Body image researcher and Rutgers University psychology professor Dr. Charlotte Markey is back for a second time on the podcast. She has spent nearly three decades researching body image, and has written books for tweens, teens, boys, girls, and adults.
Research shows that 94% of people will never look like the bodies being sold to them.
We can spend our life feeling bad about that—or we can accept that our body is our body.
— Dr. Charlotte Markey, on this week’s episode
This episode is, of course, helpful for parents; but it’s truly for all of us who were once young people navigating all of this without much support. It’s for anyone who wants to understand how early body image takes root, and what it actually takes to build something different.
We get into so much…including:
Body image as relational: how environment and relationships shape how we feel in our bodies
The father dynamic, achievement culture, and how a critical home environment affects girls
Biohacking and wellness culture as diet culture in disguise
What happens when food gets moralized into good and bad
Parents disparaging their own bodies and how it lands on daughters
Body dissatisfaction across racial, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds
Puberty: why normalizing it matters and why the conversation needs to extend beyond adolescence
How diet culture exploits women’s hormonal life stages
Whether there is a critical window for body image intervention
Social media’s impact on body shame and how to learn media literacy for critical thinking and protection
Body diversity and why the bodies we’re sold are not achievable for most people
The protein obsession in wellness culture and why it’s concerning in adolescents
What to do when your daughter is already struggling
How parents can audit their own relationship with food and body in service of their kids
