Podcast Episode 338: Why Diet Culture is Sneakier Than You Think – and How to Fight Back Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

When I had been in the pediatrician’s office, it was 12 and a half, 13, and I heard them talking. It was obvious I was struggling. I was a different kid. I wasn’t interested in the things. I was losing hair. My skin was dry. I didn’t have the energy to do things. I remember thinking, I hope they don’t take away this one thing that I have. Then we went to the children’s hospital. There was a few occasions where I tried to…run out the car because I was not going there. 

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host, JoAnne Crohn, joined here by the lovely Brie Tucker. Why, hello, hello everybody. How are you doing? Since we’re airing, so we’re recording this right now mid January, but I know, I know we’re airing this at the end of the month. So I could say.

this like timely piece of information. just razzed Bree this morning about her beloved Chiefs on the JoWit Show in our balance community. know. I actually know what we need. I like your idea. We need to start like a trash talk thread between me and your Vikings fan family. Yeah, but I mean, this is right after the game, the Vikings. Vikings are out. Vikings are out. the way I was razzing was rooting for them all night. All night. Probably because you knew the Chiefs could beat them.

I don’t yeah, it’s gonna be an interesting Super Bowl. It will be it will be so out there in podcast land I just need to know if you agree with this too This was brought to light by my 11 year old son and he said that the reason the Chiefs are always in the Super Bowl is because there is no one else in the AFC who is actually good

That came from my viking my vikings loving 11 year old so so I mean we might get if you if you want to comment on that guys we have a podcast Facebook group if you want to come over and tell me how wrong we are come join the podcast Facebook group just get I’m gonna warn you a lot of my friends are in that group there’s a lot of KC fans in that group so

JoAnn Crohn (02:14.374)

We’ll see happens. It might be. It might be. But that link is in the show notes if you want to come and chat with us directly. We have a really, really great in-depth episode for you today. A little bit of a trigger warning with this episode. We talk about eating disorders. So just to let you know, that is coming up. But our guest today, her name is Jennifer Beasley. She is an eating disorder therapist, parent coach, and author of the book Dumped, The Breakup That Changed Everything. She specializes in helping teens heal from eating disorders.

Parents learn what it truly means to support teens facing these challenges and how to break up with ED, Ed in the book forever. She’s also the mom of two ages nine and 11. So with that, let’s get on with the show. You want mom life to be easier. That’s our goal too. Our mission is to raise more self-sufficient and independent kids and we’re going to have fun doing it.

We’re going to help you delegate and step back. Each episode, we’ll tackle strategies for positive discipline, making our kids more responsible and making our lives better in the process. Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast.

JoAnn Crohn (03:32.802)

Welcome Jennifer to the podcast. We are so excited to have you here, especially because in the pre-show, you were telling us how you’ve been following No Guilt Mom for a really long time. Yes. I’m definitely a silent fan. I mean, I’ve been following in the shadows. I could be more out there with the support, but yeah, thank you so much for having me. Hey, support is support. There is no guilt on this podcast. No guilt. No guilt on the podcast.

Chuck it, we’re just happy to know, hey, Joanne, someone knows us. I know. That’s basically what Bri and I like all the time. We’re like, my gosh, there’s real people out there. What? Yes. Yeah. Someone else listens. I’m not just like, it’s not just pump up the volume or not just talking to like dead air. Like people are listening. Yeah. when you get that moment.

Jennifer, I so like appreciate you coming on so that we get to talk about this topic because it’s something that’s deeply affected me as well. I had an eating disorder growing up. I was bulimic. In fact, I just told my mom and my sister maybe like a year or so ago and they had no clue that it was happening. It had no clue what was going on. I was basically one of those silent people who like everything looked fine on the outside, but inside it was really

tumultuous. And I love how your book really shows that inner struggle. So your book, it’s written kind of like a novel. You have the character Leah, and she has this relationship with Ed, and this relationship unfolds during a really turbulent time in her life. And that kind of mirrors what you went through as well. Yeah, definitely. Growing up, I struggled with an eating disorder as well.

