About Me

Catie Duckworth

Anti-Diet Foodie

First and foremost, I am a food nerd. I left behind a life in DC because I just couldn’t stop thinking about food. I came to Boston to study Gastronomy, having no idea what I wanted to do when I finished my MA.

After graduation, I was still trying to find my place in the food world, and ultimately, I ended up back at the very place that changed my world. I work full-time for BU’s Food Studies Programs and am working towards teaching and further academic research.

I call myself an anti-diet foodie. I am so tired of the multi-billion dollar industry that profits off of people’s insecurities about their bodies. Our understanding of weight and health is incredibly flawed. I believe in focusing on how food makes us feel physically and emotionally/spiritually, not how it might affect body size.

My fight against diet culture is a very personal one. I spent many years of my life deeply struggling with an eating disorder. Although the messages of diet culture sometimes still creep into my mind, I know I will never go on another diet again. I have been using the Intuitive Eating model to help mend my relationship with food.

In many ways, this blog saved my life. It led me to my true self and a place where I could heal myself and possibly provide support to others. I believe in the power of language, which is why I made an effort to edit out diet culture language from my blog history. I wrote many posts while deeply entrenched in diet culture. There is value in seeing growth as a human, but the potentially triggering language I have used in the past is not an adequate reflection of what I want this blog to be. Instead of saying something like, “I cannot believe I ate fish and chips for lunch today. I am gross and just couldn’t resist;” I might now write, “I was really craving a piece of crispy fish. Now that my craving was satisfied, I probably won’t be in the mood for something like this for awhile. Having one meal without a substantial vegetable does not lessen my value as a person.”

Ultimately, I am going to keep writing about what I am cooking and eating, but I will be approaching food through an anti-diet mindset. Sometimes that will be vegetables, and sometimes it will be cake.