Episode 172 Transcript
Read the transcript alongside the audio.
You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast episode 172, The science of protecting ourselves from anti fat bias. Let's do it.
Unknown Speaker 0:25
Hello and welcome my little fifth fatty and fat ally, please. First fatties is fatties. My little fears fatties should it be juicy big fist fatties.
Unknown Speaker 0:41
How you doing? How's life? What's going on sir? What's the crackers? We'd say in in Ireland at some crackers, Gaelic for a lot of things. I gave good guys Gaelic for what's the news? What's the gossip? How are you? Is it good? Was it good? Did you have a good crack? They are a good crack. Spelt see? A I see. I forget sometimes when I'm talking to people who don't know what that means, like, What's the crack? Right? No, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do that. But anyway, there you go. You know, you know what I mean when I say that.
Unknown Speaker 1:22
So today, I want to talk about a paper that came out and was covered by Regan Chasteen. And a few other things around what the science shows about how we can survive a fat hating world and not become dead.
Unknown Speaker 1:48
So, and the harms of anti fatness weight stigma, I don't really like using weight stigma as much because you know, the phrase weight stigma because what I found is that there'll be a way that thin people will make it about them. And they'll say weight stigma are, I was skinny, shamed. And it's like,
Unknown Speaker 2:10
that's not what the weight stigma is about. It's about fat folks. So, but a lot of this research is talking about W s weight stigma. So but you know, so I'll just use weight stigma but my preference is not to say weight stigma, although there's, you know, there's nothing wrong with it. But I mean, sometimes when people's people hear it or read it, they think it means all types of weight stigma like for all body sizes, but it's meant to be for, for fat folks.
Unknown Speaker 2:40
So Reagan has got a substack substack is kind of like a Patreon or a medium or, you know, it's like you can read some of her posts for free a lot of them actually for free. And then there's other ones which is like, Ask Me Anything type of thing.
Unknown Speaker 2:58
And if you're not subscribed already, it's like 20 bucks for a year. I mean, it's, it's, it's cheap. And Reagan is amazing. I talk about Reagan on the show, like all the time, I'm like such a fan person. It's creepy. I'm just a giant creep.
Unknown Speaker 3:22
I guess I you know, when Reagan and I are colleagues, I guess,
Unknown Speaker 3:28
to be in the same realm of Reagan to seems
Unknown Speaker 3:33
funny to me, because, you know, she's been doing it a lot longer than me, but
Unknown Speaker 3:38
you know, we've collaborated on things in the past and chatted and emailed. So I'm claiming that title of colleague. Yeah, so I'm gonna have the links for everything on the show notes. Again, just a reminder, if you've not heard about it, there is a transcript for every show every single show on the on the show notes go on the website, which is facebook.com forward slash, podcast, or for this episode is Facebook dot forwards. First party.com forward slash 172. There'll be a button there saying transcript and you can go to the transcript and you can also click another button that will take you so that you can listen and watch the transcript at the same time and read the words go by one by one and it highlights the words and I think that's that's that's cool too. So if that's something that is useful for you that's there for every single episode that we've ever done. So let's start in by looking at the study that Reagan is talking about. In her post. Her Post said study looks at ways to protect ourselves from weight stigma.
Unknown Speaker 4:52
So I'm just gonna go straight to the study, study and pull out some paragraph here of harms the harms of weight stigma
Unknown Speaker 5:00
So, weight stigma is a form of social stigma that primarily targets higher weight individuals in virtually every domain of daily living. And it is becoming the norm worldwide.
Unknown Speaker 5:13
And so then they talk about what's in the paper continuing. A critical take home message from this review in the paper is that the multiple injurious effects of weight stigma on body image and beyond, are in calm traversable. Maybe that again, multiple injurious effects of wasting were on body image and beyond, are incontrovertible. There's no doubt that anti fat bias hurts us physically and mentally continuing, but very little has been done to address it. In our final note, we recognize the need for body image and eating disorder scholars and practice practitioners to become part of the solution to ending weight bias in our communities and for our clients. Just perfect timing. I watched a training by Mikey Mercedes and Monica crit called anti fatness and public health for New England Public Health Training Center. really fucking good. It's on my keys patreon link will be in the bio and it's a free watch if you want to watch it, so so good salivating, salivating watching it, and they describe there's a slide which is understanding anti fatness through the social ecological model. So I don't know if you remember but on the show on on my Instagram, I've described the levels of anti fat bias individual interpersonal, institutional, intra personal.
Unknown Speaker 6:43
And they have done something a little different is they've broken it down into micro meso and macro. So micro being the individual mezzo being the interpersonal and macro being the institutional. So on the micro individual bits area
Unknown Speaker 7:08
on this slide, and this is you can go and check out my Mikey Mikey's Patreon for this.
Unknown Speaker 7:15
It talks about anti fatness, okay, and the and the effects. Okay, so we've got internalized fat phobia, distorted relationships with food and body example, dissatisfaction, shame, disordered eating, medical and complex trauma. So the complex trauma they're talking about there is the trauma of going to healthcare professionals, again and again and again and again and continually getting those traumas. And they might not be, you know, big traumas, or they could be big traumas. And they're happening again and again and again.
