July 05, 2023

S1, E10: Jess Kirby, PhD: Raising Powerful Daughters & Wellness in the Next Generation

48 minutes

Dr. Jess Kirby is a modern-day Wonder Woman as a professor at UCCS in the Health Sciences Department and mom of two little girls. She holds her Ph.D. in Sports & Exercise Science: Social Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity. Jess is leading cutting-edge research on student-athlete mental health and well-being, sports psychology, and health behavior theory across the lifespan. In her free time, you can find her throwing down heavy weights at CrossFit in the early mornings, meal prepping, and trying her best to squeeze in hiking and traveling with her family whenever possible.

Get ready for Jess to rock your world with the REAL science (not Instagram "science") behind societal wellness and raising healthy, resilient kids as we discuss:

The realities and graces of being a working mom & getting a Ph.D. while having kids

Getting upstream from our youth mental health crisis with comprehensive resilience & preventive infrastructure

The power of a workout buddy & being conscious of the daily things that erode our true connections

Detaching moral worth from food & how to approach fitness and nutrition with young girls

The gravity of word choice and language around body size and shape towards ourselves and especially toward the young women around us

Debunking the "smaller is better" philosophy in sports & breaking the “girls eat salads"/"what diet are you on" mentality

Where the myth of 1,200 calories a day came from- it will blow your mind!

How young female wrestlers are finding body confidence in a weight-minded sport

Follow Dr. Jess Kirby's research on Google Scholar- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HbEzXxwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Find her at UCCS: https://ccss.uccs.edu/kirby

Instagram: @jbkirby

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By Chauncey Carroll