Episode 63 Transcript

Welcome to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby and this is episode 63. Today, we're talking about “You’ve Been Brainwashed Into Hating Your Body”.

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

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Well, hello there how I Yeah.

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This new year treating you have a good first few days I hope. Good. I'm pleased. I hope you are having a good first few days.

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as this podcast comes out on the fifth of January, I think I'm going to be traveling back to Canada land, which is where I normally live. So I've been in Ireland for two years, and I am finally going back to my home. Which is Canada land now all my family live in Ireland, but I don't really feel like it's my my home. Like I feel like it's it's where I'm from, like, the UK and Ireland is where I'm from. But Canada is my home. And yeah, so I'm going to be flying over the Atlantic Ocean. While this episode goes out, well, first I'm first. First I go from

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Dublin to Germany to Frankfurt, and then from there to y VR to Vancouver.

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And oh my god, because such as long journey so from so Dublin, where did I say Belfast, Dublin, Dublin. Dublin is like five ish hours away from where I am. So and my flight. Why did they do this? The only flights that they have out are like five in the morning. 530 in the morning. Why? Who wants a flight at 530 in the morning, it's wrong. It should be illegal. And so I'm having to leave like the day before Sunday before drive to my sister's, which is an hour away. And then my sister is going to drive me to my Auntie's, which she is like 30 minutes away from the airport, me and my sister are then going to sleep over at my Auntie's, then my sister is going to drop me to the airport, bless her. And then she's taking the day off work to do this for me. So Kai, because you know, the transport in Ireland is really rubbish. You know, if I wanted to do this by bus or coach, I'd be probably about 17 days to get to, to the developers. And yeah, then she's going to drive home and then I'm going to continue on my journey. So I'll probably be traveling for like over 24 hours. And I'm going to have Dougal with me and my dog as well. So he is the airline. I'm traveling on the Faenza. They allow dogs in the cabin, which is super cool. And he's a little dog too. So that's cool. So yeah, he's going to be coming on with me, which is what we did when we came here a couple of years ago. And I hope I hope that he's not going to be the same as when I came to Ireland. Oh my god. I told you this story before it's i It was harrowing. It was arrowing so if you don't like stories about

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sick vomit, skip ahead a couple of minutes because you're not gonna like this. So when I came here, I had packed up everything in Vancouver, send it to storage.

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super stressful, like sold my car the day before I left or even the day I left. Yeah, I think it was a day that I left so I had a flight an evening to go to Vancouver to to Ireland. And so I had like finished up packing up my house completely cleaned.

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Whereas living everything into storage, sold my car.

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And then in then I went to so I like singing, right. And then I went to we had a song circle session that night. So I thought so my flight was at like, I think like 11pm 10pm, something like that. 9pm, whatever. And so, some circle was at like, seven. So I thought it is on the way to the airport. So I thought, I'll go with a go with Google to Song circle will have a bit of a scene. And it'll be fun because I love this and it's going to relax me, and then we'll, we'll go to the airport. And I didn't factor in the fact that finishing move in house getting everything in storage, cleaning the house selling my car.

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Taking dog do go with me. And he was you know, he was frightened of the escalators when we got onto the skytrain and shit like that. And,

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and all of this, I didn't realize it sent me into like, stress, like I was stressed. But now I'm thinking like, obviously dipshit

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obviously, stress.

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And so yeah, by the time I got to the airport, I was kind of like hot and stressed. And you know, I had to walk for a bit because I got a gun and like a car to go thing you know, the kind of like rental car that you drive yourself and I couldn't find one and blah blah and, and yeah, so by the time I got on the fly, everything was done. This person in front of me their breath smells so bad.

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of cheese.

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Like, really bad. And so

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the flight the the airplane starts going and I'm like fucking hell, what the heck this person's breath is so intensely disgusting. And within a couple of seconds. I was like, oh my god, I'm going to throw up and I don't do this right like I don't spontaneously just throw up in life. And I you know have always thought about the poor poor bastards who throw up on airplanes and and so got a sick that. It's okay, I got the sick back. So I threw up in the back. Everything's fine. Okay, we're taking off, right? We're taking off in this moment. I'm like, Okay, we're taken off. I can't ring the bell because we're taking off. And I'm going to ring the bell in like, one minute once we finished taking off

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to say, hey, here's a beggar sick, right.

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And thing is, did you know this? Sick bags. I thought they were kind of lined a little bit with you know, wax or something. But no, they are 100% just normal paper. And so within about

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20 seconds of me throwing up in this bag. Maybe about a minute the bag starts disintegrating. Now I'm on the window seat. And I'm like, I'm holding this thing with two hands, cupping the bag of sick as it starts dripping and exploding over everything over over me my like had this like furry coat over Doogal over the the guy next to me, suitcase, the the wall

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everywhere. And

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so you know the person next mindset Okay, can you can you ring the bell? And they were like, what? I'm like, Can you ring the bell because I've been sick. And so the ring the bell and everyone, they start to realize what's going on and it feels like feels like everyone is like, Oh my God, you know, because there's you know, sick everywhere. And it was really bad.