Unknown Speaker 7:56
High allostatic load dysregulated metabolism, discontent discontinued could discontinuity of care, weight cycling, which is yo yo dieting and mortality.
Unknown Speaker 8:11
I missed one here and it's mental health sequentially. Example depression, anxiety. So quality means a condition which is consequence of a previous disease or injury. So the final one there was was mortality. And so I just want to give you a quote from a study that looks at
Unknown Speaker 8:36
it's called looks at this weight discrimination and risk of mortality from psychological science, and quotes, this is the beginning of the study. Discrimination based on weight is a stressful social experience linked to declines in physical and mental health. We examined whether this harmful Association extends to risk of mortality, participants in the Health and Retirement Study. So those participants in this study called Health and Retirement, there was 13,692 of them. And the midlife in United States study. Midas for short. And there was 5079 people in that. So we have 13 518 18 618, six something 18,600 Roughly people reported on perceived discriminatory experiences an attribute of those experiences to a number of personal characteristics including weight. So we have 18,000 people and they say, Hey, I experienced some some discriminatory, something discriminatory. Based on this personal characteristic way discrimination was associated with an increase in mortality risk of nearly 60% in both the groups of participants
Unknown Speaker 10:00
This increased risk was not accounted for by common physical and psychological risk factors. So the risk was not down to accounted for by common physical and psychological risk factors. The association between mortality in weight discrimination was generally stronger than that between mortality and other attributions for discrimination. So the risk of mortality is stronger with weight discrimination than it is for other attributions for discrimination. So say if someone was like, Oh, you're old and I hate old people, or they say you're fat and I hate fat people, the risk to the association between mortality was higher with the wage discrimination.
Unknown Speaker 10:54
In addition to its association with poor health outcomes, weight discrimination, may shorten life expectancy. Okay, so weight bias weight stigma anti fatness is deadly, right? It's deadly. And so it's no good. So let's go back to the original study. And I didn't even tell you the name of it. The original study that we're looking at is called challenging oppression, a social identity model of stigma resistance and higher white individuals, Angela meadows and Suzanne Hicks. And it's open access, by the way, so you can go and go and read it, if you would like to. So how did they go about this measuring weight stigma and what to do about it?
Unknown Speaker 11:44
Actually scrap that we're going to go to another study from Angela, Angela meadows and Rachel Calogero. And this is studies on weight stigma and body image in higher weight individuals. So studies on weight stigma in body image and higher weight individuals. Okay, so what they're looking at is in this study is like how weight stigma affects body image. Okay, so looking at how they collected this information.
Unknown Speaker 12:11
If you ask someone, Hey, have you experienced anti fatness in your life? Most people will will, who are who are not in fat liberation will recall, you know, a few significant things throughout their life.
Unknown Speaker 12:30
A lot of times people don't realize something is stigma. Because they feel like they deserve it. And so they're like, Well, you know, I deserve it. I deserve that bad treatment because I'm fat. So is it stigma or is it just me getting my just desserts? Also people fail to remember or struggle to remember, if I said, even if you are aware of anti fatness? Can you remember every single thing that happened? Discriminatory experience. Again, it would probably be the big ones and not the everyday things. So quote, my husband Rosen developed one of the first complex measures of experienced weight stigma, the stigmatizing situations inventory. The SSI prompts respondents using a list of 50 specific situations across 11 different domains, family, strangers, employment doctors, etc. And participants indicate how often they have ever experienced each type of stigma. A US study in which 50 Higher white women completed a daily diary for each day for seven days indicated whether any of the 50 items of the SSI had occurred to them that day, resulted in over 1000 incidents being recorded, or approximate approximately three incidences per person over the seven days.
Unknown Speaker 13:55
Additionally, none of the currently used measures have experienced weight stigma include the media as a possible sport as possible source of stigma. So that's a an issue with that of collecting people's experiences. So with that, that, that method, the SSI method, stigmatizing situations inventory, they're not they've not
Unknown Speaker 14:15
including media, which as we know, is huge. So continuing representations of highway bodies in both news and entertainment media, are most often stigmatizing in nature. And the media is frequently mentioned as a source of waste stigma in this qualitative in qualitative studies and studies that capture stigma experiences and real time doesn't in addition to issues with the reliability of recall it is likely that existing quantitative studies have experienced weight stigma may further underestimate the extent of exposure to such negative measures, and Australian study of 46 higher weight Australian adults, in which the media was included as a potential source of stigma in the instructions to participants, participants complete
Unknown Speaker 15:00
Did the SSI at the start of the study and reported on average having five experienced weight stigma several times in their life. By comparison, using a personal digital assistant to recording stigmatizing events. As they occurred, the same participants recorded on average 11.1 episodes of weight stigma over the subsequent two week period, or pucks approximately 0.8 episodes per day. So that's interesting, right? If we're thinking about media, it goes from three incidences over seven days, to 0.8 per day. So 11.1, over two weeks. So let's say that's 5.5 over one week, the other one was three over one week. And previous they said, previous to the study, five said that they experienced weight stigma several times in their life. And then after two weeks, that several has been identified to be very, very low guesstimate because they're experiencing 11 in two weeks.
Unknown Speaker 16:12
So that's interesting. So all that to tell you that you. I mean, even if you don't, you're soaking the shut up and the environment, right?
