#32 - The Economics of Wellness, Part 2: A Diet By Any Other Name

This week, we conclude our two-part series on wellness by focusing on diet and weight loss, the real centerpiece of the entire wellness industry. Just how big a business it is, the lengths the industry goes to to hide itself, and how it hurts us as women in particular. Feminist dietician Rachael Hartley talks to us about how we’ve focused too much on diet and fitness in our quest to be healthier (or, really, thinner), and Tanja looks at the fat phobia that’s the real motivator behind so much of our wellness and weight loss obsession. Big thanks to Freshbooks for sponsoring season 4 of The Fairer Cents. If you’d like to try their cloud accounting software for free, go to freshbooks.com/tfc and enter “the fairer cents” in the How did you hear about us? Links from the episode: Smash the Wellness Industry by Jessica Knoll in the New York Times Rachael Hartley Nutrition Rachael Hartley on Instagram Rachael on Twitter Rachael’s blog post on Food, Dieting & Feminism Huff Post piece by Michael Hobbes, “Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong” Diet industry research French women would rather be fat than dead Yale research on trading life or limb not to be fat Melinda Parrish video on Huff Post Stephanie Shames TEDx talk Samantha Bee Full Frontal clip