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Anyway, so I went to the they took me to the back of the plane and gave me some water and started crying and I was like, Oh, I've been sick and I was like, is that person's fault for having the really bad cheesy breath? But apparently they said to me like a lot of people on red eyes red eye flights get get sick

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I'd know they'll try to make me feel better anyway. And so my clothes are covered in sick and Dougal's covered in sick and so I happened to in the bag that I had have my pajamas with me. And so I changed into my pajamas. And for the rest of the journey the journey was 24 hours versus the journey I was in pajamas. I managed to clean to go with like you know baby wise but not really. And then I had this this wool coat which you know is how much can you clean SEC office not boil? I mean very, very cold. I mean, it was it was it was fucking awful. It was so horrible. It's so bad.

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And then at the end of the flight, I happen to be the last person to get off. And then I heard the flight attendants being like, oh my god, you'd never guess what happened on my flight today. Some girl was like, sick everywhere and blah, blah. And then they could sit. And then they looked at this or me, and they're like, Oh, by.

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Yeah, anyway, so long story short, I hope that my flight back home to Vancouver doesn't involve me throwing up over things and having to wear my pajamas in international airports. And yeah, so fingers crossed, fingers crossed. So anyway, let's talk about today's episode, talking about the the belief that fat is bad, and how it is an opinion, and how you've been brainwashed into believing something that is not actually true. And all of the messages you get to support that, and how to deconstruct those messages, so that

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you don't believe that fat bodies are bad? Because it's it's not true. It's not, it's just not true. So let's do this episode. Let's talk about what we're here to talk about today. Which is the idea that you, My Glorious, first fatty, have been brainwashed into Hating Your Body and how to deprogram yourself. That's me making a noise of robots Did you like it?

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So the way that you feel about your body, about yourself about food about everything has, has not come from a vacuum. It's been informed by the world.

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So if you were to have been born on a desert island, I always say, I say, if you're on a desert island, but if you happened to have been born on a desert island,

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and you had no interaction with other people, you would not have the same thoughts and feelings about yourself, or your perceived attractiveness, attractiveness, or what you should be eating all that type of stuff. It's society, our society that has made you think that your body is good or bad, or, you know, what you eat is good and bad, or any type of belief. And why this is important is because your perceived attractiveness is correlated with your perceived worthiness. And so that's something else that we have been taught by society that the more attractive you are in the eye of society, the more worthy you are, which is obviously we can all say hello, the thing then, is some bullshit going off there, smell some bullshit.

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So as a society, we have decided what is generally considered attractive or not. But the thing is, it is not a fact that something is or isn't attractive. You know, there's the saying the AI is in the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But as a society, we have these general rules of you know, fat is bad, but there's gonna always be subsets of people who don't adhere to that message. And can see attractiveness in all different types of people. And we all do, right. We're all not we all have different types of people that we're attracted to. But generally, on a whole society has this idea that fat is not attractive that you should be in certain foods, and that your body should be a certain way. But individually, we can blame. That's bullshit. But it's still very hard to move away from what society is saying. So it's not a fact that you your body, who you are as a person is bad, or an attractive and what what a fact is, is something that is 100% true 100% of the time. So if we were to survey the world population, I'd say I don't know 7.5 billion, I think it is 8 million, something like that.

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And they and they looked at your body would every single 7.5 billion people say oh yeah, oh God, that body is this girl. or would there be some people who say Oh, hello, Ding ding ding, my dream person right there. Can I get their number? Of course they will.

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people be like, Oh my god, ding, ding, ding That is my dream person. But none of that matters because it doesn't matter if other people find you attractive. It literally has nothing to do with your value. As a human being, you are inherently valuable no matter what. So even if 7.5 8 billion people, every single one of them was like, Oh, now that is what an ugly person looks like, doesn't matter. Because

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you're human being therefore you are worthy.

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So something that I learnt. So I, when I went to university, I studied illustration. And I loved I was really a really, really arty person. And then when I went to university, my, my, my level of producing art was really crushed. With my low self esteem and the critiques of one certain professor who were just like this, it's just an embarrassment. How can you produce art like this? She was a real bitch.

