Whitworth students Kendra Guttridge and Emma Moore are promoting conversations about maintaining healthy relationships between ourselves and food through their new club, Embodied.
Guttridge elaborated on her goals for the club and the valuable resources it can provide to students. “Embodied is a chance to meet with people who are struggling with their relationships with their food and their bodies, and we want to bring Jesus’ healing into those spaces,” she said. “We meet once a week and we try to combat the lies of diet culture and insecurity.”
She went on to emphasize the importance of supporting college students specifically. “College honestly is a place where eating disorders and disordered eating in general peaks because all of a sudden, people are away from their parents,” she said. “They’re making independent choices about their meals and their food, and there’s just a lot of societal pressure to all coming to college”.
Guttridge and Moore designed a specific curriculum that Embodied will follow. Each week, they will present a common lie that is often told about body image, and then spend focused group time on the real truths of the matter as revealed through Christ.
Some topics include the supposed moral value of food being “good” or “bad,” as well as stigmas around self-discipline and food, which often lead to body shaming. Guttridge stated, “We try to reverse these kinds of narratives that we hold so easily in our culture and take for granted as true, without questioning.”
Guttridge believes it is crucial that people wrestle with these lies in the context of a community. “Emma and I decided to lead this club because we both walked through our own journeys of eating disorders and have realized how important it is to have [a] community in that,” she said.
Embodied meets every Monday from 4-5 p.m. in the Seely G. Mudd Chapel conference room.
For more information about Embodied, visit the group’s Instagram page, @embodiedwhitworth, where Guttridge and Moore post helpful resources. Guttridge also urged students to seek support from the counseling center if they’re struggling with their mental health.
To schedule an appointment with the counseling center, contact 509.777.3259 and press 2, or go to Schumacher Hall in person. For 24/7 mental health access, dial 509.777.3259 and press 1.
