#86: From Conforming to Belonging: Your Body is Not Your Forever Project with Savala Nolan

The incredible Savala Nolan joins us on this week’s episode of the Full Plate podcast to talk about belonging versus conforming, understanding the body as our home, and how to walk away from a lifetime of disordered eating.

I recorded this conversation while I was on my August hiatus from the pod, so I actually got the chance to listen back to the episode and it hit me even harder the second time around.

Savala is warm, funny, kind, smart as hell, and she will blow your mind open when she explains really hard, complex, and nuanced topics. I felt so at home speaking with her, and I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.

Our conversation covers…

• Growing up with many dualities of race, body size, and class
• Being put on a diet starting at age 4
• Rebelling and conforming
• Our mothers, their diets, and our dieting
• The bond of dieting
• Our body as our home
• Unlearning the language of diet culture
• Quitting diets not being a choice for some
• The body is inescapable
• The cake we all need to have, and eat too

Savala Nolan is the author of the critically acclaimed Don't Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race Gender and the Body.  Her writing has been featured in Vogue, The New York Times Book Review,  NPR, Time, Harper’s Magazine, and more. She holds a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where she lectures on identity and law and directs the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice.  Her second essay collection, Good Woman, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.  

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Podcast Cover Photography by Anya McInroy

Podcast Editing by Brian Walters

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