50: Overcoming the Disorder — Meredith Starr

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This week on 5.6.7.EIGHT, Aleksandra interviews Meredith Starr, a professional dancer and dietitian who uses her platform to empower individuals to promote a healthy relationship with food and with their bodies. Starr — a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago — currently dances with the Outlet Dance Company and the Kate Jablonski Statement and works as a Registered Dietician, focusing on eating disorders, at the Insight Behavioral Health Center in Chicago.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Meredith — who describes herself as an “anti-diet dietitian” — understands that food is not the enemy and has chosen to spend her life helping people understand and apply the physical, mental, emotional, and social importance of food to their lives. On the podcast, Meredith discusses anything and everything food and proper nutrition, how her love for nutrition originated, how people can promote a positive view of food, and how her involvement with dance has evolved over the years.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Moving Quotes:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I’ve never educated someone out of an eating disorder… which is why my personal practice has become a lot more comprehensive, relating not only to the physical aspects of nutrition, but also the counseling around why you choose to feed your body — or not feed your body — in the way that you do."</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Anything that disrupts you engaging in your life in a wholly present and meaningful way can be seen as disordered, be it work, food, or exercise… Are you engaging in this behavior, even without the presence of joy?"</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“A person will notice a harmony between their relationship between food and movement when it’s something they’re not persistently preoccupied with."</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“[Contemporary dance] felt so free — the ability to express so many things that aren’t just words. It is liberat