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Anyway, so when I left university after soldering illustration, I was like, Oh, my God, I'm so bad at it. And I wish I'd go back to Victoria then and be like, No, you're not. Anyway, the reason why I'm telling you, that is something that I learned that while at university is what is art, and you know, some people will go to an art gallery, and they'll look and it will be like,

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you know, one splash of paint on a white background, or just a white circle on an off white background? And because people can say, like, how is that art, and then someone else will come along and see that same image and be like, Holy fucking shit, that is genius. That is gorgeous, I must have it. And what makes something art, it doesn't matter if you like it, what makes something art is that it is remarkable in such a way, so when I say remarkable, that you remark upon it, that it has it, it provides some type of feeling, whether it be good or bad indifference.

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But if you don't even notice it, then is it art. So art can be anything, it doesn't have to be a painting, or a sculpture or anything like that art can be anything. And

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even if you think that you're shitter, like I used to think that I was shit at illustration, but actually, I had many years of skills behind me. And when I was producing was still art, even if that twatter the teacher was like, this isn't, this is not very good, I don't like this, there's you should be doing this.

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It is still art. Because opinion, on the

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goodness of the art doesn't matter, it still makes it art. So what one genre of art that I love is the pre raphaelites. They were around in the Victorian times and the pre raphaelites formed because they were opposed to the British Royal Academy and the British Royal Academy had a really narrow view on what they considered was art. And it had to be,

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you know, a certain type of beauty that would be depicted and, and certain types of scenes. And then if not, they were very snobby. And they would be like No, you can't display that painting here. And the pre raphaelites Were like, fuck this noise. We're gonna paint some greedy coke shit. And now if you look at the paintings, you're like, well, they kind of look old fashioned, and they don't really like edgy or anything, but they're so fucking cool. I love pre-raphaelite work. My favorite is the awakening conscience. I'll put a link to it below so you can see it, but it's so full of symbolism. And it's not necessarily the actual look of the painting. But what it represents look into the what it what it means and it's another symbolism ism in it. It's gorgeous. Anyway, so you might know pre-raphaelite works like

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a philia like, Have you ever seen that image where there's a woman floating in water? Or

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Jesus coming to this door? They'll be Jesus come into a door, you might have seen it in memes. And they were like Jesus is knocking and it'd be using memes but anyway, so you might be familiar with pre raffles anyway.

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the British Academy at the British Royal Academy we're like ooh, pre raphaelites pre shimmery likes, we don't like them that is shit. But it wasn't they had decided that they didn't like it for whatever reason and they didn't class it as art. And that was an opinion. Now that was like the

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the

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Mainstream opinion about what art should be like, in those times, and the pre raphaelites went against it and said, Hey, no, we have a different opinion. And so it wasn't actually a fact that that is what art was meant to be. And so deciding that fat is an attractive, or you are an attractive or your body is not okay. It's like saying one type or style of art is better than the other, and promoting that one single type of art or image as the only image that is good, or worthy.

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Which is bananas. Like, think of the 1000s of years of art and creation that we have, and all of the different styles. And imagine if you were just like, No, papa is the only art that is good art, that that is what art should be. Pop Art. That's the way to go.

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Why? No, right is going to be like pop up. But you know, it's not the only type that is good or bad or whatever, right? And so it's ridiculous to say that fat bodies are the only type of bodies that are that should be thin bodies, or any type of bodies that should be seen as attractive, because it's just, it's an opinion. And we, as a society have got confused. We're like the British Royal Academy, when we said, Hmm, sticking our noses up a different types of art saying no, that's not what's classed as real art. And so when we see bodies that look different marginalize bodies. And if we say, No, that body is not right, you need to lose weight, you need to do this. We're just being snobby ourselves. We don't want to be snobby ourselves. But obviously, that's a very simple, revised, simple, simplified version of what I'm talking about. Now, it's an opinion, is what I'm getting at is it it is opinion. And

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we've decided as a society that fineness is better for whatever reason, and the thing is around.

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So using art as an example to where you could say, well, pre-raphaelite art is the best art ever because it's so realistic. It is so rich in color, and rich and metaphor, and it educates the viewer. Whereas modern art, let's say for example, Tracy Emin, British artist, Tracy Emin had a bed in a gallery with notches on the bedpost for how many lovers that she'd had. And all the newspapers went wild being like, How dare she call this art, this is just nothing. And so some people were like, well, in the pre raphaelites took hundreds of hours to make this one painting and Tracy Emin, just carved some notches into a bedpost. And so there is a reason why people won't say, okay, pre-raphaelite is is better than Tracey Emin or modern art. Because there's reasons. But are those reasons valid?

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Not necessarily. And so there'd be reasons. For example, people say, well, fat people are unhealthy.

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Well, fat people, genetically, would be less likely to be picked as a mate for whatever reason.

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But also fat people genetically are the ones who survive famines, right. So

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you know, the reasons behind it, it doesn't really matter, because it's all bullshit. Anyway.

