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Virginia Sole-Smith writes about feminism, body image and health.

“Food has become complicated for too many of us because of our misogynistic diet culture. But we can learn to feed ourselves and our families on our own terms.”

Virginia Sole-Smith writes about feminism, body image and health.

“Food has become complicated for too many of us because of our misogynistic diet culture. But we can learn to feed ourselves and our families on our own terms.”

The Eating Instinct by Virginia Sole-Smith

The Eating Instinct

Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America

An exploration, both personal and deeply reported, of how we learn to eat in today’s toxic food culture.

“A deeply moving book about the power of appetite to shape all of our lives. Sole-Smith writes with warmth and insight about the sheer complexity of eating today – and how this most basic and joyful of human activities can be relearned.”

— Bee Wilson, food writer and author of First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

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Sign up for my monthly(ish) newsletter to get my latest news, inspiration and event info. As a thank you, I’ll send you my five strategies (culled from my book research) for protecting your own eating instincts, and improving your relationship with food.

FROM THE BLOG

New Year, Still Anti-Diet

By Virginia Sole-Smith | 0 comment

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a restful holiday break and is ready to save the world now because 2020, we’ve got work to do. But first, a look backwards.Here are my favorite things I wrote last
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On Being a Good Feminist

By Virginia Sole-Smith | 0 comment

A few weeks ago, America’s Drunk Moms (Hoda and Jenna) decided to intermittently fast their way through the holiday season and we’ve been subjected to all manner of diet culture-y banality from them e
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Kale Is Not the Goal

By Virginia Sole-Smith | Comments are Closed

I talked about this on Instagram recently and it seemed to resonate with a lot of you...The vast majority of the people writing/studying/advocating about how to feed kids are operating from the premis
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FROM THE BLOG

The Instagram version of our homeschool life; all of the tantrums not pictured. (Yes that’s just masking tape.)

The New Working From Home

By Virginia Sole-Smith | On Eating and Writing | Comments are Closed | 7 April, 2020 | 0

For years, whenever anyone asked me for advice on starting a freelance writing career, I said “invest every dime you can in childcare so you can protect your work time.” When I wrote the acknowledgements to The Eating Instinct, …

THE PODCAST

The podcast about the joys (and meltdowns!) of feeding our families and ourselves.

Hosted by best friends and writers Amy Palanjian (creator of the popular blog Yummy Toddler Food) and Virginia Sole-Smith (author of The Eating Instinct).

FOLLOW VIRGINIA ONLINE

v_solesmith

Feminist writer. Author of THE EATING INSTINCT @henryholtbooks. Frequent contributor to @parents & @nytparenting and co-host of #ComfortFoodPodcast.

I have been trying to write this post for 3 days a

I have been trying to write this post for 3 days and I keep giving up in a fury. There is so much to say, and yet everything feels like the wrong thing to say, or doesn’t encompass the nuances of how the school issue is playing out so differently in different parts of the country.
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But here’s what I do know: Women are getting so screwed right now.
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Low-income women of color are getting screwed the most, because they have the fewest backup options for safe childcare and are disproportionately hit hardest by covid. Middle class women are getting screwed whether they’re working as teachers in districts that can’t or won’t prioritize their safety, or as moms who are going to lose income and work time in order to do remote learning or homeschool. And whatever your level of privilege, I will bet cash money that you are the person in your house taking on most of the mental load around school decisions and every option has such huge drawbacks. You’re losing work time and bandwidth to this and if you’re me, your right eyelid won’t stop twitching. (And I’m one of the hyper-privileged ladies whose kids are gonna be fine!)
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I guess we should not be surprised because we have a government and a culture that just repeatedly does not give a shit about women and doesn’t have to care much about kids either because the women will take care of it. But what does surprise me is when I see women blaming and shaming other women. Mom groups are a journey right now and there’s a lot of “how can anyone send their kids to school this year!” handwringing without acknowledging the reality that, for most families, there just isn’t another choice. Public school is the safety net for our entire economy. It’s not funded or recognized as such but it is, and without it, we’re screwed.
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So to my privileged moms: Let’s stop assuming our solutions are workable for folks who don’t have the options of pandemic pods or private school. And focus instead on, what can we do to help other moms right now? @yummytoddlerfood has great ideas in her post today. I’d love to hear yours.
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#pandemic #parenting #wfhmom #remotelearning #distancelearning #reopening #feministmom #backtoschool2020

From what I can figure out, this #challengeaccepte

From what I can figure out, this #challengeaccepted thing is about “uplifting women” by... posting pretty pictures of ourselves and tagging someone else to post a pretty picture of herself.
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Here are some things that uplift women:

*hiring women
*paying women
*not mansplaining to women
*also affordable childcare, well-funded schools and social safety nets, a government that prioritizes the safety of families over opening bars...
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But sure, let’s settle for sepia tones with a side of self-objectification.
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I have chosen to uplift my favorite houseplant instead because #MonsteraMonday seems a much better use of the internet today.
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PS. We vote November 3, and getting a white supremacist rapist out of the White House would also be uplifting.

Sharing a few favorite reads around our house righ

Sharing a few favorite reads around our house right now...
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THE YOUNGEST MARCHER by @cylevinson and NEW KID by @jerrycraft are two of the books in our town’s Summer Community Read on racism, organized by @splitrockbks and @ediathaldane.
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THE YOUNGEST MARCHER tells the story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, who participated in Birmingham’s Children’s March to end segregation when she was 9 years old. It’s been the perfect entry into lots of Big Talks with my 6 year old about segregation, the KKK, incarceration, activism etc. (And the pictures and text are friendly enough that my 2 year old adores reading it too. There’s a lot of good food!)
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NEW KID is a graphic novel about a Black kid who goes to a mostly white prep school and the racism he encounters there. My 6 year old tore through it and now we’re talking about why teachers mixing up the two black kids in class, or assuming they play basketball, etc, is also racism, even though we’re decades past legal segregation. She didn’t automatically get it — and I realized, we’ve made the mistake of painting racism as Always Obviously Evil. This book is helping us talk about the nuances of microaggressions and why the “small stuff” isn’t actually small at all.
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Oh and in the second pic, you’ll see me putting into action one of my favorite tips from my @parents piece on raising readers: If your child resists being read to, switch to “side by side” reading. Still a shared experience, and I get to read my own book and call it good parenting? I’m in.
#virginiaisreading #antiracistkidsbooks #diversityandinclusion #summerreading #raisingreaders

If you’ve followed me here for a minute, you kno

I know a lot of us are already obsessing over what $I know a lot of us are already obsessing over what the next school year will look like for our kids. But for hungry families, the crisis is how to feed their kids right now. _ Because this summer — thanks to the pandemic, rising unemployment, and a myriad of loopholes in our social safety nets — is especially hard. And underpinning all of those challenges is the pervasive stigma against poor families (especially poor BIPOC families) who need help. _ Please read my latest for @nytparenting. And donate to your local food pantries — but know that the root causes of these issues go far beyond emergency relief efforts. _ Thanks to @clasp_dc @fracgram @corbinslegacy @ymcadetroit and all the parents and caregivers who offered insights into the struggle right now. - Read the piece here or swipe up in my Stories: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/parenting/free-summer-meal-programs-snap-wic-children.html?searchResultPosition=1 _ #childhoodhungerawareness #foodinsecurity #summerfoodprogram #parkergilkesson #nohungrykids #hunger #poverty #endpoverty #schoollunch #emergencyfood #blm #blackchildrenmatter$

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Virginia Sole-Smith