Peer SUPPORT
FOOD • BODY • HEALING
So, what exactly is Peer Support?
Peer support isn’t a replacement for therapy or treatment. It’s something different: a space for honest conversation, shared understanding, and those “Oh, you too?” moments. It's connecting with someone who understands the complicated relationship with food, body image, and recovery—not because they studied it in a textbook, but because they’ve lived it too.
Treatment programs are increasingly recognizing the value of peer support and incorporating it into their models of care. With so much swirling around appetite-suppressing medications & weight in the current culture, many people are finding their relationship with food and their bodies shakier than before—sometimes for the first time, sometimes all over again. Talking with someone who’s been through that struggle—and found their way to the other side—can help you make peace with food and your body.
Hi, I'm Oxana
I’m an eating disorder recovery advocate, public speaker, peer support group facilitator, and someone who knows firsthand that freedom around food—and feeling at home in your own body—is possible.
For over a decade, an eating disorder consumed so much of my life. After I recovered, I found purpose in what I had been through—sharing my story, having honest conversations about eating disorders, body image, and recovery, and helping other women feel a little less alone and a lot more hopeful about what’s possible for them.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve had the opportunity to speak at events across Minnesota and Iowa, sharing my recovery story and helping bring conversations about eating disorders out of the shadows. Along the way, I’ve served on the Board of Directors of the Eating Disorder Coalition of Iowa and spoken with organizations including the University of Iowa, the National Eating Disorders Association, and the Chrysalis Foundation.
Since 2023, I’ve also facilitated a monthly peer support circle for women healing their relationships with food and their bodies. We get together, talk about what’s really going on, listen to one another, laugh, sometimes cry, and simply witness each other’s humanness. (Let's be honest, being human is a pretty messy experience!)
I believe healing is about so much more than letting go of harmful behaviors. It’s about learning to trust your own voice. Questioning the beliefs and expectations that have kept you stuck. Rediscovering who you are underneath all the “shoulds.” And, little by little, creating a life that feels genuinely, unmistakably yours.
I’m not a clinician, and I don’t diagnose or prescribe treatment. What I can offer is a compassionate, judgment-free space to be heard and the perspective that comes from lived experience.
I don’t believe we’re meant to spend our lives at war with food or our bodies. Freedom from that struggle creates space—headspace, heart space, energy—to be present for the people and experiences that matter to us, pursue what lights us up, and show up more fully for our own lives.
And right now—with everything going on in the world—we need to be in our full power more than ever.
I love creating spaces for those “light bulb” moments—when something JUST clicks, a new perspective opens up, and we begin to relate to ourselves, our bodies, and our lives in a new way.