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NEW YORK TIMES // JANUARY 2023
The American Academy of Pediatrics released its first comprehensive guidelines for evaluating and treating children and adolescents with obesity and their recommendations are terrifying.
HEALTH // JUNE 2021
A culturally competent approach to health trains providers to understand the structural barriers many people in marginalized communities face when they seek medical care.
INSTYLE // MAY 2021
Leaving the house again feels weird and getting dressed is hard. But dieting isn’t the fix.
REAL SIMPLE // APRIL 2021
Growing your family’s food may be trendy, but Virginia Sole-Smith digs into the dirt to feed her own soul.
NEW YORK TIMES // MARCH 2021
Anxiety, disrupted routines and loneliness are fueling people’s food issues as they hunker down during the Covid-19 crisis.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN // MARCH 2021
Contrary to what you’ve undoubtedly been told, you can be fat and fit at the same time.
SHUTTERSTOCK // FEBRUARY 2021
Thin. White. Blemish-free. The representation of body image in society is an air-brushed fantasy. Let’s take a healthy look at reality.
MEDIUM // FEBRUARY 2021
Should we really be putting high BMI in the same eligibility category as pulmonary disease and cancer?
NEW YORK TIMES // JANUARY 2021
Think of body changes as something to be curious about, not a problem to be solved.
MEDIUM // JANUARY 2021
Weight stigma in health care can impact the care people get for Covid-19
NEW YORK TIMES // DECEMBER 2020
For parents like me, it’s sushi in my car for 15 blissful minutes — and here’s why that’s OK.
NEW YORK TIMES // NOVEMBER 2020
Many parents are concerned to see what their children are learning about food, body image and weight while learning remotely.
NEW YORK TIMES // SEPTEMBER 2020
The pandemic has disrupted kids’ normal snack habits. Here are small ways to bring back a flexible eating schedule.
NEW YORK TIMES // AUGUST 2020
The constant feeding of our children without a break can compound parental eating issues.
PARENTS // JULY 2020
Surround your kids with books, let them choose the pages they want to turn, and you’ll inspire them to think big and never stop.
NEW YORK TIMES // JULY 2020
The pandemic and loss of jobs have forced food programs to shut down or change operations. Financial assistance programs also have struggled with more families applying for help.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN // JULY 2020
Focusing on body size isn’t making people healthier. Some clinicians are trying a different approach
NEW YORK TIMES // JUNE 2020
For children, a family-style meal can expose them to new foods, help them feel in control and allow them to recognize fullness cues.
MEDIUM // MAY 2020
Men aren’t part of the body positivity movement, but they need to be.
NEW YORK TIMES // MAY 2020
How parents in food-insecure households are stretching meals and struggling to nourish their kids during the pandemic.
NEW YORK TIMES // MARCH 2020
It’s OK to let children indulge in their favorite foods while riding out the crisis. Plus: resources for food-insecure families.
NEW YORK TIMES // MARCH 2020
Myths about hyperactivity and sugar in children persist, despite evidence that debunks the connection.
NEW YORK TIMES // FEBRUARY 2020
Parents who struggle with food and self-image can inadvertently pass along unhealthy behaviors. Here’s how to avoid it.
ELEMENTAL // JANUARY 2020
There’s a movement outside of gyms to make fitness a safe space. Whether the industry will ever fully embrace body positivity remains an open question.
NEW YORK TIMES // JANUARY 2020
Here’s how to keep diet culture off your family table.
NEW YORK TIMES // DECEMBER 2019
‘Division of responsibility in feeding’ is an approach that may help picky eaters and food-fixated kids alike. What it won’t do: make anyone finish their broccoli.
NEW YORK TIMES // NOVEMBER 2019
Why it’s really O.K. if your child eats only rolls (again) this year.
NEW YORK TIMES // OCTOBER 2019
No, your children won’t overload on peanut butter cups. Yes, you can eat their mini Snickers.
MEDIUM // OCTOBER 2019
Traditional media has come a long way on self-acceptance. But the message is muddied in online spaces.
NEW YORK TIMES // SEPTEMBER 2019
Parents often place a moral value on children’s eating habits — here’s why they shouldn’t.
NEW YORK TIMES // AUGUST 2019
Kurbo by WW promises to fight childhood obesity by teaching kids aged 8 to 17 healthy eating strategies — but is it ever a good idea to teach kids how to diet?
