Episode 84 Transcript

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Welcome to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby and this is episode 84. Today, we're talking about how to be a fat ally.

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 fifth party 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 first fatty podcast Let's begin.

1:17

Hello, and welcome to this episode. Thanks for being here. Hey, I am having a post out there saying what do you want to hear on the podcast? And someone said how to be a fat ally. And I was like, Oh, shoot. I've never spoken about that. I need to do an episode. Actually, I did. I did. I think I did a video or a blog post, like two or three years ago about it. But I've never actually done a podcast about it. So I realized that, of course a lot of fat people listened to the podcast. But I know a lot of straight sides people do too. And I know that this stuff would be really helpful. And even if you're fat, and you want to kind of you have the capacity to advocate for other fat people. You can try some of this stuff as well. So I just turned a fan on. Hopefully you can't hear it. It's a little tiny little desk fan. Because it's Hey, HAWO TTT it is hot. It is hot. That's my I was sweating my tits off, I had to have to cold showers. And I was like, You know what, I'm going to beat the heat I'm going to go to I booked a session at the outdoor pool. close to me. It's gorgeous. It's beautiful. I'm going to go do some swimming. And I accidentally booked just a 45 minute session. It was so sad because you know could have COVID they have to limit the amount of people are there. I could have had a 90 minute session. So I went and I was like, did some laps. And then I have like this inflatable chair thing. It's not chair. It's like a like a sausage thing. And you just sit in it. It's great.

Every every time I get it out everyone at the board is always jealous because they're all They're all lying on concrete. And I've got my like, thing. I can't even describe it to you. It's like you, you inflate it with the air that is in the atmosphere. You just it's kind of like you just whip it around and then the air that gets trapped inside it. You just roll it up and then it makes it into a seat that you can lie down on anyway. So did my laps, do some laps, had some fun? Then sat on my little thing for like five minutes and they're like, You need to leave in 10 minutes. I was like why does so rude. Why? So anyway, yeah. And then I biked home and then I will do go and I was like, You know what, I've just done a triathlon because I did swimming. I did a bike ride. And now I'm walking Dougal. Yeah, like an athlete I ever hear. But all that cause me to be like really hot. So hot that I almost died. I still feel hot today. As know, as rude.

So if you're watching the video, you can actually see my bike in the background. I've got a nice road bike. Very fancy. Yeah, I have a road bike and then I have a what you might call it a bike with a cruiser a cruiser with a basket on the front so that I can take Dougal in the basket, and then he has a little thing that goes over him to keep him safe in the basket. Maybe I should get a helmet. That'll be cute. Dig the dog away. Oh man. Oh, thank you. Yeah, anyway, let's talk about how to be a fat ally. And oh by the way, you know me talking about me doing like my quote unquote triathlon. I'm not saying that to like say, Look at me, I'm so good. I'm such a good, fatty. I'm doing movement. I'm just telling you about my life. Okay? So don't feel like I'm like, saying that you if you're fat and need to be going out and doing quote unquote, triathlons, you can just do nothing. It's all good. Okay, just an FYI. That just came into my head. Like, no, no, no, don't feel guilty.

Alright, so. Being a fat ally. I should really do you know what I just realized this. I should have looked at my old posts from 2019. What a fucking Dingleberry. Let's see what I wrote in 2019. March 5 2019. How to be a fat ally by fierce fatty. It's the number 123 4/5 fifth on Google right now. Oh, yeah. Okay, I made a video and then made the transcript. Comparable, a comparable amateur radio. There's higher fat people. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Everything that I did in 2019 basically is in here, but this one is way more juicy and lots of ideas for you.

6:22

First off, I wanted to just share a quote from this article. From nylon, it's called what is the role of an ally towards the fat community. And so I wanted to share this quote, just as a kind of important starting point. So quote from this article, I'll link it in the show notes show notes. facebook.com, forward slash 08 for Episode 84, zero, so first, page.com forward slash 084. If you ever forget the number, it's facebook.com forward slash podcast and you'll find all of them. Alright, so here's a quote from this article from nylon. Quote, not everyone is on board with the topic topic of thin allies.

However, the fan community has been burned many times by those who claim to support but rather take up space and erase voices particular that particular those of black women from the conversation seeing this happen across identities to Shawn Harrison and editor at where your voice mag and soon to be author of the belly of the beast, can't wait for that to come out comes out in August says they don't actually quote They don't actually believe in ally ship. In my experience, these people are less committed to marginalized People's Liberation and more committed to performing a sense of camaraderie to the marginalized group. But for their own personal gain, Harrison explains. In a perfect world, Harrison would define a thin ally as someone who is really understanding and interrogating how fatness interacts with anti blackness, a topic that requires extensive research. fatphobia itself is driven from racism dating far back to the days of slavery when the back black body was ridiculed, yet over sexualized in closed corners by powerful white men. The reason why we look at bodies away that we do is because racism, anti fatness and ableism Harrison adds, we need to eradicate those things because the issues with your body are predicated on having issues with being black, being disfigured, being fat, or being disabled.

