10. Disordered Eating in Dietetics with Brenna O’Malley

DEATS with Deanna: Discussions around Food & Entrepreneurship

In this episode, Deanna sits down with Brenna O’Malley, a registered dietitian based in San Francisco and founder of the online non-diet community and virtual private practice, The Wellful. Brenna specializes in helping people move away from dieting and disordered eating patterns to develop a flexible, healthy relationship with food and their body. She is passionate about changing the language we use to talk about nutrition & health in the media, online and in food marketing. Brenna uses a non-diet, individualized approach and believes that the ‘why’ we eat is just as important as the ‘what’ we eat. Brenna practices from a Health at Every Size (HAES®) perspective and truly believes that all foods can fit in a healthy diet, that guilt is not an ingredient and that this is hard work - but you can do hard things.

You’ll hear:

• Brenna shares how her 2021 has been so far, her experience of moving across the country, enjoying nature when she can and her history with dieting and overcoming diet culture (2:56)
• Brenna explains how she was able to work through dealing with chronic illness, food allergies, and intolerances. She shares her tips for dealing with food allergies and how intuitive eating is about noting internal and external cues that your body gives you (5:15)
• Dealing with food intolerances can be especially isolating but it is important to trust your body. Brenna shares her journey through diet culture, therapy and what key steps she took to overcome her restrictive relationship with food (10:22)
• As a dietician, Brenna shares her personal experience and professional opinion about disordered eating and dietetics in general. She explains what support is needed in the field to continue to make the right changes (19:42)
• Deanna and Brenna discuss fat and weight shaming and the stigma around diet and eating. Brenna shares how she became interested in dietetics and how we are influenced by the messages we hear in the media (28:21)
• In addition to her deictics background, Brenna also has a media and marketing background. She shares some ways dieticians can get into private practice and use social media for their business and why it is important to stay authentic (33:00)
• Breanna shares her red flags when it comes to diet culture and dietetics. Weight loss isn’t encapsulated in a magic pill even if some people want you to think that. Breanna shares honest advice for how best to lose weight and why weight loss shouldn’t be a taboo topic (42:26)
• If you’re struggling with anything related to food and dietetics, and it is taking up space, the best thing you can do for yourself is to reach out for support to create that peaceful relationship with food and your body (45:42)

Connect with Brenna

IG/TikTok: @thewellfulWebsite: https://thewellful.com/

Connect with Deanna:

IG: @dietitiandeanna

Website: https://dietitiandeanna.com

This episode is sponsored by Food Freedom Breakthrough, my three month transformative online group coaching program. Join the waitlist here to be first to know about the next program launching in Jan 2022.