I would say in about the sixth grade. And later on, I came to understand that it was heavily influenced by family dynamics, some social aspects as I was starting middle school, and just the need to feel numb during the life chaos that was happening. Yeah. And in the book you mentioned, I created Ed as a character to just to embody the complex.

JoAnn Crohn (05:53.44)

seductive nature of an eating disorder. How it can feel like a friend and someone to confide in at first before it really can take a quick turn. It is like that. In my life, when you say family dynamics, like my family, there was a lot of turmoil, but it wasn’t because of the relationship between my parents. It was actually the relationship between my parents and my sister who’s seven years younger than I am.

She was very much different personality than me. I was the people pleaser. She was like, you can’t tell me what to do and I will not do what you do and I will like disobey for everybody. Not knowing at the time like she was really struggling with ADHD and all of the sensory things, but there was a lot of yelling in my house, a lot of screaming, a lot of like my parents feeling that they couldn’t control my sister all the while getting these

information. mean, it was the 90s, growing up in the 90s, where you saw everyone be stick thin. Yeah, I was going to say like, I was hanging out in the depression club in high school. So that’s where I was. But I have a close friend who has struggled with eating disorder since college. And it’s interesting to hear you guys talk about that because, you know, coming from a different flavor of a mental situation.

Mine, you know, my depression, different things trigger it, right? Than an eating disorder. But my friend who still is, I feel like struggling with it. You see, you see Ed start knocking on the door when things get really stressful in her life. That’s her form of control to take it down into, I can, I can’t handle, I can’t handle, said that wrong. I can’t control all the other factors that are causing so much stress in my life, but I can control this and it gives her a sense of calm.

and I can see how that is so difficult to theoretically break up with. Because when you can’t control the chaos of life, yeah, grasp for some control, but yeah, with the eating, that is just, man, that’s hard. Yeah, I think you guys mentioned depression and ADHD, and that’s a big, you know, those are.

JoAnn Crohn (08:10.52)

there’s co-morbid disorders. It’s never just the eating disorder. it’s usually- Yeah, give us your therapist hat on this one. Anxiety or depression or OCD or a bunch of things. yeah, I think also too, the ADHD just being unnoticed was really probably a, once it got noticed was probably a huge help to the family. Cause for a long time, my eating disorder was

It was viewed as an eating disorder and OCD, but I’m in my 40s now and I actually got diagnosed with autism two years ago and it made a lot of sense because it just, it helped me make sense of why I needed structure and routine so much, why body image groups weren’t really working for me because it wasn’t really about

the body image, but more about how I felt in my body, sensory wise. so just having, you know, in the nineties, it wasn’t really, autism wasn’t, or ADHD wasn’t really looked at for girls. It’s now, it’s a lot of the assessments and research is done on young boys. And so it doesn’t open it up for what it might manifest.

and look like in the woman or girl. No, it’s true. mean, since then as an adult, I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety, like severe anxiety that I’m treated for and not yet ADHD. It’s a back and forth between my therapist. People listen to the podcast. No, I talk about this one all the time. looking back, it’s like maybe it was control. Maybe it was feeling how I felt in my body. It was like a kind of a social isolation in some respects.

I felt like I wasn’t being accepted by my peers. I was not noticed. I had a crush on the same guy all through high school who, spoiler alert, he’s living with his husband now. That was never going to happen.

JoAnn Crohn (10:25.71)

We’ve all been there, Joanne. We’ve all been there. It was. And so I did all of these things to try to get myself noticed. I was in theater and then when I wasn’t feeling confident in theater, I’m like, maybe if I’m thinner, I feel more confident in theater. And then that turned to a control of like, okay, well now I need to eat that way, but I went to these binges and that led to… It’s such a messy cycle. It’s not just body image. It is like what you said, control, anxiety.

