What makes someone beautiful, and why does the standard keep shifting? Armand DiMele and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW are joined by health and beauty researcher Deborah Chase, who traces beauty ideals from ancient Greece to Twiggy, explains the science behind symmetry and skin care, and challenges the commercial beauty industry’s grip on how we see ourselves.
Body piercing is not about fashion but about reclaiming parts of yourself that were taken away in childhood. Armand DiMele and Stephanie Roth-Goldberg, LCSW, argue that each piercing site maps onto a specific loss: ears to being heard, lips to voice, eyes to perception, genitals to sexual autonomy, and the navel to maternal connection.
Fashion is never just fashion. Armand DiMele traces clothing choices from 7,500-year-old figurines to sagging jeans, arguing that what we wear signals identity, power, and rebellion, and that our snap judgments about others’ dress reveal uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Callers share their own stories.
Why did breasts become so central to human attraction? Armand and his co-host trace the evolutionary argument that breasts function as a permanent frontal fertility signal, then connect breast implants and body obsession to deeper anxieties about aging, control, and early maternal bonds.
Thinness is socially prized but psychologically understudied. Armand DiMele and nutritionist Roberta Maria dig into the BMI research linking low body weight to higher suicide risk and lower serotonin, then argue that extreme thinness is a ‘being disorder’ as much as an eating disorder, one that rarely gets the clinical attention it deserves.
Anorexia is not really about food but about control, perfectionism, and a refusal to grow up. Armand DiMele, joined by Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW and Christine Ulrich, traces how starvation becomes a way to freeze development, reject femininity, and rebel against family pressure without openly defying it.
Good-looking people get better parenting, higher grades, and lighter legal treatment. Armand and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, psychiatrist, examine how physical appearance shapes self-worth from infancy onward, why beautiful people face their own insecurities, and how body dysmorphic disorder keeps sufferers chasing fixes that never resolve the underlying wound.
What makes a desire toxic? Armand DiMele takes listener calls to explore how ordinary wants become compulsions, tracing the fears and suppressed anger underneath behaviors like compulsive exercise, procrastination, and the need to be desired. Co-host Deborah Hillman joins throughout.
