Rethinking Wellness

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comWriter and linguist Amanda Montell joins us to discuss “magical overthinking” and the cognitive biases that make us vulnerable to misinformation, celebrity culture and its intersections with wellness culture, how to deal with panic headlines, cultish language to watch out for in wellness spaces, and more. Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first part is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Amanda Montell is a writer and linguist from Baltimore. She is the author of the acclaimed books Wordslut, Cultish, and The Age of Magical Overthinking (Bookshop affiliate links). Along with hosting the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, and more. She holds a degree in linguistics from NYU and lives in Los Angeles with her partner, plants, and pets. Find her on Instagram @Amanda_Montell.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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comChristy shares the story of a woman who came to believe a “leaky gut” was behind all her health issues, and discusses the nuanced facts about this supposed diagnosis. (Adapted from The Wellness Trap.)This episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to a free preview here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the full episode!Get full show notes and references here.Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it online 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. 

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comDr. Mara Einstein joins us to discuss how cult-like marketing tactics have taken over the wellness and diet industries.She explains how Weight Watchers and other diet programs operate on cult-like principles, why food noise might be a kind of internalized cult leader, the many problematic aspects of how GLP-1s are marketed, and why conspirituality is so problematic.Behind the paywall, Christy and Mara discuss the cult marketing spectrum, influencers as “cult-like” figures and conspiracy theorists, the anxiety economy that profits from doomscrolling, MLMs, affiliates, and how to get out of brand cults.Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To read the full post and upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. More from Christy: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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.Subscribe on Substack for full interviews and more! 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 a place to connect with other listeners.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comChristy answers an audience question about whether magnesium is really the panacea it’s made out to be—or whether it’s just another example of wellness-culture hype.The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the first question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest!Get full show notes and references here.Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode!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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comRegistered nutritionist, author, and friend of the pod Laura Thomas joins us to unpack the problematic notion that you need to eat a ridiculously large number of plants per week for gut health, and what we actually know about how plant foods affect the gut microbiome. We also get into how to distinguish good science from hype, how ultra-processed foods have become so demonized despite a lack of strong evidence, how anti-fat bias is baked into the discourse about both gut health and ultra-processed foods, and lots more. Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first part is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Laura is a Registered Nutritionist who helps people feel less afraid of the food they eat and more comfortable in their bodies. Through her work with individuals and families, as well as in her writing, she challenges dominant ideals about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods and ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bodies. She holds a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from Texas A&M University, and worked as a post-doctoral research associate at Cornell University before starting her private practice. More recently she received a diploma in Clinical Nutrition and Eating Disorders from UCL. She has published two books: Just Eat It and How To Just Eat It, both of which focus on healing our relationship with food and our body through Intuitive Eating. Her clinical work is focussed on supporting families to end the intergenerational transmission of body shame and disordered eating. She writes the newsletter Can I Have Another Snack?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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comChristy answers an audience question about what to do if you’re wary of buying supplements but want to listen to your doctor’s recommendations. The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the first question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest! Get full show notes and references here. Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode! 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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. 

