Greetings!

You’re likely in the thick of it with back-to-school activities. But back-to-school isn’t just about packing lunches and adjusting to new schedules. It’s also a time when kids begin to hear harmful messages about food and bodies.

In this episode of Sunny Side Up Nutrition Podcast, we’re joined by Denise Hamburger, JD, founder and executive director of BE REAL USA, and Selena Salfen, MPH, RD, a public health dietitian working to shift systems toward size-inclusive, weight-neutral models of care.

Together, they share insights on BE REAL’s Let’s Eat curriculum, a nutrition program for middle and high school students that focuses on tuned-in eating teaching students to consider their body cues, nutritional needs, food preferences, and past eating experiences. The lessons are designed to be inclusive across cultures, neurodiverse learners, and varying economic backgrounds.

Click here to visit BE REAL USA, Let’s Eat

Key Takeaways

* Let's Eat is a new curriculum aimed at teaching nutrition without the influence of diet culture.

* The curriculum is free and accessible to all students and educators.

* Let's Eat encourages students to trust their bodies and make informed food choices.

* The curriculum includes cultural sensitivity and celebrates diverse food practices.

* A panel of 42 experts contributed to the development of Let's Eat.

* Educators can access Let's Eat through professional development training.

* BE REAL USA has ambassadors who are trained to deliver th.e curriculum

* Denise and Selena chat about their favorite foods.

Links to Resources Mentioned:

* BE REAL’s Let’s Eat Middle and High School Nutrition Curriculum

* BE REAL’s Body Kind High School Body Image Curriculum

* BE REAL’s Ambassador Program

* BE REAL’s Body Kind Peer-Led College Body Confidence Seminar

* National Alliance for Eating Disorders

* Lutz, Alexander & Associates Nutrition Therapy

* Pinney Davenport Nutrition, PLLC

More about Denise and Selena

Denise Hamburger, JD

Denise Hamburger, JD, is the founder and executive director of BE REAL USA, a nonprofit that imagines a world where every child can grow up with a healthy relationship to food and their body. In 2016, Denise created a professional development workshop for teachers called Body Confident Schools and has delivered this training to over 10,000 educators around the world. With over 250 conference, keynote, and school presentations, Denise has presented at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to the National Association of School Psychologists; at the Center for Disease Control to their Healthy Schools Division; at the United States Department of Agriculture to their Food and Nutrition Services Group; and to Amazon’s Body Positive Peers Employee Resource Group.

Denise co-developed Be Real’s BodyKind high school, body image curriculum with a team of international body image academics, psychologists and teachers. BodyKind is the first body image curriculum developed for all students. It includes the body image experiences of people of different races, ethnicities, sexualities, gender identities, physical and mental abilities, and body sizes. BodyKind was tested in an 1150-student Randomized Control Trial in Ireland in 2024, and the program has proven to increase to student Body Appreciation, Self-Compassion and Body Appreciation. These aspects are associated with better self-esteem and better mental health.

In 2025, Denise--with Ramsey County, MN Public Health--co-developed and launched a weight-neutral nutrition curriculum called Be Real’s Let’s Eat for middle school and high school students. Let’s Eat focuses on Tuned-in Eating, which teaches students to integrate their own body cues, day’s nutritional needs, food preferences and eating experiences into their eating patterns. Let’s Eat lessons are relevant across cultures, neurodiversity, and economic status.

Denise has a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School and was an environmental attorney in her first career. She co-wrote the legal treatise Pollution in the United Kingdom. Denise is an Anti-Bias, Antiracist Certified curriculum writer. She has spent the last 25 years involved in education nonprofits, including Chicago’s After School Matters.

Instagram: @berealusa

Website: www.berealusa.org

Selena Salfen, MPH, RD

Selena Salfen, MPH, RD (she/her) works on chronic disease prevention in local public health, focusing on sustainable policy, systems and environmental change. Much of her work involves transitioning public health and healthcare systems from weight-focused to size inclusive, weight neutral models of practice. She also presents to educators and school-based health clinics on why weight neutral, eating disorder-aware education is vital to improving and protecting student health.

Transcript

Elizabeth: Welcome to Sunny Side Up Nutrition, a podcast created by three moms striving to bring you evidence-based information to help support you and the children in your life.

Your hosts are Anna Lutz and me, Elizabeth Davenport, both registered dietitians, and Anna McKay, a dietitian-to-be and certified personal trainer.

Anna Lutz co-owns Lutz Alexander and Associates Nutrition Therapy in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I co-own Pinney Davenport Nutrition in the D.C. metro area. And Anna McKay is in the process of completing her dietetic internship.

Just a note that this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Thanks for being here.

In this episode, we're joined by two of the co-creators of the Be Real Let’s Eat curriculum: Denise Hamburger and Selena Salfen.

Elizabeth: Denise Hamburger, JD, is the founder and executive director of Be Real USA, a nonprofit that imagines a world where every child can grow up with a healthy relationship to food and their body.

In 2025, Denise—with Ramsey County, Minnesota Public Health—co-developed and launched a weight-neutral curriculum called Be Real’s Let’s Eat for middle school and high school students.

Elizabeth: Selena Salfen, MPH, RD (she/her), is a registered dietitian in public health. Much of her work involves transitioning public health and healthcare systems from weight-focused to size-inclusive, weight-neutral models of practice.

Denise and Selena are two of the many experts who came together to create the curriculum. It focuses on Tuned-in Eating, which teaches students to integrate their own body cues, nutritional needs, food preferences, and eating experiences into their eating patterns. Lessons are relevant across cultures, neurodiversity, and economic status.

Anna: Denise and Selena, we are so happy you're here. Welcome.

Multiple speakers: Great to be here. Thank you, thank you.

Anna: Let's jump in. To start us off, can you each tell us a bit about yourself and the work you do?

Denise: Thank you. I guess I'll start. I'm Denise Hamburger. I'm the founder and executive director of Be Real USA, a nonprofit that focuses on providing the highest quality resources on body image and eating disorder prevention for schools.

I've been talking to educators and parents for almost ten years now about how to create body-confident environments in schools and in homes. We have a presentation I've been giving for ten years called Body Confident Schools, which helps the adults in young people’s lives develop language and understanding that supports raising kids with body confidence.

This language and understanding is very different from what we get in diet culture. In the last five years, Be Real added a new piece to its mission: curriculum development. Teachers had been asking us for better resources on body image and nutrition, and we felt compelled to develop them ourselves.

Our high school body image curriculum, BodyKind,