Breaking Free from Diet Culture
ShrinkChicks
Jennifer Chaiken, LMFT and Emmalee Bierly, LMFT
4.9 • 755 Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on ShrinkChicks, Em and Jen are joined by Johanna Kulp, licensed therapist, speaker, and body image specialist, who helps individuals and families break free from diet culture and rebuild trust in their bodies. Johanna shares how her own eating disorder recovery shaped her work, and why so many of today’s “wellness” trends still keep people stuck.
They talk about raising kids in a world where diet messages are unavoidable, how to find balance without swinging to extremes, and what it actually takes to reconnect with your body through intuitive eating. Topics cover GLP-1s and body autonomy, accepting a postpartum body in “bounce-back” culture, and small daily practices that interrupt generational body shame; plus, how to handle relatives who comment on food or bodies around your kids. Johanna also shares her VIRR framework (Validate, Inquire, Refute, Reinforce) and calls BS on the idea that there’s a “perfect” body or finish line to reach.
Find Johanna @johannakulp.lcsw and make sure to get her book, Finding Peace with Your Body: A Body Image Guide for Women
Tune in to gain insight, awareness, and action!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | shrinking yourself, changing the number on the scale will not change your relationship to your body. |
| 0:08.7 | It won't. It will change the number on the scale. There is still a language that you need to develop with your body. |
| 0:15.3 | There is still a connection that you need to develop with your body, that that is actually going to change |
| 0:22.4 | how you feel and what you feel about yourself. That is the work. |
| 0:40.0 | Welcome back to another episode of shrink chicks. |
| 0:45.2 | Take a seat on our virtual therapy couch and get ready to learn all about, well, you. |
| 0:46.3 | I'm Emily Beirley. |
| 0:47.6 | And I'm Jennifer Chakin. |
| 0:51.6 | And we're both licensed, marriage and family therapist and relationship experts. We're the owners and founders of the therapy group, a nationwide |
| 0:55.2 | psychotherapy practice with down-to-earth therapists just like us. Your session is starting, |
| 1:00.4 | so get ready to know yourself and grow yourself. I'm so excited to tell you about our |
| 1:09.0 | sponsor today, Bobby. When it came time to choose a formula, I did a ton of research. |
| 1:13.7 | I'm talking Reddit threads galore, late night Googling, you name it. |
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