All Fired Up

Part 2 of our series on weight loss drugs takes us deep into the inner workings of Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, who are hell bent on world domination of the lucrative "o*e$ity market". For years, the entire field of medicine has been professionally fluffed by Novo's "training programs" and media hype is next level. But who are Novo Nordisk, what are they selling, and can we trust them? Join me and my fierce and fabulous guests Ragen Chastain and Dr Fi Willer as we investigate the science behind the hype, and expose the truth behind their latest 'blockbuster' drugs, Saxenda and Wegovy. Do not miss!!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big pharma are running a MASSIVE global marketing campaign, trying to convince us that weight loss drugs are A Good Idea. I'm looking at you, Novo Nordisk! Join me and my extremely outraged guests Dr Fiona Willer & Ragen Chastain, as we revisit the dastardly history of weight loss medications. Past experience has brutally demonstrated that far from improving human 'health', these drugs have proven to be (spectacularly profitable) human disasters - most of them have been removed from the market for harming or killing people. Big pharma cares about profits, not lives. Have we learned anything from the sins of the past? Frighteningly, it seems like history is about to repeat. Don't believe the hype - do not miss this two part deep dive into the devious and deadly world of weight loss drugs!

Like flies at a picnic, weight loss app Noom's relentless advertising is crawling all over our online spaces. AND they're SHAMELESSLY co-opting our powerful anti-diet movement! AND they're claiming that 'psychology' is the key to 'long term weight loss!' AND they're selling a particularly shitty diet! AND they're targeting vulnerable people including those with eating disorders! HOW VERY DARE THEY! I'm so incandescent with fury that I've coined a new term: NOOM-RAGE!! Join me on the latest ep of the All Fired Up podcast with my equally outraged guest Dr Alexis Conason @theantidietplan. She is also EXTREMELY NOT HAPPY. Grab a stiff drink (or a nice cuppatea) & gird your loins as we EVISCERATE this DISGUSTING company in a rip-snorter of an episode! Did someone say class action lawsuit??

"Just 5-10% of weight loss is all you need to improve your health" is one of those things that "everyone knows", only - it's complete and utter BS. My guest this week is the fierce and fabulous Ragen Chastain, fat activist, speaker, prolific writer, dancer, and marathon runner, and she's had a GUTFUL of health professionals hiding their fatphobia under a condescending veneer of 'health concern'. Do NOT MISS this inspiring conversation - Ragen's mind is like a razor-sharp encyclopaedia of ANTI-DIET PUSHBACK!

In diet culture it's hard for most of us to feel comfortable in our bodies, let alone LIKE them. But what if it's possible to burst through this thin-ideal bubble and experience the joy, the light, the MAGIC of our bodies? My guest this week, artist and speaker Kathryn Max, has done just that, and you simply MUST hear their story! Kathryn's art is a powerful expression of tenderness, compassion & unconditional body acceptance. It's so beautiful - let's get all fired up with LOVE! Show Transcript Intro: Welcome to All Fired Up. I'm Louise your host, and this is the podcast where we talk all things anti-diet. Has diet culture got you in a fit of rage? Is the injustice of the beauty ideal getting your knickers in a twist? Does fitspo make you want to SPITspo? Are you ready to hurl if you hear one more weight loss tip? Are you ready to be mad, loud and proud? Well, you've come to the right place. Let's get all fired up. Welcome back to the podcast my delicious diet culture dropouts. Thank you so much for tuning in for yet another intriguing, deep dive down the anti-diet rabbit hole. I want to start with huge love to you all and thank you for continuing to listen and support this podcast, which as you know, is completely produced and put out by me on my lonesome, alongside a whole lot of editing. And I really appreciate your messages of love and support, especially during this year where things have become pretty rocky with getting the podcast out in a predictable way, I'm really pumped about 2022, and I've got big things of what I can't wait to share with you next year. But in the meantime, I really appreciate your listening. And if you love the All Fired Up podcast, help get the message out there by rating and reviewing. A five star review is always good, wherever you get your podcasts or preferably maybe with apple podcasts, because I'm really trying to target that. The more this message gets out, the more likely it is that diet culture falls onto its knees and I can go off and become a florist like I've always wanted. And if something about diet culture is pissing you off, let's get it off your chest, send it to me. Send your rage straight into my inbox - louise@untrapped.com.au. Tell me what's bugging you. It could be something that happening in your local community, could be a diet that's getting pushed in your social media or just something that you've heard around the traps that's really getting up your nose about living in diet culture. I want to hear it. I'm your agony aunt for all things diet, so send that to my email address. Free stuff, alert who doesn't love stuff that's for free. I have amazing E-Book called Everything you've Been Told About Weight Loss is Bull Shit, and that was co-written with the glorious Dr. Fiona Willer, dietician and amazing podcaster from the Unpacking Weight Science podcast. In this classic resource, we have stuff that's full of fun facts to help you push back against diet culture's bullshit. Essentially, we bust top 10 myths about the relationship between weight and health. And we give you heaps of scientific articles and resources and overviews, giving you the truth about the relationship between weight and health and just how much bullshit is being fed to us. It's an excellent resource. It's completely free. You can download it from the Untrapped website, untrapped.com.au. I encourage you, if you haven't already got a copy, to grab it and share as far and wide as possible; friends, family, health professionals, everyone needs to hear this message. More free stuff. If you have been living in diet culture and you find that you have found it difficult to be at ease in your body - ie. if you're a human living in diet culture, this eCourse called Befriending your Body is completely free. It's created by me and in it I send you an email once a day for 10 days. And it's like a little love letter to you every day for 10 days, giving you some small messages of self-compassion and practices of self-compassion, which are all designed to help you start looking at your body through a different lens, through the lens of compassion, support, friendship, appreciation, respect, and liberation. The befriending your Body eCourse is really easy, it doesn't take too much time out of your day, and as I said, it's completely free. So if you're tired of struggling and you're looking for something completely different and something pretty urgent; this can be with you in seconds. All you need to do to download the Befriending your Body eCourse is go to my Insta, which is untrapped_au and click on the link in the bio and you will see the Befriending your Body eCourse sitting there waiting to befriend you. Huge hello and big love to everyone in the Untrapped online community. Without Untrapped this podcast wouldn't be able to be produced. Untrapped is an online masterclass in the art of everything anti-diet. And it was co-created by me and 11 other health professionals working in this space. It's an incredible program. Very comprehensive, all online so you can do it at your own pace. And in it, we go through all kinds of stuff like recognizing and waking up from die-culture bull shit, reconnecting in with your body signals and repairing your relationship with food, with your body and with moving your body joyful ways. One of my favorite aspects of the Untrapped masterclass is the online community that we've created. We've been running since 2017. Can you believe it? And we have built up this incredible group of people we meet every week in a Q and A, and we've completely bonded. And I think most of the power of Untrapped is in this community. So if you are looking for a change and if you don't want to do it on your own, think about joining us in Untrapped. You can find out more from looking at untrapped.com.au and we would absolutely love to have you. So, on with the show, my guest this week, oh my gosh. I mean, this is a completely mind-blowing episode that I hope that you've got somewhere nice to relax and really take some time to absorb the awesomeness of what you're about to hear. So look, it's Christmas time, diet culture bull shit, no matter where you live on the planet, it's at an all time high at this time of year, the pressure is on. It is high season for the weight loss industry. And look, we are all feeling a little bit more fragile than usual, thanks to the ongoing bull shit of this year and living with this COVID pandemic. So it's been a complete mind-fuck, and look, you know, you all know how much I love to rant and complain about diet culture, but I think we need a bit of love, and that's what this episode is all about. In this Christmas season, let's pivot into something completely different. So my guess this week, Kathryn, formally Kathryn Hack, now known as Kathryn, or you might know her on Instagram as fat_mystic_art or Fat Mystic. This is an amazing human. Kathryn is a fat liberated artist and speaker, and they, sorry. And they are the pronouns. They have many intersecting identities including being fat, queer, disabled, poly, ADHD, lipedema and ex-evangelical. Are you fascinated? Because I certainly was completely fascinated by this human, when I saw their art in their Instagram feed. It took my breath away and like kind of hit me in many areas as you're going to hear about in our conversation. So, I really don't have more words and I don't want to give anything away, but I think your mind will be blown by this amazing episode interview individual. So without further ado, I give you me and the glorious Kathryn. Louise: So Kathryn, thank you so much for coming on the show. Kathryn: I'm very happy to be here, Louise. Thank you for having me. Louise: So tell me what's firing you up. Kathryn: Well, interestingly, I would say that being fired up, hasn't really been my lived experience recently with whether it's diet culture or any kind of oppressive systems. They definitely can feel discouraging, but I have a really deep practice of self-compassion. And what I have observed is that the more I live in a state of grace with myself, the more I am kind and consistently really gentle with myself, it's almost effortless for me to extend that kind of grace and compassion to other people while also having good boundaries. So I don't let people mistreat me because I live in a fat body or disabled body or because I'm queer or any of the identities that I live within. And yet, I don't feel fire about it. I don't feel anger exactly. I feel yeah, real contentment and peace and this journey and where it's brought me. And I feel a lot of joy in my life and the grace to handle the challenges that come in living in the body I live in. Louise: My goodness. Okay, everyone wants to know what cocktail is this self-compassion. This is so interesting. So you said you've got a really deep practice of self-compassion and that's what got you to this place of not being unimpacted, but not being affected in a negative way. Kathryn: And I think sometimes I might still be affected, but it's just that self-compassion is such an effective tool, that even if something does impact me negatively, I'm able to be present with that emotion with a deep resource of compassion and care, and so it just doesn't damage me. Like, I'll sort of let this emotion move through me. I'll feel it. I won't deny it. I won't suppress it. I definitely don't shove it down in my body like I used to. I just feel it, I'm present with it and then it sort of moves through. So the deep practice started a little while after I was first introduced to the fat liberation movement. It was intellectual information to me that, oh wow, some people are living in fat bodies and they're like, yeah, I'm fat, so what? And I was like, whoa, that was a revolutionary idea to me. I've lived in a fat body since puberty and I felt shame about it my whole life. Around the same time that I learned about fat liberation, I was also diagnosed with a chronic illness. The name of my chronic illness is lipedema. It's progressive, there's no cure for it, and it contributes to the size and shape of my body. It's understood to be a fat disorder, and it happens to accelerate during major hormonal changes. So most humans who have this experience, they see the onset around puberty. And then during childbearing years, during pregnancy specifically, there can be significant advancements, and then again around menopause. My experience was that I lived in a smaller but fat body for most of my life. And then after I had two kids, about 21 months apart, my body really changed radically. It impacted my mobility, I took up a lot more space in the world. And for the first several years, there was an incredible amount of shame there. Louise: I guess that built on the shame from puberty, you said like it had been there anyway. When were you diagnosed with lipedema? Kathryn: I was diagnosed in 2016. Louise: Okay, so that's fairly recent. Kathryn: It is actually. And that's kind of a fascinating thing. Like, I talk a lot on my art page about how much my life has changed, thanks to reconnect with my body and healing my relationship with my body. I would say that self-compassion is what helped do that. So first it was sort of the information, like there's humans out there and these brilliant activists that are brilliant feminist thinkers and like helping me to get new information about whether or not I'm allowed to exist as I am. I also want to say that humans in the disability justice movements are just so brilliant in how they articulate that dignity is not condition and ought not be. So, that was all really, really helpful information. And then what happened is I was able to apply the information by compassion, you know, like learning how to just sit with myself and feel my feelings and validate them and then genuinely out loud saying to myself, like "Kathryn, I'm so sorry." And then I'd be really specific; "I'm so sorry you don't deserve love because of the body you live in." And intellectually, I knew that sentence wasn't accurate, but in my body it felt true somewhere. And so, I would just acknowledge these things that were sort of limiting beliefs. And it was a limiting belief. I absolutely am worthy of love in the body I inhabit. And as I started to offer that specific lie, compassion and heal the pain that it caused, I suddenly was in relationships where I felt really loved and seen and valued and desired, and so it changed literally everything living in my body. Louise: How did you learn about self-compassion? Kathryn: Well, you know, it's interesting; it really first started with, with my body. So learning about fat liberation, I was reading everything I could get my hands on. And then also, I just am a very spiritually curious person. I spent most of my life inside Christian theologies. I was an ordained pastor for about a decade. And then I left that worldview because it was more and more confining, and I started to feel - even though I had sort of these incredible spiritual experiences, what I would now say is I think that divine doesn't care about dogma. I feel like the divine is willing to engage with us no matter where we are. And it really, really doesn't care about any dogma that we may bring into our desire to connect with whatever is out there, so as a Christian, and I was a Pentecostal Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian. Louise: Wow. Kathryn: Yeah, that's a mouthful, but yeah. And it's really rigid thinking, but also there's this Pentecostal element that is very metaphysical. There are a lot of interesting experiences. Things like speaking in tongues or getting sling in the spirit. And I had had an incredible experience after experience, after experience of feeling a sensation of being completely loved and accepted by what I would now call is just the divine or the universe, that something benevolent that loves me exists. And now I would even say like I'm part of it, like we're all sort of connected as consciousness, you know? I'm still very spiritual and I like to refer to myself as a Woo-Woo Bitch these days. Are we allowed to swear on this podcast? Louise: We encourage swearing on this podcast. Absolutely. Kathryn: That makes me happy. That was one of the first things that showed up when I stopped being a fundamentalist is I was aware of how much I had edited my language. And now swearing is my fucking favorite thing to do. Louise: It's my fucking favorite thing to do too. It's expressive. Kathryn: It is, and it feels freeing to me. So my body started to slow down kind of dramatically. I had had this outpatient surgery that was supposed to be a quick in and out kind of thing. And I had an incision rip and it meant that I was like literally in bed for about six or eight weeks. And then I finally am better enough that I can move around a bit, and then I immediately get vertigo. And it fascinating because in that particular window, I felt like my body was saying, "Kathryn, we're going to sit you the fuck down. We've got something to tell you." And it was an incredibly powerful time in my life where I stopped limiting my spiritual curiosity to what was sort of acceptable within Christian circles. And by that point, I was already no longer a fundamentalist, but I was still attending like a more liberal-minded Christian Church. And the person I was married to was a pre-devout kind of more liberal Christian. But I knew that Christianity was really important to them and our marriage. And it turned out if I allowed my evolution to take me beyond Christianity, that that relationship would end, and that is what ended up happening. But my body working so I could stop participating in culture, really. And I had two small kids, it was a really strange time. They had just kind of fend for themselves a bit more than their peers, because I just couldn't function. And my brain was like - my spirit, my brain, whichever was just curious. And we have like this amazing technology and our hands, and so I just was following my curiosity. Eventually, I mean, it took me lots of places. Like I did a little time of like, oh, I'm curious about tarot cards. And so I looked into that and then I was like, oh, I want to learn about like all of our chakras, and I even bought some like stones to like, you know. I took one of the online quizzes that talked about like, which one of my chakras needs more attention, you know, that's my clothes, I need to work on that. And so it was like a game. It was like fun. It was just following my curiosity. And in that space where I was just following anything that was shiny, I was reading more and more about self-compassion. And there was this very specific practice that I had read about and learned about that I started doing and telling my friends about and it was this thing where you literally say out loud to yourself, I'm so sorry. And then you be as specific as you can about the belief, even though intellectually, you know it may not true, but the painful thought and you just say, I'm so sorry, and you just hold space for yourself. And I don't know how it works, except that it does work and it just shifted those painful things. They just were allowed to move through me. Louise: Yeah. I love that because you're bringing like mindful kindness to the beliefs and thoughts that are happen in the moment, so I'm so sorry that you just thought, oh, I'm so disgusting. Kathryn: Yeah. Louise: And so you're pausing, you're not letting it kind of just sink in, and you're apologizing to yourself - so powerful. Kathryn: And it's really been the most affected, I would say, on the old beliefs that have sort of been sneaky. We've been very programmed by the cultures we grew up in. That's why fat phobia is so rampant, you know, anti-fat is everywhere. It it's like a global phenomenon that fatness is bad. That's kind of fascinating. What the hell? Louise: The world is wrong and fat is bad. Kathryn: Yeah. But actually, and I think that's so interesting, and one of the things I really love about the fat community is that we are an international global group of humans, that are going to push back on this really stupid presumption that our bodies are wrong. And I don't know, it creates this really interesting energy of when you choose your own inner knowledge over the projected information. It is powerful. It's an empowering transition. And so, you turn the volume up of your own inner space, above the chatter of culture and you start to realize, you can do whatever the fuck you want. You can have whatever. Louise: You can wear what you want, you can have sex, you can enjoy hell out of yourself. Kathryn: It's all of it. Absolutely. Louise: For how long has life felt like that for you? Kathryn: It just keeps getting better and better and better. So, when I was experiencing that period of time where I was recovering from surgery and then ended up with vertigo, that was like, it felt like explosions, like my body expanded and my brain and my spirit was expanding. And I'd had this sort of metaphysical experience where I had this profound sensation that my physical body that was inhabiting was an allegory to this spirit size I was meant to embody in this. And I don't actually even talk about that that much, but it was huge in shifting my thinking about like whether or not my body was allowed. And not only is it allowed, it's powerful. When people see me, it's not hard to see that I am also quite free, but I live in a body that we're used to people seeing shame. Walk around in bodies like mine and they there's just shame. I's hard not to, because of how much conditioning we've been taught about fat, but I just don't have that. I don't have that energy. And so, people interact with me and I'm not easy to forget. Louise: Do people just not know what to do with you if you don't kind of obey that is not expected shame. Kathryn: I don't know if they... I'm not having those kinds of conversations with strangers. The humans are that are close to me, like they just see me. I'm a full human person. I do have this deep spiritual practice, but like I have hard days too and I have sad days and I reach out for support when I need it. I get frustrated with my kids and I complain about that. So yeah, it's just the humans that are in my life really see me. And then when I'm out in the world, I just don't live. I just am not anticipating. I remember living in a way where I anticipated hostility for the body I lived in and I felt hostility. Now I just don't anticipate hostility directed towards me. It just doesn't occur to me anymore. I don't know how, except that it was all this self-compassion, but this very dramatic shift is, can move through the world and I'm not anticipating hostility. I just assume that I get to be treated with the amount of dignity and love and care that I treat myself with. And if that doesn't happen to be the case where someone doesn't treat me the way I want to or expect to be treated, it just doesn't wreck me like it would've before. It just is like, oh, that's an anomaly. Like, I'm sorry, that person, they must be having a rough time. Like, how sad that they would feel the need to project their shit onto me. It's very clear to me that that's theirs. It's not shit my. I'm good. Louise: Oh, that's it, right? Because the self-compassion has kind of sunk in and made you kind of unstoppable. Kathryn: And what's funny is like unstoppable how, because I have a lot of limitations living in my body. I have a lot of limitations moving through the world. Like, my body doesn't fit in most public seating. I've had to do the both end of doing this internal work of, I know that I'm allowed to exist in the world with full dignity and I'm also someone ADHD, and so sometimes I have low executive functioning. Which means, I can be overwhelmed with the amount of extra labor that's required for me to like, make sure that that restaurant I want to go to with my friends is going to have seating that's going to work for my body. And so, I've been able to like my circle of friends and people I date, I've been able to invite them into this sort of tender space of, hey, would you actually help do some of the labor here? And I was pretty tentative about it at first because it felt really vulnerable, and they were so happy to. They were just so happy to. They were like, "That is okay Kathryn, we love your presence in our life. And of course, we're going to try to streamline this and make it less hard for you. You shouldn't have to work this hard, just go out and be in the world." Yeah, and so it is the both end. Both things are at once; I am unstoppable and this world is still not built for, to welcome a body like mine, I have to do in a lot of extra labor. Louise: Which is terrifically difficult, but how nice that you can like share this with friends who will then go out and advocate and take care of everything alongside you; you don't have to do it on your own. Kathryn: Yeah. It's a really beautiful thing. I think the work of getting free and liberation is an internal spiritual work. And then what happens is we get to see it lived out in human relationships because we are social creatures and it's got to be the both end. We're not meant to be alone, most of us aren't. And so, yeah, and then that was just a really - that took some compassion too. It was very tender when I first started saying out loud to my circles, like I want to be out in the world a little more and I'm noticing I'm saying no to invitations because it will be too hard. And then I'm like, oh, actually I can ask for help. Turns out, asking for help is its own kind of superpower. And culturally again, especially in Western cultures, we have been taught not to do that. Louise: Yeah. Don't impose on people, don't have needs, don't... that's terrific. Out of interest, who were the fat liberation people that you read for inspiration? Who your community now that you...? Kathryn: Let's see. So Sonya Renee Taylor's work was really impactful to me and the book, The Body's not an Apology. I really liked what I read from the author who wrote Shrill and now Lindsay-Anne Baker, The Will author. I can't remember her first name. Louise: I can't remember it either. Kathryn: Yeah. And then I just started following like the hashtags on Instagram. Instagram was really helpful in my evolution as well, because I love how you can just follow hashtags, like disability justice and fat liberation, haze, so all of that was really impactful. So it became like this big, beautiful soup of just taking in everything that was sort of out there and allowing it to change how I thought about things. Louise: I love that; a big, beautiful soup, because Instagram can also be like a treacherous shark infested ocean. Kathryn: The thing is like curating our feed too. I mean, it can be. But I think that internet has served me so well because social media is can reflect back to us our own energy sometimes. And whatever you're drawn to are attracted to you, you can unfollow and start following the stuff that makes you actually feel good, so it doesn't have to be that. It doesn't have to be that. Louise: No, I love my little haze bubble that I have on Insta and social media, speaking of which that's how I found you. Because I think I was scrolling through Being Nourished, their feed, Hilary and Dana and I saw this amazing picture of lady and it was just lit up with flowers and it was glowing, like literally like no shit glowing. And I was like, I just stopped. And I'm like, that is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. So since then, I was trying to find it and I couldn't find out anywhere. And then I found you and looked through your feed and your art and it was like how I think self-compassion looks like in art. I can't explain it very well, but it's like it moved me in my body. It was so beautiful see. And that's why I kind of tracked you down and finally found the beautiful painting, which is going to be up in my new office. Which ironically the new office is called Flourish at [unclear27:54]. Kathryn: Wow. Louise: And then the idea is that it's a big, beautiful like greenhouse full of plants and growth and beginning for people. And so, I wanted to feel it full of like art that showed that. That painting that I had seen is called Flourishing, so I can't wait to put it up there. I just want to talk about your art because it's just like a mind bogglingly awesome. How long have you been doing it? Kathryn: Not that long. I started really making body art, figurative art in 2018. I was sort of dabbling in 2017. I was sort of experimenting. I was 38. I'm 44, almost 44 now, but I was 38 before I could even call myself an artist. It just was things were, again, we have these limiting ideas sometimes. Like the idea that I was an artist felt so gatekeepy, like I wasn't fancy, I'm just up hot. Yeah, so I was 38 and I was like, oh my God, I've been calling myself crafty my whole life. But like the truth is, is that I am an artist. And then when, like I said, I describe how in the same window of time I had this lipedema diagnosis, this chronic illness and there's no cure, so my body will continue to evolve. And then they're just like, by the way, all of our bodies are continuing to evolve. We're in a constant change. And then fat liberation, that I was allowed to take space and have the body I lived in and I needed a way to marry these two ideas just to make peace with the fact that this is a reality of my life. My body is going to stay this way and progress. So up until that point, I just constantly was believing that like someday I would lose all the weight, you know, like most of us think, you know? So I had to decide, nope, if that never happens for me, I'm going to live my best life. So making art was the bridge and it was like, I wanted to see myself depicted beautifully in art and media, and so I just started playing around with it. And it's interesting because you know, you referenced the image flourishing and you said painting, it's actually not really a painting. It's digital. Louise: It's digital. I have no idea when it comes. Kathryn: We have these iPhones, and there's all these apps on there. I literally make all this art on my phone. Sometimes I like the aesthetic of mixed media, and so sometimes I'll do like mixed media art, like an abstract sort of thing. And then I can like take a photo of it and I can layer it into a silhouette. But yeah, we have all this software now where you can just like take a photo and then like strip away everything that's not the silhouette, and then I can layer and layer and layer. I can create a background, I can do all these things. I can just pull an image in and out of like 16 different phone apps, you know? And it was just plates. Something I can do while laying down and it doesn't require any art supplies that my kids are going to make a fucking mess out of. Louise: That is exciting. Kathryn: And it really helped me get into a state of flow where I could be like listening to an audio book and then like playing on my phone, making something beautiful. Here's the other interesting thing is that, in like summer of 2018, I started my Instagram and I was like, I'm going to make new art every day. I'm going to post something every single day, and I did that for six months straight. And there is really something powerful about adding creativity to whatever our work is. Like, what are you working on in your life human? Like, what's the thing that is asking for your attention, right? Is it body issue stuff, then find a creative outlet for that. It could be poetry. It could be writing short stories. It can be visual arts. It could be clay. I have this sculpture of myself that I made with, oh, I wonder if I can remember their name. There's this other, like the activist who I think is from Australia, actually. Louise: Yes, yes. And my God, what is happening to my brain? It's 6:00 AM. Ashley Bennett. It's Ashley Bennett from at bodyimage_therapist. Kathryn: She's delightful, and it was really fun to go to her class in San Francisco. And a bunch to us were in there with clay molding our own forms. And it was powerful to lovingly touch this clay, to like fill in where all of these fat roles are, you know, the volume of my big belly. It was just powerful. So whatever creative outlet attracted to, adding creativity to whatever your work is, somehow I think unleashes huge amounts of energy. It just opens us up in ways that I don't think just thinking about things could ever. Louise: I think you've nailed it. You're regularly visiting that place and reinforcing it, but just sort of intuitively finding this way of doing it. It shines out of it. I don't think I've seen art before, which embodies self-compassion, this stuff that you've done, I just love it. And I love how you've paired it with compassionate phrases, like be gentle with you. Kathryn: Yeah. Louise: And I love fat-trans queer loved, just full of love. It's too just incredible. And I particularly, yeah, I'll just keep blushing if I keep looking. I just encourage everyone to go and look at it. So this is really like a love story of you and your body. Kathryn: Well, okay. So maybe, right. My relationship, my body meant that my spiritual worldview shifted a great deal. How I interact with the world around me changed. It also meant that I ended a long term marriage that wasn't exactly a terrible marriage or anything, it's just we didn't resonate with each other anymore. I was no longer a Christian, that was really important to him. And as soon as I knew that that marriage was over, I was like, oh my God, I'm queer. Of course, I am. How did I not know that? You know? And so I spent so many decades in purity culture, I just was prohibited from exploring my own sexuality. And so, one of the things about being a late bloomer is the temptation to feel like a I've missed out on a lot of stuff. And again, like I felt all those feelings. I gave myself a lot of compassion. It would've been amazing to be having lots of gay sex when I was in my twenties, but that wasn't my experience. And so the cool thing is, is that I get to be a sexual being today in the body that I have, but as also as a person who's incredibly self-aware who is great communication skills, who is emotionally intelligent. And so, I'm navigating dating almost as if I'm a preteen or a teenager, but also I have all of this wealth of internal self-knowledge and self-compassion. Louise: So that's good make it like much more enjoyable than usual teen experiences. Kathryn: I'm having a fucking blast, yeah. And not that every date I go on is amazing. A lot of them are amazing. I'm also very interested in nontraditional relationship models, so I'm practicing solo polyamory. Another interesting thing to read about is something called relationship anarchy, which is just brilliant. It's just asking us to challenge all of these beliefs about what relationships are supposed to be and gender roles and like expectations we might have on a dynamic with another person. You actually get to invent that; you and that person get to make that up as you go, it gets to serve both of you, and it can be like anything you want it to be. I love that. I love the freedom of turning everything on its head. There's no external expectations on what my relationship with any one person needs to be. I get to decide that. They get to decide that with me. So yeah. Right out of the gate, you know, I came out as queer during the pandemic and then once enough of us were vaccinated, I'm out here dating, dating a lot. I'm having a good time. Louise: It's not easy to date in a pandemic. Wow, this is all so new. You're riding the wave. Kathryn: I'm riding this very big wave. Also one of the things that I've learned is that scarcity is a capitalist construct, and it fucks us up pretty bad, but we apply scarcity to everything. We definitely apply it to dating and it just doesn't feel true anymore. Like, people are coming out to the fucking woodwork to be like, hey, how you doing, can we date? And I'm like, yeah, let's go on date. Me and the body I inhabit, I'm a desired person that feels amazing. That feels amazing. Louise: Wow. That is the power of not limiting yourself. And that's the other kind of word that came to mind looking at your art is abundance. Kathryn: Yeah. Yeah. It feels so much better to live in this space. And I want to be really careful to say, it's not that I am in an elated state of being constantly. I really do have access to this like really high, high frequency sensation of joy and pleasure and abundance. But also, I still am inhabiting a human body that has chronic pain, that experiences big fatigue. I've had relationships end in a way that really hurt my feelings. And I've been afraid of things here and there too, you know? And so, it's just that in those times now I don't judge myself harshly. I can experience very, very big fatigue and just decide that everything I wanted to get done that day isn't going to get done and I'll go home and I will just rest and do whatever I need to do to get through that particular window. Louise: What would you offer yourself then? How do you stay compassionate in a moment like that? Kathryn: Well, what's interesting is that that's taken a while because I remember even just, I don't know, eight months ago I would have a fatigue spell and sometimes they would last up to like five days where it was just super hard to function for days. And the first day or two, I could be like, that's all right, I'm just going to roll with it. And then if it went on beyond that, it would start to feel scary because our brains have a tendency to be like, oh my God, this is my life now. And what I started to see though, was on the other side of a hard window, I felt more free somehow. And I don't know how to explain