So I thought that was important to share that that a lot of fat people are kind of questioning the motives of of, of allies and questioning whether they genuinely want to dismantle fat phobia, or if they're just doing it to look like a good person. And it's complicated, right? Because we probably do do a lot of things to look like a good person. And that's difficult to unravel from wanting to look like a good person and also wanting to genuinely be a good person. And I think all of us want to look like a good person and want to be a good person, right? So bear that in mind. If you want to be an ally that you know, are what is what are the motives behind this and are you accidentally centering yourself in what you're doing? And the big thing here, the big thing, okay, so if you take one thing away from this podcast, I'm going to give you practical things to do to be an ally. The one thing but the one thing the one big thing is also practical is to educate hate yourself, right? So that's a big cornerstone, you can't be in our way. If you kind of think, well, all fat people are unhealthy and they're going to die really soon. It's going to be a really, really difficult to be an ally, a good ally, if you're like, be nice to fat people.

Some of them are healthy, be nice to fat people, sometimes fat people are struggling to lose weight, and they, they're trying to be good by losing weight, you know, because then in that, in those instances, you're, you're causing more harm than good. So the big thing is, if you still are unsure about fatness and health, which is the big thing, right? It's a big it always comes back to Yeah, yeah, it's cool to be nice to people. We shouldn't shame fat people burn. But But But what about my health? What about the fact that they're draining my health system? It always comes back to health. And people were like, Yeah, we should. We should. Like we shouldn't be mean to fat people, but we should shame them for being fat. Because being that isn't LV? Oh, shaming causes, issues to help, oh, doesn't matter doesn't matter. Because I want to reinforce the stereotype that all fat people are greedy and unhealthy and good advice.

11:26

So if you're unsure about the health aspect of things, please educate yourself on that. Don't listen to some old episodes of this podcast, even the most recent ones already fucking Joe. So you can get some good retort to when people say, my Atlanta mount now? Yes, yes. Yes, God, yes. Okay. All righty. tighty, pagan, Pokey, let's go through. So the big thing is educate yourself. Now I'm going to go through different categories and tell you how practical things that you can try in if you want to be an ally, so. So the first category that I want to talk about is, how not to be a dick to fat friends. So in the category of your personal relationships with fat people and what you can do around that. So first off, if you don't have any fat friends, what is up with that? Look around your friend circle? Do you have fat friends? If you don't? That's kind of weird. Why don't you have that friends? It could just be that you're like, I don't have any friends Victoria.

And then I Okay, go guys go. You're, you're off the. But if you have a big circle of people, and they're all tend to be you know, thin white people then question about like, Why? Why is that? Okay? So, first off, don't expect us to educate you around a fat issues, or relive our trauma to convince you that the world is fat phobic. A lot of times, straight sides, people want to see the evidence, right? They kind of want to be like, Well, what's been your experience? Tell me about a time that you've been fat shamed? And tell me about a time like, what's it like for you, and sometimes, you know, if that person doesn't want to talk about that shit, because it's fucking traumatic. And it's kind of like you want to hear that it's kind of like trauma porn or something being like, Oh, tell me about the time that you were discriminated against. So it's kind of like that, right? Just, you can just presume that any fat person out there has experienced stigma, trauma around their bodies, and all that type of stuff. And just walking with that knowledge and not expecting a fat person to relay their experience of living in a fat body to educate you or to entertain you. Now, if you invite us somewhere, say, Oh, hey, let's go and grab some lunch. Make sure that the place if you're choosing the place is accessible.

So if you're going for it to a restaurant, make sure that you are choosing a restaurant that doesn't have any boobs, or chairs without arms, or is not at the top of a hill when you have to park at the bottom of the hill. Doesn't have loads of stairs. It's not really cramped, is not some type of weird diet place. Like this is just on the street here in front of me on Davie Street in Vancouver, some new shop was opened and it's like, what is that? What it paleo is a paleo restaurant. And I'm just like, oh, I rolly you know, it's like it's like a diet restaurant. You know, don't don't invite a fat friend somewhere like that, you know, they might be fine with it, but why? Why risk it? And in regards to Is it somewhere that they can actually sit down and be comfortable that you would not believe the amount of places that are like, oh, sorry, we only have tiny little stools, you know, those like high stools, or, or boobs, where the, you can't move the table. I mean, if there's a booth and there's loads of room and you can move the table out, that's great, because then it doesn't have any arms, right. But if it's like fixed in and your, your fat friend is going to have to squeeze in, and depending where they are on their, you know, how they feel about their body, they might not want to say anything, they might be really embarrassed. And they would be like, you know, they don't want to say oh, by the way, this chair is really small for me, they will just sit in discomfort depending on how they are feeling or, or what's going on with them in regards to their communication style, or whatever, well, they might not feel safe with you talking about it.

But if you can just take that away and make sure that you're going somewhere that they can actually be comfortable, that's amazing. Another thing you can do is actually ask them where they want to go, they might have places that you like, where they know, okay, this place definitely has places that I can sit. And so an idea might just be to say, hey, where do you want to go. And they can tell you, you know, this is where it was good for me.

