Episode 11 Transcript

You're listening to episode 11 of the Fierce Fatty podcast. I am your host, Victoria Welsby. And in today's episode we're talking about fat shaming kids and how to not screw up the next generation. Let's do it.

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. 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 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.


Today, I'm going to be answering a listener question about fat shaming kids and that's what it has inspired today's episode. So if you would like to ask a question that can be answered on the show, yes, great idea. Do it. Then go to the show notes. The show notes for this episode is fiercefatty.com/011 cause it's episode 11. fiercefatty.com/011 and there will be a link there for you to submit a question and make sure it's a question that you know I can answer. So to do with fat stuff, to do with anti diet, to do with intuitive eating, to do with being fabulous and competent, not to do with like how to make a pavlova or something like that because I can't help you with that. I am not a cook or a chef or a pastry chef or any of the above.


So, and remember to leave a review for the for the podcast. Not only will you get a copy of my best selling book Fierce Fatty in digital and audio format, but you get loads of good karma and spreading the message that this podcast is needed. I mean, huh? Is that better than my book? Probably. No, it's not. My book is amazing. So before you submit your review for the podcast, just take a screenshot of it and email me at victoria@fiercefatty.com. With that screenshot and I'll just send you your book, easy peasy, lemon and lime. No muss, no fuss. You can do it. And every single person that does that gets a copy, no questions asked.


So, I get messages about the podcast and it's so nice to read the impact that this podcast is having on you already, even though I've only done this is the 11th episode so far. So if you're having a good experience and tell me, I just wanna read you an email that I got from Maya and Maya had listened to episode 10, which was the five reasons why you hate your fat body. And Maya said in capitals, loved with four owes this podcast, three exclamation marks. So love this podcast. Listen to it twice last night and realize I haven't reverted just my neural networks got a bit jammed with watching straight sized people in shows as I've wound down from work a little so more time for that bubblegum type stuff. Also coming up to festive family time is making me wobble a bit and the layers are feeling bad back a bit more. It's a bit raw rather than regression. I'm still on the fat body love train heading for radical change town. Going to share widely and spread the good news. I know your podcast will help so many if it can help stubborn old me in two lessons, crying, laughing face. Have a great day. Love, Maya.


So I love getting messages like that. It's so wonderful to hear the positive impact that this is this podcast might be having on you. So if you're having a good time or listening in then let me know. Email me at victoria@fiercefatty.com.


So one of the, I mentioned before to submit questions to the show and I've got a question from Dorney Bird and I'm gonna read this question out to you and then we're going to go through the answer, the options, what you can do. And this episode is not just for those who have children, it's for those who were ever a child and you can parent yourself now as an adult or if you're a younger person and repair maybe your experiences as a child to identify what is appropriate in regards to treating a fat person, how fat child, how to treat them. And also if you ever interact with children. So if you have any nibbling, nibbling is the gender neutral word for niece and nephew. So I have a nibbling that I spend a lot of time with. My two year old nephew Finley, I say nephew, I don't know what gender he has decided that he is yet, but he's my nibbling a two year old Finley. And so even though I don't have kids, I have an impact on children.


So here's a letter from, letter. Here's the question. Maybe it's an old fashioned, it's a letter. Let's say pretend I got a letter. I got a letter in the mail from Donnie Bird. Donny Bird says, how can we support our children who are living in bigger bodies? My daughter had a letter come from school that said her weight was disproportionate to her height. She is 14 and has great self esteem. I want to help her continue to love her talented, bright, funny self. Awesome. Thank you for sending in that question Donnie Bird. It sounds like if you're 14 year old has great self esteem, that's incredible already. Cause I remember when I was 14, I was just like, and I thought I was disgusting and horrible. So something must be going on right there. For your 14 year old to have a great self esteem.


So this question is really multi dimensional. The answer is and there's a lot of things going on here. So I'm going to give all of the the feedback in regards to say, if we can presume that Donnie's doing a great job already, but genuinely speaking for all people who were interacting with children, caregivers, aunts and uncles. And I wonder what's a gender neutral word for an aunt or uncle that must exist? Someone tell me. So I am not a parent. As I mentioned before, I don't know if I have, I'm going to be a parent who knows. I've always been on the fence of, I could go either way. I don't ever have like a pressing need for a child. I'm not in a relationship at the moment, but I found that when I'm in a relationship, I'm more leaning towards wanting a child.


But who knows, who knows? I always thought when I got to pass 30, I always said I would not have children until I was 13. I presumed when I got to 30, then I'd be like, Oh my God, I want kids. But that's not ever really happened for me. But I'm not anti kids either. I love kids. So my experience here is as being a fat child and dealing with and helping those who have survived a childhood of being a fat child. And honestly, a lot of the times people are really damaged by their childhood. Those who have marginalized bodies of messages that they have received growing up have things that they are navigating now to overcome. And so the messages that we're giving children and younger people are so important. I think it can really change their lives for the better or the worse. And so the way that we talk about fat is so important.


