Intersectional Approaches to Bodymind Liberation and Body Image Support 5-part Series

$345 or 2 monthly payments of $172.50

Intersectional Approaches to Bodymind Liberation and Body Image Support 5-part Series

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Ready to have a more nuanced conversation about body image and bodymind liberation?

Join us for this five-part series delivered by six presenters over five weeks.

5-part weekly online series (see dates below) **
6 speakers
5 (90-minute) live presentations (recorded with 90-day access)
June 22 - July 20, 2023
Approved for 7.5 CPEUs by the CDR

We believe all people deserve affirming care regardless of their size, race, gender, sexuality, neurotype and abilities.

Through this series, our goal is to support providers working with people of diverse backgrounds experiencing a difficult relationship with their bodies.

Mainstream body acceptance and body image practices often exclude the experiences of historically marginalized folks and people who hold less dominant identities. In this series, six speakers will shed light on important topics such as body politics, body grief, gender-affirming embodiment and how the mainstream discussions around body image are unhelpful for people of colour, particularly Black people. Supporting the needs of neurodivergent and chronically ill people with body image concerns will also be explored.

We hope this series will offer the tools and understanding needed to support the unique needs of your clients. With these tools, you will feel more confident to have deeper conversations about body image and the type of relationships people want with their bodies.

Part 1: Questioning [Toxic] Body Positivity: Creating Space for Nuance in Conversations About Bodies

Presenter: Kimmie Singh, RD
Date and Time of Presentation: June 22 (1:00-2:30 pm) ET

This talk will challenge current trends in the body positive moment to explore a more dynamic approach to discussing bodies. It will offer a new perspective for discussing body image, fatphobia, and self-love in the realm of anti-diet and eating disorder work. It also sheds light on the impacts of toxic positivity in body image work and how it ultimately leaves individuals feeling disconnected from their bodies. Attendees can expect to learn more about how body politics influence conversations about quality of life, health, beauty, and food. They will also learn about different frameworks and philosophies that unpack the connection between mind and body and how these ideas can be applied to anti-diet work and eating disorder recovery.

Learning Objectives:

Attendees will be able to explain how toxic positivity shows up in body image work
Attendees will be able to differentiate between experiencing fatphobia and having a poor body image.
Attendees will be able to identify different schools of thought related to the mind and body connection.

Meet Kimmie Singh (she/her)

Kimmie Singh is a self-proclaimed fat Registered Dietitian based in New York City. She is the owner of Body Honor Nutrition, a nutrition private practice that supports individuals to heal their relationships with food and body. Kimmie supports her clients with a fat-positive and anti-oppressive framework and has a special passion for working with people that have polycystic ovarian syndrome. Kimmie is also a sought-after speaker and has presented at several national conferences. She presents on the effects of anti-fat stigma in healthcare and nutrition. Kimmie is a believer in kindness, compassion, and the power of advocacy. Learn more about Kimmie at www.bodyhonornutrition.com.

Part 2: It’s Not Poor Body Image, It’s White Supremacy

Presenters: Jessica Wilson, MS. RD and Whitney Trotter, RD
Date and Time of Presentation: June 29 (1:00-2:30 pm) ET

The presentation will educate the audience on the ways that people of color, particularly Black people, are not helped by mainstream discussions about body image. The speakers will illustrate the ways that body image is a societal construct created by centuries of white supremacy, and discuss that clients of color can improve the way they feel about their own bodies but still need to interact in social situations, workplaces, and a society that constantly tells them their body is wrong. The speakers will include historical and cultural influences, media representation, and personal experiences. The presentation also highlights the psychological, physical, and social impact that negative body narratives can have on people’s well-being.

The presentation covers the rise of the “body positive movement” and how this holds up in the context of cultural affirmation, representation in media, academic research that doesn’t include people of color, and self-care and self-love. It also explores strategies for recognizing and challenging internalized racism, building support networks, seeking professional help, and promoting community.

Learning objectives

1. To educate the audience on the unique experiences and challenges that Black people face in relation to body image, including historical and cultural influences, media representation, and personal experiences.

2. Build skills to critically review body image research and curriculums like The Body Project and the Cash curriculum.

3. To foster a sense of community and solidarity among Black women and encourage audience members to become allies and advocates for those who do not benefit from the traditional body image conversation and body positivity movement.