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So another factor with this is consumerism, and companies trying to sell us shit to fix our flawed bodies. So imagine I've seen this quite a lot. Imagine how many multi billion dollar industries and multi million dollar industries would be destroyed if one day we all woke up and said you know what? I think my body's pretty fucking good. I don't need to get that anti aging cream or that whatever it is wrapped that goes around my belly to make it smaller or, or diet plan or whatever it is. multi million and billion dollar industries would overnight just be like, Oh, shit, and so it benefits companies to keep to keep perpetuating the idea of what is beautiful and what you should look like. Because if

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You are in fear, then you will buy more shit. And it's okay if you want to buy shit, that's fine. I'm not against you buying stuff like for example, even though I love myself I still do things like wear lipstick, just go I love it or get my nails done. I love it. But underneath that like, but do I

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would I be doing that if I lived in the desert island now now I'm questioning myself right? But you know, I don't I don't feel there's any negative behaviors, you know, or things happening in my brain around that I don't think but I could. I could be wrong.

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So it benefits

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consumerism if we hate ourselves

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and so, to make sure that we keep buying stuff and to keep these these companies afloat because it's very lucrative, they will make up

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things that you need to start worrying about. So here's a couple of examples. So cellulite. Cellulite is made up. Yes, like cellulite exists. Like as in it's like on our bodies, but it didn't always used to be a thing. So I'm going to link this article by Kelsey million Miller. And the title is cellulite isn't real. This is how it was invented. So here's an excerpt from that. So Cellulite is not real vient

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Oh, was that not clear? Allow me to allude to Kate. There is such a thing as sub cutaneous fat and fibrous tissue beneath your skin. That's real. And indeed, on the majority of human bodies, there are areas on which skin appears deeply or bumpy that exists to and always has, but until relatively recently, there was no word to define it because it was not a thing. Half a century ago. No, no one in this country had even heard of cellulite, let alone identified it as a problem to be gotten rid of. Today, we spent untold millions, if not billions, on anti cellulite treatment, despite the glaring lack of evidence that any of them work, which makes perfect sense, of course, because you cannot treat a condition that doesn't actually exist.

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But that's the end of the quote. I'll link to the full article because it's very interesting. And Kelsey Miller is a fat positive Rockstar, the author of that

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it makes sense like okay, well.

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Women are rising up, women are becoming more strong and

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standing up for themselves. And you know, if you read the article, this is what it's saying. And so what can we do to make those motherfuckers insecure to make them spend their money on shit? That doesn't matter? Okay, I'm gonna make up Sally, like, oh, we need to get rid of that. Or do Oh, no, no, no.

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And it's fucking bullshit. Like, most people have cellulite.

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I remember after after I'd lost loads of weight, like a dangerous amount of weight and saying to my friend, I don't have cellulite anymore. And you know, I was probably dying or something and just being like, so excited about that and

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it just so fucking didn't matter. Ah, my old Victorian got on it was getting on current Victoria's tits.

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So another one another one is Listerine. Did you know Listerine made up the idea of halitosis. They even I think it was the son of the owner, or the son in law of the owner was like, Okay, let's medicalize people having bad breath. And they literally created this word halitosis, which I think like hella is like Greek for how Atos is like Greek for bad, and then the breath and

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so I'm going to link to this article as well. But in this article from the CES, this Smithsonian, it shows an ad from 1928 for Listerine, and the ad reads halitosis makes you unpopular. And then the image of the ad is a woman sitting on her own looking kind of dejected, and then and then a man dancing with this other woman. So the presumption is that he went up to her and said, Would you like to dance or something? And then he was like, oh, bitch, your breath isn't there see? Anyway, so the ad reads halitosis makes you unpopular. No matter how charming you may be, or how fond of you your friends are, you can not expect them

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to put up with halitosis forever, they may be nice to you. But it is an effort.

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Oh, Listerine, you and Shay day. Oh my god.

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There's so many that seeing those old ads are so funny how like, they're just like, Bitch, you nasty pitch, you're fucking ugly, you ain't gonna get no friends if you don't buy my product, you know, and seeing those, have you seen those ads as well, where they say, Oh, you're too skinny. And it's all about like, you need to plump up because the boys don't like skinny girls.

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And it wasn't plumping up to make them fat, but it was popping up to give them like a bit of a hip and some curves or whatever.

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So, you know, now we can look back and be like, Oh my God, that's so funny that they would do that. And it's so blatant that Listerine would

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just straight up, come after people and be like, Your breath stinks, you better lose Listerine. What is happening all the time now, right? It's like, you know, all of the new things and new products that are like coming out.

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And it's making it seem abnormal for you to be in, in your human body in the way that you are naturally. And, of course, if you want to engage in these things and get beauty procedures done and get buy in to die, it's not about that's up to you, right?