that. Sometimes we go through a hard time and then coming up out of it, there's just some kind of lift. And that had happened enough times that I started to trust it. So several weeks ago I had a rough spell and I didn't have that panic feeling. I just remembered like, oh, I've been through this before, like on the other side, I'm just going to feel more powerful. So in the time while I'm experiencing it, while I feel like really low energy, I just lay down as I needed to. My body is like, this is what's going to happen, this is how much rest we need and stop trying to qualify it. Like, I feel like I rest more than any human I've ever met, and I'm like, what? Really? More? How much more could I need? And my body's like, it doesn't need to be qualified like that. Like it's not about comparing it to other people, like you're going to need to lay down and rest somewhere. And so then I just keep myself occupied by listening to audio books or playing on my phone or meditating or whatever I want to do. That's a really powerful thing too. I stopped doing things that I was supposed to do. I literally only do what I want to do. Louise: I love this. Kathryn: There's some amount of privilege that comes with that. Like I'm separated, so I don't have to live with my ex anymore, but I was a stay-at-home parent before. And so, with child support and whatnot, I still get to like live as a stay-at-home parent and I have my art that I do and other things occupy my day and my time. I'm not needing to work 40 hours a week in order to live in the world, so I recognize that as a great privilege I get to have. But that being said, I still think being free on the inside is what's making me free. You know what I mean? Louise: Yeah, much more. I remember being at one of Hilary and Dana's retreats in 2016 and talking about how like... it was for embodiment, to be an embodied practitioner. About trying to get out of like the crowded city of our brain and down into the wilderness of our body - uncharted territory. And I remember us talking about that's where the freedom is, it's down there and it's not verbal, it's sort of felt. Kathryn: Yeah. And I would say that - like I said, I've been explaining who I am as a person, as someone who's quite spiritual, and that's true. But what I started to see is that in some spiritual communities, they would talk down about the body. They would say like, oh, this meat sack that we're in, you know, like your body is not who you really are, you are not your body. And I don't agree with that at all. I think our bodies are fucking magic. They hold so much intense wisdom. They will talk to us and teach us things. Our bodies have held all of our trauma our whole lives; just held it, just waiting for us to be ready to look at it again. And it has only ever been kind to us. And even when it's not working well or there's pain or any of those things, it's not out to get you, it's just trying to get your attention. And when we can turn into it and listen and believe that it's our friend I feel like it's multiverses within ourselves, like unending amounts of wisdom and love and compassion all in this physical form that we inhabit. Even if you just think about DNA, like our fucking DNA is ancient. You know what I mean? There's studies that talk about how like trauma can be passed down in your DNA. Like the stories that your body has, it's way more powerful than we give it credit for often. And so when we live our lives, we're not ruled completely by our minds, but we actually get to make decisions based on how does it feel in my body when I think about doing this thing? If we literally do the things that only make our body feel like, ah, expansive and open and relaxed, oh my God, your life will change. If you're constantly doing things to your body's like, "Oh, dread, dread, I don't want to, I'm going to make myself." Nope, nope, it doesn't serve you. Louise: This is an amazing conversation. I knew this would be an amazing conversation. There's so much in everything that you are saying, and it's learning how to do that I think that's difficult for people. Because like you said, we're so kind of stuck in our heads and so scared, and often I think it's that fear response that's in our body that stops us getting down or trauma cuts us off. So it is really interesting that you come to it in your late thirties and you come to it in a moment, like when your body just sort of calls it a day almost and says, oh, lie down for a few weeks, you're going to have to just be with me. Kathryn: Yeah. There's an account. I follow on Instagram called The Nap Ministry. And I can't remember who is in charge of it, but this really powerful black woman. And I just want to say too, like as a white woman in the privilege that I embody there, like the kind of freedom that I get to live in is absolutely because of the work of black women and fems and indigenous people. Like, I'm really grateful for all the labor and the work that they've done to help kind of illuminate the path forward. So this particular person who has the Instagram, The Nap Ministry, they just blew my mind when they talked about like rest as revolution. Capitalism has really indoctrinated us with the idea that our worth is connected to our labor or our productivity. And then we live in systems that you literally can't live unless you do labor for often someone else. And that's really wrong. Human beings are not designed for that. That's a system that we all have grown up in and it's impacted how we think about ourselves. There was a time where human beings existed without having to go to work and labor in order to just stay alive. So to nap, napping being resistance to those capitalist ideas was a revolutionary idea to me. And that rest was how we honored all the people that went before us that weren't allowed to rest. And it absolutely - I really do credit my body stopping working and requiring so much rest with my ability to disconnect with these systems that control our thinking. You know what I mean? So I was out in the world less because in my bed napping more. And what that meant is I was spending more time in my own energy and the things that I was just naturally feeling curious about. And then I could follow my curiosity to the next step and the next step. In a spirit paradigm, you might say like your higher self is always going to guide you towards enlightenment if that resonates with you. But I would also say that my body had a very key role in that. My body was the one that arrested me and got my attention, my body demanded rest and I said, okay. And before I said, okay, I spent years pushing through like most of us do. You like buckle in, you like buck up, you push through and that's stupid. We don't have to do that anymore. You know what I mean? The idea that you were good because you hurt your body in order to achieve some task is really stupid. We don't have to do that anymore. We don't have to hurt ourselves anymore. We can be kind to ourselves. Rest is revolutionary. Louise: I love that. Absolutely love that. And I think especially now, you know, the last two years have been pretty shit for most people on the planet. And I don't know if this happened over there, but as we are coming out here in Australia, there's a lot of like exhaustion and a lot of anxiety coming back into, and fear of what's going to happen next step. People do need to rest more. We can get these messages, like you said, from the structures and systems that we need to kind of pull up our socks and lose the COVID kilos and, you know, whatever. And I'm finding for my clients that that kind of message like let's get back to normal, just doesn't resonate as much, is maybe we've had a bit more time to spend in reflection. Kathryn: Normal was very toxic. It really was. Normal has never been good or kind to human individuals. It has served these systems that are oppressive and that's all. And I think the pandemic forcing most of us to slow down to some degree, it means that we get to become disillusioned with how it was really shit before too. And no, not fucking going back to that. No, thank you. No, we're going to have to create something new. A lot of the kind of things that I'm listening to and reading about now is all anti-capitalist stuff. And the idea that we're in late stage capitalism is a pretty widespread idea at this point. And so, how we going to cope with that? How are we going to cope end of capitalism? Those of us who are adults now are probably, I don't know that it's going to be easy or fun. And again, that's why we have to do the internal work of like, I'm actually, okay no matter what, I'm going to be okay, and I'm going to be really fucking gentle with myself, because I don't know what the future holds. And sometimes uncertainty can be very scary. And again, we can offer ourselves compassion for that, but the truth is the more I live in a state of genuine compassion for myself, I'm very present in this exact moment and you know, that's a spiritual practice that most of us had heard about like be present, be present in it; it didn't resonate until I started to live in a state of compassion. And it's not that I'm trying to be present; I just am. I just am here. I'm just present with myself because I'm so kind to myself. I don't have to escape into the future to think it'll be better then. Oh my God, I've spent years thinking it'll be better then, when my body is smaller - I would escape in the future all the time. I don't do that anymore. My life is beautiful because I am so fucking kind to myself. And when I am this kind to myself, somehow the world is just way less hostile. And it doesn't mean there's not still a ton of unknowns; I'm just not afraid of the unknown anymore. Louise: You're amazing. That everything you just said is just brilliant - so inspiring. No matter what, just keep doing what you're doing, because you are like your art. You're just like glowing. It's amazing. Kathryn: Thank you. And the thing that I kind of want to reiterate is like, I know I can speak eloquently about some of these things. I am very human too, right? There's the both end. But if I can come to this state of being, that means it's available, like the amount of freedom that I get to live in. I realized a long time ago that I kind of wanted to be of service to the world in some way, you know, I was in vocational ministry, and the world who I was a part of really made perpetuate to this savior complex. And then I had religious trauma and I had like childhood trauma and I was definitely someone who was codependent for a lot of years, was codependent in my relationship with my spouse. And I feel like I've lived a very normal life, but I've started to taste freedom, and then the freedom just brought more freedom. And then that freedom brought even greater freedom. And so, I would very much like to say that existing as I am in the world now, it feels like it's accessible to people. Like being alive and free in the body inhabit might convince someone else that, oh my God, what if I could be more free too? And now I no longer feel like it's my job to save anyone. It's just not. Like, I really trust people on their journey. I trust you to follow your own curiosity and see what path that takes you on. But I being free in the world, I think perpetuates the idea that freedom is available to all of us. Louise: Yeah. And I think that's why it's so lovely to speak to you, and to know that this conversation gets the listen to by so many people. I think this part like of like finding that freedom through self-compassion, connected to your body specifically and inhabiting - I think that's really tough for a lot of people, and that's a bit that we can get stuck on. Like, we can kind of talk about I love fat liberation, and I love haze, and I love anti-diet, but I still don't feel okay in my body. Like I still can't really accept it, let alone inhabit it, let alone feel freedom in it, let alone expand. What you're talking about is I guess, perseverance with that compassion until it doesn't feel like an innate trick, but it feels like it's the portal and then you just sort of go down and inhabit. Kathryn: Yeah. And our brains do change, right? So, like it's the default. It wasn't always, it took some time and I didn't make myself do it. Like, this was really born out of when I realized I was only going to do what I wanted to do. And so, my meditative practice is really like when I'm laying my bed, I'll just take some deep breaths and I'll let my brain just sort of wander. I don't like any kind of dogma or high structure at all. Some of that might be PhD, but also I spent decades in a lot of fundamentalism and so there was so much dogma. So, this is me sort of pushing all the way to the other extreme and it has served me. And I think the big message for anyone who's listening would be like, find out what serves you by following your curiosity and what you actually want. Sometimes we don't even know what we want because we're not embodied enough. But then you can try this little fun game of like think of something that you might want and then see how it feels in your body. Does it feel expansive? When you take a breath, do you feel like room or does it feel tight? And so, then we start to ask our body questions. Our body has our own individual truth. It really, really does. And what happens is you start to check in with your body more and more. Then you are sort of guided in your life. Eventually, it's not something you have to think about; it just happens. And then you will lead yourself to whatever is your best life. Louise: That is so cool. It's like the difference between thinking and knowing in your body, it's that language of knowing in your body or not the language, but it's that experience of knowing in your body that when [unclear52:02]. That is a cool trick. Kathryn: Yeah. They live in concert now, you know, so like our brains have been very subject to conditional cultural programming. Our brains are really susceptible to that because human beings want to belong and society tells you, these are the things you got to do to belong. And so you want to belong so you conform, right? And then when you are not in relationship with your body, again, that's why anti-fatness is such a destructive force because it separates us from our body, and it makes controlling your body the objective, and your body is not to be controlled. It's just to be loved and enjoyed and to be honored. So yeah, I think there's a lot of different ways we can just very gently, it doesn't have to happen overnight, but just a little to check in, like you just happen to be eating a meal and you just realize, oh, I'm going to take some deep breaths. I'm going to breathe really deep into my belly. And I'm going to experience this one bite of food and just relish every bit of pleasure. I'm going to feel it go down into my body. And then you you'll start to see you'll just do that a little bit more and more, and you can heal the relationship with your body by just actively engaging with it a little bit more and a little bit more until it becomes something you do without thinking Louise: So lovely. And all of that is stuff that we're not encouraged to do. Even a belly breath - oh gosh. You know, don't let your stomach pop out. Eating and feeling pleasure, like honestly, pleasure and eating is not something we even like - it's not on the radar. These things are radical, but so simple. And what is it that Dana and Hilary talk about body trust is our birthright. Kathryn: It is. It is our birthright. And you know, most of us have been around small children, they do not feel self-conscious in their bodies. Someone told me that they were having Thanksgiving dinner with a three year old. They were sitting next to the three year old and the three year old was going, "Mm mm." And so they were laughing about how, like, it almost sounded like orgasmic sounds from this toddler who hasn't been socially conditioned yet. And hopefully they get to live without that other stuff limiting their experience in the world. Louise: I'll [unclear54:13], right? Kathryn: Yeah, exactly. So as a parent myself, that's the thing I teach my kids more than anything is bodily autonomy and to make decisions based on what feels right to them in their body. That feels like the best gift I can give them. Louise: I couldn't agree more. And that connects to so many other experiences. Kathryn: It really does. Louise: Yeah. What a terrific conversation. I'm so grateful for you to come on and talk to me about all of this today, and I'm going to continue buying your work. Kathryn: Thank you. It's been such a pleasure for letting me share, and I really, really love talking about these things and thank you for getting up early so that the timing worked and all of that. Thank you for reaching out and finding me. I'm really delighted. Louise: Ah, right back at you. Thank you. Outro: What did I tell you? Is this an incredible interview and an amazing individual or what? I tell you what I could not stop thinking about that conversation for days afterwards. Kathryn's experience and way of expressing everything through their art, it's just mind blowing. So look, I'm a bit spent, I'm sure you are too. I feel little part of me feels like lighting up a cigarette and just laying back and just enjoying the after glow of that conversation. Thank you so much, Kathryn, for coming on and blowing all of our minds at a time when we really, really need some awesomeness. Thank you so much for delivering. If you like me are fascinated and a bit blown away by everything Kathryn-related, look at their Instagram, which is fat_mystic_art, and go to the Etsy shop and buy everything, which is kind of what I want to do as well. The Etsy shop is Fatmystic, and there's just so much terrific stuff there. Thank you everybody, and thank you, Kathryn. Look, we're going to sign off now and into the end of the year we go. Be very, very careful everyone, because like I said, it's diet culture high season, the weight loss wolves are after us. Remember that your body is awesome, magical, mystical and not something to feel ashamed about. There's just so much awesomeness sitting right here right now. Okay, so look everyone, I hope you take really, really good care of yourselves and I hope that there's some kind of break coming for most of us. I know I'm going to have a rest. I'm going to be back and absolutely raring to go early next year. We've got some, like I said, some really cool news and big news coming, but this All Fired Up podcast is going nowhere. You're going to be hearing from me a lot. I'm very, very pumped and excited. So look, look after yourself, everyone. And I'll see you in the new year. In the meantime, trust your body, think critically, push back against diet culture. Untrap from the crap!

My guest this week is the fierce and fabulous Lindley Ashline, fat-positive photographer and body liberation activist, who has literally BANNED the weight loss industry from using her stock photos. In this glorious episode, Lindley tells how she pushed back when a diet company tried to do just that! The AUDACITY of diet companies and the weight loss industry is next level, but they were no match for Lindley! Join us for a completely fired up, inspiring conversation with a woman who takes no bullshit, AND takes staggeringly awesome photos! Shownotes Lindley has a stock photo website where she sells body positive, fat-positive photos. Most of her stock photos customers are health at every size oriented or anti-diet or body positivity folk who are marketing their small businesses. People who model for these those stock photos are vulnerable. They may have multiple marginalised identities, including people of colour, and they are also people in very large bodies who experience discrimination and stigma just by living in their bodies. Lindley points out that when you buy stock photos from her, you have to agree that you will respect to use the photos as the license specifies that you cannot use them to promote dieting or the weight loss industry. “If I am going to set out to create body positive and fat positive stock photos and work with people in marginalized bodies to start with, I can't allow those photos to be used in ways that will hurt people,” says Lindley. The body positivity movement is rampant, and ripe for co-opting. Dove was the first company to monetize the body positivity movement at a grand scale. Lindley shares her outrage when she discovered that diet company "The Whole 30" had purchased one of her images, which was in breach of the licence. She pushed back and refused to let them use it. Body positivity movements are amazing as they are driving the increased visibility of diversity that's happening around the planet. Lindley reiterates that we have a generation of companies that simultaneously sell us the thin ideal and then turn around and tell us that it is our fault for not loving our bodies. That is trauma culturally and individually. Lindley shares her history and how she came to quit her job and devote herself full time to photographing diverse bodies. The foundation of the body positivity movement is the fat acceptance movement, which started in the 1960s. People love the idea of diversity and allow the idea that large, small, and everyone in between can exist, says Louise. But when it comes to our own bodies, this is MUCH harder. If Lindley & Louise were in the same room talking about weight science, weight stigma, and the need to a radical change, the possibility is that Louise's voice would listen to more, just because of weight stigma. When marginalized people are allowed to speak, be angry, and be believed, it's very threatening to the status quote, says Lindley. Because of the nature of our culture, the folks who are of average size think that they are much larger, says Lindley. Lindley says that she is always looking for the largest possible bodies to represent diversity. Lindley is from the South in the USA. She was taught in history classes in school that slavery wasn't all that bad because people were nice to their slaves and let them live in the house. But 'smiling oppression' is still oppression. It's not ok. If we see ourselves represented everywhere and see other people represented everywhere, nothing looks unusual, and from here we can grow an appreciation of the beauty of diversity. The more we see all kinds of bodies, the more normal they become, and the more you can expose yourself, the faster it will work. Take nudes! Start small (a toe poking out of the bath) and play with the idea. Body liberation is for you, not a performance we do for the world. Resources Mentioned Find out more about Lindley here Follow Lindley on Insta @bodyliberationwithlindley

Imagine being 13 years old, standing in front of a judge, accused of the "crime" of being fat. Imagine the incredible pain you would feel as the judge announces that in the interests of your 'health', you will be removed from your family. But there's no need to imagine. During the height of the UK COVID-19 pandemic, two children were removed from their loving home and put into foster care. The ONLY reason was that both kids were fat. This harrowing story raised the ire of the fabulous Fat Doctor UK, who advocated and pleaded and offered to help educate the social workers, judge, and anyone who would listen, but her valiant attempts have so far been ignored. Two kids have lost their families, thanks to fatphobia. Join me and the fabulous Fat Doctor UK as we get UTTERLY fired up about this travesty of justice. This is a tough listen so please make sure you have adequate spoons. Show Transcript 0:00:12.7 Louise: Welcome to All Fired Up. I'm Louise, your host. And this is the podcast where we talk all things anti-diet. Has diet culture got you in a fit of rage? Is the injustice of the beauty ideal? Getting your knickers in a twist? Does fitspo, make you wanna spit spo? Are you ready to hurl if you hear one more weight loss tip? Are you ready to be mad, loud and proud? Well, you've come to the right place. Let's get all fired up. 0:00:40.3 Louise: Hello, diet culture drop-outs. I'm so pleased to be with you again and very excited about today's episode. Okay, so first of all, I wanna say a massive thank you to all of the listeners who are so faithful and loving. And I love all your messages and emails, so keep them coming. And if you love the show, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the episodes as they pop out on a roughly monthly basis. And if you love us, give us five stars because the more five star reviews we get, particularly on Apple Podcasts, the louder the message is, the more listeners we get and the quicker we can topple diet culture. And that's the objective here. 0:01:24.7 Louise: If you're looking for some free stuff to help you with your anti-diet journey, gosh I hate that word. Let's call it an adventure. Anti-Diet Adventure, 'cause that's what it is. It's rocking and rolling. It's up and down. It's not predictable. But if you're looking for a resource where you might be going to medical visit, you might be trying to explain just what you're doing to friends and family, look no further than the free e-book; Everything You've Been Told About Weightloss Is Bullshit, written by me and the Anti-Diet Advanced doctor dietician, Dr Fiona Willer. In it we're busting the top 10 myths that float around diet culture like poo in a swimming pool, about the relationship between health and weight, and we're busting myths left, right and centre. 0:02:06.8 Louise: It's a really awesome resource. It's crammed full of science and facts and it will really help steel you and give you the armour that you need to push back against diet culture. So if you wanna grab a copy, it's absolutely free. Like I said, you can go to Instagram which is untrapped_ au and click on the link in the bio and grab a copy there. Or you can go to the website untrapped.com.au and a little pop-up will come and you will grab it there. More free stuff, if you are struggling with relationship with your body during the last couple of years in particular, Befriending Your Body is my free e-course. All about self-compassion, this amazing skill of being kind and befriending your body. And it's like a super power, self-compassion, because we're all taught from the moment we're born, practically, to disconnect and dislike and judge and body police ourselves. Not exactly a recipe for happiness and satisfaction. 0:03:05.9 Louise: So, this little e-course will help build the skill of self-compassion, which is absolutely awesome because if we can learn to connect with our imperfect bodies, we can learn to inhabit them, to look after them and to push back against the forces that are still trying to get us separate from them. You can find the Befriending Your Body e-course from Instagram. So, untrapped_au. Click on the link, Befriending Your Body, it's all free, it's beautiful. It's just so lovely to practice self-compassion meditations. Self-compassion is built for difficult times. And my friends, we're in a difficult time. So, get hold of that if you haven't already. 0:03:47.6 Louise: Big shout out and hello to all of the Untrapped community, the Master Class and online community, who we meet every week. We push back against diet culture together. We share our stories, we've been supporting each other through the various challenges of lockdown and it's just a wonderful community of awesome human beings. So, if you're struggling and you want to join a community, as well as learning all of the skills of how to do things like intuitive eating, returning to a relationship with moving your body that doesn't feel like hard work. Understanding weight stigma and weight prejudice, relationship with body, all of that kind of stuff is covered in this comprehensive course, Untrapped, which I co-created in 2017 with 11 other amazing anti-diet health professionals. 0:04:39.9 Louise: So if you wanna grab a hold of this program and join our online community, please do and now's the time. We're meeting weekly. So every Saturday, I meet with the whole community and we have an awesome chinwag about everything that's going on. You also get all of the material. And there's other things that happened throughout the year like events and retreats. Well, if they're not scuppered by COVID. [chuckle] In usual times, we are able to do that. Well, if that's not being scuppered by COVID, of course. But in ordinary times, we do extra stuff. So find out more about Untrapped on the website, untrapped.com.au. You can also find a link from Insta. So, I think that's a run through all of the preamble. 0:05:23.5 Louise: Now, we arrive at the exciting time. I am so excited to bring you today's episode. You would have heard of the Fat Doctor UK by now, because she burst onto the internet a few months ago. And it seems like she's everywhere and she is loud and she is angry and she's a GP. So, here we have a very fierce, fat-positive voice, straight out of the UK medical profession, which is sorely needed. And I've just got so much admiration for Natasha and everything that she's doing. And I was actually listening to the Mindful Dietician podcast when I first heard Natasha being interviewed by the wonderful, Fi Sutherland. And during that conversation, she mentioned an awful situation in the UK where two kids were removed from their family for being fat. 0:06:13.9 Louise: And I'd actually seen that story and was so horrified that I kind of shelved it a way. But hearing Natasha talk about it and what she decided to do about it herself, it just inspired me. I just knew I had to talk to her. So this episode is everything. It's a long one, and it's a bloody rollercoaster. We go a lot of places during this epic, fantastic conversation. So you are going to laugh, you are going to cry. You're gonna cry more than once, because I know I did. You're gonna be absolutely furious, because just what we're talking about is just so horrific. We are in the 21st century and kids are being removed from loving homes simply because of BMI and a failure to do the impossible, which is lose weight and keep it off via the epic fail of dieting. 0:07:06.8 Louise: So look, this is really a challenging episode to listen to. It's a horrible story but the conversation with The Fat Doctor, Natasha herself is nothing short of inspiring. This woman is on a crusade. She has got heaps of other people involved in changing the landscape in a meaningful way. She is a real champion in the UK and across the planet, and I know you're gonna enjoy this conversation, but have some tissues close by and keep your slow breathing going to help contain the rage 'cause it's real. So without further ado, I give you me and The Fat Doctor herself, Natasha Larmie. So Tash, thank you so much for coming on the show. 0:07:49.0 Natasha Larmie: Thank you so much for having me, I am so excited. Due to the time difference, it's past midnight now and I've never been this awake past midnight before, so I'm really looking forward to this talk. 0:07:58.8 Louise: Oh my god, I am so impressed with your fired up-ness. [laughter] [laughter] 0:08:04.6 Louise: Tell me what is firing you up. 0:08:07.3 NL: Just in general or specifically about this case? 'Cause obviously a lot of things are firing me up, but I mean, obviously... 0:08:11.7 Louise: Yes. 0:08:12.5 NL: We wanna talk about this particular case that's firing me up. 0:08:16.3 Louise: Yes, what is this case? 0:08:17.9 NL: Yeah, what's going on with this case. So I think it was back in September, October last year that it happened, but I became aware of it a few months later, where two young people, one was actually over the age of 16 and his sibling, his younger sibling is under the age of 16, had been removed from a very loving home, for all intents and purposes, a very loving, happy home and placed into foster care by a judge simply because they were fat, and there is really no other reason at all. There was no other signs of child abuse, neglect, physical abuse, emotional abuse, nothing. It's just because they were fat and they failed to lose weight, a judge removed them from a loving home and placed them in foster care, and the older sibling, I think he's 16, 17, didn't actually have to go in because he was too old and the younger girl, she's 13, and she was removed from her home. 0:09:11.5 NL: And when I read about it I think I was so disgusted, it sort of broke... One newspaper reports on it in the UK, and it was several weeks later I guess, because the court transcript had come out, and I read it, I read the article, and I just thought, "Well, this is just the press over-exaggerating." And then someone said... One friend of mine sent me a text message saying, "No, no, no, just read the court's transcript. Transcript, read it," and sent me a link to the court transcript. I read the whole thing and within an hour I think I read the whole thing, and I was in tears. I was so full of rage that I just felt like something had to be done and started a petition. Have tried really hard to get answers, to push people to look into this case but unfortunately, haven't got very far because we're dealing with people who have very much kind of shut us down and have said, "It's not your concern. This is a judge who made this decision and there's nothing you can do about it." 0:10:05.4 Louise: Really? 0:10:05.7 NL: So I'm pretty fired up. Yeah. 0:10:07.2 Louise: Oh, god. Oh, I mean, when you say it out loud, like my whole body is responding. When I read the court transcripts last night, I put it off because I knew that I just probably would have a massive reaction and I was crying too, because this transcript is literally fucking heartbreaking. 0:10:26.5 NL: Tears. 0:10:27.2 Louise: That they're all admitting that this is... No one wants to be split up, they love each other but there's this stupid idea, as if everybody is completely unaware of science and weight science and how fucked dieting is. 0:10:41.5 NL: Yeah. 0:10:42.2 Louise: And how it doesn't fucking work. 0:10:44.4 NL: No. 0:10:44.7 Louise: And it's in a pandemic. 0:10:46.0 NL: Yeah, yeah. 0:10:46.7 Louise: If I fail to lose weight in a lockdown, when the world was going mad... 0:10:51.6 NL: And I mean, actually, the story begins I think 10 years previously, the story begins when they were three and six. These were two children, a three-year-old and a six-year-old who were picked up most likely because... I don't know if it's the same in Australia, but in the UK we have a screening program, so in year one, which is between the age of five and six, you are weighed and measured by a school nurse, and they... 0:11:13.4 Louise: Really? 0:11:13.9 NL: Yeah. And do you not have that? No. 0:11:15.6 Louise: No. 0:11:15.7 NL: We have. This is the National Child Measurement Programme, there's a acronym, but I didn't bother to learn. 0:11:21.2 Louise: Oh my god. 0:11:21.6 NL: But it happens in year one, which is when you're between five and six, and again in year six, which is when you're between 10 and 11. 0:11:29.0 Louise: Oh Christ. 0:11:29.2 NL: Two of the worst times to weigh people... 0:11:30.0 Louise: Correct, yeah. 0:11:32.0 NL: If you're think about it, because of course, especially around the 10, 11 stage some people are heading towards puberty, pre-puberty, some people are not, and so those that are heading towards pre-puberty will often have gained quite a bit of weight because you know that always happens before you go through puberty, you kind of go out before you go up, and that's completely normal, but they get penalised. But anyway, so I imagine... I don't know, because that's not actually in the transcripts but I'm guessing that at six, the older sibling, the boy was shown to be grossly overweight or whatever they call it, morbidly obese. They probably just measured his BMI, even though he was six, they probably measured it, which is just ridiculous 'cause that's not what BMI is for, and rather than looking at growth charts, which is what we should be doing at that age, they will have just sent a letter home and the teachers would have got involved and somewhere along the line, social services would have been called just because of the weight, nothing else, just because of the weight, and social services... 0:12:25.8 Louise: Just because of the percentile of a BMI. 0:12:28.5 NL: That was all it was. It was just weight. There was literally no concerns of ever been raised about these kids apart from their weight. And at the age of three and six, social services got involved and started forcing these children to diet, and they will say that's not what they did, they tried to promote healthy eating, but when you take a three-year-old and a six-year-old and you tell them... You restrict what they eat, you force them to exercise, and you tell them there's something wrong with them, you are putting them on a diet at the age of three to six, and we know, for sure, with evidence, you know, I know, and everyone listening should know by now that when you put young children on a diet like that at such a young age and you make such a big deal out of their weight, they are going to develop disordered eating patterns, and they are going to... 0:13:06.8 Louise: Of course. 0:13:07.8 NL: Gain weight, so... 0:13:09.3 Louise: They're going to instead, that's a trauma process happening. 0:13:12.2 NL: That's true. Yeah, it's... 0:13:13.8 Louise: A trauma to get child protective services involved. 0:13:17.8 NL: Yeah, and live there for 10 years, and then... 0:13:21.4 Louise: Ten years? 0:13:22.5 NL: Got to the stage where they took the proceedings further and further, so that they kept getting more and more involved. And eventually, they decided to make this a child protection issue. Up until that point, child social services were involved, but then, about a year before the court proceedings, something like that, before the pandemic. What happened then was that they gave these children a set amount of time to lose weight, and they enforced it. They bought them Fitbits so that they could monitor how much exercise they were doing, they bought them gym subscriptions, they sent them to Weight Watchers. [chuckle] 0:13:55.9 Louise: Fantastic, 'cause we know that works. 