Yeah. I wonder if we were, there's a quote, what is it a parent who loves their body immunizes their child from low self esteem. That's a rough version of this quote that I remember. Basically I wonder how many less dollars would be spent on dieting and you know, shit your pants, teas and all that type of stuff. If the people who we're caretaking for us as we were growing up were just like, yeah, fats, fabulous bodies comes in all shapes and sizes. You know, I wonder what the world would have. The world will be different if that was the case. And not blaming parents because parents are just people, right? They're just people who happen to have kids. And so they are fallible and they make mistakes and they are doing their best. Sometimes they're not doing their best. And they live in diet culture just like we do and they have their own shit going on in their head too. So no blame here, no shame unless you're being complete nob to your kids or all kids in general. Don't do that. But on the whole, I think parents are doing the best in a world that heavily criticizes parents for not, you know, cutting their kids' sandwiches into the shape of dinosaurs and wearing high heels in the kitchen and, you know, taking their kids to 75 activities a day and things like that.


So moving in the direction of fat positivity is a wonderful goal to have. And even just recognizing the ways that you are interacting with your kid, interacting with others is very, very powerful. So I'm going to go over some ideas for you that could, could resonate and you can be like, Oh shit, yes I do that. Maybe I shouldn't do that around my child or children in general. So, and by the way, if I did have a kid hundred percent chance that I would hurt or damage the kid unintentionally in some way. And so we, because I'm human, right? And you're human. And so if you listen to the podcast, you've worked out, Oh shit, I've been abusive or I've been giving a negative message to my children or people around me. Just realize that you're a human being, right? There's not, I don't think it's possible for a child to go through childhood without big fucked up by their, their parents or their care caregivers in some way, right? I mean, it's not possible. So even if you're the most well-informed, well intentioned, perfect human being that doesn't exist, you're still gonna fuck up, right? So give yourself some grace with this stuff. So, first thing is working on your own shit. I mentioned before that we, most of us in the world live in a culture that is focused on dieting and believes that smaller bodies are better than bigger bodies. And we cannot help by be influenced by that. So I am fat phobic. We're all fat phobic, but it's the level of fat phobia that we have and we allow into our lives. And so my fat phobia, I still probably have fat phobia that's undiscovered, right?


And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so good. I love fat people. There's probably somewhere still deep in the dark pits of my brain where I have negative thoughts and beliefs and biases against fat people and not just fat people or marginalized people identities. And but it's our jobs to try and discover what those beliefs and biases we hold. So you need to be working on that stuff because if you've lived in this society and you've never worked on it, you are being fat phobic in ways you probably don't realize. So you might be able to pick up how you're being fat phobic in the way that you are talking about human bodies. And so how are you talking about your body? Are you like, Oh my God. Oh wow, look at me. I'm so amazing. Look at my bum today. Oh, I'm so pretty. I'm so handsome. Oh my God. Oh yeah, I'm lovely or Oh, I'm worthy no matter what I look like. Or do you not make a thing about appearance or are you just like, Oh my God, my stomach is a bit flabby today and or I'm not gonna wear that because my legs have got sady light, or Oh, I've got bingo wings, or Oh, I don't have a six pack, or whatever it is. How do you talk about your own body? Is it positive? Is it neutral? Is it negative? How are you talking about other people? Are you like, Ooh, did you see Saundra? She's pawn some way, hasn't she? Even if you're not saying it to your kid and you're saying it, maybe you know, chatting on the phone to your friend or whatever. People around us pick on that stuff, pick up on that stuff, right? And they know that we have those judgments about other people's bodies or our own bodies. I know that with my mum and my dad actually, my dad never wanted to show his tummy. He had a big tummy. He actually had a hernia that made him have a big tummy. And so he wasn't actually a fat person, but he had this kind of beer belly. Maybe he had a baby as well because he was an alcoholic. But anyway, he had a fat tummy. And he was so self conscious about it. He was very, very, very self conscious about it. And I was talking to my aunt the other day, my dad died a couple of years ago and talked to my aunt earlier this year and she was saying that she's a nurse, that she would send him stuff from the hospital to make his stomach smaller, like girdles to try and make his stomach smaller.


And I never knew about any of this, but I did. I did know about him not liking his tummy. He'd always be like, Oh, it's not my fault that I have a big tummy and things like that. So what message was that giving to me as a kid? My mum would always talk about needing to be smaller and that she was the fat one in the family and she was too big and you need to be smaller to be worthy. Now my mum is a very slight woman. She's five foot two and she's not fat. And she's very straight size. And so growing up I saw her body and probably by the time I was 10, I was the same height as her. Now I'm five, seven. And so I was physically bigger than her and I was a child. And so if I looked at her body and then I looked on my body and her body wasn't okay, well then what did that mean about my body? So make sure that you're working on your own stuff, you're never going to be perfect. Things are going to come out your mouth that you're like, Oh my God, I can't believe I said that or thought that still even me, things will come out of my mouth and I'll be like, what the fuck, where did that come from Victoria? Hello bigots, right? And you just have to learn from it and do better.


So another thing that comes up for me is what parents do, what caretakers do is they try and prepare their children for the big bad world. And in one way that I was prepared for the big bad world was to be told that I needed to lose weight in order to be successful and do the things I wanted to do and to be loved. One such instance that I remember is, is watching their singer on telly and she was an opera singer and she was singing and I was, you know, dancing around the living room and trying to imitate this singer. And then I, at the end of the song, I was like, I'm going to be a singer when I grow up. And I remember my mum saying, Oh, you know, that's nice sort of thing, but you know, you can't be fat if you want to be a singer. Obviously she'd never seen all these fat opera singers. And I have in fact, I was watching an opera singer too, but she was like, Oh, you know, you, but you need to lose weight if you want to be a singer. And in that moment, I didn't think, Oh, you know, good idea. That's a really good piece of advice, you know, you're saying that because you love me and you want me to not be disappointed.


