How “Living Nourished” Helped Me Make Peace with Food

Plus, the book you should add to your reading list for 2025!

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I remember hearing "Make peace with food" on a podcast about a woman overcoming disordered eating and reclaiming a healthier relationship with food. Having served six years in the Marine Corps, where for me food was often synonymous with stress and control, this concept felt utterly foreign.

My health goals were less about true well-being and more about achieving thinness, which I equated with success. Years later, after exploring body positivity, intuitive eating, and Health at Every Size, I realized my understanding of health had been warped.

When I discovered Shana Minei Spence’s “Live Nourished: Make Peace with Food, Banish Body Shame, and Reclaim Joy,” I knew I had to read it. This book provides personal healing and a lens into how nourishment and health equity intersect in ways we don’t talk about enough.

What Drew Me to This Book

I’ve followed Shana Minei Spence, known as @thenutritiontea, on Instagram for years. Her unique voice fills a critical gap in nutrition and body acceptance conversations. Her insights resonate deeply, particularly her acknowledgment of how cultural, systemic, and individual experiences shape our relationships with food.

As someone who developed an eating disorder during my Marine Corps career, I was instantly drawn to the idea that my lived experiences significantly shaped my relationship with food. That’s why I deeply resonated with Spence’s perspective, which offers a rare authenticity that is profoundly impactful. Understanding these layers is essential for healthcare providers like me to dismantle diet culture within our practices and promote health equity.

What Makes This Book Exceptional

1. Addressing Diet Culture and Control: Spence’s explanation of why we fall into the diet culture trap is profoundly affirming. She highlights how dieting often serves as a tool for control in chaotic environments, which was especially true for me during my time in the Marine Corps. Spence’s exploration of these themes validates the emotional and psychological underpinnings of our relationships with food, offering actionable ways to break free.

2. Centering Social Determinants of Health (SDoH): A standout feature of the book is its focus on the broader systemic factors that influence health outcomes. Spence dismantles the myth that health is purely an individual responsibility, shedding light on barriers like healthcare access, socioeconomic disparities, and cultural stigmas. Her insights into how cultural foods are often vilified—and the elitism inherent in these narratives—are transformative.
   

3. Reframing Intuitive Eating: While intuitive eating (IE) can be a powerful framework, Spence critiques its privilege-laden approach and how it can overlook marginalized communities' realities. Her emphasis on finding your own path to food freedom—one that acknowledges systemic inequities—is a refreshing and necessary evolution of the IE model. For me, this meant reevaluating what “food freedom” looked like as someone managing autoimmune conditions without falling back into restrictive patterns.
   

4. Practical Affirmations: Spence’s “Food for Thought” affirmations are a game-changer. These bite-sized insights encourage readers to reframe their relationships with food and their bodies. My personal favorite, “Food for Thought #8,” serves as a daily reminder to approach nourishment with compassion and joy.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is for everyone—patients and practitioners alike. As healthcare providers, our relationships with food and body image can unconsciously influence our care. Spence’s work is a wake-up call to examine our biases and educate ourselves on how to serve our patients better.

For patients, Live Nourished is a compassionate guide to unlearning diet culture and reclaiming joy. It empowers readers to see health as a right, not a privilege—a message that aligns perfectly with the principles of health equity.

So, What’s Next?

There’s so much more to Live Nourished than I could cover here. At its core, this book is a call to action: to make peace with food, banish body shame, and reclaim joy. For healthcare providers, it’s an indispensable resource for integrating health equity into our practices. For patients, it’s a roadmap to liberation from the chains of diet culture.

So, what are you waiting for? Head to your local bookstore or online shop and get your copy of Live Nourished today!

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