Episode 142 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast episode 142. Why have I been diagnosed with the O word and when dieting is the only option? Let's start.

Hello Fierce fatties and fatty allies Welcome to the show today. We have a couple of extra guests. Guests you save it I know who would have thunk it. Well, it's Jackson and Bella the puppy is from the people down the hall My name was so if you're on video, you might have seen Jackson will come by he's a boarder he's really fucking cute. And barely Bella is a ginger little thing. wearing a diaper because she likes to we in my apartment little Bella he's wearing a diaper diaper of shame when I bring it out she said I look after these pups whenever I walk by there my name is apartments and there are on their own they do a little walkie I am a Bucky Papa Rena woof, woof. When they do in a bulky when their own I'll text my neighbors and say do you want me to hang out with them? Stop around and get them bring them to mind. So anyway, I normally don't do it when it's a podcast day because they do like a lot. They do like to do a book. So let's just hope they don't do a book today. Or they're gonna they're gonna be going home for the podcast. Anyway, welcome to today's podcast is going to be a listener question part two. Hey, thanks to everyone who's emailed me saying that they liked the podcast. I really appreciate it. A lot of you were saying that you liked the body dysmorphia episode. Why? Why? Why did you like it so much? What did I do differently that you liked it so much? Maybe it's not that it was different or better, but maybe it just was really resonated for some reason. Wow. So anyway, thanks for that. Okay, so we've got a we've got a couple of themes today. And the first one is going to the doctors and finding out the doctor has written on your chart that you have quote, oh word which is own Should we show up? I don't even want to say it had so much. And so and then the next one is about being so frustrated with everything that maybe you choose to die it and you know whether that's the answer or whether it's not who the frick nerves, well, well, I've got opinions, and we're gonna be talking about that. Okay, so this is from Amy, who says, oh, what could be the reason behind doctors diagnosing me with a word in my chart when one we haven't discussed my weight at all, too. All of my health markers are within normal range and I have no symptoms of anything and all three the appointment in question was about something unrelated to body size. I know you've discussed doctors lecturing their fat patients about weight when they come in with a sore throat but this is slightly different. These doctors three so far in my case have never said a word to me about my size. They just congratulated me on how healthy I am and then right I word in my chart as soon as I've left the office is it some how an insurance thing a cover your ass move? So if I dropped dead then from fatness tomorrow they can say that they documented that it might happen. It feels like such a beat Trejo Yes, I so feel this when when Amy says it feels like such a betrayal. I had to get my doctor's notes. I'm been in the process for like five years of getting victims of crime compensation from when I was our word by an ex partner talked about that abusive partner in the past like many many episodes ago if you want to, if you want to know the gos on that, anyway, and so one of the things that they need is was my

Unknown Speaker 4:37

medical records notes Lelli that led you to do back then. And so I got them from my doctors from the whole time I've been in Canada which is 13 years and I was obviously having it or no I was am nah, I was really surprised by the doctors writing stuff about what I looked like. I was just like, what? And not just fatness like I'm presented well in a in a in a business suit. personality was like this eyeballs were teary. I don't think that ever happened because I'd never have gone to a doctor and cried apart from one time when I was like 17. Anyway. Yeah, so and then one of them was Constand to you lose a little weight. What am I was like, rude and too I was like really? Just a little thing no way ungenerous. Obviously I don't think I could stand to lose anyway. But yeah, so I was like, rude, rude. What the heck are they? Why? So there could be a few things going on here, right? Depending on the country where you are in the world, your health care system. A lot of don't a lot of doctors are compensated if they quote counseled people on weight loss, or mentioned they are fat. But we know doctors actually often don't like talking about weight loss. Don't feel like that some doctors are very happy to do it, but some doctors aren't. And so they will just put it in the chart so they don't have to talk about it. And also, they could be doing it just as a to see where you're at and compare. So I'm going to quote here from this core question. So the question on core, core core cork your core core? why do doctors make notes on patients hygiene, grooming nourishment and disposition at each appointment, no matter the nature of the visit, and so a few doctors chimed in here and said, This is what's happening. This one post I'll put the link in the show notes. That is part of the examination it gives clues into mental health and social determinants of health believe me we see many patients with significant deviations from the norm on the standards of observation sometimes we will see someone skeletal sometimes you will see someone with bizarre makeup or clothing that indicates disorganized thinking. Oh