16:26

Next, be cognizant of how they could feel in a group activity. A big thing, a lot of times people are telling me that they don't do activities with friends, especially if they're straight size is because they know that they feel that and worry that the straight size people in the group are going to be judging them on how well they are able to perform that activity. And just it just makes it really anxious. And it makes them feel really anxious. And it just makes it not fun. So for example, say if you're going on a walk or something, you're going on a walk through a meadow, and it's beautiful, or hike or whatever. Why not, say every so often let's have a break, and not make it so the fat person always has to be, let's have a break.

Another thing that I have experienced is, is being the slower person. And then people waiting for me and then feeling guilty that they're waiting and feeling like you know, they're all just they're staring at me and I'm there being slow and out of breath. And, and then when I when I finally get to them, then we just keep going versus when I get to them them saying let's just chill out for a bit, let's just have a break, have a couple of minutes or whatever, let's just sit down on this bench or let's just, you know, making it into something that's nice and fun and enjoyable versus, you know, let's get to the end of this destination as fast as possible and fought the fatties and, you know, so if you were the one that was speaking up and being like, oh, I need a break, then it would really take the stress off that fat person to say, I need a break. Because it's it's really it can be really, really anxiety provoking, being feeling like just speak up and be like, I need a break. We've just climbed this mountain. And you know, and especially if people are there waiting for you, they're having a break. And so you're you're never getting that break because the people are faster, or they're having a nice little break, relaxing, waiting for you to catch up and then off they go as soon as you come. So they're always just getting more breaks. And so it just makes it harder. And it's not it's not fair. Okay, so think about how the fat person feels in that situation. If you're doing something like a physical physical activity, or if you're doing something like for example, going last summer, was it last summer? I think it's Yeah, last summer, I went kayaking with my my two nieces. And we went to the Hyatt Place and because I'm confident, I don't really stress about this.

But before I was confident this would have been really fucking traumatizing getting a wetsuit. And so a straight size person, they probably wouldn't even think about it. Like, of course, there's going to be a wetsuit to fit you. But is there like, if you were to invite a fat friend kayaking, for example, and you knew that they would, they would have wetsuits, why not call ahead and say, Hey, what's the size? What sizes do you carry on your wetsuits? Oh, you only go up to a size medium or a size large or whatever. Okay, well, maybe I should let my fat friend know and so we can decide what we want to do. Maybe they maybe there's somewhere else that we can go that has equipment that is going to fit a fat person. So just think about think about how they're experiencing this thing because a lot of times you just don't realize because the world is built for straight sized people. And it doesn't even occur to a lot of straight size people that, oh, this thing that I take for granted, it doesn't doesn't fit fat people. Alright, so don't comment on other people's bodies in any way, obviously, don't be critical.

20:20

But just avoiding commenting on people's bodies in general, a big thing that that a lot of people tell me is that I don't even want people to say that I look good. Because it means that I, they I know they are checking they are they are looking at me, and they are evaluating me. So I just just don't even talk about my body at all. And sometimes people can, they want to go the opposite way. And so when they have a fat friend, they want to be all the time being like, Oh my God, you look amazing. Oh, yes, your data. And sometimes we can tell right that you're trying to overcompensate for living in a fat phobic world that it makes it awkward. Like, if you have a friend and they're like, Oh, I love it, when you compliment me, you know, listen to what your brain says. But if you're just constantly saying, Oh, I like your hair, or I like this, or whatever, just maybe try not and see what how that goes. And if you do need to talk about bodies, or whatever reason, reason, do it neutrally. And you know, if you're talking about fat bodies, just don't make it a thing or you know, affirming that it's okay to be fat, that would be amazing. Don't use the Oh words. Even if you have people in your life who are fat and they use your words. Just because they're using their own words doesn't mean that the words are not still slurs, they're slurs. They are stigmatizing.

And so unless your friend says, hey, I want you to address me as a Oh word person, then you know, respect what people want you to call them. But if you're talking about fat bodies, for whatever reason, that could be happening, use neutral language like fat if your fat friend is not down with the word fat, they could feel offended by that use words like bigger bodied or higher weight. Okay? So you know, higher weight individual or someone with a bigger body or a larger body. Okay? Don't use them. Oh words, they are nasty. Alright, so if you use social media share images of fat people who are at fat and they're an Infini fat so someone who's very fat, someone who is fat and black, someone who is fat and trans, or fat and disabled, okay, so don't just be sharing images of quote unquote palatable fat people. That is a that's a trap that a lot of thin people fall into when when I see thin people's straight size people's social media accounts. And they feel like they're being an ally by sharing a, a normative body that happens to be a little bit fat. So an example would be would be my body. So I'm, I'm a medium fat. I used to be kind of small slash medium, but I'm definitely a medium fat now. And my body is I'd say, it's pretty palatable in the fat world in regards to most people are not going to be like, Oh, my God, how Why are you sharing a picture of her this disgusting, you're promoting fatness? It's unhealthy. A lot of people will still work but that's easier, right. And that's safer for for, for folks to do. A lot of straight size, people don't want to share fat people who have other identities are very fat people because they don't want to come under scrutiny. They don't want people saying, oh, but you know, you've gone too far with that image because that person's really fat, and then having to deal with the fat phobes that are following them.

And so they just post something which is more it's easier, right? Consider posting things that are not as palatable, quote unquote, palatable, obviously, everyone, you know, palatable. I'm using the word palatable as in the reaction of the general public to these types of bodies. You know, it's like when when was it cosmopolitan had Tess holiday on the on the front of the front of the magazine versus they've had other plus sized people I presume. And because Tess holiday is clearly clearly fat, and and she's still very palatable because she's white and she's not a Infini fat and she's cisgendered and, and able bodied, etc, etc. Still, they got a lot of pushback for that. But it was great that they did that.

25:11

Okay, so if anyone talks shit about fat people say if you're at a family gathering something like that, shut that shit down when you have way more power as a straight sized person, then fat people, when it comes to talking about how it's not okay to be a bigot, around, you know, fatphobia and other people, other straight sides, people will listen to you a million times over more than they would listen to a fat person. You know, if that person was like, Hey, by the way, fat people can be healthy, then straight sides, people are like, well, you would say that you're fat, like cuz you're so greedy. You're saying that because blah, blah, blah, you know, there's a, they would question the motives of that fat person saying that, but when a straight size person says it, then it's seen as more legitimate and real, which is 1,000% fucked up, and not okay. And we should just be listening to fat voices around this stuff. But we live in a fat phobic society and straight size voices are seen as more legitimate, more intelligent, more balanced than fat voices, which is fat phobia. But if you can use that privilege that you've got because of your body size, for good, then that is amazing.

Okay, so when I say you need to shut that shit down. It depends on like, who you are and how your brain works. It might not be something that's accessible for you to be like, Uh, excuse me, uncle Chad? Why the fuck? Are you talking shit about fat people, you are a piece of shit. You know, that might not be accessible for you to do something like that. They might not be appropriate. But you know, imagine if like Uncle Chad is making jokes about how that fat person over there should really lay off the pizza and not wear that tube top or whatever. And you can you can talk to uncle chat right there. And then or you can do other things like so for example. You could maybe say, Chad is your mom's brother. You can say hey, Mom, your brother was really being a massive bellend at the barbecue. Yesterday, she might just talking to him about that and telling him that talking about fat people like that is not appropriate. You could do something like that. Or you could maybe send a casual text to Uncle Chad and say something like, Hey, uncle, I know that you love me and respect my opinion. So I wanted to share with you that when you spoke about that woman yesterday, it made me really uncomfortable. Can you please not talk about how being fat is bad because human bodies come in all sizes? And that's okay. And now, uncle Chad might be like, Oh, sure. Okay, I never realized I yeah, I afterwards, I felt bad or whatever, or uncle Chad can be like, screw you fat people are unhealthy. And that's where you can then educate uncle Chad.

And I know this is probably the most difficult thing for people to do is to call out people, especially if they have more power. And sometimes it's not going to be possible. For example, if your boss is being fat phobic. And you worry that having an honest and open conversation with them could mean that you could lose your job. You can do something like instead talk to HR and make a report about it. You know, so or talk to your colleagues and say, Hey, that was really fucked up when blah, blah, blah said that. But honestly, you have so much power in this situation. This is where you can really do some great work and it's calling out other straight size people when they are being bigots. Okay, so one thing that I noticed with

29:24

with friends throughout my life has been this theme and I keep noticing it and I'm like, in interesting is that people think that hanging out with me hanging out with me, gives them the permission to be quote unquote, unhealthy. like hanging out with me gives them a ticket to eat foods that they have deemed unhealthy. And this is like throughout my life right so not just now when they when they probably people probably feel a lot safer with me because they know what I do. They know I don't, you know, shame people around food and body size and all that type of stuff, obviously. And so they probably more recent friends probably do feel that permission from me because that's just me in general. But when I even when I wasn't doing this stuff, people word, friends, I'd see this thing of them being like, Fuck it, you know, let's go this be bad. And like my body gave them the permission because clearly, I was unhealthy. Because if I had a fat body, clearly, I was engaging in eating, quote unquote, bad food. And so things like I remember one time, my friend was staying over, we ordered a pizza. And I had like three slices, and then I stopped eating. And she was like, you know, eating anymore. And I was like, No, I'm good. And I'm fall or whatever. And she was like, so disgruntled that I wasn't eating more pizza, because it kind of ended her permission to eat more pizza. And she was like, she, she and I was like, It's okay, if you want to eat more like, I'm just not that hungry right now. Like I'm full. Like, it's not, you know, it's not a big deal. Just eat what your body is telling you that it wants. And I could tell that she really was struggling with that. Because what if the fat person is only in three slices? And I'm straight? sighs Well, surely that means that I should be in two slices, you know? And it was kind of like, I almost felt like I had to eat more just to make her feel better. You know? So yeah. Are you doing things like that with your fat friends being like, fuck it. Let's be so unhealthy. You know? Because you're unhealthy. You must love being unhealthy thing. Yeah. Okay. So next, let's move on to clothing stores. So yeah, most straight size people don't know. And I say most people who listened to face by a podcast, probably do know, but a lot of straight size. People don't realize that most fat people can't go and buy clothes in a store. Or if they can, it'll be like one store.

