Episode 53 Transcript

You're listening to the first fatty podcast episode 53. We're talking about the fat phobia quiz today I am your host, Victoria Welsby. Let's do it.

I'm Victoria Welsby TEDx speaker, Best Selling Author and fat activist. I have transformed my life from hating my body with desperately low self esteem to being a courageous and confident Fierce Fatty who loves every inch of this jelly. Society teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the Fierce Fatty podcast Let's begin.

Hello, hello, my fatties. How are you? How's it alive? Are you we're having a nice day. Have you had a nice day? Maybe it's the beginning of the day. I've had a few people tell me that they take me along on a bike ride when they're going bike riding. So maybe it's a theme maybe we've got a lot of bike rider listeners. So feel like riding the bike. Hello. If you're riding the bus Hello. If you write any car Hello, if you're in bed falling asleep. Hello.

Unknown Speaker 1:55

Sorry, I'm probably too loud.

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I always I said before, I think that my podcast is probably one of the worst podcasts fall asleep too because I sometimes am loud. I have like, sir, I have certain podcasts that I fall asleep to which I know they're not going to start shouting or being loud.

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And my favorite at the moment is casefile. It's a true crime podcast. But the voice the host voice is just very he's like an Australian. He's just very monotone and then we did this and did averted. So yeah, help people honestly is a metabolic curve. True Crime. Yes.

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So today we're talking about fat so long war times.

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This is actually after I got a

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an email from a listener who said hey, can you answer this on your show? And I said, Oh, yeah, this is a good one. I'll answer this on the show.

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But before we do that, though, I want to tell you, he's gonna brag I'm gonna brag about

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so you know, my my ecourse my program, the way that you work with me if you want to work with me, is through fear. spatty Academy. That's my program. Anyway, so the people inside Facebook Academy rockstars they're such fucking Rockstar. So this shit they do. I'm just like, oh my god, I'm just gonna, just

Unknown Speaker 3:29

I'm excited. I just want to tell you, it's gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you some of the stuff they've got up to in the last few weeks. So these are people who are enrolled in first party Academy. So the first one is Tammy is has been exploring, singing, and has has played guitar. She knows how to play guitar. And Tammy actually wrote a song

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recorded herself visual like audio and

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audio and video, audio and video

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as her singing this song that she wrote and then posted that video in our Facebook community for first party Academy. And that took so much courage for her and

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it was a very vulnerable thing for her to do. And it was fucking incredible. And I can I listened to the song I didn't know that she wrote and I was like, Oh, this is really good song. And then after she said that, she wrote it and I was like, get the fuck out of here. towel and oh my gosh.

Unknown Speaker 4:37

So that's Tammy. Now another member Jen took pictures of her wrists, and her wrists are a real big trigger for her. And then she posted that image into the group and this is what she said. Today I took pictures of my wrists which are a big trigger point for me. I am in capitals

Unknown Speaker 5:00

constantly on my own ass about my wrists, I don't want to be this way anymore. Therefore, even though I am massively uncomfortable with this, as well, ah, and then the picture of her wrists, so that was pretty bad as from Jen. And it goes to show that this stuff starts at the, you know, taking small steps. And that was a big step for Jen because she is, you know, has been hating on her on her fat wrists. And, and so, you know, because you see me doing shit. And sometimes that's not relatable because you know, I'm like, show my asshole to the world and you're like, I want to show my household to my boyfriend. So, you know,

Unknown Speaker 5:48

I haven't showed my asshole to the world by the way, in case you're curious if you guys you like googling Victoria Welsby Asshole. You're not gonna find a picture of my also maybe another Victoria's asshole. I don't know. But it's probably not mine. Hello. So your aren't you know.

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Anyway, so Tez NIEM, the badass boss that she is when an asked for a pay rise. And this is something that she had been putting off and ruminating about for a ages. And she had a positive conversation with her boss. And in her head, she built it up like a boss was going to, you know, tip over the table and be like, Fuck you for asking for a pay rise. And she's she's great at a job. And she's done lots and, and that's not what happened. So that is amazing. So high fives to Tasneem. Next, we have Nina and Nina went out saw her friends, they took a picture together. And then afterwards, she saw the picture. And she has some feelings about the pitcher. And what she did was intent instead of internalizing those feelings, she printed out the photo and examined why it was making her upset. So normally, she would have said, Oh God, I need to lose weight and all been in quarantine and look at my body now. And whereas now she's able to look at that and be like what is going on? With that? Why am I having a reaction with this way?

Unknown Speaker 7:21

Okay, and then finally, Aaron. First off, Aaron said, this is a quote from Erin, I bought myself new lingerie, I was so tempted to return it and get a bigger size even though it all fit but I decided not to. So Erin got herself some lingerie that made her feel great. And then Erin decided that she was going to take herself to the local beach, and wear a fucking bikini. Oh my gosh, and then posted in the group a video of her doing that in the group,

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which is just gobsmacking all of this stuff is so wonderful and incredible. And

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all of these things slowly add up into one day looking back and being like, Holy fucking shit. I can't believe I've come this far. This is amazing. This is incredible. But at the time, it's kind of you feel like,

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I don't know, am I doing enough? I'm scared. And all this is too. I don't want to do this. And I know, I know I need to do this because it's uncomfortable and, and it becomes easier and easier and easier. And before you know it, you'll be sharing your art on off to the world, which is the goal of SRT Academy. Who can who's the person who's the quickest to show it off? The bumhole to the world.

