Diet Culture Needs to Die: My Conversation with Vanessa Rissetto

20 Minutes with Bronwyn

I have historically had a VERY fraught relationship with eating.

I grew up in Orange County, California, where eating disorders were a rite of passage. And I don’t say that flippantly—almost everyone I knew growing up had a disordered relationship to eating, myself included.

I remember pulling into the student parking lot at my high school and seeing some kid’s Volkswagen decorated with a bumper sticker that read, “No Fat Chicks, my Bug will Scrape.” I remember feeling a sense of alarm … like, I had just been schooled on one of the fundamental rules of adolescence in my community: DO NOT be fat. Whatever else you may do.

I know this tortured dynamic isn’t unique to me. Most women I know have a difficult relationship with food.

It’s VERY confusing to have a tortured relationship to something you literally cannot live without.Food is a fact of our humanity. But for so many of us, it is a fact shrouded in myth and morality and twisted by culture.

It’s a mess.

My guest today is someone who I think has the potential to break through the misinformation (and frankly, the misogyny) associated with food. Her name is Vanessa Rissetto, and I fell madly in love with her during this conversation. I know you will too.

Vanessa is a registered dietician who Essence named “one of the top 5 black nutritionists that will make you change the way you think about nutrition”.