the relationship between weight and health?Molly: Okay. So I mean, all of my medical school teaching, all of my junior doctor training, and my GP training was absolutely based in this weight normative approach.So the idea that weight was a marker of health, and that we should be pursuing weight management for our fat patients. And there was never any discussion around where that came from. So, you know, it was just stated as a fact that ‘ob*sity’ came with all of these comorbidities and put people at increased risk of X, Y, and Z.And, like I say, I never remember – and I'm really confident it didn't happen – any discussion around where the evidence behind those statements came from, and the fact that actually...it was really complex and that maybe there were some other factors at play that cause that association between body size and certain diseases.And I also never remember any conversation about weight stigma and the impact that that can have on people's health.Laura: Okay. Well, there's so much that I could kind of, like, tease out of what you just said there, but I think the sort of headline for me is just how this information was presented to you as complete certainty. I think if I'm kind of reading between the lines, or what I've even learned in my own training,...

In today’s CIHAS episode, I’m speaking to online personal trainer and performance nutritionist, Michael Ulloa. Michael is on a mission to make the fitness industry a more welcoming and accepting space for all, which is exactly what we dive into in this ‘sode. We are unpacking some toxic myths about exercise, Michael spills the beans on his feelings about Joe Wicks, and we discuss what really goes into professional fitness models’ photo shoots. Plus we answer loads of your questions like how to find a more joyful relationship with movement after a lifetime of using it as punishment for eating. Find out more about Michael’s work here.Follow his work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura’s newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here’s the transcript in full:INTRO:Michael: The way that we're being sold health and fitness just isn't sustainable or achievable in any way and then people blame themselves and feel worse and then therefore they're more likely to spend money on all these other programs repeatedly and it's just a vicious cycle that just doesn't ever end.Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast, where we talk about appetite, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas. I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter. Today, I'm talking to Michael Ulloa.Michael is an online personal trainer and performance nutritionist who is on a mission to make the fitness industry a more welcoming and accepting space for all. In today's episode, Michael and I are shooting the shit about the fitness industry, unpacking some toxic myths about exercise, and answering loads of your questions: like how to find a more joyful relationship with movement after a lifetime of using it as punishment for eating.Some of you have been asking for more episodes on movement and fitness, so I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. We'll get to Michael in just a second, but first, I want to tell you real quick about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter and community.For just £5 a month, or £50 a year, you get access to the extended CIHAS universe. That means exclusive weekly discussion threads, links and recommendations, you get commenting privileges and access to my monthly Dear Laura column, as well as the whole CIHAS archive and a few other sweet perks, but more than anything, you're supporting independent evidence based nutrition information free from diet culture and anti fatness. I can't do this work without the help of paying subscribers. So if you get something out of being here, then please consider upgrading your subscription today. And if you're still not convinced, then check out this recent review I received from a reader. They said: "Laura's podcast and newsletter are always thought provoking, filled with care and compassion, and a respite from one size fits all health and nutrition advice."So if that sounds good to you, then head to laurathomas.substack.com and become a paying subscriber today. Alright team, let's get to today's episode, here's Michael. MAIN EPISODE:All right, Michael, I need to know what the deal is. Because you're like one of maybe five PTs who isn't pushing aesthetic or weight loss goals on us.Has that always been your deal? Or is this more of an evolution for you? Michael: Yeah, it's definitely an evolution and it's funny you mentioned that because I get a lot of angry messages from personal trainers that