Unknown Speaker 16:24
If you live in a bigger body,
Unknown Speaker 16:26
the rates of weight stigma that you're experiencing is probably higher than what you presume it to be. And that's, that's like when I reflect on my own experiences. I'm like, oh, man, I've got no weight stigma in my life. I've got no anti fatness, right, because this is my job for activist. I don't stand for that shit. But if we think about it, like how many times is my doctor said to me, Oh, you have this condition lose weight?
Unknown Speaker 16:55
Many times? How many times have I seen shows that make fun of fat people? Or show that thinness is the idea or
Unknown Speaker 17:07
come across a Tinder profile that says only healthy people, etc. Right. And if we think about it like that, the ways are numerous. And even though there might not be these big things like we will remember like core memories of our mum saying XYZ when we when we were young. The weight of all of those together might be just as powerful as you know, this incident or that incident, and that's just over a week or two weeks or a month or whatever.
Unknown Speaker 17:37
Okay, so let's talk about internalized anti fatness.
Unknown Speaker 17:42
When higher weight individuals this is quote from the same. The same paper that we're reading when higher weight individuals endorse negative stereotypes, and ascribe those negative attributes to them stet selves, they are to said to express internalized weight stigma, or weight related self stigma. Internalized weight stigma is most commonly defined as not just awareness, or even endorsement of negative stereotypes, but it's also as applying those negative attributes to yourself and subsequently devaluing yourself because of it. So internalized is like internalized anti fatness is oh, so I know that they say that fat people are about to spontaneously combust because they're so unhealthy. Lalala. And I think that's true, you know, so that would be internalized anti fatness or internalized weight stigma.
Unknown Speaker 18:40
Not being internalized. And, and, and I'm a bad person because of it. And not internalizing weight stigma, which is where we're trying to get in this work is saying, they say that fat people, lazy ingredient horrible. But I don't agree with them. And I think that I'm an okay person. Right? So that wouldn't be you wouldn't be internalizing weight stigma. Now, is it as black and white? Is that Fuck no. I'll be we're gonna be like, Yeah, I know. That, you know, that is bullshit. And then also have thoughts of that I'm a piece of shit very often. So when I'm doing coaching with people, almost exclusively, they will say I think that fat people can be beautiful and healthy and deserve care, and all of the things that we've been taught
Unknown Speaker 19:40
or bullshit
Unknown Speaker 19:42
but when it comes to me, this is the thing when it comes to them. All of that goes out the window. No, can I be beautiful and fat? No. Can I am I going to be greedy and lazy if I have a big body or a bigger body yours am Hi
Unknown Speaker 20:00
desirable No. Like, it's so clear cut. And so that's, you know, someone who's still struggling with anti fat bias. And it's a process. And so that's what we want to do is get away from that internalization, which is hard work. Something that I do, which might be helpful a little exercise for you is when I talk to coaching clients is I asked them a question. If I had a crystal ball, I don't have a crystal ball. And I can see into the future I cannot see into the future. And I saw you and I said, Hey, by the way, in the future, you have a bigger body.
Unknown Speaker 20:37
What comes up for you? And it's, it's really illuminating? Because people will certain things will come up. And not everyone's are the same. So if we're looking at things like
Unknown Speaker 20:51
desirability, health worthiness, whether someone is a productive member of society, whether they are morally good or bad, and so asking yourself, like, if I had a bigger body, would I be
Unknown Speaker 21:06
attractive? Would that if I'm not attractive? Would that define my worth as a human in my eyes? Not in society's eyes? Would I be happy? Why not? And you know, some people will say, well, because I'll be isolated, I'll be lonely, I won't have anyone to love me. Okay, so that tells me that this you've got some you've been told some things about fat people that we're all lonely and sad and can't, can't find someone to love us.
Unknown Speaker 21:37
And it's a single one and asking yourself those questions of,
Unknown Speaker 21:43
you know, and then and then like a question of, well, how, how might you have come about having a bigger body? And you know, the answer is what we're looking for is, you know, just, who knows, it's just the way it is some nothing.
Unknown Speaker 22:00
Like it's, I'm, I'm a lazy, greedy person. A lot of people will say, Oh, because I'm lazy, because I'm greedy, then I'm out of control. And I'm like, Oh, this is good stuff. This is good stuff. Because when we recognize these things, we can see where we've got that sticky. Yucky anti fatness just clinging around and so we can think about other people. Yeah, no, I think fat people in a me are amazing. But when we make it about ourselves that way, that's when that anti fatness really comes out. But the stage before that is you think oh fat people are horrible and disgusting. So if you're if you're past that stage, then that's great, right? Because then you can work work work on that really like deep stuff.
Unknown Speaker 22:44
Because you've learned that
Unknown Speaker 22:47
you've overcome that kind of like, all fat people are gross, nevermind me I'm gross even Ramallah Okay, so
Unknown Speaker 22:56
correlates of experienced and internalized weight stigma. It's a quote, both experienced, so people experiencing weight stigma from other people or other sources, and internalized, both experienced when experienced is
Unknown Speaker 23:16
having that experience of someone have something happening, which is stigmatizing and internalized. So that's you thinking that badnesses fatness is bad and you're bad. That because you're fat. So both experienced and internalized weight stigma have been linked with a range of physical and psychological and behavioral outcomes. Even after controlling for BMI and other potential confounding factors included disordered eating patterns, reduced motivation to exercise, avoidant coping strategies, substance dependence and social and behavioral problems in adolescents including substance use self harm and suicide in reality, okay, so that's where the what they're controlled for. So, just to kind of that sentence again.