all of those things mixed together. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it doesn’t help, you know, back when we were growing up in the nineties, it was really the magazines. Yeah. Like the magazine covers and, now for the teens, it’s just Instagram in us as women, Tik Tok, Facebook. And so before we could kind of avoid looking at magazines to get influenced by diet ads of like, you feel

bad about yourself, change your body and then you’ll feel confident, you’ll feel happy. You’ll finally go after the crush that you’ve always had or you’ll finally go after the job you’ve always wanted. And it’s very sneaky. It sneaks sending the message over and over. Can I throw out the Princess Diaries? Right? Like Anne Hathaway? Life was in shambles, couldn’t make friends, had no self-confidence, but gotta.

makeover and suddenly everything was perfect. Yes. And I think that that’s a good point. Well, I think that that still exists today. And I want to get into that conversation about how it exists today, especially for our generation right after this. So with the whole body image thing, I don’t think our generation, like the millennials, the Gen Xers out there, I’m a Xenial, I’m right in between. So I’m like between everybody. I don’t know about you, Jennifer. Are you a millennial or a Gen Xer?

Millennial. Millennial. So like that kind of messaging is still very much out there. More so though in the Gen Xers than in the millennials. Like when I have C friends who are older than me, like there are fitness influencers like the Shailene. Oh, wait, wait, wait. I’m sorry. I’m 1980. So I am a Gen Well, you’re with her. You’re a Xenial. You’re with me. But it’s more of the, you see the posts about how

JoAnn Crohn (12:52.384)

now that they’re thin, they’re living their best life. And that is so the messaging that we got in the 90s with the magazines and everything like that. So much so like I tend to fall into those patterns and I have to protect myself against my feelings of control and especially diet wise when I see those. Like what do you see with that Jennifer? gosh, I just think back of the Jane Fonda videos, you know. God, yes.

And later on, she went on to disclose that she had actually suffered from bulimia and, you know, kind of growing up watching growing pains and Tracy Gold went on to, you know, so it was all around us. But now it’s really around everyone, you know, the not only the filters, but like real life people in our everyday life, like, for instance, going to the pediatrician’s office, you know, you get that message that the BMI chart

is you’re healthy or you’re unhealthy. And the BMI chart was actually not even designed by a medical professional. Really? tell me more about that. We can dive into deep history, but. Who created it then? I’m sorry, I just have to know. Who actually a mathematician. Really? And then the pharmaceutical company actually took it on.

as to hang up in doctors’ offices because it’s when the first weight loss pill went on the market. so doctors were prescribing it to anyone who didn’t fit into those certain measurements and numbers. And it just kind of stuck around. So anywhere you go. And I think that’s something that I’ve been trying to use as teaching moments with my children is that we can’t really protect them.

from Ed showing up because Ed is really, really persistent. He’s kind of like that boyfriend that you want to put in his contact, do not answer because he’s just going to keep calling. And then once you answer, it’s like, you’re sucked back in. There’s a little hope that maybe things will work out this time. Maybe things will be better, but shows up wherever, wherever you go, really. It does show up wherever and it’s…

JoAnn Crohn (15:19.118)

I cannot. I used to count macros. I counted macros like a year ago and I found that I was getting too obsessive about those damn macros. Like so much so I’d be hungry in the afternoon and I’d be like, nope, it’s not in my macros. I can’t eat it. As a result, I did lose 15 pounds, 20 pounds and I knew it was bad. I was watching the show Sweet Magnolias on Netflix and

One of the characters owns a cafe and she made this delicious looking cake. And I’m like, can’t I just screw it all and eat the cake? And I’m like, there is something wrong with this right now. Like all of my thoughts should not be about food. But then you get into the shame spiral that all your thoughts are about food. And it’s just like one of those things that I mean, I have a 16 year old daughter. I never want her to go through it. And I’m seeing some things now.

that I don’t even know how to talk to her about because I feel like my perception is so skewed. I mean, do you find that in you? I feel as though I intentionally feared that being me. So I intentionally went to the graduate school to get the training. I intentionally went to work with eating disorders for 18 years in all levels of care.

