Food Psych #258: Healing From Scarcity and Deprivation and Finding Fat Freedom with Tiana Dodson

Photographer: Khali MacIntyre

Introduction & Guest Bio:

Body-liberation coach Tiana Dodson joins us to discuss how scarcity from poverty and her mother’s dieting affected her relationship with food, how she eventually began accepting her fatness and healing from disordered eating, her journey from health coach to body-liberation coach, body partnership as an alternative to body love, the four-step framework of her Fat Freedom Foundation program, and so much more. Plus, in Ask Food Psych, Christy answers a listener question about whether being a foodie and former chef is compatible with intuitive eating. 

Tiana Dodson is a fat Body Liberation Coach who’s out to destroy the belief that you have to be skinny to be happy and healthy, lovable, or worthy. Through her work with the Fat Freedom Foundation program, she guides people feminine-of-center to reconnect with their bodies, destigmatize fatness, and learn about the harms of health being a measure of worth while finding how they can live their best fat lives. Find her online at TianaDodson.com.

For listeners in America, please remember to vote. If you’ve done so already, thank you. If not, go to VoteSaveAmerica.com/plan to learn about the options that are available to you and come up with a voting plan.

We Discuss:

  • How scarcity from poverty and her mother’s dieting affected her relationship with food as a child

  • How children can be influenced by their parents’ dieting, even when comments are not explicitly made toward them

  • Tiana’s experiences being bullied by other children

  • The different ways in which Tiana felt othered

  • Her experiences attending a traditionally Black university as a biracial person

  • The feelings of shame that often accompany weight regain after unintentional weight loss

  • Her experiences with dieting and disordered eating

  • How she began accepting her fatness

  • What she learned from working with a raw-vegan health coach

  • The dissonance she felt as a fat person training to become a health coach

  • How she learned about Health At Every Size®

  • Her search for her brand voice

  • Why she embraced the identity of body-liberation coach

  • The four-step framework of her program, Fat Freedom Foundation

  • Why body love may not be the goal for everyone, and why Tiana teaches body partnership instead

Resources Mentioned

Some of the links below are affiliate links. Affiliates or not, we only recommend products and services that align with our values.

  • Health At Every Size by Dr. Lindo Bacon (Bookshop) (Amazon) (TW: Healthism. Dr. Bacon no longer stands behind this book and recommends that people read Body Respect that they co-authored with Lucy Aphramor instead)

  • Christy’s online course for professionals, Master Your Anti-Diet Message

  • Tiana’s program, Fat Freedom Foundation

  • Tiana’s website, Instagram, and Patreon

  • For listeners in America, please remember to vote. If you’ve done so already, thank you. If not, go to VoteSaveAmerica.com/plan to learn about the options that are available to you and come up with a voting plan.

Ask Food Psych

Listener Question:

“How can a person avoid turning intuitive eating into the Hunger-Fullness Diet? What should a person’s eating look like when they’re on vacation? Is it possible to eat intuitively as a foodie and former chef?”—Ann-Elizabeth

We Discuss: 

  • Signs of lingering diet mentality

  • Eating while on vacation

  • Satisfaction as the “hub” of intuitive eating

  • Why it’s important to eat enough

  • Intuitive eating in food insecurity

  • Intuitive eating as a foodie and/or former chef

  • Reframing the principles of intuitive eating

Resources Mentioned: