Episode 147 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast episode 147. One of you want to support a fat person to lose weight? Let's do it.

Hello, and welcome to this episode. Nice to see you. Thanks for being here. So this episode is for is for everyone. But specifically this episode is for people who are fat or who are pursuing intuitive eating or Health at Every Size or adjust, you know, living living life as a fat person. And they have someone who is in their life who is worried about the fact that they are fat, is worried about the fact that they have are not losing weight. And this is to play for them. Okay, so this episode is for the person who is concerned about a loved one concern because they are fat, and are concerned about their health, and has hopes that their loved one will lose weight. Everyone can listen to it. I mean, you probably want to the fat people probably want to listen to it just to make sure I don't you know, don't know what I might say, but I know what I'm gonna say. But feel free to listen to it. Even if you're not someone who's telling someone to lose weight is probably going to be quite cathartic, right, it's probably going to hear hear the things that you wish that you would have heard or someone would say to someone that loves you or who is who was concerned about you. So, I've been I've been thinking about this episode for a long time for a really long time. And I keep putting it off because I'm worried that it's going to be imperfect. And the thing is, it is going to be imperfect you know, I'm so I'm so concerned about this might be the only chance that I have with folks who are not currently fat positive. And I want to make it so impactful and so informative and make it understandable so that something good comes out of this right and I realized that this can't be perfect. This is not going to be the perfect response to all of the questions that you might have as someone who loves a fat person and he's concerned about it. And there's going to be this like what if situations but I thought about all of the common things that I hear from people who I'm working with who say but what about this, but what about that, but what about blah blah blah and answer those things for you. Okay, and as well as thinking about this like why do I want to be to be perfect? Well, because I was thinking it's because what if someone is listening in bad faith? What if someone is listening to say like fuck you Vinnie. You're a piece of shit. And kind of picking apart every single word that I use type of thing. And you know what, that the episode is not for those people but not for people who are not listening in in good faith and open to hearing a different perspective. And so really, I'm I'm talking to people who genuinely care about fat folks and love them and want what's best for them right? Not for people who are like I hate fat people and nothing that is nothing that you say is going to change that if that's you then I mean then I don't know Yeah, this is well yeah, maybe maybe you might have your mind change probably not but this is for people who are listening in good faith. All right, so I started thinking about this episode because I came across a Am I an asshole on post on Reddit? If you're not familiar with it, it will normally start a i t a Am I the asshole right and so the am I an asshole so that person will ask them read it. What do you think? What does everyone think? And then people will say I think you are an asshole. I think nobody everyone sucks here or nobody is an asshole or something else. And this is a post stuff that I read, I'm gonna read out to you. And by the way for those who are listening who are fat, I'm going to be using the old words during this and I might be mentioning some some weight, or you know, pounds and things like that. I will just a heads up if that's I'm going to be taking out as much as I can but I want to some people might not understand our fat, you know, our in fat language type of thing. Okay, so this is a post, which has since been deleted, but I'll leave I'll leave a link on for the there's a there's a what is it called Wayback Machine Time Machine Wayback Machine, you can go back to old Reddit posts that have been deleted in case you ever wanted to know that you can do that. So I'm 26. I'm 27 years old, and I have a girlfriend of six years who I live with. When we first got together. She had an athletic body and all that changed the past couple of years when she got promoted, and started working longer hours. She started smoking weed every night claiming that his it helped her relax after a hard day's work. She also started eating like shit. She's about 19 pounds heavier than when we first met on on her five to frame it definitely shows. After ignoring or ignoring my subtle hints for the last year, I finally sat her down last month, and said enough is enough. She needs to make an effort to get healthy. She agreed that and she agreed and asked me to help since I'm in great shape shape myself. I did everything to support her in losing weight I paid for an expensive supplement program. I woke up early in the morning and repaired her healthy lunches so she could take to work. And when she got home from work, I had a healthy dinner prepared on the table. I added her to my gym plan and even bought her a road bicycle. Today I borrowed her car and found fast food wrappers everywhere, along with receipts of recent purchases. This led me to check our joint bank account and I saw she's been picking up fast food every day since we've had that discussion about her getting healthy. Not only that she that she also was buying fast food during work suggesting that she has been thrown away the meals I have prepared. This really pissed me off, I confronted her. And she started crying and took accountability for her lack of discipline, discipline. I was telling my girlfriend's sister about this ordeal, and she said I was being controlling and an asshole. But from my perspective, I think we just want her to be healthy. I think I went above and beyond in my approach and how I dealt with this being five two and gaining 19 pounds of fat rapidly. And she's only getting heavier. She's she's setting herself up for heart disease, diabetes, and could cause issues to her knees. Also, we don't even have kids yet. So to be gaining this type of weight so rapidly is definitely concerning to me for her health. Okay, so I read that and I was like, I really wish that I could have a one on one conversation with this person. And now this might sound like this might sound like you, this might be your situation. Or you could say oh, I'd never be so mean as to do what this person has done. I am just worried about my loved ones health. And I just say I'm worried about your health. And I think you should lose weight, or I'm not quite on board with this whole, whatever they're doing. And so this might be very similar to you or B can might be completely different. But I thought this was a good starting point for talking about what has gone wrong here. And what maybe could happen in this situation, what should have happened in this situation. Okay, so the first thing to know, it's very well established that intentional weight loss diets. So any type of intentional weight loss, whether that be through a fad diet, or through something that's quote, kind of sensible or reasonable, something that structured something that's well established or something that's like, you know, drink this tea to shut your pants. That's all called intentional weight loss. All forms of intentional weight loss don't work in the long term. So you might have seen in, in life, depending on how long you've been alive, that people go on diets, and they lose weight, and then eventually the weight comes back on. Now, the reason why people will view that people who are maybe not not up to date on weight science and will say, Well, it's because the person did something bad is the person's fault for not following the diet. That's what I thought. When I started dieting, I was like I'm gonna be the best motherfucking Dieter ever because all these other people who don't lose weight is because they're lazy and they're greedy and they can't control themselves. They don't have self discipline.

Unknown Speaker 9:53

That's actually not the case. The failure rate of diet is incredible. It's 95 to 98%. Now I have a document with the research about why and how diets fail. And we have data dating back to, you know, 100 years, 100 years worth of data basically showing that dieting doesn't work. And so a lot of people will say, there's that one study in 19, in the 1950s, that has a 95% failure rate. And that's all we've got. But that's actually not true. We've got many, many, many studies to show that weight loss, intentional weight loss is not sustainable, and that there is a risk in the act of losing weight. And I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna go through a few, I'm not gonna go through everything. Because we'd be here for for for a long time, just to kind of pick it out. And also, I'm gonna give you access to this spreadsheet that I've got with, with the evidence here that we're talking about all the studies, and so you can go and have a look and be like, was Vinny talking shit? Or was this study good and valid and all that type of stuff? Okay, so the first study we're talking about this is from 1959. And this is the one that is typically credited with a 95% failure rate on diets. And what it does is it looks at the previous 30 years of data. So 30 years before 1959, they were looking at this data, they will look at all that data from 30 years previously. And what they say in this is hundreds quote, hundreds of papers on treatment for so the word obesity, I'm going to censor out because it's it's not a good word. I mean, it's like I can go on tangents and about lots of things. So I'm just going to say the O word okay for obesity. So literature, hundreds of papers for treatment on on Oh word have been, let's just change it to fatness. Okay, so for fatness have been published in the past 30 years. Most however, do not give fingers on the outcome of treatment. And of those that do most report them in such a way as to obscure the outcome of treatment of individual patients. Okay, and so this is, this is what happens with diets and weight loss science. So, using our critical thinking skills, a lot of what weight weight loss science does is it will say it works on these people. But then if you look at how many people it's worked on, and how much weight they've lost, and how long that weight has been kept off, the numbers are always unimpressive. Very, very, very unimpressive. And so they kind of do a lot of, you know, smoke and mirrors type of thing to say, to make us who, who who don't look into the actual study, to say, oh, okay, well, you know, it worked, you know, from Pam from Ipswich lost 40 pounds. So, you know, and then I'll have that little asterix that says, results not typical. And, and, you know, we get into that kind of, well, I'd be the one that would be typical for because I'm really, I really don't want to lose weight. Okay, so then we go to 1992, we've got the national institute Institute of Health, who says that in controlled settings, participants who remain in weight loss programs usually lose approximately 10% of their weight. However, one to two thirds of the weight is regained within one year, and almost all of it is regained, regained within five years. And so here, this is a pretty common thing is people will lose a certain a certain amount of weight. And it's, you know, a saying here, it's around 10%. As I say, if someone is 200 pounds, they would be losing 20 pounds, which I mean, is not this significant life changing amount. But then within a year to five years, almost all of it is regained, and more. And what is happening is the body is doing some awesome stuff to make sure that we go back to the way that our bodies are is used to. So chemical processes are happening. Our setpoint weight every time that we intentionally try to lose weight, our setpoint weight goes up and up and up. And so that is called weight cycling, also known as yo yo dieting, and it's just a natural reaction from the body. When it is put into perceived famine is to say Holy shit what is happening we need to maintain the the, the fuel that is coming in and not burn off too much because we're in a period of uncertainty, which is an amazing thing that our bodies do. But for those who do want to lose weight long term, it can make it literally impossible. Alright, so if we move to 1999, how effective are traditional dietary and exercise interventions for weight loss, quote, a low long term follow up data on Miga. So that's a thing, again, is that we don't have that long term data. The data the data that do exist suggests that complete relapse after three to five years. A brief survey of the most popular dieting techniques used over the past 40 years shows that most techniques cycle in and out of popularity, and that many of these techniques may be hazardous to health. The paucity of the data of data provided of the weight loss industry. So the paucity is scarcity. Industry has been inadequate at inconclusive, those who challenge the use of diet and exercise solely for weight control purposes based their position on the absence of waste weight loss effectiveness data and on the presence of harmful effects of restrictive dieting. So when we say restrictive dieting, that means dieting, weight, calories, fat, whatever is restrictive. So that's any amount of dieting. All right, so we have studies from 2007 2010 2013. From 2013, the Australian National Medical Health and Research Council on obesity said that weight gain is very common after weight loss, and that is achieved that is achieved with lifestyle interventions. Weight loss is maximal at six to 12 months, regardless of the degree of initial weight loss. Most weight is regained within two year period, and by five years, majority of people are at their pre intervention, body weight. And that is great a evidence so grade eight evidence in Australia means that it is so well researched, it is you know, great evidence in Australia is smoking can cause cancer. That's great evidence. So you know, it's like not disputed, it is so well understood that that is something that happens. It's great evidence that dieting doesn't work as grave evidence in Australia. A study here from 2015 The probability of a fat person to gaining normal weight. The annual probability of achieving normal body weight was one in 210 for men, and 121. In 124. For women, the probability declined with increasing BMI category category, in morbidly obese patients as quotations around that because that word is made up I guess, like all words, but it's really fucked up. And the in morbidly obese patients, the annual probability of achieving normal weight was one in 1290 for men, and one in 677. For women in women, the probability of achieving normal weight among super obese participants, one in one in 608, which is similar to the two that observed among morbidly obese patients. In the smaller number of super obese men, the probability was higher at one in 362. So it's very unlikely that we can become thin long term. The most recent study that came out in 2021, I'm going to talk about this one, this is called obesity treatment, weight loss versus increasing fitness and physical activity for reducing health risks. Again, all of these are going to be linked in I've got it in a spreadsheet, you're gonna have a link to the threat spreadsheet, but I'm just quick from that. So the paper cites 225 other papers, okay. So it analyzes and it does a meta analysis. So it's not just one study, it's looking at 225 other papers, quote, we propose a weight neutral strategy for obesity treatment on the following grounds. One, the mortality risk associated with fatness is largely attenuated or eliminated by moderate to high levels of cardio respiratory fitness. So that's called CRF. The acronym CRF, cardio respiratory fitness, so you know,

Unknown Speaker 19:40

moving your body or physical activity so pa so CRF, cardio respiratory fitness or PA physical activity to most cardio metabolic risk markers associated with obesity can be improved with exercise training, independent of weight loss, and by a magnitude similar to that observed with weight loss programs, three weight loss even if intentional is not considered associated with lower mortality risk. Okay, so, losing weight is not associated with lower mortality risk for increases in CRF or PA so that's exercise are consistently associated with greater reductions in mortality risk than is intentional weight loss and five weight cycling. That's the yo yo dieting that's just dieting right doing a diet and then the diet failing and doing another diet. weight cycling is associated with numerous adverse health outcomes including increased mortality. Importantly, fat people in conjunct us fat people and importantly, overweight and obesity in conjunction with moderate to high CRF were associated were associated with a lower death rate than adults in the unfit to normal weight category. Okay, so if you are a fat person who exercises a lot, your your death rate is lower than someone who is a straight sized person. So someone who's not fat, who doesn't exercise CRF does not eliminate the CVD mortality risk associated with high BMI. Nonetheless, the data illustrate that low CRF is more hazardous, hazardous than a high BMI, okay, so it is more hazardous to not exercise than it is to have a high BMI. In fact, the data in figure two clearly shows that risks associated with higher BMI within both the fit and unfit groups are much lower than the risks associated with low CRF regardless of BMI data on 21,925 men in the aerobic center longitudinal study demonstrated that lower all calls and cancer mortality risks associated with higher levels of muscular fitness were independent of BMI, waist circumference, and percent body fat. And that the lower risk was observed even after after associated with reduced mortality risk. Even in those studies that demonstrated a benefit of weight loss, it is not clear whether the weight loss itself was the primary factor that reduced mortality risk. This is because the RCTs included in the weight loss meta analysis invariably incorporated changes in diet and or exercise, either as a program that participants could attend or is or as advice, as discussed in subsequent sections increases in physical activity are consistently associated with reductions in mortality risk independently of changes in changes in weight. Okay, so what that is all saying in a lot of a lot of language, is that that it's not weight that causes you losing weight doesn't doesn't cause reduce mortality risk. Okay? What does is physical activity, okay. And they're saying is, you know, when someone goes on a diet, and they see improvements in health, it is not because of losing weight, it is because they have engaged in health promoting activities, like physical activity. So a big disclaimer here is that physical activity is just one of many, many, many, many different ways that that we can change health or what promotes health, okay, so I don't want you to take from that like, right, I'm going to tell my fat person, they need to go for a run, because it will make them healthier. I please do not take that from it. We're going to talk about what is health and what makes up health in another section here, but this is just showing that if you are a fat person and you engage in activity, physical activity, your mortality risk is lower than someone who is a straight size bodied person or you know someone who's not fat and who doesn't work out. All right. Again, that doesn't mean that okay, so that means that one fat people have to work out or to even that it's suitable for all fat people to work out although even all fat people can work out. Right. And also, physical activity for some fat people is actually really harmful for many different reasons mentally and physically. Okay, and so we, what we're what we're trying to do is take a holistic approach to this is to take a You know, send a black and white thinking of oh, here's the answer. This is what we need to do. Okay, what what does this mean, for each individual? Is this helpful for each individual? And, you know, it might be that someone loves working out, and that's great. And if someone doesn't like working out, that's fine too, because there's other ways that we can engage in health if we want to. But also, health is not an obligation that other people owe us. All right. Okay, so one thing intentional weight loss doesn't work. All right. Number two here is that being fat doesn't equate to being unhealthy. Okay, so you cannot look at someone's body and presume that they are unhealthy or that they will become unhealthy. We do not know individual people's health status is fatness is linked with an increased risk of offset and conditions, as we have been told a million times over. The thing is, is we don't know why. Okay, we don't know that having more fat tissue, adipose tissue on your body? Is the causal the causation of the increased risk. Okay? We don't have that science yet. We don't know. There are certain identity factors that people can have like, say, being a man, we know that generally speaking, men live Long live, not as long as women. We know that if you live in France, for example, you'll live longer than if you live in the United States. Is that because that person happens to live on this certain piece of land? Is that because someone has a certain gender? Or are there really complicated issues that go along with it? So for example, you know, you're you live longer if you live in France? Is it because of of the healthcare that's accessible? Is it because of working hours? Is it because of XYZ? Right? And there's lots of different factors that can go in and we can think of that very easily. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's not that they physically live in France, you know, they stand on that ground, but it's called France. It is because of all these different things that are going on. And it's the same with fatness, right. What we do know about fat people and health is that something that is really, really damaging towards fat, people's health, and everyone's health is marginalization and stigmatization is oppression. And so fat people experience a shit ton of, hey, you should lose weight. And that actively damages our health. Right? stigmatization marginalization doesn't feel good. And also, what happens is, it leads a lot of fat people to not seek out health care, to not go to the doctors, and then not get diagnosed as quickly. Or even if they do go to the doctors, having their concerns ignored and told to lose weight. And that contributes towards

Unknown Speaker 28:34

discrepancies. In fact, people are more likely to, you know, experience this or that.

Unknown Speaker 28:41

And i Because, you know, because why would you want to go to the doctor, if you go in, and every time you're just told to lose weight is pretty difficult, you know? Okay, so in these studies here, too, we've got a study here that goes over all of the different common things that you would think is associated with fatness, you know, like diabetes, or heart disease or whatever, and looks at whether dieting helps improve it outside of weight loss. And spoiler, it doesn't. It doesn't. Right. So we don't know, someone's health status by looking at them. And also being fat doesn't equate to, to being unhealthy. And also, what if someone is fat and unhealthy? Does that mean that they are an unworthy human being that they should just go away? You know? No. And so then what's the what's the solution? Say if we knew 100%? Absolutely. Every single fat person on the planet is deeply unhealthy. It's they're just ticking time bombs and they're, they're going to take everyone down with them. What's solution, we know that we can't lose weight, there's a very, very, very, very, very small chance that we can. And even the act of trying to lose weight is harmful to health. So what's the solution? You know, even if he can't get behind the fact that, you know, weight and health is a lot more complicated than what we have normally known. So you can you can say, I don't know, can't get behind that Vinnie. Vinnie, like fat people are obviously unhealthy. That's fine. Well, what can we do? Weight loss doesn't work. And that's great evidence that weight loss doesn't work. There's no, there's no kind of like, oh, hang on, we don't have a lot of evidence. We have so much evidence, so much evidence, you know, it's like vaccines, the amount of evidence of supporting, you know, vaccines don't cause autism, because people are like, Oh, it does. And it's like, we don't need any more studies to show that vaccines don't cause autism. I mean, we do always need more studies about this fat thing, because it's so well entrenched, right? But it's kind of like that. And that's the way I view it is like, there's so many studies. Okay, so number three, you can support your health in weight neutral ways. Okay. So we touched on that earlier of those studies, showing that if you engage in physical activity, you have a lower mortality risk than someone who who, who doesn't who is smaller, and you're fat. So there's lots of different ways that you can support health without tying weight loss to it. Okay. So there's a study, which is linked in the spreadsheet, under weight neutral care does work. Okay, so it's called weight science, evaluating the evidence for a paradigm shift came out in January 2011. And what this does is it looks at four folks who are dieting, and engaging in health promoting behaviors, and folks who are just engaging in health promoting behaviors and not dieting, what they found was the people who were dieting and also engaging in health promoting behaviors, they were unsuccessful, because diets don't work and unsuccessful in losing weight long term. And also, they stopped engaging in health promoting activities, because they preach they presumed that they weren't working because they weren't losing weight. And so the people in the group who were just engaging in health promoting activities, just for the fun of it, they did continue with those health promoting activities, when they were outside of that marker of weight loss, being at success, they weren't even looking at weight, they were just doing those things. And so when we have health promoting activities outside of weight loss, people tend to do them longer. Because they don't feel like they've they're failing, because, you know, weight loss doesn't work. And they say, I don't want to do this anymore, because it's not working. Because it's not, it's not getting to me to where I want to go, which is lower weight. But if we really looked at is it getting me to a place where I might be healthier, then that is potentially happening. We have another couple of studies here showing that healthy habits are associated with significant decrease in mortality, regardless of BMI. Also, we have an interesting paper here that is called I think, therefore I am perceived ideal weight is a determinant of health. And so this found that the difference between actual and desired body weight was a stronger predictor of physical and mental health than body mass index. And so if we continue to shame fat people, and they internalize that shame and say, Yeah, I am a terrible person because I'm fat, that will have a negative impact on their physical and mental health versus if we support fat people in just living being humans. And, and they are able to internalize those ideas of ideal body weight, and what that looks like for them, you know, and then they're able to accept that fatness is not their fault and, you know, engage in behaviors that improve their mental and physical health. And also, you know, the other mechanism mechanisms that might make that happen. And so, you know, you can support your health in weight neutral ways, but health is really Eat a really complicated topic. And shaming fat people is very, very unhelpful. And so, you know, we spoke about exercise as being something that could influence someone's health, the World Health Organization, and many, many countries came together to look at the data of the determinants of health, what makes up health for an individual. And the determinants of health is really, really complicated. And it was very, very surprising to me that what you eat, and how much you exercise are not the number one things that make up someone's health status. They're not even number two, or three or four. We're going to talk about it and you can go and have a look at the images. So if you Google go in vo g o i n VO and determinants of health, you can go and have a look at a huge diagram or I have one which is simplified as well on my on my Instagram, but 89% of health occurs outside of the clinical space through our genetics, behavior, environment and social circumstances. These factors are known as the social determinants of health. Despite their importance, attempts to integrate the determinants into a single visualization has been limited. And so then they've got the the in the illustration, okay, so most of what makes up our health is not our individual behavior. Okay? individual behavior makes up 36%. Of of health, okay. Inside that 6% you like, you might think, well, I thought, Okay, well that means are you eating broccoli? And are you going for a run? Actually, inside that individual behavior? What we see is if you smoke, if you have safer sex, if you get enough sleep, your mood levels and your exercise patterns. So we've got, you know, your optimism level your life satisfaction level, your cognitive cognitive function in late life, your risk related behavior like gun behavior, motor vehicle behavior, do you wear a seatbelt? Are you living with anxiety, depression, stress and hopelessness. And then the final two in here, physical activity and diet patterns. Okay. Let's just pretend individual behavior is 100% just physical activity and diet patterns. It still only makes up 36% of what makes up health. Okay. The others social circumstances. That is your social connectedness, your social status, so your income, your language and literacy level, education, your occupation, your culture and tradition, your race, ethnicity, your citizenship, your sexual orientation, if you've served in the military, your gender identity, history of income, incarnation, incarceration, incarnation, incarceration, discrimination, and work conditions.

Unknown Speaker 38:37

22% is genetics and biology. And that under genetics and biology, we have body structure, and that is weight, height, weight, hip ratio, and age. So the World Health Organization is recognizing that weight is down to genetics and biology. Okay, so underneath that here too, we have like bone density, density, blood pressure, intuitional status, biochemical function, your DNA, your gender, chromosomes, things like that. Okay. 11% is medical care. So access to health care, quality of health care, patient engagement and health literacy. And we think about that with patient engagement, how fat people might engage with formal medical care setting settings and what happens when they're there. And finally, 7% is the environment and so that's pollution, exposure to tobacco, air quality, water quality, the location, crime level, job opportunities, public space quality, access to vocational training, residents quality exposure to firearms and allergens. Okay, so there are mind that 36% of what makes up someone's health status is individual behavior. And only one of the things underneath that. And there's many different things here is diet, and only one is physical activity. So we're not saying that those things don't matter. But say if you can't engage in physical activity or don't want to, you can decide to do things like improve your sleep patterns, you can decide to ask for a raise at work, you can maybe not expose yourself to firearms or wear a seatbelt, you know. And so when we think about health, you know, are we thinking about, Okay, what's, where do I live? What color is my skin? How much am I making, we don't think about that, which is unfortunate, because that is, you know, the complex picture of what makes up health. And it's a lot easier just to say, you know, don't eat this and move your body because you know, that's very simplified. And it makes us feel like we have more control over our health than we maybe do. So the next thing here that I want to talk about is what are you trying to achieve by telling a fat person to lose weight, I'm going to presume that it's because you care about their health, right? That's wonderful. If you care about someone and you care about their health, that's a wonderful thing that shows what type of person you are, you're a caring and loving individual. Something we also want to care about is not just physical health, it's mental health. And what happens if you say to a person that they need to change for whatever reason, and how that affects their mental health. So if you care about their, their physical health, you should also care about their mental health and know that this is probably having a negative outcome to the mental health. And telling someone in a, quote, nice way, or encouraging them to do certain things is still just as harmful, right? Like, we're not we get it, you know, if you're dropping subtle hints that someone should lose weight, or if you just say, Listen, you're fat, and you shouldn't be, you know, the, your fat and you shouldn't be as harmful but, you know, being quote, nice about it is still is still harmful, you know, and it might be that, you know, the being nice about it and the kitten light gently dropping hints is kind of like a, you know, drop of water or like a paper cut. And it's like a death by 1000 cuts or, you know, it's it's like, a ton of feathers. Each each little thing is like a feather. But then, you know, eventually a ton is a ton, right? Yeah. And also, if you're worried about health, like, no one owes you health. Even though it would be great if everyone was like, 100% healthy, they just did what we wanted them to do, right? I wish I I would say there's almost I wish I could control people and just make them think like me or do things like me, unfortunately, I can't and unfortunately, you can't write. And no one owes you to do anything with their body, even if it means that they have negative health outcomes. And, and focusing so much on health, there's a name for that. And that's called Healthy ism. And that is valuing people, because they are healthy. And valuing unhealthy people less. That is a form of ableism, which is saying that to be non disabled, is superior to being disabled, disabled, folks, we don't need to think about them. People with disabilities are, you know, negative in some way, right? People are going to be unhealthy. And as we continue to be alive in this world, as we get older, we're going going to going to become more and more unhealthy, we're going to become disabled. And so our current health status, if you are a person who was someone who's currently very healthy, that's not necessarily something that is going to stay the same forever. You know, because you're gonna die. Sorry. So, I mean, if if you know self worth is being derived from health, then it's something that is going to be slipping away from you eventually. And so, you know, if someone worthy outside of their health status, you know, you can say, Yeah, but Vinnie, you know, you said that fat people can be healthy, whatever. I know, my loved one is so unhealthy. I see what they do. I know. It doesn't matter. If you if you see them doing things that you don't agree with, and you perceive them to be unhealthy or you quote, know that they're unhealthy, whatever unhealthy means. You, you know, you can't force them to do what you want them to do. Right? Which I know is annoying. I wish we could. And there's one more thing about health. It's really interesting. Like, I remember going to the doctor's one time. And it was like a annual checkup or whatever. And the doctor said, You are very healthy. And as she was handing me a prescription for all the medicines that I need to take to be healthy, and I just thought I was then I talked to the pharmacist, I said, Isn't that really funny? Like she said, You are healthy, as she is given me things, because I'm not healthy. What is healthy? What does that mean? You know, given me prescriptions for like, my asthma, or my, my fibroid, or you know, mental health stuff, and, you know, IBS and blah, blah, blah, so am I healthy? Or am I not healthy? What is it? You know? It's complicated, right? And so, like, Would I class myself as a healthy person? The doctor said I was healthy. But I have things where my health is not good. It's complicated. So you know, kind of think of it like that it's a more nuanced thing. And also, why is it that we think about certain conditions more favorite favorably than others? So say, if someone broke their leg, you blocked here, you know, they broke their leg climbing a mountain? Oh, wow, you know, who they were doing something really good. And they broke the leg? What if a someone who was fat fell out of their wheelchair and broke their leg? Then how would you think about it? Or what if a fat person has diabetes? What would you think about that versus a thin person who has diabetes, or even, you know, diabetes versus having an issue with your thyroid? You know, what, why is one seniors maybe better than the other. And by the way, diabetes is a largely genetic condition. You can't eat your way into diabetes, just a heads up, you know, and everybody gonna be saying that, but hang on, they're eating bad, quote, bad food. And here's the thing, here's the thing, right with food, because you could say, Okay, well, I'm not going to tell them to lose weight, but I'm going to tell them that they should not be eating that food. That really, really, really contributes towards poor mental health. Almost every single one of my clients who I help unlearn fatphobia has many, many stories from a very young age of well meaning loved one saying don't eat that you should eat this, and how that destroys destroyed their self esteem, their relationship with food, their well being their mental health, like it, it can be just one comment. We, the world is well, very well educated on how many calories this has the fat content of that the nutritional value of you know, like, we are smart. You know, we know that people say that you should eat a cucumber and not eat something that is perceived as unhealthy. Like, it's not like we've gone through our lives and not pick that message up. We have picked that message up. And so we don't need someone else to say, Hey, did

Unknown Speaker 48:30

you know, like, we've heard that message a bajillion times. And hearing it again, is just another paper cut, you know, or even a huge sword, you know, is really, really painful. And it's not helpful. Shaming fat people, actually makes them fatter. Not that being fat is bad, but it's the opposite of what theoretically you want to achieve. So restricting people's food intake, say if you have here have children, saying you're not allowed to eat that eat this, it really really is setting children up young people and adults with with a high chances of, of disordered eating, or even a full blown eating disorder, we have to be very, very careful with the way that we talk about food, because it is deeply personal and powerful. So again, if you have an adult person that you're concerned about the way what food they're eating, they're an adult person. You telling them that you have seen what they're doing and you're judging them and that you think it's wrong, isn't going to enhance your relationship and isn't probably going to make them change what they're doing long term. And you know, who that's even saying that the what they're doing is bad. You know? So an example We'll hear a thesis is that I used to have an eating disorder, right? I used to have an eating disorder, I had a shit ton of trauma growing up. Lots of trauma, I ended up in when I was 17, I was homeless living in a shelter for young people, I ended up meeting a 30 year old guy who was a massive creep. And I ended up living with him, he was deeply abusive. My life was shipped, shipped, shipped, shipped, shipped, like close to death. Terrible because my mental health was that bad. The only thing that I had in my life that gave me a little bit of joy was food. And I'm not saying that that is every fat person's experience. But that was my experience was that once a week, I was able to go to the shop and have some food. Because this guy was also denying me food. I viewed that as deeply pathological that there was something really, really wrong with me. It was a natural response to being denied food and being told that what I wanted to eat was wrong. And from there, I developed an eating disorder. So food saved me in food was the only joy I had during the two years I was with that guy. So if someone had come along and said, Oh, you shouldn't be in that. And they all they saw was someone who was, who was fat, eating foods that they perceived was unhealthy. What would that have done to me? You know, what, what would that? How would that have helped me it wouldn't have. And you know, you might say, well, that's not my fat person situation. And it might not be but you know, who says that eating food is, you know, is a morally corrupt thing to do? And I know that you don't think that you know, you're just worried about your person, but I think letting them be them is probably the best you can you can do for them. Now moving to that, that that idea that first you know, the question that while that I read out about this guy didn't find his girlfriend attractive. I want to read out an experience that I had. So this is a blog post that I did five years ago. Okay, it's called Why I was happy when my boyfriend told me he wasn't attracted to me. Okay, I'm gonna read this out. There's gonna be a link in the bio tech in the in the show notes. Okay, I always got the impression one of my partners just wasn't that into me. Let me rephrase. Just Not That Into my looks. My suspicion was confirmed four years in when he told me he didn't find me as attractive because I had put on a little weight walking in the park at winter. When he Seamus shamefully told me his secret. I assured him I would, quote become better, I would lose weight. The next week, I went on what would be my last diet, I vowed I would lose the weight, the, quote, healthy way. And my partner would finally see me see how wonderful I was and think I was the most beautiful person in the world. Of course, as all diets do, it failed. I put on more weight. I became resentful. Why couldn't he just love me the way that I was? Why did he have to tell me something that was so devastating to me? I was filled with shame, anger, and confusion. Why I am now happy that he gave me this information is it that it led me on a path to self discovery around beauty. Six months after we split I asked him would you have liked me better if I was sinner? The yes. He said this time his words didn't hurt. It didn't hurt because since I gave up on that last i i have learned all about fat positivity and feminism. I have learned about our patriarchal society and beauty ideals, how they hurt all of us. Why would a thin girlfriend be important to you? I continued. He explained that having a thin partner improves his status that having a small girlfriend makes him fulfill more masculine. Like a lot of people he's never explored our society's beauty ideals.

Unknown Speaker 54:35

We are constantly told that the most desirable are white, young and thin. This belief will hurt him as he searches for a new partner. It will hurt him when he finds a new partner and she ages it will hurt him if she ever puts on weight. It will hurt her to as it hurt me knowing that the man I adored would prefer a different version of me Now I know it's not about me. It's a byproduct of living in a society that objectifies women, men seeing their partners as status symbols and women believing their worth is determined by the number on the scale amongst other things. If I could travel back to that time in that icy cold Park, I would have such a different reaction, I wouldn't have seen my body as a problem. But the fact that my partner believed my worth was decreased. As my weight increased, I would have, I would encourage my partner to explore his idea of what is desirable. And if he couldn't see the beauty of my waves and honey, that I would remove myself from the relationship. So if you're in the same situation as I was, No, it's not your fault. It's this fucked up beauty ideal. You deserve to be with someone who accepts you for who you are. And if they don't leave them. By the way, my now ex is a wonderful kind person, he didn't tell me about his feelings to be cruel, but to try and strengthen our relationship, it just didn't work out the way he planned. If you are worried about your loved one, and and it's someone that you're in a relationship with a romantic or sexual relationship, and you say it's about health, I want to I want to challenge you to dig a little deeper of is it about health? Or is it about your definition of what is attractive? And is that because our society decided that women need to be or people need to be young, thin, nondisabled, white, etc, etc. And think about why is it that we're told we need to be these things? What systems have told us that whiteness, thinness, youth being non disabled, are the most desirable. Those systems are racism, the patriarchy colonization, sexism, etc, etc, etc, right? And it's so hard to unlearn this stuff, especially when it comes down to it's my preference. This is my preference. Fineness is my preference. Our preferences like that are not made in a bubble, right? You weren't born and in your brain was, the idea that fineness is superior, you were told that we were all told that we are all bombarded with images of what is attractive, day in, day out. And that means that we've been influenced by them, right. And it's, I feel like it's a very narrow world, when we can only see beauty in a limited number of bodies, like I feel, I do feel for people who, who don't have the experience of being able to deeply appreciate all different body types, because it just makes the world a little bit more magical, you know. And so there is a way out of that. And the way out of that isn't telling your spouse that they're, they need to change their body. Because one, weight loss doesn't work. It is not sustainable. And too, it is going to damage your relationship. And even if you do it in a nice way, it will still damage your relationship. And three, it means that you're you're never going to be truly satisfied. Because if your partner goes on a diet, their weight will increase in the long term. So your partner will have a bigger body than they have currently. And if you're not satisfied with their body right now, then, you know, it's probably not going to change for the smaller and they are going to age, they their body is going to change in other ways. And so if you're not satisfied with their body right now, it's probably not going to change for the better. Therefore, what you can change is the way that you perceive your partner's body that is changeable. The way that you perceive all bodies and your internalized racism and sexism and Lala and by the way, we all have internalized bigotry right I'm in turn, I have internalized fat phobia and racism, sexism, colonization, all that type of stuff, right? Because I because I've been born into this world. This it impossible for me to have not picked it up. But it's my job to try and unlearn that stuff. It's my job if I want to be a better person than I do, right? I think we all do want to be a better person. And and if you're listening to this podcast, it means that you, you you care, right? You care and you care deeply if you've taken the time to listen to this podcast, and if you can take that deep caring and love and and use that to help you work on the way that you perceive fatness, I think that'd be really, really helpful for the person that you love. And for yourself, it will make the world more colorful, it will make you satisfied with different things that you previously thought that thought that you weren't satisfied, not just fatness, you know. So I'm going to read a couple of other you know, questions that people have put onto the internets. And if we think about what we've just, we've just gone through what we might answer to these questions. Okay. So this one is, quote, I'm not physically attracted to my wife, her physical appearance has always been an issue and it only gets worse. She has put on a considerable amount of weight. And this is very unattractive to me. I've tried to hint to her tactfully. I'm not insensitive, that it bothers me but she only gets offended. Okay, so let's just pause here. So I'm not a physically attracted to him to my wife. It's always been an issue and only gets worse. Okay, so, you know, first off what why did this person marry the wife, the person that they are not attracted to? And I mean, fucked up to begin with. She's bought on a considerable amount of weight. This is really unattractive to me. Okay, so that's a that's a him problem, right? That's a him problem. It's not a it's not a her problem. And I'm presuming that this person is a him we don't know. I've tried to hint to her tactfully. I'm not insensitive. And so they say he's saying, I'm not insensitive, but she gets offended. And so he says he's doing it tactfully. But it's not tactfully, because she's offended because it's an offensive thing to do. It seems like it's not my place to say so anymore. Instead, there's a gnawing silence and growing indifference to sex. I'd like to say that it's so that she is so beautiful inside that the outside doesn't matter. But that's not true. In many ways, children, finances practical, practical things, we we communicate well, I respect her and she's a good mum. But this war between us is an increasing source of emotional distress, anguish, loss of intimacy and hormonal hell, what do you suggest, okay, so what we suggest here is for this person, to probably go to therapy, and to learn about fat politics, to read some books, listen to some podcasts, and stop continuing to hurt his wife. It might be an idea for them not to be together, if if the wife knew that he was talking about her like this, I it's always been an issue. And it only gets worse our physical appearance, I mean, that's really very, very unkind and shows really a deep lack of respect for their person. Okay, so this other person says, When my husband and I first started dating, I was extremely attracted to his physical appearance. But throughout the years of our marriage, he's put on a considerable amount of weight, when I tell him, he needs to lose weight, he gets angry and really hurt. Is it unfair of me to want him to lose weight. I mean, it's not unfair for you to want him to lose weight, because you this person is programmed to think that weight loss is good, right? Being thinner is good. And looking at their, their husband from these, you know, when they when they were younger, when you first meet your your spouse, that you know that they're going to, they're going to be great, you know, if you're attracted to them are going to be great that you're going to age that kind of put on weight, their body is going to change, okay? And that's just the way that it is, you know, some people to some degree and some people to more degree, right? And so the more that we detangle these, these ideas of our spouse needing to look a certain way or

Unknown Speaker 1:04:31

object, objectifying our spouse, the more comfort we're going to find in the world. Right. So should this person you know, it would be like, yeah, it is unfair. To tell him constantly that he needs to lose weight. This person needs to go and learn about that positivity and go to therapy and all that type of stuff. So I asked my followers, what would you like me to say to well meaning people who are concerned for your health, or want you to lose weight, what message would you want me to pass on? What impact does it have when a loved one comments on your weight and tells you to be thinner? And this is what people said. So this is from my followers. I know I am fat I knew at last time you told me and the time before, just stop, that they're treating me like a problem, not a person. That despite all the good that I bring to the world, I'm still not enough. It makes me feel like you wouldn't love or take care of me if I got ill. If I did get ill, I'd probably keep it from you because of your judgment, I'd be alone. health and weight aren't correlated and if they are concerned are eHealth vote for health issues. Gaining weight is often a sign of healing. But body comments are never welcome. Yeah, so that's another thing is, a lot of times when people are held healing a an from an eating disorder or disordered, disordered eating, that means that they will gain weight and so that's just a normal part of healing. And so we see a lot of people who are in treatment who are setback a huge amount because family members say oh, no, you're putting on weight, and it really fucks them up. Body comments are detrimental and triggering to mental health and eating disorders reevaluate if they are actually well meaning that health risks of weight cycling are higher than being fat. Please trust that I know my body better than you do. I know what I need. My size is of no surprise to me. It is not helpful to mention it as I know myself. It affects my mental health negatively impacts my self esteem I want to cut contact no one should be commenting on someone's body period. Then people have health issues too. It's not exclusive to fat people. The impact of it is it feels like I failed them failed the family that I am a failure that their love is conditional fat people already know that they are fat you're dumb fucks bloody I know I'm fat I live in my body they act like I'm not aware of my weight I am other people's concerns just add fresh it and makes me want to eat more show that they care in other ways. Think about their how their comment may trigger a trauma response as a result to be more understanding of my trauma history when with food and weight when commenting. Mainly that the science says dieting does not work. I am not a failure. I am the norm. I was heavy as a kid. I'm sitting in therapy because I was treated as less because of my weight by my peers and my loved ones. I would like to have a proper answer to the health concerns which is never really their true concern. So this person is like health concerns is masking something else and it often is it often is masking fatphobia you know that that the things that we've learned about fatness and also desirability. It is harmful when they body shame. More concerned with looks than my well being. Weight does not equal healthiness mental health impacts of feeling like your body is wrong and you are too weak to change it. There is so much more to me than my size. No comment about weight. Our comments about weight are helpful, fat or thin. It fuels the idea that our weight is our worth. I've spent 45 years hating my body because you have always told me it needed changing. When people bring up my weight. It feels like my physical body is all they see or care about. You're worried about my health but you're happy to drink lots of alcohol with me regularly. I used to think like you but now I know better. It's okay to admit you're wrong. Learn then teach. Be more concerned with our mental and emotional well being. Please stop telling me about your new diet. I didn't ask and I don't care. I grew up to have an eating disorder because of adults saying this to me as a child. We know about our way we know the quote concerns and complications. I know you think that this is helpful but all I hear is that I am not enough as I am that they are asking me to sacrifice my mental health to do Diet, everything that they think they know about the health of fat people is untrue. Your comments make it clear to me that you can't or won't see beyond my size. This dismissal of who I am is hurtful. For me, I had to choose between trying to be thin, or health promoting behaviors. We have a longer a longer response hear from someone. I'd like them to know that when commenting on my weight, however well intentioned, it doesn't come off that way. For me, it brings me such shame and really knocks my self worth because what I'm hearing is that they see me as bad or wrong or something to be fixed. It also feels like they only see me as one thing fat. And to them that is bad. And that is that I'm not living to my full potential. As someone who grew up with a mother who was so hyper aware of my weight, mainly due to her own body hangups, I think, I've always felt not good enough that my body is the common denominator in how I am perceived in everything I say, or do. I often wonder how I would have turned out if I have just been left alone and allowed to live my life without feeling like I was never good enough. Unless I was thin. The issues around self worth are filtered into everything. It affects how I advocate for myself, and how I am often afraid to take up space. I think I would want people to just stop and look inward before they speak about another person's body. Ask themselves where it's coming from. And really, at the end of the day, will it change anything or affect their lives anyway, just leave that people alone. Let them live. We don't need a commentary. And the last comment here is thank you for your concern. But please know that bodies exist and function best in many different shapes and sizes. Personally, I know I'm healthier, both mentally and physically than with a disordered relationship with food that would be required to achieve a lower weight. I would say that it's important for me for for more people to understand the health warnings about being fat are overblown. For many, many people gaining weight after restricting over exercising and weight cycling, particularly if you gain weight, and then have a pretty stable weight is actually healthier, not just for your mental health and confidence but for your body. Your health markers will actually improve when you focus on them, not trying to just lose weight. I wish my family knew that when they praise my siblings extreme weight loss and praise diets, it feels like they are telling me to lose weight. It feels like they don't have the guts just to just tell me, I should be like my siblings. So they pile on the prey so I can connect the dots is never subtle, like they think it is and we see right through that through it to their message that they are disappointed in our body and think it's not okay. It feels like they think my body is their personal failure. And they must remedy it. Not necessarily something to say to them directly. But I wonder how many others feel this way with their families pressures and expectations. It hurts when I'm healthiest I've ever hurts when I'm the healthiest I've ever been. I have figured out how to enjoy exercise again. And I get out and move pretty much every day, walking the dog running with a dog going to the gym hiking sports, I'm much stronger, I'm getting more nutrients, I have more energy, I'm happier and overall better. And it sucks knowing if your family could pick they don't want you to go back to disordered eating and restriction and harmful pathways. Because weight is more important to them. They can't see past the weight. Yeah, those are really I think powerful responses directly from from fat people. I a lot of fat people can't say this to their, their loved ones who tell them to lose weight because, you know, they wouldn't get the response they wanted you know, they their loved one wouldn't say shit, I fucked up I'm so sorry. You know, and so it's not safe for them to do that. And that's really really sad. And I just I just want to end with just really getting home this idea of there's going to be a lot of people who are like, Well, what but what about their knees or what? But what about the they're you're about to have a heart attack or what about their joints? Or what about this or what about bla bla bla

Unknown Speaker 1:14:32

there is no way to lose weight and keep it off long term. That goes for fat diets, lifestyle changes, and even bariatric surgery. We just don't have any information and data to show that there are ways to manipulate human body size in a way that It is something that's going to be lasting long term, we don't have that data. So even if we knew that every fat person is deeply unhealthy, and you know, their knees are about to buckle under the weight of them, by the way, it's not true, then we can't, there's nothing we can do to not be not be fat, right. So what we can do if we want to support a health, or many of the different health promoting behaviors, which include dismantling fatphobia, and all the other things that we didn't think that were related to health. And what we need from you is love, and acceptance and support. And to know that you are that person and place we can go to who is not going to tell us that we are bad, that we need to do this or do that. If you do that, it just continues to erode the relationship. And I really got to tell you, so many I mentioned it before, so many people have had devastating consequences because of loved ones telling things saying things to them. And they end up cutting off those people from their life, or reducing the amount of time they spend with them. Because they refuse to do anything else. And I don't think that if you no care sort of get you care about someone, if you had the choice to you know, just not say anything and have them in your life, I think you'd would prefer that right? And then some people might say, well, if I don't say something, they might die, and then I won't have them in my life. But you know, we just don't know that. We don't know that. Do we want to lead with kindness and compassion? Or do we want to make people feel awful, which in turn negatively impacts their health? So let me round up everything that I just said. One, what if you want to support a fat person to lose weight, or you're concerned about their health. So the first thing here is intentional weight loss doesn't work, we've got over 100 years worth of studies to prove that. And we'll have the link of all of the different resources for you as well to so you can look into all the data that intentional weight loss doesn't work. And that means any type of of weight loss with with any method. Being fat does not equate to being unhealthy. You can support your health in weight neutral ways, and so you can engage in many different activities. And things outside of focusing on weight and a study show that they will stick more if you are not focusing on weight. Health is a really complicated topic. And shaming fat people is really really hard, unhealthy, unhelpful. What are you trying to achieve by telling a fat person to lose weight if you care about their health, and you also need to care about their mental health, telling someone in a quote nice way or encouraging them to do certain things is still just as harmful. No one owes you health and focusing on it so much is health ism. And ableism in practice is your definition of what is attractive based on infantilization racism, patriarchy, and other harmful oppressive systems. The fact that you love someone and care enough about them to want them to be healthy is a beautiful thing. And the best way that you can support your loved one is loving them unconditionally, no matter what their weight is, and celebrate them for exactly who they are right now. Okay, so I'm going to leave you with one last thing which is Hayes health sheet. So Hayes is Health at Every Size. So ha ha E S stands for Health at Every Size, health sheets.com is an a resource if you want to look more into the common conditions that are associated with fatness and learn more about how to how to live with them, how they how they are created, what's going on. So you can understand like say if you do have a loved one who has type two diabetes and you're like, oh my god, they need to be doing this and that and they need to be becoming thin to help themselves. That Hayes health sheets is going to help you understand why is helpful outside of weight loss and how how this condition came to be and in the mechanisms and and what to do Yeah, so in case you're interested in that type of stuff and again like this is imperfect there's gonna be things where you know, there's there's different areas I've not, you know covered. But yeah I hopefully this has been helpful. Maybe you've picked up something maybe not, you know, I know that you're coming from a place of love and I hope that with that love you can maybe make a tweak to the way that you're approaching fat folks and and just love them and accept them. You know, the same way that you want to be loved and accepted, right? Yeah. And if fat folks are listening Hey, you're rad and amazing and big fat he hugs to you big fat he hugs to everyone. And thank you for hanging out with me today. And I guess we'll see you on the next episode goodbye you.