VOICES- Mortality as Medicine: Michelle Petties

Eating to Live or Eating to Die? A Food Addict’s Reflection on Memento Mori

Lent calls us to reflection, restraint, and renewal—yet in modern life, we often feast without thought, consuming what harms us as if it were a reward. In this conversation, Michelle Petties explores the paradox of our food system: how the things designed to sustain us have been engineered to shorten our lives. This session will challenge participants to confront the hidden costs of our modern food choices and equip them with the tools to eat with intention, awareness, and reverence for the fragile gift of life. Through storytelling and reflection and the lens of Memento Mori, we will examine how marketing, memory, and manufactured cravings trap us in cycles of consumption that erode both physical and spiritual well-being.

Michelle Petties is a TEDx speaker, Food Story coach, and author of the award-winning memoir Leaving Large: The Stories of a Food Addict. After years of excelling in media with brands like Radio One and Disney/ABC, Michelle struggled with emotional overeating and gained and lost over 700 pounds. She now conducts healing-through-reading-writing-and-storytelling workshops where she employs Prescriptive Writing and even poetry to teach individuals how to rewrite their emotional narratives around food, eating, hunger, and other behaviors.