4. To provide resources and tools for BIPOC women who may be struggling with body image concerns, such as support groups, mental health services, and media outlets.

Meet Jessica Wilson (she/her)

Jessica Wilson(she/her) is a clinical dietitian, consultant and author, whose experiences navigating the dietetic fields as a Black, queer dietitian have been featured on prime time news, public radio shows and in print media. Jessica has worked as a trauma-informed clinical dietitian since 2007 and believes that her client’s lived experiences can be more important to their care than what is considered to be “best practice.”

She speaks openly and candidly about the harm caused to our patients by designating individual identities as risk factors, rather than targeting the structural inequities and violence that marginalized individuals must endure. Her first book, It’s Always Been Ours, is out now.

Meet Whitney Trotter: (she/her)

Whitney is dually licensed as a Registered Dietitian, Nurse, and yoga instructor and is currently working on her doctorate degree to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Whitney has over ten years of experience working as a registered dietitian serving various communities such as, the HIV/AIDS community as well as working in the eating disorder field. Whitney also previously worked at a Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center as a Pediatric emergency room nurse. In addition to working as an RDN and RN, Whitney has served as a member of her county's Rape Crisis Center. Her work at the Rape Crisis Center equipped her to co-found an anti-trafficking organization Restore Corps, where she now provides medical training to the community focusing on human trafficking response. Whitney's career in the Eating Disorder field includes being a former Nutrition and Nursing director of a Residential, PHP, and IOP center. Whitney is also the owner/founder of Bluff City Health, a private practice specializing in bridging the gap in the eating disorder field of equitable care and social justice. This past year Whitney created the first-ever BIPOC Eating Disorders Conference and started #bipoceatigndisordersawarenessweek.

345$ USD
(2 payments of 172.50$)

Part 3: Body Grief: Why Exploring Body Image Sucks + is Necessary

Presenter: Brianna Campos (she/her) LPC
Date and Time of Presentation: July 6 (1:00-2:30 pm) ET

In the eating disorder recovery world, there is a nuance that body image work should come after healing one's relationship to food. So often we are taught that when body image hurdles arise, we should remind clients why their bodies are good, what their bodies can do, and what they are thankful for. From personal lived + clinical experience - this methodology not only falls short of actually helping clients improve their body image but often causes more distress + potential harm than it does help. This is because the body image conversation does not include space for the loss of privilege that is associated with existing into a larger body. Brianna Campos, LPC (she/ her) describes body grief as the distress associated with perceived loss around body change. When we explore body image we need to understand the other factors that are at play especially including the anti-fat bias and loss of privilege that exists in our world. This presentation will show why affirmations fail, how body image is traumatic + how to explore mindfully, and will introduce the idea of body grief.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will be able to explain what body image is (and is not)

2. Attendees will learn tangible skills for exploring body image

3. Attendees will be able to identify how healing body image requires grief.

Meet Brianna Campos (she/her) LPC

Brianna (Bri) Campos (she/her), LPC, is a licensed mental health counselor based in New Jersey. As a body image educator and the founder of Body Image With Bri, she’s passionate about all things body image and practices through the lenses of Health at Every Size® and Intuitive Eating. Utilizing a weight-inclusive approach, she combines her clinical skills and lived experience to teach others how to maneuver through their own individual body image exploration. She specializes in body image education including her unique framework on body grief. Follow her on Instagram: @bodyimagewithbri and visit her online.

Part 4: What if I Can’t "Trust" My Body: Exploring the Relationship Between Neurodivergence, Chronic Illness and Body Image

Presenter: Naureen Hunani, RD (she/her)
Date and Time of Presentation: July 13 (1:00-2:30 pm) ET

Research demonstrates that neurodivergent (ND) people, specifically autistic individuals are more likely to experience chronic illness, including chronic pain. This presentation will explore how current practices around body image are unsupportive and feel invalidating to those who are neurodivergent and chronically ill. Living with unpredictability around pain, flare-ups, and illness can be challenging when surviving in a society that favours bodies deemed “healthy”, "normal" and predictable. Oppressive ideals around how bodies should exist and function according to capitalistic standards lead people to distrust their bodies, shrink themselves and appear less of who they are.