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That's not actually the goal of his family Academy in case you were confused that

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maybe, maybe you were confused. It is online. It is it's the goal. It's the goal. It is the goal to show you bumhole off to the world. And so yeah, if you want to show you a wormhole off to the world, then think about this idea of karma. Oh no. You can tell you can say I fucking hate you, Victoria. I don't want to do that. And that's fine. Okay, no worries.

Unknown Speaker 9:17

And so you can go to face value.com forward slash waitlist if you want to get on the waitlist. Or or not. I'm not the boss of you guys. I'm not the boss of you, Jesus. All right. Okay, so let's talk about this letter. Let's pretend I got a letter in the post.

Unknown Speaker 9:38

Like in the olden days, this letter I got on a piece of paper hand written with a quill. I'm going to read it out to you. And then we're going to talk about it and I bet you, a lot of you, including me have a lot of the feelings that our letter writer has. And yeah, so we're gonna talk about it.

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Okay, so here we go.

Unknown Speaker 10:02

Dear Victoria. I have been limiting myself to social and news media as I have begun to have anxiety attacks. So I generally give myself 10 minutes twice a day. After checking my emails in the morning, my email account sends me to the news page where usually this is where I quickly sign out to avoid seeing anything not wanted. Today, it happened. Big news Kelly Osbourne is now called a goddess by her fans will wait, what was she before she lost X amount of pounds thanks to gastric sleeve surgery and hard work. Oh, and Rebel Wilson is so hot with her boyfriend at the beach. Sidenote Lizzo is celebrating her six month vegan diet. Oh, Adele, Oh girl, did you see that weight loss? It's like what the fuck? I find this hard to handle. To be honest, it's not fair for me to judge her or anyone else.

Unknown Speaker 10:59

Else in any way. I should be neutral about it is that barley after all, yet it triggered something in me some depression, maybe anger. It's not because of her is because of the collective. I feel like all the people that I was quote unquote, looking up to is completely reversing on me. I know in a much earlier episode, you discuss something along the lines of celebrities losing weight. But today in the last month or two, it's been massive, like shut this shit down your throat. I've really begun questioning journalism, the news and even social media in the last year of year, my life and I'm sure everyone has to has been turned upside down. And while we do have some food assistance, we are lucky to have peanut butter jelly to go to the school for lunches for my kids. How can I compete with this? This is my opinion. But I feel like we are sending a reverse message. Now I feel like shrinking on the inside. I do I feel sad that we praise people for their weight loss, then then they got a lot of crap if they don't lose weight. I'm sure their life isn't all glamorous. How do they win? I don't know that they do. I know I sure as heck don't. My role model needs to be quote unquote normal people, that those that aren't in the public eye. That seems more realistic. So my question is, what do you do when you see these articles appraising people who have weight loss? How do you not absorb and say that needs to be me to my daughter who is disabled. And I mean, real cognitive delay is 13. She asked me the other day, how many diets have diets I've been on and which one works. I asked her why. She said to lose weight. I told her that there's nothing wrong with her and to take it from me. My body is broken now. As well as my mental health from dieting, I told her that we needed to see what was going on to talk about things. Sure enough, it's about a boy, and what she's watching on YouTube. There's also a bit of talk that goes on in her PE class, but not much. They tried to stay neutral and say move for enjoyment, which is what I tried to tell her besides changing, we have to walk to we get to walk. Anyway, I'm sorry for the long read. I just really don't know how to handle all this quote unquote, news. It's not my business to judge. It just seems really sad. The responses these people are getting as if they were total crap before. But now they are blindingly awesome. What message does that send? I'm worried for myself but more worried for my daughter, my sons too, because I also include body and fat positivity for my sons as well. Thank you for any advice, you can give sincerely, a lost soul.

Unknown Speaker 13:53

So I wonder how many can resonate with that. There's a couple of things going on here, right? More than a couple of things. There's a lot of different things going on here. But one thing that I want to concentrate on is, is the feeling that what is happening and how we're feeling when a celebrity or even our favorite, fat celebrity loses weight. And so I'm going to go over some things here that the ways that we can feel. Now, I'm not saying you know what I'm going to go into I'm not saying that like this is all right, to feel like not right to feel like this. But, you know, this is not maybe not the most constructive

Unknown Speaker 14:38

viewpoint to have, but this is kind of like a deep dark, kind of like, I know I shouldn't think this but this is what I'm thinking when my favorite facts that everybody loses weight and an understanding like why do we feel like wow, you know, like you say if a thin celebrity lost 10 pounds, it wouldn't hit as hard as if a you know a fat celebrity

Unknown Speaker 15:00

A or A fat celebrity that you thought was body positive loses weight, right? It's got a different thing. And so what's really going on there? So let's talk about that. And oh, by the way, in case you're curious sidenote, do go my dog had his, had his teeth cleaned. He had his, uh, his wobbly tooth out and a few other teeth out as well and

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bless him, he was in there in the day and then the afternoon went to pick him up. And he was, he was crying when he when he came out to see me like he was he must have been excited to see me but also in pain, you know, in his he was like,

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he was fine after that. And they gave him some painkillers and whatnot. And now it's a week later he's, he's, he's back to even brighter and more

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peppy than he was before. But he so they shaved his his arm to put the needle in. But I guess they couldn't find a vein or something. So so they shaved his neck. And you can see there's like a little pinprick there where they put the needle. And anyway, so the Shapers arm and he mustn't like it. And so for the last week, he's been licking that. And I saw, I looked at it yesterday. And I realize he's licked his arm rule poor baby. It's not that bad. But so as soon as I saw that, I was like, called the vet. And I was like, Oh, my God, what do I do what's wrong? And they said, I'll try putting a sock on him. So I put one of my nephew socks on him. And he didn't like that. So then I put a bigger sock on him that went around his shoulder. And yeah, he ate a hole through it. And so we didn't like that. So me and my mum, my mum who used to be a nurse, we bandaged his leg. And he liked that he thought that that was okay.

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until it fell off. And so then I panties and leg again. And this morning I woke up in the bandage was taken off by Google. So yeah, I'm gonna have to get him a cone. So cone is going to be here in the house in the next couple of hours. So we'll see how he gets on with that. Next episode. I'll update you on my dog's life.

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All right, so

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what is going on? When fat celeb lose weight loses weight, and we have feeling we have feelings about it. Okay, so our fav fat celeb, who we thought or presumed, was on our side and quote unquote, got it. It feels like when they lose weight that they have maybe betrayed us, or let us down or disappointed us. Like, it's like, if Imagine if I turned around next episode, I turned around and I was like, hey, everybody eager for I've lost loads of whey. I've been doing this diet, where I just like, lick my armpit three times a day. It's really delicious. It fills me up. And I've lost 50,000 pounds. I'm really excited about it. You'd probably like What the actual fuck? Like, What? What? Why Victoria? I thought, what? It was coming from me probably because you know, I talk about this shit. Our fat celebs probably don't talk about this yet. But it'd be really sad, right? It'd be you know, someone that you think is who gets it, who is not brainwashed by this dietary bullshit has now gone to the dark side, go on to the diet side. And that is that's hurtful and it's confusing. And it would make me no longer safe. It would make me no longer someone that is going who you trust is going to advocate for fat bodies, who you trust is not going to say hey, have you heard about this diet? It's really cool. You know, the same way that a lot of times we don't trust straight sides, people will thin people, because we don't know if they're gonna start saying, Did you know that did you know you could move away? You know, it's kind of like that. And so they have like, defected almost that's what it feels like not saying that they have that's what it feels like. It feels like they were one of us. And it turns out, they weren't. And that's sad, right? Especially when we don't have many fat public figures to look up to. Especially if they're like a megastar. And you're like yeah, come on fast take over the world. And then they're like, oh, no, not fat anymore. So the second layer to this is that they are now being heralded by the enemy. So the the thins TM the fins, they have taken our favorite fat celeb, and now they know now they quote unquote, belong to the oppressors. They are now one of those people. And

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that's really infuriating, right? See

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Seeing the people who are a source of pain for us now, taking one of our kind of

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symbols, you know, because sometimes these people can represent a lot of different things for us, you know, taking one of these symbols and changing them and taking them as as their own. Now, that's not what's happening like thin people aren't storming into the houses of fat celebrities being like,

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maybe that's not happening, right. But that's kind of what it feels like. And you want that you want that fat sled to be like, Get out of here, your diet shleppers I'm on fat, and I like it. And that's not what's happened. And also it can feel like that fat celeb has got comfort from the fat community. And they have been embraced by the fat community solely for the reason that they are fat. And they are a celebrity. And in fact community like her. Yeah, that one of ours. Yeah, come on, come over. Yeah, we like you.

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And, and maybe that wasn't reciprocated, maybe it wasn't genuine on their part, maybe it can feel like they have used the body positive, that positive community.

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And we thought that they were our friends. And it can feel like we were used, like we were double crossed. Like the fat person, a fat slob has benefited from the work of fat activists. And then they're just throwing it in, in our face. Like, I'll take your love and your support and your money. But I don't want to be like you, I'm gonna be fat like you. I'm just a temporary fat person. You know, this is just, you know, this is me, on my way to being a good person, eventually, I lose weight, but temporarily, I'll take comfort in your community, but it's not who I really am. That's what it can feel like. Now, all of this I'm saying is like, kind of like how we feel. And it's not probably not the truth, right? Like, Adele is probably not like, wringing their hands together being like, Oh, I got fat people to like me and embrace me into their community. And now look at me who I really got one over on them. But that's what it feels like, right? It can do. And maybe some of these things you're reading more than than others. And another thing is, it is so painful to see these incredibly talented people who have achieved bananas, amazing things, have their greatest achievement be boiled down to the fact that they have a smaller body. Like, what the fuck? Are these people? Like someone like Adele, like I don't really listen to Adele's music, but I know that she's won loads of awards, and that she's been around for a long time. And she is really successful and good at what she does, right? And so why is it that really the only the only thing I know about Adele is she likes Beyonce.

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And that she has lost weight, because I'm not a fan. So I don't but you know, fans would know more than that. But why is it that I you know, and I also know that she's successful and blah, blah, blah, but we seem to society seems to say that this is the greatest thing that she's ever done like for finally now she's a real human being.

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And it's not accurate, right? That them having a smaller body anyone having a smaller body is the most interesting thing about that person's character. And it makes us quote unquote, average folk, you know, everyday non famous people think, or is my way, the most interesting thing about me,

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the most noble thing I can do to lose weight. If all of these people are celebrating this celebrities weight loss, and they're like losing their shit and being like, oh my god, maybe I'll get that type of response. And you kind of know that you probably will get that type of response, right? That people are going to be like, Oh my God, and that feels good to have people say oh my god. So it's it's kind of intoxicating, right? as well. We kind of get the sense that these celebrities now they're treated more like a human being and now that they are smaller like now they can get the serious movie roles like Rebel Wilson. I read something that she said I don't want to do comedy anymore. I don't I want to do more serious roles. And to do serious roles. I need to be smaller. Something like that wasn't exact quote, but that was the gist of it. And I was just like, No,

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no, who was that guy that played Capote he died.

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I know you're shouting at me now. He's a fat actor. He was in

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a long Came Polly. There's like such a shit reference to who this actor was. He was like really, really good.

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Good. Philip Seymour Hoffman,

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most known for his work on Along Came Polly, he's most famous film, Philip Seymour Hoffman. He's he was fat, right. And he played loads of serious roles. And of course, he's he was a man. And it's not, it's not, you know,

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women get more kind of put into a box and fat women even more like, you know, fat and funny so I see where she's coming from. But it's, it's sad that

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she might be taken more seriously to do serious roles. If she's straight sides, right? Now they are, they can get the series movie roles. Now they can take the Hawkeye now they are a proper and responsible business owner. Now they have their shit together, whoever this that celebrity celebrity is now they're kind of now I'm more serious. I'm a real

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person. Now. I'm not like, I have my shit together now. Right. But another thing is,

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the final thing here is what we're thinking we're thinking

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that they have succumbed to the pressure

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to become thin, and we wanted them to be strong.

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And we wanted them to be that spokesperson, we wanted them to defend us and ignore all of the fatphobia they're experiencing.

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We, we it's like we

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had sent them out into battle, and said, right, you're, you're a representative for all fat people in the world. Go and do it. Right? Do do us good. Don't come back until everyone loves us. And, and it feels like kind of, you know, maybe they came back with the the tail between the legs. And it's like, Ah, I want it to be thin. That's what it can feel like, right? So those are the things like kind of like the deep dark. How are we feeling about this? Why are we why are we feeling? Why are we having feelings about this when, you know, our letter writer said, I know I shouldn't be judging.

Unknown Speaker 27:12

I know I shouldn't be judging. And that's kind of, and there's probably more like, they're the things that I thinking about when I

Unknown Speaker 27:22

in the past when fat celebs have lost weight? What, what makes me feel like, you know, for fuck sake, why do they? Why Why have they done that? Why can't they just not, you know, and in the past, I would get angry about it and be like, Oh, we've lost another one to them, as I've kind of tried to become a better person selling.

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As I've kind of understood more and more and more about why people die it the pressures of fatphobia, the presuit, pressures, all sorts of different things going on. Understanding that

Unknown Speaker 27:58

it's really fucking complex. And so here's the thing, and this is why it's really complex. We don't know if a fat celeb is quote unquote, one of us. And a lot of the times we hoist meaning onto the bodies of fat people, and make them that spokesperson for loving your fat body. And make them that that image, that symbol that they're fat, and they did it, they're fat, and they're famous, they're fat, and they're rich, they're fat, and they're seemingly happy, they're fat, and they've got a partner and

Unknown Speaker 28:34

all of this stuff, and we're putting meaning onto their body. And they're just like out here being like, I don't know, I just walk in actors and a couple of movies and movies. Now everyone thinks that I'm like, the spokesperson for all fat people. I'm just like, our hair trying to make some money. You know?

Unknown Speaker 28:50

And perhaps they've made comments that suggest that they are body positive or, or do support fat people, but do we know exactly what they think and feel like, as I bet you as a fat celebrity, they get probably a lot of questions about you know,

Unknown Speaker 29:07

bodies and supporting body positivity and all that type of stuff. And that might be 1% of what they say. But then that's the focus of the of the interview, right? Like now, but I was on that TV show. I know how you can say one sentence and like that one sentence will be like, says Victoria loves eating cats. And it'll be like, well, that's that's what I read them once a day and like Jesus, you know, and it all kind of been spun because it's more of a story and so that that's there might be like, yeah, fat people are cool or whatever, and then there'll be like, fat celeb tells people to love their body and they might not really be into it or know much about it, or will be educated about the history of fact of ism and and body positivity and all that stuff. And all of a sudden we see that one sentence that affects Weber said, oh, yeah, I think you should love your butt.

Unknown Speaker 30:00

Audio and we're like, ah, that they are fat positive. They are a radical fat activist. And we really don't know. And even if they do have a bigger, you know, it's more explicit that they are. They're still there's still a human being in they're not perfect. So for example Lizzo. So Liz, oh, I kind of was falling out. I've been following the news, though, way before she got super famous. And seeing that seeing the change in her message, and it feels like now in end of 2020, she's a very kind of pro, pro fat people.