Unknown Speaker 24:01
Weight stigma has been linked with a range of physical, psychological and behavioral outcomes, even after controlling for different things. Weight stigma is also strongly associated with healthcare avoidance among higher weight individuals, including reduced engagement with preventative screening programs perceive weights discrimination is associated with higher risk of chronic morbidity and mortality. So just a reminder of morbidity and mortality. The term morbidity refers to illness or disease. Mortality refers to death. So we're where we were where we were well on. Perceived weight discrimination is associated with higher risk of chronic chronic morbidity and mortality, so getting sick and dying, and with poor self reported physical and psychological site, psychological health and health related quality of life. Indeed, both actual experience of Six Sigma
Unknown Speaker 25:00
and simply fear of being stigmatized by others appears to mediate the relationship between higher BMI and poor self reported health.
Unknown Speaker 25:12
Let me say that again,
Unknown Speaker 25:15
both actual experience of stigma and simply fear of being stigmatized by others. So that could be that that fear of, I don't want to get bigger, because if I do, I'm going to experience
Unknown Speaker 25:33
worse things, which could be true because this site is is fat phobic as fuck, right? But to what extent and is that stigmatizing from you? You know?
Unknown Speaker 25:45
And so how much is it going to come to reality but even just that fear, for fear of being supervisors, appears to mediate the relationship between higher BMI and poor self reported health? So, they linked to a study there the study says, quote, weight stigma is pervasive in the United States. We tested the hypothesis hypothesis, that stigma may be a mechanism through which fatness negatively affects self reported health. So does anti fatness harm our health?
Unknown Speaker 26:30
And then the report was? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 26:33
And is that the the mechanism the thing that causes that negative self reporting of health? Basically it Yes, it does. Foot continuing in another study, the association between higher BMI and poor health related quality of life was only observed in those individuals who also had high levels of internalized weight stigma.
Unknown Speaker 26:59
So let me say that again, in another study, the association between higher BMI and poor, physical health related quality of life was only observed in those individuals who also had high levels of internalized weight stigma. I think that's really important because what this is saying is that we can live in a fat phobic world, and we can protect ourselves by not allowing those messages into our being by not agreeing with the oppressors. And then we are able to mitigate the harms of anti fatness. So the people who are the have the highest risk of harm from anti fatness are those who had high levels of internalized weight stigma. And the thing is, what are we doing to fat people, we are making them stigmatized. We are telling fat people you are horrible and disgusting. And you should you know, and it's that self fulfilling prophecy, you know, a person is a fat person is sick. And they're told that they need to lose weight.
Unknown Speaker 28:20
The act of trying to lose weight causes harm.
Unknown Speaker 28:24
The act of telling someone to lose weight causes them to experience stigma, the fact that they fail, losing weight
Unknown Speaker 28:35
increases stigma. And it means that even if they've never attempted weight loss, it means that there's avoidance of going to health care professionals delayed diagnosis, and then the fat person gets sick dies and then it's like, ah, we told you fat people are sick or dying because they're fat and lazy and horrible and
Unknown Speaker 29:02
so you better go on a diet and not become fat. And then the circle continues and continues and continues.
Unknown Speaker 29:11
So you know, this is like a self fulfilling prophecy. And but then if we take a cog out of that wheel and say, okay, you know, hey, you're fat, you should go and lose weight and then you say fuck that.
Unknown Speaker 29:23
I don't think so. We're removing ourselves from that process right? And
Unknown Speaker 29:31
doing better for our physical and mental health because of that.
Unknown Speaker 29:35
Okay, so next experience, weight stigma and body image. So studies have found that frequency of stigmatizing experiences is strongly correlated with body image distress in weight loss treatment seeking populations, okay, so people who are looking to lose weight, have more frequency of stigmatizing experience.
Unknown Speaker 30:00
And, and that is strongly correlated with body image distress.
Unknown Speaker 30:07
And the effect is exacerbated when the targets also hold stronger anti fat attitudes themselves.
Unknown Speaker 30:14
So if you're anti fat, then you probably have bad body image. In a community sample of highway individuals 97% of the 111 participants reported having ever experienced weight stigma with half having such experiences, at least once per week. Scores were strongly correlated with body dissatisfaction and adapted version of the SSI remember the SSI was like saying, How many times have you experienced stigma. And the deputy version of the SSI that examined experienced weight stigma at different life points found formative experiences of weight stigma during childhood, in particular, hovering, have lingering effects on adult body image problems.
Unknown Speaker 31:01
So that you know why fucking up kids is so harmful. It's having a huge impact. And I tell you, I tell you, the amount of times I talked to someone who is struggling with body image, and they mention a parent or guardian saying or doing something fucked up, like
Unknown Speaker 31:25
90 plus percent.
