As I explained yesterday, I’m giving a lot of thought to difficult body image conversations this week. And when I saw some new research that found the biggest deciding factor in our body image at any given moment is the opinion of others, it was a bit of a “oh, duh!” moment.

Fat may not be contagious, but fatphobia definitely is.

In this same week, I read Thin is the New Happy, a pretty wonderful body image memoir by my friend Val Frankel, who got down into the lion’s pit with her body demons and lived to tell the tale. Part of her “Non Diet” strategy (which you know I love) involved turning off all the negative Fat Talk once and for all so she really could not diet and not feel guilty about it. So I decided to ask her how she did that when everyone around her was still Fat Talking away, and, as the science shows, those opinions mess with our heads whether we like it or not.

And the result is today’s Never Say Diet post.

PS. I should tell you that Val also has a new memoir out, about trading passive-aggressive in for straight-up aggressive, called It’s Hard Not Hate You, which also rocks. Go read!