Unknown Speaker 30:46

But she, I don't think she she hasn't always been she hasn't not been. But like, I remember what was it maybe last year, the year before she

Unknown Speaker 30:58

sold her Good as hell to Weight Watchers. And her fans on her page were like, Lizzo, what the heck was so upset about it, and a part of that was, she did like a sponsored post for Weight Watchers on her page or something like that. And her fans are really, really upset with her. Well, you know, up until that point had had, she said that she was anti diet. And she was, you know, saying, Oh, it's good to be healthy and things like that. So you can kind of tell that maybe she wasn't as in fat activism as maybe a lot of people expected. And that's fine. That's fine. Everyone's journey is different, right? And now, maybe she now in 2020, she wouldn't sell her her song to Weight Watchers, or not, you know, but she's got to make some money, you know. So we can't begrudge people from trying to live, and we don't know what was, you know, that's just like one example, we don't know, this, I might have been like, Fuck, man, I'm super famous. But I'm waiting for this bill to come through. And this thing, and I'm really poor. And my rent is like, I've moved to this really fancy place. And my rent is like 10 grand washes just come to me and said, hey, we'll give you 50 grand to do this. But I need the money. I'm going to do it. It's not the best, right? We don't know.

Unknown Speaker 32:15

Unknown Speaker 32:17

the next thing is

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celebrities body. And we all know, this doesn't belong to anyone apart from that person, right? It is not for thin people's consumption. It is not for fat, people's consumption, their bodies theirs. And it's none of anyone's business really. And we can speculate about what's going on with them and, and whatnot, but we don't have any right to any information about their body or what they're doing or what they're thinking or what they believe, at all. And imagine the immense amount of pressure having your body picked apart in a very public way, that pressure and what does that do to you?

Unknown Speaker 33:02

Can you imagine I meant, I think that I am pretty well balanced. And pretty kind of stable.

Unknown Speaker 33:13

Done a lot of work on myself. But I'm not sure that I could handle that. You know, like I mentioned the TV show last year that had a big effect on me. And that was just like, one two part documentary. Imagine if that was daily, and people were looking at your body and thinking, you know, she should lose weight and

Unknown Speaker 33:36

being cast in certain roles, because you're fat and your body is public property. And that must suck balls. And of course, it's wonderful to see fat bodies being represented.

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But what does it mean if that fat body becomes smaller?

Unknown Speaker 33:58

And we have judgments about it? Right? The the, you know, everyone has judgments about it. A lot of people are like, Oh my god, they become smaller gray. Oh my god, this is amazing. Some people are like, Oh my god, I can't believe I've lost weight they've let us down. And the person the facts, they might just be like, for fuck sake, just lay me Oh, my God, you know, and

Unknown Speaker 34:23

we have to try as much as we can respect the unspoken wishes of people have saying, you know, let's not pick apart their body, whether they have lost weight or put on weight or whatever.

Unknown Speaker 34:39

Next thing to think about is we don't know what's going on with them. We don't know what their mental health is their physical health.

Unknown Speaker 34:47

Especially when it's like someone like Adele who hasn't actually said anything about her weight loss. I don't think I know the picture that she posted, which it was kind of like the big reveal of her losing weight. She just say oh, it's my birthday. And she didn't mention any

Unknown Speaker 35:00

Anything to do with weight loss? And, and so everyone just presumed Oh, she's deliberately lost weight? Well how do we know that? How do we know that she wasn't sick? How do we know that she hasn't got an eating disorder? How do we know that she's not in a really dark place? We don't know who. And even if someone is publicly saying, Oh, I did the whatever diet, still we don't know if they're in a really dark place still, we don't know if they have mental health issues. And you know,

Unknown Speaker 35:31

what we know is at all times people who are dieting, and especially people who elect for surgery, do have higher rates of of mental illness, and lower self esteem than the general population. So we can cut we kind of already know a little bit about it. And we know, because we've been dieters, most people listening have gone on a diet, we know what that does to us, we can't presume that they are making all of these decisions to become smaller, because they're just like, I want to be sexier or thinner, or happier, or whatever it is, we just we don't know what's going on. Right? We don't know what's going on. And another thing to consider is what about all of the other marginalized identities that they may or may not have. So if they're a woman, if they're gay, if they're black, or a person of color, how much harder is it to walk through the world with different identities, and then imagine how hard it how hard it is to walk through Hollywood, being a no fat, black and queer.

Unknown Speaker 36:33

Like, oh, well, harder. And there's a load of pressure, that extra pressure. And so if you saw a way to make your life a little bit easier, so you know, the way that we view diets, you know, if I could, if I lose weight, then my life will be a bit easier. And so a fat celeb doesn't know about the failure rates of diets and all that type of stuff, because they're surrounded by, you know, thin Hollywood types, who like, you know, putting lettuce heads up the bum or whatever. And so they're gonna they're gonna take it, I mean, shit, wouldn't you? Obviously, we've, you know, most people have dieted, we've all been in that position where, if we've got this opportunity to make our life better, in whatever way, we're going to take him. And we are probably, you know, I'm at the point where I realized that the diet is not going to give me a better life, and you might be there. But these fat celebs, they're not there. They're not there. They've not yet discovered body positivity, fat positivity, they've not yet discovered that diets are harmful. They are just like us. And so if you could go back to yourself when you were in dieting, how, and you probably thought it was heaven at the time, we've already thought, Oh, I'm on my way to becoming a great person. Would you think you such a, you know, why can't you just not just stop doing that, you'd probably I would hope that you'd have compassion for yourself for not yet being at that stage. And that's why I say to a lot of people, some people aren't ready to learn to love their body, because they need to do one more diet, they need to really know that becoming thin isn't an option for them. And if they don't know it in their heart of hearts, they still have that kind of hope that they just haven't found the right diet. And sometimes you just need to go away and do that last diet for then you to realize, okay, it's not me, I really gave that a good go. It's not me, it's a fucking diets. And then you can do it, or

