Health at Every Size® Healthcare Provider Listing

I'm just 3 generations removed from Irish Catholic immigrants to the US, who fled starvation perpetrated by the Anglican English. Internalized fatphobia came with them. In addition to alcoholism, drug addiction, and high degrees of dissociation that left children unprotected, there was a constant focus on body image that I first became aware of consciously at age 7. My road to adult awareness of diet culture and internalized fat phobia was a bit of a zigzag. I was strongly affected by the book When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies, which I read long before I became a professional counselor. It was not until about 10 years ago, though, when I began work as a trauma specialist in a trauma-focused residential treatment center that I received training, mostly peer-to-peer, from the clinical staff of the eating disorder team. There I began to understand that we can make no assumptions about a person's health based on size and shape. In my role as a contemplative minister and author of an ebook called "The Beautiful Human," I learned that even the Buddha warned about diet culture and how it distracts us from what is important. He spoke of 3 "infatuations" - hanging onto youth, health, and life. This teaching has been a powerful ally to me and to my clients who enjoy that kind of thing.