In some, I guess, like, just some subconscious way, maybe trying to prevent it from happening to anyone else. Yeah. Or trying to make sure that no one else will suffer the way I did. I have found that I enjoy coaching because I can reach more people. And also, I think if it was up to me to have been

waiting on family-based therapy to get well, I would have not survived. So my family dynamics never changed and they’re still not changed. And so if I had waited to get help until my family dynamics changed or for them to get their act together, then I wouldn’t have been here. So really kind of just having a provider back in the nineties take a chance on me and

JoAnn Crohn (17:41.056)

is kind of Dr. Kramer in the book in a way. Somebody who is willing to kind of just foresee what treatment should look like and needs to be like, and really kind of see Leah for herself. Yeah. And what will work for Leah? I’m interested to hear what your experience was when you figured out that you actually needed help and…

you needed to change because that’s a really hard place to come to. And we’re going to get into that right after this. So Jennifer, when did you realize in terms of your eating disorder when you actually needed help? Because you mentioned that if you waited for your family to change, it wouldn’t have happened. So what was the event that made it happen for you? I would say that there wasn’t

like some grand realization I wish there was an aha moment. They were really kind of small, painful moments where I saw just how much Ed was taking from me. Like feeling very fatigued, like in the book, I too was a really good runner. was, was, and I enjoyed it greatly.

I felt such freedom and I had really mastered the four laps around the track, know, the 1600 and then, but that didn’t last long. When Ed came around, I didn’t have the energy to keep up those times or even had any interest in doing it anymore. And then my relationships with my friends, as you mentioned, like isolating, just really not wanting to be around people.

and then also just every time I went into the hospital, a treatment center, I had done really well because I had really wanted to just, you know, get, I learned the system. I learned, I wanted to please the staff. I earned the rewards so I can get the phone calls and the visits, and then I can get home and just be a normal teenager. But it was every time I went home.

JoAnn Crohn (19:58.67)

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t keep it up. I just couldn’t, I’d end up right back. And so I think after several of those relapses, it was actually when I was at a state, many states away, and I was at a treatment center, it was my 16th birthday, I was spending it in a treatment center, which I thought, oh gosh, never did I think this would be the way I’d be spending my 16th birthday.

He, said, look, I have done everything you asked. I’ve checked all the boxes. Can you trust me to do something like I’ve trusted you? And every other provider had always said, no, like we have our policies and procedures and like we need to follow things. But this guy actually said, sure, what do you have in mind? I said, I want to go on a date. I’ve never been on a date. And he said, okay. And so I actually met

another resident. And as a mom now, I cringe when I say this because I’m like, no. But it was actually he was actually a great guy. He was in the adolescent unit. His mother passed away. We had really grown to connect over just grief and family loss. And we went to the movies. It was nothing profound, but it was my first date. I said I wanted to go on my first job interview. So he allowed me to go to local mall and have a job interview.

So he really thought outside the lines, which really, I think helped me because he believed in me before I could. He saw me and was like, you’re worthy of this. You’ve got this. And I didn’t have that from my family. I didn’t have that from other providers. mean, I did get that from the providers before if I had followed their way of doing things.

But this was more unconditional. that the whole you’re worthy of this and like that brought tears to my eyes because I don’t know how long I just wanted to have that said to me because all the time, like when I had my eating disorder, I was trying to prove myself. It’s so complicated because I’ve always been viewed as someone who just, things are easy to me and I have it together.

JoAnn Crohn (22:25.31)

and all of these things like, Joanne, like we don’t have to worry about her, she’s so strong. But like the things I say to myself are awful. And like, I’m like tearing up here, like they are awful inside and to have someone be like, yeah, I don’t even know Jennifer though, if I would have even asked for those things, cause I thought I was so unworthy of them. And it still gets that, I still feel that. So yay to you for asking for what you needed.

and yay for him for trusting you and for giving you that, that like, don’t know, validation of your worthiness, I guess that everyone deserves. And I think that’s, I was in the same spot as you. And I think that’s where the first moment of realization of like, I, I gotta try a different way. like Ed keeps promising me things. I keep doing things his way. And then he’s never delivering.

on his promises. always moves the mark further and further and Ed is such a narcissistic a-hole. Yes. He is an a-hole. He is. is. And it’s like, and so that’s, that has been my goal. Cause I see these women of all ages, you know, I even have clients in their eighties who have lived with an Ed in their head. I call it Ed head. I’m like, is Ed back in your head? I love it.

