Rachel Millner, Psy.D.

Rachel Millner, Psy.D. Dr. Millner is a licensed psychologist and Certified Eating Disorder Specialist who works with people struggling with food and body issues.

It is hard to heal from an eat!ng d!sorder in a disordered culture. If we want to make a dent in the rates of Ed’s and i...
06/05/2026

It is hard to heal from an eat!ng d!sorder in a disordered culture. If we want to make a dent in the rates of Ed’s and in eat!ng d!sorder prevention, we need fat liberation.
Healing from an ED and fat liberation are not separate. Eat!ng d!sorder advocacy that doesn’t include advocating for fat liberation isn’t going to have as much of an impact.
To be clear, this doesn’t just mean including fat people with Ed’s in your advocacy or advocating for treatment that is free of anti-fat bias, although please do those things too.
This is about fat liberation- advocating for a world in which people in all sizes bodies, including those in the fattest bodies, can exist free from oppression and stigma.
This is about advocating for a world that is built for people in all body sizes. Healthcare that is free from anti-fat bias.
One of the most powerful and impactful things we can do to prevent eat!ng d!sorders is to create a world in which it is safe to be fat.
If you care about people healing from eat!ng d!sorders, you need to also care about fat liberation. If you care about preventing Ed’s, you need to care about fat liberation. If you care about making Ed treatment more effective, you need to care about fat liberation.
Eat!ng d!sorder activism can’t leave fat activism out and expect to be successful or have a significant impact.
Decreasing and preventing Ed’s is dependent on fat liberation.

Image description: there is a pale pink and blue design around the edges with text in the middle that says: E@ting d!sorder advocacy and fat activism are (or need to be)
deeply connected. We won’t see a significant reduction in the number of people with eat!ng d!sorders until we see significant progress towards fat liberation. A commitment to fat liberation needs to be a part of all eat!ng a.sorder prevention and advocacy.

06/03/2026

The amount of money the weight loss industry spends trying to eradicate fat people is staggering. And they only spend it because they make back even more.
Today is eat!ng d!sorder action day and I can’t help but imagine how quickly we could eradicate Ed’s if we had just a fraction of their money.
But the weight loss industry only spends the money they do to earn even more back. There’s no goodness or altruism in their hearts.
Spending that money to eradicate Ed’s would save lives. Lots of them. But it wouldn’t earn the pharmaceutical companies any money.
And a for profit healthcare system, capitalism, patriarchy, fascism, misogyny, don’t actually care about saving lives.
But the truth is that fat lives and the lives of people with Ed’s are deeply connected. Not because fat people also have Ed’s, although they do.
But because we can’t eradicate Ed’s without eradicating anti-fat bias. So we may not have the money of the weight loss industry, but eat!ng d!sorder action day is not only a time to take action against Ed’s, but to take action against the weight loss industry and anti-fat bias.

This is a different kind of topic for me. In some ways it feels more vulnerable than what I often post about. It’s somet...
05/29/2026

This is a different kind of topic for me. In some ways it feels more vulnerable than what I often post about. It’s something that’s been on my mind for a while now and I’ve been thinking about the best way to write/talk about it.
I am sure I’m not alone in my frustration and anger. And I also know that one way to contribute to change is to keep speaking up and putting myself out there.
Let me know if this piece resonates with you. The full essay is at the link in my bio. If you find it helpful, please feel free to share.
Image description: there are a series of slides that are pictures of an essay I wrote.
On Being a Fat Therapist Who Wants Media Attention
Do you have to sell your soul as a fat therapist who wants media attention, public speaking opportunities, talk show invites, publicity, etc.?
This is a different kind of post for me, and I’ll be honest — it’s coming from a place of frustration, with some vulnerability thrown in. I have been a therapist for more than 20 years, and | love it. It is an honor and a privilege when clients trust me, and I can’t imagine not doing this work.
And yet, as I have evolved - in my own healing, in my activism, in my willingness to take up space — I find myself wanting more. More visibility. More media attention. More public speaking. More writing. And yes, more possibility of becoming a Peloton instructor.
(Continued in comments)

05/26/2026

I can’t be the only one who feels this way about accounts that are typically men who used to be fat and now are not, responding either to fat phobic comments on a fat persons post, reassuring the fat person about how great what they are doing is, or responding to videos of people spewing anti-fat bias.
If you find these accounts helpful, that’s great. I’m so glad! And for sure I would rather accounts like this than ones that are perpetuating anti-fat bias.
But I still find these accounts to be so condescending and I get so annoyed by them.
I think there’s something about these men speaking seemingly on behalf of fat people or saying how great a fat person is for just doing regular things- as if doing anything while fat is miraculous, that just feels really gross to me.
I hope these men are getting consent before posting this content, and if they are, that changes how I feel about them.
But if they aren’t, I just find them really condescending and patronizing.
Do you know the type of accounts I’m talking about? How do you feel about them? Do you find them helpful or do you feel more like I do? Let me know in the comments!