don't think that my approach is right, which is always quite funny to me. I don't know, it's, I definitely, when I first started off in the fitness industry... I've been a personal trainer now for nearly 10 years.And in terms of personal training, that kind of makes you a bit of a veteran because a lot of trainers are quite short lived on average. When I first started off, I definitely did have your typical, like, mainstream slightly bro approach to fitness and nutrition. And I know most people that maybe work in the kind of space that, like, you operate in, for example, there tends to usually be a reason or a thing that caused them to go down that path.But I didn't have that at all. It really has just been a really slow evolution of just actually reading the research, working with people on a day to day basis, getting feedback from clients about what is working and what isn't, and then just really tweaking things over a very long period of time. I've also had some very honest clients, which have been great too, who kind of really follow my content on social media and they would message me like, oh, that's not very helpful. How about approaching it like this? And i'm always open to feedback, I always want to improve my practice and my messaging and I was always just quite receptive to that and I don't know... 10 years later I now finally feel like i'm working with people in a way that genuinely helps them long term and i'm actually creating content that is useful for people rather than just almost creating content for other personal trainers, which seems to be what a lot of fitness professionals do.Laura: Tell me about the angry messages. Why are other PTs up in your shit about...? Michael: I really don't know. I wish I knew the answer. I think... I guess if you're attacking someone's entire being and their work and their ethos that they've believed in for so many years, then I guess that a lot of people will react to that in quite a negative way.I really don't understand it at all either. Usually male coaches too, are very angry in the way that I approach social media and some of the names and things I've been called are pretty grim, but I only... I wish I knew the answer to that, but some, for some reason people get very angry in the way that I am approaching fitness and nutrition.But yeah, I really don't mind. Like I, as I said, I feel like I'm really helping people now and I'm happy to keep championing that message. Laura: I mean, I'm just wondering if part of it is because that myth, certain myth of no pain, no gain. And that you need to like, basically punish yourself with exercise in order to achieve a particular body type.You're saying, actually, we don't need to do that. It's okay if you don't kill yourself with exercise. We shouldn't be weaponising it against ourselves. For me, it speaks to how deeply internalised people's anti fat bias is. You're challenging the fundamental sort of premise that their beliefs are resting on, which is that, you can't be fit and fat.Or you...yeah, like I said before, that you have to punish yourself with exercise or like that... it's somehow okay to exist in a body that isn't fulfilling this ideal that we have been ...

Today I’m speaking to Sarah Sproule (she/them), a sex educator, an occupational therapist, as well as a mother of three teens. Sarah uses their skills to ensure that every parent and caring adult knows how to build a deeper connection with their growing kids, and believes that no child should ever feel alone and unable to reach out for help with their body, their boundaries, or their needs. Or their knowledge about sexuality.In this episode, we are talking about ‘sensitive things’ with our kids, plus reclaiming the ‘C word’. We dive into the following topics;* The ‘invisible influence of normal’* Showing kids we’re a trusted person to talk to about sensitive things* Why we don’t want to wait until sex ed classes to start talking about sex* Teaching kids about body boundaries* Answering your Qs about: * How to explain to kids why you do some things in private?