And it makes me think about when I was on the BBC show. One of the days that wasn't it, this didn't make it to the final cut. But one of the days we went to a city center, and David, who is a plus male model, wanted to style us all and do a photoshoot with this famous photographer. And so we said to them, we said to the crew before, do you know if there are any plus size stores? Where we're going to this mall? Wherever it was a can't remember where it was? Now like, oh, yeah, yeah, definitely no big deal. And we were like, really? Because because the photoshoot was in like a couple of days. And so we were worried like, because we knew is there like, is there places that we can shop? Because we have this photoshoot happening in a couple of days. And if not, that means that we need to ordering be ordering stuff like express delivery right now. And so the whole day was driving, we drove to this place we got to the mall, the shopping center, we went into first new look or whatever. Just a standard store that and so we went in do you have plus sizes? No, we only carry them online. Okay, great. All right. Next Door. Do you have plus sizes? No, we don't have them at all. Next door do yet? No, no, no. And we found this department store where two of the guys that was in the group could find one size that would fit them. So two of the guys got one of them got a shirt and someone got a t shirt or something like that. But everyone else couldn't get anything. And the camera people literally were crying. They were crying because they had no idea that this was the reality that we couldn't can't just go and buy clothes. And they were really sad about it and we kind of like we had to be like yeah, this is this is what it is. And so

34:43

because straight size people can go into clothes shops, why not be asking for them to get bigger sizes. Say hey, why is it that you stop at size 16 or 18 or 2x or whatever it is that they stopped pa What the heck is that? Or why? Why can I only get plus sizes online? Like what happens if, if someone who's plus size wants to come and try on the clothes? Does it mean that they can't like What Sal about? Like, you know you because because the the first the first time we went to was new look because we new loot New Look carried plus sizes. But a big thing that they're doing nowadays is all of the plus sizes are online. Like I went into h&m and I was like, Oh my God, yes. h&m has started carrying plus sizes. Again, they only went out to probably 3x. And I would be like a 2x 3x. And, and they were like, yes, we do. I went to the store. Yes, we carry plus sizes, you can find them online. And it's just like so, so sad. So if you can use your privilege they're in talking to, you know, even just the salesperson. And you never know if you know saying to that salesperson, oh shit, that's fucked up. You mean, I can't go shopping with my my fat friend. That's not cool. It's kind of really white. You never know what that sells his sales assistant might not have realized that and say to the manager, or something you never know, right? It's just continued education of saying this is not cool. And if you want to be a real badass, some straight size allies do things like stop shopping at places that don't carry plus sizes. And that would be such a badass thing. So I'm not going to shop at that place until they start carrying plus sizes. Because if my friends can't shop there, then I'm not shopping. They're like, Fuck them. Fuck them. I kind of feel like that about you know, when you go into stores with your thin friend, and they're buying clothes and shit, and then as a fat person, you'll be like, I'm going to look at the accessories. And I kind of I feel like, like, a shop or not, but I'm not giving them my money to buy their fucking accessories when they won't make clothes for me like, I'm not gonna I'm gonna say buy their shoes, but I wouldn't fit into their shoes anyway, because I've got big white feet. And yeah, so I, you know, I kind of felt like no, fuck off. I'm not giving you my money, for accessories. So that would be a really badass thing to do. And when you see companies say, so this could be in person or online, when you see companies say we make clothes for all bodies. And then people are like, Oh, cool. They they probably do. And I cannot tell you the amount of times that I've seen a company say we make clothes for all bodies, and they go to like 2x or 3x or 4x. Whatever they go to. It's still not making clothes or or bodies because there's always going to be someone who's bigger than their bigger size, right? Unless they make custom clothes, then they cannot say we make clothes for all bodies. And it is jarring. Now as a fat person. It is so jarring to see a company say we make Clozaril bodies and get really excited that now this company makes Clozaril bodies.

And then you go to the website and they're like, oh, lol, now we go to 1x. And because you get you get excited, right? You're like, oh my god, cool. I can now buy clothes from this other place that I really like. And it's just even worse than that, than if they had said, Now actually, fuck the fatties, it'd be preferable if they just said Fuck the fat is versus doing some bullshit. We are inclusive if you're under a size 1x. Right. So in that situation, leaving a comment on their social media of being like, Hey, by the way, you've made this post about how you were inclusive, but you are actually only inclusive to people who are this size or lower. And using this tag like we we cater for all bodies is really not cool. It's fucked up. And you should change that because you're telling lies. So yeah. Next, let's move on to education. So if you are a parent, or a caretaker or whatever, if you know any children, are your kids coming home, our kids coming home with homework about quote unquote healthy food, or are they waiting kids?