Unknown Speaker 7:24

I mean, who gets to decide what is bizarre clothing that deviate that indicates disorganized? I mean? Anyway, carry on. Sometimes the nurses are spraying the hallway outside the exam room with Lysol got rude. Sometimes people's mood is suspicious or angry in a way that indicates mental illness. Sometimes a person is wearing muddy slippers because they have no car and no shoes. Did you notice the most basic of observations will show a great deal immediately upon entering the room. Is your patient Well, or is something else going on? That they're not mentioning? Is it a headache? Or do they have carbon monoxide poisoning because they are trying to heat their home in some in an unorthodox way? Is a patient going to walk to the pharmacy in their slippers and be unable to afford the medication is the page patient's mental health spiraling out of control, we can get a lot of things, the few observations, then we can ask the right questions. Some of the person says from the same person who is a former GP from the HSA, as I've written written in 10s of 1000s of medical records, I can assure you that doctors don't do this. So someone else says it's certainly often appropriate in frail elderly people or in people with serious mental illnesses. So I mean, some people are saying, you know, we do standard and some people and not like with my doctor's notes, 90% of the notes were not had any mention about my parents. And so who knows, like, you know, this doctor, why they're doing it, one thing we do know is that that doctor is probably experiencing bias towards body size. Because as we know, body size is not an indicator of health. And they've got your health markers there, right. They, you know, the doctors, like you're so healthy, but then writes down the O word. And, and so I would I would suggest or or guess that it's probably because they think that the O word being fat is a negative thing, right? Something that, that that doctor wants to probably keep an eye on. Or it could be as well that they want to make a little bit extra money for counseling someone on how to lose weight or you know, weight loss counseling they. So there was this other article in it's called Who are you calling? Oh Word doc. The you they use your a word from the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and it's talking about how it makes me search a little a little a little a little mad. You know what makes me really mad, Pip. So people who are openly fat hating people who are just clearly don't like fat folks and think fat people are unhealthy and want fat people to go away and die. I feel like I have more. I don't want to say the word respect, but I'm not as angry at those people because I'm just like, clearly something is going on right? Clearly. This really steeped in in bigotry. And I it obviously it's annoying, but also I kind of feel a little bit more relaxed about it. People who are self designated Oh word s experts who say they advocate for fat people. They are not fat themselves, and they ignore fat activists. Those people really, really fucking annoying me. I can just feel right now my heartbeat is Oh, my chest is getting tight from thinking about how loud I am them. Because they're just so they're just so off the mark. They're so off the mark that it's like, you know what? It's not I know, I'm gonna conquer it to this. Ignore, ignore that ignore. And then it's like they've got their fingers in their ears and they're just like, I'm gonna save the fatties from their fatness by eradicating fatness. So anyway, this this, this article is Who you calling? Oh, word Doctor doc. And they're saying you should you know, listen, we've got to be careful with our words. We gotta be saying person with a word. And not that someone has a word we what we need to make sure that we say clinically obese? Because? Because it sounds nicer. Where they get that information from the fact that it sounds nicer. It doesn't. It sounds nicer. And, and also, we still need to definitely record the fact that people are fat. And also, you need to tell people that they're fat. This is this is coming from someone who is