Unknown Speaker 31:28
Really, I really feel like if
Unknown Speaker 31:33
parents or guardians or adults in children's lives, understood about anti fatness and did stuff about it. They're really setting up their kid for success in regards to body image stuff, of not having issues with body image, like so internalized weight stigma and body image, the relationship between both self reported and objectively measured BMI tends to only weakly correlate with measures of body image that is poor body image is less related to actual body weight and shape, but is rather dependent upon negative self evaluation due to weight. So So what that means is, doesn't matter what your body size is, you can have a smaller body and also perceive that to be so egregious that it's going to have a negative net more negative effect, versus someone who has a bigger body. And it's just like, Oh, my body's fine. So it's not that the You're bigger than bigger the body equals worse body image issues. It's how you perceive your body.
Unknown Speaker 32:43
In fact, two separate studies conducted in higher weight community samples, BMI and a general dislike of fat individuals accounted for only a small amount of the variance in body image concerns whereas internalized weight stigma explained between a third and a half of the variation in in scores. And so these are people who, who are not liking themselves due to weight stigma and anti fatness and so no matter your size, if you are agreeing with Auntie fatness, and that is going to affect your body image next being stigmatized by the by others because of one's weight is associated with higher levels of internalized weight bias, which in turn is linked with poor body image. Yeah. So again, people in your life, doctors, etc. If you've been stigmatized, you slink with higher poor body image. And finally, they have a thing about ethnic and cultural differences. And basically they're saying that
Unknown Speaker 33:50
quote here although early cost cost cultural studies suggesting differences in anti fat attitudes between countries, negative attitudes towards higher white bodies are becoming the norm. So finally looking at ethnic and cultural differences, although early cross cultural studies suggest suggested differences in anti fat attitudes between countries negative attitudes towards higher weight bodies are becoming the norm worldwide, even in countries where fat was previously admired. An experienced weight stigma is now prevalent in both developed and developing countries. So basically, they're saying that ethnic and cultural differences, the differences are not as as apparent as they used to be because anti fatness is spreading around the world. So thanks, white supremacy for that. Great contribution to the world warms.
Unknown Speaker 34:41
Okay, so basically all that to say they is Andy van is bad, right? And in fact, this is bad for us. So, the answer to today's topic question, the science of protecting ourselves from anti fatness. So how do we protect ourselves and
Unknown Speaker 35:00
I think we've got an idea already from looking at that other study. So let's look at the study. The the original study that I was talking about, again by Angela meadows, links are going to be in, in the show notes. And so basically number one, to overcoming this stuff is deciding whether you belong to the group that is called fat
Unknown Speaker 35:24
or not. We're just using the word fat as like the group fat there is no like, there's no group, or we all band together where we say, Hey, this is group fat. It's just the concept of fat community.
Unknown Speaker 35:38
Okay, so this is a quote from Reagan. In order to identify predictors of weight stigma resistance, they examined factors including the alignment with the group fat. They start from social identity theory, which is as meadow explains, quote, a theory of intergroup behavior that was developed in the 60s and 70s. Evidence from many types of marginalized groups suggest that where people can leave a devalued group, that is usually the strategy they pursue. This is what we know from experience, but it hadn't previously been applied to the idea that weight control ability beliefs, constitute that permeable slash impermeable group boundary, so should protect activism or alternative behaviors. So Reagan says, in the context of that framework, the assumption was that those who think weight is changeable, are likely to be working to leave the fat group or enter the not fat group. Whereas those who have come to the conclusion that long term significant weight loss is improbable, including through their own experience of weight cycling, may come to view themselves as permanent members of the fat group. For those members of the fat group. The next detriments determinant of stigma resistance becomes if they believe they deserve lower status, or if they think that lower status is being unfairly foisted on them. The study authors create an online survey survey to measure perceived stigma level stigma, level of identification as a word slash fat person, because you know, not every fat person would identify as fat right? Perceived legitimacy of anti fat discrimination, group permeability, so can I get out of the fat group, stigma resistance, internalized weight, stigma and global self esteem? Based on their answers, subjects were sorted into three groups about a third were internalizes, who tended to agree with statements relating to internalized weight stigma beliefs, about 17% of the subjects were classified as indifferent. They tended to disagree or had no strong opinions, opinion about statements relating to either weight stigma, internalization or weight stigma resistance. Finally 50% Well resistors 50% Why resistors oh my god, I love this.
Unknown Speaker 38:25
Those who quote tended to disagree with or have no strong opinions about internalization statements, and tended to agree with statements about weight stigma resistance, yeah, go 50%.