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comBody image scientist and researcher Charlotte Markey, PhD returns to the show to discuss the many factors that impact body image and how parents can help their kids develop a positive sense of self.Christy and Charlotte both share examples from their own parenting, including how to handle tricky conversations about body size, gender, and more. They also unpack the difference between body positivity and body neutrality—and why the popular definitions of those terms are different from their use in research.Behind the paywall, Charlotte explains how she thinks about makeup for girls, adaptive vs maladaptive grooming routines, ways to tell if a kid is struggling with body dysmorphia, and a six-step process for helping young people develop media literacy.Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To read the full post and upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. More from Christy: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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.Subscribe on Substack for full interviews and more! 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 a place to connect with other listeners.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comChristy answers an audience question about going autoimmune diets and celiac disease, and there’s a bonus one for paid subscribers about going gluten-free for an autoimmune thyroid condition.Become a paid subscriber to hear the whole thing!Get full show notes and references here.Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode.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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comNew York Times bestselling author and former CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers joins us to discuss her history of chronic fatigue and illness, her experience with dubious diagnoses and wild wellness treatments, what she discovered about the true causes of her issues, how disordered eating helped mask and exacerbate her symptoms, how she’s rethought her relationship with work in general and her own past work in particular, her viral post “The way we live in the United States is not normal” and her decision to move to Italy, and more.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.Kirsten Powers is a New York Times bestselling author and writes the bestselling Substack newsletter Changing the Channel. Kirsten served as a CNN senior political analyst for seven years, providing on-air analysis for major political and cultural events. The Columbia Journalism Review called her "an outspoken liberal journalist" in a sea of opposition at Fox News, where she previously served as a political analyst. She was a columnist for USA Today for more than a decade and, before that, for the Daily Beast and the New York Post.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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comChristy delves into the science to answer several questions she’s gotten (and asked herself) about pregnancy. We discuss whether the sex of the baby predicts nausea levels, whether methylated folate is better than folic acid (in pregnancy or otherwise), whether dates (the fruit) have really been shown to induce labor, and whether there’s an increased risk of stillbirth after 39 weeks for IVF babies.The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the first question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest!Get full show notes and references here.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comPharmacist and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor Sarah-Jane Garcia joins us to discuss how smart people get caught up in wellness culture.She shares her path from the realities of being a pharmacist experimenting with elimination diets to how getting certified in integrative medicine exacerbated her orthorexia to why becoming a parent finally opened her eyes to the fear-mongering happening in wellness communities.Behind the paywall, Christy and Sarah-Jane discuss what it actually took for Sarah-Jane to break free from diet culture, as well as how she returned to conventional medicine through Intuitive Eating.Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To read the full post and upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. More from Christy: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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.Subscribe on Substack for full interviews and more! 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 a place to connect with other listeners.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comIn this bonus episode, Christy discusses the science (or lack thereof) behind the wellness-culture slogan “sunlight before screen light.” This episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to a free preview here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the full episode!Get full show notes and references here.Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it online 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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comWriter, speaker, and weight-inclusive health/fitness professional Ragen Chastain joins us to discuss the potential side effects and other downsides of using GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic and its ilk) for weight loss, the massive influence the manufacturers of these drugs are having on the public discourse about them, why the media don’t often report on these conflicts of interest, how drugmakers have co-opted talking points about weight stigma and weight cycling, how opposition to these drugs in some integrative- and functional-medicine spaces still perpetuates stigmatizing ideas about body size, and more. 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. Ragen Chastain is a speaker, writer, researcher, Board Certified Patient Advocate, multi-certified health and fitness professional, and thought leader in weight science, weight stigma, health, and healthcare. Utilizing her background in research methods and statistics, Ragen has brought her signature mix of humor and hard facts to healthcare, corporate, conference, and college audiences from Kaiser Permanente and the Diabetes Education Specialists National Conference, to Amazon and Google, to Dartmouth, Cal Tech and canfitpro. Author of the Weight and Healthcare newsletter, the book Fat: The Owner's Manual, co-author of HAES Health Sheets, and editor of the anthology The Politics of Size, Ragen is frequently featured as an expert in print, radio, television, and documentary film. In her free time, Ragen is a national dance champion, triathlete, and marathoner who holds the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Woman to Complete a Marathon. Ragen lives in Oregon with her fiancée Julianne and a rotating cast of foster dogs.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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comChristy answers an audience question about creatine, with a deep dive into the scientific literature to see if the supplement is really worth the hype.The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the first question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest!Get full show notes and references here.Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode!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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comResearcher Maxine Ali joins us to discuss how wellness micro-influencers and practitioners construct “authentic” online personas to spread misinformation.We explore the ways that creators with smaller platforms build trust in seemingly less commercial ways than macro-influencers, including: personal stories of illness, medical encounter memes, and hyper-simplified straw man formats. Then Maxine explains why these ways of sharing can lead to powerful parasocial influence that undermines the perceived expertise of medical professionals worldwide.Behind the paywall, Christy and Maxine unpack what influencers are doing when they’re “truth-telling,” why conspirituality and conspiracy theories thrive online, and how the rise of “mythbusting” has warped into insidious platitudes.Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To read the full post and upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. More from Christy: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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.Subscribe on Substack for full interviews and more! 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 a place to connect with other listeners.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comA critical look at the evidence on hair analysis, DUTCH testing, and heavy metals in chocolate—and why it’s worth being skeptical of tests positioned as “new science.”Get full show notes and references here.The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the first question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest!Christy's new book, The Wellness Trap, is now available wherever books are sold. Order it online 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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. 

Anti-diet dietitian Leah Kern joins us to discuss how struggling with anxiety made her susceptible to a wellness diet that promised safety and longevity, how that diet quickly spiraled into full-on disordered eating, how being eco-conscious and “earthy” can easily lead into wellness traps, the connection between spirituality and wellness culture, why she finally stopped trying to fix her anxiety with food and started taking meds, and more.Leah Kern is an anti-diet dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor who specializes in helping people heal their relationships with food and body. Her approach to coaching is firmly evidence-based, rooted in the Health At Every Size (HAES®) & Intuitive Eating frameworks. In her private practice, Leah teaches her clients to harness their body’s innate wisdom to govern how they eat and live. Leah believes that the work involved with unraveling years of conditioning in diet culture and learning to come home to one’s body is deeply spiritual work and she treats it as such. It is Leah’s mission to help her clients make peace with food and body so they can unlock their most aligned and fulfilling lives. Learn more about her work at leahkernrd.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 bonus episodes, subscriber-only Q&As, early access to regular episodes, community threads, and much more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.Christy's new book, The Wellness Trap, is now available wherever books are sold! Order it online 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comChristy answers an audience question about anti-inflammatory diets: the hype, the science, and what the best available evidence really shows.The full version of this episode is for paid subscribers. Listen to the question here, and sign up for a paid subscription to hear the rest!Get full show notes and references here.Ask a question of your own for a chance to have it answered in a future episode!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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comSocial media researcher, professor, and author Renée DiResta joins us to discuss how anti-vaccine messaging spreads online – including ways we can combat the rise of wellness misinformation in 2026 and beyond.We also discuss how viral rumors spread on social media, why wellness influencers have become invisible rulers, the difference between moderating “good” and “bad” information, and how algorithms become propaganda machines.Behind the paywall, Renée offers advice on how to defend science in our local communities, simple ways to amplify good information online, what appropriate skepticism looks like, and why she still uses and recommends Reddit.Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To read the full post and upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. More from Christy: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, check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.Subscribe on Substack for full interviews and more! 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 a place to connect with other listeners.

Christy discusses her upcoming maternity leave and shares a preview of what we’ll be covering here in 2026.Support the show and get 30% off an annual subscription to Rethinking Wellness if you sign up before January 1!Get full show notes and references here.Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it online 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.com/subscribe