* 4 year olds asking BIG questions you’re not sure they’re ready for* 3 year olds who are resistant to challenging gender stereotypes* How to support your child when someone is asking invasive questions* Plus Sarah shares the unknown history of the C word!Find out more about Sarah’s work here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here’s the transcript in full:Sarah Sproule: I drew analogies between talking about sensitive things and other parts of parenting. So, I don't know a single other parent who waited for their child to ask them for a stem of broccoli before they gave it to them. Right? And we know that broccoli's really great. I don't know a parent who waited for their child to ask them, Can you please show me how to cross the road? Because I want to stay safe. Like, there are so many things we do, we take initiative for, because we know it's important for the health and safety and joy of our child. INTROLaura Thomas: Welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we are talking about appetite, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter. Today, I'm talking to Sarah Sproule. Sarah, who uses she/them pronouns, is a sex educator, an occupational therapist, as well as a mother of three teens.Sarah uses their skills to ensure that every parent and caring adult knows how to build a deeper connection with their growing kids. She believes that no child should ever feel alone and unable to reach out for help with their body, their boundaries, or their needs. Or their knowledge about sexuality.In this conversation, we talk about what Sarah calls the ‘invisible influence of normal’; all the things, spoken and unspoken, that shape how we think about bodies, sex, pleasure, periods, and more. And we talk about why it's important to approach these conversations with our kids early and in a non-judgmental way that prioritises connection and helps inoculate them against body shame.We talk about supporting kids to trust their body boundaries and how that can help them use their voice when something doesn't feel right. Plus we answer your questions like how to teach kids that maybe it's best not to touch their penis at the dinner table, without inadvertently shrouding them in shame.Obviously this is a conversation about sensitive topics to do with sex, and at one point we do mention rape and other forms of violence. We also use the C word quite liberally towards the end, which Sarah and I are comfortable with, but we understand that it may not be for everyone. So all of that is to say, listen at your discretion and take care of yourself. I will say, though, that Sarah is extremely compassionate and thoughtful in how she approaches these topics. So I hope you'll find this to be a safe and nourishing conversation. Just before we get to Sarah, I wanted to tell you real quick about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter and community and whole wider universe.So until the end of September, I'm running a 15% off sale on the cost of annual memberships. So instead of paying £50 a year, you would pay £42.50 and that gets you access to the monthly Dear Laura columns where I answer your questions. It gets you access to the whole CIHAS archive, it gives you commenting privileges, plus weekly discussion threads tackling the big issues like…how clean is your fridge? And who are you dressing for on the school run? It's a really welcoming space where we learn from each other, share with folks who have a similar world view to us, and we have a lot of fun. And of course it's a completely diet, body shame-free space.  I wanted to quickly share what one CIHAS reader said recently. They shared this review saying: “Laura's Substack is a lifeline in a world where diet culture and fatphobia is pervasive in all aspects of our lives including how we feed our children. Every time I start to worry about my toddlers eating and that internalised diet culture mentality starts bubbling up, it's Laura's voice telling me that it's all going to be okay. Through her invaluable work on CIHAS, she's genuinely keeping me sane and empowering me to navigate feeding my child and making the right decisions for my family. The paid subscription is more than worth it. Thanks, Laura.” Well, thank you for that really sweet review. And like I said, we're running a sale for the rest of September and you can sign up at laurathomas.substack.com and I'll drop the link in the show notes so you can find it really easily. And by becoming a paid subscriber, not only do you get the sweet perks that I mentioned earlier, but more importantly, your contributions help make this work sustainable. All right, team, let's get to today's guest. Here's Sarah.  MAIN EPISODEHey, Sarah, can you start by telling us a little bit about you and the work that you do, please? Sarah: I support parents and other adults who are raising children to speak about sensitive things. So that's a euphemism for puberty, genitals, babies, growing up, sex, relationships, all that sort of stuff that might seem a little bit like…eeeeh!...when you think about having conversations about that with kids.And that work is important to me. I'm an occupational therapist, but I do that work because I was one of the kids that would have really benefited from way more open and sort of practical conversations about all that sort of stuff. My mum and dad were missionaries and we grew up in Nigeria for most of my teen...