0:13:58.4 NL: We know that works. And of course, as you said, it was during a lockdown. So, Corona hits and there was lockdown, there was schools were closed, and for us, it was really quite a difficult time. And in spite of all of that... 0:14:13.0 Louise: I can't believe it. 0:14:14.9 NL: When the children failed to lose weight, the judge decided that it was in their best interest to remove them from their loving parents. And dad, from what I can tell from the court transcripts. I don't know if you noticed this as well. I think mom was trying very hard to be as compliant as possible. 0:14:26.9 Louise: She was, and even she lost weight, the poor thing. 0:14:30.0 NL: Yes, but I think dad almost seems to be trying to protect them, saying, "This is ridiculous. You can't take my kids away just because of their weight," and I... 0:14:38.1 Louise: Seems like he was in denial, which I fully understand. 0:14:41.1 NL: I would be too, I would be outraged. And it sounds like this young girl... I don't know much about the boy, but from what I can see from the transcripts, this young girl really became quite sad and low and depressed, and obviously, shockingly enough, her self esteem has been completely ruined by this process. 0:14:58.7 Louise: I know, I know. I really saw that in the transcript. This poor little girl was so depressed and getting bullied. And in the transcript, the way that that is attributed to her size and not what abuse they're inflicting on this family. 0:15:13.3 NL: Right. Yeah, really quite shocking. And then of course, the other thing you probably noticed from the transcript is there is no expert testimony at this court proceeding. None whatsoever. There is no psychologist. 0:15:24.0 Louise: Actually, there was. 0:15:25.8 NL: There was... 0:15:26.6 Louise: Dr... What's her name? 0:15:29.4 NL: Yes. You're right, there was a psychologist, and you're absolutely right. She was not an eating disorder specialist or a... She was just a psychologist. 0:15:37.3 Louise: She's a clinical psychologist. Dr. Van Rooyen, and she's based in Kent, and she does court reports for child abuse. Yes, and I can see her weight stigma in there. She's on the one hand acknowledging that the kids don't wanna go, that the kids will suffer mentally from being removed, but you can also see her unexamined weight stigma. And that you're right, where the hell are the weight scientists saying, "Actually, it's biologically impossible to lose weight and maintain it"? Because in the transcripts, they do mention that the kids have lost weight, failed to keep it off. 0:16:16.5 NL: Exactly, exactly. And it's just shocking to me that there would be such a lack of understanding and no desire to actually establish the science or the facts behind this. If I was a judge... I'm not a judge, I'm not an expert, but if I was a judge and I was making a decision to remove a child from a home based purely on the child's inability to lose weight, I would want to find out if it was possible that this child simply couldn't lose weight on their own. I would want to consult experts. I would want to find out if there was a genetic condition. I'm not saying she has a genetic condition. You and I know that she doesn't need to have a genetic condition in order to struggle to lose weight, that actually, the psychology behind this explains it. But even if you've not got to that stage yet, there was no doctors, there was no dietitians, there was no... No one was consulted. It was a psychologist who had no understanding of these specific issues, who, as you said, was clearly biased. There was social workers who said, "We've done everything we can because we've given them a Fitbit and we've sent them to Weight Watchers and sent them to the gym, but they refuse to comply." 0:17:24.9 Louise: I know. It's shocking. 0:17:28.4 NL: Yeah, it strikes me that we live in a world where you just can get away with this. It's just universally accepted that being fat is bad, and it's also your fault, your responsibility. The blame lies solely on the individual, even if that individual is a three-year-old child, it is. And if it's not the child, then of course, it's the parent. The parent has done something wrong. 0:17:52.1 Louise: Specifically the mother, okay. 0:17:53.5 NL: The mother, yeah. 0:17:54.4 Louise: The one with the penis, okay, let's not talk about him, 'cause that was absent. It was the mom. And the only possibility that was examined in this is that it's mom's fault for not being compliant, like you said. That's the only thing. Nothing else like the whole method is a stink-fest of ineffective bullshit. 0:18:13.5 NL: And there's the one point in the transcript when they talk about the fact that she had ice cream or chips or something in the house. 0:18:19.7 Louise: That's Ms. Keeley, their social worker, who went in and judged them. And did you notice that she took different scales in during that last visit? That last visit that was gonna determine whether or not they'd be removed, she took different scales in and weighed them. And they say, "Look, we acknowledge that that could've screwed up the results, but we're just gonna push on with removal." 0:18:43.0 NL: It was their agenda. 0:18:45.0 Louise: It was. It's terrifying, and it's long-term foster care for this poor little girl who doesn't wanna leave her mom. I'm so fired up about this, because the impact of removing yourself from your home because of your body, how on earth is this poor kid gonna be okay? 0:19:05.7 NL: This is my worry. How is mom going to be okay? How is that boy going to be okay? And how is that young, impressionable girl... My oldest son is a little bit older, and my younger son is a little bit younger, she's literally in between the two, and I'm watching what the last two years or last year and a half has done to them in terms of their mental and emotional well-being. And to me, even without social services' involvement, my children's mental health has deteriorated massively. And I cannot even begin to comprehend what this poor girl is going through. I cannot imagine how traumatized she is, and I cannot see how is she ever going to get over this, because she's been going through it since she was three, and it's not at the hand of a parent, it's at the hand of a social worker, it is the social worker's negligence. And what's interesting is a lot of social workers and people who work in social services have reached out to me since I first talked about this case, and they have all said the same thing, the amount of weight stigma in social services in the UK is shocking. It is shocking. It is perfectly acceptable to call parents abusers just because their children are overweight. 0:20:21.8 Louise: Jesus. 0:20:22.2 NL: No other reason, just your child is over the limit, is on the 90th percentile or whatever it is, your child is overweight and therefore you as a mother, usually as you said, it's a mother, are an abusive mother, because you've brought your child up in a loving environment but they failed to look the way that you want them to look, that's it. 0:20:41.0 Louise: Okay. So, that's me, right. My eldest is in the 99th percentile, so I am an abuser, I'm a child abuser. 0:20:47.3 NL: Child abuser, I can't believe I'm probably talking to one. 0:20:49.3 Louise: I know. [laughter] 0:20:49.9 NL: I can't believe I'm probably talking to one. And you know, the irony, my son's been really poorly recently and he's been up in... I mean we've spent most of our life in the hospital the last few weeks, and... 0:20:58.1 Louise: Oh dear. 0:20:58.3 NL: Went to see a paediatrician and they did the height and weight, and he is on the 98th percentile, my son has a 28-inch waist. He is a skeleton at the moment because he's been really ill, but he is mixed race, and we all know that the BMI is not particularly... 0:21:12.9 Louise: It's racist. 0:21:13.2 NL: Useful anyway, but it's massively racist, so my children have always been, if you weigh them, a lot heavier than they look, because I mean he's... There isn't an ounce of fat on him. My point is that BMI is complete utter bullshit and it doesn't deserve to exist. The fact that we've been using up until now is shameful and as a doctor, I cannot accept that we use this as a measure of whether a person is healthy and certainly as a measure of whether a child is healthy, because until recently, we were told you don't do BMIs on anyone under the age of 16 but that's just gone out the window now, everyone... 0:21:48.5 Louise: I know. 0:21:48.6 NL: Gets a BMI, even a six-year-old. 0:21:50.1 Louise: You get a BMI, you get a BMI. [laughter] I think it's not supposed to be used for an individual anything, it's a population level statistic. 0:22:01.1 NL: And a pretty crappy one at that. 0:22:02.3 Louise: It's a shitty one. 0:22:02.6 NL: It is like you said. 0:22:04.2 Louise: Yes. 0:22:04.6 NL: It's based on what European men, it's not particularly useful for men, it's not particularly useful for any other race, it's just useful perhaps. Even when it came out, like even when... What's his face? I forget his name right now, Ancel Keys. When he did that study that first look, brought in the BMI into our medical world as it were, yeah, even he said at the time it was alright. It's not the best, it's not the worst, it will do. It's the best out of the bunch. I mean he didn't even have much enthusiasm at the time. He said specifically it's not meant to be used as an individual assessment. And even the guy who kind of didn't invent it, but he sort of invented it as a measure of "obesity" and yet... And even he didn't have much good stuff to say about it. If he was selling the latest iPhone, Apple would have a lot to say about that. [laughter] I just... This fact that we've become obsessed and we know why this is. We know this is because of the diet industry, we know this is because of people trying to make money out of us and succeeding, very successful at making money out of us. 0:23:02.9 Louise: It's actually terrifying how successful this is because when I read this transcript, I've been doing a lot of work against the Novo Nordisk impact and how our modern oh, narrative has been essentially created by the pharmaceutical company that's producing all of the weight loss drugs, they have 80% of the weight loss drugs market and they've shamelessly said in their marketing that this is their drive to increase... That it's to create a sense of urgency for the medical management of obesity. And here it is, this is where it bleeds, because they're telling us this bullshit that it's going to reduce stigma. No, it's going to create eugenics. This is hideous what's happening here and I can't believe that the world didn't stop and that the front page of newspapers aren't saying like get fucked, like get these kids back. There's no outrage. 0:24:04.2 NL: No, there is none whatsoever. We got just over 2,000 people supporting the petition and as grateful as I am for that, that's just what the fuck, that's 2,000 people who live in a country of 68 million and only 2,000 people had something to say about this and, we... That's how much we hate fat kids and how much we hate fat people. We just don't see them as worthy and nobody wants to defend this young girl, nobody sort of feels sorry for her and I just... I can't get my head around this whole thing. It's funny because I didn't really know about it, a year ago I was completely clueless. It's all happened rather quickly for me that I've begun to understand Haze and begun to understand who Novo Nordisk was and what they are doing and what Semaglutide actually is and how it's going to completely change the world as we know it. 0:24:56.5 NL: I think this particular drug is going to become part of popular culture in the same way that Viagra is, we use that word now in novels and in movies. It's so popular and so understood, nobody talks about... I don't know, give me a name of any drug, like some blood pressure medication, they don't talk about it in the same way they talk about Viagra. But Semaglutide is going to be that next drug because they have tapped into this incredibly large population of people who are desperate to lose weight and they've got this medication that was originally used to treat diabetes, just like Viagra was originally used to treat blood pressure and have said, "Wow, look at this amazing side effect. It makes people lose weight as long as you run it. Let's market this." And the FDA approved it. I mean, no... 0:25:45.1 Louise: I know. 0:25:45.8 NL: No thought as to whether or not this drug is gonna have a massive impact on people in their insulin resistance and whether they're gonna develop diabetes down the line. I don't think they care. I don't think anybody actually cares. I think it's just that everybody is happy, woo-hoo, another way to treat fat people and make a good deal of money out of it. 0:26:03.9 Louise: Right? So, Semaglutide is... It's the latest weight loss drug to be approved by the FDA from Novo Nordisk and it is like the Mark II. So, they were selling Saxenda, Saxenda's here in Australia, they're pushing it out and this Semaglutide is like the Mark II, like I think of Saxenda as like Jan Brady, and Semaglutide is like Marcia. [laughter] 0:26:29.3 Louise: 'Cause it's like, "Oh my God, look at Semaglutide. Look at this amazing one year trial." [laughter] Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, like oh my God, we can make so much weight loss happen from this intervention. Why? Why do we need all of this weight loss, all these percentages? And, "Oh, we can lose 15% and 20%," and we don't need to for health, but okay. 0:26:53.3 NL: Yeah. The other thing that we have to remember about it, I don't think it's actually that much better. I've used all of these drugs in treating diabetes. So many years, I used these drugs. The beauty of it, of course, is that it's a tablet, and Saxenda is an injection. I'm assuming you have the injectable form, yeah? 0:27:09.9 Louise: That's right. You have to inject, and it's very expensive. 0:27:14.0 NL: It's extremely expensive, as will... Marcia Brady will be more expensive, I'm sure. 0:27:18.6 Louise: So high maintenance. [chuckle] 0:27:20.2 NL: Absolutely, but she is easier to administer. A lot of people don't like the idea of injecting themselves, but taking a tablet is dead easy. So, that's what makes this special, as it were, because it's the only one of that whole family that is oral, as opposed to injectable. 0:27:37.6 Louise: Well, that's interesting, because the paper with all of the big, shiny weight loss was injectable, it wasn't tablet. 0:27:43.7 NL: Oh, really? Oh, but they're marketing it as the oral version, definitely. That's the one that's got approved. It's brand name is... 0:27:51.3 Louise: Wegovy. 0:27:52.2 NL: Oh no, well, I have a completely different brand name. Is it different, maybe, in Australia? 0:27:57.1 Louise: Well, this is in America. In Australia, they haven't cornered us yet. I'm sure that they're trying to do it, but it was the FDA approval for Wegovy, [0:28:05.4] ____. 0:28:05.9 NL: So, they obviously changed the name. That's not the same one we use in diabetes. Clearly, they've had to revamp it a bit. Irrespective of oral, injectable, whatever, I think that this is going to... Novo Nordisk is sitting on a gold mine, and they know it. And it's going to change our lives, I think, because bariatric surgery is quite a big thing, and it's something that often people will say, "I'm not keen on doing." And the uptake is quite low still, and so, in bariatric... 0:28:35.2 Louise: In the UK, not here. 0:28:36.2 NL: Yeah, [chuckle] yeah, but bariatric surgeons are probably very afraid right now, because there's drugs coming along and taking all of their business away from them. 0:28:43.5 Louise: Actually, you know what Novo were doing? They're partnering with the bariatric surgeons. 0:28:46.2 NL: Of course they are. 0:28:46.9 Louise: And they're saying to them, "Hey, let's use your power and kudos, and our drugs can help your patients when they start to regain." 0:28:56.4 NL: Oh my gosh. 0:28:58.0 Louise: It's literally gateway drug. Once you start using a drug to reduce your weight, you have medicalized your weight, and it's a small upsell from there. So, I think this is all part of a giant marketing genius that is Novo Nordisk. But I'm interested to hear your concerns, 'cause I'm concerned as well with the use of diabetes drugs as weight loss medications, and I read about it being that they're hoping that people will take this drug like we take statins. So, everyone will take it preventatively for the rest of their lives. What's the long-term impact, do you think, of taking a double dose of a diabetes drug when you don't have diabetes? 0:29:43.5 NL: Well, first of all, they don't know. Nobody knows, because they've only done a study for a year, and just how many diet drugs have we put out there into the universe since the 1970s, and then taken them back a few years later, 'cause we've gone, "Oh, this kills"? If you've got diabetes and you take this drug because you've got insulin resistance and this drug helps you to combat your insulin resistance in the way that it works, you've already got diabetes. And so, there is no risk of you developing diabetes, and this drug does work, and so, I have no issue with the GLP-1 analogs in their use in diabetes. I think all the diabetes drugs are important, and I'm not an expert. But you've really got to ask yourself, if you take a healthy body and you act on a system within the pancreas and within the body, in a healthy, essentially, healthy body, healthy pancreas, you've got to ask yourself if it's going to worsen insulin resistance over time. It's actually going to lead to increased cases of diabetes. Now, they say it won't, but... 0:30:47.4 Louise: How do they know that? 'Cause I've read a study by Novo, sponsored, in rats, that showed that it did lead to insulin resistance long-term. 0:30:57.6 NL: Right, I think common sense, because we understand that the way that the body works, just common sense. The way the body works suggests to me that over long periods of time, taking this medication in a healthy person is going to lead to increased insulin resistance, which in turn will lead to diabetes. That is what common sense dictates. But of course, as you said, we don't know. We don't have a study. Nobody has looked into this. And it makes me sad that we are using a drug to treat a condition that isn't a condition. 0:31:30.2 Louise: I know, yeah. [chuckle] 0:31:32.4 NL: And inadvertently, potentially giving people a whole... 0:31:36.0 Louise: Creating a condition. 0:31:36.6 NL: Creating an actual medical condition, which we all know to be life-threatening if untreated. And so, I cannot fathom why... Well, I can, I understand. It's for financial reasons only, but I can't understand why there are doctors out there that want to prescribe this. This is the issue that I have. I'm a doctor, and I can't speak on behalf of drug companies or politicians or anyone else, but I can speak to what doctors are supposed to be doing, and we have a very strong code of conduct that we have to abide by. We have ethical and moral principles and legal obligations to our patients. And so, doing no harm and doing what is in your patients' best interest, and practising fairly and without discrimination, and giving people... Allowing them to make an informed choice where they are aware of the risks and the side effects and all the different treatment options. 0:32:28.0 NL: When it comes to being fat, again, it seems to have gone out the window. None of these things are happening. We wouldn't dream of addressing other issues this way, it's just fatness, because it's just so commonly, widely accepted that fatness is bad and you've got to do whatever you can to get rid of it. I've had someone tell me today that they are pregnant with their first child and they had their first conversation with the anesthetist, who told them they had to do whatever they could to lose weight before they had their baby. This is a pregnant woman. 0:32:58.1 Louise: Whatever they had to do? 0:33:00.1 NL: Whatever they had to do, and she said, "What do you want me to do, buy drugs off the streets?" And the anesthetist said... Wait for it. The anesthetist said, "It would be safer for you to use a Class A drugs than it would for you to be fat in pregnancy". The anesthetist said that to this woman. She told me this and I just went "Please just... Can you just report him?" 0:33:21.7 Louise: Shut the front door, Jesus Christ! 0:33:24.6 NL: Can you imagine? First of all, that's not true. Second of all, he is saying that it is better to be a drug addict than to be a fat person. This is no judgment on drug addicts, but you do not encourage your patients to use Class A drugs to lose weight. That's stupid. Imagine if he'd said that about anything else, but in his... And it was a man, in his world, for whatever reason, his ethics just abandons them all in favor of fat shaming a woman. 0:33:52.4 Louise: This is where we're at with, it's self examined. It's like there's a massive black hole of stigma just operating unchallenged effortlessly and actually growing, thanks to this massive marketing department, Novo. It's terrify... That poor lady, I'm so glad she's found you and I hope she's not gonna go down the Class A drug route. [laughter] 0:34:19.3 NL: She's definitely not, but she was quite traumatized. She's on a Facebook group that I started and it's great because it's 500 people who are just so supportive of each other and it was within a few minutes 50 comments going "What a load of crap, I can't believe this," "You're great, this doctor is terrible". But it just stuck to me that one of my colleagues would dare, would have the audacity to do something as negligent as that. And I'm gonna call it what it is. That's negligence. But I'm seeing it all the time. I'm seeing it in healthcare, I'm seeing it in Social Services, I'm seeing it in schools, I'm seeing it in the workplace, I'm seeing it everywhere. You cannot escape it. And as a fat person, who was in the morbidly, super fat, super obese stage where she's just basically needs to just be put down like a... 0:35:16.3 Louise: Oh my gosh, it's awful. 0:35:18.5 NL: And as that person, I hear all of these things and I just think "I'm actually a fairly useful member of society, I've actually never been ill, never required any medication, managed to give birth to my children, actually to be fair, they had to come out my zip as opposed to through the tunnel." But that wasn't because I was fat, that was because they were awkward. But this anesthetist telling this woman that she's too fat to have a baby. I was just like "But I am the same weight. I am the same BMI as you". And I had three and I had no problems with my anesthetics. In fact after my third cesarean section, I walked out the hospital 24 hours later, happy as Larry, didn't have any problems. And I know people who were very, very thin that had a massive problems after their cesarean. So there's not even evidence to show how dangerous it is to have a BMI over 35 and still... And then caught when it comes to an anesthetic. This isn't even evidence-based, it's just superstition at this point. 0:36:12.8 Louise: It's a biased based and the guidelines here in Australia, so I think above 35 women are advised to have a cesarean because it's too dangerous. And women are not allowed to give birth in rural hospitals, they have to fly to major cities. So imagine all of... And don't even get me started on bias in medical care for women. It's everywhere, like you said, and it's unexamined and all of this discrimination in the name of, apparently, healthcare. It's scary. 0:36:43.9 NL: It really is. Gosh, you've got me fired up, it's almost 1:00 in the morning and I'm fired up. I'm never gonna get to sleep now. [laughter] 0:36:51.7 Louise: Okay, I don't wanna tell you this, but I will. 'Cause we're talking about how on earth is this possible, like why aren't there any medical experts involved to talk about this from a scientific basis, and I'm worried that even if they did have medical people in the court, they wouldn't have actually stuck up for the kid. I found this JAMA article from 2011. It's a commentary on whether or not large kids should be removed from their families, and it was supportive of that. 0:37:18.0 NL: Oh gosh. Of course it was. 0:37:22.0 Louise: And in response to that commentary, the medpage, which is a medical website, a newsletter kind of thing. They did a poll of health professionals asking should larger kids removed from their families, and 54% said yes. 0:37:40.7 NL: Of course. 0:37:41.3 Louise: I know. Isn't that dreadful? One comment on that said "It seems to me the children in a home where they have become morbidly obese might be suffering many other kinds of abuse as well, viewing in the size of a child. 'Cause we've all gotten bigger since the '80s. We're a larger population and viewing that as abuse and as a fault of parenting. Unbelievable. I also had a little dig around Australia, 'cause it's not isolated in the UK, there's so many more cases. 0:38:16.9 NL: They have. Yeah. 0:38:17.8 Louise: And I think actually in the UK, it might be a lot more common than in Australia. 0:38:22.1 NL: Yeah, I can believe that. 0:38:23.5 Louise: But it did happen here in 2012, there was some report of two children being removed from their families because of the size of the kids. And the media coverage was actually quite dreadful. I'll put in the show notes, this article, and the title is "Victorian authorities remove obese children, removed from their parents". So even the title is wrong, couldn't even get their semantics right. There's a picture, you can imagine what picture would accompany... 0:38:55.2 NL: Well of course it can't be of the actual children, because I think it leads to lawsuit. I'm assuming it's a belly. Is there a belly? Is there a fat person in it or a fat child eating a burger? 0:39:06.2 Louise: Yes. [laughter] 0:39:07.1 NL: Sorry, it's either the belly or the fat person eating the burger. So, a fat child eating the burger, sorry. 0:39:11.9 Louise: Helpfully, to help the visually impaired, the picture had caption and the caption reads "Overweight brother and sister sitting side by side on a sofa eating takeaway food and watching the TV." So not at all stereotyped, very sensitive, nuanced article this one. And then we hear from Professor John Dixon, who is a big part of obesity Inc here in Australia. He told the ABC that "Sometimes taking children away from their parents is the best option." In the same article, he also admits "There's no services available that can actually help kids lose weight", and he says that it's not the parents fault. Helpfully, this article also states that "Obesity is the leading cause of illness and death in Australia." [laughter] 0:39:58.7 NL: I love it when I hear that. How have they figured that out? What do they do to decide that? Where does this... 0:40:08.4 Louise: They don't have to provide any actual evidence. 0:40:10.5 NL: Right. They just say it. 0:40:12.1 Louise: Got it. 0:40:13.0 NL: Just say it. 0:40:14.4 Louise: Diet. And I checked just to make sure, 'cause in case I've missed anything. 0:40:18.4 NL: Yeah. 0:40:19.6 Louise: The top five causes of death in Australia in 2019; heart disease, number two dementia, number three stroke, number four malignant neoplasm of trachea bronchus and lung. 0:40:30.4 NL: Lung cancer. 0:40:30.9 Louise: Lung cancer. 0:40:31.5 NL: That's lung cancer. 0:40:32.3 Louise: And number five chronic lower respiratory disease. 0:40:38.4 NL: So translation. Heart attacks, dementia... In the UK it's actually dementia first, then heart attacks. So dementia, heart attacks, stroke, same thing in the UK, and then lung cancer and COPD. Both of those are smoking-related illnesses. And I can say quite safely that they are smoking-related illness because the chance of developing lung cancer or COPD if you haven't smoked is minuscule. So what the people are doing is they're saying, "Well, we can attribute all of these heart attacks and strokes and dementia to "obesity". And the way we can do that is we just look at all these people that have died, and if they are fat we'll just assume it's their fat that caused their heart disease. 0:41:20.0 NL: To make it very clear to everybody that is listening, if you have a BMI of 40, we can calculate your risk of developing a heart attack or a stroke over the next 10 years using a very sophisticated calculator actually, it's been around for some time. It's what we use in the UK. I'm assuming Australia has a similar one, don't know what it's called there. In the UK it's called a QRISK. So I've done this. I have calculated. I have found a woman, I called her Jane. I gave her a set of blood pressure and cholesterol, and I filled in a template. And then I gave her a BMI of 20. And then I gave her a BMI of 40. And I calculated the difference in her risk. I calculated the difference in her risk, and the difference in her risk was exactly 3%. The difference in her risk if she was a smoker was 50%. She was 50% more likely to have a heart attack if she was a smoker, but only 3% more likely to have a heart attack if she had a BMI of 40 instead of a BMI of 25. 0:42:15.0 NL: To put it into perspective, she was significantly more likely to have a heart attack if she was a migraine sufferer, if she had a mental health condition, if she had lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, if she was Asian, if she was a man, and all of those things dramatically increased her risk more than having a BMI of 40. So it's just very important that doctors will admit, 'cause it's about admitting to a simple fact, this calculator we use to predict people's risks. So if we know that weight only has a 3-4% impact on our cardiovascular risk as opposed to smoking which has a 50% impact, as opposed to aging which is why most people die because they get old and let's face it everybody dies some time. 0:43:04.0 NL: So what's happening is the... Whoever they are, are taking all these deaths from heart disease which was likely caused by the person aging, by the person being male or just being old and being over the age of 75, your risk of heart disease goes up massively irrespective of your weight. So instead of saying, "Well, it's just heart disease", they've gone, "Well, it's heart disease in a fat person and therefore it was the fatness that caused the heart disease." And that is offensive to me to the point that now, I have heard... And this is awful in this year, our patients that are dying of COVID, if they die of COVID in the UK, it's actually quite heart breaking, it's happened to someone that I was close to. If they die of COVID in the UK, and they happen to be fat, the doctor writes "obesity" on their death certificate... 0:43:51.8 Louise: No way. 0:43:52.4 NL: As a cause of death. They died of COVID. 0:43:55.2 Louise: What? 0:43:55.5 NL: They died of COVID. That's what they died of. They died of this terrible virus that is killing people in their droves but people are under the misguided impression that being fat predisposes you to death from COVID, which is not true. It's not true. That is a complete gross misrepresentation of the facts. But we've now got doctors placing that on a person's death certificate. Can you imagine how that family feels? Can you imagine what it feels like to get this death certificate saying, "Your family member is dead from COVID but it's their fault 'cause they were obese." And how can the doctor know? How could the doctor know that? 0:44:34.2 Louise: How can they do that? 0:44:35.6 NL: How can they do that? And this is my point, this doctor that's turning around and saying it's safer for children to be removed from their loving home. Obviously, this person has no idea of the psychological consequences of being removed from your family. But it's safer for that person to be removed from their home than to remain in their home and remain fat. What will you achieve? Is this person going to lose weight? No. I can tell you what this person is going to do. This person is going to develop... 0:44:58.9 Louise: They even say that. They even say that in the transcripts. We don't think that they'll get any more supervision. 0:45:03.1 NL: Yeah. In fact, we're gonna get less supervision because it's not a loving parent. You're going to develop, most likely an eating disorder. You're going to develop serious psychological scars. That trauma is going to lead to mental health problems down the line. And chances are you're just gonna get bigger. You're not gonna get smaller because we know that 95% of people who lose weight gain it all back again. We know that two-thirds of them end up heavier. We know that the more you diet, the heavier you're gonna get. And that actually, this has been shown to be like a dose-response thing in some studies. So the more diets you go on, the higher your weight is going to get. If you don't diet ever in your life, chances are you're not gonna have as many weight problems later on down the line. So, as you're saying, we are living in a society that's got fatter. And there's lots of reasons for that. It's got to do with the food that we're eating now. That we're all eating. That we're all consuming. 0:45:55.1 Louise: Food supply. Only some of us will express from there the epigenetic glory of becoming higher weight. 0:46:02.0 NL: Right. And that's the thing, isn't it? Genetics, hormones, trauma, medications. How many people do I know that are on psychiatric medications and have gained weight as a result, Clozapine or... It's just what's gonna happen. You name it. Being female, having babies, so many things will determine your weight. 0:46:21.0 Louise: Getting older. We're allowed to get... We're supposed to get bigger as we get older. 0:46:25.1 NL: And then you know that actually, there are so many studies nowadays, so many studies that we've labeled it now that show that actually being fat can be beneficial to you. There's studies that show that if you end up in ICU with sepsis, you're far more likely to survive if you're fat. If you've got a BMI over 30, you're more likely to survive. There's studies that show that if you have chronic kidney disease and you're on dialysis, the chances of you surviving more long-term are significantly higher if you're fat. Heart failure, kidney disease, ICU admissions, in fact, even after a heart attack, there's evidence to show that you're more likely to survive if you're fat. And they call this the obesity paradox. We have to call it a paradox because we cannot, for one moment, admit that actually there's a possibility that being fat isn't all that bad for you in the first place and we got it wrong. Rather than admit that we got it wrong, we've labeled a paradox because we have to be right here, we have to... 0:47:18.0 Louise: Yeah, it's like how totally bad and wrong, except in certain rare, weird conditions, as opposed to, "Let's just drop the judgment and look at all of this much less hysterically." 0:47:29.5 NL: Yeah. And studies have shown that putting children on a diet, talking about weight, weight-shaming them, weighing them, any of these things, have been linked to and have been demonstrated to cause disordered eating and be a serious risk for direct factor for weight gain. And that, in my opinion, is the important thing to remember in this particular case, because as I said, social services start in weight-shaming, judging, and talking about weight when these children were three and six, and they did that for 10 years. And in doing so, they are responsible for the fact that these children went on to gain weight, because that's what the evidence shows. And there's no question about this evidence, there's multiple papers to back it up. 0:48:14.1 NL: There's an article published in Germany in 2016, there was an article published last year by the University of Cambridge, and even the American Academy of Pediatrics agrees that talking about weight, putting children on a diet, in fact, even a parent going on a diet is enough to damage that child and increase their risk of developing disordered eating patterns and weight gain. 0:48:37.9 NL: And so, as far as I'm concerned, that to me, is evidence enough to say that it's actually social services that should be in front of a judge, not these children, but it's the social workers that should be held to account. And I have written... And this is something that is very important to say. I wrote to the council, the local authority, and I've written a very long letter, I've published it on my website. You can read it anytime, anyone can read it. And I wrote to them and I said, "This is the evidence. Here are all the links. As far as I'm concerned, you guys got it terribly wrong and you have demonstrated that there is a high degree of weight bias that is actually causing damage to children. I am prepared to come and train you for free and teach all of your social workers all about weight bias, weight stigma, and to basically dispel the myths that obviously are pervading your social work department." And they ignored me. I wrote to politicians in the area. They ignored me. I wrote to a counselor who's a member of my political party, who just claimed, "Yeah, I'll look into it for you." Never heard from her again. Yeah, nobody cares. 0:49:44.0 Louise: It's just such a lack of concern. 0:49:45.7 NL: I didn't even do it in a critical way. I had to do it in a kind of, "I will help you. Let me help you. I'm offering my services for free. I do charge, normally, but I'll do it for free for you guys." No one is interested. Nobody wants to know. And that makes me really sad, that they weren't even willing to hear me out. 0:50:03.0 Louise: I can't believe they didn't actually even answer you. 0:50:06.5 NL: Didn't answer me, didn't respond to any of my messages, none of the counselors, none of the... Nobody has responded, and I've tried repeatedly. 0:50:14.4 Louise: So, this is in West Sussex, yeah? 0:50:16.7 NL: That's right, West Sussex, that's right. 0:50:18.0 Louise: You know what's weird about that? I've actually attended a wedding at that council, that my ex-father-in-law got married there. And when I saw the picture there, I'm like, "Oh my God, I've actually been there." So, I had a poke, and I don't know if you know this, but hopefully, in the future, when those children, C and D, finally decide to sue the council, that they can use this as evidence. There is a report from a... It's called a commissioner's progress report on children services in West Sussex from October 2020, which details how awful the service has been for the past few years, and huge issues with how they're running things. And it says, "Quite fragile and unstable services in West Sussex." So, this family who've had their kids removed were being cared for by a service with massive problems, are being referred to programs that don't work, and that there's a massive miscarriage of justice. 