Unknown Speaker 38:48

you end up dieting for the rest of your life, you know, and they're not the only two options, but we have to have compassion for them. And so we know that weight loss is temporary. So these celebs, they're probably going to be fat again. It might take six months, a year, two years and a little bit longer. But I guarantee you, we're going to have front you know, pitchers of overdale Any other celeb that's lost weight being like blah blah blahs put on X amount of pounds look at them in their swimsuit, they look disgusting, and they used to look so you know, blah blah blahs had a breakdown and hurt and we're seeing it in a hot dog or whatever

Unknown Speaker 39:38

that is going to happen. I guarantee you science tells us that is going to happen and slabs so that we don't have some magic diet that's going to work. Yes, they have people who can make their food from them for them. Yes, they can have personal trainers that come around and and do things with them. And yes, they have access to all of these different things but

Unknown Speaker 40:00

Their body is not this magical celeb body that means that they can lose weight against what science tells us, you know, yeah, they can lose weight. But how much? Do they want to engage in that disordered behavior, behavior and that disordered eating in that

Unknown Speaker 40:20

disordered amount of of exercise? You know, it's

Unknown Speaker 40:25

at a certain point, they're gonna say to that trainer, like don't come in today, you know, I need a rest. And all like, say to the nutritionist, can you just give me like, something proper to eat? Because they're starving, you know, it's not, it's not sustainable.

Unknown Speaker 40:42

So,

Unknown Speaker 40:44

so we know that they're going to become big again.

Unknown Speaker 40:50

Now, this might lead them to

Unknown Speaker 40:54

fat positivity. We don't know what their journey is going to be. This might lead them to becoming just like Oprah. Oprah who,

Unknown Speaker 41:04

for years, has lost weight, put weight back on lost weight, put weight back on. Now we're so committed to being in that weight loss world has bought shares and Weight Watchers is probably improved, probably very difficult for Oprah to be open to hearing about how weight loss isn't, isn't isn't isn't a solution. She's probably very committed, or maybe not, you know, maybe in 10 years time, we'll be like, oh, please realize that wait, watch is fucked up. And so sells or shares first, and it says how, by the way, it's fucked up. You know, or maybe, you know, these celebrities could turn into someone like Matt McGorry. So Matt McGorry is is salobre to Matt was I don't know what sorry is because I don't really watch the shows But Asha for from How to Get Away with Murder. And Bennett from Orange is the New Black. And, like Matt McGorry is like the fat crush, you know, like, fat heart heartthrob, like, thank you for standing up for us. Previously thin,

Unknown Speaker 42:10

thin, buff type celebrity. So Matt,

Unknown Speaker 42:14

Matt's got some stuff that he's written about how he he used to be kind of very muscular, and, you know, stereotypical kind of male, Hollywood celeb type of thing. And how disordered he had to do beat behave to get to that place. And how kind of traumatizing a scene where you had to take off his shirt was and how many, many weeks and months went into him getting into a place where he was comfortable enough even taking a shirt off. And, and now, Matt is i It's hard to say right with guys. He's, he's like plump. I wouldn't say he's fat. I'd say he's, he's,

Unknown Speaker 42:57

he's soft. He's, he's, he's an average kind of, you know, I say average. That's not really,

Unknown Speaker 43:05

you know, kind of just he's just a guy he's just got he's not a ripped Hollywood celeb. And now he talks about how he perpetuated fatphobia and stigma and he is working to become a better guy. And it's just like, oh my god, you know?

Unknown Speaker 43:22

This is the bit where you should play that where as pussy song because don't We don't want all all people to be like that and to have that influence. So you know, the celebs that we are currently disappointed in. Like I've said in another episode, it's kind of like we have if we have a time machine, if we can go 10 years in the future, we will look at Adele or Melissa McCarthy or notion Melissa McCarthy has not lost weight, but you know, Rebel Wilson, whoever it is, that's that's lost way and then we'll we'll see them looking fat again. And we'll see them either internalizing that shame, or being like, you know what, this is fucking bullshit. And saying enough of diets or some or something in the middle, we don't know. Right?

Unknown Speaker 44:16

Another thing to think about is to recognize the courage it takes to be in the public eye and say, It's okay to be fat and say, my body is not okay. And say I am not going to

Unknown Speaker 44:34

succumb to your bullshit, which is,

Unknown Speaker 44:38

that is rude. That is courage. That is hard. I mean, it's hard for me and I only have 30,000 Instagram followers. Not like Rebel Wilson, who has 9 million Instagram followers not like Adele who has 39 million Instagram followers. How how

Unknown Speaker 45:00

Oh, would it be for Adele to say, Hey, do you know what I've realized that

Unknown Speaker 45:06

you can be fat and healthy?

Unknown Speaker 45:09

The amount of shit she would get for that?

Unknown Speaker 45:14

Which is wrong. She shouldn't, she should just have people being like, yeah, of course. Thank you for telling us, you know, but if she did that, you know, it's hard enough for a straight sized celebrity to say, Hey, I think everybody should be, you should all love all bodies. And even if they say something like that, like, we should just love our bodies, they would get shit for it. And even then just existing in a fat body, they get shit for it. So it's really hard to to be that that spokesperson really hard and, and would be really hard on their mental health.