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Anything to do with bullshit around that? Get them to stop that shit at once. I remember being weighed at school And it's just like, what? Why did they need to do that? Why? Why, why? Why? I remember going to a museum and part of the museum exhibition was to find out if you're healthy as a kid. And so being forced to be weighed, and I remember being like, I don't want to and being forced and having to having the adult stare at the number and go, Oh, that's high. That's big. Like, why the fuck am I going to a museum? It was like a music. It was like a History Museum? Why the fuck am I going to a history museum to be buggin shamed? And being told my BMI as cared? What the fuck? So, yeah, that is that is so so messed up. And that needs to stop. And it's, you know, it's gonna encourage all sorts of problems later on in life, with mental health and all sorts of things. So telling, telling those in charge about how damaging that is, is really important. And what about our kids being forced into grueling PE lessons? So what do you call it in the States? We call it physical education. But sports? That So are they being forced into doing stuff that causes trauma, like, oh, my gosh, when I was in school, once a year, we would do the bleep test. And we would do a series of, of running. So we do the 1500. And something else, what is 15 115 100 meters in kilometers? It meters in kilometers, see how far it wasn't that far, but it was. Okay, so 1.5, CalOptima, Jesus, 1.5 kilometer. So we will do and so if you've never run before, just go and do a 1.5 Kilometer does not have it off, you go. Off you go, just going. Like, if you've not been building up to it, now we know Oh, if you want to learn how to run, you, you build it up and you do like little increments and you take rest, you run for 10 seconds, and you stop and all that type of stuff, like you train for it. And so we've got these kids all running around the field.

And you know, the fast kids are going round, and they're all great. And then the whole class is they're waiting for the fat kids or the slow kids or the disabled kids to make it round. And it is so traumatizing. And then the bleep test. If you don't know what the bleep test is, you have to run from one side of the room to the other before the bleep and so the first bleep is a slow beep and then it gets going faster and faster and faster. And then how many can you do before you run out? You know, miss the beep. And it was traumatizing, obviously, obviously. And it's not helpful, right? It's not helpful to help kids enjoy physical activity. Because moving your body can be so much fun. And the only reason to move your body is because it's fun. And it helps you be strong and mobile and all that type of stuff if you can move your body, but it's okay as well, if you can't move your body, and there's lots of different ways to move your body doing, you know, running and doing the 1500 or the bleep tests or whatever is not, you know, what's that achieving? What's that achieving? Why not? Instead give kids the option? Hey, do you want to do the 1500? Or do you want to play a game of basketball? Or netball? I liked netball. Do you want to do the 1500? Or do you want to do some Rolie polies or swing around on that rope for a bit or whatever? Whenever I was given a choice in what I what we would do sometimes we were given a choice in the semester what do we want to do? And it just made it so much better that you could choose versus being forced to do this thing that you didn't like, and then feeling like a piece of shit afterwards. So, you know are the are the kids being forced to do these things which are traumatizing that is going to put them off exercise or movement for the rest of their lives. How many fat people have been traumatized? How many strays? sighs me well, how many people have been traumatized by PE at school because we are forced to not listen to our bodies and perform like an athlete. You know?

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Okay, so tell the school write a letter. Go in, but like listen up here mother father's as well, you know, we were talking about like our kids being traumatized. But are they having positive experience as well? Like, are students being talked about taught about body diversity? are they learning about fat issues? And so that, you know, maybe when they're when they're older, and they're talking about social justice issues? Are they talking about fat issues as well? I've been actively harmed by the curriculum. Who can you talk to about getting that changed? And, you know, say in like a university setting, or any setting, can you suggest getting a fat expert in to talk about these issues? You know, especially especially if you're like, at school or university studying, you know, in the health world. So if you're studying to be, I don't know, a nutritionist or whatever, or a dietitian or a doctor or anything to do with the body.

And you know, that curriculum is fat phobic as shit. Can you suggest, hey, by the way, let's have a balanced discussion here. Why not? Why can't Why don't we get in a fat person to talk about? What it's like to be fat? How about that? Strange? I know. All right. So at the doctor, now, at the doctor. If you're straight size, and the doctor weighs you and says, Oh, your BMI says that you're you're in the normal weight category. How about saying, oh, okay, oh, the normal weight category, I actually don't subscribe to the BMI. And just because I'm in the normal way category doesn't mean that I'm necessarily how healthy and if someone falls into the, into other categories, doesn't mean they're necessarily unhealthy. And, you know, versus being like, Oh, I'm a quote unquote, normal weight. Amazing. That's so cool to hear, you know, but you know, instead of being, you know, praising that the fact that you are straight sides, why not challenge the doctor's assumptions? You've got way more power in this situation? than if that person does it? Why not ask, you can just do this? As a matter of course, like say, if they give you a gown, do you? What's the biggest size that you carry of these gowns? What? Oh, you only have one size? But what about if a fat person comes in? Oh, you know, just putting the seed in their brain? What about the blood pressure cuff? Ask them when when you get blood pressure taken? Do you have different sizes? For people who's have have bigger arms? Oh, you don't? I heard that. If the blood pressure cuff is the wrong size, and it's too tight. You can give a faulty reading. Just putting out there, you just have a conversation. What about the size of the chairs in the waiting room, my doctor I go to it's great. They have like double wide chairs with a really sturdy wood. They're great, right? And they have a mix of all of these chairs.