0:51:17.3 NL: And I'm glad you're talking about it, and I'm glad we're talking about it. And I wish that we had the platform to talk about it more vocally. I'd want to be able to reach out to these... To see patients... They're not patients, child C and D. I want to be able to reach out to mum as well, and say... 0:51:36.3 Louise: I just wanna land in Sussex and just walk around the street saying, "Where are you? I wanna help." 0:51:40.2 NL: "Where are you? And let me hug you." And I'm very interest to know, I'd be very interested to know the ethnic origin of these young people. 0:51:48.9 Louise: And the socio-economic status of these people. 0:51:50.2 NL: Socio-economic status, 100%. I would very much like to know that. That would make a huge... I think that I can guess, I'm not going to speculate, but I had a very lovely young woman contact me from a... She was now an adult, but she had experienced this as a child. She had been removed from her home and was now an adult, and she had been in foster care, in social services, for a few years, and had obviously contact with her mum but hadn't been reunited with her mum ever. So it wasn't like it was for a time and then she went back. And we talked about this. She was in a London borough, I shall not name the borough, but I know for a fact that her race would've played a role in this, because she was half-Black, half-Turkish. 0:52:39.2 NL: And there're a few things in that court transcript that caught my attention. I don't know if you noticed there was a mention of the smell from the kitchen, and they didn't specifically said, you know, mould, or you know that there was mould in the kitchen, or there was something in the kitchen that was rotting, something like that, 'cause I think they would have specified. It was just a smell. And that made me wonder, is this to do with just the fact that maybe this family lived in poor housing or was it the type of food that they were cooking for their children? Is there a language issue, is there a cultural issue. What exactly is going on? 'cause we don't know that from the court transcript, so that's another thing that... Another piece of the puzzle that I would really be interested in. Is this a white wealthy family? Probably not. I don't think they are. 0:53:27.2 Louise: Yeah it didn't struck me that way either. Yeah, yeah this is potentially marginalization and racism happening that... 0:53:35.1 NL: Yeah. 0:53:35.9 Louise: And here in Australia, we've got an awful history of how we treated First Nations people and we removed indigenous kids from their families, on the basis of like we know better, and I just... Yeah honestly, elements of that here, like we know better. 0:53:51.5 NL: Yes. Right, this is it. We know better than you have to parent your child. I am have always been a big believer of not restricting my children's feed in any way. I was restricted, and I made the decision when we had the kids that there would just be no restriction at all. I have like been one of those parents that had just been like, that's the draw with all the sweet treats in it. They're not called treats, they're just sweets and chocolate and candy, there it is. It's within reachable distance. Help yourself whenever you want, ice pops in the freezer, there's no like you have to eat that to get your pudding. None of that. 0:54:27.6 NL: My kids have just been able to eat whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, I never restricted anything, I wanted them to be intuitive eaters. And of course they are, and what amazes me is now my teenage son, when we were on lockdown, and he was like homeschooled, he would come downstairs, make himself a breakfast, and there was like three portions of fruit and veg on his plate, and not because someone told him that he had to, but just because he knew it was good for him and he knew it was healthy, there was like a selection, his plate was always multi-colored, he was drinking plenty of water. He would go and cook it, he cooked himself lunch, he knew that he can eat sweets and crisps and chocolate whenever he wanted to, and he didn't, he just didn't. Like it was there, that drawn, it gets emptied out because it's become a bit... But no, they don't take it, and sometimes they do, 'cause they fancy it, but most of the times they don't. And that is my decision as a parent, I believe that I have done what is in their best interest, I believe that I will prove over time that this has had a much better impact on their health, not restricting them. 0:55:26.4 Louise: Absolutely, Yeah. 0:55:27.6 NL: But the point is they're my children, and it was my damn choice, and even if my child is on the 98th percentile, it's still my damn choice, nobody gets to tell me how to parent my child. That is my child, I know what's best for them. And I believe that my children are going to prove the fact that this is a great way of parenting, and I know that actually most of their friends who had, were not allowed to eat the food that they wanted to eat used to come over to our house and just kind of like wide eyed. And they binge, they binge, you know, to the point that I have to restrict them and say I actually I don't think mom would like that if I gave that to you. 0:56:00.0 Louise: We know that that's what we do when we put kids in food deserts, we breed binge eating and food insecurity, and trying to teach our kids to have a relaxed and enjoyable relationship with food is what intuitive eating is all about. And without a side salad of fat phobia, we're not doing this relationship with food stuff in order to make sure you're thin, we're doing this to make sure that you feel really safe and secure in the world, and you know health is sometimes controllable and sometimes not, and this kind of mad obsession we have with controlling our food and the ability it will give us like everlasting life is weird. 0:56:39.0 NL: Yeah. 0:56:39.7 Louise: Yeah. Gosh, I'm so glad you're parenting those kids in that way and I've noticed the same thing with my kids. Like my kids, we are a family of intuitive eaters and it's just really relaxed, and there's variety, and they go through these little love affairs with foods, and it's really cute. [chuckle] And they're developing their palettes, and their size is not up to me. 0:57:05.8 NL: Yeah. 0:57:06.4 Louise: Yeah. 0:57:07.4 NL: Right. 0:57:08.1 Louise: It's up to me to help them thrive. 0:57:10.7 NL: That's right. And when people talk about health, I often hear people talking about health, and whenever they ask me that question, you know, surely you can agree that being fat is not good for your health, well, I'll always kinda go, "Oh Really? Could you just do me a favor here and define health?" Because I spend my whole life trying to define health, and I'm not sure that I've got there yet, but I can tell you without a doubt that this for me, in my personal experience as a doctor... And I've been a doctor for a long time now, and I see patients all the time, and I'm telling you that in my experience, the most important thing for your health is your mental and emotional well-being, that if you are not mentally and emotionally well, it doesn't matter how good your cholesterol is, it doesn't matter whether or not you've got diabetes, that is irrelevant, because if you're not mental and emotional... I'm not saying that 'cause you won't enjoy life, I mean, it has an impact on your physical health. And I spend most of my day dealing with either people who are depressed or anxious, and that's what they've presented with, or they've presented with symptoms that are being made worse or exacerbated by their mental and emotional pull, mental and emotional well-being. 0:58:19.1 NL: So giving my children the best start in life has always been about giving them a good mental and emotional well, start. It's about giving... It's not just teaching them resilience, but teaching them to love themselves, to be happy with who they are, to not feel judged or to not feel that they are anything other than the brilliant human beings that they are. And I believe that that is what's going to stand them in the greatest... In the greatest... I've lost my words now, but that's what's gonna get them through life, and that's why they're going to be healthy. And how much sugar they eat actually is quite irrelevant compared to the fact that they love themselves and their bodies, and they are great self-esteem, we all know that happiness is... Happiness is the most important thing when it comes to quality of life and happiness is the most important thing when it comes to length of life and illness, all of it. Happiness trumps everything else. 0:59:07.0 Louise: And to you know what that comes from. Happiness comes from a sense of belonging, belonging in our bodies, belonging in ourselves, belonging in the community, and all of this othering that's happening with the message that everyone belongs unless they're fat. That sucks ass and that needs to stop. This poor little kid when, in the transcript it mentioned that they found a suicide note... 0:59:29.9 NL: Yes. 0:59:30.1 Louise: And some pills. And she's fucking like 13. 0:59:34.8 NL: Yeah, and they called it a cry for help. 0:59:36.0 Louise: They called it cry for help 'cause of her body. 0:59:38.1 NL: Yeah. 0:59:38.4 Louise: They didn't recognize it since they've been sniffing around threatening to take her off her mom, and because she's being bullied for her size at school. This is like a calamitous failure to see the impact of weight stigma. 0:59:52.9 NL: She's been told that it's her fault that she's been taken away from her mum. They had told her that because she didn't succeed in losing weight, that she doesn't get to live with her mother anymore. Can you imagine? 1:00:02.4 Louise: So her mom. I can't even wrap my head around that. I can't. 1:00:07.2 NL: Well, she feels suicidal, I think I would too. I felt suicidal at her age and for a lot less. It's terrible, it's terrible. And I hope she's hanging on and I hope that... 1:00:14.6 Louise: I wanna tell her that she is awesome. 1:00:17.4 NL: Yes. 1:00:17.9 Louise: If she ever gets to listen to this. But I know the impact. So like when I was 11, my mom left and I remember how much it tore out my heart. 1:00:26.4 NL: Yeah. 1:00:26.9 Louise: You're 11... 1:00:27.5 NL: Yeah. 1:00:28.3 Louise: 12, 13. This is not the time to do this to kids, and this whole idea... The judge said something like, "Oh, you know, gosh, this is gonna be bad... " But here it is, I will read it to you. This is... She actually wrote a letter to the kids. 1:00:42.5 NL: Oh, gosh. 1:00:43.7 Louise: "I know you will feel that in making this o

Why do internet trolls have a full-on fascination with fat women? Why do they pretend to care about 'health' when all they're really doing is abusing strangers? Why is it so upsetting for them to see fat people creating awesome online content? And how can trolls access the psychological help they clearly need? Finally, a long-overdue helpline is available for all fatphobe internet bullies! Join me for an epic conversation with Cara Macb, TikTok sensation and CEO of the Overweight Bitches Content Creators Helpline (OBCC). Join us for a HILARIOUS and firey conversation as we deconstruct the psychology of the internet troll. Cara's sense of humour is razor sharp, her satire is ON POINT and she's calling BS on the trolls! Show Transcript (Transcript begins after the general show introduction) Louise: Now, look, I am so excited to bring you this conversation. So a few months ago I was scrolling through Instagram as you do. And I came across this incredibly funny recording from a British comedian called at the time, then Nanny Macb who's now Cara MacB, but she had done this satirical helpline for internet trolls. And I just could not stop laughing. I'm just going to play you a little clip right now. Cara, Youtube Video: "Hello. You're through to the OBCC Overweight Bitches Content Creators helpline. How may I help? Someone on TikTok displaying signs of happiness, despite having a larger body again. I see. Well, let's have a look. So, you say you signed up to a patriarchal beauty ideals plan, are you still happy with that? It's just that lots of people have upgraded because they found that plan quite constricting, between you and me. The company likes to move those goalposts a lot, so it is hard to keep up. You're happy with your existing plan and the daily misery it causes? Fair enough. Oh, you'd like everyone else to move back on to the old plan so they can be miserable too, to help you feel better. Have you tried giving less of a shit about what others do? Tried a bit of trolling to make yourself feel better? Yeah, but it doesn't work. Okay. Well, we're here it you want to upgrade, love. Anytime.” Louise Adams: As soon as I watched that after I finished laughing, I basically contacted Cara to say, please come on this podcast and explain because you are too incredibly funny. There's the satire was on point. I mean, the idea of a helpline for people who are trolling fat people on the internet is just it's gold. It's absolutely. So, I am really looking forward to this, uh, sharing this conversation with you. She's a British Tik TOK star. She's a comedian, she's an antidiet Crusader. And of course, she's now known as Cara underscore B, but we just had the most terrific conversation, which we are really deconstructing those trolls. And it's hilarious. And we also hear about how Cara came to this place. To be so incredibly awesome around all of this. So, I'm very excited and, and now you're going to have fun with this one. So, without further ado, I give you me, Cara. Cara, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming. Cara: Thank you for having me. Louise Adams: All the way from London lockdown. So, tell me what is firing you up? Cara: Well, mostly internet trolls who are...oh, myself being a fat person, the ones that bug me the most are the ones that are coming after larger people. For no reason whatsoever, it seems or they, well, they create their reasons, but I don't ever think any of them are justified. Louise Adams: I could not agree more. I've even... I think a little while ago, one of my friends here in Australia, who's a fat activist came on the show to talk about internet trolling and just how intense it is, and if you are in a larger body doing anything in the public eye, it's like fair game. And like he said, there's no reason that can justify, like when we say trolling, it's just bullying. Cara: Yeah, absolutely. And the problem is half the time as well that they will say... they'll start off with a main comment. And then if you try and challenge them on it, or even try and be a bit funny, which is my go-to, they backtrack and say, "well, I'm just concerned about health". Well, how, if you're concerned about people, coming in with a really nasty comment is not, is not going to change anything, is it? And you know that, yeah. You know, it's such a lie to say, "well, you know, I care about people". No, you don't. You just want to bully and that's that. Louise Adams: Yeah. And on the internet, like it's, it's next level. So, what do you on the, on the internet... I'm so old. You're on TikTok and Instagram. So is that, and I assume Facebook, even though everyone here in Australia is slowly getting kicked off. Cara: Yeah. I know I was reading about that today, it's so awful. Louise Adams: It's weird. But that, those are your kind of platforms. How long have you been on and doing stuff in comedy or just... because it looks like your platform- your platform that is so awesome- and you cover a lot of topics. Cara: I do. Yeah. I mean, I've been told before that I should try and stick to one thing and, and find my niche, but I find that very difficult. I'm a multifaceted person. There's a lot going on and... Louise Adams: we can have many niches. Cara: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, I joined TikTok at the beginning of lockdown last year, 2020. So, that was March. And I didn't even post for a while cause I, I couldn't, I I'm, I'm also getting old. I couldn't figure it out basically so much, but I was enjoying the content, but I was desperate to kind of get involved as well. So, I forced myself to figure it all out and spend time on it. And at first, I sort of started just joining in with the trends that occur on there. And then I thought I've got to start putting out my own stuff cause I'm enjoying being creative and, and you know, performing, I suppose, for want of a better word. I was enjoying doing that again and putting myself out there. So, one night something held me up there's I mean, obviously I follow a lot of body positive, Health at Every Size creators on there and just... looking at the comments are just horrendous. Louise Adams: I know. Cara: Completely disgusting. Louise Adams: It's not on at all. Like hats off, and huge shout out to anyone who's a fat content creator because like its absolute shit, what you have to put up. Not 'have' to put up with, but what hate comes from... Cara: That's what I was going to say. You have to have a thick skin, but actually you shouldn't have to have a thick skin. That's the problem. But, yeah, so I was just, I was completely riled up by it all. And like, as I said, my go-to is just making light of situations with a bit of comedy. And so, yeah, I just, just out of the blue, just tapped something out on the keyboard. Filmed it, did it in one take, put the captions on, posted it before going to bed. It was ridiculous hour of the night as well, because I tend to stay up late so that I have more time to myself and my kids and everyone's in bed and it's quiet. Louise Adams: I can relate. Cara: So, I thought, you know, it's 3:00 AM. Shove that out there. If I wake up in the morning and it's got no views, I'll just delete it. It's fine. And I woke up and it had blown up. Louise Adams: Wow. Cara: And then not only that, there were people asking for more. So, I said, well, okay, well, this is... I can continue with this because I've got lots to talk about. So, yeah, that's how it started. Louise Adams: Okay. And that's the post that was the overweight bitches content creators. Cara: Yeah. Louise Adams: Oh my God. And maybe this is why you resonated so strongly with me because like, I got pissed off the diet culture enough to make a podcast, even though I really am an introvert, and it takes energy and anxiety and all kinds of stuff to put it out. But you did the same thing, right? You just got the shits with something. Cara: Yeah. Louise Adams: And then from the shits came brilliance. Just creative brilliance. Cara: Thank you for saying... yeah, I really didn't expect it to do what it did. I really didn't. But I'm pleased at it did, but yeah, I'm an introvert as well. I'm...you know, that's one of the, one of the reasons why online stuff is great for me, because I can do my little thing while I'm in my little bubble in my little world and then put it out there. It's great. Louise Adams: Yeah. Yeah. But it blew up because it resonated. Like, I do think I love comedy as a way, you know, satire does highlight injustice and I think the British do it better than anyone. Cara: Lots of people have said that, lots of people have said the accent adds to it just because it gives that extra little sting. The extra bit of sass. Louise Adams: Yes. Yes. Because you have a... the way you kind of in a motherly tone let these trolls know maybe it's them? Maybe? Cara: Yeah, yeah. Louise Adams: It's beautiful stuff. So, when you say it blew up, what was that like for you to just be someone who's like, literally just learn TikTok and then boom? Cara: It was bizarre. I mean, I got, I got quite... excuse me. I got quite overwhelmed by it at first because I was kind of... my brain was trying to go, "but why, what is it about this", you know, and obviously the subject matter is important. And I know lots of people talk about that already. But you know, I just didn't understand why that particular thing had hit. And I think for me, because I overanalyze everything and I think of...I overthink things and I'm constantly trying to sort of figure everything out. So, I was obsessed with like, what is this winning secret? Louise Adams: What's the formula? Cara: Yeah, exactly. But I think what it was is just, people had never kind of... other than saying, "well go away, you're not being very nice" or trying to sort of hit these trolls with facts about fat bodies and the fact that like you can be healthy at every size. I don't think anyone had sort of shone a light on why they behave the way they do, or at least, you know, not in a way that had had resonated before. I think, you know, it's very easy to say, you're just being mean, but I mean, maybe it's because I've always worked in childcare. If there's a bad behavior, I've always tried to figure out what's prompted it. There's a need there that's not being met, usually. Yeah. Louise Adams: What is it about you...? Cara: Exactly. So that's why I kind of, you know, was able to kind of deconstruct the troll a bit, I think. And then I think a lot of people were like, that is why they do that. That is it. It is because they're a bit miserable in that, you know, whatever's going on or whatever, in their lives. Louise Adams: Yeah. And it's like, nothing to do with the health. Like that's one of them where you're like, well, if this fat person was to die, are you going to contribute to their funeral costs? Cara: Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Louise Adams: It is not about health concern. And we, you know, lots of people say that, and what is it called? It's called concern trolling. Cara: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Louise Adams: Highlighting that there is no concern here, but there's a troubled human. Cara: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I've got my own experiences to draw it as well, because I've been in a thin body. I've been in a bigger body than this. I've been all over the place. I remember growing up and I was fairly slim for a long time and still feeling that scrutiny on me and my body and because of the behaviors I was modeled growing up, you know, it's okay to look at the fat person and laugh. Or it's okay to look at the person who's wearing shorts when they've got big thighs. Because of all of that, I used to assume that people looked at everybody in that way. Everyone was scrutinizing everyone. And if I saw somebody in a larger body just moving through life, happily carefree, I was confused. I would just look at them and be like, how are you doing this? I don't understand. And then a lot of the time that confusion would bubble up and its habit to then spit out something, some comment, because that's what you've been modeled. So, it's like, well, that person shouldn't be wearing shorts because they're fat. And so, I had, you know, that's the other thing as well. I had my own experiences of being quite mean. I'd like to think I've never actually actively gone and hurt somebody, but the thoughts were there. Thoughts of being like, well, "how dare you exist in public as a fat person? That's not what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be torturing ourselves to not be fat, thank you very much. So, yeah, I found it... I try to sort of assume or not assume, but I try to sort of wonder if maybe that sort of thing is going on within the troll as well. "I've got to attack you for your choices because they don't align with mine". Louise Adams: I just, like, I don't understand. Cause like what you're, I think you're talking about like internalized weight stigma, these messages that we all get. All of us, thin, fat and in-between, all of us get these messages that in diet culture, it's always got to be thin and anyone who's not and isn't trying needs to be put back in their place and reminded of their, you know non-conformity that you've, you've obviously examined that and come to a different conclusion, whereas maybe some of the trolls just haven't. Maybe. Cara: Yeah, I was, I was talking to somebody last night actually about diet culture and how, because we grow up with it, it's just one of those things that just is, it's there. So, we don't think to question it. No, that's just life. And so, when you see somebody who has questioned it and maybe stuck two fingers up, instead of fuck that I'm not doing it, it is, it's jarring. You just don't, you just don't get it. And then you're kind of angry because you're watching them live their best life without this burden that you don't even really know. You have, you know, it's there, but you don't know how to label it or what to do with it. And you're watching somebody move through life without that burden. And there's an anger, there's a jealousy there. And then it's like, "no, no, hold on. I'm going to make sure you come back into this box. I'm going to make sure I tell you that you're wrong. You've got to be back over here in the box conforming with me". That's what I think it is sometimes for some people. Louise Adams: That's a really awesome understanding of it. And that sort of, now I can see how you got the idea of the helpline. Like, there is literally help out there if you're a troll. Cara: Yeah. Louise Adams: Come to nanny and you will explain these things. But I always wonder, you know, cause there's a level of misogyny that you can't ignore in all of this trolling behavior that it's about men controlling often women or, you know, anything different as well too, to just the male, female binary. But what do you think of that, that kind of controlling element with trolls? Cara: I did. I think I did do... one of the OBCC helplines was about this. It was basically saying, "are you really mad at fat people? Or is it just that if you see women existing without a care for continuing to look as thin as possible or to match whatever beauty ideal does your is going on, are you worried that you'll be less able to use that as a form of control?" I mean, I've seen it all the time with friends and family being in relationships. It's like, "Oh, well, you know, so-and-so said I should be watching my weight". Or, you know, "so-and-so said I shouldn't order dessert". I just think, why? Fuck these guys, what are they doing? How dare they, meanwhile, they're off out doing whatever the fuck they want. Louise Adams: Yeah, having twelve beers. Cara: And I remember saying to them, "it's not about your weight. They just want to control you. That's what it is", which obviously didn't go down very well. I did try and be a little more compassionate than that, but yeah, and that's exactly what it is, you know, there's, it's the same thing. It's like control, concern trolling within a relationship, men trying to, you know, find a reason to put women down and that they can keep them feeling not as worthy as they are in order to keep them by their side because not many men are worthy of the presence of a woman in my opinion. Louise Adams: I am just like having a quiet standing ovation here. Thank you. Absolutely true. And you know, it's poignant tonight, you know, in Australia it's the 12-month anniversary of the murder of a woman and her three kids by her violent ex-husband who had been controlling her for years. And it's just such a dreadful story. So traumatic. And what is coming from that is this push to recognize coercive control as abuse and violence. It's staggering to think where in 2021 and you know, there's basic recognition of how men control women is. It's not legislated, it's not recognized. Kind of like, yeah, it's mistaken for, "Oh, I'm just concerned about your health." Yeah, Cara: yeah. It's awful. I was talking on my Instagram the other day, actually about how as women we're conditions to always put other people's feelings before our own. And that includes our comfort. We'll question ourselves and we will dismiss bad behaviors from other people in order to make everyone comfortable. And aside from putting our own comfort aside, we're also conditioned, I think, to be the caregivers for everyone. So, when something happens, if somebody treats you badly, it's like, well, what's the fallout for everyone. It's not just me. It's my family. It's their family. And so, I think things like that are what keep people in abusive situations because we're busy worrying about everybody involved. Not it's not just between the two people. Louise Adams: Hmm. Everyone except ourselves. Cara: Yeah, exactly. Whereas men are not conditioned. They can just move through life and you know, brothers can move away from home and never be responsible for the parents. Whereas women are the ones that are more obligated to stay and keep the families together and stuff. And I think in general, that allows...and a lot of men play on that. They know what's going on. They know they can abuse are our kindness and our compassion and our just willingness to keep the peace, whereas they can just run like a bull through a china shop and not care. Somebody else is going to pick up the pieces. Louise Adams: Yeah. Look, I mean, it's, everything you're saying is so true and it's important to raise awareness of it, which is why, you know...you through the power of humor and satire are rising awareness. That's why you blew up because now's the time. I think a lot of people are waking up and recognizing that control is in a lot of unexpected places. Cara: Yeah. Yeah. Hundred percent. Louise Adams: And pushing back. And I absolutely love what's happening. Like the whole world of body positivity and Health at Every Size and just the right representation of diversity and respect for diversity. It's accompanied by a big push back. Because, you know, when your position of power is threatened, you're gonna, you're going to up the volume on the trolling. Cara: There was a personal trainer who's got quite a large following on Instagram, recently, ranting again about fat people and... Louise Adams: Which one? Cara: Oh, his name is James something. Louise Adams: Yes, I think I've done a podcast...I think I know the one you're talking about. Cara: Yeah. And he was, he was ranting again. And I just thought, dude, your business is not in danger. Like, what are you doing here? You've got plenty of people who do take fitness seriously. You don't have to come after fat people. And you know what, if you are worried about, you know, your income and your industry and everything else, you know what, if you are kinder to people in larger bodies...because people in larger bodies, don't just reject health. You know, there are people who still have fitness goals and things like that. If you want to include those people, all you'd ever do is increase your market. You know, shutting down fat people, you are not protecting something. You will just be alienating a bunch of people that you could include in what you're doing. Louise Adams: You're becoming a dinosaur. Yeah, exactly. You' e kind of ensuring your own extinction. Yeah. Like clothing shops that don't have full ranges, like most of them. Yeah, again, that absolutely confused as me. Why people would say... like our one of the major fitness brands here in Australia is always criticized because it doesn't, it stops at like the average Australian women's size. It stops. That's the highest and famously they were saying "look, there's no market". Oh, have you checked the stats on human females? It's kind of weird to say, like, people don't exist when like clearly, they do. Cara: Okay. And the average, the average size has been increasing steadily over the years. And yet the clothes have not moved to cater to what is now probably the majority of people. Louise Adams: It is, it's so weird. And yet, like somehow, we're all clothed. Cara: We had, I think it was, it was a major sports brand who bought out a specifically specific plus size range. And it got splashed all over Twitter and the media and people were saying, "well, if you, if you get that people, clothes to wear at the gym, you're promoting obesity". How does that make sense? You're telling us fat people to not go to the gym, then that's what it comes back to. People just want to believe, they want to have...that number of people that they can feel that will make them feel better about themselves. They have to have people below them. Louise Adams: Yeah. Let's keep everything narrow. Let's keep the unrealistic ideal and let's keep excluding, let's keep it like that because that's what I'm comfortable with. And that's like, that's not gonna threaten my power. And it is like a giant school yard. And you mentioned that you're in childcare. So, is that... are you a childcare worker? Are you a nanny? Cara: Yeah, I was a nanny. Yeah. I was a nanny until my last job ended because of COVID so yeah, but I've worked in all sorts of settings. I've worked in earlier years and schools and yeah, it's tough. It is really tough because I'm finding with my own kids as well.... well, my son's school age, but all the work we've done at home with him on, you know, about accepting all different shapes and sizes and colours of people. And then he goes to school and one kid says something and it's, you know, kids, they will much rather take the word of their mates and even their teachers than they would mum and dad or, you know, whatever at home. So that's been hard to fight against, but there was one good incident. Actually, there was a kid at my son's school who tried to piss them off by saying "your mom is so fat". My son just went "and?" You didn't get the significance of the insult. He was just like, "yes, congratulations, your eyeballs work, well done". And he came home, and he told me, I was like, "so weird that he said that". I was like... Louise Adams: Good on your son. Cara: Something is going in and staying there, which is good, which is good. But yeah, there's still a lot of, a lot of stuff that kids pick up from their parents that they're still... Louise Adams: They still have to go out into the soup of diet culture. It's funny, isn't it? Because I raised my kids also to be really body positive and really inclusive. And at around...I can't remember how old they were, but my oldest child had something like that happen. And their friends said, "Oh gosh, your mom's like fat". And my kid goes, "you realize, you said that out loud". Cara: That's so good. Louise Adams: Yes. And then I think this same year though, we're in the health classes and they were telling the kids that they had to eat a certain way otherwise they would get fat. My kid comes home and says "but mum, I am fat? So, what do I eat?" Cara: Exactly. The messaging is horrendous. It's Louise Adams: Yes, but you know, it's, it's like we can't stop them going out in the world. Well, unless we're in lockdown but it's all these teaching opportunities to identify it as not a problem with your body or of mum's body, a problem of how the body is being treated. Cara: Exactly. Louise Adams: Yeah. Yeah. So, I love the fact that you're on the internet treating the troll like a giant schoolyard. Like come to the principal's office, let's have a talk about what you did and what was wrong. Cara: This is the funny thing, actually, a lot of the times when the trolls comment on those videos, the helpline videos, they ignore everything that I've said. And they come there just to tell me again, that I'm fat. I'm like, dude, this video is about you, you realize? Louise Adams: Yeah. So, you have lot of trolls commenting on the OBCC helpline videos? Cara: You know what, touch wood, I've actually been...I've been shocked that I haven't received as many as I thought I would, but I have a theory about that. I think it's because I'm funny, at least I think I'm funny. Louise Adams: You're very funny. Cara: I think that intimidates people a bit, I think they probably know they're going to at least get a bit of sass back, if not completely, you know, slapped down. Do you know what I mean? That's my theory on it anyway. Cause I mean, I see other people just dancing or, you know, even people just having a chat about something online and someone comes in and mentions their weight. I mean, it's bollocks. Louise Adams: But you're directly challenging that in your videos, you are...and so that's interesting. Cara: So, yeah, I don't get as many. And then the ones that do come, they ignore what I've said, and they just talk about the fact that I'm going to die at 40 of a heart attack. So, okay. Louise Adams: Okay. That's helpful and nice to know that they have understood this whole thing. How did you come from...so you talked about like being a many different sizes and many different sorts of stages of recognition of weight stigma? How did you come to kind of Health at Every Size and body positivity? Cara: So, I was... I'd lost a lot of weight for my wedding. And in doing so... and I should just point out that there was no pressure from my significant other to do that, by the way, that was just me thinking I must be a certain size to fit in a wedding dress. Louise Adams: Well, that was not just you, that was diet culture kind of identifying that life-stage of, ""Oh, look, you've hit the bridal thing. So now it's time to go on another diet. Cara: Yeah, well, actually, while we're, well, we're slagging off Facebook. The minute I changed my Facebook status to engaged the tailored ads all switched to diet stuff. Louise Adams: Seriously? Cara: Yeah. Yeah. And then the day I changed it to married, I got adverts for divorce lawyers. But, yeah, so, I'd lost a lot of weight for the wedding. And then, because you know, what I'd done was quite drastic as diets usually are it wasn't long before I started piling it back on and I was getting unhappy with that because I don't know why, for some reason, in my head that wedding diet, I felt like, well, I've smashed it and that's me done now. I'm free of diets. Louise Adams: Okay, but that's what they tell us. Cara: Exactly. That's the thing. That's the lie they sell, you know, just one more, one good one. One way you smashed it with the willpower and then you're done for life. Louise Adams: And that's the dream to save us all. Cara: Exactly. So, I was putting weight back on. I was desperate to try and get it back off when I was looking at more and more drastic measures and I found one diet that basically led me down a really dangerous rabbit hole, being obsessed