Session 396: Decoding Popular Food and Wellness Trends

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or

(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much

(00:58):
for joining me for session three ninety six the Therapy
for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation
after a word from our sponsors.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Hi, I'm doctor Whitney Trotter and I'm Angela Going. We're
on the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Today. We're in session providing clarity on popular eating and
wellness trends.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Whether it's a juice cleanse, miracle pill, detox tea, or
weight loss hack. It seems like every week a new
food and wellness trend pops up with the promise of
helping us achieve maximum results. We've reached the final episode
of our third January Jumpstart series, designed to make twenty
twenty five one of your best years yet. In this episode,

(01:45):
we're exploring a healthy approach and nutrition and unpacking popular
wellness trends with expert guidance. That's where today's guests come in.
Meet doctor Whitney Trotter and Angela Gowans, registered dietitians and
co leaders of the BIPOC Eating Disorders. Both women have
dedicated their careers to supporting marginalized communities through nutrition, counseling,

(02:06):
and trauma informed mental health care. Over the past three years,
they've collectively trained over a thousand clinicians with their conference
and consultation services. During our conversation, Angela and doctor Trotter
discuss popular food and wellness trends, including the rise of
GLP ones like ozipic. They also explore the differences between

(02:26):
disordered and intuitive eating, offer strategies for deciding which food
trends are worth following, and share insights on meaningful conversations
you can have with a dietitian, nutritionists, or with yourself
about nutrition. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation,
please share with us on social media using the hashtag
TVG in Session, or join us over in the Sister

(02:50):
Circle to talk more about the episode. You can join
us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's
our conversation. Well, thank you so much for joining me today,
doctor Chatter and Angela.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh, thank you for having us, Thank you for having
us so excited.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, I'm very excited to chat with you, and I
would love for you to get us started by telling
us individually what inspired you to do the work that
you do, and then what brought your journeys together so
that you were doing a lot of work together. We'll
start with you, doctor Chatter.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I'm July licensed as a psychiatric nurse practitioner and a
Richer dietitian and actually have a unique path into the
nutrition wellness space. I went to school to be a dietitian.
I was a college athlete, and I knew I wanted
to do something in sciences, but you're limited. I played basketball,
which is a two semester sport, and so that's how

(03:42):
I ended up a nutrition But I actually went to
school to be an HIV dietitian. I really wanted to
work with those impacted by HIV and AIDS, and so
I did that, and I was working at a center
of excellence, and that is honestly what led me down
the path of eating disorders. Nobody was talking about disorders
and communities of color, but then I think even more

(04:03):
specifically in black communities and just the disordered eating pattern
and all of that I started noticing in my patient population,
and so I sought some additional training. And up until
twenty twenty, I'd never met a eating disorder professional that
looked like me. Every space I went to was white,
mostly thin, mostly affluent. And so then I transitioned from

(04:27):
working in HIV, I did nursing, I worked at a
pediatric trauma center, and then started specializing in eating disorders.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
So then went back to school to become.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
A psych and pee and that's how I ended up
doing a lot of the work now and then with Angela.
A lot of us know the racial reckoning that the
summer of twenty twenty brought, and I was just really
looking for community. And like I said, the eating disorders
community is pretty stereotypical of what you would think. Society says,
who has an eating disorder? Who gets access to care?

(04:58):
So Angela and I connected and we formed our own
kind of community. I had a pretty traumatic event happened
within my family, and so I called Angela and I
was like, Hey, I have this idea, It's never been
done before.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Will you help me? And she said yes, And so.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about our
conference and all the things we're doing.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
But thank you, Nector John. And what about you, Angeline,
what's your journey?

Speaker 3 (05:21):
We haven't talked about this before, Whitney, but it's very similar.
I too was an athlete and was trying to decide
what are my next steps? Am I even going to
go to college? What am I going to do? What
do I want to be and sort of in those
final stages of high school trying to decide. And I
had never heard of what a dietician was. So I
had just started taking classes and was really interested in

(05:42):
the nutrition aspect and had taken some specific test gearing
you towards ideas of what jobs would be ideal, and
I often landed on nursing. But I just couldn't see
myself working in a hospital. I couldn't see myself working
around blood and doing all these specifics that were challenging
for me at that time. I had a counselor who
told me about what a dietitian was, and I thought, well,

(06:03):
that's great. I want to help people be stronger, faster,
better at their craft of athletics, and so I started
to pursue that in the classes that I was taking
and really dove into what does that look like to
be a dietitian because it's quite tedious, it's long, and
it's additional time and energy. Internship testing makes sense, but
it's long for somebody to not work when you step

(06:26):
out of school and to not be paid for additional
time is challenging. And I know a lot of degrees
have that angle, but I was coming from a place
and not having a lot of money, so it was
an interesting perspective. But I stuck through it and did
become a dietitian and was very curious from the start
on the mental health side of things. I had seen
clients in the hospital and doing my regular rotations, but
what I really discovered was that people were struggling emotionally,

(06:48):
and I was thinking, well, how are we supporting this piece?
So I did go back to school and get an
additional master's degree in mental health counseling. I wanted to
understand that more, and my entire career been devoted to
working and eating disorders and mental health as well, and
I really wanted to understand the person and the therapeutic
angle of things, which we are not taught in our degree.

