Parent Letters for Diet-Free Schools with Johanna Kandel and McCall Dempsey

Sep 12, 2022

Anna Lutz and Elizabeth Davenport have a conversation with Johanna Kandel, founder and CEO of the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, and McCall Dempsey, founder and director of Southern Smash. Sunny Side Up Nutrition and the Alliance teamed up to create five parent letters that can be customized and downloaded as a tool for advocacy when diet culture shows up in schools.

They discuss: 

• The pervasiveness of diet culture and how it shows up in schools. 
• Where the idea for the five letters originated.
• The contents of each letter: 
• Introductory Letter to Your Child’s Teacher
• Letter regarding School Weigh-Ins
• Letter regarding a Harmful School Assignment with Diet Culture
• Letter regarding Food Police in the School Cafeteria
• Letter requesting your Child Opt-Out of An Assignment
• Specific examples of when a parent may use these letters to advocate for diet-free schools. 
• Resources for parents available from the National Alliance for Eating Disorders.

Links: 

• Support the Podcast -- Virtual “Tip Jar”!
• Link to Letters on SSUN Website
• National Alliance for Eating Disorders
• Johanna Kandel
• McCall Dempsey
• Sunny Side Up Nutrition Podcast 
• Lutz, Alexander & Associates Nutrition Therapy
• Pinney Davenport Nutrition
• https://thirdwheeled.com/
• https://m8.design/
• https://www.sonics.io/

Johanna Kandel is the immediate Past President of the Board of Directors for the Eating Disorders Coalition, member of the Academy for Eating Disorders Advisory Board, founding board member of the Eating Disorders Activist Network, and a member of the Eating Disorders Leadership Summit. She is an active participant in National Eating Disorders Awareness Month.  She has received many awards for her ongoing outreach and advocacy work, including the Jefferson Award for Public Service© and Harlequin Enterprises' More Than Words Award.  Johanna has appeared on national television programs including NBC Nightly News and The Today Show, and profiled in the New York Times, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and Glamour Magazine. Johanna's book, Life Beyond Your Eating Disorder, was released by Harlequin Nonfiction in September of 2010. Success to Johanna means helping even one person avoid traveling down the same road she did and continuing to use her voice in the fight against eating disorders.

McCall Dempsey is a writer, speaker and founder of Southern Smash, a program of the National Alliance for Eating Disorders. McCall is an eating disorder survivor and passionate recovery advocate.