with the quality of the food as well. It had to be clean eating. Louise Adams: Oh, wellness diet. Cara: Yeah, absolutely. Zero processed food. And it was taking over my life, like going to the supermarket was taking me three hours because I scrutinized every single label. I was shunning fruit because it had too much sugar. And that was the worst thing to me. Well, there were two tipping points. One was, I was at my mother-in-law's house and she'd made a vegetable soup. And she said, "Oh, do you want some soup?" And I said, "well, what's in it". And she laughed at me and she's like "vegetables". And I said, "no, okay. But like, if you put anything else in it", so she handed me this packet of stock cubes and she said, "well, just that, just stock cubes and vegetables". So, I read the label of the stock cubes and decided I couldn't. Louise Adams: Oh, you poor thing. Cara: And I was like, afterwards, I thought it can't be right that on a diet I have to turn down vegetable soup. It doesn't make sense. Louise Adams: Yes. There you are, coming to your own rescue. Cara: I was doing all sorts of weird shit. Like I was cooking a full steak for breakfast because steak was okay somehow. Louise Adams: That's it, we get so obsessive though, because we're so restricted. We will... Cara: So, and then the other thing was, I was thinking to myself, cause obviously we just got married and we were thinking that kids would be in the future at some point. And I suddenly thought to myself, "Oh my God, what am I going to do when I have a kid and it goes to a birthday party and there's cake, and my kid's going to eat this cake and it's going to get fat". And that's the worst possible thing that can happen. So, I actually had the seriously deranged thought that I was going to tell my unborn children that they were allergic to certain foods in order to stop them from eating stuff. Well, at that point, I just went, what are you doing? Had a serious word is myself. What are you doing? Because obviously working with kids as well, I just thought I can't deny my kid the joy of having that stuff. It's going to be so bad for them. So, I'm going to have to lie and tell them there's a real reason. Louise Adams: Oh, my goodness. Cara: I mean, how I talk about it? I can talk about it now, but for a while, once I got out of that mindset, thinking about that because... Louise Adams: But you know, it's not your fault because when we're that restricted and that...it sounds like Orthorexia Cara: Yeah, that's what it was. Louise Adams: That's the pursuit, not of thinness, but of perfect eating and like your thinking does go almost like culty kind of. Cara: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I know. I very nearly went down an anti-vax route as well as an offshoot of that. Louise Adams: Isn't that interesting. There's that connection between... And they Cara: draw you in with that. There's like, you know, now you're in this community of people and they draw you in with that whole thing of "look, we know better, okay? We know better than everyone else. We can teach you the way" and you're already so lost, then you're kind of like, "okay, Tell me. Take me". Louise Adams: You're lost and you're nutrient depleted and your brain's shrunk because you've got not enough on board and you've already got this distrust of everything processed. Yeah. That's not fun. Cara: And you're tired. And so, it doesn't take long for somebody to go, "I'll sweep you up, come over here and I'll tell you more about, you know, how the whole world has lied to you about everything" and you just, yeah. You start to lap it up. But thankfully I knocked myself on the head and thought "that is not okay, that's no". Louise Adams: That's amazing, that there was this beacon inside you, that kind of came to your own rescue and your inner bullshit detector went off. Cara: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Something just said, "enough now, come on". As then I started...I again, I stood in that diet mentality. Really. I got quite drastic. I was like I'm ditching all diet stuff, throwing out all the books. I'm unfollowing all these accounts on Facebook. And then I found an account that was more promoting of Health at Every Size and talking about how diets are terrible. And I dived headfirst into that and I did the research and everything, and the more I read and the more testimonials I was looking at, from people who said that, you know, "no, this is true. You know, diets are really bad". I started then to kind of crawl out of that headspace. Louise Adams: Yeah. How long ago was that? Cara: That was, it was the year after I was married. So, it was 2013. It was before I got pregnant. Yeah. Because I spent a whole year after the wedding going down that orthorexia rabbit hole. Louise Adams: Jeez. Yeah. That's so nice. That you came out of it in that way and that the kind of non-diet, anti-diet approach has been useful for you. Cara: Yeah. A hundred percent. Louise Adams: Yeah. Cause it doesn't, you know, the Health at Every Size, anti-diet stuff, like, it just makes sense on a scientific level, on a social level. On an equality and oppression and social justice level, as well as nutrient wise and, you know, narrowing it down just to those physiological health indicators that your brain came back. You wouldn't have been able to be this funny if you... Cara: It's true. It's true. Yeah. This is the thing with the Health at Every Size community, you know, they're just pushing out all of these, you know, the actual science and debunking all these diet myths. And that's what really helped was like, okay, this is actual proper information, not just get thinner, get thinner, get thinner. This is them taking the time to break everything down and talk about how these things actually do affect your body. And that, that made me feel like, "Oh, what if", for the first time it made me feel like some, some institution is actually caring. About how I'm going to feel and how my body is going to feel. And my health rather than get thinner, get thinner, get thinner. Louise Adams: And try and just ignore how uncomfortable or past mad you've gone. Cara: Yeah, exactly. Don't worry that you feel like you're being tortured, like, just forget about that. No pain, no gain. So, yeah. Louise Adams: Someone who a movement that says actually, pain in the pursuit of weight loss is stupid. Cara: Yeah. There was just, there was just a huge 'you matter' vibe, and that you matter to yourself and to, you know, to the people around you and also the big message that you kind of owe it to yourself and those around you to not have your brain taken over by this stuff. But the time and energy that I felt like I actually got back once I'd ditched all of that. It was just, it was actually phenomenal. Louise Adams: Yeah, it's full on, isn't it? How like three hours in the supermarket reading labels is like, who has time for that shit? Cara: Yeah. Louise Adams: Yeah. Christy Harrison calls dieting 'the life thief'. Cara: Yeah. Louise Adams: Yeah. It really is. It's nice to get your life back. Cara: Yeah. Louise Adams: Was it like, I am assuming if you're, if that extreme practice of wellness diet. If you stopped that, that your weight would have changed after you stopped dieting. Cara: What, if I continue to pursue... Louise Adams: When you stopped dieting that your weight changed. Cara: Oh, I see. Sorry. Yes. I did. I did gain weight and that was...at first it was, it was scary, but because I'd found a good community of people online who will say," look, a lot of us go through that stage. And you're going to be fine". And then there was also the focus on, "you've got to love your body as it is, or at least accept your body at every point you hit, you know, that is your body doing what it needs to do". And a lot of it for me was, I saw it as recovery in a way, because...it was hard to get my head around at first because I'd already gained weight from my wedding. So, I was already quite big. I kind of felt, "well, my body doesn't need to gain any more weight. Like that's not recovery, I'm already big, but yeah. But then again, the Health at Every Size community and the online community I found pulled me out of that. It was like, "no, you can be, you can, you know, be" any size and still need to go through that stage of recovery of just healing your relationship with food". And so, yeah, so my weight did change, but then it was, it was only scary for me for a short time, because I've come to accept that this is what needs to happen. Louise Adams: I think that's really tough for people that, like, that, trying to accept that I actually don't have control over my body weight. It's going to do what it's going to do and what I can focus on is trying to restore that relationship with food and nourish my body and kind of like, you know, stay grounded in the community that are telling you that it's going to be okay. It would be really hard to do that on your own. Cara: I agree. I agree. Yeah. That's why I think online stuff helps so much. Yes. Louise Adams: Yes. Well, that's why...and Getting back to you and the overweight bitches content creators. It's just such a beautiful subject matter. Are you going to continue putting out videos out? Cara: As long as people want them, I'll keep making them. Cause I enjoy it and it's not like I'm short of materials, so... Louise Adams: Oh, my goodness. And where can people find you? Cara: I think on TikTok is the same as it...I think it's nanny_macb, and I think my Instagram handle is exactly the same. Yes. Louise Adams: You know what, I Googled Nanny McPhee and I'm like, she looks different. But yes, thank you for putting this stuff out there and, you know, may the hotline be flooded and who knows, maybe you'll heal the world of trolls. Cara: Maybe, maybe. Louise Adams: Thank you so much. Cara: Thank you for having me. Resources: Find Cara on Insta at @Cara_MacB and on TikTok Cara MacB

The news media are a major source of diet culture BS. Every day there's an apparently "inspirational" story in which diverse bodies are shrunk down to diet culture's version of acceptability. We're literally brainwashed into viewing increasingly disordered, bizarre and downright dangerous behaviours as "#inspirational". Join me and my guest, anti-diet warrior and coach Summer Innanen as we present some truly epic examples of "SHITSPIRATION" from Australia and Canada. You will not believe how ludicrous they are! Grown up humans are supposed to be #inspired by a 'doubledown diet' which reduces calorie intake to almost nothing, a BARBIE DOLL (I am not joking), and....a Malamute? You have to hear this to believe it, it's next level #ridiculous. Trigger warning for this episode - very explicit language and we're discussing diet, calorie counts, etc, in (critical) detail. This one's not for the faint hearted! But if you're ready to get your rage-o-meter cranked up to ALL FIRED UP, this episode's for you! Show Transcript Louise Adams: Oh, Summer, thank you so much for coming on the show. Summer Innanen: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you. Louise Adams: Tell me, what's firing you up? Summer Innanen: Well, I saw an article recently in Women's Health, and it's about... it's supposed to be like a, you know, quote unquote 'weight loss inspiration story'. And it's about a woman who had a very significant weight loss experience by doing a very disordered diet. And I think what fired me up so much about it was not just the content within it, which I'm sure we'll you know, dissect and talk about it. But the fact that in 2015, in December 2015, Women's Health came out and it was a huge... we got a lot of headlines, a lot of publicity around the fact that they were taking the words, 'bikini body' and 'drop two sizes' off of their covers. So they sort of made this like quasi- body- positive stance. Like, 'hey,  we've heard you, our readers. And we've heard that, you know, you don't like us sort of using this very patriarchal, sexist language'. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like I remember at the time this was shared, like even people within the sort of anti-diet community were sharing it, saying 'this is great, like nice to see a major publications sort of making these changes' and then, you know, to, to look and see here we are five years later and it's the same shit. Louise Adams: It's back. Summer Innanen: Worse. Like I would argue what this what's contained in this article is so terrible from the perspective of promoting disordered eating and like really what this person is talking about is like, the way that they eat to me sounds like a, like an eating disorder, which obviously like I'm not here to diagnose or go... Louise Adams: it's disordered eating practices. Right? It's promoting starvation. Summer Innanen: Yeah. So it's a combination of keto and intermittent fasting. So it's like keto isn't bad enough on its own. So it's like, we're going to make intermittent fasting onto it. Louise Adams: It's an unholy marriage. Summer Innanen: It is honestly, and that's like, for me, I think why I was so fired up about it too, is because when I sort of reached the end of the line with my own disordered relationship with food, I was doing, I was trying to...attempting, it would only last like three days...to do something kind of similar. And it's what absolutely destroyed my body. Like just... like put me into amenorrhea, even with like a higher body weight percentage, and like completely disrupted my hormones. And when I work with clients, I see the same kind of behaviors really being kind of the end of the line for a lot of people. Like the one that really, really kind of messes up their head and their physical, like their actual, you know, physiology a lot worse than other diets that they have done previously. Louise Adams: Oh, this is an awesome thing to get completely fired up about because like we have Women's Health magazine here, which is... it's not health, it's women's starving magazine. They did no such thing as  like...to tell us that they're not going to do the 'bikini body', but how gaslighting to say, 'Oh, we're not going to do that anymore. Hello, here's something  worse'. And like to use that kind of little bit of that... they just wanted the publicity of that. 'We want to perform the idea of body positivity, but like, hell no, we're not actually going to stick to that'. Summer Innanen: Yes, yes. Louise Adams: It's going to go back to this apparently inspirational behaviour of this lady. Who is doing the very thing that tipped you into like a severe eating disorder? That's so disturbing. Summer Innanen: Yes. Yes. And, you know, they give a outline of what she eats in a day and as I think, as I emailed you before, I was like, that's kind of what I eat for breakfast. Like, it's the same amount of calories that I consume for breakfast. Like, that's it. And I remember being in that frame of mind where you would read a magazine and they would sort of show like, 'oh, here's what somebody eats in a day'. Or 'here's what a celebrity eats in a day'. And I remember always feeling like, so ashamed because I ate so much more than that. And I was always like, 'what's wrong with me? Like, why can't I eat as little as this?' And you know, I just can't believe that stuff is still being put out there, like that the author of that piece didn't think like, 'Hey, this might really promote an eating disorder.' When it's that blatant! Literally... Louise Adams: my dog eats more than that. When it's that blatant and there's, you know, throughout every article that we're going to talk about today is...oh, except the last one. There's literally no critical thought. Or even appreciation of the damage that's being spread by these, like it's full on evil messaging as far as I'm concerned, dressed up as inspiration. That the fact that a journalist...journalists, as far as I know, are trained to be critical thinkers and, and yet it's like that goes out the window when it comes to these apparently inspirational stories. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Yeah. Like there's absolutely no consciousness at all. That's what I felt like. Cause you know, it's just, it was one of those things. That's, it's almost like when I first read it, I was like, it's almost too ridiculous to believe this is...that they actually publish this as something that's supposed to be inspirational. But it's to me like, you know, I think the readership probably skews a little bit, you know, on the younger side, you know, maybe more like 20 to 30 age group or younger, probably teen, a lot of teenage girls and you know, to be reading that at such an impressionable age and to think 'oh, this is how...this is what I should be doing'. Which is essentially like starvation as well as like malnutrition and just something that would put such a high amount of both physical and mental stress on your body, that would really create like long lasting damage. Yeah, both biologically and psychologically. Louise Adams: And that's, that's who I see, you know, my clients are the diet casualties, people who have had these experiences and then...you know? Dieting like this, crash dieting...because this is, this lady is on a severe calorie restriction. And then she's added intermittent fasting, which basically means you're only allowed to eat for six hours a day and squish in your tiny little bits of food into six hours. Like when you really think about that, that is so many levels of fucked up and she's saying, 'oh, it's so good'. And I feel for her being in that diet head, And who knows maybe an eating disorder head, but there's  ...the payoff is so great for her because the weight loss like that, the whole article is about her trying to shift the last bit. And she's still got a way to go. And her poor body, if her poor body could talk would be going, 'I'm starving. I'm slowing down this cause it's getting dangerous'. And she's like, 'right, I'm going to double down using the halo of intermittent fasting', which is starving. Summer Innanen: Yes. Yeah. And the other thing too, that stood out to me, well, two things. One is the amount of caffeine that she talks about drinking in terms of hydration. Cause it says, like, what really works for her. It's like, 'I'm really hydrating'. And it's like so much coffee and green tea. And I'm like, if I had that much caffiene I'd be, I don't even know what I would be doing. Louise Adams: That's a question I ask when I'm seeing people with eating disorders, like, what are you drinking? Because quite often when you get an eating disorder, you will drink caffeinated stuff to kill your appetite. So, she's calling that hydration. Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then the other thing too, is that she uses the language of 'food freedom' to talk about how she feels, because  she says you know, 'food is really just food. It's not good or bad. I don't obsess about it anymore'. And it's like, really that could be pulled from any sort of anti-diet playbook, which is what we want, but it's so counter to what she's actually doing. And I think that it kind of shows like when you're really into, like, when you' re really kind of overtaken your mind, you're sort of riding this, this buzz or this wave where it does feel like that. But, you haven't woken up to how you really are looking at things that way. And you really are, you know, like if you're tracking every calorie, which is what she says she was doing... Louise Adams: How is that freedom? Summer Innanen: Yeah. That's not freedom. And that's, that's like, maybe she's sort of, you know, like kidding herself. She's at the sort of like, kidding, 'I'm kidding myself' phase. Like, it's like, you know, most of us when we were sort of dieters were like, 'well, no, no, no, I'm doing it for my health. Like I'm doing no, this is for my health', but really underneath it's, you know, there's, there's some other stuff going on, but I hate it when they kind of steal, like they sort of co-opt the language of intuitive eating and co-op the language of the anti-diet message and really use it to promote something that's so restrictive. It just makes... Louise Adams: You know who came to my mind when you were saying that is Rebel Wilson. Summer Innanen: Yes Louise Adams: she's an Aussie actor and has always been in a larger body. Apparently like her kind of whole catch phase for 2020 was that it was her 'year of health'. Summer Innanen: Yes! Louise Adams: But the behaviors are restriction and starvation and over-exercise, but she's masking that in the language of 'I'm so healthy now'. Like, 'I don't think about food anymore. My habits are so great', but it's the same thing. Summer Innanen: Exactly. Exactly. Louise Adams: Worlds apart from what the anti-dieting and intuitive eating stuff is actually about. Summer Innanen: Yeah. And, and like, it's not their fault. Like, I don't like talking about this. I'm not, I don't want to like, shame this, this woman at all. Louise Adams: As an individual, no. Summer Innanen: Or Rebel Wilson. It's like, but it's really about. You know, the it's really about the culture diet culture, and just the fact that we feel as women and more, you know, more specifically that we have to go to these extremes to really like, you know, show our, our worthiness as humans, like in our value. And like, Rebel Wilson is so talented. Louise Adams: I know, so funny. Summer Innanen: She's an awesome actress. And now it's like, everyone's just talking about her body and her weight loss. And it's like, it takes away from all these other amazing things that she's done. Louise Adams: And when it's really uncritical, as well. It's like, why is she so much better now than she's small? That just reinforces the diet culture message and keeps stories like the woman you talking about going. It's like, I can get all this attention, uncritical, positive attention, but it's like, we're not seeing what's right in front of it. Like we are teaching and promoting women in this case did a really, really sick eating disordered and stuff under the flag of health. Summer Innanen: And that is like, supremely unhealthy. Yeah. Yeah. It's so frustrating too, because you see all these positive changes happening in the way of, you know, women becoming more liberated or just having, you know, bigger voices taking up more space. And yet it's just like the same old shit is still there as it relates to our bodies and our value and, and... Louise Adams: There's such an uptick too, in January, isn't there. Summer Innanen: Oh yeah. It's a predictable tsunami of the weight loss. The walls of relentless inspiration, whether we want it or not. It's just, it's here. ESpecially with the pandemic, you know, because everyone, a lot of people have...maybe their bodies have changed a little bit, which makes a ton of sense because we're under a lot of stress or just life changes that have happened. So I think that, you know, depending on where you live, if there's still a lot of restrictions, which I was saying to you before, like there still is here. Dieting gives you like a bit of hope, almost like weight loss gives you a bit of hope. In this time when maybe some of us are feeling a little hopeless or just like really kind of sick of, sick of the isolation and everything else. And so I wouldn't be surprised that maybe your body's changed a bit during quarantine. I wouldn't be surprised if this year really you see like just a lot more people really engaging in dieting as a way to cope with the emotion, emotional discomfort of living through a pandemic. Louise Adams: That is a really good point, isn't it. Dieting can be a bit of a lifeline. It can feel like it, like something familiar to do in a scary time. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Some sense of control, some sense of like, you know, hope, something else to focus on other than like the fact that there's a lot of horrible things happening in the world. Yeah, absolutely, a hundred percent. And I just, I, you know, I've heard it from people that I work with just feeling more urges to diet lately. And I think that, yeah, it's just something to be mindful of. If anyone listening is experiencing that too, like I think it's pretty normal to be experiencing more of those urges, but hopefully you can... Louise Adams: LIsten to today's episode and get your bullshit detector back. Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't drink the Kool-Aid it's not actually going to help. Louise Adams: It's not control! Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly. Louise Adams: It's so interesting because like, Canada is very similar to Australia, culturally in lots and lots of ways. And it's funny...not funny. It's not funny. Cause like, you're talking about really disturbing uncritical weightless articles. And we've got them here in Australia too. And I really want to talk to you about the lady who lost weight, because she wanted to look like Barbie. Yes. And Summer Innanen: I, so you said that to me, I honestly, it was like, okay, this needs to be a tabloid. Like this can't be like a real, and, and then you told me that it's actually a very legit publication. Louise Adams: Yeah. Oh, I'm so ashamed of ourselves. So, this is on Nine News. Channel Nine is Murdoch press and it's, you know, one of it's a huge...it's the number one news platform in Australia for news. I want to say news, right? News. Okay, exciting. And in this news, I'm just using air quotes.  It's this story from late gen a Barbie fan has dropped a whopping blah-blah-blah kilos in a bid to look like a favorite doll. And it's a story about a lady called...a 35 year old lady called Kayla. Who's apparently battled with her weight since she was seven, and has done all of the diets in the book and… Like, I just, I can't even, because yes, Nine News is promoting this as, as awesome. This lady that the article is...littered with her dressed as Barbie. She's a full grown female adult woman dressed as Barbie. And the whole story is about how she's had a gastric sleeve and, and is also starving herself, post gastric sleeve, and now she's very happy and...like I just, I mean, I can't get this article out of my head because it's on a major news platform also. I've just realized it was on the TV on a morning show. She now lives in Las Vegas pursuing her Barbie lifestyle. And I'm not criticizing Kayla herself whatsoever, but what I'm criticizing is the news. Which, by the way, I've also found out isn't even news, because this is from Jan 2021. When I'm Googling, to send you the article. THis article actually came out in June last year, it's old, it's not, it's old. It's not news. But it's been rehashed - guess why, it's January - it's Diet season and then some, you know, money hungry gastric sleeve doctors, and some people who want to sell their diets saying 'let's get her on TV, and uncritically throw this... it's an appallingly ridiculous idea that we need to look like a doll in order to reach the pinnacle of our existence. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like, you know, there were, I don't even...there were so many things wrong with this piece. Louise Adams: It's hard to know where to start. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Okay. Well, let's start with when she was a kid, because she talks about how, you know, 'it didn't matter how hard I tried or what side I was on. I could rarely shift the weight or I would lose some and then regain double'. And it's like, well, yeah, that's what diets do. And so, this poor girl probably had her parents putting her on diets, which we know she did actually. Louise Adams: It says 'my obsession with Barbie began as a child and has continued into my adult life. I used to have over 200 dolls as my parents use them as an incentive to go on a diet and lose weight'. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Yeah. Which is so messed up. Louise Adams: That just made me want to cry. Yeah. Because as a parent to, bribe your a child with a Barbie doll, like the poor thing, she's seven. I know. And I don't know, that's at least 200 diets, isn't it? Summer Innanen: Well, exactly, like how horrifying is that? So, her metabolism is probably been so altered and she has no sense of her own  instincts on what actually, you know, feels good for her. And her parents basically instilled like this belief that like you're better or you're good or you're more worthy when you lose weight, And like, to think about the damage that that would do to someone's self-worth and their body image and the way that they feel it. Yeah. Yeah, right. Louise Adams: Cause it's...I see this as a real heartbreaking story and I cannot understand how this is inspiration. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Yeah. It's so awful. It reminds me of the there's this book. I don't know if you've ever read it. It's called 'The Heavy' and it's about a mother who puts her daughter on a diet and it's...it's a memoir written from the mother's perspective and she keeps putting her, she can't figure out why her daughter can't lose weight. She keeps putting her on diet after diet, after diet. And like, it just reminds me of that because the parent is...has so much  internalized fat phobia and their own disordered relationship with food that then they pass down to their kids. And like, that's what I see. I'm sure you see all the time with the people that we work with is that what our parents did, which they kind of were doing out of this like, protection. They wanted to protect us by helping us lose weight or commenting on our body or restricting food...actually completely backfired and made us feel like we, you know, we weren't worthy of their approval, of love, like of our own existence, unless we looked a certain way unless we lost weight, unless we ate a certain way... Louise Adams: All contingent on weight, which is it's insane because a weight is not under our control. And when we do the diet thing, all we guarantee is a slowed metabolism and weight regain. And she even says in this that she would lose it, then lose weight and then regain like that. Plus some, which is, we know that's perfectly normal as a response to starvation her. And cause her parents obviously have that internalized weight stigma, and she has it, you know? This is a story about her internalized weight stigma and how, you know, rather than kind of pushing back or being able to push back against it. She's really drunk the Kool-Aid. Summer Innanen: Yeah, yeah. And again, they highlight what she eats in a day, which is like, why, why these places do this is like, beyond me, because... Louise Adams: Well, they go into so many stereotypes too. Cause like it's the, it's the traditional thing like, 'Oh, before I had my gastric sleeve, I was a bad person and I ate terribly'. And ignoring the fact that perhaps her, part of her weight issues was to do with the diets themselves. Summer Innanen: Right? Louise Adams: Yeah. So that's ignored and so about...'it was definitely 100% my personal fault' quote unquote, 'that my body was large and I ate terribly but now I eat great'. But, what we see actually, like when you look at that, what she used to eat, she used to starve herself all day and then eat at night. Summer Innanen: Right? It's like, well of course you're going to binge at night. If you starve all day, that's no surprise there. You're going to be so hungry. You'll eat anything that's not locked down. And then what she eats now is like, it's so dangerous. It's like such a low amount of food and... Louise Adams: And says, 'I ate,'...I'm going to read some numbers here so trigger warning. Cause it's just, I just want to get across the point of how restrictive it is. She's had 80% of her stomach removed, and then she's saying 'I eat 90 grams of protein a day, 10 grams of carbs and five grams of sugar'. Everyday. Summer Innanen: Do you know what...10 grams. That's not even a banana. Right? 10 grams of carbs. Like that's like, that's like what? Like a few baby carrots or something like that? Louise Adams: There's no actual veggies. Breakfast is a protein shake. Lunches, chicken or beef with cheese, dinner is chicken or steak or a protein shake. And the snacks, cashews or walnuts. Like there's there's no fruit or veggies. Poor thing. In a stomach which is 80% removed, amputated. Summer Innanen: And can't be reversed. They also say that, which is another thing. Louise Adams: And it says this article has the hide to say 'she now has a good relationship with food'. Summer Innanen: Yes. I highlighted that too, because again, it's like, co-opting this language of food, freedom and, and using it in like a place where it's like clearly a very disordered. Louise Adams: How is that a good relationship with food? Summer Innanen: Yeah, it's sad. Louise Adams: And works out seven days a week. Summer Innanen: That, right. That was the other thing that really stood out because also extremely unhealthy to be, to be doing something like that. And you just sort of wonder, like what's going to happen to this individual. You know, and they may be riding the sort of like validation of having a significant weight change and getting the publicity and feeling really good about that. Louise Adams: But, you know, as we all know totally done it, you know, as a psychologist, she's finally saying to her mum, 'look, I am the Barbie doll'. I just...it's heartbreaking. I totally get why she's doing it. Summer Innanen: Right. Louise Adams: But I find it an incredibly sad story. Summer Innanen: I know, and I feel bad for her as a child. Louise Adams: I feel like I'm kind of alone in seeing her as a really sad story. Summer Innanen: No, it's really sad. It is really sad. And it's, and it's this idea like, again, it's like this idea that it's our fault, like, and it's a kid's fault if they are in a larger body instead of thinking, 'okay, well, this is just, you know, genetics'. Louise Adams: Here's my child, here's my kid. Give her a barbie doll, for fuck's sake, if she wants one. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Not to earn it by restricting food or whatnot. To put all the onus on her and to, you know, that she had to earn it by losing weight, earn Barbie dolls by losing weight. Like, it's so sad. And yet it's being like, you know, applauded and praised and... Louise Adams: It's sickening. How like diet culture, it's weight loss at all costs. And this is an extreme example of the costs, but I mean...2015,  right? Women's Health magazine is talking about, 'Oh, we see the harm done by diet culture. We see that talking about women as if they're a bikini body and stuff is not cool anymore. Well, we're going to stop doing that'. But now, like we just talked about like two really extreme articles promoting starvation. Like there's no problem here. And we've gaslit ourselves to the point where these things are being called lifestyle changes or health behaviors. Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly. Louise Adams: We're talking about stuff that's much, much worse than the good old diet industry days. Summer Innanen: Right, right. Yeah. It seems to have gotten a lot more extreme, hasn't it? Like it's, it's something that has, it's always sort of been extreme, but it seems to be even more....I guess now the extremism is normalized. Louise Adams: Yeah. And it's mainstream. It's like pro-ana used to be pro-ana, cause we could see it as being different to what the world was. Summer Innanen: Exactly. Exactly. Louise Adams: Yeah. Someone said to you, I only ate in a six hour window and I don't eat any vegetables or fruit or carbs. We're like, 'Oh, you're so healthy. How do you do it?' Summer Innanen: Yes. Yes. 'Let me put you in my magazine. You're a success story'. But I wonder if like, if either of them took, you know, assessments on whether or not you have an eating disorder or disordered relationship with food, you would most likely see that they would probably check most of the boxes in terms of the things that they would say that they're thinking and doing as it relates to...you know, the behaviors, but I was going to say as well, it also just shows how weight stigma plays a role here. Because if this was an already thin person eating this stuff, you know, we as....there might be more people sort of calling this out as like very disordered or an eating disorder, but because they were in larger bodies and they went to these extreme measures to get in a smaller body it's applauded and like, that's the influence of weight stigma. It's like, we prescribed these eating disorder behaviors to people in larger bodies that we would diagnosis an eating disorder and somebody in a smaller body. Louise Adams: Yeah. that's Deb Burgard's point, isn't it. That's so like... Summer Innanen: Yes, exactly. Thank you. Cause I was like, I'm saying this and I'm like, I can't remember....thank you. Louise Adams: I know, it's such a slam dunk awesome quote because it's exactly what's happening here. Summer Innanen: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Louise Adams: You know, I wonder, I literally wonder, like what you're saying about, if it was someone smaller, would, would the media alarm bells ring. Because I'm thinking, well, if that was Gwyneth Paltrow's day in a plate, we'd probably still be going, 'Ooh, isn't she cool?' Summer Innanen: You know what, you're right. And I saw that recently because Aaron Flores who hosts the Dieticians Unplugged podcast, he posted...I think it was via Glamour magazine. It was like what Kelly Ripa eats in a day. And it was the same thing. It was like, she was basically talking about how she eats dust. But...it was honestly very similar to what the first, the girl in the Women's Health magazine was talking about eating in a day. And so, you're 100 percent right. So, so maybe my point is... Louise Adams: I do think it's viewed differently. But I actually think that we're getting to the point where like it's competitive, not eating is at such extreme levels that we're not, it's only the people in the eating disorder industry who are going, 'hello, what the hell', like it has become so unfashionable to eat like a grownup. Summer Innanen: Yeah, yeah. Eat like a grown ass adult is what I say exactly. Exactly. Yes. I remember. I remember in the one that the Kelly Ripa, when she says, like, she called it...'my first chewable food of the day is around like 11:00 AM' or something, like that was the way that she described it. And I just, I remember commenting on it when Aaron and I was like, I can't believe she just used the expression, my first chewable food of the day. Like if, if that's not a red flag that you're describing the way you eat stuff, using those terms. And I don't mean to laugh. It sounds like a laughing at someone with a disordered relationship with food, but it really is horrifying. Just how normalized and then praised and applauded that is. Louise Adams: Like, 'oh, oh no, it's any 10 o'clock. Should I be chewing? Oh my God'. Summer Innanen: Yes, exactly. And I just, and again, like, I just remember always looking at those things and feeling so ashamed and always just being like, why can't I do that? Like, why can't. And thank goodness, my body couldn't do that because it was the reason why I didn't actually have like a full blown eating disorder and instead was just a chronic dieter. Louise Adams: We really need to stop this. We really need to stop listing what people like in a day. It's ridiculous. It's kind of like comparing what we eat to each other, it's encouraging  externalization of eating behavior? We cannot continue to do that. Like really, the articles about 'what I eat in a day' should just be followed by the phrase 'is going to vary every single day', and it's none of your damn business'. Right. Summer Innanen: Yes. Yes. That's the headline right there. Louise Adams: Right. Eyes on your own plate. Does it matter? It's not a fricking competition. It's not like we're going like, 'ooh, what my poo looks like every day. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe that's where we are  we going? Comparing physical functions. We just need to stop. It's so true. You kind of quid pro quo's me with, like, I came up with the Barbie ridiculous story and you came up with a whopper from Canada. Summer Innanen: The dog? Louise Adams: Yeah. Summer Innanen: So, this was on the CBC. So CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Company, it's like our major national news network. And like, that's the one place I go when I want to get unbiased, like just straight up, really factual news. And they have this article that they posted called 'meet Woody a massive Malamute, serving up weight loss inspiration for the new year'. I just couldn't believe this was on the CBC and it's literally like this story, this weight loss story of a dog that like dropped half its weight and also had like shared it on social media as a way to inspire others to, you know... Louise Adams: Other dogs? Summer Innanen: No, no, no. Oh no. Humans. Louise Adams: This is a new low, eat like a dog. Summer Innanen: This is... Louise Adams: Oh my God. It says, 'If you're looking for inspiration to meet your new year's resolution to trim the fat, look no further'. Summer Innanen: Exactly. Yeah, no, it's to inspire humans. Louise Adams: Oh, please stop inspiring me. Oh my God. Summer Innanen: It's such a cute dog though. I just, as a side note, he's a really, really cute dog, but you know, this has come up. I don't know if you've been...you've probably been asked this question too before, but people will say like, well, you know, why is it okay to put pets on diets, but not humans? Do you have a good answer for that? By the way? Before I was going to say what I say. Louise Adams: I don't think I have actually had that question put to me. Summer Innanen: Oh, you haven't? Just me. I've gotten that. Louise Adams: Why is it okay? I don't, I don't know if it is okay. Like, I haven't looked at the weight loss research for dogs, but I'm assuming it's going to be physiologically similar to humans. Right? I don't know. I don't know. Summer Innanen: I don't know. My answer is like, we're not dogs. Like we aren't dogs, dogs aren't influenced by like diet culture. Like dogs don't have fat phobia., cause they're not like looking at thinner dogs everywhere and thinking like, 'I'm not good enough because I don't look like that'. Like they're... Louise Adams: Oh my God, you're reminding me of poodle science, you know, ASDAH's awesome little  video. Which is like, it's illustrating what body diversity is like, you know. But in weight science it's like, all the poodles are in charge and they're telling everyone, all the breeds of dogs to like, they like 'be like me, be like the poodle', but like a starving mastiff will never be the same as a poodle. Summer Innanen: Right, exactly. Yeah. One of the first like, quotes that I said many years ago was 'we're not Golden Retrievers'. We're not all meant to look the same. It's one of the things that I still say to this day, because it's true. And you know, in this article, like it's a pretty basic...they're just restricting the dog's food and making the dog exercise. But this idea that like we're similar at all. It's just so, it's so backwards to me because it completely ignores the culture that we live in. And like the fact that we are emotional being...dogs are emotional beings too. Yes. I will give you that. I love dogs. But they don't have the same. Not living in like a patriarchal society. They're not exposed to sexism. Like they're not, they're not exposed to fatphobia like, I don't think they're internalizing those charts at the vet that have like pictures of the different dogs with the big classifications like we would be. They don't feel ashamed when they step on the scale. Louise Adams: There's no diet culture in dogs, but there's diet culture in the humans that own them. And you can hear that in this article, can't you? Because it's like...actually it's everywhere. Like this sentence, 'he once weighed double what he should have'. How do you know what he should? He's a fucking Malamute. Summer Innanen: Yeah, yeah. Louise Adams: 'Should have'. So, we've decided what he should weigh and we starved him down there. And then, Pam Hedgie, who's the foster mom, apparently she's known for doing this. Starving the dogs so that they're adoptable. Now, that is awful. And...but the woman she's like, totally like lost it. She puts it on social media and...here we go. She says, 'humans have something to learn from dogs. They're so willing. I think that's the most amazing part about them. They don't get down, they get up everyday, they're happy to go to the park. And it has to be hard work. It can't be a breeze, but they're so happy and willing to do it. We could all learn a little bit about that'. I'm sure what he likes going for walks. Yeah, but I'm also sure that if Woody could talk, he'd say 'why are you starving me?' Summer Innanen: Yeah. I think it's, again it's like, you know, it just shows, 'okay, you have to do something extreme to be healthy'. Whereas really it's like, of course the dog wants to go out and play. And if we just let them do that by letting them tell us and get them outside, and they listened to their bodies, kind of like humans do..then you wouldn't have to, you know...It's not like this, like... 'oh, you should work out every day and you have to like push yourself through'. It's like dogs are naturally hardwired to kind of want to be that way anyways. And so long as we give them an environment where they can do those things, then they're going to be healthy regardless of their size. And that's, that's sort of similar to humans in a way. Louise Adams: His health is not even mentioned.  Like it'e literally just his size. And this assumption that he has to be half his size. Like we don't even know it was here actually just a larger dog in good health? We don't even know how old he is? Summer Innanen: No, you're right. You're right. Because yeah, because malamutes are huge to begin with anyways. Louise Adams: Yeah. Well, I've got a Great Dane and like big dogs, the big dogs. And like, my vet, there is no correct weight. And like, I love my vet because my vet is like full of body diversity. It's like, there's a great big range in Great Danes. You can have smaller Great Danes and big Great Danes.  And they're all Great Danes. Summer Innanen: That's so refreshing. Wow. Louise Adams: Thank you. I'm in the right place. Summer Innanen: People used to criticize my dog all the...my dog might, we lost my dog a few months ago. People used to like stop me on the street and like...not me actually, they would always do my husband for some reason. Cause they probably saw the look on my face and was like, 'I'm not going to say anything'. They would say like, 'what are you feeding your dog? Like your dog is too big' because we had a pug and he was really big and he was just naturally. Really big. He'd always been really big and like, vets were always totally fine with him. We never had a vet say, 'hey, you know, you gotta watch this weight' or anything like that. But, you know, people in the street would stop and comment. And I remember just saying to my husband, I was like, 'I swear if someone did that to me, I would just rip them to...', I don't know why they always stopped him. Louise Adams: Yeah. Actually now you say it. I get that about my Great Dane, Dolly. Her name is Dolly Pawton. It's so cute. They stop us and they're like, Oh, what is, what does he ate? Oh, first of all, they say 'he', cause obviously a big dog is always a 'he'. 'What do you feed him? He must eat you out of house and home.' This dog eats, you know, not as much as my boxer that I used to have. So there's assumption about size and what they eat. Let's look to our dogs,  right? No as inspirational weightless stories, but as diversity right in front of us. Summer Innanen: Yes. Louise Adams: And connection. Summer Innanen: And how we just love them regardless of their size. Louise Adams: I know. Like, poor old Woody, he's not more oveable now he's starved into submission. Summer Innanen: It's so silly to me that they would use that as a story of inspiration. Must've been a slow news day in Canada. Like you don't have a pandemic going on, I don't know why. Louise Adams: The sad point is that it appears that Woody has more variety in his diet than the Barbie lady. Summer Innanen: Oh yeah, at least he's eating lots of fruits and vegetables. I know. Oh my gosh. Right. Louise Adams: God. So, we've arrived at our last. Article, which is an interesting one in Good Housekeeping. That's just come out. Jan 29th, 2021. 'The unbearable weight of diet culture', which...it's such an exciting article cause it's really long, really in-depth, and it's talking about this whole idea of diet culture. In the intro, it says this: 'throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, the way we eat and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier. While Good Housekeeping also publishes weight loss content, and endeavours to do so in a responsible science backed way, we think it's important to present a broad perspective that allows for a fuller understanding of the complex thinking about health and body weight'. So, kind of cool. Summer Innanen: Kind of reminded me of the Women's Health 2015 publicity. What I do like about this article, I will say, is Judith Matz and Christy Harrison are quoted quite a bit through it. Louise Adams: And Sabrina Strings. Summer Innanen: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Which I thought was great because they tied in that component too, like the race component. And I thought it was one of those articles that you could probably send to a family member or a friend that didn't understand why you were doing Intuitive Eating or that had questions about it, but you didn't really know how to give them the information in a way that was a little more palatable. And I thought that this article was one of those things that you could totally pass along to them. It's easy to read, makes a lot of sense, kind of hits all the main points.  It's one that I'll probably bookmark for people. Louise Adams: It's nice too as evidence that the wider culture is taking the whole concept of not dieting and looking at the Health At Every Size sort of stuff seriously. Summer Innanen: Yes. And actual people who are in the space instead of like the people who are in between who talk about this stuff yet still promote weight loss, you know, like the sort of like, you know, Geneen Roths of the world and whatnot. So, I thought it was really great that they actually had a lot of, like a lot of like really well-respected experts weighing in and some good links and things like that, but there was still a little problem with it. Did you want to talk about that or do you want me to talk about it? Louise Adams: So it's at one point it says, look like it's all this awesome, awesome and stuff.  And then it  says, loo... they're talking about how the media in particular can promote dieting, and it says 'even Good housekeeping's own article on 1200 calorie diets is a tricky juxtaposition. The article aims to serve the approximately 40,500 people who search for 1200 calorie meal plans on Google every month. Despite the 2015 study that shows this number of calories falls within the realm of clinical starvation'. And that's, that's been changed... Summer Innanen: It has actually, because I... Louise Adams: I think it said something about the Holocaust before? Summer Innanen: Okay. So I have it, cause I cut and paste it into a document. It says, this is what used to say. It says, 'It's the most popular article here on Good Housekeeping's own website, about 1200 calorie diets that netted over 2 million search users in 2019 alone. Our second most read story of the year, despite the fact the number of calories falls within the realm of clinical starvation. In brackets - Holocaust concentration camp prisoners were fed 1,250 to 1400 calories per day'. So, that's really interesting that they changed it. Louise Adams: They've watered it down, haven't they? They've removed a bit of culpability. Like, cause that example of like in a concentration camp, you would get more food. Summer Innanen: It reminds me of the Minnesota starvation study, which, which was around like 1500... Louise Adams: 1500. Summer Innanen: 1500 calories a day. Louise Adams: And they all went around the twist from that over six months. Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly.  Exactly. Louise Adams: I'm so glad you cut and pasted that. Summer Innanen: Yes. So that, and then the other big thing is they still link to the goddamn diet. Like they still link to it. They link to the 1200 calorie day diet. Like it's like they're saying, 'okay, we're exploring this'. And then they're linking to the thing that is probably the most like harmful triggering thing that you could put in that article. Louise Adams:  'We're not actually going to stop doing it because it's the second most popular thing we do'. Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Louise Adams: That is so fucked up. Summer Innanen: It's like these publications want to explore these topics and they admit that they're complicit and they get publicity because of that, they get a bit of applause and then they continue to uphold and perpetuate the same dangerous stuff. Louise Adams: Get off the fence, Good Housekeeping. Get the splinter out of your ass. Take the article down. Summer Innanen: Yeah, take it down, take it down. If you want to, you know, put your money where your mouth is... but they don't, they want to keep taking other people's money. And then you were telling me this was the article that people were opening and then they were seeing weight loss advertisements, right? Was it this one? Louise Adams: Yeah. So I was saying chats and people like reading the article, but in between the text of the article, were getting sold weight loss stuff. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Yeah. Louise Adams: I mean, geez. I mean, can we, at some point stop the fence sitting and stop performing the recognition of diet culture as harmful and, and start actually stopping the harm. So we protect little kids, like little miss Barbie. Summer Innanen: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Louise Adams: And we stop the metabolic and physiological harm. If nothing else, you know. People are so worried. In the article, Good housekeeping. It's talking about how more people are dieting than ever before. Did you see ...'In November, 2020, the CDC, Centre for Disease Control, reported that more people are actually dieting now compared to 10 years ago', you know? Dieting, even though no one's dieting, more people are dieting than in 2010. And we are in massive trouble from the perspective of psychological damage and also from the perspective of long-term metabolic damage. And if I hear one more person bang on about diabetes, insulin resistance, you know, metabolic problems from being fat and they haven't kind of put the pieces together about actually, maybe it's the people who are dieting because it's the dieting that's doing that kind of physiological damage. You know, we need to wake up. So Good Housekeeping aren't just able to politically fence it because it sells sharticles and sells hits on their harmful website. We've got to. If we care  about health, let's start caring about it. Right, right. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that historically Good Housekeeping's always had like, you know, advertisements for Slim Fast and like diet, weight loss drugs in their magazine. And so I, you know, I would wager  I guess, that that's still going to be there. And, you know, I think the reason why diets have probably gone up like over the last 10 years is because it's all shrouded in health now. Louise Adams: Yeah, it's 'not dieting' Summer Innanen: Like everyone thinks that, yeah. It's like, this is our quote unquote 'healthy lifestyle'. Louise Adams: 'I've got a good relationship with food'. Summer Innanen: Right. And it seems, it's almost seen, like positioned as more empowering versus restrictive. And so like, more people are buying into it, but like you said, it's all the same bullshit when you look at it. Louise Adams: Just wrapped in glitter. Summer Innanen: Right, exactly. It's like that meme that the HAES student doctor says, it's like the poo emoji called 'diet' and then like in glitter, it's like 'lifestyle change'. It all, you know, it all upholds fatphobia. And dangerous dieting. And quick weight loss. And this idea that... Louise Adams: And a massive industry. Let's not forget that this is all a bloody huge  industry. It's...what is it? 600 billion in the States every year. Summer Innanen: Yes. Louise Adams: Yeah. This is a business and the media is in the business of keeping these businesses going. And even when they admit it, they don't stop it. Summer Innanen: Well because they would lose their sponsors. And, and then it would, I mean, it would all probably collapse. So it's a tough  situation. It's a tricky situation. I don't think it's an easy fix. I think you have to really stand out. You have to be willing to say like, 'okay, we're going to really be, you know, these are our company values and we're going to, you know, stand, actually stand by them regardless of what the fallout is from that'. But I mean, my hope is that more people are going like, you know, would support those messages. Cause I think there are, there's also a growing population of people who are sick of it and who are, are tired of that crap and who know that diets don't work. Louise Adams: Yeah. I think the pushback is happening. It is maddening when we see stuff nearly, nearly get it. And then kind of, whiplash straight back into it, but we keep pushing. We keep these voices going and the voices are getting louder and louder and more diverse and more strident. And I think, you know, 2021 January has been the usual bullshit tsunami, but I hope that this conversation for the listeners helps get the bullshit detector flashing. Push back against this whole idea that insane levels of starvation are somehow healthy. And you know, what we can do is like articles, comment on articles like that. I haven't read too many of the comments on that article, 'The unbearable weight of diet culture', but I did see the usual shit fight starting underneath. Summer Innanen: I did too. Louise Adams: 'Oh my God, you're  killing people'. Summer Innanen:  I know, that's going to happen. That's going to happen. But you know what, like good on them for at least publishing that and getting it out there. And let's hope that five years from now, they're not, they're still standing by those things and not totally changing. Although I think I might be...I'm going to be cautiously optimistic on that one. Louise Adams: Uh, I mean, it's so crappy when you go to that little bit about the 1200 calorie diet. It says 'follow this and you will feel satisfied and drop all the weight', which is exact opposite of what we've just spent like half an hour telling you. Yeah. Summer Innanen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like enough for maybe a seagull or something, but not a human being. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's...I'm still like, I'm just still in amazement that they took out the reference to the Holocaust concentration camp prisoners, because I think that, that was like, that was such a huge thing to say that...but maybe it was because then they didn't want to take down the 1200 calorie-a-day article. And so therefore they... Louise Adams: Interesting too that they hid the idea that this is our second most read article. Summer Innanen: Yeah. Louise Adams: That's pretty huge. Summer Innanen: It really lowered the number of people who had requested it or looked for it, or what did you say?  It was like 45,000? Louise Adams: It was annually rather than by the month. Like it's just kind of interesting that they tapped in...they altered that part of the article. Which is kind of the bit, which says this is the bit where complicit with. Summer Innanen: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, have media literacy. Louise Adams: Yeah. Oh my God. But thank you so much for coming on and unpacking the crappy diet culture stuff that's circulating in our countries. Summer Innanen: Thank you so much for having me. I loved chatting with you. I loved, yeah, just kind of dissecting all this stuff. Yeah. Louise Adams: All the rage. So thank you for getting it off your chest and thanks for coming on. Summer Innanen: Thank you so much, Louise.   Resources Mentioned in the Show: (Major trigger warning - all of these sharticles discuss weight loss in excruciating detail !!) The lady who lost weight to look like Barbie Woody the Weight loss guru Malamute The horrendous Keto plus fasting diet that claimed to be inspiring us (the same method that spiralled Summer's eating disorder) The Good Housekeeping article "The unbearable weight of diet culture" Find more about the wonderful Summer Innanen here Summer's wonderful podcast Eat The Rules  

There's no-one on the planet like my awesome friend Dr Lindo Bacon! It's been more than 4 years since we got to hang out drinking wine in a hot tub in the Napa Valley, and even though we can't see each other in person, I am SO HAPPY to kick off the new year and a new season of the All Fired Up podcast with them! Do not miss this fiercely loving wisdom from Lindo, who has NAILED the problem with self-love and is calling for a revolution - not of self-care but of BELONGING! We don't need to fall in love with our bodies - we need to work on healing our entire society, we need radical change - EQUALITY, and JUSTICE, and we need to ALLOW DIVERSITY! Basically, if all humans are welcome - if all humans belong - we can heal. Lindo has come a long way since their first book Health At Every Size, and we had an awesome conversation about how their perspective has changed - and all about their fabulous new book "Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better). This is a not-to-be-missed episode!! Show Transcript   LOUISE: Thank you so much for coming on the show, Lindo. Welcome. LINDO: Oh, I’ve always wanted to do this, Louise. It’s always such a pleasure to hang out with you. LOUISE: I know! LINDO: So, I can’t believe we haven’t done this sooner. LOUISE: I can’t believe it either, but I’m so excited we’re talking about your new book as the reason to have you here. But I’m just…I’ve got so much to say and talk about, but it is so awesome to get to chat to you. But, you know, before we kick off…it’s been like over four years since…because we hung out in like, live, when I came in 2016 which was just before Trump got elected. LINDO: Oh, is that the timing? Yeah? LOUISE: Yeah! And now I’m talking to you just a couple of days after that whole period’s ended and we’ve got a new president. Isn’t that weird? LINDO: It is. I remember just relaxing in a hot tub with you in the Napa Valley, which is wine country in California, talking about the election. LOUISE: I know, I know, right? What a wild memory now, thinking of…the fact that I can’t even get on a plane. LINDO: Yeah, so…present tense, what are we talking about today? LOUISE: Yes, so I want to know what is firing you up at the moment? LINDO: What’s firing me up…lately I’ve been listening to all this ‘body positivity’ and what’s getting me is that everybody is preaching this ‘self-love’ message. And self-love, yeah, it’s a gorgeous thing and I wish it for everybody. But there’s this idea that that’s what’s going to save us, and we have to do all the internal work on ourselves. And it makes the whole ‘body liberation’ journey very individual. And that’s not what it’s about, because we can love ourselves fully and completely, and then we walk into a world where people tell us there’s something wrong with us. Whether it’s that we’re too fat, or we’re denied an opportunity because of our skin colour. So, I want people to know that as beautiful as self-love is, it’s not enough to save us. We also have to be working on social change. Because we’re individuals in a context, and if we forget the context then we end up blaming ourselves that we can’t love ourselves, and then it becomes problematic. But it’s hard to love ourselves in a culture that doesn’t support us. LOUISE: Absolutely. LINDO: That’s what’s on my mind right now. LOUISE: Yeah, this is so absolutely necessary, and this is very much your book. LINDO: Can I tell you a very funny thing? I was very proud to see that Radical Belonging, my book, is selling well. And it’s jumped up on Amazon’s best seller list. LOUISE: Really? LINDO: Yeah, it’s near the top of Amazon’s vest seller list. But here’s the thing, it’s the self-help best seller list. And I explicitly have a chapter in there that’s titled something like ‘why self-help is not enough’. You know? Just trying to get away from that. But it makes me laugh, I’ll take it, you know? I’m glad the book is getting around, and I’m glad the book is getting around to people who are interested in self-help. So that it can help to expand their horizons a bit. LOUISE: It helps them hopefully to abandon self-help and start changing the world. Oh wow. You have led this whole…I wouldn’t say body positivity, I’d talk about Health at Every Size®, HAES®. You’ve done three books, you’ve done ‘Health at Every Size’, which a lot of people refer to as one of the original textbooks of HAES®. And you did Body Respect, which was co-authored with Lucy Aphramor, and then Radical Belonging is your third book. And like all of us, it’s such a process, this HAES® perspective. I’m interested to ask you how things have changed for you since you first wrote HAES®, up until now. That’s a big question. 15:48 LINDO: It is. I’ll keep it short, because there’s a short and easy narrative that ties the three books. And that’s that…first of, you didn’t imply this, but I want to just announce it for the audience because there’s a big misunderstanding that people tend to think that I started the Health at Every Size® movement, and I did not. Health at Every Size® was around long before I had ever entered the scene. And my book, I think, helped to popularise it quite a bit. And so, that’s probably why I got that reputation. Anyway, that first ‘Health at Every Size’ book, I’m still proud of it. I think it’s an important book and I get a lot of feedback that it’s changed people’s lives and given professionals a totally new framework for approaching weight. So, I am still proud of it. But in retrospect, what I see is that it was very much a self-help book. It really put the emphasis on individual change. And all that stuff is valuable, but there are also a lot of limitations to it. I mean, one is that it means it’s a very privileged book because there are a lot of people that just don’t have access to being able to eat nutritiously and eat the foods that they want when they want, and they might have a job that doesn’t give them food breaks except during prescribed times so they can’t really respond to body cues, or they’ve got to learn how to make adjustments to that. Or, you know, they might be living in poverty and have difficulty taking care of themselves in that way. So anyway, there’s a lot of class privilege that’s involved in being able to make individual choices. Another problem is that we know that that stuff doesn’t play that huge of a role in our health anyway. I’m not going to deny that eating nd exercise don’t play some role in our health, they do. But research shows that all of our health behaviours combined probably only play 25% of the role in our health. LOUISE: And that’s mind-blowing. LINDO: It is. And the really big thing about your health is about how you’re treated in the world. You know? What we call the social determinants of health. So, I regret in some ways that I wrote a book that was so catered to privileged people without knowing it, and put the emphasis on things…well, I mean, it is helpful for people to learn the skills and strategies of self-help if they can, but not to put that stuff in context also means that there’ll be a lot of self-blame when people don’t get all the health results that they’re hoping for. LOUISE: Yeah, so if you can’t do it, then that’s your fault? LINDO: And if you don’t get a result… LOUISE: If you’re health’s not improving you must be doing something wrong. LINDO: Yeah. I mean, if you still have diabetes after changing your diet and exercising, you’re doing something wrong. Or even if you get, you have diabetes and you’re not eating so nutritious, right? I still don’t think there should be self-blame. Anyway, that’s why I was really happy to have the opportunity to kind of approach it again. And the second time I worked with Lucy Aphramor and we made all those connections, and we started talking about the interplay between the social determinants of health – things like racism, and sexism, and ablism, and how they intersect with our health and our opportunities to change our life. LOUISE: Yeah, that was an incredible book and an incredible change in emphasis from the first, because I came to your training in Seattle… LINDO: Yeah, I remember that. It was the first time we met. LOUISE: Yeah. It was like, five days of diving into all of that, the social determinants of health and thinking about oppression and thinking about stuff I had never thought about. And when I came home from that trip…I had an online program at the time, like a…to help people, based on HAES® principles. And when I came home from that trip, I literally took the whole thing down and shredded it and did it again. And came up with Untrapped, which was a co-work with all of the other people who helped, because of that, that shift in emphasis…and it was mind-blowing, and just phenomenal. 20:30 LINDO: It’s interesting too how much it resonates with people, because you’re telling them ‘your story mattes’. Who you are plays a role, like, your history and what’s happened to you plays a huge role in your attitudes towards exercise, your attitudes towards your body, and how you’re treated in the world is just so, so important. Once people start to see that they’re seen, it opens up possibilities for them to come up with an individualised approach to how they want to live their life, right? Rather than following somebody else’s rules. LOUISE: Yeah, and it also sort of opens the door for social justice and really sort of taking seriously things like inequity and oppression and trauma. Here in Australia, the Aboriginal population have diabetes rates much, much higher than the white population, and of course the weight science researchers like to talk about ‘that’s because of the size of our Aboriginal population, we need to make everyone lose weight and it’s going to go away, it’ll be magic”. It’s just such bullshit to think of things that… LINDO: That’s the first thing they say, is they blame it on weight. And then the second thing they tell people to do is to diet and exercise. Even that has been shown to have limited effect on changing diabetes outcomes. But you know, what the real research is showing is provide people with more opportunity, so they have higher paying jobs, so they’re not so stressed out. Treat them better. Stop oppression. That’s how we make a dent in diabetes. LOUISE: Yeah, right? So, what a huge realisation that maybe the solution here isn’t with individual behaviour but with social change. LINDO: Right. Which again, si not to suggest that individual behvaiour change doesn’t do anything. It does. But to change the emphasis a little bit, to give people more agency in the world. LOUISE: Yeah, and more respect. LINDO: Yeah. LOUISE: Which was the name of the book, Body Respect. LINDO: Yeah. So, it was really fun to have the opportunity to write that book with Lucy Aphramor. That book was meant to be short, to the point, very concise to that people could really see the arguments clearly. And we didn’t do nearly as much storytelling as I did in my first book. This was a very different book. It was meant to really sell to people this idea of what we called in the book ‘Health at Every Size’. I think there’s still some debate as to whether that’s what people were calling Health at Every Size® at the time, or whether that was just ideas that we wanted to be Health at Every Size®. LOUISE: Interesting. LINDO: But anyway. I’m not so sure about that. But regardless, the book to me was a really important transition, and much of what’s in the book, believe it or not, I’m still very much behind. You know? I think it really…it’s last…maybe four or five years since we’ve published it. I think we’ve really grown into the ideas in Body Respect more. LOUISE: Yeah. As a HAES® community, you mean? LINDO: Yes. Exactly. And then the progression as far as the third book goes, there’s very little emphasis on…I don’t use the term Health at Every Size® often. LOUISE: Yeah, I’ve noticed. LINDO: And in part that’s because…I think there’s so many other people right now who are helping to define and grow Health at Every Size®, and I want to step back a little bit and let other people…or not ‘let’, but so that other people can emerge and there can be wider perspective. And I also don’t feel like I want to be responsible for a movement. Like, I’d rather just talk about what’s important to me and not be so closely assigned responsibility around something that is so much bigger than me and is not me. 25:04 LOUISE: Yeah, there’s so many voices and so many people and so many perspectives that need to be heard. LINDO: Right. And Health at Every Size® is a community idea. And also, I’m not so interested in physical health as much. LOUISE: Interesting. LINDO: Like, yeah, I think it’s important, but it’s not my focus. My focus is more on love and community. Maybe I should have said that in terms of what’s firing me up. I think we’re recognising more than ever how much we need each other, and that’s what I want to do. I want to forge those bonds. I find that the more that I connect with my vulnerability and expose myself in the world, the more I get seen by everyone and I can find my pockets where I get respected and valued, and that’s what feeds me. Having that kind of support, of unity. And it’s not so much that I get seen, but the richness of seeing other people too, in all their uniqueness. LOUISE: All of their states of health. Yeah. LINDO: So, belonging seems to be the thing that’s captured me more, and why I wrote about that in my last book. LOUISE: Yeah, belonging. And it’s such a beautiful word. LINDO: It is. LOUISE: What’s…what does it mean to you? What does belonging mean? LINDO: Belonging to me is about that unconditional love. It meant that I can expose the stuff that I might not be so proud of in myself, and yet I’m still loved and validated and seen and appreciated, and people will sit with me through that, right? And that gives me opportunity to make change, or not. But that’s a very different idea to what our culture offers up to people. Like, it says…it kind of sets normal standards and it tells you that you belong if you match up with that. If you’re thin enough, for example, you belong. If you’re cisgender, you belong. And so many people feel that they don’t have the same ability or opportunity ot be appreciated in the world. LOUISE: So, it’s like diet culture would say there’s conditional belonging. LINDO: Right, right. LOUISE: And you’re saying radical belonging, we all belong. LINDO: Right, radical. LOUISE: Radical, meaning like, we don’t need to fit into boxes. LINDO: Right. So, it’s two things there. It’s about not needing to fit into boxes. What that means is we take on social justice issues, because we have to value everybody in this world. And then the second thing is just recognising that humans are vulnerable, we get scared, we make mistakes and inviting all of that humanity into the picture too. LOUISE: Yeah, welcoming that. LINDO: Yeah. LOUISE: It is, it’s so beautiful. This book is so beautiful. It sort of fills you up. I’m interested, what led you to write Radical Belonging? LINDO: When I started writing it, it wasn’t because I had this idea in mind of a book I wanted to get out. In fact, it actually started just as a personal journal. And at first, I was basically just writing my gender identity, and looking at the obstacles over the years, how I overcame them. And I’d say that that first writing was something that was very painful, and it certainly wasn’t something that I wanted exposed to the world, because it was all about my pain. But when I looked at it, I also realised that I’ve developed to much resilience over the years. The stuff that I got japed for when I was a kid…my parents hated that I liked to wear clothes that were meant for boys, they wanted me to wear dresses. When I wore dresses, I always just felt like I was doing drag, right? My parents always just shamed me for that, saw it as something that was really wrong. Never could I go out in public dressed the way I wanted to dress. LOUISE: That’s awful. LINDO: Right. And I have to realise that I got through all of that stuff, you know? Maybe, sure I had to develop an eating disorder to figure out how to…you know, food got me through some of those difficult times. LOUISE: But that’s coping strategy, right? It did get you through. LINDO: Exactly, right. So, I was able to kind of rewrite the book and look at how I saved myself, and not just through the eating disorder but how I learned other skills to kind of manage discomfort, so I no longer needed the eating disorder or the substance abuse that I also went through when I was younger. And recognising that I had developed so many skills to kind of transform the challenges that I was given. And then I went back, and I looked at the book, and was able to look at it through my scientific lens. To recognise that hey, there’s a biological reason why I was reaching for food. And I could recognise the way that trauma kind of lodges in your body, or in my body. You know? And how that participated in a distrust of other people, and hypervigilance that I kind of carried with me in adulthood and kind of a… 31:08 LOUISE: That’s the legacy of trauma, that hypervigilance. That fracturing of trust. LINDO: And that inability to kind of sit with discomfort. So, I could kind of put the science to it and show how trauma played out physically in my body and resulted in a lot of behaviours. And then I could also look at the part two to that, how I developed strategies that kind of rewired  my brain so that I got better at tolerating things, and didn’t have to jump to coping behaviours. And I could fill in all of the science for what you can do to kind of save yourself. LOUISE: Yeah, that’s what I love about the title. It’s ‘how to survive and thrive in an unjust world’. So, not just survival. LINDO: Right, and come out happy and having fun. You have difficult times too, but learning how to just accept them and get through them. LOUISE: Resilience is a remarkable thing. Humans are like, we’re pretty tough. LINDO: We can be. But you can always keep getting better at it. LOUISE: Yeah, and that’s what this book is all about. It’ like, how to do that. LINDO: And then the big recognition that I had through all of that is one of the reasons why we develop all of the coping challenges is because we really want to be loved and appreciated by other people. And when we get rejected, it hurts. And so it makes sense that we develop an inauthentic self to kind of protect ourselves in the world. It makes sense that we kind of run away from relationships and get scared. But once you recognise that it’s all about fear of connection, because connection is what saves us. Right? I mean, that’s the irony. We’re scared of something because if we don’t get it, we can’t survive. Right? So the more you can develop the courage to kind of jump into relationships, and be with people, and be vulnerable… LOUISE: And authentic. LINDO: Yeah. LOUISE: And that’s what you’ve done! By writing the book and putting it out there, that’s the ultimate of what you’ve done. LINDO: Yeah, I put myself out there. I showed the world who I was and asked to be seen in the way that I haven’t been seen previously. LOUISE: And I think that’s one of the loveliest things about this book, is that we get to meet you. LINDO: Thanks, that’s sweet. LOUISE: Alongside the science. But the ‘you’, the human, everything that you’ve been through was… LINDO: Thank you for that. And I think that the storytelling in the book and the vulnerability does make it a lot more readable and fun. I think too that one of the things that I was really looking for was using myself so that other people could see themselves, too. And I was really proud when Ijeoma Oluo who wrote the introduction to the book…she was a stranger to me and I just sent her the book and asked her if she’d read it, and it just moved her. And I asked her to write the foreword and…she’s a black woman, she’s an activist and what she said was that in every chapter she was able to see herself. To me, that just made me cry. That was what I was shooting for in the book, to use myself to open up the possibility that other people can see themselves and think about similar stories. And I write other people’s stories into the book too, to help that process along. But it was really beautiful, because Ijeoma had so many different social identities than I do, and yet she saw herself so profoundly there. LOUISE: That’s extraordinary. LINDO: That to me was a marker of success, you know? That I’d been able to somewhat universalise this book across our different social identities. 