(07:11):
Perhaps one class a one on one psychology. Maybe for
me that was not enough, and I was really just
curious about that human aspect and where this was coming
from and why people were not eating or why people
were becoming more restrictive or having challenges with food. So yeah,
that's my path to that piece. And then, of course,
like Whitney said, I think the virtual world really connected

(07:33):
me and Whitney and many other amazing providers that I
probably would never have come across, to be honest, podcasts
and online connection Zoom, I was able to find a
community of people doing work I was doing in other
states and other communities, and I was just shocked that
there were other people who look like me doing that.
So similar to Whitney, I too had never seen a

(07:55):
black eating disorder dietitian or even black dietitian, to be honest,
couple of years of training and internship and so I
was shocked that there were people out there doing exactly
what I was doing. And my background and career really
started at the higher levels of care, working in mental
health treatment centers, working in substance use and eating disorders,

(08:15):
and I saw the same type of providers as well,
like you're describing Whitney. So it was really amazing to
have this virtual connection with a handful of black artys
or at least people of color who were doing what
I was doing. And we started to connect and meet
more regularly. And then yeah, Whitney had this idea and
we formed the conference and we have this central meeting

(08:37):
place once a year for people to come together and
learn from our peers and to really better support clients
in the spaces that we work all over the world.
So that's kind of amazing.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
So as I'm listening to both of you talk, I
am both surprised and not that soon as twenty twenty,
like you both still felt like it was a very
white space, right, So I wonder if you could talk
about why you feel like this space in particular, because
it feels like there has been a preponderance of black
therapist and other therapist of color kind of across mental health,
but it does still feel like in this eating disorder space,

(09:12):
it still feels like a difficult niche maybe, so why
do you think that is? Like, why do you feel
like there's so few of us still in this space?

Speaker 2 (09:19):
So, like Angela said, I similar to worked in a
lot of higher level of care, and I think one
eating disorders, especially in Black families, are not talked about
a lot, and when they are talked about, it's in
the connotation of binge eating disorder and not necessarily anorexia
Pike believe mea some of the other ones. But not
only did I find myself as oftentimes only black professional,

(09:42):
I found myself as the only black person and a
lot of the easy spaces. And so we know that
black women are as equally at the similar rates diagnosed
with eating disorders as our white female counterparts, but we
don't often have access the same aspect of care. And
there was a study, I mean it's so outdated now,
but I think it was like twenty eleven or twenty twelve,

(10:05):
and what they did was they interviewed different professionals and
they looked at their eating patterns, and what was determined
was that somebody was less likely to diagnose a black
woman what they eating disorder because they thought that our
eating patterns were not quote unquote problematic. And so I
think it goes to the racial bias of again, who
has an eating disorder, who gets access to care? And

(10:27):
what does an eating disorder look like? Because if you
go to your PCP and you might be overweight or
struggling with weight fluctuations, they're automatically going to assume me
of binging disorder. They're never even going to screen you
for anorexia, our fit or bolimia. And I treat a
lot of young black adolescents too, and the majority of

(10:48):
young black adolescents, especially during COVID that I treated that
had eating disorders, actually I believed.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
So I wonder if we can kind of scale bag
because I don't want to jump too far into the
conversation before we give people like a good gris work
for what a dietitian is and what do you actually do?
So can y'all give me like the five year old
definition of like what a dietitian is?

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Sure I can try to do that. There's a wide
range of things that a dietitian can do. Absolutely, but
we're trained in more of a medical model, if you will.
So for me, for instance, I went to a College
of Nursing at my school to do my initial bachelor's studies,
so we do education piece, and that's a bachelor's degree
that has just morphed into a master's degree at this point,

(11:30):
so you might see that moving forward, but at least
when I did it back in the day, that's what
it was. After school, you go to a internship which
is divided into three sections. It's community, clinical, and then
what's the third one might need food service piece, So
you'll see dietitians in a wide range of areas. So
we have that clinical background and read labs and visit

(11:53):
clients in their room talking about specific diets or specific
illnesses diabetes, heart disease, things like that of our clinical training,
but you'll also see us in community health centers, wellness centers,
athletic spaces, things like that. And then you can also
find us in restaurants, nursing homes, building meal plans, writing
recipes and things like that as well. And a majority

(12:15):
of us is our careers advanced too. You'll see us
in the mental health spaces. We'll have our own private
practices and things like that. So a dietitian is someone
who helps individuals improve their overall health and nutrition bea
food if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
And I can try. And I want to follow up
on something you mentioned. You talked about seeing lots of adolescents,
especially during the pandemic. How does someone actually start working
with a dietitian because you mentioned like sometimes your PCP
might not even screen you for certain things, So how
does someone actually start working with a dietasian or get
a referral?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Oh, that's a great question. So there's several dieticians that
work in private practice, similar to therapists, and you can
go through your insurance. We create created a bypock Et
Provider database, so if anybody is looking for a dietitian
or therapist person of color that specializes in eating disorders,
we have a free database. They can look at their
state and they can ask Google insurance and some of

(13:13):
the listings as well. We're really hoping to get more
dietitians on lift SERF so people can easily access them.
I remember when I started, I had to fight to
be listed on Psychology today because there really wasn't a
listing for dietitians combining that clinical piece and mental health piece.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Like Angela said, and this is it sounds like something
that is typically covered by insurance.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, some dietitians are covered by insurance, and then some
will do private pay, so they'll do like a self
pay rate that you pay or you could use if
you have an HSA or FSA card as well.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Got So, the conversation we're having today is a part
of our larger January Jumpstart series, and we know that
January is typically seen as a time of like, let's
get back on track, let's set up all these healthy habits.
But it does feel like the nutrition piece and the
diet piece often takes a back seat to like movement
and like other parts of wellness. Why do you think
that is that, like the eating and diet piece doesn't

(14:09):
seem to be kind of at the forefront of this
wellness thoughts.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Certainly in our space we see food coming up a lot,
but I think that over time it changes so much.
I think there's so much information out there. There's a
lot of misinformation out there everywhere you look, from TikTok
to Facebook, all over in social media, people are giving
their personal opinions about what worked for them or what
they think may work, And I think it can be
hard to digest what is going to be best for

(14:33):
you as an individual. There's a lot of information and
it seems to cycle if you really look at the
diet culture world. Right now, we're in this state of
still low carb, no carb, but certainly when I was
training and learning, it was like no fat, low fat,
no fat, oleine, olestra, things like that being added to food.
So it's cycles. We'll see that again someday soon, I'm sure,