Unknown Speaker 12:27

from the Canadian Oh, word network? Who says who thinks that they are an advocate for fat people who says basically, if we put the fact that that someone has this disease of obesity in their records? They might see it and it will it means that they might lose weight, because then we don't have to talk about it. But she says Just tell him to lose weight because she says quote, these are concrete health health risks. It's not just not it's not just about being kind to people. I literally want to stab my computer screen. I'm so mad about it. Yeah, so if you want to look at that, oh my god and then isms fucked up image on there. Don't don't look at it. Don't look at it. Don't look at it. I'll do the looking so you don't have to what it really really stinks off what it really really stinks off is Do you know Autism Speaks. So Autism Speaks is a nonprofit nonprofits in the US? And it's basically a lot of people have said that it's basically a hate organization. So I'm looking at a PDF about what you know, before you donate to Autism Speaks, consider the facts. And so they say very little money donated to Olson as Autism Speaks goes towards helping autistic people and families. So most of it, oh, 1% Family Services. Oh, yeah. So and then 48%, quote, awareness and lobbying. Autism Speaks talks about us without us. So that is a phrase in the disability rights community. Nothing about us without us. And this is what the O word quote experts are doing. They're like, Oh, happy what I need to have a say. Of course not to be silly. So Autism Speaks has only one autistic person out of a total of 28 individuals on its board of directors. 23 of the 28 board members are from major corporations, like CEOs from PayPal or Goldman Sachs, blah, blah, blah. So Autism Speaks is fundraising strategies promote fear, stigma and prejudice against autistic people Autism Speaks uses its plant formed an advertising budget to portray autism and autistic people as mysterious and frightening their fundraising tactics, increase stigma and create barriers to the inclusion of autistic people in our communities. So, so it's the the blue puzzle piece, the puzzle piece, that's the ones that you want to avoid. And so this is really, really similar to what obesity networks or obesity researchers are doing is they're like, Oh, we are. And so Autism Speaks advocates for his person first language. So people with autism, and what the O word researchers and experts also say is, we have to be kind to fat people, we have to say, people with O word and not just oh word, because we have to have inclusive language. Have I asked fat people what they want? No. Are they are they fat? No. Majority not. And, and in turn, creates extra stigma and harms fat people. And the idea behind Oh, word research and the quote experts is the goal is eradication of fatness and with Autism Speaks to it's about managing autism as this awful scary thing. And let's have less autistic people in the world. But we're going to be nice about it and call them people with autism. Right. And so there's this, this push, there is this push for medical professionals to be quote, kinder. In ways they've been told by people who were experts in quotation marks on the subject who have never talked to fat activists, or people who are maybe actually knowledgeable about this topic, or the community in general. And they don't have the lived experience themselves. And they're just like, we've decided that this is what what is best, we want to eradicate fatness and so we're gonna put we're gonna do it with a smile on our face. So when the doctor's note says,

Unknown Speaker 17:14

oh, word, that's what I think of is the smiling Doctor Who is like, you walk out the door and they're like, oh, they were disgusting. They were really fat. You know? And then like, exactly the Amy says, it feels like a betrayal because you're like, oh, actually, is this person? Like, are they? Are they on my side? Are they a good doctor? Oh my god, I have I arrived at a doctor who is fat positive. Oh my god. And there's another article here that I was I was looking at and saying how doctors describe patients matters even in their notes. And it's saying how I mean this just this isn't start and stop at fatness quote from here. A recent study in medical records of 18,459 Americans published in Health Affairs found that black patients were 2.54 times more likely than white patients to have at least one negative descriptor such as resistant or non compliant in their files, records for patients receiving social assistance. Those who who are unmarried and those who are ranked higher on a comorbidity index are also more likely to contain negative descriptors. And then and so I'm like, Great, this article is great. Amazing. And then then they talk to Oh word experts. So oh word Canada, which co authored the guidelines the guidelines on clinical practice guidelines on Oh word has seen a shift in terminology and awareness of weight bias. See how they're co opting our language weight bias in Oh word research presented at conferences since the organization started requiring authors to use person first language in abstract submissions in 2017. So they're like with overthinking talk shit about the fatties but make sure that you say person with a word because then then then it shows that we read it really, really respect them. And so quote, we want to describe what a person has, because they have decided that oh, oh word fatness is a disease rather than a certain setting. waterpolo the person is Dawn happened that happened NACA don't have to have the NACA of Oh word Canada told the CMHA the language physicians using the notes matters to even if patients don't see it because of the influence in the healthcare hierarchy. Okay, bets everyone but sketchy. Betson dawn, the executive director or the leader of Oh word Canada, that's please. Is Dawn fat or is Dawn St. sighs that sin bets in what our record is door. I'm a fat person when they are leading an organization organization for fat people that splits could you bet in? No, no, Dawn is thin, and all the pictures of people on the O word, website 90% of them have been people and I'm thinking like, did they throw out some fat? He's just to be like, here's here's one of the poor awful fatties that we're trying to help by. By erasing them from from society. Yeah, anyway, so this is kind of like you know, a side side rant on on this fucked up shit. Fucking so anyway, just you know, just to be aware of of that, that that's happening. And yeah I'm gonna breathe out all of that. And that's what I mean as well. You know, sometimes I get people who are like bariatric surgeons or Oh word experts can shoot quotation marks. messaging me saying are we agree on so much and it's just like, Okay, so are you going to stop telling people to lose weight? Are you going to stop using inappropriate language to? Are you going to stop calling fat people disease? No. No, because we need to get rid of fatness silay well, then fuck off. Go away. Yeah, it's I feel like I would almost be more comfortable like having dinner with a raging fat for over than I would someone who is a self claimed Oh, word expert. Like that's how that's how I feel. That's how I feel. Unless I thought that I might change their mind and maybe I would have a dinner with them. I'm not gonna have a dinner with a fat foe in his imaginary world of who would you lose like at least want to have dinner with none of those people. But anyway. Okay, so let's get into a question from Madeline and oh my good they both called Madeline to Madeline's. But it's about different.