And so even just saying to the receptionist, oh, I'm curious about your chairs. Do you have any others like chairs for when fat people come in? Just making a comment like that is putting the seed in someone's brain? I mean, if you want to be a real badass about it, you can, you know, be like, hey, what can we do to make sure that fat people are have an accessible experience here? That would be amazing. Something like so I had my COVID shot last weekend, when I was there having a my COVID shot. I was just asking them about the needle sizes. I said, What happens when someone has is is very fat comes in? Do you have different needle sizes? And the guy was like, Yeah, we have two different needle sizes, one inch and 1.5 inch. And I was like, Okay, and so you know, what needle size would I have and use like all the one inch and so I was thinking okay, so someone who's a medium fat could have the one inch and then maybe the 1.5 inch is good enough for other people. But then I was thinking afterwards I was thinking, but is it though? Should they have a two inch? You know, they were you know, they were? I don't know, like I don't know about needle length and how much what that could look like I presume maybe if someone they might try a different spot? I don't know. But then again, why not just have a longer needle? I don't know. But anyway, just having that conversation. Just Just a quick question. Just a quick question is amazing.

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All right now in the workplace, talk about including size discrimination and diversity training. So a lot of workplaces nowadays have diversity training, which is amazing. And if you see that going on, hey, can we add in size diversity too? Why don't get into fat experts. So we can talk about that as well. When people are talking about diets, let's, let's see if you can shut that down, say, Hey, by the way, I don't know, there might be people here who have eating disorders and hearing that diet talk might be really triggering for them. And fat people might hear that too, and think that you don't want to be fat, which is harmful to them. Ask for uniform sizes to be extant, it's expanded, it's not acceptable for to have just a few sizes. And it's not acceptable to say to women, for example, oh, we have some bigger men sizes just use a men's uniform. It's not acceptable to not have a uniform to work in. I put a I put a questionnaire up on my Instagram stories recently and said, Tell me about your workplace fatphobia experiences and one person said they've been waiting a year and a half for any type of uniform at all. So if you've got a uniform at your work, can you ask people to order in more sizes so that fat people don't feel awful? I remember when I had a uniform in my job. And they were like, What size are you? And I remember at the time, I was like size 18. And I said size 18. And the woman was like, well, we don't have anything size 18 But we've got a size 14 Do you want to try that? And I was like, okay, and like why? And it was like a like a trouser that had no stretch at all. And it didn't it didn't fit and so I had to just wear my own clothes. And that's me being a size 18 That's not even you know, the average person isn't far off that size. So why the fuck is that one bigger size? You know, they don't even have size at so yeah. And when wellness initiatives rollout because you know, companies love some wellness bullshit. There's a whole blog on on the wellness, like how wellness is, is bullshit and how wellness, wellness practitioners don't have really any education unless you know, they're an actual, you know, certified, but to be a wellness practitioner, you can just say you're a wellness practitioner, and go in and traumatize the fucking work population and a lot of times wellness, when they have a wellness initiative, a lot of workplaces. It's about weighing people and tell them telling them they're fat, and telling them that if they lose weight, then if they don't lose weight, one person told me, they'd been told if they don't lose weight, their insurance is going to go up, things like that.

And so when a wellness initiative rollout rolls out, contact the organizers and tell them you know if you know the details of it, how this is super harmful. In my last corporate workplace, we had some fucking bullshit wellness thing come out and I messaged HR and said, This is fucked up in nicer terms. And they changed it. So you never know how powerful your words can be. Don't laugh at fat jokes. People are making fat jokes if you can confront the person, if not contact HR or just say hey, I want to make a note that this person is a fucking bigot. Remove magazines that have weight loss stories from break rooms and ask for larger chairs as for chairs that aren't bolted to the floor. A lot of people are telling me that in their break rooms they have these tiny little break rooms and they can't they literally can't navigate them. Imagine that not not having someplace to go and make your lunch and sit down and have you lunch. And other break rooms safe for people to eat lunch like Are there signs up about the Weight Watchers meeting? Are there things about how to be healthy up and make sure that the workplace like the whatever it is like the floor or the the office isn't crowded so that fat people can literally get around without having to negotiate obstacles. It's like yeah, some pretty basic things like can people sit down?

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Are they given these tiny little, you know, plastic chairs to sit in? Are they you know, are they going to not sit in them because they know that they're going to collapse? And how horrifying would that be for that to happen at work? Alright, so the final thing that I'm going to cover here is pay fat people pay fat people. Now by the way This list that I'm making is not exhaustive. There are probably many things that I haven't even thought about, and many ways that you can be an ally. So just an FYI, I don't know if I mentioned at the beginning. So big one pay VAT people. So as you probably know, if you're listening to, to the first party podcast is fat people get paid less, they get hired less, they get promoted less, they are discriminated at work the same way that were discriminated in lots of places. So I get, I get loads of messages from people saying how I have educated them, and how I've changed their lives, which is awesome. And I also get messages from thin votes, who say, I've taught them so much, and now they can teach it in their programs. And I feel kind of annoyed by that, you know, like I have, I have done, you know, 84 episodes of this podcast. And each podcast takes about four hours of my work, you know, the preparation and all that type of stuff.