Unknown Speaker 38:37
In the subsequent analysis, perceived legitimacy of weight stigma was the most important predictor of internalized stigma Meadows explains, let me read that again. In the subsequent analysis, analysis, perceived legitimacy of weight stigma was the most important predictor of internalized stigma for your green with people, you're going to have that internalized stigma, as we know that internalized stigma is harmful A F. Quote, I think it's easy to understand conceptually, this is from Angela,
Unknown Speaker 39:16
if you think of it as a kind of continuum, even though it's not fully linear with internalizes at one end and resistors at the other. The point here is that legitimacy beliefs were the best predictor of whether people to attend to tend to be internalizes are resistors, internalizes had higher perceived legitimacy, beliefs, although still not high, whereas resistors were way down at the bottom of the measurement scale. Investment in the fat group also predicted resistance, but people were able to reach resist a status even if they didn't invest in the fat group. Meadow says to me, this is the most exciting and empowering
Unknown Speaker 40:00
ultimate peace. group identity is usually considered the major determinant of activism slash resistance, that resistors existed who weren't identified within the group was super interesting. You could call it you could use an ally ship angle. Everyone needs to fight stigma, whatever their own body looks like, or their relationship with it. It's a place we can start, even if we haven't quite quite got a full acceptance yet. Yes, as is the case with many of us who have discovered fat exceptions acceptance slash liberation movements, we get it in principle, but it's hard to overcome all that brainwashing. But we can still fight stigma because stigma is back that group investment brings benefits on its own in group identity is associated with improved well being across marginalized groups. So that's really cool. So
Unknown Speaker 40:59
like, like, this is like saying, like, there's a scale, there was like a scale like a continuum of the resistors. And the internalizes and to be a resistor to get those benefits of, of not internalizing anti fatness, you didn't necessarily have to be, you know, like a fat activist or have a load of fat friends or,
Unknown Speaker 41:21
you know, be in Facebook groups with fat people.
Unknown Speaker 41:25
You could just be like, I think that stuff is bullshit, and I don't believe it, which is really, really exciting and encouraging. Because if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably there or close to being there, or have been there and paths there for a long time, which can help us breathe a sigh of relief that we are doing such incredible work to resist anti fatness, how cool is that? How cool is that? And it's interesting, right? Like,
Unknown Speaker 42:03
I see this of, you know, the people who are really struggling, struggling is like, they just they don't want to identify as fat.
Unknown Speaker 42:11
Because what they're identifying as in their mind is, you know, ugly and lazy and unhealthy and horrible and all those negative things. Right. And so that, that that group permeability, that like Angela Meadows was saying that people traditionally want to get out of the group, the stigmatized group if they can, and it's been seen that fatness is a stigmatized group that you can get out of. And so if you have that belief, and you're trying to get out of that belief, or out of that group, the fat group, then that's not helpful
Unknown Speaker 42:48
to that's not helpful in regards to seeing the negative effects of weight stigma.
Unknown Speaker 42:55
And so the first step being, okay, I've realized that I can't get out of the group. And so it's kind of like, acceptance. And then the next step being, these are my people. This is who I am. And it's fine.
Unknown Speaker 43:15
And maybe the next step is kind of like it here. Fat people rock. If you want help to get with, you know,
Unknown Speaker 43:25
why would you like it here type of thing. I have an Instagram post that came out this week. 28 benefits of being fat. It was also a podcast episode.
Unknown Speaker 43:37
Maybe 50 episodes ago? Oh, my goodness. My goodness. Let's see how long ago it was.
Unknown Speaker 43:46
Episode 128. What are we on? 70? Something? Yeah, so
Unknown Speaker 43:51
not a bad guess. Yeah. So 28 benefits of being fat, right? Like, so things like better cancel sub cancer survival rates, reduced mortality. So fat people tend to live longer than straight size people bouyancy
Unknown Speaker 44:12
being able to recover quicker from COVID, visually interesting, bigot filter,
Unknown Speaker 44:20
etc. And also, you know, what, I think the you know, the accepted acceptance of the group fat
Unknown Speaker 44:30
is not saying it's not hard to be in this group, sometimes. A lot of the times daily, maybe, but it's not the group's
Unknown Speaker 44:39
the fact that the group exists. That's the problem. It's what's happening around us to tell us that this group is bad. I think that's a big difference.
Unknown Speaker 44:51
Okay, so, so if you're struggling with this, ask yourself what beliefs do you have about fatness with you? So
Unknown Speaker 45:00
You, those those things to think about is, if I had a crystal ball in the future, I could see that you have a bigger body than you have now.
Unknown Speaker 45:09
Or maybe even if that's too much that your current body if you desire to be smaller, and then ask yourself, how desirable would I be?
Unknown Speaker 45:19
Ask yourself, What is my health status? It's interesting, because you know, some people will be like, Oh, no, no, my health is my health would be fine. My health would be the same as it is. Now. Some people would be like, I have type two diabetes. And I'm like, Oh, do you see? Okay, so it tells me that you need to unlearn the bullshit, you've learned about type two diabetes, you need to learn that, that it's a genetic condition that you can't eat your way to it, let alone
Unknown Speaker 45:43
a lot of times, it's conditions that run in the family. So desirability, some people like I have, I actually have a really cool husband or I know my husband wouldn't like it. Dump him.
Unknown Speaker 45:56
Or, you know, I just know I would be an attractive and it's like, Uh huh. Who says so? Do you need to be attractive?
Unknown Speaker 46:06
Eating? Like, what would your eating look like? Sometimes people are like, Oh, I'd be I'd have an eating disorder. If I if I had a bigger body. It's because I have an eating disorder.