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So Madeline says I've been chewing on some thoughts about autonomy, and the body recently I'm a therapist and spend a lot of time reflecting on fatphobia I've been thinking about the choice to acknowledge harmful systems and quote, go back into the matrix or engage in disordered eating behaviors in attempt to control one's shape. I see the potential for harm of course, but I can also sympathize with and feel compassion for this experience. What are your thoughts and then Madeline? Number two says I've been really struggling with feelings of bitterness towards people in my life who are not plus size I feel so angry about the things I have to deal with with being in a fat body that they will never have to worry about or deal with just because they are thin. I'm so tired and so frustrated of having to try so hard to survive nevermind being treated like an actual human being simply because of the size of my body. I work in a healthcare setting and I see how patients treat my thin co workers versus how I am treated. Some people are nicer than others barely acknowledged me and a lot of people seem to pity me I'm just so tired and struggling with the strong urge pushing me towards diet culture surgery literally the most desperate measures measures to achieve fitness so I can stop dealing with the difficult parts of being fat. So I really with Madalyn to Madeline to the person who's experiencing the things that Madeline was talking about. Like this is a prime example of why telling people that you you mustn't diet often is not helpful. Because say you know with Madeline we can really feel I don't know about you but I can really feel how frustrated how difficult things are how what a struggle it is I'm letting you know these are literally Madeline's words. I'm so tired and frustrated of having to so hard to survive. And so much pushing them towards diet, culture surgery, any desperate measure to achieve fitness. And so Madeline's Madeline two's safety is in question here. Madeline's mental well being her survival. Sorry, I just said to her I don't know what Madeline's pronouns are. Madeline survival. And so, for Madeline to survive I, if they decided, I'm going to go on a diet to temporarily ease that deep, deep discomfort, life threatening discomfort. And I know, I know that it's, it's going to be temporary. I know that it is also probably going to be harmful to my mental health and my my physical health. I know that it will probably make me bigger in the meantime. But right now I feel so desperate, that it's what I need to do to survive. Should we be saying to Marilyn, to Wow, you've really fucked up? Like, how could you do that? You know, I thought you understood about that dieting doesn't work. I thought that you were you know, like my mom says, out of the matrix, you know, I thought you wouldn't, I thought you'd taken the pill and you understood? Well, you know, life's a little bit more complicated than, you know, kind of, we've seen the light and then that's it, we turn our back and we move forward because they relate the realities of living in a in a body that is big, and also in a body that maybe has some other marginalization means it's difficult, right? And that's why some people do decide to have surgery. You know, especially when you've got so many people potentially in your life and with Madeline to go into work and people being like that. I mean, and maybe Madeline as well at home, and then maybe Madeline Madeline too with a doctor. Then maybe Madeline twos got a therapist who was like, Yeah, you should be thin. I mean, how many therapists are actually fat positive? Not all of them, you know. And so, I think recognizing that difficult experience that absolutely overbearing pneus of the overbearing pain of fat misery or fat hate and the fact that is it is institutional, it is interpersonal, it is intrapersonal. And it is ideological, it is weaved into every single part of our society. So if you need to do whatever you need to do to

