We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Debbie Saroufim a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Debbie , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the story behind how you got your first job in field that you currently practice in.

I wouldn’t say I created my career. I would say I discovered it, or maybe it discovered me.

I grew up hating my body. My mother also hated hers, as did her mother before her. And that’s what got me into personal training, where I found myself before coaching. I liked having a job that helped women feel better about their bodies. Although I kept thinking what I was doing wasn’t really helping. Everyone who worked with me had a laundry list of body parts they’d like to see improve. Personally I couldn’t see what they didn’t like, they all looked great to me. But also, I had a laundry list of body parts I hated, and I was their trainer. So maybe the workouts weren’t the answer?

As a personal trainer, I experienced first hand how body image has nothing to do with what our bodies look like. The way we feel about our bodies, it’s learned. What’s more, it’s reinforced by our culture time and time again.

Diet culture is the moralization of self care, and a belief in the mythology that if you are taking care of yourself “correctly” your body will comply and look a certain way. If we are moralizing people’s looks, it’s no wonder we’re always looking to “fix” our flaws. Our value as a human depends on it.

I knew I needed to pursue something different, but I had no idea what ‘different’ was. My career was born out of my recovery and pursuit of body liberation.

Debbie , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a Body Acceptance Coach. I help people of all sizes make peace with their body and build up their immunity to diet culture. I work with schools to help implement a Body Neutral, Eating Disorder Preventative approach to health education. And I’m also the author of Fat And Beautiful: A book about why you can be both.

The thing is, I wanted my kids to never experience the feelings my mom and I had about our bodies. But I didn’t have much of a plan to avoid it other than crossing my fingers and hoping for the best (which was exactly what my mom had done, and look how great that turned out).

My mom’s method of raising kids who liked their body had failed miserably. I took my mother’s lead and developed an eating disorder. Fortunately, I found recovery. But I still couldn’t say I loved myself. And I still spent a great deal of time trying to “work” my body into what I thought it “should” be. But why should a body be any one way, anyway?

As a mom, the only chance I had at my kids not heading down the same path of self hate was to attack the problem from its roots. And like I said, body image has nothing to do with what a body looks like. It’s a cultural issue. I created a career around making lasting changes in the way we relate to our bodies. I created it because without this career, I would have spent my whole life hating my body, and would have sentenced my kids to the same fate. That’s when I started coaching. My coaching became a workshop, which evolved into a group coaching space.

In the meantime, as early as preschool, my kids started coming home with complaints that teachers and friends had made comments about their lunch, or judgments on body types. The book and school program were the natural evolution of responding to those issues.

My work started as a career, but has become activism, anti-racism, and body liberation. And it will continue to evolve as our culture pushes forward.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

If I could go back I would 100% pick the same profession. My career has been my recovery and I only wish it happened sooner. But I think if I could go back, I would remind myself that Body Acceptance Coach can manifest in millions of ways. I think I lost a bit of time wrapping my head around the fact that within my career I could work with not just individuals, but groups, schools, I could write books. If I could go back, I’d do my best not to be limited by what I imagine my work is capable of, and to run even more in the direction that it points me.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Other than knowledge or training, I’d say grit is a big piece of success in my field. As an anti-diet culture, fat-positive, body liberationist, you’re gonna bump up against opposing voices and opinions. You need to be comfortable enough sitting in the discomfort of not aligning with others, to push forward for your cause and message.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thebodyacceptancecoach.com
• Instagram: @bodyacceptance_coach
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DebbieTheBodyRelationshipCoach
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CX6QL883?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520