#13: Why BMI is Bullsh*t with Margit Berman

Welcome to the thirteenth episode of the Trust Your Body Project Podcast!  Trust Your Body Project is a podcast and social media movement started on Instagram designed to help you heal, eat, and create space for the things that truly matter.  Meet your host, Whitney Catalano, an anti-diet, health at every size registered dietitian who offers online coaching to help you stop dieting, make peace with your body, and take the power back from your inner bully.  This episode is all about acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT. Whitney speaks with Margit Berman, author of A Clinician’s Guide to Acceptance-Based Approaches for Weight Concerns.  Whitney is constantly referencing this book while working on Health at Every Size, and to help debunk the myths about weight science.   In this episode Whitney and Margit speak about: What exactly is ACT? Learning to focus on what you care about while also accepting that it’s human nature to suffer sometimes Margit’s story behind getting involved in ACT and writing this book Margit’s journey to size acceptance and body positivity Focusing your anger in the right places, not towards your own body The BMI scale and the 1998 change to the BMI system How BMI is not an identifier of anyone’s health The mortality rate amongst the different BMI categories How Margit would change the BMI scale A few fun facts or misconceptions about sex and gender Interrogating your sexuality and asking about what you really want Margit I. Berman has a Ph.D. in counseling and social psychology from the University of Minnesota. She is currently assistant professor of psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and associate professor of clinical psychology at the Minnesota School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University. She was a recipient of the 2015 Hitchcock Foundation Scholars Career Development award for her research and development of the Accept Yourself! intervention for women with obesity and depression. She is a feminist, cognitive-behavioral therapist who trains clinicians in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and self-acceptance based interventions throughout the U.S. Her client self-help workbook and clinician manual for Accept Yourself! are available from Routledge Press. Learn More: https://margitberman.com/ Mentioned in the Episode:  A Workbook of Acceptance-Based Approaches for Weight Concerns by Margit I Berman | A Clinician’s Guide to Acceptance-Based Approaches for Weight Concerns by Margit I Berman https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/whitney-catalano/support