366: Sarah Stevens: The Beautifull Project: The Truth About Fatness and Thin Allies

After leaving a career in corporate healthcare in 2016, Sarah set out to find work that better aligned with her passion and purpose. As co-owner of Black Pearl Coaching and Consulting, she served as a consultant to small businesses and nonprofits. Through this work, she accepted a position as the inaugural Executive Director with Lead(h)er, a nonprofit that connects women with mentors to fuel career and community engagement - a position she still holds to this day. In 2018, Sarah launched The Beautifull Project, an entrepreneurial effort that combined her past professional experience with her commitment to pursuing purposeful work. Using the power of collective storytelling, The Project invites women back to their bodies, encouraging, and supporting them as they learn to use their voice and take up space. When Sarah is not thinking up big ideas for The Project, she is shamelessly momming 3 teens, writing, reading, teaching yoga, and leaning as far as possible into an honest, authentic life.

Listen in to hear Sarah share:

• Her experience growing up in a body she deemed to be “too big and too much”
• Her history of body image battles and disordered eating
• How her Beautifull Project was born out of the moment her doctor prescribed her speed and a 600 calorie a day diet for weight loss
• Why “being concerned” for a fat person’s health is a discriminatory crutch
• How she’s embracing living in a fat body
• How to talk to your kids about fatness and fat as a neutral descriptor
• Why thin people must be allies for fat people if we want to create space for all women to live safely in their bodies and in their power

Links mentioned:

• Connect with Sarah
• Facebook: The Beautifull Project
• Instagram: @thebeautifullproject and @seeing_sarah
• The TED talk
• Podcast: Beauti: The Interviews

Thank you to our sponsors:

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