0:00

Welcome to Food Psych, a podcast dedicated

0:02

to critiquing diet and wellness culture and

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answering your questions about intuitive eating and

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the anti-diet approach. I'm your

0:09

host, Kristi Harrison, and I'm a

0:11

registered dietitian, certified intuitive eating counselor,

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journalist and author of the books

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Anti-Diet, The Wellness Trap and the

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new Emotional Eating, Chronic Dieting, Binge

0:20

Eating and Body Image workbook, which

0:23

are all available wherever you get

0:25

your books or at kristiharison.com/books. That's

0:27

kristiharison.com/books. And by the way,

0:29

on this show, we avoid diet culture details

0:31

like weight and calorie numbers, but we don't

0:34

censor swear words or other adult language. So

0:36

listener discretion is advised. Hey

1:03

there, welcome to Food Psych. I know I

1:05

said we're on a monthly schedule now and

1:07

we are, but I just wanted

1:10

to pop in here for Eating Disorders Awareness

1:12

Week and share a little teaser of next

1:14

month's episode that is relevant right now. It's

1:16

with Akira Gilbert, the new CEO of Project

1:19

Heal, and their theme for

1:21

the week is let your community be

1:23

your compass. So in this mini episode,

1:25

Akira shares the importance of community when

1:27

it comes to eating disorder recovery, her

1:29

goals with Project Heal and what to

1:31

do when community feels like a tricky

1:33

thing. And of course, there's lots

1:35

more in the main episode, which is a

1:37

classic Food Psych format where we talk about

1:39

her relationship with food growing up and how

1:42

she found healing. That'll be coming out in a

1:44

couple of weeks. But meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this

1:46

little preview. Akira, welcome to

1:48

Food Psych. I'm so excited to talk with you today.

1:51

I'm excited to be here with you, Kristi. Thank you.

1:54

So before we dive in, I'd love to have you tell us

1:56

a bit about yourself and the work that you do. Yes,

2:00

so my name is Akira Gilbert. I am

2:02

the CEO of Project Heal, and ultimately we're

2:05

creating equitable access to eating disorder care. So

2:07

we offer a program portfolio of services that

2:09

ensure that folks who say, I might have

2:12

an eating disorder and I want to figure

2:14

out if I do, or I know I

2:16

have an eating disorder, how do I get

2:18

help, are able to get access to

2:21

the resources that they need and all for free.

2:24

Amazing. So you've just taken

2:26

over, or I mean, as we're recording this, you've

2:28

recently taken over as the new CEO of Project

2:30

Heal. What are you looking to

2:32

accomplish with the organization in the coming years and how

2:34

will its mission be shifting from what it was in

2:36

the past? Ultimately

2:39

our vision is going to be the same. We

2:41

want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity

2:43

to heal from their eating disorder and has the

2:45

resources to heal. But we

2:47

also prioritize those who have experienced

2:50

systemic barriers to care. So folks

2:52

who have experienced weight stigma, racial

2:54

discrimination, have socioeconomic barriers to care.

2:58

Actually I think that when you think about an

3:00

eating disorder, many people tend to get a specific

3:02

image in their mind around who has one. And

3:04

so we're working to not only break down that

3:07

stigma, but make sure that folks who may

3:09

have been negatively impacted by that stigma don't

3:11

have to go without care. And

3:13

right now, as we air this, it's Eating

3:16

Disorders Awareness Week, and Project Heal's theme for

3:18

the week is, let your community be your

3:20

compass. So can you tell me what that

3:22

means and its significance for specific communities? Of

3:25

course. So this actually

3:27

goes back to, I'm currently

3:29

CEO of Project Heal, but actually before

3:31

this I was the founder and CEO

3:34

of Body Reborn, which was an intersectional

3:36

healing space specifically for communities of color

3:38

and folks who struggled with their relationship

3:41

with food and their body. And

3:43

ultimately when I was going through my own

3:45

healing journey, and I still am, it's a

3:48

never-ending process. I realized that,

3:50

number one, I was getting a

3:52

lot of extremely medical options for

3:54

care, so I was offered therapy

3:56

when I could eventually afford it.