What I took from that was don't be ridiculous. Someone as ugly as you could never be a singer, you know, don't even think about it. And she was in that moment, she wasn't being trying to be mean as far as I'm aware. She was trying to protect me and help me. But it did the opposite. It was those types of messages and most of those negative messages I got from my body were from home, and they weren't necessarily always reflected in the world. And now we know there's loads of fat singers and you know, remember when pop Adelle started or America's got talent or whatever. And you remember that years and years ago, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago, 15 years ago. And it was very like you had to be between the ages of like 16 and 21 or something and you had to have the image and whatever. And then they started to loosen the restrictions on that. And now they have anyone in any shape of size and any age and whatnot because they realize that talent is talent no matter what package it comes in. And so luckily the world is changing for that type of stuff, but don't impose limitations on your child because you think you've made the assumption that they can't do it for whatever reason, right? Like even if there are limitations, even if they say, I want to be a skydiver and there is a weight limit on that who knows how technology is changing in five years. The weight limit could be higher, right. You know, so don't say, Hey, you can't do that because you're fat. Even if you're trying to protect them and I know it comes from a piece that place of love most of the time.


And even I hear a lot of stories about from clients that people, parents saying, you're not going to find a romantic partner if your fats and you need to lose weight in order to find a romantic partner. And that's not true, right? Yes. It might be harder because we live in a fast phobic society to find a mate if you don't adhere to the the beauty standard that we have decided upon as a society. But still it is realistic to say, even if I am fat or even if I'm really fat as hell, I am still worthy of a romantic partner and capable of finding a romantic partner who loves me for me, not because I, you know, weight 10 pounds less than I did, you know, a month ago or whatever, right.


Another thing to focus on is normalizing body diversity. So teaching them that it's okay to be fat. And I presume people do this already. I'm saying with a very high voice I think peopledo this. When I was on that show, Who were you calling fat? And I was doing the scene where I stood in Oxford City Center with a blindfold on with pens in my hands and I said, right on my body to support body positivity. A woman came up to me, now I don't know what age her kids were because I was blindfolded, but she said, thank you for doing this. Is important for me to show my kids that bodies come in all shapes and sizes and that your body is beautiful. And I was like, yes, yes, you do it. Amazing. This is great. Imagine if growing up, even for me, if I had seen that, if my mom has said, come on Victoria, let's go and write on this person's body because she's showing that body body diversity size diversity is important.


How that might have have affected me. And that could just be that one sentence that you say you could have a big impact, but it's something that needs to be continually spoken about. Saying that bodies do come in all shapes and sizes and that you can be healthy at any shape and size. And so talking about healthism as well as fat phobia, because they might say a lot, a lot of times I see people who are on the borderline of being fat positive who are like, absolutely it's important to show different types of bodies, but what about the health? And I'm like, Oh, you were so close and then you fucked it up. No. And so talking about health as well and about how healthism is totally fucked up and how we judge people's bodies by how healthy our and how fat people are presumed to be unhealthy and how it's how fat people are discriminated against when they go to the doctors and not given the correct treatments and things like that. And just making them aware that this stuff exists. And to say you're not more important as a person if you're healthy or, and you're not less important if you're unhealthy and size and health don't necessarily go in hand in hand. And so with body diversity, two things that you can do, say if you're a fat person and you have a fat child, you can normalize your body and show them your body without shame. So for example, my two year old nibbling Finley I will, I will often show him my tummy, not just randomly, like look at my tummy, but say if we, you know, if he's looking at his tummy or whatever. And the way that I talk about my tummy is if I lift my shirt, I'll say, Oh, look at my tummy. Isn't it soft and squishy? And so it's kind of, you know, I'm not saying, Oh, Oh look at so fat and horrible or something like that. I'm just showing, Oh, here's a different type of body because I'm the fattest person in my family. And what if your child says, Oh my God, look over there and I cut that fat person. How are you reacting when your child notices a fat person? Now, children, when they're younger, a lot of the times they'll just say, they'll just notice someone who is different and just say, Oh, that person is different. And they don't necessarily have judgment. Studies show, however, children are picking up judgment from an incredibly young age. Especially if they are not socialized with different types of people, they will then other those people, they will think that those people are less desirable as a playmate than those people that they are surrounded with. So if your kid is like whispering thing, look there's a fat person, don't be like, Oh, don't say that they're fat or don't, you know, don't make sure that you're not saying bad things about being fat saying, yeah, so that person isn't it nice to see different body types and encourage them to use these neutral descriptors of fat and fat is not a bad thing.


All right? A big thing is food. So the next point is talking about food and the way that you talk about food. So parents all up and down the world are actively teaching children not to trust their bodies and become disordered around food from a very young age because it's very well established parenting advice or the way that our parents have parented us. And we kinda just follow what we've learned, right? I know I've been doing that. Like when, when I'm hanging out with, with with Finley, I find myself saying things that my mum maybe said to me and I'm like, Oh my God, where did that come from? Oh my God, it's stored in the back of my head of how to be a good parent or how to parent and challenging that. But actually the way that we feed kids is, whoooo, super problematic.