Unknown Speaker 46:14
Okay, so we need to need to unlearn stuff about that. I people would say I'd be lazy, I would never work out. Okay, so we need to learn about how fat people can
Unknown Speaker 46:25
choose to work out if they want to learn about mobility and ableism and health ism and that type of stuff, not mobility, mobility isn't next point, it's just in my brain. So when you think about laziness, also colonization, white supremacy, because laziness is is attached to that have mean health and desirability, and all of that is all attached to white supremacy, right? But laziness, particularly I think about
Unknown Speaker 46:52
colonization and white supremacy with that mobility. So will you say, you know, I will, I will be I will become disabled. Okay. So again, we should have her ableism. And we'll have a look at you know, can? What is the reality of living in a bigger body?
Unknown Speaker 47:10
Happiness? Would you be happy? Would you be sad? Would you be isolated? Would you have family? Would you not have family like your choice? Like, would you be able to achieve the goals that you want in life?
Unknown Speaker 47:21
So asking those questions, is going to be helpful in helping you guide you to where you need to go next. And get curious because sometimes it's hard to know, you know, like, I don't quite feel there, but I don't know why I can't just shake the idea that I am unattractive, because I'm fat. Or I'm also what Well, who do you have on your life that supports anti fatness and supports fat joy? Okay.
Unknown Speaker 47:54
Because that's the, you know, people having these stigmatizing experiences. Often I talked to people and I say, I ask them this question.
Unknown Speaker 48:03
My mum, she almost Oh, so often.
Unknown Speaker 48:09
It's so often people say, my mum, she makes comments. She doesn't say him about me. She says him about herself. You know, she says that she's lost way or she says she needs to go on a diet or she says she's too fat. And you know, it's only a little comment. So I don't say anything. And I think how many 1000s of only little comments have you heard during your life? Is that supporting you? In your difficult journey? This is difficult. This is a difficult journey because we are surrounded by anti fatness. Is that supporting you? And they'll say, my mum will never change.
Unknown Speaker 48:50
We need to give our loved ones the opportunities to be close to us. If we think that it's appropriate
Unknown Speaker 48:57
if you want to be close to them, right, because you're I feel like we put up a barrier when we say they will never change.
Unknown Speaker 49:07
If they heard us say that they might say give me a chance. On my surprise you
Unknown Speaker 49:15
um, maybe they'll say you're right, I'll never change. But I mean, if we can if it's the feels good and right, giving people the chance to say hey,
Unknown Speaker 49:25
I'm doing this thing I'd love your help. Can you not talk about diets or whatever?
Unknown Speaker 49:31
And you know,
Unknown Speaker 49:34
and with a big Asterix of you know, having levels of privilege to be able to do that and
Unknown Speaker 49:41
how it's difficult and but also on the flip side of that, how much fat Joy do you have in your life? How many wonderful stories about fat people having great lives DC Can you think of like a handful? How many stories have have
Unknown Speaker 50:00
Think people having a good life? Have you seen, I mean, your fingers, you'd have to have like 100,000 fingers to count up. Because it's innumerable. Because that's the way fantasy is presented as
Unknown Speaker 50:14
sad sack. fatness is presented as the film The whale, if you've not listened to that podcast episode is just like fucking depressed and
Unknown Speaker 50:27
the kid hates them and their life is so sad versus fat people being complex humans, just like thin people, it's
Unknown Speaker 50:40
change. And you know, of course, there are fat people who are depressed and fat people who are isolated and fat people who have
Unknown Speaker 50:49
certain issues. And guess what, they're also fat people who are happy, who have wonderful families who have great relationships, who are worshipped and adored by their partners, who have great jobs, who are successful, who fall asleep at night and have a smile on their face. And there are many fat people who are on different levels of that spectrum, right. But we're seeing just that one side of the story of like, what do we know about fat people, especially fat people with more marginalization, especially fat people who are disabled, that all their life is absolutely shit, which is so offensive to the people who are living those lives. And some people might say, Yeah, my life is shit. You know, but some people will say, I'm what's going on the life you know, I'm just here with my cat, my my pee, like I want to go away. And finally, how can you identify and connect with the fat community? And this is not you're not you don't have to. But I think it's really helpful. Being in that fat group, you're in the fat group. Okay, we've decided we're in the fat group, we can't get out of the fat group, which in my point, might my idea my my brain is like, don't care. I'm happy to be here. You know, this is a great little party Island, you know, fat Party Island? Oh, we'll make a little like, kind of what would the fat in group be? Would it be I'll be little, there would be a pole, there'd be floaties. But we wouldn't need them because the fat people would flow. There would be wonderful activities, and there'd be no food shaming, and there'd be no body shaming, and people be able to wear what they want. And oh, what a wonderful place it'd be there'll be joy and laughing and, and softness, and me just giggles And Lord, what a great place for Ireland would be. Ah, so yeah, go and find that that fat fat community if you can, and again, it doesn't have to be in person. We don't want to devalue virtual spaces. Some people cannot access in person spaces in the end. And sometimes virtual spaces are better, right? You can connect with people all across the world.
Unknown Speaker 52:52
So
Unknown Speaker 52:54
So yeah, so that is that is our podcast today. I feel really excited. Right? I hope you feel a bit hopeful, you know, because we hear all these like oh, wow, you know, fat people are about to die Lella fatness is so bad for you. Weight stigma is is bad.
Unknown Speaker 53:11
And we are doing the things to protect ourselves from weight stigma, aren't we? We are we're not engaging in dieting. We're not agreeing with the oppressors.