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But is it distracting you from rising up? And is it hurting you by making you think that your body is not okay? Something that I've been toying with is the idea of eyelash extensions. And like, I'm like, Oh, I

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I like the idea of it like because I can't Oh, I've never really done like false eyelashes. I'm like, I like the idea of it. But

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like, I think I think I think I like the look of it. But why do I want to do that? Is it because I'm trying to increase my worth as a human? Is it because it will be fun for me to play around with it?

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Why do we expect women's eyelashes to be longer? By what is going on there? Anyway? So we're like anything like that? And I'm like, What is going on? Is it me to be just playing around and having fun with my body? Or is it something else? And I haven't decided yet, so maybe I'll get eyelash extensions and, and just

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see if I like it. But I've noticed like me considering eyelash extensions. Maybe I've looked at my eyelashes a few times and been like, well, those eyelashes are long gone off? And how hurtful is that? I don't have an answer for that. Because you know, it's still something that's it's continuing and exploring but

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it's, it's distracting me in, in some in some way from

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stuff that might be more important. And it might be important, like I might have fun doing it. So I'm not ruling it out. But I'm just you know, saying question these things.

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So these messages of who we should be as human beings are presented to us in many different ways. A massive way is through the media, through TV, films, magazines, books, comics, Reddit threads, like

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they are everywhere, and they are taught and then they are repeated by family and friends. And you've probably repeated these norms that they know the way that human bodies should look like I know I have plenty of times in my life. And they become

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seen as a fact. A fact that fat bodies are not good bodies are not as attractive as smaller bodies. We just take it as a fact. It's a given. It's everywhere. Obviously. It's a fact as much as it's a fact that the sun is going to rise tomorrow is a fact as much as the sky is blue, right? But it's not a fun fact, it is a belief. So let me read you a little excerpt from this

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New York Times article, which is talking about a study which was also cited in the beauty myth, which is a book by Naomi Wolf.

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And the beauty myth is is there's loads of good stuff in here. It's quite dense.

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I don't know how I managed to read it maybe I'm reading an audio book or something I don't know Anyway, I read it

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and I just remember this study now this study is not perfect is this lots of flaws around it but it's just I want to illustrate something. So this is an excerpt from The New York Times article I will link to it below as well. So here we go. The title of the article is Study Finds TV alters Fiji girls view of their body.

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You've gained weight is a traditional compliment in Fiji. anthropologists say this article was written 20 years ago, by the way.

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So there might be some things in there which are which have changed or you know culturally have changed.

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Just FYI. So you've gained weight is a traditional complement in Fiji anthropologists say. In accordance with traditional culture in the South Pacific nation. dinner guests are expected to eat as much as possible. A robust, nicely rounded body is the norm for men and women. skinny legs is a major insult and going thin. The Phrygian turn for losing a noticeable amount of weight is considered a worrisome condition. But all that may be changing now that Heather Locklear has arrived that gives away the day. Luckily, I'm like, Who was she? Just a few years ago after the introduction of television to to a province on Fiji's main island, Vita Levu. Eating Disorders once virtually unheard of there are on the rise among girls, according to a study presented yesterday at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Washington. Young girls dream of looking not like their mothers or arms, but like the slender stars of Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210. I'm very heavy, one Fijian adolescents olemme lamented during an interview with researchers led by Dr. Ann E. Becker, director of research at the Harvard Eating Disorders Center of Harvard Medical School, who investigated shifts in body image and eating practices in Fiji over a three year period. The Fijian girls had her friends also tell her that she's too fat. And sometimes I'm depressed because I always want to lose weight. Epidemic epidemiological studies have shown that eating disorders are more prevalent in industrialized countries, suggesting that cultural factors play a role. But few studies have examined the effects of long term cultural shifts on disordered eating in traditional societies. Dr. Becker and her colleagues surveyed 63 Phrygian secondary school girls who whose average age was 17. The work began in 1995. One month after satellites began, satellites began beaming television signals to the region. In 1998, the researchers surveyed another group of 65 girls from the same schools who were matched in age, weight or other characteristics with the subjects in the earlier group 15% in the 1998 survey reported that they had induced vomiting to control their weight. The researchers said compared with 3% in the 1995 survey, and 29% scored highly on on a test of eating disorder risk compared with 13%. Three years before, girls who said they watch television three or more nights a week in 1998 were 50% more likely to describe themselves as too big or fat, and 30% more likely to diet than girls who watch television less frequently. Before 1995 Dr. Becker said there was little talk of dieting in Fiji, the idea that idea of calories were very foreign to them. But in the 1998 survey, 69% said that at some time they had been on a diet. In fact, Preliminary data suggests that more teenage girls in Fiji diet than their American counterparts. So I'll link the whole article below that New York Times article. So I know we're not talking about eating disorders here.