So feeding babies, we trust our babies to say, Hey, I'm hungry, right? Babies normally cry when they're hungry and when they're full, they normally stop drinking milk, right? And the baby will say, ah, it's fucking two in the morning. I'm hungry. Give me some milk or it's 3 am. I don't care give me some milk. Oh, I only drank milk 20 minutes ago. I don't care. I'm hungry. Give me some milk. And we don't say to the baby, listen up here now baby. We don't eat path 7:00 PM. Okay. You ate half an hour ago and you're not due a feed for another hour. We just listened to the baby and be like, Oh my God. Well the baby's going through a growth spurt today. The baby is less hungry today and just needs to sleep more. All the baby really wants, you know, lots of milk or is feeding every two hours or is feeding every half an hour or whatever, right. My sister just had a baby or we could go 10 days ago. Whooo. Yes. So I'm just being reminded about all this stuff about babies and we're not like my baby is wrong because they stop eating when they've decided they're full, right. We're just like, they're full. But there's something that changes between the time that they are babies to turning into toddlers and we start trying to force them to do things the way that we want them to do things. Now Ellyn Satter, I'm going to link it in the show notes. Ellyn Satter is the boss when it comes to the all knowing food expert when it comes to feeding children and raising competent eaters. And so if you want to learn more about this stuff that I'm talking about, go to my show notes. But if you just want to, Google is ellynsatterinstitute.org.


Ellyn spelled E L L Y N, Satter -S A T T E R. ellynsatterinstitute.org. I am gonna link up to it. But think about the way that we are talking about food to kids. It's really obvious when someone shines a light on it. You're like, Oh yeah. Now I was never interested in learning how to teach kids to be an intuitive eater because I didn't have kids around me. But now that I have kids around me, I've become fascinated with this topic because it's just so, it's so interesting. It's so interesting and noticing how I'm an intuitive eater. I teach intuitive eating. Intuitive eating for children is different because they're not adults, right? And we have to take up some responsibility. And actually what Ellyn Satter teaches is the division of responsibility. So basically in a nutshell, the division of responsibility is that at from a toddler onwards, adults are responsible for what children eat when and where.


So what, when and where a child is fed and the child is responsible for whether they eat at all. And how much, so think about the ways that traditionally, and this is, everyone does this, so don't feel bad if you're doing this because everyone does this. Saying one more bite, eat greens. If you eat up your dinner, then you can have some dessert. Oh, you're such a good child for eating up all your plate. If you don't eat your dinner, then you're gonna go hungry. Or if you don't eat your dinner, then we're going to give it to the kids down the road. Now what are these teaching children now. If you encourage kids to eat certain foods and discourage them from eating other foods, what do they learn about those foods? Well, what I learned is growing up that chocolate and crisps are bad or chips as you say, North America.


They are bad, they are restricted and I am naughty when I eat them or only get them if I've been good, I have to meet certain criteria to get them like eat something which is yucky and what is yucky things that we have told, been told that we have to eat our vegetables. Right now children do have an aversion to green vegetables or other vegetables because their palette actually picks up bitter tastes more than an adult's palette. And so they don't, they taste different from how we taste them. And so they have to be taught to enjoy them and to teach them to enjoy them is to not pressurize them to eat them. It's just to expose them to them. And so some parents even do things like force feeding their kids these foods and mean like, Holy shit is that, that's not traumatized new kids.


Then I was watching an episode of that show, what's it called? Super Nanny and these parents were like, blending the meals up and like force feeding their four year old kids like blended food. And the kids were screaming and stuff and the parents were like, Oh my God, we can't get them to we and you know, must have been really frustrating for them. But the kids also were probably being like, fuck this, we're not eating this food because it's, you know, it's scary and horrible. And growing up I remember my dad was very forceful. My mom was very soft, you know, would let us get away with anything type of thing. And my dad was the absolute opposite and my dad wanted us to, what it mean to eat brussels sprouts because he loved brussel sprouts. And I remember him being like, I know that you'll love them if you just try them.


And I was just like, I don't want to try them. They're yucky. And obviously I'd never tried them, so I didn't know. And I remember him saying, come on, try one, try one. And I ran away and he brought me back and sat me down and he forced the brussel sprout into my mouth. And I remember throwing up and my mom saying, Oh, leave her alone now. And so that was my reaction to Brussels sprouts. Now it took me years and years and years to try brussel sprouts again because I had a traumatizing experience around Brussels sprouts being force fed, a brussel sprout. And so I was encouraged to eat these vegetables and stuff, but I knew that I quote unquote knew they must be horrible if my parents are being like, eat that, eat that, don't eat too much of that.