Unknown Speaker 45:51

And that is not anything I would wish upon anyone, even though I would love you know, to have like, loads of super famous fat people just being like, yeah, and having someone else deal with their social media, so they don't have to deal with all the trolls and the bullshit and all that type of stuff. Which is probably what they do anyway, but

Unknown Speaker 46:13

and we need to recognize that when a fat celebrity is celebrated for losing weight, that is fat phobia in action

Unknown Speaker 46:25

is happening right in front of our eyes. That is a problem that is not good.

Unknown Speaker 46:34

And it's hard to see because we live in such a fat phobic society that it's so fucked up.

Unknown Speaker 46:41

But if you try to think about it, like with any other identity, so imagine if you saw a headline that said,

Unknown Speaker 46:50

celebrity leaves behind all of her stupid, womanly ways, and now is smart, like a man. exclusive pictures of this ex woman being really manly and great, and not stupid and frivolous. Like the woman she used to be sort of thing, then you'd be like, What the fuck is this bullshit? What? This? You know, you immediately you'd be like,

Unknown Speaker 47:18

hello, I roll inducing bigotry.

Unknown Speaker 47:24

And it just be ridiculous, right? And we would immediately be like, What? What, what is this click bait trash.

Unknown Speaker 47:38

And I think when we see a celebrity losing way, we don't have that same kind of like, Oh, my God, hello, bigotry. We have a different reaction, we make it about us. And it's about our society that they deem this newsworthy that we live in a society that is interested in this news. You know, it's not interesting, I don't give a shit. You know, to me, it's like, because it doesn't, what, who cares? Who cares? So we need to realize that this is what's happening. When anything is published about anyone's body, it is straight up and down trash, nothing more. And it's so sad that we live in a society that that profits off in such a massive way.

Unknown Speaker 48:33

The consumption of people's bodies. You know, like those magazines that you see when you're in the line for the grocery shopping, and it's like, stupid magazines, and it'll be like shots of people on the beach. And it'll be like, Oh, I love Tyra Banks has put on 5000 pounds or shocking pictures inside. And it's like, Fuck off, you know, because when you're looking at that picture of Tyra Banks who's bought on 5000 pounds, then you are looking and judging yourself. And the cycle just keeps going on and continuing and continuing and continuing. It's trash treat it as if someone has just done a shit on your laptop. And you just need to like, What the fuck? How is that appropriate? What, you know, this is and this has nothing to do with me. And when I have feelings about it, this is what is going on. You know, this is why I'm having these feelings. And it's not the celebrities fault. It's not the fault their fault if they intentionally last way

Unknown Speaker 49:40

because what pressures are they under?

Unknown Speaker 49:44

How fucking hard is it to be in the public eye? What else is going on in their life? What other marginalized identities are they having to deal with? Is it a choice of trying to lose weight or them dying? Because their mental health is so bad?

Unknown Speaker 49:59

Have they

Unknown Speaker 50:00

been told by that doctor that they're about to die because of that, because they're so fat. You know, what we don't know, we don't know what is going on. And so when a celebrity, even if they happily say, Oh, I've done this diet, and I've lost weight, if they've if they've secretly, which is what happened, happens, have surgery and lose weight and then have people prying. Or if they unintentionally lose weight, or if they lose weight, and they don't make any comments about it, all of that isn't none of our business. And by making it our business, we are perpetuating fatphobia. And so when you see anything like that, unless there's an article talking about how it's so fucked up, we're talking about celebrities, wait, do not click on it. Do not read it. Immediately hide it from your timeline, if it's on social media, do not share before and afters do not go and look for before and afters. Don't go to their Instagram page, avoid it like the plague and especially if you're like, the letter writer, a lost soul. having panic attacks from seeing this shit.

Unknown Speaker 51:14

It is trash that is flooding your brain is not helpful. And especially for for the letter writer,

Unknown Speaker 51:23

they are having a strong reaction to this trash.

Unknown Speaker 51:27

And it's so normal, all of this whole of these feelings are so normal for you to have. I mean, it'd be weird to not have some reaction to this, like even if you know, I see it, I'm just like, My reaction is awful. Fox eight, why are we reporting on this stuff? Can't we get more interesting things to write about.

Unknown Speaker 51:51

And I probably still do have a negative judgment about the celebrity. Like I'm still working on that I still will be like, we probably were going to be friends. But now I don't think I can be friends with them.

Unknown Speaker 52:04

You know, I was so close to being friends with as Ill like, hello. And now if we're friends, I'm going to have to educate her, you know?

Unknown Speaker 52:16

Versus if I met her, then we'd like Oh, my God, isn't it great to be back, you know, so even I have have have feelings about it. And but it's not my place, right? It's not my place. It's got nothing to do with me.

Unknown Speaker 52:30

And it's not okay, that society is telling us that you and the letter writer, family, everyone around us people we love that they need to look a certain way to be valuable, lovable and worthy. Is not true, is based on bigotry. It's offensive. So letter writer, a lost soul.

Unknown Speaker 52:55

Your email provider, I don't know what the fuck is going on there. But I have not heard of an email thing going to news after reading email, it makes me think that you've got some old email provider like Yahoo, or Hotmail or something, because I remember years ago, like 15 years ago, that might have happened. But I guarantee that that is something you can change. Either get a new email provider, they're free.

