Rethinking Wellness cover image

Rethinking Wellness

Wellness Culture, Chronic Illness, and Digestive Issues with Jonathan Vatner

Jan 20, 2025
36:28
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com

Novelist, editor, and longtime friend of the pod Jonathan Vatner joins us to discuss his experience with a chronic autoimmune digestive condition, his ups and downs with diets and alternative medicine, nuances in the research on probiotics and acupuncture, the mind-body connection and how it’s helped in his healing, and more. Behind the paywall, we get into how he came to develop acceptance for his chronic illness, how he’s been able to take pleasure in food despite his digestive troubles, his appearance on Christy’s first podcast way back in 2014, how his relationship with food has evolved, the new novel he’s working on, and how he’s rethought wellness after everything he’s been through.

Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Jonathan Vatner is the author of THE BRIDESMAIDS UNION (St. Martin's Press, 2022) and CARNEGIE HILL (Thomas Dunne Books, 2019). His fiction has earned praise from People, Town & Country, The New York Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the managing editor of Hue, the magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology, and teaches fiction writing at New York University and the Hudson Valley Writers Center. Learn more about his work at jonathanvatner.com.

If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it! 

Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.

Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. 

If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

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