I remember when one day a pancake day, it's a big day in the UK. It's to do with Easter and you make pancakes and the proper pancakes, not like North American pancakes. They like what a North American would call a crepe. Anyway, so pancake day, exciting day, make pancakes after dinner with some lemon and sugar. Amazing. I remember my dad making pancakes and I remember I had one and then I ran upstairs and he said, Oh, do you want another one, Victoria? And I was like, yeah, or a one, a hundred. And he very angry. He said, no, you're not having a hundred. Clearly, I was joking, but I probably did want a hundred, but you know would he have said that if he was making brussel sprouts, if I said I want a hundred brussels sprouts, he wouldn't say, no, you're not having a hundred. He'd just laugh and be like, Oh, you can have all the Brussels sprouts you want. But in that moment, I was taught pancakes are bad. You can't have too many pancakes. And what did that make me want more pancakes? Because I was taught that they were these delicious, naughty, devilish things that I shouldn't have. And so with all these kind of mixed messages as I got as a kid, I started binge-eating I started sneaking food being very secretive. And basically developed an undiagnosed eating disorder. And now this is not the case for everyone. And I think my case was a little bit more extreme than the average household. But just think about the way that you're talking about food anything where you are. Even if you're positively encouraging your child to eat certain foods like well done for eating your vegetables. The child picks up on it. Kids are smarter than we realize that the child picks up. Even if it's positive encouragement, you are still delivering a message that that food is good and this food is bad and you're naughty if you have too much of that. And that food is disgusting because we want you to eat it.


So Ellyn Satter is the boss when it comes to this type of stuff. And remember it's like division of responsibilities. Adults are in charge from the age of they're a toddler up what, when, and where the child is fed and the child is responsible for whether they eat and how much they eat. And so if they want more, they can have more. If they don't want any, they don't have to have any. So that's a whole, that's a whole deep subject. But it's a big is a big thing around fat kids as well because fat kids, how often a fat kids put on fucking diets told all, don't you do this, don't you do that?


And it's very judgy and shaming and the way that we approach food and food education is very shaming now. I'm not saying don't talk to your kids about food, but you can make it fun and interesting and nonjudgmental, right? And there's ways to do this. Like, Oh, by the way, if you eat this, it makes your tummy feel full. And if you eat this, it makes you be able to run longer or whatever. Right? And if you eat this, it makes your brain happy. And so there's not judgements. Okay. so next is important to talk about fat phobia and body politics and talking about how we want to make the decision to not give in to the bullies. Because the current narrative we have around fat bodies is the world says that fat bodies is bad. And so the answer to that is to not change the world is to change our bodies.


And so it's like saying there's a bully in the playground and the bully says, gimme your lunch money. And instead of saying to the bully, Hey, stop bullying people and taking their money, it's saying, just give them your money. Just give them the money and they'll go away. Well, that's not the answer, right? So talking to kids about how the world is biased and fucked up and that we shouldn't be giving into these narratives about what is an okay body and talking about how as they grow older they're going to become more exposed to these ideas, especially as a teenager. And it's normal for them to look at their body and think that it's not okay. But what is really happening there is that they are being brainwashed by media and by society into thinking that their body is not okay, but their body is absolutely fine.


And on that, on that as well as is I presume that parents do this anyway, but saying that it's okay. It's not okay to judge people. From the, you know, external appearance. I really have such faith in the future generations. I think it was last podcast I mentioned that I was an adjunct professor for a few years and the students that I taught, I was just like, fuck man, you're so savvy when it comes to social justice and these types of things compare to when I was in school. And so I know that it's getting way better, but it's really important for it to come from home as well about not judging anyone by their parents, even if that person is a massive decade. So here's an example, Donald Trump, a lot of people will make fun of Donald Trump because he's fat. That's not okay. Donald Trump make fun of Donald Trump because he's a wanker because he's a bigger, because he's racist and sexist and an abuser and all of the things that you know, there's so much that you can go on Donald Trump and being fat is not one of his flaws. It's not one of his flaws. He has many hundreds of them being fat is not one of them. And so even someone like Donald Trump who is the biggest balland around, we cannot make fun of his hair, his body size, the size of his penis, the presumed size of his penis as transphobic as well because it's a confusing message. Also. It's okay to make fun of someone for their body size if they're a bad person. Well, I don't like that person over there because they were mean to my friend when it's okay to make fun of them. Is it okay to make fun of me? Because sometimes I'm a bad person, you know, it's confusing, right? So we just don't make fun of people for their body size ever. Or for anything to do with their parents really. And I know that can be really tough because it's a part of our language and it can be a way that we bond with other people by being like, Oh my God, did you see blah, blah, blah. And it can be a way yet to bond and it can be hard to stop that behavior, but notice that and, and try not to do it.


So I mentioned this briefly, but I want to state this very clearly. Do not ever put them on a diet. No. And don't tie it around them. What behaviors are they learning when they see you? Diets only negative ones. And even if the doctor says all that your child needs to go on a diets, no, no, no. If you're unsure about why that's important. Go back to..I think it was episode two or three where I talked about why diets are fucked and so you are actively harming a child. If you put them on a diet really big, seriously, you are actively harming them. And it's just so fucked up. And there's so many stories I've heard about kids being put on diets and how it destroyed them, gave them an eating disorder, gave them a terrible low self esteem, all sorts of bananas stuff. So don't put them on a diet. Even if even if it's like, well, it's not a diet. I'm just going to make them eat vegetables and I'm just going to, you know, one of these like it's not a diet, but they can only have 500 calories or whatever. It's a diet.