And the reason it’s such a, because it’s external, right? It’s not part of, it’s not who they were born to be. Yeah. And it’s really sneaky because like when you were talking about counting macros, it’s like, that’s Ed in disguise. That’s healthy. That’s quote unquote healthy behavior, right? You’re redesigning your thoughts about food.

when really it’s just like, that’s an ed in disguise. So it’s hard. It’s hard because he’s so good at showing up when you least expect him and when you least want him. Yeah. I mean, right now I’m fighting the ed in my head because I’ve seen all this stuff online about like carbs and not eating carbs and like, I know I…

JoAnn Crohn (24:43.618)

like eat a lot of sugar, but also it’s gotten to the point where like, I’m really hungry and there’s nothing in the house to eat that’s protein and I’m not going to touch that piece of bread. Forget that. Or like you make up little rules in your head that you’re like, I can have like this fruit and stuff because it’s fine and I’m not going to follow those rules about the carbs. And then it like sneaks in in another direction. It’s like

constantly fighting against those thoughts and behaviors and it’s exhausting. is. Because then eventually you lose your voice. Like, wait a minute. What do I want? Like, there’s all these rules out there. But what do I want? And I actually did some research. It’s also a way to keep us focused on those kinds of rules.

so that other people can do big and powerful things. Like there’s research that shows like Jenny Craig that was really big was, you know, owned by a man. And like it was around the time where they wanted women to not be involved in big important decisions in our society. So instead they had their women focus on dieting and getting smaller because at least it would distract them.

Exactly. So there’s just all these little sneaky ways that just that Ed can work and keep us from really being like, what do we want? Who do we want to be? What do we think? It’s like the Jack song, like some old guy in Ohio is telling you exactly how to be. Great minds think alike. I already made a note. Add a link to Jack’s song, Victoria’s Secret.

Victoria, it’s true. Yeah, it is. is. It’s true. So in my life, Jennifer, I’ve tried very, very hard not to pass this on to my daughter. In fact, when she was one, I decided, and this seems totally contrary to what we’re talking about now, but I decided to join Weight Watchers because I thought that I did not like my body and I did not want my daughter to see her mom not liking her own body. I actually lost weight and I got

JoAnn Crohn (26:56.152)

to a point where I was very happy and able to sustain it. But of course it like sneaks back in, especially as you get older and like your metabolism slows down. But something I found that I’ve always gone back to is this love of movement and strength. And that is something that I feel I counter my eating disorder with. I just wanna move. I go to Pilates now because I just like to move. I’m not going to lose weight. I like how strong I am.

I like what I’m able to do. What kind of habits and like mindsets have you passed down to your kids as a result of having to struggle through all of this? gosh, I think the biggest one is not to base our worth on what we eat. So I remember being a young kid and my mom would just say, gosh, I’m so bad for eating this. And I used to think, and now knowing this was a very young.

and autistic mind, right? We didn’t know it back, back then, but it was like, wait a minute, you’re bad for eating. Well, am I bad too? I just ate the same thing. Like who wants to be bad? and then, you know, just like how you have to earn your food was sent a lot. Like, I was so bad for eating that. I’m going to have to like go to step class or something tomorrow or the makeup and

Like just that cause and effect, like that relationship between the two. And so I really made it to where the kids, where I don’t say negative things about my body. We don’t say it about other people, other people’s body. It’s just not something we do. And also, find ways that they enjoy moving. So like for me, I regained

and this is frowned upon in some eating disorder circles, is movement. It’s like, was told for a long time, you cannot return to running because it’s going to cause a relapse. You need to stick with walking and yoga. Wait, wait, wait. So running was like a gateway activity into more of the eating disorder thinking?

