Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison · Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CEDS

#333: Blood-Sugar Myths and Intuitive Eating for Diabetes with Janice Dada

·32 min·2 clips

Janice explains why changing blood sugar through restriction can come with 'what cost' to quality of life.

Christy Harrison cross-posts a conversation with dietitian and diabetes educator Janice Dada. Janice is preparing to release Intuitive Eating for Diabetes. The discussion starts with the anti-diet work that led her to this approach. Christy and Janice return again and again to the idea that health conditions do not erase individual needs. The episode keeps circling the difference between rigid rules and real care. Stigma comes up early and stays there. So does blame. Janice and Christy call out the cultural habit of treating diabetes as a moral failure. They also challenge the wellness-culture story that supplements, restriction, or perfect food choices can make diabetes disappear. The conversation rejects the idea that people give themselves diabetes by eating too much sugar. It also pushes back on the belief that carbs have to be cut out entirely. Christy asks about the advice people hear when a clinician is worried about blood sugar or prediabetes. Janice describes how often those recommendations show up as cookie-cutter rules. She talks about clients who have been told to shrink their eating down to something extreme and unsustainable. One story describes a woman who would sit through restaurant meals without eating and wait until she got home. The example lands as a picture of how fear can crowd out normal life. The conversation makes clear that this kind of advice is not the same as support. It also shows why a one-size-fits-all model fails people with real lives and real bodies. The paid continuation goes further into the myths tying higher weight to diabetes and weight loss to a fix. Christy closes by pointing listeners toward Janice's work and her coming book. The whole exchange stays focused on nuance, evidence, and the harm that follows when food rules replace care.

As heard by us

A stigma-aware conversation about diabetes care, food rules, and wellness-culture pressure.

Food Psych spends its time on diabetes care without slipping into scare tactics. Christy Harrison talks with dietitian and diabetes educator Janice Dada about blame, wellness-culture pressure, and the claim that diabetes can be reversed by cutting foods and taking supplements.

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Why you'd press play

When diabetes talk starts sounding like food police, this gives you a cleaner map.

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