Reclaiming Movement in Toxic Fitness Culture

Today we explore the transformative journey of reclaiming movement. Our guest, Rachel Millner, an Eating Disorder Psychologist specializing in Body Trust, Joyful Movement, and Fat Activism, sheds light on the profound impact of systemic fatphobia in fitness and wellness spaces, and she articulates how mainstream fitness fails to consider diverse body types, leaving many individuals feeling unseen and unwelcome. We talk about how she’s advocating for body diversity in fitness instructors, what it means to reclaim movement and how not everyone is ready to incorporate that back into their life. Rachel guides us through the process of tuning into ourselves and embracing movement as a form of liberation. Through the lens of fat activism Rachel offers invaluable insights and practical strategies for listeners on their journey towards reclaiming movement and cultivating a positive relationship with their bodies. Join us as we navigate the complexities of body image struggles and toxic fitness spaces. We also talk about how the trauma field is stigmatizing larger bodied people and how we can challenge this narrative. Rachel shares briefly about her other primary focus points in her activism such as the American Academy of Pediatrics standards of care for larger bodied kids and the nuanced conversation about the weight loss injectables, or GLP-1s.

• Rachel’s body story and her disordered relationship with movement and how she found loving movement on Peloton
• The exploration of fitness culture and how weight stigma shows up in those spaces
• The challenges Rachel has found in her activism, navigating fitness spaces in a fat body, and how fat community has been essential to her process
• How the movement component of recovery can actually be more challenging than healing ones relationship with food
• The value in taking a break from movement and factors to consider when adding movement back into their recovery
• How to self-reflect and tune in to your body to determine your relationship with movement
• The permission to take  the pressure off for movement to feel joyful all the time
• How the trauma field and the ACE Study is rooted in anti fatness
• How trauma field perpetuates the trauma of weight stigma, specifically for those living in larger bodies
• Rachel’s necessity for nuance in trauma work and importance that fatness is not pathology
• Rachel’s concern about the American Academy of Pediatrics standards for working with higher weight kids - horrifically fucked up
• How bariatric surgery is removal of an essential and otherwise healthy organ
• Rachel’s concern about the promotion of injectable medications (GLP-1s)  Medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro and its impact on the body liberation movement.
• Rachels’ caution about the need for nuance in the conversation about GLP-1s specifically for those with medical conditions that required for management of their health condition and feeling shamed
• We don’t end weight stigma by stigmatizing people
• “People who are invested in profiting off of these medications or diet programs are coming from the perspective that it’s better to be dead than fat. They are willing to risk the lives of fat people, the possibility of making someone who’s fat into a thin person is worth the risk.”