What does it actually look like to shift a medical culture that has spent decades telling patients their weight is the problem? Dr. Lesley Williams, eating disorder specialist, family medicine physician, and Health at Every Size advocate, joins the podcast to talk about what it takes to move that needle, one physician group at a time.We cover:How weight stigma actively drives patients away from care — and why that makes them sicker

What happens when you introduce HAES to a room full of skeptical physicians (including a bariatric surgeon)Why BMI is a 19th-century astronomer's tool that somehow became the backbone of modern medical assessmentThe pattern of praising disordered eating in larger bodies while treating the same behaviors as dangerous in smaller onesHow introducing weight as a clinical goal can create disordered eating in patients who never had it beforeThe surgical access crisis: why larger patients are routinely denied joint replacements and other procedures — and then sent to get bariatric surgery insteadWhat genuine health equity looks like in practice, from waiting room chairs to referral networksWhy physicians' own defensiveness may be one of the biggest barriers to changelesleywilliamsmd.com | wwmedicalgroup.comWant to be notified when new episodes are uploaded? Join our email list - fatnaturopathyoutube.subscribepage.io

Dr. DeAun Nelson interviews Dr. Michelle May, family physician, recovered yo-yo dieter, and founder of the Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating Programs, to talk about what actually happens when we stop fighting our bodies and start listening to them.Michelle shares how her own experience with chronic dieting led her to develop the Mindful Eating Cycle — a framework that helps people move away from food rules and toward genuine self-awareness around eating.

They cover a lot of ground in this conversation, including why restriction so often backfires, what binge-eating disorder looks like (and how often it goes unrecognized), and how mindful eating applies even when you have a health condition like diabetes.They also get into movement - how diet culture turns exercise into punishment, and how to find your way back to actually enjoying how you move your body.

In this episode:How Michelle made the shift from "non-diet weight management" to a fully weight-neutral stanceThe Mindful Eating Cycle and the three questions that guide the "what do I eat" decision

Why binge-eating disorder is underdiagnosed — and what a 10-week study found about its connection to restrictionThe difference between balance and harmony when it comes to health behaviors

Why mindful eating can become its own kind of diet (and how to avoid that trap)Dr. May's books and programs can be found at amihungry.com. Her Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat series includes editions focused on diabetes and binge eating - if you're looking for the diabetes edition, make sure you grab the one marked "updated" on the cover.Theme music by Gaelyn Davis. Show art by Stacy Bias.Want to be notified when new episodes are uploaded? Join our email list - fatnaturopathyoutube.subscribepage.io

In this episode, Dr. DeAun Nelson breaks down healthism - what it is, where it comes from, and how it shapes the way we treat people in larger bodies, both in medical settings and in everyday life.She draws on Robert Crawford's original definition from 1980 and Lucy Aphramor's more expansive one, which names what Crawford left out: that poverty, oppression, privilege, and environment all shape our health in ways individuals simply cannot control.

When healthism ignores that reality, the result is victim blaming, increased health inequities, and a system that judges people's worth by their bodies.Dr. Nelson also gets into nutritionism - the idea that food's value lives entirely in its nutrients - and how that thinking can tip into orthorexia, food anxiety, and the kind of obsession that actually undermines health rather than supporting it.In this episode:What healthism is and why it's more than just caring about your healthThe "good fatty / bad fatty" dichotomy introduced by Kate Harding - and why it matters clinically

Why body size tells you nothing about a person's health behaviorsHow performing health becomes a survival strategy for people in larger bodiesPatient autonomy, motivational interviewing, and why "eat healthy and lose weight" is not a treatment planWhat medical offices can do right now to become more accessible to patients of all sizesTheme music by Gaelyn Davis. Show art by Stacy Bias.Want to be notified when new episodes are uploaded? Join our email list - fatnaturopathyoutube.subscribepage.io

Dr. DeAun Nelson sits down with Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani - internist, certified eating disorder specialist, and founder of the Gaudiani Clinic - to talk about what medicine keeps getting wrong about eating disorders, and what it looks like to finally get it right.Dr. Gaudiani's work starts from a premise that most medical training doesn't: eating disorders show up in all body sizes, all genders, all ages, and all ethnicities.The thin, white, visibly malnourished patient is the significant minority. Everyone else is being missed, or worse, being handed the very behaviors that are making them sick.They get into what starvation actually does to the body (regardless of size), why normal labs don't rule out serious illness, how physicians are inadvertently prescribing eating disorder behaviors to patients in larger bodies, and what happens when you apply HAES principles in a medical setting. In this episode:What the "cave person brain" does when it detects inadequate food intake, and why diet culture triggers the same response as an eating disorderThe physical signs of malnutrition that show up across all body types: cold hands, slowed digestion, fatigue, heart rate changes, and loss of sex hormonesAtypical anorexia nervosa, the "biased DSM-5 label," and why percentage of weight lost matters more than presenting BMIWhat 100% HAES response rates look like in Dr. Gaudiani's patients with diabetes, hypertension, and metabolic conditionsHow practitioners can bear witness when they can't fix everything, and why that matters for provider burnout tooDr. Gaudiani's book Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders is available through Routledge.The Gaudiani Clinic offers in-person and nationwide telemedicine care at gaudianiclinic.comTheme music by Gaelyn Davis. Show art by Stacy Bias.Want to be notified when new episodes are uploaded? Join our email list - fatnaturopathyoutube.subscribepage.io