Rethinking Wellness

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash Today is a very special episode, because Christy’s back from maternity leave! To return to the show, she’s joined by our producer Amelia Hruby for a conversation about the wellness trends she noticed while she was away, the personal health issues she navigated postpartum, and the parenting shifts she’s made with two kids at home.

Rethinking Wellness offers critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, and reflections on how to find true well-being.

Philosopher, professor, and podcaster Ellie Anderson, PhD joins us to discuss the realities of living in a “post-truth” era – where conspiracy theories, fake news, and anti-science rhetoric are everywhere. Ellie also shares her personal experience with dubious diagnoses and the “divine feminine,” why studying phenomenology helps her understand lived experience, and how wellness culture permeates so many industries.

Over the past six months or so, I’ve been experiencing brain fog, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, fertility problems, and increased fat around my midsection. Being in my early 40s, I’m at the age when talk starts turning to perimenopause—also known as the menopausal transition, or the roughly 10 years leading up to the cessation of periods. When I’ve told friends and family members about what I’ve been going through, some have asked whether it could be perimenopause.

The first part of this episode is available to all listeners. To hear the whole thing, become a paid subscriber here.

Rethinking Wellness Can You Fix Your Thyroid with a Diet Change? 1× Preview 0:00 Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -3:04 -3:04 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Can You Fix Your Thyroid with a Diet Change? Do you really need to cut out gluten, dairy, nightshades, coffee, and other supposedly “inflammatory” foods for thyroid health?

Rethinking Wellness Why Beauty Culture is a Cousin of Diet Culture with Elise Hu 1× Preview 0:00 Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -29:03 -29:03 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.

Rethinking Wellness offers critical thinking and compassionate skepticism about wellness and diet culture, and reflections on how to find true well-being.

The first part of this episode is available to all listeners. To hear the whole thing, become a paid subscriber here. Writer and linguist Amanda Montell joins us to discuss “magical overthinking” and the cognitive biases that make us vulnerable to misinformation, celebrity culture and its intersections with wellness culture, how to deal with panic headlines, cultish language to watch out for in wellness spaces, and more. Amanda Montell is a writer and linguist from Baltimore.

Photo by Jos Speetjens on Unsplash Erin (who asked that I use only her first name) has struggled with psoriasis for her entire adult life. Now in her forties, she’s softspoken and has a youthful energy. She lives in northern Alberta, Canada, about five hours from the nearest major city, so she wasn’t able to find many options for treating psoriasis other than going the pharmaceutical route.