Unknown Speaker 53:22
Now the final thing, which is really tricky, is engaging with healthcare professionals and getting getting care. And that thing, that's a lot of times out of our control, right. So if we can be really fucking stubborn about getting health care,
Unknown Speaker 53:39
then that would be amazing. Actually, it makes me think about fat trans person makes history SJ let me find SJS post.
Unknown Speaker 53:50
S J.
Unknown Speaker 53:53
S. J Trump Thompson Bill mom Tay. The Instagram handle is call me SJ dot the letters. Fat trans history was made last month.
Unknown Speaker 54:09
So So body on nutrition made this post about SJ.
Unknown Speaker 54:15
So basically, did you know this is a post? Did you know On May 24 2023 SJ Thompson Belmonte made fat trans history by winning a three year long battle with the state of Oregon after being denied coverage for top surgery because they are fat. If SJ were thin, it would have taken only a matter of months to have surgery. Instead it took them three years. They contacted several advocacy organizations are mostly dismissed and ignored. SJ started this fight back in the dark not knowing if there would be light at the end of the tunnel. There wasn't a single legal precedent in the entire state of Oregon unlikely most of most of the nation with Sj and their lawyer did not know what to expect. Now their story in case can offer hope
Unknown Speaker 55:00
guidance for other fat trans people facing medical discrimination. For those of you who don't know, SJ, they're a special part of the fat eating disorder community, they have given us so much and now they need our help. They will finally have surgery this summer and will take three to four weeks off to recover. Let's support SGA by raising money to help cover their bills and recovery needs. And there's links to donate to SJ
Unknown Speaker 55:27
s j, is multiple, multiple marginalized and is low income.
Unknown Speaker 55:33
And it's studying another How the fuck they did that. The tenacity to
Unknown Speaker 55:43
can you imagine?
Unknown Speaker 55:45
To do that for three years? Wow. So anyway, anyway, and I'm not saying everyone has to do that everyone has a capacity and I'm not saying you know, like, take on the legal system. And I mean, shit, you're like, Oh, I
Unknown Speaker 56:01
just got stomped out, I should calm down. But you know, you deserve health care is the thing is what I'm trying to say is you deserve health care. And if you're not getting it, reach out for support from from fat advocacy groups, and know that what you're experiencing is not okay. Right? You can say, depending on your situation, you can say I don't want to be weighed or my weight is not up for discussion today. Or I have someone come in and into the office with you and help act as your advocate and let you know, just you know, I just hope fat people are given health care. Fuck, it's
Unknown Speaker 56:45
fucking pieces of shit. I swear. But you know what, like I said mentioned I was on this training for the New England public health care training. So it was healthcare providers. The comments apart from one idiot called Catherine who was like, I'm gonna play devil's advocate. Literally, Catherine was saying, I'm gonna play devil's advocate twice. Catherine said that and I was like, fuck off. I was watching the recording of it. And so I wasn't there to be like, Catherine, Catherine, shut your fucking mouth. But guess what? Lots of people said Catherine Shut your fucking mouth. And lots of people on the call in the comments. Were saying yes. And they were they were they were agreeing and they were saying really awesome things in response. Like, like, they know what they were talking about in regards to anti fatness. Ah, it was amazing. It was amazing. So that gave me hope. Anyway, anyway, I just I just put that link for SJ in the in for the show notes. So if you'd like to donate to S J. I think last time I checked they were kind of like maybe halfway on to the girl.
Unknown Speaker 57:54
Did you link go? S j Why did you move that link?
Unknown Speaker 57:59
Maybe they got that maybe they reached that goal?
Unknown Speaker 58:02
No, they didn't reach that goal goal. Maybe they just felt that. For me feels it probably feels fucking shit to ask for money. Right?
Unknown Speaker 58:12
I'm going to link a link to their directly to their to their GoFundMe. They're at 4496 of their $6,000 goal.
Unknown Speaker 58:21
They're going to get surgery on July 6. Imagine having to live
Unknown Speaker 58:27
not getting surgery in a body that doesn't feel like you when your counterpart your thin counterpart could get that surgery in three months. Theoretically.
Unknown Speaker 58:40
How unjust is that? Are right so I'm gonna leave it here if you enjoyed the show you want to support me go to co feeling in the
Unknown Speaker 58:51
show notes direct link for the show notes for his family.com forward slash 172 for all the links to everything I'm going to make this into a
Unknown Speaker 59:00
Instagram post so if you want a reminder of the shit that I said, of these, these these great studies and people's and Lala lib lib and my kind of what beliefs do you have about anti fatness question and the categories all of that I'm going to put in an Instagram post. My Instagram is great. If you're not on Instagram.
Unknown Speaker 59:23
You should go on Instagram. Just follow me. If you are on Instagram, you're not following me. What are you doing with your life? Come on now. I'm great on Instagram to follow because I also share fucking fannish memes. It's one of my favorite parts about Instagram. I've got pins and needles in my arms. My desk is too high. And so when I'm typing, I get pins and needles in my arms. I should but I'm only sitting my desk when I do my podcast so it's not a big deal. So whatever.
Unknown Speaker 59:49
Anyway, we're still talking Okay, bye, God. All right. See you in a while. Oh, alligator, stay fierce, fatty. Goodbye. Bye.