Registered Dietitian Lee Cotton’s 'A Nourishing Perspective' Asks Us to Breakup with Diet Culture and Embrace Nutrition Culture
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
In a culture where A-listers and influencers are rapidly shrinking before our eyes and GLP1 and GLP2 medications are being handed out like Halloween candy, one voice has emerged to buck this trend. Registered Dietitian, television personality, and bestselling author Lee Cotton, RDN, LDN, doesn’t deny you your right to look and feel your best. She just wants you to take a closer look at your relationship with food, get curious about how, why, what and when you eat, and heal what may be broken.
Cotton’s book, A Nourishing Perspective, advocates for a shift in mindset from “diet” to “nutrition” and from self-punishment to self-examination and compassion.
Lee Cotton on Nutrition, Mindful Eating and Healing Your Relationship With Food
In her book A Nourishing Perspective: Reconnect with Your Inner Voice and Harmonize Your Relationship with Food (Amplify Publishing) Cotton brings forth evidence-backed information for optimal nutrition to support all stages of life. She delves into mindful eating practices and encourages readers to look at their individual social-emotional-culturally-driven connection with food. For example, what are the emotional triggers that motivate each of us to gravitate towards certain foods while avoiding others? What stimulates our appetite or suppresses it? What thoughts and feelings tend to come about before, during, and after a meal or snack?
Cotton’s Florida-based private practice specializes in treating individuals with disordered eating, eating disorders, and providing medical nutrition counseling. And in her book, she doesn’t shy away from sharing her own journey from disordered eating as a teen to healing her relationship with food and becoming a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist to counsel and guide her patients on their own path with, as she puts it, “making peace with your plate.” Her book is filled with catchy phrases that hold simple and clear wisdom. Her quote, “you are worthy of nourishment” encapsulates her book’s message and reframes the picture around our bodies and food in a purposeful way.
The beauty of this book lies in its ability to seamlessly incorporate science-backed nutrition information with anecdotal prose, and interactive self-reflective exercises with encouraging affirmations.
The book does educate readers about signs and symptoms, clears up some common misconceptions, explains treatment options for disordered eating and eating disorders, and includes recommendations for how to support and communicate with a loved one who is struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder.
Cotton’s guided interactive workbook exercises provide readers with self-reflective prompts, self-discovery techniques, affirmations, and practical applications they can use in their day-to-day lives. If you are looking to upgrade or reboot your relationship with food and enhance your nutritional knowledge, this is a worthy read.
“A Nourishing Perspective: Reconnect with Your Inner Voice and Harmonize Your Relationship with Food: by Lee Cotton, RDN, LDN, is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org and Walmart and other book retailers. Learn more at www.anourishingperspective.com and follow Lee on Instagram @leecottonnutrition.