No Bad Vibes: How to Master Your Health Without the Shame

Health journeys are very personal and look different for everyone. But as soon as we decide to prioritize our health—especially if we’re fat, a person of color, have a disability, queer, or in any way marginalized—society starts to project what it thinks that journey should look like onto us. Messages of weight loss, cutting calories, extreme exercise, and shooting for that “perfect beach body” leave us confused and sad, unsure of where to turn. 

Tessa Cushman, registered dietician and nutritionist, is on a mission to change that. She does trainings and classes and provides advice through the lens of positive self-talk without the focus on fatphobia, and we caught up with her to learn how to embrace health without feeling shame and inadequacy. 

How did you get into nutrition, and why is it important to you? 

When I was in high school, my sister almost lost her son during birth due to healthcare negligence of her gestational diabetes diagnosis. This traumatic experience showed me that nutrition is a huge part of diabetes management, and a few years into studying it in college, my passion was solidified when my father was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. 

There were also periods in my youth that my family was food insecure, and I held shame surrounding receiving governmental nutrition assistance (“food stamps”). I channeled that shame into a passion to improve the food and health systems through public health nutrition.

How have your own struggles with nutrition and movement informed what you do when you instruct? 

I struggled with undiagnosed depression, anxiety, and orthorexia (extreme focus on healthful eating) for much of my youth and young adulthood. I engaged in restriction, binging, and compulsive exercise. I was filled with crippling shame any day of the week that I didn’t make it to the gym for an hour and a half. I remember calling my sister mid-panic attack while on a friend’s family vacation because “I hadn’t eaten a vegetable in three days.”

Years later, I realized that my mental health depended on stopping the harmful cycle. Unlearning external and internal messages helped me start the healing process. I use these lessons in the community classes that I facilitate, where I prioritize intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, and inclusive movement approaches. 

What do you think some of the biggest mental health barriers to nutrition and movement are?

The relationships between nutrition, movement, and mental health are cyclical. Healthy lifestyle behaviors are linked with improved mental wellbeing, and vice versa. On the other hand, symptoms of mental illness like depression can be barriers to these activities. And at the base of it all, without access to basic life needs, mental and physical wellbeing cannot be achieved. 

Shame is an inherent response to the messages of diet culture and also stands as an immense barrier. Shame is interpreted by the body as a crisis and has poor outcomes on mental health and wellbeing. Most directly, shame is associated with avoidance of self-care and behavioral health activities. Naming and unlearning that shame is the first step.

What do you see as some of the biggest issues with nutrition and movement messaging, and how can we fix that? 

Diet culture tells us that the single most important thing you should do for your health is lose weight, conveying that it can be achieved at any and all costs. It forces an all-or-nothing mentality, not allowing room for rest, balance, or moderation, and assigning morality to foods and behaviors. 

The weight-inclusive and body-acceptance movements are becoming more popular in mainstream media. Having open dialogue about weight discrimination in programmatic efforts, removing stigmatizing language and messages from campaigns, and piloting programs with individuals across the weight spectrum are necessary first steps that barely scratch at the surface of all the work to be done. 

What kind of results have you seen from changing your messaging around movement and nutrition? 

Instead of engaging in weight fluctuation or holding shame—which are detrimental to health and can result from focusing solely on weight loss—folks in my programs start first with this mindset shift. As a result, they engage in long-term, sustainable, happy, healthy lifestyle changes. One of my 2020 participants said: 

“I LOVE how you run this class and the energy you bring. I took a similar class, and the instructor had a much different approach … more fear motivated, and she was really strict … It was very difficult for me and my anxieties around food and health. I love that you have taken your experiences and let them shape/inform your practices. I find it incredibly refreshing and helpful, and I look forward to class every week.”

What should everyone keep in mind when it comes to balancing mental and physical health? 

This process does not happen overnight. Give yourself grace, kindness, and acceptance as you  unlearn harmful things you’ve been taught. Move towards distancing yourself from harmful messaging by avoiding negative self-talk, unfollowing social media accounts, and surrounding yourself with people that have aligned values.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? 

The body positivity movement was started by Black, Indigenous, disabled, and LGBTQ+ folks as a response to the injustices against marginalized bodies. Thus, these voices should be uplifted and followed to be the leaders and faces of this movement.