Another thing to do is to make sure that they know that they are worthy no matter what they look like or what they do because we all lie. Everyone is worthy as a human being. No matter what, no matter what you do, what you look like, anything. I personally always for years and years and years believe deep down, I knew that I would be more loved by my mom if I was thinner. I just knew it. I knew it. I knew that she would finally embrace me and be like, Oh my God, Victoria, you've been hiding in that fat suit for years and now you're thin and I love you, and I'm proud of you. And one time when I did get straight size, I remember coming home to Ireland and to spring, like I've arrived on my God and one of my aunt's seeing me and one of my aunts who's super, super, super, super fat phobic and she was like, Oh my God, Victoria, keep up the hard work. This is so incredible. I'm so proud of you. She's never spoken to me like that before or since because obviously I put on the way and more. But the truth is I actually wasn't loved more. My mom at the time who was more steeped in fatphobia then was probably very proud of me. That is true. But she's now way more proud of all of the other awesome shit that I've done in my life. And even if I had never done any ocean shit, I would still be worthy as a human being.


And I never knew that I do now because I found out myself. But passing on that message that even if they are the opposite of what is desired by our society, they are still a worthy human being. So in that letter that Donnie Bird sentence, there was a letter that came home from school saying the child's height and weight was disproportionate. Now this is a really important point here. If I was that parent, because I do this for a job and I'm very confident about this and the facts and figures and all that type of stuff. So I don't expect everyone to do this. But I would, I would take that as a big threat to my child's happiness, self-esteem mental health. And I would make a meeting or I don't know how you'd communicate with the school, call them, email them, go in and kicked down the principal's door and talk about why that is deeply problematic and talk about how you never want to see anything like that. Come home with your child again. How you do not want any of that fat phobic shit around your child. How you take this very seriously, why this is fucked up. Hopefully your child didn't see that letter. Oh my God, well they must have because they must have been weighed or something. Like there must've been some thing going on in school. Like I would just shit with anger. I would just do a poo with anger. I'd poo on the principal's desk in anger if that happened.


And so my next point is to protect them from adults who are fat phobic. And so those adults could be adults who were in positions of authority, like teachers, like doctors. It's, it's really not okay. No matter who it comes from, for people to say your body is wrong, especially a child who is at 14. When you're 14, and you're like, Oh my God, you're all over the place and do people like me. Am I okay? And Oh my God, no, you're too fat. Oh, my other laugh from school. Who? Shit, man, that would, Ooh, I thank God that nothing like that ever happened to me because, Oh Lord, I can't just, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. But it's happening all over the world, right. And luckily Donnie Bird is no knows that it's bullshit. Well, I'm presuming and knows that this is not okay, but a lot of parents would probably be saying like, Oh, well, you know, this is not good. You're too fat. You need to lose weight. And that could be the start of an eating disorder. It could be the start of years of body dysmorphia or it could be the start. Who knows what it could, you know, at least it could be the start of them not being able to trust you to not shame them, you know?


So yeah, I would be making sure that I stand up to anyone. And that goes for yourself too. You know, advocating for yourself. But if your child sees you advocating for them in about their weight and they are a fat child, how much confidence is it going to give them to be able to advocate for themselves when they're an adult? Be amazing. It'd be amazing. And now I know that's hard, right? It's hard. It's hard to stand up to people in positions of authority. But if you do your research, if nothing, read 'em health at every size by Dr. Linda Bacon. Tons of research in there about why dieting is fucked up and how to how to navigate the world. In regards to science, if you want to be healthy as someone living in a bigger body. And so you can give people information from that.


Another thing is don't shame them for wearing clothes that you think are too tight or not appropriate for a fat child. And so if you, if a straight size child was to wear the same outfit as a fat child, but then you say to that fat child, mm, that's not appropriate, that's fat phobic. If your child is comfortable wearing whatever they're wearing, then let them do it, right? We are the ones who tell children all know you need to hide that belly or you need to hide that muffin top of where you need to. Oh, no, that's insightly. And so if they're comfortable wearing whatever, because the time is, you know, times are changing and fat people are more and more allowed to show their bodies, don't preemptively remember we spoke about a point before. Tell them or people are gonna make fun of you because you could be the only one making fun of them.


You know, they could be surrounded by people who think they're fabulous and they could be dressing like their role models, like Lizzo with them. Maybe not if they're going to school with a Tee shirt with the whole cutout in the bum with a thong and fishnet. It's maybe there might not be ever ivory up, you know, if they're going to school like that. But you know, think about how would you, how would you judge a thin child, a straight sized child versus this fat child. Are you putting different standards on this fat child? Eh, maybe you shouldn't. Another thing is with fat kids, we want to be able to like, well, they are so lazy. They just, all they do is mom, whatever, making assumptions. And so movement exercise can be a massive source of trauma for for fat kits for any kid really.


And the way that we are being introduced to different types of exercise is negative. And so don't bully them, cajole them, guilt them into moving their body. Now, I didn't realize that when I was a kid, I moved my body. I thought that I was this lazy, you know, couldn't do anything type person because when I did move my body, it was in ways that it wasn't a big deal. So we were very poor growing up and we would ride, ride on bikes everywhere. So my mom, me and my sister we would ride up bikes to do the weekly shopping. If I think about it now, I'm like, Oh my God. Like we would have tons of carrier bags on the side of our, you know, on the handlebars of all bikes and riding home. My mum, she'd carry the most obviously, and she'd have like 57,000 carrier bags filled with groceries on her bike.