And then I pay others to edit, edit it and share it and all that type of stuff. And, you know, so it cost me money to, to make the podcast to four straight size people to listen to take that knowledge they got from me, and then they make money from it without compensating me. Like I feel I feel pissed off. I feel best about it. And and then to message me to let me know that they're making money from what I've taught them without offering to compensate me. I'm just Yeah. So and of course, you know, I make the podcast to promote my business. And it's, and it's for me, like, I love doing it. And you know, I'm not going to stop because sometimes straight sides, people make money from what I've taught them. Because mostly, it's it's about people that are benefiting from this podcast. And that's wonderful. That's exactly what I want, right? But if you know, if you listen to the podcast, and you know, you're never going to be a client of mine, but you are learning from me, and that is benefiting you, then you should compensate me. For everything that you've learned from me, right. And too often we expect free labor from marginalized people, and we never consider the cost to them emotionally, the literal cost, the cost for that labor, and even get mad when when marginalized people ask for support, whatever that support could look like.

So, so consider that like donate to fat people subscribe to fat people join fat people's Patreon I personally don't have a Patreon because I don't I don't want to I don't want to do that stuff. But I know that there are lots of fat people and fat people with marginalized identities that that do have Patreon. And so you can support someone just by sending them a few bucks, just you know, it's a wonderful gesture to say, Hey, I know that you have put in many hours of labor and I am benefiting from your free labor. And so I don't want to make it free anymore here here's 10 bucks you know and you might think well you know, that's not enough but anything to say you're what you're doing is important is is wonderful for any you know marginalized person make sure that if you have the capacity to give us jobs to to promote us when we work in companies and so if you're thinking well that same person is probably more qualified because I think you know, a fifth person would look better for the company challenge your assumptions right? Give people give that people opportunities and if you can't give us money then promote us share our work credit us I tell you what, people take my stuff that I put on Instagram take my name of it take have any engine identifying information about me use my caption and don't credit me so they literally are erase me from it and then if I ever see it and you know I say oh hey,

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excuse me that's my work you need to credit me and then they just you know they'll delete it and then block me or whatever. Like seriously like so credit as taggers tell people where you learned XYZ concept from so if you read a book, or if you read a blog post or use you know, listen to a podcast episode or saw some really cool social media concept And you see that from, you know, a fat person, Hey, be like, Hey, I saw a post from ABC about XYZ. And that's really cool, you know, so credit us. Okay, so I've been meaning to do this for a while and on the theme of paying fat people there, obviously I share how you can work with me. But for those people who know that they're never going to work with me, because they're straight sighs they're just listening for the education, whatever, I want to give you the opportunity if you want to, to connect with me on PayPal, and donate contribute in any way that you want to.

So if you're listening, and you want to contribute on PayPal to me, then you can go to paypal.me to me forward slash face fatty, I'm going to put a link in the show notes, if you don't remember it, so it's paypal.me forward slash face fatty so you can make a one time donation there. So if this if this episode has really helped you to learn how to be a fat ally, and if all of the other 80 You know, 83 episodes before this has helped you and help you understand fatphobia and your straight size person, consider donating to me and I'm not the only fat person out there, there are a lot of other fat people who are have other marginalized identities are doing incredible things. And you know, like I said, I don't have a Patreon. There are others who have a Patreon that you can, you can donate monthly to. And that will give you perks. So yeah, so I don't have a Patreon, but you can send money over Pay Pal, again, that's paypal.me forward slash first, fatty.

So to conclude here, I want you to know that you're gonna fuck up, we're all gonna fuck up, right? Even with the best intentions, we're gonna fuck up around this stuff. You're a human being I'm a human being. But that doesn't mean that you should not try. And as we all are, we're trying to be better people, right? So don't worry too much about, you know, never doing anything or never speaking up. Because what if you speak up and it's not perfect? Well, you know, it's probably not going to be perfect, right? You know, whenever I talk about anything on here, I'm always like, oh, okay, it's not perfect. It's not perfect. And a part of me of like, is like, Oh, well, don't do it. They're never, it's not that bad. And the other part of me is like, listen to Victoria. He can't, it's not possible, it is not possible.

And I want to say thank you, thank you, if you if you do want to be a fat ally, and you have been learning this stuff, I really appreciate it. And I really value you being out in the world. Looking out for fat people. It's really cool. And we need more of it. And you know, a lot of people are like, you know, we don't need allies or allies or are not great. And yeah, sometimes allies aren't great. But I feel like we do need you because the world listens to straight sides, people way more than it listens to fat people. And hopefully one day, that's not going to be the case and we can all just run around meadows and hug and shit like that. But until that point, use that beautiful privilege that you've got and tell people to stop being balance. Okay. All right.

Okay, so thanks for hanging out with me today on this episode. Have you enjoyed it and I will see you next time. Thanks for listening to the episode. If you feel ready to get serious about this work and want to know when the doors open to fears fattier Academy which is my signature program where I teach all about how to overcome your fat phobic beliefs and learn to love your fat body. Then go to phase fatty.com forward slash waitlist again, that is phase fatty.com. Forward slash waitlist to get your name on the waitlist. For when first Matty Academy my signature program opens