JoAnn Crohn (29:17.888)

Interesting. Why is that? it because I’m a runner? I’ve done marathons. In I did my first marathon because I thought it would make me thin. Spoiler alert, it does not because you have to eat so much. It’s not just the gaining muscle. It’s like because when you exercise that much, your appetite, of course, increases because your body’s demanding the energy fulfillment. And so you eat and energize you and to do all those things. But like what was the thinking there, Jennifer, about running and eating disorders?

For me, I kind of have to be on both sides of the couch. One, as the client, I didn’t understand it because in fact, returning to running and reclaiming it was the motivation I had to get rid of Ed and to really be myself because Ed’s the one that had me stop. But as a professional being on the other side, I could see

the training that we’ve received about how excessive exercise to burn calories is part of the eating disorder. So I hold space for both to be true, but I think that’s where it takes a professional to really, really help the person discern between what is really meaningful for them.

me returning to running is very empowering to me. And it’s very much like, screw you Ed, look at me, you know? Like, you can’t tell me what to do. I got this shit. Maybe. but, but again, I think it’s fear of relapse fear of like, let’s not trigger anyone, but there’s triggers all around. I mean, it’s, it’s really about finding.

what works because movements really, really helpful to for anxiety, depression. I mean, it’s really helpful. so it’s it’s a way of trying to like, like for me, my son likes to go and runs with me because he likes that. I think it’s the sensory input. He’s also autistic. He loves just pounding that pavement. My daughter hates it. And that’s OK.

JoAnn Crohn (31:40.15)

She’d just go rollerblading or jump on the trampoline. And so we do a lot of that together. Just finding like there’s no wrong way. And just being grateful that we can move our bodies because that’s what they can do for us. Yeah. What your body can do for you versus what you can do to make your body look a certain societal acceptable way, I think is really it.

And being aware of just your thought patterns and everything to know exactly, like that helps me to know when I am slipping and when I need a break from the obsessive thinking that I need to control what I eat or put in my body and somehow I’m not strong or I’m not like willful. there’s so much junk in there, Jennifer, as you know, as you know. Let’s, something we ask all of our guests coming on the NoGutMom podcast because we like to look forward to the future to be optimistic about

future to have joy. What is something coming up in your life that you’re looking forward to? I’m looking forward to spreading the word. I think I intentionally left out any triggering behaviors or thoughts in the book because again, I’ve worked enough with teens who have gotten more ideas from books out there. really? yeah. That’s how I got bulimia.

Yeah, magazines and TV shows. so usually there’s something out there that’s going to give us more ideas. So I made sure to really focus not on the behaviors, but the internal dialogue of someone struggling with eating disorder. Because regardless of the eating disorder, the dialogue is very similar. And so we can get so fixated on the different behaviors, but they’re all really central.

And so I think something I’m looking forward to is just writing more adventures with Leah, answering parents’ questions. I really want to support moms into, again, not taking any guilt or blame if they themselves or their daughter or son is struggling with eating disorder. none of that is allowed. Really, to also help other people.

JoAnn Crohn (34:01.398)

write stories. So I’ve become a certified writing coach to help other people write their stories, their recovery in the way that they take the power back and can have a good impact for young adults. Awesome. That’s awesome. Well, Jennifer, it’s been delightful talking with you, almost like a mini therapy session because I got to cry a little bit too. So thank you for that and we’ll talk to you later. Thank you. So in this episode, Jennifer mentioned BMI.

And I, of course, I was like, oh my gosh, I’m so interested. I’ve never known the history at the BMI. Like I knew it was inaccurate, but I didn’t exactly know why it was created. And so here this, Brie, this comes from the National Library of Medicine from the National Institute of Health, but it’s this article called the History and Faults of the Body Mass Index. It was created in 1832 by- my God. Adolf Kweitle, I don’t know how to pronounce it.