Alright team, after a little hiatus from the CIHAS pod for a month, we’re coming back hard with Molly Forbes. Molly joined me back in May 2022 on the Don’t Salt My Game pod where we discussed how to stomp out diet culture in schools, and I’m so excited to have her join us in today’s episode.This time around, we discuss what the NCMP is, what it looks like in different schools, why you might want to opt your kid out, how you even go about doing that, and what you can do if you're worried about your child feeling left out if they're the ones who are left in the classroom while everyone else goes to get weighed.Find out more about Molly’s work here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Read more about the history of and evidence behind the NCMP here:Here’s the transcript in full:INTRO:Laura Thomas: Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we talk about appetite, bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to Molly Forbes.Molly is a journalist, campaigner and non profit founder. She's the author of the book Body Happy Kids: How to Help Children and Teens Love the Skin They're In and she's the founding director of the Body Happy Organisation CIC a social enterprise dedicated to promoting positive body image in children. I asked Molly to come on during the back to school season because we need to talk about the National Weight Measurement Programme, or the NCMP.This is the programme where children in England have their height and weight taken in schools at age 4-5, so in reception and then again in year six, which is ages 10 or 11. My understanding is that this happens in various forms throughout the UK. So in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland too. Although let me know in the comments how it's different for you or, you know, what the similarities are if you're in one of those countries. The UK government have taken the position that this is an innocuous practice. But, as I discussed with Molly, this is not reflected in the body image research. The programme is associated with poorer body image, which in turn is linked to disordered eating, body preoccupation, and lower overall sense of well being.So Molly and I, in this episode, go on to discuss what the NCMP is, what it looks like in different schools, why you might want to opt your kid out, how you even go about doing that, and what you can do if you're worried about your child feeling left out if they're the ones who are left in the classroom while everyone else goes to get weighed.I really hope you will share this episode with your school WhatsApp group, your friend group, with the teachers in your school, and help end the tyranny of the NCMP. You can also share Body Happy Org and Any Body UK's Informed Decision Making Pack and my writing on the NCMP, all of which I'll link to in the show notes for you.All right, before we get to Molly, I want to tell you real quick about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter and community. Now, I know we're not used to having to pay for content on the internet, and why would you pay for something where 85% of the content is free? Well, that's a great question. I'd love to answer it for you. Well, because without paying supporters, this work just wouldn't be possible. As well as supporting me in the time it takes to research, interview contributors and write articles, your support goes towards paying guests for their time and their labour, as well as a podcast and newsletter editor. You also help keep this space ad and sponsor free so I don't have to sell out to advertisers or exploit my kid for freebies. Plus keeping the community closed to paying subscribers only means that we keep the trolls and the fatphobes out.I recently asked the CIHAS community why they support the newsletter, and this is what they had to say: “I am a mum of one, fairly adventurous, self-proclaimed vegetarian and one theoretical omnivore. The latter survives almost exclusively on added sugar and butter, but mostly sugar. I consumed all the picky eating advice, some of it really well-meaning, and pretty mellow. But by seven years in, I was more frustrated, confused, and full of self-doubt than ever. Enter CIHAS. The no-nonsense, cut through the bullshit, science-backed content is exceptional. The content about sugar is especially helpful to me, and the anti diet lens is an anecdote to my extremely anti-fat slash diet-culture conditioning. And as an American, the British references are just an added bonus to say your work is actively changing. My life is not an understatement. Thank you.” Well, thank you to the reader who shared that lovely testimonial, and if that hasn't inspired you to become a paid subscriber, I don't know what will. It's just a fiver a month or £50 for the entire year, and you get loads of cool perks, as well as just my undying gratitude for supporting my work.Head to laurathomas.substack.com to subscribe now.  All right team, here's Molly. MAIN EPISODE:Laura Thomas: Hey Molly, can you start by telling us a bit about you and the work that you do? Molly Forbes: Yeah. So I run an organisation called the Body Happy Organisation. We're a CIC, so a Community Interest Company, or a social enterprise. Or if you're in the US, you might know that model is like a non profit. And essentially what we're all about is trying to create environments that allow children's body image to thrive.So we're really looking at prevention and we're looking at how we can create, kind of, culture change in schools and youth clubs and anywhere that children hang out and are to help, kind of, create an environment that just allows kids to just be at peace and friends with their body. And then all the other benefits that come with that, including how they treat other children with bodies that don't look or function like their own.And I also wrote a book called Body Happy Kids, which is for adults,  teachers, parents…I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not a dietitian. I'm not a psychologist. But I'm a journalist by trade. So I've really interested in that kind of media and culture angle when it comes to this subject. And that kind of informs, I guess, the lens that I come to this through. But in our organisation, we do have lots of different people from a range of different disciplines, which I think is also what makes us kind of special because we're not at it just from like a body image researcher lens, for example, or just from a nutritional food lens.We're looking at it from, like, a range of different perspectives.Laura Thomas: Yeah, the work that you do is really important. And one sort of thread of the work that you're doing is around the National Child Me...