Food Noise
I'm a weight-inclusive nutrition therapist, author and journalist who is super serious about helping people have a more peaceful, less complicated relationship with food and body. I also have a take-no-prisoners approach to nutrition and health B.S. in the media. Yep, it's gonna get loud, but I'll also bring you a lot of, "Whew...that's good to know."
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Are we healthier yet? What is ‘health,’ anyway?
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Are we healthier yet? What is 'health,' anyway" The column The Seattle Times wouldn't let me print October 14, 2025 Am I serious with that subheadline? Yes I am. I wrote this column for the October 19 edition of The Seattle Times, but was told that it was “opinion,” not “nutrition,” and that it was too political. While I do sort of get it (it is political, after all), but it’s also firmly within the realm of public health, which I do have a master’s degree in…...
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Friday Food Noise Links + Recommendations
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Friday Food Noise Links + Recommendations Including what I'm reading and watching October 10, 2025 Happy Friday! It's really, really fall. We've had nice days but some cold night here. Yesterday, I went down to my community garden and saw the effects of microclimates in action: in one of my plots, my nasturtiums and pepper and tomato plants I hadn't pulled had gone limp, but in my other plot my nasturtiums, tomatoes and even basil were still perky. As I'm doing...
Myth Busting: Does eating at night cause weight gain?
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Myth Busting: Does eating at night cause weight gain? Taking a nuanced look at the research October 7, 2025 “Don’t eat after 7 p.m.,” “Close the kitchen after dinner.” This advice is so frequently repeated (typically directed at people who are trying to lose weight or avoid gaining weight) that it’s taken on a veneer of truth and common sense. Even among my patients who have put the pursuit of weight loss behind them (or are working on it), the idea of avoiding...
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Real Simple is Real Stupid
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Real Simple is Real Stupid What's "scrambled" is their online reporting October 3, 2025 Earlier this week, I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about for today’s media post. There just weren’t any good examples of bad nutrition and health writing in the major media outlets. Then yesterday, my topic was delivered to me, tied up with a big bow. The best way to start would be for you to read this article on the Real Simple website, “Junk Food Might Be Quietly...
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Are diets really good for disordered eating?
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Are diets REALLY good for disordered eating? What a recent study says, and doesn't say September 30, 2025 I probably don’t need to tell you that dieting is a potential trigger for, if not full-blown eating disorders, then disordered eating. In fact, so many Americans restrict calories, macros or points every year in the name of pursuing intentional weight loss that dieting has been called a national eating disorder. Does everyone who diets develop an eating...
Know Better, Do Better: Are you really what you eat?
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Know Better, Do Better: Are you really what you eat? Let's take a look while I snark at myself September 23, 2025 This post is part of my “Know Better, Do Better” series, in which I revisit an old blog post that makes me cringe because my thinking has evolved substantially since I wrote it. The text of the original post is in italics, with my somewhat snarky current notes in plain text. Note: I wrote the original post in April 2012, when I was in grad school to...
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Friday Food Noise Links + Recommendations
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Friday Food Noise Links + Recommendations Including what I'm reading and watching September 5, 2025 Happy Friday! This week was another bananas week (I fear I'm developing a theme, here). I don't think I have specifically mentioned this yet, but a few months ago I contracted with a virtual intensive outpatient program (IOP) for people who need more than just a weekly visit with a dietitian and a therapist. The program started by offering care to teens with...
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Lifestyle instability, ‘ob*sity’ and health
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Lifestyle instability, 'ob*sity' and health A tale of two research papers and four idiots September 16, 2025 One of the predominant messages in both public health and medicine regarding the “ob*sity epidemic” is that it could be prevented or reversed if people would simply eat a little less and move a little more. That “eat less move more” idea, which falsely reduces complex living creatures to physics problems, was taken to task by a recent research perspective...
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Nutrition news is a hot mess...
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett Nutrition news is a hot mess But the major media outlets aren't to blame September 12, 2025 Happy Friday! Today I was supposed to write a media critique post, but when I went looking at recent media coverage of nutrition and health over the past week or two, I didn't want to critique any of it. Everything was either basic reporting on topics that were pretty neutral and worthy of neither praise nor critique, or they were reporting on the dumpster fire that is...
‘I’ll never be able to change’
Food Noise from Carrie Dennett 'I'll never be able to change' And other lies we tell ourselves September 9, 2025 “I’ll never be able to change.” I hear those words all the time from clients. Maybe you’ve said (or thought) them yourself. The reality is that people change all the time. We’re constantly changing, whether we know it or not. That’s because everything changes, and nothing is permanent. Emotions pass, our cells turnover, the seasons shift, the plants in your garden grow. To be alive...
I'm a weight-inclusive nutrition therapist, author and journalist who is super serious about helping people have a more peaceful, less complicated relationship with food and body. I also have a take-no-prisoners approach to nutrition and health B.S. in the media. Yep, it's gonna get loud, but I'll also bring you a lot of, "Whew...that's good to know."