He was a Belgian statistician, a mathematician, and astronomer. He was inspired by his passion for statistical analysis and bell-shaped curves to establish quantifiable characteristics of the quote unquote normal man. And I’m sure he met man by this. Oh, yeah. that’s where it was born. That’s where like this index was born. However, it came into popular use more than 100 years later in the 1950s.

where Louis L. Dublin or I Dublin, he was the vice president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and he established tables of normal weights for clients after the company noted that more and more claims were coming from their obese policyholders. So it was a question of insurance issues and not really health.

Okay, so the first thing I’m gonna say in the interview when Jennifer shared with us how BMI wasn’t even created by a medical doctor, and she’s like a mathematician, and I’m like, those mathematicians always trying to find statistics. I’m saying that very tongue in cheek. I love the pieces of the universe that are opened up by math and patterns and equations and algorithms, but.

JoAnn Crohn (36:20.174)

There is a point where you’re looking for patterns that don’t exist. You’re looking for statistical truths that don’t exist or that change over time. you, I just read an article. correlations. Yeah. Correlations that don’t exist. Like you’re making a correlation for something that isn’t true. Like where one, yes, there is a pattern there, totally. What that pattern means is up to interpretation. Yes.

Also, like I was just reading an article in the New York Times today about how our population is living longer and how we’re gonna have more people with dementia just because of the fact that they’re getting into longer age ranges and we’re not used to this as a society. We’re not sure what to do with it. Like to me, I feel like that would also be tied onto the BMI as well. Like the body of a person in the 1800s is not the same as a body of a person in 2025.

just my opinion, but you know, I don’t like the BMI either. So yeah, I’ve got some words. It’s funny. You’re like a little nervous about the mathematicians coming at you. And I swear, like you’re going to be safe from those mathematicians, but I don’t know if I’m going to be safe from what I said about chiefs fans. I may have more the backlash about that one. I think people are going to come for you on that. I think some people are going to come at you for that one.

But I was saying like when we were when we were done with the interview, we were just talking off camera with Jennifer about her story. She was saying how this was the first time she shared it on a podcast, like so publicly. And it is so hard to reach into that deep part of yourself, right? Those parts that you’re like, I know I wasn’t perfect. And I know that there’s a lot of other people like me, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to bring up that vulnerability.

about me because then you think that brings in judgment and all these other things. And you already judge yourself harsh enough. You people, right? We already judge ourselves harsh enough. It’s scary to put ourselves out there. And I’m just so thankful that you guys do. There is a saying that says you should never write from an open wound, but you can write from a scab or you can write from a wound that’s healed over and closed.

JoAnn Crohn (38:39.85)

It was something that I hurt from in the past. have healed over. have some perspective on the situation now that I can talk about it I can share about it. It was actually like part of my healing journey, so to say, being able to discuss it now. You talked about how you held it, just…

between you and yourself and Ed. Yeah, it was a secret for so long. I wish that somebody would have noticed it, but if anyone asked me a question about it, I would have denied it and I would have been really good at denying it too. It just becomes, that’s why I do what I do now. I want those relationships to exist between parents and kids where kids feel comfortable coming to parents with their problems without fear of not necessarily being judged, but

have like that fear of having to take care of your parent now too in addition to you. Because I know that if my parents knew that they would have probably blamed themselves. They would have probably been freaked out. I didn’t want them to be freaked out. I had it under control. So why would I tell them to freak them out where that would be something else I would need to soothe and put under control? So it’s like, it’s just a really, really hard thing.

that you see happening in society, which is why I’ve tried really, really hard with my kids. And I’m trying very, very hard now with my daughter getting ready to go out to college because it is affecting me emotionally. Totally. I don’t want, and I’m going to tell, and I tell her that I’m like, I am going to miss you, but I’m also so happy for you. And I’m so excited for you because I don’t want her to have to bear the brunt of my emotions in addition to her own.

I highly suggest you guys go and get dumped. It is a great story. It’ll open up your eyes to the world of eating disorders. And we have a link in the show notes. Grab it. It’ll be a really good read, help you understand. And remember, the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for stopping by.

JoAnn Crohn (40:40.96)

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