Sending love and care to everyone who never got to experience clothes shopping as a kid that was free from shame and jud...
05/25/2026

Sending love and care to everyone who never got to experience clothes shopping as a kid that was free from shame and judgment. Your body was never the problem ❤️
Image description: there are seven slides. The first six have a picture of me covered by a text box. You can see my head. The last picture is a picture of me and you can see my whole body including my pants from
Text says:
I took one of my kids clothes shopping today. I am always aware of how different my kids experience is than mine was. And I often feel sad thinking of myself as a kid and how I missed out on knowing what it feels like to go shopping when body size is treated neutrally.
As a kid, I never got the chance to explore style or fashion or what I liked. It was clear that I could only wear what others deemed
“flattering” and that what they really meant was thinner. Clothes were picked based on what I was told made me look smaller and had nothing to do with what I liked.
I feel sad for my younger self when I see kids shopping now who seem to be having a good time trying on different things or asking their adult to grab a different size seemingly without shame. And my kids can do the same- pick out what they like, ask me to grab a different size and know I’m not judging them, and l am so happy I can give that to them. And I grieve for what I missed out on.
And I carried what I was taught about clothes and my body well into adulthood. Even as my body has changed and has been all different sizes, I still had the internalized belief that I was supposed to pick clothes based on what size my body might look in those clothes. That certain styles could only be worn by people in certain bodies.
The thing about grief is that we can’t go back. I will never know what it feels like to go clothes shopping as a kid without my body being evaluated and judged and my clothing being dictated by weight stigma.
And, the thing about healing is we get to have different experiences now. I now know what it’s like to buy clothes that I’m drawn to, having nothing to do with body size or some cultural idea about what types of clothes different bodies are
“supposed” to wear.
(Continued in comments)

05/24/2026

So many people are afraid of fatness. And when we look at all of the anti-fat bias around us, I can understand why.
But I don’t think that’s the only reason people are afraid. So often it seems like people have this idea that fat people are living lives that are totally different than theirs.
It’s almost as if people think if they get fat their lives will suddenly change dramatically. Like they’ll become an alien.
And life might change if you’re dealing with more weight stigma or more barriers in accessibility. But it will not change in the ways people seem to think it will.
So today, I am taking you with me as I live my full fat life to show you that there truly is nothing to be afraid of. Living life hungry and trying to be small is scary. Fatness is not.
I’ll warn you that it’s a pretty boring day. Soccer and grocery shopping and dog walking and just living my life. The same things I would be doing if I were thin.
Everybody’s day to day life is different obviously, but being fat doesn’t suddenly mean your particular life will look totally different.
As I was editing the video, I realized that I didn’t record meals and snacks because I was distracted living my life and forgot to stop and record. But multiple meals and snacks happened throughout the day as well.
And as part of that, so did connecting with my kids, experiencing pleasure, chatting with some soccer friends and eating while watching tv.
It feels a bit strange to post my day but hopefully this will be a reminder to anyone afraid of fatness, that life will keep going even if you get fat. In fact it might even get better.

05/22/2026

I am exhausted by companies preying on perimenopausal, menopausal and post-menopausal people. There are so many products that they just slap that group of people into the marketing or on the label and then jack up the price.
In addition to that, when will companies realize that XS-XL does not fit most? It’s ridiculous that any company still thinks it does. Or they know it doesn’t but just don’t want fat people using their product. 🙄

05/21/2026

I came across this clip of talking about the potential “badness” of GLP-1s that we won’t really know about until 5-10years down the road.
It is honestly refreshing to see a weight centric provider acknowledging how much we don’t know about the potential harm of GLP-1’s for intentional weight loss.
And if we are naming harm, we need to name who is being harmed, which is fat people. The way it’s talked about in this clip is essentially a 5-10 year experiment on fat people’s lives without ever explicitly naming it is fat people who will be harmed.
And the clip mentions that there are providers who are having conversations with their patients about muscle loss and risks associated with the medications, but I can tell you the vast majority of providers are not.
The vast majority of providers are so focused on the possibility of weight loss that they don’t discuss any potential risks or harm. They don’t give any advice or guidance about what to eat or about movement.
Please let’s not act like the “badness” that mentions is not badness that might impact an unknown group of people. It’s badness that will impact fat people. It’s badness that is willing to put fat people’s lives in danger to see if they’ll become thin people.
And, I can predict that this is a set up to blame fat people when the “badness” occurs. Just like with so many other things in healthcare, I am sure the way the GLP-1 people will spin it is: “fat people didn’t eat enough protein or lift heavy enough weights so the bad outcomes are their fault.”
Sound is down on the clip in case you want to hear my commentary but not be exposed to the clip itself. If you do want to know what she said, read the captioning on her clip.
Fat people deserve better. Stop experimenting on our bodies and with our lives.

Yesterday I spent part of the day recording two short talks for . One was on the psychology of burnout and the other wa...
05/19/2026

Yesterday I spent part of the day recording two short talks for .
One was on the psychology of burnout and the other was on taking up space as a woman.
Both topics felt particularly relevant. I don’t think I know anyone who’s not burnt out right now.
The topic of taking up space as a woman felt particularly powerful for me as I reflected on being on camera with a lot of lights and attention on me. And that when my body took up less space, I never would have agreed to do something like this.
We are taught that taking up less physical space (in addition to less emotional space) is what will give us confidence or make us feel better about ourselves. But when I took up less physical space, I was obsessing about my body all of the time and so afraid of what people would think, that I avoided being seen as much as possible.
Now my body takes up more physical space and I feel so much freer. And have a voice and am fine with being seen.
None of this is to say it’s easy or happened quickly or that this will be everyone’s story, but it is mine. And I know a lot of people who have had similar experiences.
It’s a good reminder that the culture has done a number on all of us and that we have been sold a lot of lies.
Anyway, thanks for having me. I hope both talks are helpful for people.

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