(14:54):
but it can be really hard for people to disseminate
that misinformation out there and what's accurate, honest. To be
on a diet is really short term, right, So if
we're talking about January, I'm going to commit to some
new goals and make some changes. It is something that
people really can only maintain or often maintain for a
short period of time and then they're back to their favorites. Right.
Food has a real cultural connection, a real emotional connection

(15:19):
for people, and to cut out things that you truly love,
let's say homemade bread and you're on a no carb,
low carb fast or diet right now, that can be
challenging because you're going to think about that food often.
You can even smell it or taste it at times
when you want it, it's like so real, and that
can be a challenge to just eliminate things, or avoid things,

(15:40):
or reduce things in terms of food, even though there
may be some importance for you to have those things
both nutritionally but also for other reasons. And that's something
that Whitney and I highlight a lot in the work
that we do as well, because food is food as nourishment, yes,
but it also nourishes the soul, and there's a deep
connection to food for people. So I don't really know

(16:00):
the answer as to why, but I think there's so
many options, if that's helpful just to say. And it's
hard to decide what is right for you and when
because that can change so often, and we eat many
times each day, so to make those decisions, often people
are thinking about food over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, and it often feels like a part of this
conversation are terms like balance diet and like a healthy diet.
I wonder when you hear that as a dietation, like
does that trigger something for you, because like, what does
that even mean to have a balanced diet.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
I'll often ask people like, what does balance mean for you?
Like define that for me, because I think you're right,
because sometimes I'm like, oh gosh, what does this mean?
Because I've had some people be like balance is one
meal a day and that's like their definition of balance,
And it's like, Okay, let me bring in some education
of like how important it is to be eating every
three three and a half hours, glucos regulation, different things
like that. Part of the work that we do too

(16:56):
is understanding food and security aspects too, because sometimes one
meal a day is a balanced diet for somebody because
that's all they have access to. So also trying to
incorporate that as well into our education and counseling.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Can you talk about what it looks like to actually
have a positive relationship to food?

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yes, I love that you asked this question, So I
fully acknowledge that, Like, as black people, we're not a monolith, right,
but there is a common thread amongst us. Food is
so cultural for us, right, Like I got my big
Mama's recipes that I'm bacon. I've been designated. You know,
I'm almost forty, so I have like my designated dishes.
My aunt, does you know, I'm going to my mother
in law. So we're gonna see how that all work out, right,

(17:36):
But for so many of us, it's this common bread.
And then when you think about life and death for
black people too, when we do the homegoing service, a
lot of it is some of our dishes too. And
so when I think about that positive relationship with food,
I'm thinking about that central key element of like Angela said,
it's nourishing for the soul. And so sometimes that might
be some warm seafood, dressing and what ever, meat or

(18:00):
anything like that. Sometimes it might be sweets, it might
be what do you need in that moment That might
be comforting and nurturing for you. And I think a
lot of times we demonize food, right, like we don't
want to have certain food because of the negative connotation
or that's we hear this a lot that's going to
make me fat. I'm on my snap back. I'm a
year postpartum, and that's it's very real of spend nine

(18:22):
months cultivating this baby inside of you, and then it's
this immediate pressure to be back within three months. That's unrealistic.
And that negative relationship with food and body can impact
that as well.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
So one of the terms that I hear and I'm
sure you hear all this on like tigtog, what I
feel like I often do hear from like eating disorder therapist,
is intuitive eating right as a way to kind of
manage thoughts about food and that kind of thing. Can
you say more about what intuitive eating is and like
if somebody wanted to get started with intuitive eating, how
would they even go about getting started?

Speaker 3 (18:53):
I'll share what it is kind of At the core,
intuitive eating is really encouraging clients or people to get
back to their sort of baseline standard, if you will,
and to be able to listen to their bodies wants
and requests and needs. And I'll get to the part
that makes it a little bit controversial that what we
share a little bit more too, but that's sort of

(19:13):
the core. At what it is is being really in
tune with and mindful to your bodies requests and cues
to then make the best decisions for yourself to eat
what foods your body requires and your body is in
need of, perhaps even lacking. Maybe you've been short on
protein lately or specific nutrients like vitamin seed if you're
really in tune with yourself and your body that you

(19:34):
can read into that and think ahead to be able
to make wise choices for yourself. So that's at the
core what it is. And some of those controversies can
be challenging because not everybody can be in tune. Not
everyone is feeling safe in their body and where they live,
where they are physically, the body that they're in right now,
the size that they are. There's food, insecurity aspects to this.

(19:56):
There's a lot that goes into that that could make
it really challenging for one to be in tune for
your body and your brain to really be in tune
with one another to make the wisest decisions. And even
if you could do that, do you have the financial
means to do that, Do you have the safety and
security to do that? Are you in a safe environment?
I mean, the list goes on and on. So those
are just some of the pieces that can be a

(20:17):
little bit challenging to that. But if you take it
sort of at base level, I think that can be
helpful for people or sort of a digestible tidbit for
people to sort of go into the new year with.
Is trying to be in tune more with what your
needs are versus what the media is telling you need
to be doing or saying this is what every female
or every human needs to do. How can one way

(20:39):
of eating healthy work for everyone? We know that can't
be true. I live in the north, I'm in Minneapolis.
That's not going to be the same for y'all in Atlanta,
or that may not be the same for people out
on the West coast. There's just no way that's not
going to be the same. I don't have easy access
to seafood up here, right, so our eating is different.
Perhaps when we think about our own Mega three fatty

(21:00):
acids and things like that, we think about we're more
apt to eat beef products up here, We're going to
have a lot more corn, like the things that we
harvest and the things that we grow. That's going to
be very different from different parts of the US and
different parts of the country. So again, just to think
about the base of what it is to be more
in tune with yourself and making decisions around food, I

(21:21):
think is a good way to approach it, rather than
feeling like there's only one way to be healthy, quote unquote.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
And is there a way that you all approach your
work with clients that is different from an intuitive eating perspective,
because again, I've seen that term frequently, but I hear
you saying I had not heard this other piece of it,
which I appreciate. But is there a different way that
you work with your clients to address some concerns around eating?

