Anna Rollins is the author of Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl. Anna’s debut memoir examines the rhyming scripts of diet culture and evangelical purity culture, both of which direct women to fear their own bodies and appetites.

Anna is an award-winning instructor who taught English in higher education for nearly 15 years, and her writing has appeared in outlets like The New York Times, Slate, Electric Literature, Salon, Joyland, and more. In today’s episode, Anna shares how societal messages around beauty and body image contributed to her struggles with disordered eating. We also discuss Anna’s research on purity and diet culture’s impacts on women’s relationships with their bodies and food, as well as how the concept of self-control might be helpfully framed as we enter the season of Lent.

My hope is that as we name and shed unhelpful theologies related to food and our bodies, we might find more freedom, healing, and wholeness.

Buy Melissa L. Johnson's book, Soul-Deep Beauty: Fighting for Our True Worth in a World Demanding Flawless, here. Learn more about Impossible Beauty and join the community here.