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But the power of the media, so I wanted to share that as an illustration to show the power of the media and the power of these messages that you need to be thin, white, young, able bodied, and all of these other

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things that we've decided we need to be as humans. So media informs us and

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those messages are then ingrained in our brains as fact they are shared

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through conversations through our

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own heads, you know, our own minds telling us that this is fact and, and it just becomes cemented in our brains. So according to E marketer in 2019, we spend on average 12 hours and nine minutes a day consuming media. And so the average adult is awake for 15 hours and 39 minutes, meaning I did the math, look at me, I'm so smart 60% of our days consumed with

Unknown Speaker 40:35

our day is used by consuming media.

Unknown Speaker 40:39

I love consuming media. So this is no knock on on how much media we consume, like I can. I'm like,

Unknown Speaker 40:47

if I need to do I need to do a we bring my phone and I need to do a pool, definitely bring my phone, brushing my teeth, and watching some in getting ready in the morning, or let's do a podcast like falling asleep. I'm listening to podcast. So no share on the amount of media that we consume.

Unknown Speaker 41:04

But what is the media that you're consuming? Is the media that you're consuming supporting fat positivity? Or is it supporting that fat, that fat bodies are bad, and it doesn't have to be aggressively fat phobic, it can just be a show with lots of straight size people that is informing you what a body should be like, even if the straight size people are like, Oh, we love fat people, you still being conditioned to know what a body should look like. So

Unknown Speaker 41:37

again, media is telling us what we should look like. And you know, it's not as simple as it's just the media, lots of different things are going on at play here. But a media that the media and what we're consuming, and what's going into our brains is such a massive part of it. And it's presenting the idea that fat is bad and presenting it as a fact. And remember, a fact is something that's 100% True 100% of the time, when in fact, the idea that fat is bad is a belief.

Unknown Speaker 42:11

So let's look at beliefs.

Unknown Speaker 42:14

What makes up a belief, your belief, any belief that you have is different for everyone. And so I like to think up think of beliefs in our brain as each belief is like a suitcase.

Unknown Speaker 42:34

And inside each belief suitcase, we have different things that make up that belief. So if you believe that being fat is bad, and you open that suitcase, is probably going to be chock a block filled with

Unknown Speaker 42:55

that time that your mom said that you would look better and reveal thin, that show your watch with a kid where they'll making fun of the fat person. That news article that you read that interaction with your partner when you were a teenager and they said your belly was too big, is going to be filled with loads of different incidences and evidence to support that belief. Now, if you currently believe that your body is not good, or fat is bad, or fat is unhealthy, or whatever it is that you believe you have got this suitcase that's living in your brain filled with different things to support that belief evidence. The evidence might be very faulty, but it's still filled in your suitcase, which is the belief you're lugging it around with you. And it's not serving you.

Unknown Speaker 43:44

And what is in what is exactly inside there. I don't know I can't tell you what's in your suitcase, because it's your personal experience, right. And everyone's suitcase is different for five bad if you even have that suitcase. And everyone has all these different ideas and beliefs, which all have evidence, something in the suitcase to go behind it now.

Unknown Speaker 44:09

So you can have a belief, which is is not really that deep, like

Unknown Speaker 44:20

so let's let's just make up a belief if you eat grass, then it will make your hair turn green. So So you just saw this on, you saw a scientific article written if you eat grass, your hair will turn green. Now that belief

Unknown Speaker 44:34

the suitcase of that belief is properly just filled with that one article, that one scientific thing. And so if someone else comes along and they offer you some counter evidence, it'd be really easy to take that one article out and say Ah, actually looking at this I can see this is totally bogus. I no longer believe that eating grass is going to make my hair green. But when it comes to

Unknown Speaker 45:00

believing that fat bodies are okay or your body is okay, you'll open that suitcase and it's gonna be like fucking Pandora's box in there. And so you do something like listen to this podcast or look at some fat bodies on the internet. And it's just making a tiny dent on that suitcase. Because it's just absolutely filled with shit. So you need to go into our suitcase.

Unknown Speaker 45:27

And you need to know what is in there, you might not know exactly, but you can be a detective and go through each item in there, some things are going to stand out. And some things are going to be in there hidden for a long time. And then something is going to make them reveal them to you, after years of working on this stuff, so my suitcase of you know, the belief that fat is bad, I think, is pretty much empty. But something could happen.