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live and survive, then I get it. I mean, we can hear Bell bells now. Oh, bells thank you is adorable on a balcony outside barking. And so with Madeline one, who was a therapist, and you know, talking about a Maryland and ask this but kind of like seeing the harm in engaging in disordered eating in attempt to control one shape? Is that what Madeleine one said? Like? Do we encourage that like, as healthy as a healthcare provider, as a therapist, as a friend? Do we encourage that if someone said to me, You know what, I'm really struggling and I feel like I want to go on a diet. If say, if I was coaching them, I would say Yeah, absolutely. I get that like and what is it that you're hoping to achieve from from going on a diet and they could say, you know, event, my mum would get off my back, my doctor would allow me to access gender confirmation surgery, I might be able to experience a little bit less shame in the world. I might be able to fit clothes because right now I am sized out of even plus size clothing stores. And so I'm, I'm going to do that just to kind of access certain things certain access certain privileges. And also, I know that, you know, maybe if I do get close that it's probably going to be a temporary thing. But right now, I just need to feel like I'm a human being, you know, just for a short amount of time. And I would say that sounds violent to me. And also it's really fucking awful that you have to do that. It's awful that you have to play this game where no matter what you're not going to be a winner right? You know, there's no way to win. Because we need to we were playing this game where there's there's no winning we need to destroy the game. You know? So I would I would, you know, validate those those feelings and And, you know, talk about, you know, like weighing weighing up the pros and cons of, you know, I might have to engage in things that are disordered to access these, these privileges and benefits temporarily. And knowing that, that long term, probably not going to work, but sometimes you need to take a moment to catch your breath, right? Catch your breath. And when I say Catch your breath, I mean, so if this person decides to engage in dieting, that might be the catching the breath moment where you can then be on better footing to then deal with the fatphobia that we see every day. Right? Ultimately, the thing that we would love to get to is to be able to know how to, or you know, know how to and also have access to resources that help you survive this world. Whether that be you know, therapy, or fat community, or, you know, whatever it is like that, that is the goal because obviously, we want to be alive, right? We want to be able to survive in this world. And unfortunately, we're not going to wake up tomorrow and everyone but like, fat people are cool. Like, that's not that's not the reality. So we're gonna have to be in this world, this fat hating world, but we can do things to make it a lot easier. I was talking to so I got my hair cut yesterday and I went to this new hairdressers, a gender inclusive hairdressers. Amazing one of the posters that I had said, heterosexuality is as is a second boring life. So that was amazing. And I was talking to the hairdresser, and their pronouns were she, she, they. And she was saying about working previously in a straight salon is what she was calling it. And, and they were saying that they could never go back to a non queer salon. Because she's seen the light, right? Like now she's seen how you could be treated. And the alternative is just absolutely not sustainable for them.

