It was 17 years ago that co-founders Dana Sturtevant and Hilary Kinavey met, not really knowing each other or much about the work they wanted to do beyond a deep craving for new language and a far more real and healing conversation about bodies, eating disorders, fatness and food.
We knew our “professional” training had inadequately prepared us and lived experience, ours and the people we met, informed the necessity of something different.
The naming of our business happened in the early days of our work together, when we needed a new practice site after the clinic we housed our practices in imploded. We had been offering a group together called Making Peace with Your Body, and appreciated how our backgrounds complemented one another, along with our facilitation styles.
What we were creating didn’t have a shape or a deep analysis yet. We just knew we were disillusioned with the dominant weight paradigm and wanted to offer people something far more nourishing of their entire being.
We liked the multi-meaning of the word “nourish” at the time, so we went with the active phrase Be Nourished because the domain was available (!). It worked, it fit, and we used it for a long, long time.
Our work has been unfolding since a time before social media, before the Health at Every Size (HAES) and Body Positive movements became what they are today, flaws and all. Over the years, our framework has taken on an increasingly systemic focus.
The things we have learned and unlearned along the way changed us and grew us into the people and clinicians we are today. And we continue to grow and change. There is no other way forward.
As time has gone on, the name Be Nourished feels less descriptive of our work and less relevant and we’ve decided it is time to let it go. In 2009, we began to use the term Body Trust as a guiding idea or practice to center our work and programming.
We eventually trademarked this name to prevent the weight loss and cosmetic fitness industries from co-opting the term for their own use.
Body Trust is a descriptive name of a healing process after trust has been ruptured. Body Trust also speaks to an ongoing investigation of the necessity of body sovereignty and how, in our systems, institutions and practices, bodies are not trusted.
Next week, we will be changing our business name to the Center for Body Trust. We will continue to do the same work with increasing clarity about who we are and what we are here for. A new logo and website will accompany this change.
We will continue on as we have, learning and unlearning with you and advocating for a more equitable, healing and just world for every body.
More details to come!
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