Unknown Speaker 46:03

For example, a global pandemic, something traumatic could happen, where it reveals another belief that I have a fat phobic belief that I have. I'm like, Oh, shit, that suitcase wasn't actually empty. After all, let's look at this belief. Is it true? Do I want to keep it in the suitcase? Do I want to throw it out? Do I want to add something to my other suitcase, which is my body is okay, another suitcase, my fat bodies are okay. Don't want to add more evidence there. So that's what you need to do is you need to get another suitcase, which is my body is okay. Or fat bodies are okay, whatever it is, and you need to start filling that up. The more you fill that up with evidence, with

Unknown Speaker 46:51

information with images, with good, juicy fears fatty stuff, the more you'll be taking out of that fat negative suitcase. And it might take years to go through this suitcase. It might be really hard, like there might be some things in there, which will be light as a feather to remove. And there might be other things which is like one of those, you know, in all our old cartoons, like the 1000 pound weight thing, that's a ton is it as at 10,000 pounds, let's say it's in time.

Unknown Speaker 47:25

And it will take years to shift it and you might only be able to pull it, you know, one little inch ago.

Unknown Speaker 47:32

But that is what I like to see beliefs as like you just don't believe something just because, you know, if there's evidence supporting it, right. And if the evidence is flimsy is easy to change your mind. But because you are constantly being told that it's not okay to be fat. It's a constant battle with keep trying to get that suitcase empty, and it constantly being filled up again.

Unknown Speaker 48:05

So if you're spending 12 hours a day consuming media,

Unknown Speaker 48:12

I want you to be very, very, very critical about what you are viewing. And the way to know if something is good or bad for you is to understand how you feel during and after. And even before.

Unknown Speaker 48:32

So for example, there's this TV show in the UK called Love Island what it is, is

Unknown Speaker 48:41

loads of conventionally attractive people

Unknown Speaker 48:44

go to an island I think, anyway, they're people, you know, muscly people and thin women walking around in bikinis and they pair off together. And it's on every single night for six weeks in UK over the summer, I think. And the UK go go bananas for it. And you know, they love it. And so during the summer in I was in the UK for a little bit. People are like oh my god love Ireland's on come and see it. And so I was like, Well, theoretically, I think this is going to be bad for me. So already I was like this is gonna be bad because I kind of knew the premise that there was lots of

Unknown Speaker 49:26

traditionally attractive people in the show. And so I sat down to watch it and for about I sat for maybe 10 minutes, and I was like, Nope, that's it. Done another nothing had happened. Like they weren't like yo fat people suck. Nothing like that happened, just the presence of all of those

Unknown Speaker 49:46

traditionally attractive bodies, which are not a true representation of

Unknown Speaker 49:54

the human body, the human population as a whole. So if it was they'd be fat people on

Unknown Speaker 50:00

they'd be

Unknown Speaker 50:01

all sorts of different types of people on there. And that would be good to see. Because then you'd see fat people falling in love and fat people having fun and you know, fat people as people.

Unknown Speaker 50:13

And so I didn't watch it again. And it kind of stuck in my mind for a couple of days after that. And I was a little bit critical because it was summer and I was in a bikini, and a little bit critical of my body when I say a little bit like a very slowly because I only watched it for a few minutes. But I had noticed that it had had an effect. And I knew I would love that show. You know, like, as a guilty pleasure. I know, I would love it. And I would love being able to talk to other people and be like, Oh my God, did you see what Beth did? And I got she got drunk and then stepped off that guy. I would love that shit, I would love it. But I have to draw a line and sacrifice the entertainment of it, because I know it will affect my mental health. So do you have guilty pleasures?

Unknown Speaker 51:11

Then maybe cut them out? Do you have things like, you'll start to notice things that are just

Unknown Speaker 51:22

they seem okay, on the surface. Like someone's sharing nice recipes, but there might just be a little bit of judgment in there. And you'll start to notice, okay, yeah, that's not good for me. So how does what you're consuming make you feel? Does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel like yes, fuck yeah, I want to go out and be my fucking fabulous self, whatever that is? Or does it make you want to hide and not be yourself and, you know, besides,

Unknown Speaker 51:50

then Ding, ding ding me to get rid of that shirt. So.

Unknown Speaker 51:56

So basically, in a nutshell, you've been brainwashed with

Unknown Speaker 52:03

millions upon millions of messages that you've received threw out your whole life, from the moment that you had could have a conversation. From the moment you can understand other humans, you have been told what you should look like and what is good and what is bad.

Unknown Speaker 52:22

That will continue throughout your life, we cannot stop those messages accidentally seeping into our brains. But what you need to do is you need to go on the aggressive and

Unknown Speaker 52:36

reprogram your brain so that you are getting all of those positive messages in there. It is crucial. So if you have in the last year had a million messages saying that fat is bad, you need to get 1,000,001 messages in your brain that says it's okay to be fat, for you to have an effect. And so you have to take action, you can't just hope that, you know, you'll just one day wake up and decide, oh, my body's Okay, without actually doing anything, you have to protect yourself, you have to put your mental health first.

