Ep 130: How To Dismantle Diet Culture in Fitness with Guest Heather Caplan

Hola amigos! Welcome back!

David and Heather dismantle diet culture within the fitness culture. Join us to learn about Heather’s approach and her client’s success with anti-diet mentality. 

Highlights of this episode:

Sports nutrition and intuitive eating Dismantle diet culture in fitness cultureDifferent types of hungerWeight conversationsSustainable behaviorSuccesses and challenges

Guest Bio:

Heather Caplan is an anti-diet weight-inclusive registered dietitian. She hosts the podcast RD Real Talk, covering a range of topics related to anti-diet and weight-inclusive work. In her virtual private practice, she specializes in disordered eating, and bringing intuitive eating to athletes and parents. She's the founder of Weight Inclusive Nutrition and Dietetics, aka WIND, and co-founder of the Lane 9 Project—a virtual community for athletes experiencing hypothalamic amenorrhea. Her work has been featured on the TODAY show, and in the Washington Post, Outside magazine, EatingWell, and Runner's World. You can find her online at heathercaplan.com, or hang with her on Instagram @heatherdcRD, where she's keeping it real about parenting 3 kids under 4, training for her next race, and probably not meal planning.

Episode Summary:

Heather knows not to apply her experience to everyone, yet, she has seen a lot of harm from diet culture show up in her private practice. She says that with a diet culture approach, clients are more likely to drop off and not follow the dietitian’s interventions. Knowing everyone is different, Heather gets curious about each client’s different lived experiences and provides an anti-diet approach to food and movement. Heather and David discuss the 72 billion diet and wellness industry is hard to call out. There is a growing body of evidence for a weight inclusive approach to health. Diet culture doesn’t stop with its old diet approaches. Now, they are listening to anti-diet work and co-opting the language. Heather says this is diet culture’s last breath. It is an act of desperation. The big win in anti-diet work is the brain space people get back and be more present with LIFE. Their flexibility leads to satisfaction, pleasure, and joy.