22: Shauna Solomon-Krakus on eating disorders, diet culture, and the weight of body representation

Hi everybody, and thank you for tuning in to episode 22 of the Learn With Lels podcast.

In this episode, I spoke with Shauna Solomon-Krakus, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Toronto who studies eating disorders and body image. 

In our conversation, Shauna and I talked about:

• society’s shift from thinspiration to fitspiration and how that change isn’t necessarily a better approach;

• diet culture and how dangerous it is;

• how key body representation is in the media and how health looks so different for everyone; and

• suggestions if you or someone you know is dealing with an eating disorder.

We also talked a little bit about my experience with binge eating and perfection and how those things were so connected.

If you’ve ever struggled with dieting or body image, or if you know someone who’s struggled with these things, I think you’ll find this conversation really insightful and hopefully helpful. Even if you don’t think that you’ve struggled with these topics, I think this is a good conversation to listen to because diet culture really is so ingrained in our society that we don’t even notice how it impacts us. In listening back to this conversation, I’ve been realizing some of the biases that I have and have started thinking about some of the ways that I can make improvements—because I’m definitely still learning too!

I hope you enjoy this conversation, and if you would like to learn more or need more resources, Shauna suggests checking out NEDIC, the National Eating Disorder Information Centre.

If you like this podcast, please subscribe wherever you listen, and follow me on social for more content (@LearnWithLels on Instagram and @KaitlinJingco on LinkedIn and Twitter).