#121: Belonging Versus Conforming: Your Body Is Not Your Forever Project with Savala Nolan

On a revisited conversation -- one that left a lasting impact on me -- the incredible Savala Nolan joins us to talk about belonging versus conforming, understanding the body as our home, and how to walk away from a lifetime of disordered eating.

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 being inescapable
• The cake we all need to have, and eat too

 

About Savala: 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. Find Savala on IG: @notquitebeyonce

 

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