Neurodivergent and chronically ill people often resort to ignoring their needs and masking to gain acceptance. This further disconnects them from their bodyminds and disrupts their relationship with their bodies. While masking and disembodiment might be a supportive coping mechanism in the short term, it can lead to isolation, burn out and exhaustion in the long term. Participants will learn about the added stress and barriers, such as the construct of normalcy, how it shows up in body positive spaces, and how deconstructing normalcy is an essential step to embracing wholeness and developing a healthy relationship with our bodyminds.

Learning objectives:

1. Describe how the construct of normalcy negatively impacts neurodivergent and chronically ill people.
2. Explain how embracing wholeness and challenging internalized ableism can support people in developing a positive relationship with their bodies.
3. Describe how capitalistic standards regarding how bodies "should" function and operate impact how ND and chronically ill people view their bodies.

Meet Naureen Hunani (she/her)

Naureen Hunani (she/her) is a multiply-neurodivergent registered dietitian with over 18 years of experience. She is the founder of RDs for Neurodiversity, a neurodiversity-informed online continuing education platform and community for dietitians and helping professionals.

She has a private practice in Montreal, Canada, where she supports people struggling with various feeding and eating challenges through a trauma-informed, weight-inclusive and anti-oppressive approach. She is the creator of the Neurodiversity Affirming Model®, a framework developed to disrupt, challenge and dismantle the current oppressive models that exclude the feeding and eating experiences of neurodivergent and disabled people.

Naureen has extensive experience working with neurodivergent children, adults and families. She has had the privilege to share her knowledge at national and international conferences and is passionate about supporting pro-justice and weight-inclusive professionals striving to build liberatory practices.

Part 5: Queering Embodiment: Nourishing Queer and Trans+ Bodies

Presenter: Neathery Falchuk, LCSW-A, CGP (they/them)

Date and Time of Presentation: July 20 - 1:00-2:30 pm ET

What do we mean when we say "all bodies are good bodies"? This often used phrase intends to promote body acceptance yet it excludes the experience of many queer and trans+ individuals. Join us for an in-depth discussion navigating the nuance of queer embodiment, nourishment, and bodymind autonomy. Mainstream body acceptance and body image practices, while well-meaning, can inflict significant harm on queer and trans+ folks. We'll explore the impact of oppression on embodiment and the interconnectedness of disembodiment and disordered eating as means of survival.

Learning objectives:

1. Describe the barriers to embodiment for queer and trans folks

2. Summarize the healing power of grief and community

3. Identify gender affirming embodiment practices

Meet Neathery Falchuk (they/them)

Neathery Falchuk (they/them) is a queer, trans and non-binary, fat, neurodivergent, white Latinx therapist, licensed clinical social worker and supervisor, certified group psychotherapist, certified Body Trust® provider, and certified meditation teacher. Neathery is the founder of Ample and Rooted, an inclusive psychotherapy, consulting, and training practice specializing in eating disorders and body liberation. Neathery is a past President of Central Texas Eating Disorder Specialists, past board member of Austin Group Psychotherapy Society and former chair of the DEI Committee, past board member of the Association for Size Diversity and Health, and currently serves on the Program Committee for Project HEAL. Neathery lives in Austin, TX with their wife and enjoys hiking, meditation, sipping coffee on patios, and starting and never finishing books.

Ample + Rooted, as an inclusive therapy practice, cultivates a safe and welcoming space of compassion and connection. At Ample + Rooted, we believe it is our birthright to inhabit, trust and honor our physical and emotional selves without shame. We believe in cultivating a healing home for the whole you and that this healing and belonging is profoundly vital in creating a more equitable and just world. We believe compassion, pleasure and embodiment lead the way toward healing and liberation.

345$ USD
(2 payments of 172.50$)

Frequently asked questions

Do you offer equity pricing?

Yes, we do offer equity pricing. If you are a member of an under-represented group and would like to have access to equity-based pricing, please email us, and we will send you a code.

Do I have to attend the live presentations?

While there are benefits to attending the live sessions, we recognize that this may not be possible for everyone and for every presentation. Recordings will be available on the portal within 24 hours, and you will have access for 90 days after the series is delivered.

What is your refund policy?

As with most educational organizations, we don't offer refunds for courses.

Is the series only geared towards dietitians?

Any professional working with neurodivergent people experiencing a difficult relationship with food and body can benefit from attending.

How long will I have access for?

You will have access for 90 days after the series is delivered.