3:59

I was offered... dietetics and all

4:01

those things were and

4:34

understand that this isn't something that I'm

4:36

necessarily choosing to do, not choosing to

4:38

have an eating disorder. But they're actually

4:41

there to be my biggest cheerleader. They're

4:44

there to help me find the resources that I didn't

4:46

think I deserve. There's

4:48

so much to say about that, about community

4:50

and how it works and why

4:52

people don't have access to the communities they

4:55

need and deserve to recover and heal. Something

4:58

that often comes up for me when thinking

5:00

about community and talking about it with clients

5:02

is that community can be tricky for some

5:04

people, right? Group dynamics can be

5:06

tough for some of us, myself included,

5:09

and family dynamics and things like

5:11

that that maybe have engendered

5:14

trauma in the past. And

5:16

if you're in a family or a community or

5:18

even like a subculture where disordered eating

5:20

is normalized, I think it can

5:22

be really hard to do something different in that

5:25

environment and to find support in

5:27

your community. So I'm curious if

5:29

you have any thoughts on what it

5:32

takes to build a truly supportive community and

5:34

to have community care in

5:37

your life when some of those

5:39

barriers are in place. Oh,

5:41

that's a wonderful question of what it takes.

5:44

Ultimately, it takes three things. Number

5:46

one is enough of an overlap

5:48

of shared identities in order to

5:50

support one another. Number two is

5:53

building trust. And number three is

5:56

a common purpose that

5:58

is positive. And so to

6:01

that first point of having an overlap of

6:03

shared experiences, have you ever had somebody come

6:05

up to you and try their best

6:07

to relate to you and you're like, you do not

6:09

share enough experiences with

6:11

me that you're providing me with support

6:14

and advice and I appreciate it. I

6:17

appreciate you going out of your way and yet, and so this is

6:19

not helpful to me. It doesn't feel resonant. And

6:21

so having enough of that

6:23

overlap so that you're not necessarily

6:25

consistently triggering one another, but

6:28

you are able to have

6:31

a bit of a mirror, if you will. And

6:34

then next is the ability to build trust.

