Today Virginia is chatting with Debra Benfield, RDN. Debra has helped hundreds of women heal their relationship with food eating in their bodies over her 35-year career as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist specializing in the prevention and treatment of disordered eating, and brings her passion, expertise, and lived experience to the intersection of pro-aging and body liberation work. Deb’s work is rooted in helping clients recognize internalized ageism and end it, dismantle internalized diet culture and fatphobia, nourish their bodies to support vitality and aging and develop a respectful partnership with their bodies. 

If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. 

And don't forget to preorder! Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture comes out April 25, 2023 from Henry Holt. You can preorder your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. And! You can now preorder the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.

Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.

BUTTER & OTHER LINKS

Follow Deb @agingbodyliberation (Facebook)

Deb's small group coaching that focuses on aging with vitality and body liberation

grappling with feelings about our aging bodies

The Truth About Grandparents

that Emma Thompson conversation

Ashton Applewhite's TED talk

Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It

Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs about Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live 

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

CREDITS

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.

Episode 81 Transcript

Deb

So, I turned 60 four years ago. And when that happened, I got curious about what the research was saying about aging and how to make choices to support myself. And I was hit very hard with things that I shouldn’t be surprised by, but I was surprised to see, like how loud and obnoxious the diet and wellness industry messages were in that entire pro-aging culture, not to mention the thin bodies. Since all that happened and my frustration with it, I’ve headed in a direction to provide and create something that I was looking for myself.

Virginia

You reached out to me about having this conversation after I’d written a little bit about grappling with feelings about our aging bodies. As I said in that piece, I’ll be 42 this year. So I’m fairly new to thinking about ageism in anything other than the abstract, but it is clearly time I start learning about it. So I’m eager to be doing this work. and I’m eager to talk with you about how it intersects with anti-fat bias. I think we should start with the ageism piece. What is ageism? How does it show up in the world? 

Deb

Ageism is having a preconceived notion or storyline or a prejudiced view of another person or your own self based on age or perception of age. The way it shows up in the world is complicated in that we have so many myths about aging. I have two grandchildren, one and three, that I read stories to and—you probably hear this all the time—you just want to edit, edit, edit. The stories about the old characters are just all atrocious. The parallels with the anti-fat bias are compelling and we can talk about that, but the myths about old people being unhappy and grumpy and rigid and having a closed mindset and not being interested in new things, or sex, or pleasure and being depressed and certainly being less capable and having a poor memory.

Virginia

On the many list of possible stereotypes, I think you’ve named the greatest hits.

Deb

When it comes to how we see our bodies, I think we’ve all internalized that without question and hold anxiety for what our bodies and our experiences will be like as we age. I have many people that as I start to talk to them say, “Well, I’ve been thinking about this since I was 25,” or “I started thinking about Botox when I was in my 20s,” and “It’s happening earlier than I expected.” I think that’s more true now. I have a very wise, dear friend who is now talking to her teenagers about how they see aging, because it’s going to happen to everybody if we’re lucky.

Virginia

Exactly. It is the goal, to get to age. But I think you’re right. We render people invisible as they get older, especially women and other marginalized folks. And we know that in workplaces, ageism becomes a factor at age 35, for women, that’s when it starts. The pressure to start fighting your aging is happening well before you’re actually aging. 

Deb

It feels really messed up. 

Virginia

Since you mentioned reading books to your grandchildren? Do you have the book The Truth About Grandparents? Is that in your collection?

Deb

No! I need to get that one. 

Virginia

It’s by Elina Ellis and it is just a marvelous book. It’s like, “the t