Unknown Speaker 53:15

To have an effect on how you're feeling about your fat body.

Unknown Speaker 53:22

Unknown Speaker 53:30

talking about podcasts.

Unknown Speaker 53:33

My thing that I want to share with you today is the podcasts that I

Unknown Speaker 53:41

really loving. And honestly talking about podcasts talking about media, talking about media.

Unknown Speaker 53:47

Unknown Speaker 53:50

fall asleep every single night listening to a podcast.

Unknown Speaker 53:54

I wish that I had the desire to fall asleep listening to like, I know, positive affirmations or you know,

Unknown Speaker 54:05

calm music or things like that. But what really calms me is

Unknown Speaker 54:11

like murder podcasts. And

Unknown Speaker 54:16

what is it like crime podcasts and things like this. So here are some of my favorite currently. So if you're that type of person, make check make sure you listen to these. So these are less crimes. These are more mystery things. So my first one is swindled and so it's all about different con artists and the person who host it is left leaning so yay. If you look at the reviews were swindled

Unknown Speaker 54:40

obviously this the person doing the podcast, it's in an honor anonymous host didn't state their political views and then maybe halfway through, people were listening to it. He started saying things that aligned in with being a liberal and the reviews like from Trump supporters are like whoa, this guy's so political and more

Unknown Speaker 55:00

Roy, he's ruined it with his political bullshit. And I was like, Oh, what is this political bullshit? And I was like, oh, yeah, he's he's liberal. So yeah.

Unknown Speaker 55:07

The next one I like I've just started this one, but I'm really enjoying it from the BBC. And it's called the missing crypto queen. So there's this woman, this is the synopsis, who started a rival to the Bitcoin and it is called the one coin. And she basically it was basically a pyramid scheme. And she just took all the money and ran and millions and millions of dollars. And people are still don't know what's going on. And so you learn about that. That's just the synopsis. And so this, this podcast series is looking into that. Next one, I like con artists, same kind of thing.

Unknown Speaker 55:45

I'm really into color is at the moment.

Unknown Speaker 55:49

You know, different scans swindlers throughout the time.

Unknown Speaker 55:53

The score, bank robber diaries, so the score bank robber diaries is this guy who went to prison for robbing loads of banks, he is now a reformed criminal, he goes through very detailed about how he would rob banks, what he will do with the money.

Unknown Speaker 56:14

How he got caught the experience, all of that experiences, how we then turned his life around. A really interesting one thing he says in it, he sees a very charismatic guy, one thing he says is that money, so he would still loads of money, obviously, and he'd hide it under his bed. And he says that money stinks of shit. Like big piles of money. Smells like shit. Because he was sat in his bed and he was like, What the fuck is that smell? And he realized it was the money.

Unknown Speaker 56:45

How fucking gross is that? Suckers money, like, I know people are fucking going around, wiping their bum and then touching money or using money, money to wet the bomb or whatever. Oh, man, people are disgusting. My people so disgusting. And finally, one of my all time favorites. I don't listen to this falling asleep. Because it's so good. I don't ever want to miss any of it. Not that I miss any of the others always just rewind where I fell asleep to is all killer, no filler. So it's talking about serial killers, but it's to British comedians,

Unknown Speaker 57:20

is really funny. They're very British, but they have got a large North American audience. And they always explain, like the British things that they're saying. They're really funny. And they've got a really good Facebook group to

Unknown Speaker 57:33

like lots of cool people like the fat positive and all that type of stuff.

Unknown Speaker 57:38

Not 100% Fat positive because one of the hosts last way, but she doesn't talk about losing weight as if it is if it's a good or bad thing. So anyway, so someone stays positive.

Unknown Speaker 57:50

Yeah, so reminder to leave me a review. Even if you don't want my book. Why wouldn't you then leave me review is good, fatty karma points, I would so so appreciate it. And the reason why it's important is because the more reviews the more people will listen, the more the fat positive message will get out there. And this is this is fat, positive media and fat positive media changes the lives of people who need to hear that positive positive stuff, which is everyone everyone needs to have that positive stuff. And of course not everyone has to hear it from me because you know, I'm not the the queen of fat positivity the queen of the fat positive internet or anything.

Unknown Speaker 58:41

I'm just one voice but it's important to get get fat voices out there. Okay, well, thank you for hanging out with me today. Thank you for pressing play and look out for that.

Unknown Speaker 58:54

But special COVID Facebook Live. Going to turn it into a podcast thingamajig

Unknown Speaker 59:03

Yeah, and I'll see you on the next episode. Goodbye, McQueen.