35:28 LOUISE: Yeah, you do. And you also speak about so many just human things that we don’t really think about. Like, how much avoidance we engage in, for example. Like, if we’re feeling shame about friends, or things that are going on socially, how much we hide. There’s so many little snippets in the book that you can relate to, like “oh, I’ve done that! I’ve done that” and we don’t really hear about this. It’s really human. LINDO: Right, right. LOUISE: What was it like to come out at trans in the book? Because, you know, in your community everybody knows you and knows you as Lindo for a long time. But this book’s just come out. What’s that been like from that perspective? LINDO: Well, it’s a huge relief. It’s interesting to use the word ‘come out’, because… LOUISE: I wasn’t sure what to say. LINDO: I know, and I’m never sure what to say either. Because I’m not sure that my gender identity has ever changed since birth. I think most people are much more gender fluid than I, they’re much more playful about it. But my gender identity has been the same. So, it’s not like there was a ‘coming out’ period, or a change that happened. I think the problem is though that we live in this world where people just assume a gender binary. And so, everybody has tried to put me into this package that was never ‘me’, and except for in childhood when I really tried to be feminine because my parents, it was important to my parents, I never was ‘woman’ that people saw me as. And being genderqueer, it’s not an easy box for people to put you into. People see me and they just make an assumption about who I am. And I think that shifted over time, physically I look a lot different now, but not enough to always push me out of the like, like what people think of in terms of gender presentation. Not enough to necessarily push me out of a category where people are making the assumption…like, making the assumption that I’m a woman. For example, if you’re hearing audio right now and my voice is definitely what most people attribute to ‘woman’, and so on the phone everybody just misgenders me automatically. But anyway. Having this book out, I’m telling people ‘don’t do that’. So, before it made sense to me that people would make the wrong assumption, but now I’m not allowing for that anymore. Like, I’m just out there and asserting myself. So, I guess that just, might feel different. LOUISE: Yeah, and that’s what you’re talking about in the book as well. Not just the act of self-love but acts of social justice and sticking up for yourself. You’ve got many examples in the book of when you’ve tried to do that and make changes, and that’s part of body liberation, right? LINDO: Sure, yeah. LOUISE: Super cool. So, one of the really fascinating bits of the book, from the science perspective, is when you start talking about the brain on trauma, and how experiences of oppression and exclusion particularly actually impacts our brain. Can you talk a bit about that? LINDO: Sure. It was totally fascinating to me to learn that when you experience rejection, that it’s the same areas in your brain light up as when you experience physical pain. LOUISE: Wow. LINDO: Yeah. All these times socially we’re excluded, we’re told we’re not enough, we’re told there’s something wrong with us, we’re told we’re too fat, all of these things lodge in our brain and after a while the brain changes and adapts to this. We call this ‘high allostatic load’, when you’ve had repeated experiences of…I’ll call it trauma, or…actually, why don’t we call it microaggressions. You can read the book to come up with distinctions there. But repeated experiences of microaggressions add up to trauma in your brain, and after a while your body comes to expect all of these things. And what that means is that you’re going to have a higher level of anxiety, be more fearful when you go into different circumstances, because you have experiences of rejection in the past. And people develop a hypervigilance, get depressed, we talked about this a little bit earlier. Your body adapts and this becomes your go-to response, this kind of fear being in the world. And it also contributes to things like Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease risk. Which explains why marginalised people are much more likely to get many chronic diseases and to die earlier than people who are given more social and economic privilege in the world. 41:00 LOUISE: Yeah, that is so important and so overlooked. LINDO: Right, and it’s interesting to see how physical and biological it is. That it’s not that the individual isn’t trying hard enough in the world, it’s that the world is trying to… LOUISE: The world is being hard for the individual. LINDO: I think we’re always kind of focused on the negative stuff, but the amazing thing is that we always have the opportunity to rewire our brain so that we don’t have to be as hypervigilant in the world and distrustful. There are plenty of strategies we can employ that are going to help our brain to sit with discomfort more readily, and to tolerate not knowing things and going into unfamiliar environments, etc. There are a lot of things we can develop, and probably one of the most beautiful and most powerful is that our friendships can help us to develop a physical resilience that’s going to make us more able to handle life when it gets hard, and more happy in the world. LOUISE: So interesting, so connection can help. LINDO: Yeah, connection is probably one of the most important things, and it can help you to feel more safe in the world, so that you’re more able to kind of venture out and take risks. LOUISE: So, it’s really important to find your people. LINDO: It is. And it’s really important to learn how to do vulnerability, right? Sometimes you need to be protected in the world, and that makes sense because the world isn’t safe. But if you can find safe places where you can truly be yourself and you can get appreciation for that, and love for that, the more you can develop that, the more it can give you a sense of peace that’s going to allow you to move more freely and happily through the world. LOUISE: Yeah. And it’s those people, like I’m thinking of…you’re an example of someone who has that. Connection, community, support. And with that resilience, you can write books like you’re written and put them out there and have these conversations. LINDO: I know, and I appreciate that. I know a lot of people couldn’t put this kind of vulnerability out, that it would be too threatening to them. LOUISE: Yeah, if they don’t have a community or a connection. LINDO: I appreciate that I am so bolstered by other people that it allows me…it protects me, it allows me to do this. And I think in some sense that’s why I feel a responsibility to do the kind of work that I do, because I have so much privilege and… LOUISE: But also, in your bubble…not bubble, but in your community, it’s an inclusive community too, right? There’s attention to Black Lives Matter, there’s gender diversity, there’s all those kinds of things. I’m not at all saying that social justice is working over where you live, but there’s efforts and there’s attention and there’s a sense of preparation, and that social change is important as well. LINDO: Right. I mean, my world would be so boring and unimaginative if everybody looked like me and acted like me. And the way we get excitement in your life is having that kind of exposure to people in all their glorious uniqueness. LOUISE: Yeah, we need to build that. LINDO: And it’s interesting, because I wish the larger corporations would recognise how much creativity they’re losing out on by only hiring certain people who fit a certain mould. You know? Like, you can recognise for example that people who are neurodiverse and might…that everybody sees the problem through a different lens that’s going to allow them to have some kind of unique perspective. And I think that corporations would benefit from like, having so many different perspectives to find what really works well in the world, you know? You think about, if you’re not going to hire fat applicants you have so many fewer applicants to choose from. You’re not going to find the best people. 45:45 LOUISE: Yeah. You’ll probably some very hungry people if they’re dieting, too! LINDO: Yeah, so the more we open up to all the different expressions of humanity, it only benefits us. LOUISE: It really does, and that’s such a lovely way of looking at it. We need to be really welcoming diversity in all areas, in all walks of life. It’s a totally different way of thinking. LINDO: And we do it not because it’s the right thing to do, but because there’s also…we benefit from it. It’s not that we’re helping other people… LOUISE: Yeah. It’s like, it’s evolution too, isn’t it? I few get rid of diversity in any ecosystem, it suffers. LINDO: Exactly. LOUISE: Bring in the glorious diversity and see what can happen. Can you tell us the story, because there’s this awesome story you tell in the book about the gym? LINDO: About the gym. Sure. You know, I haven’t read the book in a while, so I’m going to have to remember which of many stories…but I think it was going into the gym on a day that I was feeling particularly irritable. And there was a new guy that was checking everybody in. so, I do my fingerprint ID, I don’t know, maybe it was a phone ID…I don’t remember. Anyway, I guess my name pops up on the screen and he says, “have a good workout, Miss Bacon”. And it just bummed me out. Like, I had…I was going to the gym to kind of get in a better space. And to be hit right away with being misgendered, it just hit me hard and I kind of snapped at him. I don’t remember what I said. And he got all defensive and said, “that’s what the computer told him” and he was blaming it on the computer. LOUISE: The computer! LINDO: And also he couldn’t quite understand, like I looked like a woman to him, he didn’t understand wht he had gotten wrong. And unfortunately, we’re having this dispute and another worker walked up and was more sensitive, and was able to kind of get the guy to back down and explain that you can’t always know somebody’s gender identity by looking at them and we need to be open minded, and helped me through it. But then while I was working out at the gym, I was just obsessing on it. Iw as just so angry. This was just one more time when… LOUISE: it’s not the only thing, it’s another pain. LINDO: Exactly. Like, he triggered a lifetime of feeling misgendered. And it meant that I couldn’t let go of that, and it kind of spun out into somewhat of an anxiety attack. And anyway, I learned form that, right? And one of the ways I took back my power was by complaining at the gym and my…the end result of that was that they actually changed some of their policies, and that helped me to feel more empowered and respected. The fact that people adapt and change… LOUISE: That’s awesome, that’s such a massive change if out of one panic attack that message of pain in your body drove you into action. LINDO: Right. And another funny part of that story is that at first, just me protesting wasn’t getting far enough. So I just got together a few friends and we just made up a fake organisation. We called ourselves something like ‘Social Justice Advocacy Corps’ or something. LOUISE: Oh my God, that’s brilliant. LINDO: And we kind of threatened a social media callout. And I think the fear of something bigger was really what motivated them to listen. LOUISE: Really? Okay. 50:00 LINDO: So, I think that, that’s an important statement. Build communities so you can get support around this. LOUISE: Yeah, create an organisation. LINDO: Exactly, take it…if you can’t do it. LOUISE: Lean in, get a bit of pressure on them, because people these days might not respond to one person, but if you are a representative of an organisation or if you have social media… LINDO: And I think that more and more, they’re recognising that people are angry that trans folks don’t have equal rights. They’re angry at racism. So it now is a liability for a corporation to be seen in that light. LOUISE: Isn’t that cool? It’s no longer cool to be exclusionary and it has to be attended to. LINDO: So, we certainly have a long, long way of change ahead, but I think that the playing field’s a little bit different now. LOUISE: Yeah, well there’s strength in numbers, as you’re saying, and there’s an increased recognition. Isn’t it incredible to think about what the world might look like in another generation with this kind of change? It’s incredibly hopeful. LINDO: And I know that when I was a kid, I wasn’t even able to imagine ‘trans’ because I hadn’t ever seen a trans person that I was aware of. So, it didn’t even enter my mind as a possibility. But that’s not true of this next generation, at least the generation of kids that live in areas of the United Sates surrounded by that kind of imagery… LOUISE: The inclusion, yeah. LINDO: Kids are more able to find their gender identity and recognise it, it doesn’t have to be the one that was assigned to them at birth. There’s just a lot more creativity that’s possible. LOUISE: I know, exactly. I totally agree with that. I think it’s going to be just this source, amazing source of creativity. If people’s brains aren’t always bound up with that trauma and that kind of confusion, trying to stick yourself in a box that doesn’t fit, there’s so much ability to create and evolve. Yeah. There’s going to be so many cool things come out of this. Thank you for a wonderful conversation. Where can we get the book? It’s here in Australia now, I think. LINDO: Oh, it is? That’s exciting, because I think there was a little delay getting it to Australia. LOUISE: Thanks, Covid. LINDO: Covid-related problems. I’m pretty sure people can get it anywhere books are, these days. LOUISE: Yeah. And there’s an Audible version? LINDO: The Audible version comes out on February 15th, so it’s not out yet. LOUISE: But that’s only a few weeks’ time. And are you reading the book? LINDO: I am not. LOUISE: You’re not reading the book, okay. That’s okay. LINDO: But there is a really wonderful narrator, I spent days and days listening to people to come up with the perfect voice. LOUISE: Oh, how did you come up with that? What was the perfect voice for the book? LINDO: Oh, I wanted someone who could radiate compassion at the same time that they had passion, and really could find when to use one and when to use the other. LOUISE: Cool. LINDO: Yeah, there’s someone that’s really amazing that did it, so I feel good about it. LOUISE: That’s so good, I’m a big fan of Audible lately as reading in Covid for some reason has gotten really hard for lots of people. LINDO: I’m the same way, and I’m out going for walks a lot, and I just listen to books. LOUISE: This is a lovely book to listen to whilst walking, I’m definitely going to do that. LINDO: Excellent. Enjoy. Lovely talking with you. LOUISE: Thank you so much, you’re the best. Thanks. Well, I promised to give you an uplifting start to 2021, and there you are. You don’t get much more uplifting than Dr Lindo Bacon. Thank you so much, Lindo, for coming on and sharing your wonderful book and your vision of what we can achieve if we work together and work more on belonging and just how healing that is. Just a wonderful book, wonderful human. Go out and get it, everybody. And if you want to find out more about Lindo and all of the work they’re doing, head to lindobacon.com website or Instagram, @lindobacon, or on twitter @lindobacon. Some wonderful stuff that is coming out from Lindo, and some wonderful community work in relation to this book. So, go check out the website and find out more there. Okay, so we’re come to the end of the first podcast for 2021. I’m really enjoying myself talking to you, and I’m just really glad to be back. And I’m looking forward to our next episode, which will come out in a few weeks’ time. So, look after yourself, everyone. In the meantime, listen to your body. Think critically. Push back against diet culture. Untrap from the crap!    

There's nothing more infuriating than when people throw shade at the anti-diet perspective without bothering to actually research it. When "The Biggest Loser" trainer/shameless fatphobe Jillian Michaels arrogantly released a Youtube clip trashing the 10 principles of intuitive eating, WITHOUT EVEN READING THE BOOK, she REALLY pi***ed off the community! And none more so than my guests, anti-diet fitness trainers Anna Hearn and Shreen El Masry, who have been dying to come on the podcast and set the record straight! Finally the COVID window opened just a crack so I could record the very first IN PERSON podcast! Join us as we dissect Jillian's often hilarious inability to comprehend a life beyond diet prison. WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS 'PERMISSION TO EAT!!' It seems the lady doth protest too much - could it be that the Queen of Diet Prison is sensing the paradigm-shifting power of the anti-diet revolution? That's right folks, the unrivalled reign of Biggest Loser-esque terror is over!! Vive La Difference! Please note - this episode comes with a hefty side serve of calorie count discussions, so if you're in recovery from an eating disorder please consider your level of spoons to hear the diet talk. But, if you've had a gutful of igno-rants about anti-dieting, it's time to get ALL FIRED UP! Show Transcript:   LOUISE: So, here I am with Anna and Shreen. Thank you so much for coming on the show. ANNA: Thank you for having us. SHREEN: Yeah, thank you so much. LOUISE: It’s so exciting to be alive with actual humans in the room, and slightly weird. Why don’t you guys tell me all about what is firing you up? ANNA: We’re really fired up about Jillian Michaels and her aggressive fatphobic rant on intuitive eating. LOUISE: (sighs) First of all, I have to say I love how you say ‘rant’, it’s very proper and awesome. But yes, Jillian Michaels – Biggest Loser trainer in the United States. Horrendously fatphobic. ANNA: Yeah, I mean … she got her living, she makes her living from shaming fat bodies. I think that tells a lot about her character and where she’s going to go with her intuitive eating rant. LOUISE: So, she was on the Biggest Loser for years and years and years. Her website … well, she’s touting herself as the world’s best trainer. Like, the biggest expert in the world on all things fitness. Which, well … this is just a hunch, but I could find people on the planet who are more qualified. ANNA: Well, if you want to break down her qualifications, I think it looks like she’s done a couple of personal training qualifications, a couple of fitness qualifications and … SHREEN: One ‘woo woo’ nutrition qualification. ANNA: There is a nutrition qualification there too, but it doesn’t look like there’s any degrees or anything. So, when it comes to intuitive eating and looking at all of that, when we go into it you’ll realise, I think, that she hasn’t really done her research. She doesn’t understand it. And I think it’s interesting that somebody without that nutrition background or lived experience with that sort of thing talks about it the way that she does. SHREEN: I think as well, not only does she come across really aggressive and shaming, also I think her insecurity is really coming out in this video. Intuitive eating is a movement that’s really starting to take off, and she’s clearly threatened by it. You can see her defence mechanism is up, and she’s … you know, really, just … her demeanour is just awful. LOUISE: It's hard to tell, though, if her demeanour’s just awful because she’s defensive or because her demeanour’s just awful. SHREEN: Yeah, that’s true. ANNA: I kind of picked up on that and thought she was sensing a threat because intuitive eating is becoming more mainstream, people are becoming more aware of it. So that could threaten what she does, because she makes a living forcing people to lose weight. LOUISE: So, during the 90’s and the early 2000’s, like … it was a free-for-all with bullying people with larger bodies, as we saw. World-wide, the Biggest Loser was the number one show, and everyone thought it was okay. So, she’s had this unfettered ability to be horrible about body size and really belittling of people in larger bodies. And now, I think she’s realising it’s not okay to keep on doing that. ANNA: The backlash about it. LOUISE: So, just to set the stage. What we’re seeing … because I did see the internet blow up. It was a while ago now, but let’s face it - we’ve all been in iso and unable to talk to each other. So, she has like a YouTube channel and one of her YouTube little presentations - I don’t watch what she does, just for my own mental health - but this one was Jillian Michaels talking about intuitive eating. Which, oh my god … let’s just get Donald Trump talking about sexism. ANNA: That’s a great analogy. SHREEN: She’s basically, I think she’s just gone on the website and just pulled up the principles without doing any research into it or even understanding there’s over a hundred studies done on intuitive eating and there’s a whole book as well. She just went on there, read out these principles and gave her, I guess, her opinion.  ANNA: It became really clear that she hasn’t taken the time to understand it. She hasn’t learnt about the authors; you’ll see as she comes to the end of it, she talks about assuming that it was written by somebody who had just had some bad experience with diet culture, maybe had an eating disorder LOUISE: Oh my god, that’s so disrespectful SHREEN: So disrespectful. ANNA: No understanding or bothering to explore that the authors are actually dietitians who had come up with this approach because they had done so much work with clients who had struggled a lot and this is what they’d learnt from working with them over years and years. LOUISE: These are the gurus. Like, Tribole and Resch, they wrote the initial book Intuitive Eating and it’s just been updated, which is fantastic. But even that, even their book which is written from that perspective of helping people recover from eating disorders, that book is built on another big long history of social justice and fat activism. To not recognise that intuitive eating is part of a social movement and like, the way she presented it is like, she just stumbled across a webpage and … oh my god. ANNA: Definitely, yeah. And it came across very, very condescending. I felt really bothered … SHREEN: It’s so harmful, as well. That was the thing that really bothered me the most, was how much … I mean, she causes so much harm anyway, but the message was just next level harm. And if anyone was watching that and had no idea, the things that she was saying … yeah, it’s just not on. LOUISE: Oh god, yikes. So, we thought we would unpick Jillian Michael’s feelpinion to each of the ten principles of intuitive eating. And you guys have written some awesomely detailed notes. ANNA: We had a really good chat about it. LOUISE: Fantastic. But I’m so interested, because you guys both work in this industry as HAES® positive, body inclusive, weight neutral trainers hearing from almost like the personification of diet culture woman. SHREEN: She is the reason why people have so much fitness trauma and so much negative association with fitness. She’s causing that. ANNA: She is the epitome of diet culture. SHREEN: Yeah, she is the epitome of diet culture, for sure. ANNA: And I think we chatted about this as we were hanging out one day, and we just came across this as a topic that fired both of us up. And it’s frustrating when you see … when you’re so heavily involved in this space, and the HAES® space, and the body inclusive space, it can be … and luckily for me working here at Haven, this is the space I come to work every day. So, I’m not exposed to traditional diet culture unless I stumble across it or it’s brought to my attention. So, I couldn’t help but just be really quite wild about this. LOUISE: I love it. I mean, I don’t love that you’re wild, but I kind of do. But, yeah. It’s nice to know that in this industry there are people who feel really strongly about just putting an end to this. She’s what’s wrong with the fitness industry at the moment, and you guys are the future. And I think she can smell that. So, I think, like I … I managed to watch it and still shaking with rage but thank you for this glass of champagne. ANNA: I don’t think we could do this without a little bit of champagne. SHREEN: No, we need some bubbles. LOUISE: The first thing she starts with, so she’s actually going through all the principles. SHREEN:  Correct. LOUISE: Why don’t you give me the lowdown on your reaction. ANNA: Let’s kick off. So, she does go through the points one by one, and the first principle is ‘reject the diet mentality’. And I just want to point out a few things that came up for me that were just so apparent throughout. Her fatphobia is so clear. She’s driven, everything she says, and her approach is all drive by this. And I think she’s very ignorant, like she doesn’t see that there’s an issue with this. She comes form that space where it’s very normalised to shame fat bodies, it’s not okay to be in a bigger body. And she very clearly associates weight and health, they’re so closely tied, which I think it really problematic, obviously. So, in this ‘reject diet mentality’, what came up for you, Shreen? SHREEN: Well, the first thing for me was that she couldn’t distinguish a difference between fad diets and what dieting is, and diet culture. She’s like, “oh you know, if it’s fad diets we’re talking about yeah, yeah sure”, but this is a woman who has sold supplements in the past. LOUISE: She’s sold fad diets. SHREEN: She’s sold fad diets. And she is diet culture, so I guess she can’t … she doesn’t understand what diet culture actually is and why it’s so important to reject it. I mean, diet culture in the US alone is worth 70 billion dollars. ANNA:  She profits off it. SHREEN: She profits off everyone’s insecurities. So, she was just like, “reject diet culture? What’s this, what does this mean?”. And I really did sense there that her insecurity is coming out there because that is her, that’s how she makes her money. ANNA: Well that’s it, she’s really incentivised to support diet culture.  LOUISE: But the distinction that she made between “well, if it’s fad, but if it’s proper” … it just made me laugh, because she’s had no less than four separate lawsuits … ANNA:  Jillian? SHREEN: Yeah. LOUISE: Launched against her by her consumers who bought her caffeine-fuelled diet pills. ANNA: Which I think she might have … there might have been something on the Biggest Loser where she gave them to contestants unfairly, apparently, as well. LOUISE: Oh my god, scandal on the Biggest Loser. Like … ANNA: Well, the other thing that came up for me there was she said, “what is this, healthy at any size?”, and that’s immediately a red flag representing that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She hasn’t researched this because … I can understand it’s very easy to misconstrue Health At Every Size® for healthy at every size, but it’s quite a different meaning and that assumption that, you know, just assuming that we’re saying as a Health at Every Size® professional that all bodies are healthy, that’s not where we’re aiming. We’re talking about people being able to pursue health regardless of shape and size. LOUISE: Or, also, we’re talking about the choice not to pursue health and to be left the fuck alone. SHREEN: Yeah, there’s no moral obligation. If people want to do so, then it’s up to them. It shouldn’t be … they shouldn’t have to do it if they don’t want to, but that’s what diet culture is saying. ANNA: Your body, your rules. SHREEN: And this part of her rant really, really … we know that she’s incredibly fatphobic and she fat shames, but it just came out so much in that where she was again talking, talking about size 16. And she’s saying “well, you know, if you’re a size 16 of course I love you but you’re not healthy”. Which is just … LOUISE: Get fucked. SHREEN: Yeah, absolute garbage. ANNA: Yeah. And Health at Every Size® also is about respect for all bodies, and I think there is a real lack of respect in just making that assumption. You can’t tell. How does she know what someone’s health is, you know? What their metabolic functions are, their blood work, their social, mental health … you can’t tell that by someone’s size. SHREEN: Genetics, everything. There’s so much, it’s so multifaceted. LOUISE: Everything I think is just far too complicated for her. She has to actually, like … I mean, clearly, she hasn’t read anything or thought about anything. “Nope, that’s a number, that’s an assumption, and don’t challenge that”.  SHREEN: Yeah. And if someone’s watching that, I mean, how triggering. How much harm that one comment could cause somebody that could lead them down a path of dieting and to an eating disorder. ANNA: And especially if they were already vulnerable of somebody who would identify with being in a size 16, or plus. And also, size 16 is quite variable depending on which shop you shop in, you know? Where you get your clothes from. What’s a size anyway? What does it matter? SHREEN: Yeah, it doesn’t matter. LOUISE: Size is not the same as health, and she needs to pull her head in. I wonder if her YouTube videos come with a trigger warning. I don’t think they do, but they should. Because good point, you know, that she … everything she says is potentially a trigger. SHREEN: Especially the size of her audience as well, I’m worried. ANNA: She’s got a big reach still. Some of the comments though were interesting, some really great points. People were talking about intuitive eating and picking up on that she doesn’t understand it, she’s missing the point. LOUISE: That is really reassuring. ANNA: She stopped the comments, she cut them off. LOUISE: Oh no, they were too complicated. ANNA: So, the next principle is ‘honour your hunger’, and she said something pretty radical here. Well, it’s not really radical in the fitness world. These numbers get thrown around a lot. But trigger warning, there are numbers here. She says, “if you’re trying to lose weight, you can keep your body fed on as low as 1200 calories”. And that most women, especially those over, you know, relating to being a certain age, shouldn’t be eating over 1600 calories a day. SHREEN: Which is just absolutely unbelievable. She’s saying that … I mean, that’s what a toddler needs. A toddler needs 1200-1600 calories a day. LOUISE: How very dare she tell me how much I can eat, under a principle that says, ‘honour your hunger’. ANNA: She … on one hand, I’m not surprised she threw those numbers out because those numbers are thrown out all the time in the fitness world. I don’t know where … MyFitnessPal? LOUISE: Are they really? SHREEN: We were saying, MyFitnessPal may have started the whole 1200 calories thing … LOUISE: I think Michelle Bridges is guilty of that too. ANNA: Oh actually, you’re right, she had a program that was based on that. LOUISE: It’s just a nice round number, isn’t it? Let’s just pluck this out of our arse and throw that at all women. ANNA: What I find there though is that like Shreen said, it’s something that a child needs. And I just wanted to double-check that, because I’m not a nutritionist, I’m a yogi and I run a studio, but I wanted to check with somebody who does work with that. I chatted to our non-diet nutritionist Nina and she clarified that yes - this is generalisation - but that kind of number is something that would serve a child. Like, a toddler or a four, five-year-old. And then thinking about the effects of being on a low-calorie diet for a long period, things like loss of menstrual cycle, loss of bone density, fatigue, mood swings, constipation, blood sugar imbalance, stress hormones getting out of whack … SHREEN: Sex drive … ANNA: Sex drive … what did you say before? SHREEN: Dry vagina (laughs). ANNA: She didn’t mention that, did she? SHREEN: No. LOUISE: No, but that might be suffering all of them, you know? And why she’s so grouchy. ANNA: Memory fog and brain fog … memory loss and brain fog. So, these are all things that can be affected by not being adequately fed. And the better indicator of your needs are your body and your internal hunger signals. And we’re taught to … these external sources of just following this rule plan of 1200 calories a day means that if I need more than that – maybe at the time of my period especially I might need much more - and I’m just denying my natural hunger levels. LOUISE: The whole ‘per day’ thing really gives me the shits as well. SHREEN: Yeah, that’s a really good point. LOUISE: This is just a statistical method to help researchers make assumptions about nutrition. It’s not supposed to be something religiously followed. SHREEN: No, there’s no … ANNA: An individual thing, yeah. LOUISE: It’s bizarre. But, isn’t that interesting that even as she’s like, she’s trying desperately, the poor little thing to understand that this is a principle of intuitive eating but she can’t quite get there because she immediately lurches into “well, if you want to lose weight …”. I just felt like reaching through the screen and saying, “realise that intuitive eating is not a weight loss program”. ANNA: That’s half the problem, is that she clearly thinks that the only people who explore intuitive eating are going for weight loss. She says that a few times. LOUISE: Oh, she’s a scrambled egg. ANNA: Yeah. She doesn’t understand that the whole purpose of intuitive eating is more about finding a peaceful relationship with food and your body, not about trying to pursue making your body be something, a certain size. SHREEN: It’s about food freedom, it’s about having a healthy relationship with food, stopping the obsession. It’s not … it’s definitely not following these external rules. It’s about being in tune with what your body wants and needs and getting in touch with those signals. LOUISE: Different planet, I don’t think she’s visited. SHREEN: I don’t think she understands what the ‘honouring hunger’ … it’s a basic self-care need. If you’re not honouring hunger … LOUISE: Again, you’re mentioning a foreign concept here. This is someone who will happily live with a dry vagina, it doesn’t matter. SHREEN: Yep (all laugh). LOUISE: We all went there. SHREEN: She just really doesn’t understand and that is the reason why … people don’t give themselves enough food and they’re following diet plans, and they’re going to give themselves cravings leading to overeating and bingeing, and that’s perfectly normal as well. Other than ‘rejecting the diet mentality’ one of the first steps of intuitive eating is to just honour your hunger and it’s so important. It’s self-care. ANNA: It's so liberating too, if you’re been on the diet bandwagon for many, many years, to recognise that “hey, my body’s got a lot of wisdom, and it’s telling me, it’s giving me messages and I can learn how to reconnect with that”. And I think part of the common thread that comes up with what she says all the time is that … she thinks it’s all about ‘you can’t trust your body’. I think an important thing that I’ve learned is you can really learn how to trust your body. We get into this as we move into the next principle or two. It’s not about endless eating and not being able to, you know, like you’re just not going to go out of control all the time, which is what she sort of thinks. SHREEN: Point number three is that ‘unconditional permission to eat all foods’. LOUISE: She really had a problem with principle three. Like, she was visibly … SHREEN: Yeah, and she started comparing it to smoking, and credit cards, and it’s like …what are you talking about? ANNA: So yeah, this ‘make peace with food’, you’re right. And she talks about saying, talking about the ‘last supper mentality’, and she says, “I’m not religious, I don’t know what Jesus ate”. LOUISE: She really needs to read some books. ANNA: She needs to read Intuitive Eating if she’s going to talk about it. Because if she read it, she might really understand what that means. I thought it was quite clear just from the ‘last supper mentality’, don’t you think? SHREEN: You just eat everything in sight. LOUISE: I don’t even think it has religious connotations, I thought it was like a death row thing. SHREEN: Oh, that’s true … LOUISE: Like eating your last meal. ANNA: That’s right. And it makes sense, I think, if you think about that. You know you’re not going to have something again, so you want to make the most of it in that moment. And ultimately that’s what it’s about. I think that’s kind of clear. But she didn’t understand that, she was sort of like “I don’t like this intense, this hostile approach”. And I’m like, you ARE intense and hostile.  