With the holidays comes many social gatherings that are often centred around food. For some this may be filled with joy, but for others, this may cause a lot of stress and anxiety around eating or body image. That's why this week, I'm speaking with Dr. Andrea LaMarre on eating disorder recovery and health ay any size. Based out of Guelph, Ontario, Andrea is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact at the University of Waterloo. She recently earned her PhD at the University of Guelph, where she studied eating disorder recovery from the perspectives of people in recovery and their supporters.

In this episode we speak about experiences of eating disorders and recovery, and Andrea breaks down some of the common assumptions surrounding these experiences – about what an eating disorder looks like conventionally, what bodies and experiences are legitimized and which are often left out, and ways in which researchers like her are challenging the social, cultural, and psychological barriers to accessing recovery. She's doing incredibly important work with thoughtful and engaging approaches for communities, and I think it's important to speak more to the diverse ways disordered eating can manifest in our lives and bodies - particularly during times of the year where we have less control or agency over what we eat.

Listen to the episode in the player above, or download on any major platform!

Get Social with Andrea:

Twitter: @andrealala

Instagram: @andrealamarre

Website: www.andrealamarre.com

Some of the many folks whose work has inspired Andrea:

People who do work on dismantling body oppression:

Deb Burgard: http://www.bodypositive.com/

Desirée Adaway: http://desireeadaway.com/

Sonya Renée Taylor: https://www.sonyareneetaylor.com/

Virgie Tovar: https://www.virgietovar.com/

Be Nourished: https://benourished.org/

Nalgona Positivity Pride: https://www.nalgonapositivitypride.com/

Marcella Raimondo: http://www.marcellaedtraining.com/

Carmen Cool: http://www.carmencool.com/

Karin Hitselberger: https://themighty.com/u/karin-hitselberger/

Corbett O'Toole: https://www.corbettotoole.com/

Kaley Roosen: https://twitter.com/kaleyroosen?lang=en

Carla Rice: http://www.carlarice.ca/

Cocimientos: http://nedic.ca/provider/9895-cocimientos

Some eating disorder scholars who inspire me:

Rebecca Lester: https://artsci.wustl.edu/faculty-staff/rebecca-lester

Helen Malson: https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/HelenMalson

Karin Eli: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/people/540

Paula Saukko: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/socialsciences/staff/paula-saukko/