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Oh? I love that question.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, I'm not anti intuitiveating fighting means And one of
the co authors is a dear friend to me, like
I love her, She's incredible, and we have often talked
about this. Intuitivating at its core was founded by two
very thin, successful, able bodies, white women, and so I
think there are some really good general principles that can
be taken from that. Everybody has different aspects of what

(22:08):
they're needing in terms of how their body and emotions
are responding. And so when I think about that with
food piece too, I think about, like Angela said, am
I working with somebody that works twelve hour days? Maybe
they're a nurse or they have night shift. Right, I'm
going to take that into consideration. Some people need more structure,
like mechanical eating. They need somebody to really help them
through of like okay, every three hours. This is how

(22:30):
I'm going to nourish my body. I'm not necessarily at
the point where I can rely on internal hungerfulness satisfaction cues.
We're living in the age of GLP ones and weight
loss drugs. Those completely wipe out your desire to eat.
One of the side effects is delayed gastrict emptying, so
you feel fuller. And so we might do six smaller

(22:50):
meals as opposed to kind of our standard three meals,
two snacks. So I take all of that into consideration,
and I really try to make it as individualized as
that can, and just also look at those other factors too.
Like Angelo said, where do they live?

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Right?

Speaker 2 (23:05):
So I grew up in Texas and I grew up
in the country. So my husband is from College Park,
so we had two different aspects.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Of what food was like.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
And so I definitely take that into consideration too when
I'm thinking about somebody's individual nutrition plan.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
So let's talk a little bit about like food tracking
and like calorie tracking and your thoughts about that, Like
is it ever a good thing to kind of be
keeping a log of all the things you're eating? And
if it is, then how might we use that to
work with a medical professional like a dization.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
So for some people that could be very useful. You
can find these apps. I mean there are hundreds of
them nowadays, right you can download apps. People got these
tracking watches, you got Apple watches, all the things, rings,
even There's lots of ways to go about that. I
think that for majority people that can be problematic and
that it can become obsessive, it can become the golden rule,

(23:58):
and so we just look for that. Some people can
track in different ways that is not calories. So maybe
you're not needing to read labels or enter things into
your app or to write things down. Maybe there's a
way to just say or to track how many meals
you've eaten, or maybe there's a way to track have
I had any vegetables today? Have I eaten anything green today?
There's lots of ways when you're working with an individual,

(24:20):
at least in my practice, that we could go about
that that feels less judgmental, yet still a way for
people to keep track of what they're doing or what
they're consuming. So I would break it down and have
a conversation with people one on one and even encourage
people if they're not working with me, but just in
general out here listening to this podcast, that if you're
finding that to be your golden rule, or it's keeping
you home at night and you can't go out to

(24:40):
eat with your girlfriends because you already ate too many
calories for the day, and it's affecting your social life,
it's affecting your mood, it's affecting what you wear for
the day. That's problematic. That's where we want to back
off a little bit and perhaps find a new way
to track. And I have the other extreme end of that,
where people don't do tracking at all, where we say,
let's stop tracking for a while and let's just practice

(25:02):
going more on our intuition. Let's practice paying more attention
to our hunger and fullnesscuse, and what does that feel
like to be more in tune with your body instead
to just take it at more of an intellectual approach,
or like this is a business homework piece, let's just
watch numbers. For some people that makes it easy, and
for other people that just takes away that intuition or
that connection with their body. So there's a little bit

(25:23):
of everything in between. But I will also say there's
a ton of different apps. Some give you little stickers
and rewards for tracking. Some might give you pop ups
and encouragement reminders to take a drink of water, to
eat something today, eat something green, and I think those
can be really helpful, but it's got to be person
by person, and there may be times where you need
to back off from that because the calorie itself. I

(25:45):
think labels are just too confusing for people. You're tracking it,
but what are you adding up your totals for? Do
you even know what your total amount for the day
is supposed to be? If you think a thousand feels
like too much, did you know you could actually have thousands?
I mean, people don't know what to do with those numbers.
People haven't been educated. There's just numbers and labels on
everything when you go to the store, and that can

(26:06):
be really scary for people. But some of those things, again,
you can have thousands or hundreds of these, and people
don't know the general idea of what's best for them,
and so that's something a dietician can help you with.
And there's plenty of ways and different options for you
to track what you're doing in a day for your
food consumption and water.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Thank you for them. You know like to try to
You already talked about how you know eating disorders can
often be missed in black women. Can you talk a
little bit about why that is that you've already started,
But are there other things that you've seen that really
make it so that Black women are often not diagnosed
or maybe misdiagnosed with eating disorders.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
I think it was last year I was working on
a presentation of eating disorders and underrepresented populations, and I
was looking at what kind of prevents us from when
we need higher level of care for eating disorders going.
And for a lot of households, black women are the breadwinners,
and so I think when you talk about eating disorders,
it's one of the only mental illnesses where you really

(27:04):
need a multidisciplinary team. And so if you are somebody
who is the breadwinner and kind of has this pressure
of working a lot to bring in that financial responsibility,
when you talk about eating disorders, you usually have a PCP,
a dietitian, a therapist, and a psychiatric provider. Not everybody
has the means or access to go to see all
these people monthly or even weekly. I'm very proud of

(27:27):
what we have done because we've been able to train
hundreds of clinicians of color, but not every state even
has a clinician of color that specializes in eating disorders.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Two.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
I think less than two point six percent of registered
dietitians are black, and even of those, there's probably like
what less than one percent of us that specialized in
eating disorders. And so I think that contributes to the
misdiagnosis of eating disorders of black women because we just
don't have a lot of us out there that look
like us. And I think too, you know, weight stigma