And you know, cycling not as short distance quite, you know, through a few neighborhoods, probably a half an hour cycle. And so we were on our bikes all the time. It was our method of transport. And we'd be, I'd be around the neighborhood on my bike. I thought that my bike was a horse. I would put a skipping rope on the handlebars of my bike and I'd lean back into my seat and I'd steer my bike with the skipping rope. Like I was like staring a horse and a yeah, that caught on in the neighborhoods. I'm proud to say. Yes. So I was on my bike all the time. If I wasn't on my bike, I was on my roller skates because it was fun and I'd be roller skating everywhere and even more roller skates to church and things like that because those activities weren't forced on me. It was just a mode of transport. It was a just a way to have fun and so I was active all day. You know, like in the summer I'd be out all day on my bike on roller skates. Now when activity was forced upon me, so like in school every year we had to run the 1500 meter, I think it was about three, I think that's about three quarters of a mile and everyone would be like, it's a 1500 a day. We're doing it at 1500 and it'd be like sprung on us almost because everyone dreaded this. Like we had no training in regards to how to run. It would just be once a year. Everyone had to run around the track. I think it was like three in a quarter round the track of one of them and he would be so traumatizing and all the slow kids would just be like, Oh my God, this is the worst day.


And people would try and get out of it and you would dread it and it'd be the worst. And so then I presumed that running was the only valid form of exercise because it was this thing that was pushed on me. And so when I as a, as a child wanted to lose weight and put myself on on diets, I would run up and down the corridor in my house at like hundred lap intervals and run around the neighborhood. Now this was really fucking unsafe running around the neighborhood at night. Like I lived in a counselor state and I could so dangerous, really, really dangerous. But I thought that that's what exercise was because it was a, it was a thing that was not enjoyable, not realizing that I was already exercising a ton. And so what activities do you think came with me into childhood?


Into adulthood? Not rollerskating. I do have, although I do have a pair of roller skates, but I love biking. It's just something I love doing. I don't see it as this thing to punish my body. I just see it as something to have fun to explore neighborhoods to get around and you know, freedom because that's what it represented to me as a child. Now, whenever I'd be trying to get fit as an adult, I wouldn't be doing biking because that was fun. And I enjoyed it. I would be doing running and doing it to the extreme running. I remember running on this day, there was like so much snow and ice and I remember running in my neighborhood where I could have easily slipped and died or whatever. And it was night time too, and taken a picture of the terrible conditions and putting it on social media being like, I'm so dedicated to being fit that I run in any conditions and people being like, good for you. And I was like, yeah, look at you lazy people not running when you could die. And so that was what the messages that I got about exercise. So what messages are you giving your children? You need to be moving your body. You need to be exercising. You need to be on that treadmill. Or are you just being like, Oh, let's just go and explore this neighborhood on our bikes or let's go and splash in the pool today, or whatever. Movement in life. If you are interested in being healthy now, you don't have to be interested in being healthy. But movement is one of the things that can contribute towards making people feel better and is one of the things that you can do to improve your health. Although it doesn't have a massive impact. It's something that we can control some of the times, well, most of what's going on with our health is it's genetics is where we live. It's who we are, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, so, but health is something movement is something that we can sometimes have control over. So don't give your kids the experience of being forced or being told that they have to. Louise Green, one of my friends, Louise Green, she's also known as big fit girl. Amazing. She's got an app that's just come out with a Big Fit Girl app. And so if you're, if you're fat or whatever size you are and you want to do exercises with body positive stuff, get her up. But anyway, I digress. She tells me a lot of her clients, they are coming back to exercise as adults because they were so traumatized as children because they were forced to do stuff that they, they were scared off for for decades. And it's only years later that they're gently trying to reintroduce themselves to exercise cause they know that it makes them feel good or whatever it is.


They want to have more strength or flexibility or whatever. So if you want your child to be moving, move with them. Do movement where it's just, you just go in for a walk or whatever and don't make a big thing about it. Just don't make a thing. Just, just, just be a normal person. You know, a big thing, this goes out to adults as well as children. But a key thing to why humans think that body is not good is because we see messages that tell us that our body is not good. This is what a body should look like. The way that we received those messages is through media, through the films we watch the TV, the adverts that we see, the magazines that we read, the books that we read that have descriptions of fat people as bad and thin people as good.


So what media are they consuming? Even as, so my two year old nibbling Finley, I'm watching these cartoons that he's watching and Cocomelon and baby boomer nuts that fucking, Oh, watch and watch the same fucking thing over and over, anyway. And there's like, they have songs on there and one of the songs is like, Oh, the parents are sneaking at night and eating sugar. And then the other parent catches the one parent saying, what are you eating? Or I'm eating sugar and I'm just like, this is fucking, you're teaching the kids that sugar is bad and Oh my God. And there's other ones being like, Oh, you have to eat vegetables and things like that. And I'm just like, no, the wrong message. Anyway. so are they watching a ton of stuff like that? Oh, as they growing up, are they watching a ton of stuff where they have just thin white people in it? And what are they learning? Now a lot of times you might not be able to say, don't ever watch that. You can't watch that because there's no fat people in it. Well, you know, that's not probably not realistic, right? But you can be talking to them about it and being like, Oh wow, isn't that interesting? That only seems to be thin people in this show. Wouldn't it be cool if they had some characters in there who were a little bit more diverse or introducing them to different shows where there is more diversity or giving them books that has more diversity.


So Fluffy Kitten Party wrote a blog about this topic. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. And in that blog there is a list that Fluffy Kitten Party has curated of fat post body and fat and body positive books for kids. There's a list of lists. So there's probably hundreds of books to find. And so you can counteract those messages that kids and young adults are getting. By giving them the things which will fill their media with more variety so they're not just seeing thin white people being represented and being the only ones who were, who fall in love and get the guy and are athletes and et cetera, et cetera.


