The Very Best 2024 Podcast Episodes About Eating Disorders

As I know from experience, hosting a podcast (or website, blog, or social media account) about eating disorders is challenging. 

Google and other tech businesses are hesitant to publish and promote eating disorder information since it can be hard for them to differentiate “good” and “bad” content in this complex category. This means that those of us who want to educate others about eating disorders often hit roadblocks to finding and maintaining an audience, let alone monetizing it. 

Several great podcasts about eating disorders, including my own (ED Parenting), are no longer publishing new content due to the challenges of promoting an eating disorder podcast. This is a shame, since I know how badly parents need updated, relevant information to support them in helping their children. 

To support you, I’ve put together a list of several podcast episodes from 2024 that touch on issues I’m frequently discussing with clients in my parent coaching sessions.

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You can find all of these episodes in my Spotify Playlist: 2024 podcasts from Ginny Jones for parents who have kids with eating disorders. I’ve also linked to each podcast episode on Apple and Spotify in the summaries below. 

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2024 podcast episodes that help you understand eating disorders

Finding a good overview of the complexities of eating disorders is hard, but these two episodes stood out as excellent resources for parents who want to understand eating disorders better.

Eating Disorders, Body Image, and Building an Alliance

Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories S5 EP15

I’m a big fan of Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, a nationally recognized expert on eating disorders and author of Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders. In this podcast interview, she does a beautiful job of explaining the internal conflict of having an eating disorder and the ambivalence toward treatment and recovery.

As someone who recovered from an eating disorder, I’m sensitive to how professionals speak about the disorders and the people who have them. Due to their complexities, people with eating disorders can easily feel misunderstood and disrespected.

Dr. Gaudiani is one of the people who handles this beautifully. She helps us understand the many different types of people and types of eating disorders out there. Her professionalism mixes with empathy in a way that feels deeply respectful to anyone who has an eating disorder, loves someone with an eating disorder, or works with people who have eating disorders. 

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

The Intersection of Autism and Eating Disorders

Divergent Conversations EP 53

There is a significant overlap between eating disorders and neurodivergence that is just now coming to light. In this podcast interview with Livia Sara, author of Rainbow Girl and an autism advocate in the eating disorder recovery space, she talks about the relationships between autism, eating disorders, and the neurodivergent experience.

Livia does a beautiful job of explaining what it was like to grow up feeling different from other girls and how the eating disorder was a pathway for her, an “existential purpose” that appealed to her literal autistic mind as a way to “do life correctly.” She addresses how her eating disorder provided her with the certainty she craved, a way to feel grounded and as if she knew where she stood in the world and how to succeed.

She gives insight into how treatment missed opportunities to support her recovery by not addressing how autism as an underlying and maintaining factor of her disorder. 

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

2024 podcast episodes that help you parent a child with an eating disorder

Since eating disorder information can be hard to come by in mainstream media, I often look to other parenting advice that aligns with best practices when you have a child with an eating disorder.

Are You Listening?

Hidden Brain

Historically, people with eating disorders have been dismissed and the general treatment approach is to treat them as if their brains aren’t functional, rational, or to be trusted. While there are elements of the disorder affecting cognitive functioning, people with eating disorders are still people who deserve to be heard and understood.

Many times parents, carers, and professionals casually dismiss what the person with the eating disorder is saying due to fear and worry that listening means agreeing. But the truth is that active, thoughtful listening can profoundly benefit both people in the conversation and transform the course of eating disorder treatment.

In this podcast episode, psychologist Guy Itzchakov helps us understand where conversations go awry, and how to become a more attentive listener.

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Reflecting Feelings: The First Building Block to Better Parenting

Play Therapy Parenting Podcast S2 EP2

Usually, people with eating disorders can’t be forced into treatment and recovery, and no amount of information and convincing arguments makes an impact. So in addition to setting up support and structure for eating disorder recovery, parents must invest in their relationship in order to motivate recovery.

One of the fastest ways to motivate your child to change what they’re doing is to support them in exploring their ambivalence about the eating disorder. This increases their feelings of autonomy and agency. But doing this can be really hard for parents!

This episode reveals how parents can reflect, acknowledge, and validate their child’s emotions. This approach teaches parents to support kids in building their emotional vocabulary and communicating their needs in words instead of acting them out through eating disorder behavior.

This approach, when used consistently every day, will make a significant impact on the quality of your relationship and your ability to motivate your child to take steps towards recovery. 

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Anxiety Can Become The Cult Leader of Your Family. What If You’re The First To Want Out?

Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry S6 EP28

Eating disorders are often driven by and look a lot like anxiety disorders. Lynn Lyons is an expert on how parents can manage kids’ anxiety, and does a great job of illustrating how anxiety can take leadership of a family even though it’s not helpful or what anyone really wants.

She says that anxiety comes in, takes over your family, and everyone tries to do what it says because when you do, things go more smoothly. I see a lot of parallels between this conversation and how many parents feel about their child’s eating disorder. Even though everyone wants the eating disorder to go away, it’s driving many of the family’s decisions and daily life.

Lynn breaks down why anxiety (and by my extension, eating disorders) have such a powerful force over family systems and how parents can change the rules for the family, even when others try to hold onto the cult-like patterns. 

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Everything You Need to Know to Help Kids Manage Their Anxiety

Raising Good Humans S4 EP48

Anxiety-driven eating disorder behaviors like avoiding, binge eating, and purging food, can feel completely intractable. This conversation with Dr. Eli Lebowitz, creator of the SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), presents how anxiety works and how parents can take a leadership role in supporting their child’s recovery.

The SPACE treatment is parent-led, meaning the child does not need to be involved or agree to treatment in order for it to work. I was trained in SPACE by Dr. Lebowitz and use it regularly when working with parents who have children with eating disorders and have an online course that adapts SPACE for eating disorders.

I’ve found it deeply helpful to use the SPACE approach and provide parents with the knowledge and skills they need to understand, recognize, and respond to anxiety-driven eating disorder behaviors in ways that empower kids and facilitate recovery. 

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Parenting Differently Wired Kids

Respectful Parenting: Janet Lansbury Unruffled EP339

While not all people with eating disorders have neurodivergent traits, the majority do. And recognizing how these traits affect your child and eating disorder expression is very important. Even if your child doesn’t have neurodivergence, having an eating disorder can create many of the same wiring issues that make parenting these kids different from the norm.

This interview with Tilt Parenting founder Debbie Reber provides an overview of what it’s like to have a child with ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, giftedness, processing challenges, twice-exceptionality, or other neurodifferences. As she says, “None of us are parenting the kid that we expected.”

This podcast episode provides compassion and understanding for parents who are struggling to understand their child’s brain differences while juggling eating disorder treatment and recovery. It offers ideas and strategies for adjusting parenting styles and techniques to address neurodivergence. 

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

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You can find all of these episodes in my Spotify Playlist: 2024 podcasts from Ginny Jones for parents who have kids with eating disorders.

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