(27:59):
is very pervasive, right, So when you talk about weight
stigma and the body shaming, if you're somebody that every
time you go to the doctor, let's say you have
an earache and you just need a prescription of rantibiotics,
but they're talking about your weight, you're going to be
less likely to continue going up to the doctor and
following through with that, right, because you're always inundated with
this talk of weight loss. So I think there's a

(28:20):
lot of shaming of black bodies just historically that goes on.
I will say I think TikTok has really helped talk
about a lot of different aspects of mental illness in
terms of depression, OCD, anxiety, but we still really don't
talk about eating disorders and a lot of black families.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
More from our conversation after the break Angela, you talked
about some of the cyclical trends of like okay, no fed,
lo fed, no club, low callub kind of thing. Can
you talk about like some of these trends that you

(29:00):
seeing fluctuway throughout your career and maybe talk about some
of the most common trends that may be a little
misleading that you're seeing maybe across the social media space.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
I think that's a great question, because most all of
them are misleading. There's this like false hope for people
that typically they're linked to weight loss, right changing your
body or changing your shape or look, so that perhaps
works for people temporarily. And the answer to that, no
matter what trend you're trying, is because you're making a

(29:30):
lifestyle adjustment. So if you're cutting out something, and for carbohydrates,
for instance, that's more than fifty percent of most people's
daily intake of food. If you're cutting out fifty percent
of what you normally eat, that initial change for people
is often weight loss. It's fluid fluctuations a lot of
other things, but people do see a change oftentimes in
the beginning stages of trying a diet or a cycle

(29:53):
of these bad cultural pieces that we're seeing circulate that
come January when people often make some changes and goals
and things like that for themselves. It often does give
people confused with these cycles of fad diets because they
may have seen their bodies change before in the past,
and now perhaps time three, time four, time five around,

(30:15):
they're not able to see those same results. And that's
because they're not nourishing their body with the amount of
food and the types of food that they actually need.
So it can be so challenging and so difficult. In
my career, I've seen low fat, no fat. Right now,
we're in this stage of taking a lot of these
GLP ones weight loss drugs. There's all sorts of brands

(30:35):
and different types. They're affecting people in different ways, but
mostly it's eliminating people's appetite. We're seeing a lot of
that in the eating disorder feel because it's such a
challenge where people really want to make some changes or
perhaps need to lose x amount of weight to get
even just a surgery. Say, somebody want a hip replacement,
but nobody will operate on them unless they're a certain
BMI or unless they lose x amount of weight. Some

(30:57):
people truly want to make some changes, and some people
are just the doctor again for some other ailment and
are gifted these prescriptions to start taking to change their weight.
I've also seen low carb, no carb. I think we're
sort of in that stage right now. I've seen no sugar,
low sugar. See a lot of that as well. We
see eating different foods based on your sign or your

(31:19):
blood type or fill in the blank. There's some diet
out there for just about everything. So they cycle around
again and again, and I'm sure you'll hear about some
of those. Perhaps your grandparents or your parents have tried
in the past, and it doesn't mean that they work,
but there's sort of these temporary pieces that people can
cling onto and work on making changes to their health

(31:41):
without any real guidance. And I think that seeing a
dietitian is a great way that you could connect with
somebody who has the facts and knowledge information that could
really tailor an individualized plan for you that could be
helpful based on your needs at the time. And of
course that can change over a lifespan for each individual,
but seeing a professional and having somebody support you in
that versus just going off of what's floating in social

(32:04):
media or in print can be much more helpful for individuals.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
And I'd love to hear you all talk more about
how would you suggest people vent and like make sense
of all of the information that is out there about
food and wellness. How do you even know like what
to believe?

Speaker 2 (32:21):
I mean, it's so hard, it's so so hard. I
would say, if you're somebody that likes to read research,
you can research like the Mediterranean diet is huge right now,
and they've actually done studies on that. I tell people,
you know, what's the long term data. I have a
lot of people that come to me that have been
intermittent fasting. Studies are showing now that that's actually harmful

(32:41):
for your body. And so I always encourage people, and
I'll do this in session. Okay, let's look at PubMed together.
Let's pull it up and let's see what does the
literature say about these certain diets. And then I'll bring
in my clinical experience Keto. What are we seeing long
term with Keto and the sustainability of that. So I
always encourage people to do their own research, to look

(33:01):
at clinical applications, look at long term data. And like
Angela said, ninety five percent of people who go on
diets end up gaining all of their weight back that
they have lost and then some. And my prediction is
we're going to see this in the era of the
weight loss of drugs too. We're going to see people

(33:22):
they will lose that initial weight, but when you stop
some of these medications, you end up gaining the weight
back and then some. And so I always tell people like,
let's not just look at this short term.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
What are the long.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Term consequences of this same thing I do with medication.
What's the long term data that we're looking at here?
What does it show five, ten, fifteen years down the road.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
So you both referenced the semi glue tides and GLP
one Zimbig, I want to hear more about how that
has changed your work. Angela. You use the term people
are gifted prescriptions to these, which would be indicates of
particular kind of connotation. Right, what's going on here? On
one hand, there's a lot talked about in terms of

(34:03):
like the effectiveness of semi glue ties right, especially for
like addiction kinds of things, Like it feels like it
is working in a lot of different ways, and so
I feel like I can't tell whether this is the
latest new pill for weight loss or is this something
that is going to be more long term successful? Like
how do people make sense of all of this? And

(34:23):
like how are you seeing this kind of show up
in your work with your clients?