Another thing, so this the last point is don't force your kids to spend time with fat phobic or diet culture obsessed people. And if they are exposed to those types of people, then talk to them about why that's bullshit and why that's problematic, right? So if your, you know, your kids are going around your, your parents' house and so they seen the grandparents and the grandparents are like, Oh, you must need that. Oh, aren't you fat? And all things like that. Then a lot of the hard work you're doing at home is going to be potentially undone by spending just a couple of hours with these people, especially if they're people that your child loves, then those words are more impactful and more normalized when they're saying, Oh, you know, you mustn't eat that or whatever it is. So maybe your parents are great, but apart from that, well, can you talk to your parents and be like, listen, we don't talk about that in our house, so can you not or if you're not able to do that for whatever reason, saying to your kid, by the way, your granddad and grandma talk about this, but we think that that's not right because of this. But you know, just to be aware of it, you don't have to do XYZ and your body is fine and all that type of stuff.


Obviously the better thing would be to get them to stop behaving like that. But say if it's just, you know, a random person, you meet at a party and your kids are there and they're like, Oh, I'm so fat and ugly, or whatever talking to your kids afterwards about how that's kind of interesting how that person talks like that and just having a conversation with them about it. So that is a lot of information. I'm losing my voice actually, after all that information and I've gone, this is the longest podcast I've ever done. Oh my gosh. But I have a lot to say about the topic. And by the way, just a reminder that if you are around kids, you're gonna mess them up in some way. Obviously we'd try not to. We're not actively, unless we're bad people. We're not trying to mess them up, but we all slip up and kids are hard. Now, I'm just an auntie and I look after my nibbling and I'm like, wow, this is so hard. I can. So see why you can't always be doing the best and doing all these things all the times. And sometimes you're tired and you're just like, just eat the food and just be quiet or whatever. So give yourself grace and you don't have to be the perfect parent because that is not possible. You can just be moving in the direction of enlightening yourself and trying not to be doing harm. And at times when you have the capacity to do more extraordinary things like standing up for them and saying excuse me, school, that letter is really fucked up and this is why it's fucked up.


And I'm taking them to see fat positive movies and Oh, like, Oh, that's a bit old. I was going to say, Oh, you should go and see party cakes or something. But I think that's for like, it's like an 18 or something. So maybe if you have older kids yeah. So give yourself grace and Donnie Bird, thank you so much for writing that you clearly love your daughter massively. Which is wonderful and it's admirable for you to have asked that question because it shows how much you care about your kid and other fat kids. And it's really a beautiful, beautiful thing. So thank you so much.


So, and little fact about me cause I like Sharon facts. I like talking about myself, just myself. Its all about me obviously. Talking about films cause you know, I like films. I really like films. The last film that I watched was so fucking good. I try to watch more diverse mm not fat shamming films, not always possible. But I watched a really good film last night called Call Me by your Name. It was on Netflix out in 2007 it gets 95% on rotten tomatoes. So it's not just me that thinks it's good film critics too as well. So it's directed by Luca Guadagnino. He's an Italian filmmaker. He's gay and this is a film about to like a coming of age film, a younger boy, man. And an older guy they're not gay, but they kind of discover their sexuality through a hot, steamy summer in Italy. And it is gorgeous. So it stars Armie Hammer. He is, you would recognize him, like I know you'd recognize him from social network.


So remember the two twins the rowing twins who originally started Facebook and then Mark Zuckerberg allegedly stole it off them. Well, he plays those two twins. So he's the older guy and then Timothée Chalamet, he's like a rising star actor, plays a younger guy and it's really fucking steamy at one point Timothée fucks a peach. So it's brilliant. So have you want to see some peach fucking and some beautiful, its beautiful. It made me cry. It was so, Oh really good. Well, you can just read the novel. So originally a novel by Andre Ackman. So definitely worth a watch. Call me by your name. Call me by your name. I've been on a stint of wanting to watch films that I wouldn't necessarily, like if someone described this film to me, I'd probably be like, yeah, yeah, I'll put it on my list. But then, you know, just watch Bridesmaids again. You know, but I've been watching, I've been in a setting of just looking at the films that are our award winners and just watching them without reading the synopsis and, you know, dick convincing myself there'll be rubbish because it's not right. I'm saying anyway, you might think it is rubbish. This is my opinion.


So yeah. So thanks for hanging out with me today on this episode 11 reminder to leave me a review. If you got any aha moments in this episode and share on social media that you're listening. I will enter you to win a Fierce Fatty cup that you can drink hot liquid out of, cold liquid out of, you can put food in it. You could put, I don't know, jewels in it. You could wear it as a hat. You could put your foot in it and where it was a shoe might be a bit small, but you can do anything with them. Multi-Use cup for yah. You'll get in a draw if you share on social media that you're listening to his Fierce Fatty podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for all your emails and messages and reviews about the show. I appreciate you more than you know. And thanks for your questions that are coming in. I'm looking at them and I'm fitting them into the podcast schedule. And so you might not get your question answered immediately, but it's on my list. So don't you worry, don't you worry. All right. Okay. Thanks for hanging out with me today and I will see you on the next episode of the Fierce Fatty podcast. Goodbye.