Unknown Speaker 53:24

There might be a setting on your emails to get rid of this stuff. You can opt out of that stuff. I guarantee if you're not sure how. Google it as someone to help you. But when I look at my email, I don't have news coming up. And it's so cool that you're limiting your social media to 10 minutes a day. That's amazing.

Unknown Speaker 53:47

You need to get rid of that news as well. Because if it's causing you to have such a strong reaction, that's a great indicator that is not helpful to you know, for me, I don't watch TV. I don't watch TV. Like in the traditional sense, you know, like turning on the TV, turning on the TV, because I don't know what is going to pop up. I don't know what bullshit is going to be on there. Especially when it's something like the news. And recently, you know what the news is like? Like Danger Danger fat people are walking the streets and they are gonna die from Coronavirus. Like that's not good for anyone's mental health. And even me, a fat activist it's not good for my mental health and I am solid in my fat positive beliefs. And so what does it do to those who are not solid in their fat positive beliefs? It fucks with their brain so I report ads on Facebook that are diety are shaming immediately. I have zero tolerance for any of that shit. I will report it as spam.

Unknown Speaker 54:51

And by the way, Facebook. They their advertising is generally sensitive to getting spam complaints.

Unknown Speaker 55:00

about stuff. And they will remove ads if they if they think that it's spammy. So if you if you think that you reporting something that spam is meaningless, it's not. Another thing that people do is they change their gender on Facebook to male.

Unknown Speaker 55:18

And then they don't get advertised diets and other, you know, slimming things.

Unknown Speaker 55:26

So, your mental health, our mental health, all of our mental health is at stake with this stuff. And so you have to get really aggressive with how you handle it, because I'm telling you, we are aggressively being told that our bodies aren't good enough.

Unknown Speaker 55:41

And if we're in regards to children, so I'm not a parent. And so I don't know what appropriate action to take in regards to access to limiting the access to bullshit, like I don't know, like, if you should take the limit the time on, on YouTube or whatever, I don't know, I don't know. But what I do know is that we can talk to children and educate them on the society that we live in. And talk to them about how no diets work, ever, that you that we're awful to fat people, that everybody that everybody is valuable, etc, etc. And, really importantly, model positive body image for them. That is one of the greatest gifts you can give children. And that is to have a neutral, or even better positive body image, so that they have a role model, they know that it is not normal to hate your body, and to diet and all that type of stuff, because they will take that into their lives. You know, so many people I talked to,

Unknown Speaker 56:59

when I asked them, when did this, when did this start? They came from a parent. That's why they hate themselves now is because their parent was on a diet, that parent hated their body, their parent told them that they should lose weight, etc, etc, etc.

Unknown Speaker 57:13

Unknown Speaker 57:16

in summary,

Unknown Speaker 57:19

when the fat slob loses weight, it's none of our fucking business. But because we're human beings, so I'm annoying. Because we're human beings, we're gonna have reactions, and understanding why we're having those reactions.

Unknown Speaker 57:39

And,

Unknown Speaker 57:41

you know, like that, like letter writer said,

Unknown Speaker 57:45

it might be cool to have role models that we know are fat positive, and probably aren't going to let us down. You know, I say let us down quote unquote, by losing weight, and someone that we know what their view is on all of this stuff. Because you know, it's nice to kind of put all this stuff onto a celebrity but they're probably just at home be my own. I don't know should I eat that chocolate bar? I don't know. And I feel good today. People don't judge me. You know, they just like us. So yeah, last one I've got to say about that. Let me know your thoughts. What do you think? What do you think about it all?

Unknown Speaker 58:27

Yeah, that's it.

Unknown Speaker 58:30

So I hope that was helpful. And

Unknown Speaker 58:35

the next time someone loses way we can when we see that article, we can just take our phone or laptop and throw it into the sun yes so so perhaps up practicing your throwing arm to be able to throw that into the sun because those articles an absolute GABAA harsh That's French for garbage it's not it's not I don't know what French for garbages it's probably something like Gabon.

Unknown Speaker 59:05

Anyway, thank you for hanging out with me today for this episode. And yeah for being with me for the podcast is now been out for a year so thank you for being with me for a whole year when people say oh, I've listened to your episodes I'm like wow, that's just so cool. That Aren't you tired of me?

Unknown Speaker 59:28

Like that's really really cool and I really appreciate you listening and and being a part of this and I reminder if you want to get on the waitlist for Facebook you can make you can go to facebook.com forward slash waitlist. And you can go to first aid for loads of other stuff. If you want the show notes to this. I'll link to Matt McGorry Instagram, he was the the the celeb that used to be all muscley and now is

Unknown Speaker 1:00:00

Soft go to facebook.com forward slash 054 Or you could just search Matt McGorry on Instagram.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:09

So yeah, thanks for hanging out with me and I'll see you in the next episode Have a wonderful day fatty is the Elena the money

Unknown Speaker 1:00:22

thanks for listening to the episode and if you feel ready to get serious about this work and want to know when the doors open to fears fatti Academy which is my signature program, where I teach all about how to overcome your fat phobic beliefs and learn to love your fat body, then go to first fatty.com forward slash waitlist again that is fierce fatty.com forward slash waitlist to get your name on the waitlist. For when first party Academy my signature program opens.