Speaker 3 (34:26):
When I said gifted, I mean I have clients who
are just trying to find a provider and maybe go
on these online therapy sites and or looking for a
psychiatrist because the weight lists are so long. They get
in and they haven't even yet gone through their whole intake,
and next thing you know, just by seeing their weight
or there bemi numbers, they're being asked about going on

(34:47):
these drugs or being given prescriptions in one appointment. So
oftentimes I see some of my clients gifted with this prescription.
And don't get me wrong, I don't want to shame
anybody if you take these or if you're considering taking them,
if this could be helpful for you, I'm not here
to say yay or nay to that. But the fact
that they can so easily be given out these prescriptions

(35:08):
without really assessing the whole person and knowing the long
term data, which we do not know. These drugs have
been around for a long time but not served in
this particular purpose. So is this just sort of something
in the now or is this something that we're going
to see stick around and all. Let Whitney speak to
some of the medical side effects of this right now.
But it's just a little bit worrisome if somebody goes

(35:29):
into an appointment and I'm working with them and they
come back to me and they say, I told the
doctor I wanted to lose weight. Now I've started this
medication and we didn't really assess all of the other
things they're dealing with, perhaps diabetes, perhaps this cycling of
weight up and down, perhaps an eating disorder on top
of that. So it can be just so much more
challenging to make decisions and working with a client when

(35:49):
there's this thought of magic and perhaps a pill that
they take every day, of which they're going to have
to take for the rest of their life if they
want to maintain or continue to see results.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah. Actually just got back from an international psychiatry conference
where we really talked a lot about the use of
golp ones, and you're going to see this more mental health, right,
And I'm not, like Angel said four or against them.
What I really try to do is have a nuanced approach,
but provide consent from all aspects of it. So initial
their indication was for diabetes. We also know that they

(36:23):
are cardio protective, right, they help reduce inflammation. So let's
say I have somebody that has bipolar disorder and I
have them on an antipsychotic. They are doing great from
a mental health aspect, but the side effect from the
drug that I give them increases their cholesterol. They might
gain weight. A golp one in a low dose might

(36:44):
be something that is therapeutically indicated for them. There's also
clinical trials and research right now looking at golp one
and the use of Alzheimer's which is interesting. Who would
have ever thought, right, it would help from a neuroinflammation standpoint,
But we are seeing that clinically pcos we're seeing people
ovulate for the first time with some of these medications,

(37:05):
and so I think there are people out there that
are having very real positive benefits on these But then
there are also people out there that are truly getting
harmed by this, and I think it's because it's a
lack of due diligence from the provider. One of the
questions I ask people after I do the initial eating
disorder screening. Are you already having obsessive thoughts? Do you

(37:26):
already have body dysmorphia? This might not be clinically appropriate
for you. What is your access like if insurance denies this,
can you afford to be on this medication for the
next eight to twelve months? If you can only afford
it once, it might not be appropriated right. FDA is
really cracking down on a lot of these compounded pharmacies.

(37:47):
We're seeing people almost get them on the black market
and we don't even know what the ingredients are. So
I think it's not for me a positive or a negative.
It really is about the full consent. And again, clinically,
we see a lot of gastro prease, which means delayed
gastric emptying. We're seeing people's hair fall out, we're seeing
lean body mass. So after the age of forty, you

(38:08):
really start to lose your lean body mass and it's very,
very hard to get back and so if I'm giving
you something that's going to suppress your appetite, that's going
to impact your protein muscle loss, it's going to impact
your ability to retain muscle that's really clinically revelant, and
we need to have a conversation about that in terms
of food noise, Doctor Droy, You're absolutely right. We're seeing

(38:30):
this kind of been like addiction aspects of care for
alcohol use disorder. People are starting to take GLP ones
and they're noticing that the cravings are going down. People
that believe that they are addicted to food, we're seeing
the cravings go down. So what is hard is we
don't know long term data on that because it's very
new in psychiatry. What we do know, like I said,

(38:52):
is that it can be clinically indicated for some people.
We know that it has protective aspects for inflammatory disease process,
and so it really can be a great way to
add to somebody's regimen. I just think that we are
over prescribing it and not doing our due diligence and
asking some of those hard questions that we need to

(39:14):
be doing as providers.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
More from our conversation after the break, why might it
be contraindicative for somebody with body dysmorphia, Doctor Trynter.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
So, if I'm working with somebody that has body dysmorphia
and is not accurately seeing a true representation of themselves,
and they are obsessed with thinness, obsessed with decreasing calories,
obsessed with eating less, they have this unrealistic image of
what they want their body to look like that might
not even be achievable to me. We're going to do

(39:55):
therapy first. We're going to get you into a really
good therapist, somebody that specializes with body dys morphia. We're
going to try other things because if we just do
the golp one and put it like a blanket weight
loss drug on there, not everybody loses weight. So now
you've paid five hundred and fifty almost one thousand dollars
for this medication and it's not even working.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
So somebody is actually interested in, you know, talking with
their medical team about a possible prescription. What kinds of
conversation should they be having, Like, what kinds of questions
should they be asking.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
So if somebody is coming in there is an eight
week wash out that you want to have with these medications,
you do not want to be trying to actively get
pregnant on these medications. And again we are seeing some
obgui ns use this Angela mentioned surgeries. We know fertility
doctors that you have to be under a certain BMI
to even access fertility treatments, and we'll put somebody on

(40:47):
a GLP one. So I will ask that question, are
you wanting to become pregnant actively trying to become pregnant?
I ask about affordability again, can you afford this? And
then I also ask do you have diabetes? Do you
have heart disease, do you have kidney disease? Have you
ever had a history of gastroparesis? I also ask about constipation.

