Anne Poirier is the leader of the Body Joyful Revolution, helping women to embrace body neutrality and defy the angst that comes with the pursuit of the conventional and idealized body type. After decades of going on and off diets, gaining and losing weight and struggling with an eating disorder Anne finally had enough.
“I was tired of trying to fit into a societal ideal that just didn’t fit my body shape,” Anne explained. “My struggle was compounded by anxiety, depression, isolation, negative self-talk, and missed memories and opportunities. When I made the decision never to diet again and began healing from my eating disorder, I ended up going back to school in a graduate program for eating disorders, went to therapy to learn tools to combat the negative body image and critical self-talk.”
Following her personal transformation, Anne published the self help book, The Body Joyful, and created a platform called Shaping Perspectives. Both initiatives guide women to develop a foundational acceptance for their bodies. Anne hopes that her mission to reduce bullying, body-shaming, weight-stigma and eating disorders by encouraging women to embrace body neutrality will create role models for the next generation of women. In addition, she is also aiming to deter 8–12-year-olds from developing the negative self image that may lead to mental destruction while also bringing awareness to the harms of bullying and body shaming.
Abbe, a former client, suffered from years of binge eating, and negative body image. She was always beating herself up verbally and was depressed, finding it hard to be the mom she wanted to be. She spent 95% of her day thinking about what she could and couldn’t eat, beating herself up for what she did eat, and always looking for the next fad diet.
“As she shifted her perspective on food and her body, and began cultivating more compassion, Anne noticed a profound transformation in her overall well-being. Food and eating were no longer the enemy and consumed all her time,” she shared. “She started to go out to watch her kids play on their teams again, her depression lifted, and she began to role model a whole new relationship with food as well as exercise. She embraced joyful movement, intuitive eating, and compassionate self-talk and self-care. I knew she was a different person when she told me, ‘I realized I couldn’t hate myself thin.'”
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