Episode 84: When You Hate Your Body, People Get Rich
Last summer, right in the middle of the COVID-19 lockdown, I was fortunate enough to be taking a long walk while listening to an amazing book by Sophie Bashford.
It’s called You Are a Goddess, and you can pick it up on Amazon right here.
In one chapter, we learn about Kuan Yin, a widely loved goddess of the Orient whose name means “She who hears the cries of the world.” Her mission is to bring reverence to the female body and soul.
The book goes into much greater detail about her story and her many names in different cultures (and if today’s episode resonates with you, I highly recommend you read it), but the quote from this book that stopped me in my tracks about Kuan Yin was this:
Imagine if every woman on this earth
woke up tomorrow morning without any concept of wrongness
about her body
Can you sit with that for a second?
I mean, how many new inventions would there be?
How many of the world’s problems could be solved?
How much more energy would the entire planet feel if women stopped worrying about dieting and food.
What would be possible if we refused to accept what the white patriarchy has dictated about women’s bodies and what they’re “supposed” to look like?
Can you feel the power of the shoulders being thrown back, the chins lifting, and the imagination, smiles, and creativity coming to the forefront?
I mean … whoa!
You can think about that for a second. It’s OK. It’s worth the wait. I’ll be here when you're done.
And if that just knocked your socks off a little bit, you’re going to love today’s podcast episode with Megan Hadley, MS, RDN, and LDN.
Megan is a nutrition therapist and the owner of Simple Nutrition, a nutrition counseling practice in Greensboro, NC, and founder of Fork the Food Rules, a membership for people who have decided not to diet.
She believes that all bodies are good bodies and that from cake to kale, all foods are good foods. After helping hundreds of clients recover from diet culture, Megan knows that when women think less about food and body and more about what really matters to them, they begin to thrive in all areas of their life.
When she’s not working, Megan enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters. She loves cooking, traveling, long naps, good wine, and French fries. Megan finds her strength, both personally and professionally, rooted in her deep faith, as she knows she was created to live a life of abundance and to help other women believe and discover that as well.
Our conversation runs wide and far, as we do discuss how we got here. How is it that women’s bodies are used to sell everything from cars and beer to sporting events and paper towels?
And just how much is the diet industry making off all this damage to our collective psyche? Megan shares all about it, and it’s a lot. It’s like, mind-glowingly, let’s-fly-to-Mars, kind of money.
And it’s being made off our belief that our bodies are not OK exactly the way they are.
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL [YOUR FAVORITE BAD WORD GOES HERE]!
We’ve been taught to hate the female body, and it’s time to put an end to that.
To support us on this new journey, Megan is offering you a free gift to help you get started.
It’s her Fork the Food Rules First Bite Framework — Five things you can start doing now when you wonder “If I don't diet ... then how should I eat?”
You can click here to download it.
Megan is also offering a FREE mini course, "Fix Your Mindset, FORK Your Food Struggles", for FREE for the rest of the summer. Megan and I didn't chat about this in the episode, but I wanted you to know it's free for a limited time. Click here to check it out.
If you’d like to follow Megan and keep up with her amazing work, you can do that here:
Facebook @simplenutritioncounseling