(41:07):
We've had people that have had bowel impactions and have
had to go to the er because of these medications.
A history of thyroid cancer, you would not want to
take these medications. So I definitely think doing the due diligence.
I think about it like stimulants right vibance was thought
to cure binge eating disorder several years ago. It's not
a bad medication, it's just not for every person that

(41:30):
has ADHD or binge eating disorder. I feel the same
way about GLP once. I don't think it's a bad medication.
I just think it's not clinically appropriate for every single person.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
It does seem like people feel very free to prescribe
it though, like you mentioned Angela, right, And why is that?
Because sometimes it's hard to even get painkillers for other
things going on. So why do you feel like doctor's
and other prescribers do feel so free to prescribe it.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Here's my assumption. It is just the new hot trend
right now. People are going in and asking for it.
I think that's sort of unusual. Right Oftentimes you're wanting
the medical provider to tell you what sort of things
might help you with the elements and issues and concerns
that you're having. And in this case, you have people
just making appointments to specifically get the medication. Or I
know my friend is on this and I've seen significant

(42:17):
changes or weight loss in them. Can I get this?
So there's a lot again out there in the world
and social media where this has worked, or the cases
where it has worked for somebody without knowing all of
the side effects and what has happened, perhaps someone in
your family, Perhaps you've tried a lot of things with
your medical provider, and this is just the next new thing.
This is just a thing that when you're talking with

(42:39):
your girlfriends, when you're at work and you're talking about
the water cooler, that these are things that people are
hearing are new and supportive and helpful, and I've seen
be successful. And I think a lot of times when
we do see this be successful for people, it's rapid
and quick changes. And I think that appeals to the
American version of life where we want quick, fast changes,

(43:01):
and when we talk about health or what is healthy again,
quote unquote, we want things to happen real quick. We
don't want to think about, Oh, I've been struggling for
an evening sort for a decade, but I expect my
weight to change in a week, or I want my
cravings to come back in a week, even though I
haven't been having true hunger and fullness cravings for years.
So that quick fast fix, I think is ideal to people.

(43:22):
Even if it comes with some real side effects like
constipation or memory change. It these things can maybe be
overroded for people because the change in their body or
the change in the way that they're feeling is quick,
in instant and it's not that way for everybody. But again,
if you got one friend and that's the situation, you
want to check into this prescription or check into this
drug to see perhaps that could work for you. And

(43:44):
I think word of mouth can be really powerful.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
And I think there's a lot of pressure on black
women to have a certain physique, right, Like there's a
lot of pressure on what does the black female body
look like? What should it look like? Our curves are
certain way to normalize those conversations. I want us to
talk about body dysmorphia in the black community, especially black females,
black women. I think weight stigma is so pervasive too.

(44:10):
When you think about being black and going to the doctor,
what do you always see. We're leading in chronic kidney disease,
we leading in diabetes, we're leading in heart disease, we're
leading in obesity, very rare. Do we look at, Okay,
what are the systems at play leading to these chronic illnesses?
Because the gop one is not going to fix a
broken system, right And at the end of the day,

(44:31):
that's what I tell people, Like, if you don't have
access to basic care, a weight loss drug is only
going to be a band aid on the problem.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
So thinking about, you know, more of those conversations, it
does feel like the proliferation of words like you mentioned
doctor Whitney, like snapback and like big bags and bikini
body like it feels like there's just all these words
that people use to talk about weight and body. What
kinds of things would you suggest for us being more
mindful of using that language and maybe even encouraging other
people to be mindful about them.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Languid Yes, I think if you have children, you really
want to be so conscientious of how you're talking about
your body in front of your kids, because they're picking
up on this. We all know we have our own language,
Like I said, like this net this is a part
of our culture, right, So I think, too is what
is the intention behind that? And I see as black
women too, like our generation, we're kind of out of

(45:21):
that pressure of bariatric surgery. You really don't hear about
a lot of Black women thirty twenty thirty forties getting
the bariatric surgery. You hear more about the bbls and
the GLP ones they're targeting our age demographic. And so
I think about when we're having these conversations, I think
it's just so important to talk through like why do
we have that pressure on ourselves. I'll never forget I

(45:43):
was working with a woman she wanted to get pregnant
as a black woman. She was like, Whitney, I cannot
be fat, black and pregnant in the South. She was like,
I can't do it. We had an honest conversation of
what does that look like to be a black woman
and to go into a pregnancy at a higher weight,
Like what are the ramifications of that? And that was
her desire for starting GOP once. And I think as

(46:05):
black women, I want us to start having those conversations
with our girlfriend hair loss, Like when I was postpart
I'm still losing my edges, you know, and it's so hard.
And I always talk about black women with that, is
this a sign that you're dieting too much? Are you
not getting enough and take in this pressure to look
thin postpartum to get that snap back? Is that contributing

(46:25):
to excessive hair loss? So it's important to name the things,
the barriers that we go through as black women. There's
just different things we are up against that we have
to fight against. That some of our white counterparts and
even our Latina counterparts just don't have to deal with.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
So can someone start working with you all more as
a preventative kind of thing, right? Is it more problem focused, like, Hey,
I've noticed this thing, I feel like I need to
go to a dietitian, or let's say somebody's thinking like
it's January, I want to start, you know, have a
different approach to my food. Can we work with a
dietitian more from prementatives?

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Yeah? Absolutely. I think the complexity with the insurance piece
can be a little bit more challenging in the US
at least just thinking about having a diagnosis or coming
to a dietitian with a diagnosis, because we're unable to
diagnose eating disorders for instance, so mental health concerns we
are not able to diagnose. So typically clients are either

(47:20):
working on that diagnosis with a therapist or psychiatrist, medical
provider when they're coming to me, or they already have that.
But we can also work with people on the nutrition
side of things. We can diagnose nutritional deficiencies and things
like that. So I think that's a great space to
come work with the dietitians that are preventative and talk
about what hasn't been working, or what are your goals
for talking about twenty twenty five? What are some of

(47:41):
the things that you want to work towards, and how
can we incorporate food or make some changes with food
that could be useful and effective for you for twenty
twenty five. I like that idea, and I wish the
medical profession in general would focus on that more. I
wish we would work from a preventative space. Then now
I have this concert or help me now, I'm in
this complete rush. I have limited time, I want things