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And so she was saying that if she ever left that solid salon, she just wouldn't go anywhere else, that that would be the end of, of of their hair career, right. And I thought that that was really interesting, because I feel like that's what it's like when you come out of being in diet culture and believing it and believing it. And, and the current is like, you're at this. It's like you're working at a straight salon. And it's currently absolutely unbearable. But there is the existence of that one queer salon, but we don't know where it is yet, like so with Madeline to saying, I'm feeling awful. It's almost like Madeline to is in that, you know, currently in that that straight salon, where, you know, my hairdresser was saying that they they were telling where they were telling them to wear makeup and be more presentable as a woman. And she was like, Oh, gross. Whereas this other salon, it's just, it's just great, you know, everyone was just being themselves. And so I think about that, that that having to survive in that, you know, straight salon and Madeline to hear having to survive in a world where presumably everywhere that they turn is is fat phobic. And then I compare it to like so you know, when I first started this journey everywhere, everywhere I turned it was fat phobia because I had so you know, surrounded myself by that because I loved it. You know, I loved it quotation marks that was like, I was playing the game. All my colleagues were fat phobic. My friends were not all of them. My family, mostly, and you know, everything that like watched everything that every everything that went into my brain was like, fat people or shit. And that was overwhelming when, as Madeline one says, I came out of the matrix or went into the matrix. I don't know what the I can't remember what the analogy is. I know what to do with a film matrix. But I don't know. You know, if we're saying go into the matrix, go out of the matrix going in the matrix and we work this out. Okay, so we're going into the matrix and matrix is the fake world, right? And you're out of the matrix. Is that right? You're out of the matrix. And you're in reality, and now you can't see the make believe world. Yeah, okay. So going into the matrix, we'll be going into dark culture. I bet you there's some people listening being like, Eva Fox, like this is really simple. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And so with Madeline too, there's a A technique that I like to use which is remove reduced protect, and remove reduce. redact is kind of like survival 101 and to reduce fat phobia in your life and so the first thing is can you remove the sources of fat phobia? Can you remove the sources of fat hate? So if it's Madeline's job to be surrounded by fat haters, is it realistic for Matt Madeline to get a new job? Probably not. But maybe maybe it is Madeline might be like, Oh, I'm thinking about leaving. And so actually, you know what, fuck it. I'm definitely gonna leave because I realized that this sucks. And then also Madeline might go to a new job and it might be just as bad because Madeline's in healthcare, right. Okay, so remove, but then again, Madeline might have some friends who were like, hate fat ease or whatever. And so Madeline could decide that they are going to remove those friends? Well, maybe not. Right? All of these are kind of like, maybe we can do that. And maybe not for various different reasons. Remove reduce. So if you can't remove something for various reasons, power imbalances, accessibility reasons, you just don't feel like it. Can you reduce the amount of time spent with them? So if it's a, you know, awful family member, Aunt Karen, who is like, Oh, we're fat people, you know, they're awful. Then maybe, you know, instead of spending every single Friday with with our Karen spend every other Friday, Friday with Aunt Karen, I said, just waiting for hours without Karen spent two hours with John Curran. And finally, if you can't do that, for whatever reason, like you know, your workplace, you can't just be like, You know what I've decided I'm working part time now. So I don't have to deal with you. Motherfuckers. That might not be something you can do, obviously. And so what you want to do then is protect protect your mental health. And so this could be doing things like listening to this podcast, it could be watching, affirming shows and movies, it could be reading books about this, it could be educating yourself, it could be looking, looking at pictures of fat people doing cool things. It could be talking to your therapist, etc, etc. Remove, reduce protect. So when I see someone who was really, really struggling, and they're feeling kind of maybe similar to what Madeline is feeling, that tells me that they really are getting

Unknown Speaker 37:19

hammered, you know, like they're on the battlefield. They've got, you know, arrows and swords and people on horseback coming at them, and they cannot get a breath. There's no respite. And what is the solution for them? Sometimes it is to die it sometimes it's to try and get off the battlefield in some way. Maybe it's to hold up a shield so that the arrows don't hit you. Sometimes it's to hide in a trench, you know, what all of those things are valid. Sometimes it's to wave a white flag and say I give up, I'm going to go on a diet. And none, though none of those are choices and make you a bad person. It's what is accessible for you. And, you know, diets don't work. To make people thinner, you know, long term. But they might work at reducing the amount of stigma someone is experiencing temporarily. Because I mean, how many of us have experienced being thinner and people saying, Oh, my God, look at you, and feeling like a good person. And also how many of us has experienced that and then knowing that that person is judging us. And that when we do put weight back on, because that's what happens with diets that they're in their head, probably thinking. They used to be so thin and now look at them. They're fat. And what does that mean? Oh, they're this and they're that or whatever? If the person is not that positive. So yeah, it's complicated. It's complicated. So for Madeline and Madeline, I hope I answered those questions for you. And for Amy. Yeah, so I'm actually going to make this episode a little bit shorter today, because I've got laundry in the dryer downstairs with shared laundry, so I'll have to go get it. And as well, because I thought you know, I'm going to do a little shorter episode today because I'm always rambling on for about an hour. And you know, sometimes people might like a little shorter episode, even though this is at 40 minutes, so is it Sure it is. Okay, well, thank you for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate it. And if you've got questions for the show, email me fatty at first fatty.com And that's, that's my assistant and she will collect them. And I'll yeah, I'll have a look at them with my eyeballs. Yeah. All right. See ya on the next episode. Okay, bye.