GLP-1 medications are changing how people experience food. What no one is telling you is they may also be changing how people experience everything else.

In this episode I sit down with Olivia Palmer, chartered health psychologist and behavioral science specialist, to look at what these drugs are actually doing to the brain. Not the metabolic picture — the psychological one. We get into anhedonia, the flattening of the reward system, and what happens when the drive that was dampened for food also dampens motivation, connection, and the desire to pursue a meaningful life.

Olivia also challenges one of the most common arguments circulating right now: that GLP-1 can serve as a behavioral kickstart that makes lasting health change easier. Her read of the behavioral science says otherwise.

In this episode:

• What anhedonia is and how GLP-1 interacts with the brain's reward circuitry
• Why the reward dampening effect is not selective to food
• What behavioral science says about building health behaviors while biology is altered
• The gap in research — and why no one is asking the right questions
• What to actually focus on for sustainable health behavior change, with or without GLP-1

Mentioned in the show:

Beyond GLP-1 Expert Podcast Series: https://program.stephaniedodier.com/beyond-glp-1

Website-Olivia Palmer: http://oliviapalmer.co.uk

Olivia Palmer Substack: https://substack.com/@oliviapalmerhealth

Instagram - Olivia Palmer: https://www.instagram.com/oliviapalmerhealth/

Coach Corner Vault: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/coach-corner/

Non-Diet Client Assessment Tool: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/clientassessment

Non-Diet Coaching Certification Waitlist: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/non-diet-coaching-certification/

Groundwork Waitlist: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/groundwork

The Ozempic era did not create weight stigma. It just showed us how shallow the acceptance always was.

Dr. Angela Meadows is a social psychologist, weight stigma researcher, and founder of the International Weight Stigma Conference. She has spent her career studying how weight stigma operates at the individual, relational, and systemic level. In this conversation, she brings her research lens directly to the GLP-1 moment.

This is the conversation mainstream health is not having.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Social identity theory — why the GLP-1 era exposed what body positivity was always missing
• What weight stigma actually is at the structural level, and why interpersonal niceness cannot fix a systemic problem
• The public health data on GLP-1 that is buried in supplementary materials and not being read
• How medicalized weight stigma is shifting — and why refusing GLP-1 is becoming its own form of clinical target
• Whether it is possible to live in this culture and not internalize weight stigma, and what intentional protection requires

Mentioned in the show:

Beyond GLP-1 Expert Podcast Series: https://program.stephaniedodier.com/beyond-glp-1

International Weight Stigma Conference: https://weightstigmaconference.com/

GLP-1 Informed Consent Resource — Size Inclusive Medicine: https://sizeinclusivemedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/MSSI-GLP1-Informed-Consent-1-1.pdf

Related episode — Beyond GLP-1 with Ragen Chastain: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/episodes/glp-1-science-research-weight-loss/

Coach Corner Vault: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/coach-corner/

Non-Diet Client Assessment Tool: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/clientassessment

Non-Diet Coaching Certification Waitlist: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/non-diet-coaching-certification/

Groundwork Waitlist: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/groundwork

GLP-1 medications are being prescribed with no eating disorder screening and no monitoring. What could go wrong? According to eating disorder specialist and registered dietitian Marci Evans, quite a lot.

Marci has spent her career at the intersection of body image and eating disorder care. In this conversation, she shares what she is actually seeing in her clinical practice and why it frightens her.

What you will learn in this episode:

• Why weight loss does not reliably improve body image, even for people who want it
• How GLP-1 medications can fuel and accelerate existing eating disorder behaviors
• Why there is almost no research on GLP-1 and body image, and what that tells us
• What the absence of screening and monitoring means for eating disorder risk
• How weight-neutral practitioners can hold space for clients on GLP-1 without abandoning their clinical ethics

Beyond GLP-1 Expert Podcast Series: https://program.stephaniedodier.com/beyond-glp-1

Marci Evans Newsletter on her website: https://marcird.com/

Marci Evans on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcird/

Research — GLP-1 and body image: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40267815/

Research — GLP-1 and binge eating disorder: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11156433/

Coach Corner Vault: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/coach-corner/

Non-Diet Client Assessment Tool: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/clientassessment

Non-Diet Coaching Certification Waitlist: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/non-diet-coaching-certification/

Groundwork Waitlist: https://www.stephaniedodier.com/groundwork