Today, I’m speaking with Zoë Bisbing - mother of three and licensed psychotherapist at Body Positive Therapy NYC, and creator of Body Positive Home. Zoë works with families of youth struggling with eating disorders, and works to raise awareness about prevention, early detection, and immediate intervention. Zoë is also the host of The Full Bloom Podcast.

Today we’re talking about how to build a Body-Positive Home, and how we can build buffering skills right into the foundation of the homes and schools we nurture our children in.

Find out more about Zoë’s work here.

Follow her work on Instagram here.

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Here’s the transcript in full:

Zoë Bisbing: I do think that if you're like, “Yeah, I totally want to build a body positive home, show me how”, I think you're actually embarking on some micro-activism. Because if you can commit to building a body positive home, you're going to potentially raise a body positive kid who's going to maybe then go out into the world and make the world a more body positive place.

INTRO

Laura Thomas: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast where we talk about food, bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas. I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter.

Today I'm talking to Zoë Bisbing. Zoë, who uses she/her pronouns, is a licensed psychotherapist, mother of three and creator of Body Positive Home, a learning and healing hub for humans who want to nurture a more embodied and inclusive next generation. Zoë directs a group therapy practice in New York City, where she and her team treat folks across the age, gender and disordered eating spectrum. A certified family based treatment practitioner, Zoë's work with families of youth struggling with eating disorders fuels her passion to raise awareness about prevention, early detection, and immediate intervention for eating disorders. Today, we're going to be talking about how to build a body positive home, and this is Zoë’s idea of how we can build buffering skills right into the foundations of the homes and schools that we nurture our children in. 

But first, I'd love to tell you about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter and whole universe. And of course, there are cool perks like being able to comment on posts, our Thursday threads, Snacky Bits, and exclusive posts on intuitive eating, weight-inclusive health, and responsive feeding. But more than all of that, being reader and listener supported means that I can better control who comes into the space. In other words, we keep the trolls and the fatphobes out. And if they do sneak in, at least it's cost them and I can still boot them out. Having control over who comes into the space is essential for creating a safe nurturing space away from diet culture, where we can discuss the both and of why it's hard to have a body and how we deserve to feel safe in them, or why it's okay for your kids to eat sweets, without the food police breathing down our neck. 

So if you're still not convinced, here's a recent testimonial from someone in the CIHAS community: 

“I wish I had access to the advice and information you shared when my kids were little, but it's still valuable now they're nearly adults for a couple of reasons, at least. Firstly, having only been diagnosed as autistic in middle age, I have had a complicated relationship with food for most of my life. From childhood fussy eating through stigma over my higher body weight, and internalised fat phobia, to temporary success with dieting, followed by the inevitable return to my previous size. Your writing has helped me to cast off many of my own hang ups about food, weight and health, making me a better role model for my kids. Secondly, your advice helps me to support and advise my kids with their own food, health and body image issues and to advocate for them to my family and friends. I believe in showing my appreciation for people who provide me with help and support at least by saying thank you and, where possible, with feedback and or financially. I can't financially support everyone I'd like to all of the time, but I do what I can when I can. Thank you for all you do, Laura.”

Well, thank you for that lovely review. And I guess the question is, what are you waiting for? You can sign up today at laurathomas.substack.com or find the link in your show notes. It's £5 a month or £50 for the year. And if you can't stretch that right now just email [email protected] with the word ‘Snacks’ in the subject line and we will hook you up with a comp subscription, no questions asked and no need to explain yourself. Alright team, here's Zoë

MAIN EPISODE

Zoë Bisbing: I am Zoe Bisbing. I'm a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed psychotherapist here in New York City. I run a group therapy practice, that's sort of, I guess my day job, a practice called Body Positive Therapy NYC. And I have a group of really wonderful clinicians that work there with me and we, we treat folks across the age and gender spectrum struggling with all kinds of disordered eating, eating disorders.

And I do specialise in working with children and adolescents and their families with eating disorders, which actually is sort of how I got into my other.

Laura Thomas: Your side hustle!

Zoë Bisbing: My side hustle, yeah. My side hustle / baby / passion project, which is now called Body Positive Home, once was the Full Bloom Project, but it's sort of evolved into Body Positive Home.

That work, I guess you could call it, I'd be curious to hear what you call it, but I think of it as advocacy, education and most importantly, prevention. It's my best attempt at disordered eating prevention, body image disturbance prevention, eating disorder prevention as far as we can, cos of course we can't entirely prevent eating disorders, but all of the work, my social media presence and speaking and all of it, it, it comes from a deep concern that I have for all of us. 

Laura Thomas: Just as you were speaking there, I would add activism into the mix, and this may be foreshadowing a little bit, but definitely there's, there's a thread of activism there and body politics, which I know we're gonna come back to in a minute. We're gonna get into what we need to run a body positive home in just a second. But I would love it if you could tell me…why do we need this? Like, you kind of alluded to it a little bit there, but maybe ground that in a bit more context for us.

Zoë Bisbing: As a human being that lives in th...