(48:04):
done in a quick manner, and I need this to
happen now. It's always a tough place, a tough predicament
to be in. We can certainly help support from that
preventative state, and there may be some issues with insurance,
but there are lots of different ways to get that covered,
or there are ways that we can do nutritional diagnoses
to submit that to your insurance company. I myself primarily

(48:24):
use insurance in my practice, so I am credential or
panneled with all the major insurance companies in this area,
and that typically works. We find a way around that,
or we do an appeal, or lots of different steps
to that, as you all know. But it's definitely possible
and a great place to start.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
So I'd love to do a little bit of a
rapid fire around with you all to throw out some
of the more popular trends we are seeing online now
and hear your thoughts about it. So the first one
is ten thousand steps a day.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
I think it's very able list because you might be
in a body that you can't walk or you can't
access ten thousand steps and you might live I always
say this and always get sided. I lived in one
of the most top three dangerous cities in America. I
could not walk for ten thousand steps outside of my house.
We didn't live in that type of city. So I
don't think it's a bad goal, but I do think

(49:13):
you might not be able to achieve it every single day,
and that's okay. Like taking that shame out of that.
Always tell people to like, are there other ways we
can achieve movement? Can we do yoga? Can we do
some chair stretches, Can we do some mindfulness. I don't
think it's bad. I don't think the ten thousand steps
is bad. I just it's not achievable for everybody, and
that's also.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Okay, okay, what about high protein diets?

Speaker 3 (49:35):
I wonder if our views are going to feel a
little jaded about somebodies with me because we see people,
let me just caveat this. With working in the field
of eating disorders, we see people who have taken these
trends to the extreme end. Right, We've seen people who
are taking in massive amounts of protein and now they're
having issues with their kidneys and they're doing too much
when there's no need for them to have high protein.
Or maybe they're having now issues with cholesterol because they're

(49:57):
eating more animal products and et cetera, et cetera. So
let me just caveaut with I think we see the
extreme of that. So I guess just asking yourself, what
would be your intention of increasing protein and you're cutting
something else out and eating more protein or eating no
other nutrients like carbohydrates and fats, so high protein, why
ask yourself why that would be necessary for you? Is

(50:19):
it just to cut or change calories and the type
of food that you're intaking. Again, a dietician can help
you kick out those pieces and help decide what's best
for you.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
And I feel like we've talked a little bit about
this one already, but intermittent fasting.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna say no, because if
you're sleeping eight to ten hours, which we want you
to do, that should be a goal. You're already breaking
your fats. That is inter minute fasting. So you're going
to eight to ten hours, you're sleeping, wake up and
eat within thirty minutes. Awaken up and you're good.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Are there any other trends or things that you've seen
clients come in with that you kind of want to
put on people's radar to kind of just be mindful of, Hey,
this might go too far.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
I would just say at the beginning of the year,
I see this boom of people really wanting to eat less,
and for some reason, there's some magic in So just
be careful. If you're increasing your movement goals and you're
adding an exercise and you want to eat less, those
two things don't align. If you really want to see results,
or you want to build muscle, or you want to
improve your cardio, decreasing your intake is not ideal. In fact,

(51:15):
it's most likely I would be encouraging people to make
some changes and increase their intake or specific types of
food or nutrients. So just be careful when you think
about those two things. They don't align. And in the
beginning of the year you hear a lot of increase movement,
decrease intake, and those two things do not make sense
long term, and they are certainly not going to support
your movement goals or your mental health goals for you

(51:37):
to be your sort of healthiest or most wonderful self
if you will, those do not align.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
I saw something the other day about people eating non
food items, which is pika, but clay. People are starting
to eat clay and ingest clay. For me right now,
that's a hard numb but I did see that on
a TikTok.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Trend as a weight loss kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
As a weight loss okay, I thought that was pretty interesting.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Yeah, if you are craving clay, that is a nutrient
and efficiency, you have another reason to talk to your
medical provider or dietician if that's something you are feeling
hungry for, like satiated, like that is another concern that
we could support and help with that. Certainly, don't be
eating non food items.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Yeah, thank you so much for that, Angela. It's been
so great to have some time with you both today.
I would love for you to tell us where can
we stay connected with you all? What is your website
as well as any social media channels you'd like to share?

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Awesome?

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Well, my website is www dot Whitney Trotter dot com.
My Instagram is Whitneytrotter dot r D. And then Angela
and I, like we said, we co created the first
ever and only Bypockeating Disorder conference and it's happening in
July during BIPOC Mental Health Awareness Month, and so that
link can also be found on our Instagram. It's welcome

(52:49):
open to anybody. We offer continuing education for professionals out there,
and we'll be in person at the Houston Food Bank
this year, so we hope everybody will follow along. And
I think we have a special disc too, so we'll
make sure you have that doctor joy for all of
your listeners.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
Yes, our email for our conference is BIPOCED Conference at
Gmail and our website is the same and we're offering
a discount code for our conference for twenty twenty five.
It's both virtual and in person this year. My website
is ww dot Rooted Nutrition Services dot com. And you
can find me on Instagram at Rooted Nutrition Services Perfect.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
We will be sure to include all of that in
the show notes. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Thank you for having us.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Of course, I'm so glad Angelaine doctor Troner were able
to join me for this conversation. To learn more about
them and their work, be sure to visit the show
notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com Flash Session three
ninety six, and don't forget to text this episodes to
two of your girls right now and tell them to

(53:54):
check it out. If you're looking for a therapist in
your area, visit our therapist directory at Therapy for Black
Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to
continue digging into this topic or just be in community
with other sisters, come on over and join us in
the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner the Internet designed
just for black women. You can join us at community

(54:14):
dot therapyfro blackgirls dot com. This episode was produced by
Alise Ellis, Zaria Taylor and Tyree Rush. Editing was done
by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me
again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation
with you, all real Salman take good care

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Dr. Joy Harden Bradford

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Session 396: Decoding Popular Food and Wellness Trends