The Hunger Trap Podcast

Vincenza opens up to Diana and Lisa about how her lifelong body struggles and disordered eating were influenced by her breast cancer diagnosis at age 36. (Note: The terms “obesity” and “overweight” appear in this episode.)

Equestrian Lisa Whalen, author of Stable Weight: A Memoir of Hunger, Horses, and Hope, chats with Diana and Lisa about how her spiritual connection with horses helped her seek balance in life and overcome an eating disorder.  

Michelle was a professional dancer in training with a secret: she suffered from an eating disorder that consumed her life and robbed her of her love of dance. Michelle opens up to Diana and Lisa about the prevalence of eating disorders in the dance world and how shifting from dance to yoga helped her heal and accept her body. 

Despite appearing in numerous theater productions and boasting the voice of an angel, Olivia was once fired from an acting job for gaining eight pounds. In this episode, Diana and Lisa chat with the actor about the intense pressures that performers face to conform to rigid body standards, as well as how she manages to not let these expectations or rejection shake her self worth. 

Listener Ashley reached out to Diana and Lisa to share her her years-long struggle with substance abuse, her recovery journey, and how she is now tackling her eating disorder. 

Eating disorders can go hand-in-hand with other mental disorders, including substance abuse disorder. Lisa and Diana chat with Dr. Tamara Pryor, who has worked in the eating disorder space for 35 years and recently contributed to a book about eating disorders and substance abuse, about the link between these mental disorders and treatment strategies. 

Lisa and Diana get real in a spur-of-the-moment, one-on-one that was inspired by photos of Bridget Fonda, a Melanie Lynskey interview, supermodel Instagrams, and Minnie Mouse’s makeover to ask the burning question: Why aren’t women allowed to age?

Lisa and Diana chat about mindful eating, the perils of diet culture, and breaking free from its chains with Dr. Alexis Conason, a licensed psychologist, certified eating disorder specialist-supervisor, and author of The Diet-Free Revolution: 10 Steps to Free Yourself from the Diet Cycle with Mindful Eating and Radical Self-Acceptance.

Cate Navarrete is the founder and executive director of the Body Positive Alliance — and she’s just 17 years old. Diana and Lisa chat with Cate about how she turned her eating disorder into an opportunity to create a student-led non-profit organization that explores topics ranging from body image and body culture to the representation of marginalized groups. Cate talks teen insecurities, social media, and how her Alliance plans on creating a better future for young people who are susceptible to body pressures. 

Writer and Boston Globe Music Critic Ken Capobianco opens up to Diana and Lisa about how decades of anorexia led to a stroke in his forties, an awakening, and a second chance at life. They touch on everything from how skinny male rock stars like Prince and Mick Jagger contributed to Ken’s body desires to the ways in which the medical community misunderstands and fails men and young boys with eating disorders.

Diana and Lisa chat with “India," a veteran from the U.S. Armed Forces, about what it is like to have your livelihood in the military tied to your weight and physical fitness, and how that pressure can contribute to disordered eating.

Hey all! The Hunger Trap Podcast will be on hiatus throughout the remainder of the year. We'll be airing three encore episodes that originally debuted over the summer, in case you missed them while you were having fun in the sun (or shivering the the southern hemisphere.) We'll return with a new episode on January 10, 2022. Have a great holiday! 

Before social media, teens devoured magazines like Seventeen and Sassy. But what kinds of messages were we actually receiving about beauty, weight, and bodies? Diana and Lisa page through Seventeen magazines from the 1990s and take a deep-dive into the history and influence of teen magazines, as well as its deeply flawed mixed messages. 

Lisa and Diana catch up with food writer Hannah Howard to talk about how her complex relationships with food and body image led her down the path of restaurant work, eating disorder recovery, and food writing. We also dive into specifics about her second memoir that showcases a group of resilient women who persist and thrive in the male-dominated food industry.

Stephanie Mallick, aka Bella Bombshel, is a plus-size model, social media influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers, and a presence on the controversial OnlyFans site — she also suffered from bulimia for several years. Stephanie talks to Diana and Lisa about how she recovered from an eating disorder to become a fat-positive sex and and beauty icon, as well as her feelings on plastic surgery and the challenges of juggling privacy with online fame.