6:37

It's very common saying hurt people hurt

6:40

people and while that is sometimes true,

6:42

we often see that there

6:45

is a tendency to hold on to

6:47

a lack of trust,

6:49

even when trying to build community. And

6:51

so oftentimes folks will say, well, I

6:53

want to build these deep relationships, but

6:56

I'm not willing to be vulnerable and

6:58

expose myself. And that is

7:00

the risk of building community

7:02

and building authentic relationships is

7:05

letting go of all of the resources

7:07

that you built up that protect you

7:10

in terms of keeping yourself

7:12

closed off and unavailable and opening

7:14

yourself up just enough to

7:17

where, yes, you might risk getting

7:19

hurt again and you have to

7:21

measure what that means against your

7:23

healing. Right? So how much

7:26

are you able to open yourself up

7:28

to the right people who truly want

7:30

to support you? And then

7:32

the third thing I'll say is

7:34

around, you know,

7:36

I mentioned that overlap by identities and building

7:38

trust, but also finding folks who have

7:41

a shared level of hope. And

7:43

so what's a common thing in

7:45

peer support spaces is sometimes

7:49

we can get so stuck on all

7:51

the things that are going wrong that

7:53

we can't appropriately appreciate or drive toward

7:55

what is going right, that we can't

7:57

be grateful. for

8:00

the things that are going right. And

8:02

so a combination of those three

8:04

factors, as I mentioned, along with

8:06

putting yourself in different spaces, one

8:08

of the best things that I

8:11

think I've ever done is intentionally

8:13

ask people. I would like drop

8:15

tidbits into conversations and start to

8:17

open myself up to new people

8:19

and just speak very lightly about

8:21

the challenges that I was having

8:23

and ask them if they knew anybody

8:26

who had also gone through that. And

8:28

so it sounds slightly formal in a

8:30

networking way, but it truly was to

8:33

build my network of people

8:36

who might know other folks who

8:38

were dealing with similar challenges because

8:40

there was a time in which

8:42

I didn't have relationships that I

8:44

would have considered extremely deep and

8:46

extremely meaningful, but I

8:48

knew that I needed to find them

8:50

some way. And so online was one

8:52

way. But I have friends now, especially

8:54

during COVID, that I'm just meeting them

8:57

in person for the first time because

8:59

we build those relationships online and

9:01

sell different forums. Honestly,

9:03

like the comment sections of certain

9:06

people on social media, pages

9:08

that you consider to be

9:11

more positive, uplifting, but also

9:13

perhaps around a shared challenge,

9:15

oftentimes people in those common sections

9:18

can be your new source of community. If you

9:21

say, I have no other ones, I

9:23

would say be very intentional about the pages

9:25

that you go to with that because it

9:27

can obviously go in the opposite direction. And

9:30

then again, putting yourself out there just enough to

9:33

where you feel like other

9:35

people can help you build your community. Yeah,

9:38

I think that's really helpful. And I

9:41

love the idea of like asking people

9:43

in your existing network if

9:45

they know someone who's dealing with some of

9:47

the same issues to find people in sort of an

9:49

offline way. And I'm really excited

9:51

to talk with you about that more in the

9:53

main episodes. We have a full food psych episode

9:55

coming up in a few weeks as people are

9:57

listening to this and we're going to dive into

9:59

it. to your history, your healing

10:01

journey, you know, the whole process

10:04

and how you came to do the work that

10:06

you do today. So I'm really excited to share

10:08

that with folks down the line. But for anyone

10:10

who's just listening to this teaser episode, can you

10:12

tell us where people can find you, learn more

10:15

about your work and Project Heal's work and more

10:17

importantly, or perhaps most importantly,

10:20

to participate in Eating Disorders Awareness

10:22

Week? Yes. So if you want

10:24

to learn more about Eating Disorder

10:27

Awareness Week, you can visit us

10:29

on our website at www.theprojectheal.org. You

10:31

can also find us on Instagram

10:34

at Project Heal, because ultimately, this Eating

10:36

Disorder Awareness Week, we want everyone to be

10:38

in our community with us. And so you'll

10:40

get a sneak peek, not only into the

10:43

really exciting things that we have to come

10:45

this year, but also be able to participate

10:47

in some of the really exciting programming that

10:49

we've got going on. So we've got folks

10:51

that will be featuring during Eating Disorder Awareness

10:53

Week and collaborating with on Instagram. And so

10:56

if you're a fan of either Instagram Live,

10:58

or you say, you know what, this sounds like

11:00

incredible work. How do I get involved or how

11:02

do I benefit from it? You can check us

11:04

out there. Awesome. We'll put links to that

11:07

in the show notes so people can find it and definitely

11:09

want to encourage everyone to tune in for your full episode

11:11

in a few weeks. Thank you so much for being

11:13

here. It's really exciting to talk with you. You

11:15

as well, Kristy. And thank you all. So

11:22

that's our show. Thanks again to

11:24

our guests for being here. And thanks

11:26

to you for listening. If you found

11:28

this podcast helpful, I'd be so grateful

11:30

if you take a moment to subscribe,

11:33

rate and review it on Apple podcasts

11:35

or wherever you listen. You can see

11:37

all the places to subscribe at Kristy

11:39

harrison.com/subscribe. That's Kristy harrison.com/subscribe. If

11:41

you're looking for help healing your own

11:43

relationship with food, grab my free audio

11:46

guide, seven simple strategies for finding peace

11:48

and freedom with food. Just go to

11:50

Kristy harrison.com/strategies to get it. That's

11:53

Kristy harrison.com/strategies to

11:55

get full show notes in a transcript

11:57

of this episode. Go to Kristy harrison.com/food

11:59

site. and to get the transcript, find

12:01

the episode page and scroll down to the bottom to

12:04

enter your email address. A big

12:06

thanks to softer sounds for audio editing and

12:08

production and to administrative assistant Julianne

12:10

Watassik for helping me out with all the

12:12

moving parts that go into producing this show. Our

12:15

album art was photographed by Abby Moore Photography

12:17

and the logo was designed by Melissa Alam.

12:19

Our theme song was written and performed by

12:21

Carolyn Penny-Packer Riggs and I'm your host

12:23

and executive producer Kristi Harrison. Thanks

12:26

again for listening and until next time,

12:28

stay safe.