MEDIUM // AUGUST 2019
Anorexia has serious implications at any weight, but heavier patients face a pervasive, harmful stigma
NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE // JUNE 2019
Does it make sense, medically or ethically, when fertility clinics refuse to treat prospective mothers they consider too large?
PARENTS // JUNE 2019
I’ve found that trying to be a totally crunchy mama is not all it’s cracked up to be. Here’s how I reevaluated the ‘rules’ and went green my own way.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN // APRIL 2019
Age-old taboos against menstruation have led to a lack of research on how women’s cycles work, with serious consequences for their health
MEDIUM // APRIL 2019
Why people are giving up drinking, even when they don’t have a problem
BITCH // FEBRUARY 2019
Mostly white, mostly male, mostly thin food writers and chefs have turned being thin—and eating in the labor-intensive way they think guarantees thinness—into a moral imperative.
PARENTS // JANUARY 2019
We’re often so focused on getting our kids to eat vegetables that we forget it’s perfectly normal to go for dishes that taste good. Here’s why you should stress less about the fries and pizza and accept that happy meals can be healthy.
MEDIUM // NOVEMBER 2018
As locavorism, veganism, and other healthy food trends took off, some of the people who pushed them the hardest suffered the most.
PARENTS // AUGUST 2018
Yes, you both change equal buttloads of diapers. But we bet only one of you is up at midnight trolling Pinterest for birthday-cake ideas, ordering school supplies, and trying to wrestle some sense into the family calendar. That stops now.
MEDIUM // JUNE, 2018
Our newest eating disorders feed off our cultural obsession with healthy diets.
PARENTS // APRIL, 2018
With my first pregnancy, I did everything right, but I still couldn’t protect my little girl. Here’s how I learned to embrace the imperfect.
CHOICES // JANUARY, 2018
The buff bods filling your social feed might seem like healthy motivation, but you may be shocked by how staged they can be.
REDBOOK // NOVEMBER, 2017
For many women, there’s nothing a quick stop at the drugstore can’t fix.
HEALTH // OCTOBER, 2017
Still beating yourself up about that third slice of pizza? Get over it. Letting go of food guilt and eating what you want is the healthiest food move you can make.
ELLE // SEPTEMBER, 2017
Ninety percent of medications used on premature babies haven’t been studied on infants for safety.
PARENTS // APRIL, 2017
The essential guide we hope you’ll never need, straight from a mom who’s been there—for 123 days.
SLATE // JANUARY, 2017
We’re fortunate that our insurance paid for most of it. But if Republicans remake the health care system, kids like her may not be so lucky.
SLATE // MAY, 2016
Paid family leave doesn’t just support gender equity in the workplace. It may also prevent babies’ deaths.
SLATE // APRIL, 2016
Comcast and others are using more contract workers to install their services. That means brutal hours, low wages, and an app that schedules every moment of their days.
NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE // FEBRUARY, 2016
Our daughter started life on a feeding tube. Then we tried to wean her off it — and began to understand the complexity of how children relate to food.
SELF // JULY 2015
Clean has become the new thin as women obsess about the energy and health boost they feel by getting rid of toxins and fighting inflammation with food. Its popularity is easy to understand — what’s hard to know is if any of this is real.
BUZZFEED // MARCH, 2015
I’d always been self-conscious about my abdomen. When I got endometriosis, everyone else became conscious of it too.
MARIE CLAIRE // AUGUST, 2014
Are BMI charts a load of BS? New research shows that good health may have nothing to do with your body mass index.
NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE // JULY 7, 2013
At a venerable roadside attraction in the shadow of Disney World, an endangered species is practicing the old secrets of the deep.
PARENTS // JULY, 2011
Right here in the United States, one in four children don’t have enough to eat. The impact this has on their health, their development — their future — is staggering.
NYLON // APRIL, 2011
Virginia Sole-Smith went to beauty school and all she got was this interesting perspective.
SLATE // NOVEMBER, 2010
The $1.8 billion business of hair removal is our most intimate and uncomfortable form of beauty labor.
Burnt Toast is an anti-diet, fat positive community about body liberation. It’s also a newsletter and a podcast, and the best way to keep up with Virginia’s work.
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