LOUISE: How is that intense and hostile? I’ve not ever read the ten principles of intuitive eating and thought “gosh, that’s angry”. I mean, gosh. Visit the internet, really (all laugh). ANNA: I think she is the, again, the epitome diet culture, and she is the hostile one. Think about the Biggest Loser, she is very aggressive and in-your-face, pushing her clients. So, here she talks about it all being about self-control and willpower, and I think that’s missing the point of intuitive eating completely as well. LOUISE: She just can’t … SHREEN: She doesn’t understand. If she’d read the book, she would understand there’s science behind it as well, if she … LOUISE: I don’t think if she read the book she would understand.  SHREEN: Yeah (laughs) ANNA: I picked up on that too, she’s [inaudible]. LOUISE: She almost yelled “You do not permission to eat”. Which was quite scary. SHREEN: Because I think that reflects her inner narrative. That’s what’s going on in her head. LOUISE: Yeah. Not … not relaxed, that’s for sure. That response to the third point was quite unhinged. ANNA: And like you said, relating the food to credit cards or smoking, that’s a completely different thing. I don’t think … you know, food is something that we rely on, like biologically … SHREEN: We need food to survive, we need food … and intuitive eating is about healing your relationship to food, it’s about having a healthy relationship to food, and you can’t have that if you’re restricting foods. That’s why it’s really important to give yourself unconditional permission to eat. And yeah, it is scary. Of course. It’s scary when you’ve come from that mentality, but it’s the only way for food to lose its power. ANNA: Yeah. And I think it may be a good point to think about how it’s helpful to be handheld through that process. It can sound really scary to somebody who’s new to it, or who hasn’t delved into intuitive eating too much, or worked with a coach or therapist or something. Maybe working with a. dietitian on this would be really helpful. I understand how it can feel like that lack of control, but I think that’s a period that sometimes is part of that healing process. When you let go of the restriction, and allow yourself full unconditional permission to eat, then you might explore some of those foods that were off-limits for a period. And it might feel like you are diving into them a lot. But … LOUISE: Which is perfectly normal. SHREEN: Yeah. LOUISE: The last supper effect … like, that actually, now I remember. The ‘last supper’ effect, it is the paper by Herman and Polivy, “Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet”. That’s the ‘last supper’ effect. It’s a perfectly normal psychological response to restriction is to eat more. And the difference between that and going into massive credit card debt is if you keep giving yourself permission to eat, if you keep reminding yourself that the food’s always there, it’s perfectly safe and I’m allowed to eat it, you will naturally settle down when you get food safety. Eating is totally different to compulsive spending on credit cards. I think she’s just … a lot of people freak out when they let go of dieting and get into that all-or-nothing pattern with eating, but there’s like … a real difference between being in an all-or-nothing pattern of eating and adopting intuitive eating and going through that first phase of eating all the food. It’s just different, and its’ not pathological. It’s a normal response to restriction that obviously … she is so restricted and terrified of that. ANNA: It’s all about control, isn’t it? And I think that, you know, talking about the 1200-1600 calories, and I think she refers to that 1600 calories as something you should never, ever go over. So, as a woman, we’re meant to live our lives constantly not going above that. SHREEN: And it’s such a dangerous message. It’s just not enough food, at all. And it’s … and that’s what she’s selling to people, as well … LOUISE: She’s more like ‘honour your restriction’. SHREEN: Yeah! ANNA: We could reverse all of this and create a Jillian Michaels plan. LOUISE: The non-intuitive eating principles. Accept diet culture … what’s the second one? ANNA: Honour your hunger … don’t honour your hunger. LOUISE: Ignore your hunger. SHREEN: Ignore your hunger, yeah. LOUISE: Number three, you do not have permission to eat (all laugh). Alright, principle four? ANNA: Principle four is ‘challenge the food police’. LOUISE: Okay, so hers would be ‘obey the food police’. SHREEN: I don’t think she really understands that she is the food police. When she’s going through it? Like she is … the food police are all the things she’s already talked about. 1200 calories, 1600 calories, these are things that are the food police. ANNA: These are the rules. SHREEN: She doesn’t understand that principle at all. ANNA: The one thing that she said that I did agree with her on was “don’t beat yourself up”. I think she says it in a different way, she means it in a different way, because she kind of adds on and says, “don’t beat yourself up, but don’t fuck up”. Oh sorry. LOUISE:  Please, swear. ANNA: She says, not quite like that, but “maintain balance, it’s all about balance”. And don’t … SHREEN: And self-control. ANNA: So, “don’t beat yourself up, but just don’t do it”, sort of thing. SHREEN: Or, “you can do better”. She always says that, “you can do better”. ANNA: Yeah, so that message is like, it’s still that sort of shaming approach. SHREEN: Condescending. LOUISE: It makes no sense whatsoever. ANNA: But don’t beat yourself up, I mean, that’s important. LOUISE: You know what, ‘don’t beat yourself up’ means she knows people are not going to be able to do it.  ANNA: That’s a good point, yeah. Yeah, which she talks about the… LOUISE: … about going straight back to jail. ANNA: She talks about the stats, which is interesting. She brings up the stats. LOUISE: Oh, the stats. Yeah, that bit made me itchy. ANNA: That’s coming. It’s coming. The next one is ‘discover the satisfaction factor’, which I think she was actually in agreement with. SHREEN: Yeah, that one … she was saying, food for pleasure … I think that one was almost okay. ANNA: Like wow, okay, we agree. And then six was ‘feel your fullness’. And what came up here was again, it was just clear she hasn’t read the book because she didn’t understand that concept at all. LOUISE: She probably doesn’t know what fulness feels like. SHREEN: And then she started talking about how it’s in your head, and kind of went off … even I got a little bit lost with what she was saying. Like, “oh, we’re on fullness principle? I thought we were …” ANNA: She was kind of saying, yeah, she was kind of saying that if you’re not listening to your body, you’re not picking up your fullness levels, there’s something messed up in your head. And I was thinking, you know what? Sometimes I eat food and I’m quite satisfied physically but I’m still eating because the food’s really good, or I don’t want to … I’m eating in company and I don’t want to finish the meal and want to show that I’ve appreciated it … SHREEN: That’s the thing with intuitive eating, that it’s not the ‘hunger/fullness’ diet. And eating past fullness is normal. It’s totally okay. And it’s not just about eating, you know, getting in touch with your fullness signals. It’s about eating foods that give you pleasure and satisfaction. ANNA: Which is the ‘discover the satisfaction factor’. SHREEN: Which is the next one, but yeah. (sighs). LOUISE: God. So, if you can’t feel fullness, there’s something psychologically wrong with you.  ANNA: That’s the message that she’s giving, yeah. SHREEN: But not understanding that if you’re dieting or especially if you’re only eating those dangerous amount of calories a day, you’re going to be absolutely … LOUISE: You mean, like an adult [inaudible] SHREEN: (laughs). Absolutely starving and of course you’re not going to feel your fullness. But there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just your body. Your body is doing exactly what it is meant to do. It needs food. ANNA: She doesn’t see that 1200-1600 calories as a restriction. She sees it as like … SHREEN: That’s her normal. ANNA: That’s food, that’s what you’re allowed during the day. LOUISE: So depressing. ANNA: Pretty sure I eat double or triple that. LOUISE: Oh, my goodness. ANNA: So, we’re at number seven. We’re still only … oh, over halfway. ‘Cope with your emotions with kindness’.  SHREEN: I think the thing is … LOUISE: That doesn’t really bring her to my mind. SHREEN: Yeah. She kind of goes “oh, yeah, I agree with this, but it shouldn’t just be one paragraph …”. And I’m like YES, there’s a BOOK. A book! There’s a whole book to go with this.  ANNA: She clearly seems to think it’s just this very basic, you know, overview … SHREEN: Guidelines. ANNA: Yeah, just these ten principles. She hasn’t read the book; she doesn’t know who wrote it. LOUISE: No, but this one really shat me to tears. Because this is where she’s saying that she’s had some childhood history with being maybe fractionally larger than someone else and has had to do, like … basically what she’s saying is that if you cannot lose weight and keep it off forever, that is your psychological fault. SHREEN: Yep. LOUISE: You haven’t done the work in therapy to fix your seemingly not thin body. Which is like, such a load of bullshit. And just unscientific and not sound whatsoever. And like you were saying before, people … she doesn’t understand that food is a relationship, and it’s a complex relationship. And the refusal to see anything other than like … she doesn’t even mention hunger as a reason to eat. Anything other than eating to a calorie control, anything else is incorrect. And we eat for an infinite amount of reasons and all of them make sense. And that’s what I love about intuitive eating, it doesn’t pathologise eating. It doesn’t pathologise hunger, it doesn’t pathologise fullness, and it doesn’t pathologise emotions as a reason to eat. And she clearly is. Seeing the function of how wonderful sometimes binge eating is as a way of protecting yourself from [inaudible] stuff. There’s no pathologizing in intuitive eating, but she’s full of pathologizing thinking that even to read statements like this, it doesn’t sink in. ANNA: She’s oversimplifying the whole thing; she doesn’t understand it at all. And this is where she moves into talking about the percentage of people that are successful versus not successful at diets. SHREEN: So, she acknowledges that 95-98% of diets fail. Is this where she starts talking about the Biggest Loser? ANNA: Yeah. SHREEN: She then starts talking about how the Biggest Loser, there’s a 30% extra success rate if you follow the Biggest Loser method. LOUISE: Really? SHREEN: Yeah. ANNA: So, she basically says, she acknowledges that the studies are very clear that 95% of people are unable to sustain a diet or sustain that weight loss, not a diet. But she says that actually on the Biggest Loser it’s only 65% of people that fail. So actually … SHREEN: So, she’s basically saying “we’ve got this success rate, if you do this …” LOUISE: Which study is this published in? Because the only study I’ve read from season 1 which is the … ANNA: The six-year study? SHREEN: The six year, yeah, really interesting. LOUISE: There were 16 people, and 14 of them regained. I don’t think that equates to 65%. Am I …? ANNA: I don’t know but even so … no, she says 35. So, 30% more than … she says 30%, 35% are successful. SHREEN: But even the fact that she’s now saying that 95-98% of diets fail, and she acknowledges that, but all that she’s been talking about is dieting. Diet the whole way through. She’s just completely contradicting herself. ANNA: Not only is it that they don’t work, but she continues to spruik it, continues to say that it’s possible, and if you do it her way, the Biggest Loser way … they did 7 hours of exercise a day, with gruelling regimes and being pushed and yelled at … LOUISE: And they all put the weight back on. ANNA: They put the weight back on. SHREEN: yeah. LOUISE: And their resting metabolic rate was screwed, six years later. SHREEN: Yeah, 700 calories it decreased by. They lost lean body mass, their fasting glucose increased, their blood sugar levels, yeah. They were the main things. But the fact that their metabolic rate decreased by such a large amount … especially where we were saying, she’s telling people to only eat 1200 calories but then you’re going to follow the Biggest Loser method, your metabolic rate’s going to drop by 700 calories, then what are you going to do? LOUISE: So, she lied about the stats on the Biggest Loser, and she’s not even talking to people about the metabolic impact. Because that study was fascinating, and I talk to clients about it. Because they predicted, the researchers predicted how much their resting metabolic rate would be dropped by …  ANNA: And what did they … LOUISE: And they found out it was even lower. So, they were worse off metabolically than they had predicted six years later. No one expected it to last that long, to have such a devastating impact. ANNA: Yeah, so it’s like a continued effect. It hasn’t regained back to before, pre … LOUISE: Exactly. And when stuff like that is suppressed, we know people are going to experience intense hunger, which of course you can’t honour. SHREEN: And the thing is, again, she’s completely misquoted this study herself but if she’d done her research she would know that there’s been over a hundred studies on intuitive eating that have been done that show you have better body image, higher esteem, improved metabolism, decreased rates of disordered and emotional eating, diminished stress levels and increased satisfaction with life. That’s over a hundred studies on intuitive eating that have been done. ANNA: And I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t say the same, with all of those positive effects, with dieting. LOUISE:  No, especially the ones that use her supplements, which show that everyone puts the weight back on. And the Biggest Loser study, everyone puts the weight back on … but let’s not focus on whether or not the weight comes back on. It’s actually the damage to the body and the metabolic systems that’s just absent from her rant. SHREEN: And not even the psychological damage, that’s not even mentioned. LOUISE: She’s evidence of the psychological damage. SHREEN: Yeah. That is true, yeah. ANNA: So, the next one is … principle eight, respect your body. LOUISE: Oh, fuck. ANNA: So, I think going back to when she spoke about size 16 always equalling healthiness, I think that shows that she doesn’t have respect for all bodies. And that kind of bothers me a bit. SHREEN. A bit. A lot. ANNA: It’s a big part of like, you know, our approach here and being a Health at Every Size® professional, you know? It’s about honouring and understanding and respecting that all bodies are different and need something different. SHREEN: And that you can’t tell somebody’s health by their body size, and that’s such … it’s a huge misconception as it is, let alone, I mean, Jillian Michaels saying this and it’s just … ANNA: Yeah, and just recognising that bodies are diverse, and they will do different things. Your health looks different at different points in your life. What you need changes day to day, and only your body really knows. You know? No external source, no trainer, no Jillian Michaels, no Dr Oz, nobody knows your body. SHREEN: And the whole principle of respecting your body is about being kind to yourself and compassionate and self-care, which is the complete opposite of Jillian Michaels. Like, she is just not kind. She’s not compassionate. She’s just shaming, judgemental, mean. Like … yeah. She’s … I just don’t think she even understands the word ‘respect’, quite frankly. LOUISE: Unless it’s like ‘respect my authority”. SHREEN: Yeah. ANNA: Something I noticed too, that came up before, was that because she’s so invested in it … have you heard of the concept of religion, like dieting? The religion of dieting? She’s so completely invested in it, she’s almost not willing to look the other way, or explore that there might be some truth in this, because she’s so invested, like financially and that’s her way of living … LOUISE: It’s her identity. ANNA: Exactly. LOUISE: It’s interesting, isn’t it? I think Alan Levinovitz, ‘The Gluten Lie’ … ANNA: That’s the guy. LOUISE: He talks about this, the religion of diet mentality. She is definitely the Pope. SHREEN: Quote of the day (all laugh). ANNA: So, then we come into ‘movement, feel the difference’. Which is principle nine. SHREEN: I think this one really got us fired up, didn’t it? ANNA: Well, the first thing that she said was like, “what is this? I don’t know what this ‘militant exercise’ even means”. LOUISE: That’s so funny (all laugh). ANNA: Like, really? Are you sure? LOUISE: She’s like, world-famous on memes for [inaudible]. I think I even did a presentation once where I used her with her finger in her face at someone as a demonstration of militant exercise. ANNA: Yeah, the kind of exercise that you don’t want to do if you want to have a sustainable relationship with movement. LOUISE: Yeah, your name’s on the t-shirt, love. SHREEN: Just telling people in this thing that, you know, this myth that’s just not true – ‘no pain, no gain’, that only hard exercise counts, it’s just utter rubbish. All movement counts, it doesn’t matter what it is. From playing with your kids, to hoovering, to dancing around your living room. LOUISE: Hoovering doesn’t count, I don’t even know what hoovering is … ANNA: She’s talking about hoovering, the hoover … SHREEN: Vacuuming, is that more Aussie? LOUISE: No, I don’t understand. (all laugh). SHREEN: But like, movement can be anything and you get the exact same health benefits from any type of regular movement, doesn’t matter what it is. But what she’s just trying to … she’s just bringing movement and aesthetics, that’s what she’s talking about. She’s talking about … ANNA: That’s a really good point, because if she was really interested in somebody’s health, then any kind of movement would be accessible, you know, like … SHREEN: Beneficial. ANNA: Helpful, yeah. SHREEN: Your blood markers, and stress levels, and sleep, it doesn’t matter what it is, it has the same health benefits. But she’s not talking about health. She’s talking about the way you look. ANNA: Yeah. She’s talking about ‘results’ a lot, and “if you want to get results fast” … because you know, let’s face it, she says “if you’re coming to look at intuitive eating, you’re trying to lose weight, you’re trying to get results fast.” LOUISE: Jillian! ANNA: “You’ve got to do a certain type of exercise, and my programs do that”. So, a little bit of spruiking her own programs too. SHREEN: What she doesn’t realise that she’s doing is having that negative relationship with exercise is not going to make people want to do it.  LOUISE: She doesn’t care about that. SHREEN: She’s the reason why people don’t want to go to the gym, or they hate exercise, because of people like Jillian Michaels. ANNA: Yeah, it’s that fitness trauma that you were talking about before. And what I recognise here, at the studio at Haven, community … in my experience, community has always been really powerful in building that sustainable and healthful relationship with movement. Joy and … SHREEN: And it’s that you enjoy, you [inaudible]. ANNA: And to want to come back, too. And that militant approach might work well for someone who responds to that but maybe for a short time. And then that motivation kind of wanes. And then it’s always trying to get back the motivation, you hear that a lot in fitness culture. But if you’re not coming at it from external, an external place, for external purposes, and it’s more about the … SHREEN: The way it makes you feel, using it as a tool for self-care rather than punishment … ANNA: Your mental health, having fun with your friends, it’s a completely different experience to being yelled at by Jillian Michaels. SHREEN: Her whole thing is yelling at people, making them feel guilty, punishing them. Like, and that’s just not what people need in a fitness professional. They need someone who is kind and compassionate and she’s just … that’s just not her, unfortunately. She’s just giving … ANNA: What is she? She’s the Pope of … the religion of dieting. She’s also the epitome of diet culture. She’s all of those things. And then the last principle is gentle nutrition, principle ten. LOUISE: I think this actually blew up her brain. SHREEN: Yeah, because she couldn’t understand the whole diet … principle one, principle ten … LOUISE: She couldn’t figure out how that fits with unconditional permission to eat. Because of course, if you have unconditional permission to eat, you’re going to stick your face into a burger for the rest of your life.  ANNA: Yeah, so again she thinks it’s all just endless eating. LOUISE: She’s stuck in that ‘all or nothing’ mentality. ANNA: Exactly, yeah. SHREEN: It’s funny, because she talks about that ‘black and white, all or nothing’ mentality and not understanding that’s exactly what she’s saying. Yeah. ANNA: Yeah, and again it came up just very, very clear that she hasn’t read the book, she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. SHREEN: Yeah, I think that’s the main … ANNA: This is when she said, you know, “it’s probably written by someone who has just really been hurt by diet culture and probably had an eating disorder, and, you know, probably just some random” and actually … LOUISE: Such a shame that she didn’t actually look at the author. SHREEN: Yeah, just even look up to who they were. Yeah. ANNA: It’s a little bit disappointing because you’d think somebody who has such a following, I think, has such a … I think there’s a moral obligation in a way to represent something that … when you have such a big following and you’re sharing something that can affect people deeply … SHREEN: It’s what we say, that she’s really coming from that dieting mentality and all that sort of shaming that she doesn’t understand that intuitive eating at its core is a self-care model. It’s very compassionate and she doesn’t understand that. Also. with intuitive eating, we’re not saying that it’s a solution for everybody. Everyone has the right to do what they want with their body. She just doesn’t understand the concept at all, what it stands for. ANNA: It’s like she’s on such a different planet, and it’s not … doesn’t come across as open to exploring that this might be something that really serves people. SHREEN: Yeah, and that it’s having such a positive impact. We talked about earlier with the … ANNA: Feeling a bit threatened by the impact on her, you know, her … LOUISE: To her bottom line. I also think that, I mean, if she really is undernourished to that point that she has restricted her entire life, one of the things that happens when you’re weight supressed is cognitive rigidity. ANNA: That’s a really good point. LOUISE: So, it’s quite hard to be flexible. We see that a lot with people who are suffering in the depths of Anorexia, that you simply cannot think. And perhaps there’s an element of that that’s happening here. ANNA: That’s really interesting. SHREEN: That’s a really good point. Because what dieting, that kind of restriction is doing to you … LOUISE: Well, it gives her massive benefits. Huge amounts of recognition, it gives her income. She can’t think out of it. So, there’s not a lot of reason for her, like … I think the reason for putting up that video wasn’t a genuine exploration of “what’s this thing called ‘intuitive eating’?”.  SHREEN: It was just to … LOUISE: It was just to kind of … ANNA: Debunk it. LOUISE: To debunk it and keep hold of her customer base. Look, let’s assume that she is interested in the book. Jillian Michael’s house is in Malibu, California. I reckon we just whack a copy in an envelope, address it to her, maybe she’ll read it. ANNA: Do you think?  LOUISE: Yeah? I don’t know. Maybe if all of our listeners whack a copy into an envelope … SHREEN: Yeah!  LOUISE: 20 copies, please read. Maybe. SHREEN: Maybe, yeah. LOUISE: But I don’t think that was anything other than a … it’s quite interesting, I’m seeing this more and more. The famous people, the people who have really invested in diet culture, even the obesity researchers and all of that. They’re all kind of getting a little bit nervous about this pushback. SHREEN: They should be. LOUISE: It makes me feel warm and fuzzy. SHREEN: It’s time. LOUISE: It’s got nothing to do with the champagne. I think the celebs are getting nervous, like “what do you mean, people in larger bodies are okay with themselves just the way they are?”. And finding non weight-loss things to look after themselves, oh my gosh. What a huge, horrible threat. So, we’re not sorry, Jillian, that we made you nervous. ANNA: Agreed. I hope it gives her a little bit of food for thought (all laugh). LOUISE: I don’t know how many calories would be attached to that thought (all laugh). ANNA: I have to say, like, the thing that I think fires me up the most is how fatphobic she is. SHREEN: And how much harm … that’s the thing that fired me up the most, how much harm she’s causing people out there. And having had an eating disorder myself, it’s just … LOUISE: Horrible. You can see how triggering it is. SHREEN: I can see what it can do, yeah. That’s what fires me up. LOUISE: and let’s not forget when we say fatphobic, we mean people who hate fat people. And that is really reflective … even though she is professing “oh, I’m going to love you … but you’re unhealthy so change”. That’s troubling. Using health as a halo, an excuse or a reason for my core treatment of you just based on your appearance. And that’s just … those days are done. You can’t do that anymore. It’s just not cool. And I do wonder if there is like a Biggest Loser university somewhere?  ANNA: Michelle Bridges went to it as well. LOUISE: Because the same kind of hatred of fat people, you know … again, like masked with a thin layer of concern trolling for your health was Michelle Bridges’ thing. Four years ago, when she was on Australian Story and she was saying “I’m yet to meet someone who is morbidly obese and happy”. So, for people who are listening from overseas, Michelle Bridges is the Australian version of Jillian Michaels. And what an awful comment. So, Jillian has been pushed back against from this video, right? Michelle was pushed back against from this video too, with really clear … I know we all live in a bubble, but with quite a lot of push back. ANNA: That’s good. Was she on … was that on like Australian primetime TV? SHREEN: She was on Australian Story. LOUISE: Yeah [inaudible] … it shows how deeply she feels [inaudible] about people she’s profiting from. Putting them through three cycles a year of 1200 calorie program and she knows it doesn’t work. But the thing is, what they do is they double down. People like this double down, when they’re called out, when there’s a pushback. Instead of kind of opening up and say, “okay, I should probably issue an apology, maybe take the video down, maybe do some work”. They’re not doing that. Jillian’s not doing that. ANNA: I think she just keeps responding. And she’s just responding with the same rhetoric, so she’s not … SHREEN: I think she kind of comments that [inaudible], to learn about it more, which is a shame. ANNA: And how did Michele Bridges respond? LOUISE: Doubled down on it. About health, “I care deeply about health”. ANNA: The whole thing with health and weight, this is what really frustrates me about it too. If she’s really interested in health, she could support all the behaviours that support someone’s health. LOUISE: Too complicated. Remember? Too complicated. Anything that actually involves having to think about something other than my own diet plan … ANNA: It makes me realise how happy I’ve become in moving away from all this, that’s why I got away from it. Because I learned about how there’s another way. Intuitive eating, Health at Every Size®, the body positivity movement … I started delving into it and it just felt so triggering being around other fitness professionals from the traditional approach. And this here, I’ve got to say, got me so fired up. I’m going to be fired up for a while from this. SHREEN: We talk about fitness trauma, and Jillian Michaels is causing that. LOUISE: May she go the way of the dinosaurs and … (all laugh). ANNA: Well, hopefully there will be less and less of her to be seen in the future and more and more of kind of this messaging coming up, challenging … LOUISE: Absolutely, I absolutely think that’s going to happen. You’ve just reminded me actually, she … because Jillian, earlier in the year before she posted the nasty intuitive eating thing, she said something nasty about Lizzo. SHREEN: Yeah, of course.  ANNA: That sounds familiar … SHREEN: Yeah. That was before …  LOUISE: A little while before, I don’t know. It’s Covid, none of us have a timeline. ANNA: She’s said some pretty horrendous things. SHREEN: Really horrendous things yeah. LOUISE: Again, like … “she’s clearly going to get diabetes” or something? ANNA: I think she said something along the lines of “there’s nothing sexy about diabetes”, or clogged arteries or something.  SHREEN: Something like that, yeah. ANNA: How can she … that’s so inappropriate. Lizzo’s bouncing away on stage. She’s got stamina, she’s got energy.  SHREEN: We don’t know anything about her or her health. ANNA: And why do we have to talk about that anyway? She’s this amazing performer and doing this really cool stuff. It’s wonderful to see some diverse bodies out there that are getting out there as much as the other, the thin ideal that you see everywhere. LOUISE: Yeah, the comments that she made were like “why are we talking about Lizzo’s body, we should be talking about her music”. ANNA: So, she said that? LOUISE: Yeah. ANNA: But then … LOUISE: And it’s really funny, because she’s saying that we shouldn’t be talking about Lizzo’s body, but her entire website is full of shots of her body. ANNA: Yeah, and that’s her thing. SHREEN: That’s her thing, yeah. ANNA: She’s always talking about people’s bodies. Size 16, yeah. SHREEN: Yeah, non-stop. LOUISE: The point I’m making is that you don’t say that about Lizzo. And the pushback she got after she made that comment? This is the future Jillian. Lizzo is setting the world on fire.  ANNA: We need more Lizzo. SHREEN: We need more Lizzo. LOUISE: and you are the biggest loser. ANNA: Well put. LOUISE: Oh my god, let’s finish on a high note. Thank you, guys, that was an elegant unpacking of Jillian Michael’s ten principles of not understanding intuitive eating (all laugh). And how firmly we can steer the ship to this new awesome way of looking after our body. ANNA: Thank you. SHREEN: Thank you.  Resources Mentioned: (Watch if you can stomach) Jillian Michaels' Igno-rant on Youtube Urbszat, Dax, C. Peter Herman, and Janet Polivy. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet: Effects of anticipated deprivation on food intake in restrained and unrestrained eaters." Journal of abnormal psychology 111.2 (2002): 396. News article about 4 lawsuits against Jillian Michaels for her weight loss pills Fothergill, Erin, et al. "Persistent metabolic adaptation 6 years after “The Biggest Loser” competition." Obesity 24.8 (2016): 1612-1619. Alan Levinovitz's The Gluten Lie Find out more about Anna Hearn & Haven Find out more about Shreen El Masry and Be You Be Free  

At LONG LAST I am pleased to present Part 2 of our deep dive into the murky underworld of "Big O" - Australia's obesity organisations, and their links to Big Pharma. Join me and fearless anti-diet dietitian Mandy-Lee Noble as we reveal the disturbing progress which Novo Nordisk is making, steadily infiltrating our universities, academics, health professionals, consumer groups, and news media with one goal: to make larger bodied Aussies believe that they are diseased and need urgent treatment! And in spite of the obesity organisations repeatedly claiming to be 'transparent' about their funding sources, we keep discovering that NOTHING is what it seems! Smoke, mirrors and deflections abound, and there is SO much money being thrown at so many different groups, our heads are spinning. AND they're using weight stigma as a weapon to push their drugs and surgeries! It's diabolical double speak and it needs to be stopped. This is an episode NOT to be missed !   Show Notes What’s firing up my wonderful anti-diet dietitian guest Mandy-Lee Noble? Since our last podcast, (Ep #55 - Inside The Obesity Collective), there have been some new developments on the Big Pharma front, particularly in how they are trying to shape hysteria around weight - driving people into treatment and portraying higher weight as being a health issue in and of itself. What has really spiked Mandy’s frustration is that at the start of 2020 the esteemed journal Nature (in their medical journal ‘Nature Medicine’) released a “Consensus statement” about obesity stigma. CONTENT WARNING - we’ll be using the stigmatising ‘o’ word (obese) throughout this podcast because of how the groups we’re talking about use it. But we HATE IT because it is implicitly stigmatising! So this group released a joint international consensus statement for the ending of stigma of the ‘o’ word (with that stigmatising word in the title!) We thought … maybe they’re starting to do the right thing? But … no. Upon reading, it reveals itself as just another push to get people into treatment simply because they are in a larger body. And what might be influencing this paper? Let’s check how many times Novo Nordisk is mentioned in this statement as a ‘conflict of interest’ … it’s in the double digits. 20 times, out of 40 authors.  Novo Nordisk isn’t the only conflict of interest. The major supporters of this paper were pushing surgical devices for bariatric surgery (Ethicon).  Mandy has issues about the use of the word ‘stigma’ here. Weight stigma is when you’re treated poorly just due to your weight, which we know is an epidemic and happening all the time and leading to poor health outcomes and disengagement from healthcare. When these industry groups use that word, they consider it a barrier to people using treatment! It’s all just dollar-signs to them. In the spirit of transparency - let’s go through the conflicts of interest for Louise and Mandy. Hope you’ve got some time …. (Louise played a cricket sound). ;) Basically fuck all, right? We’re not getting paid. We’re here for love, not money - not for the vested interest of corporations or even of ourselves. This kind of ‘investigative journalism’ research has an impact on our mental health, for sure! Mandy arcs up at the assumption that people at higher weights need treatment for disease - the stigma is there in the assumption. Let’s reflect on what happened after the last podcast. There were unexpected ripples from that episode. The powers that be at Obesity Australia were listening … either that or there were some totally weird coincidences. Some of the coincidences: the fact sheets disappeared! The fact sheets telling people that chips were lethal and to drink Diet Coke to put off their hunger, all of the magic 1920’s weight loss tips have vanished. The whole oldy-worldy Obesity Australia website has vanished and replaced with a trendy new Obesity Collective website. This all happened within 2 weeks of our last podcast with Mandy. There was a bit of an MIA issued in the last podcast for the Weight Issues Network - a consumer group that just didn’t seem to exist, until it magically appeared very soon after the podcast aired.  We wondered, where are they getting the money from? Mandy sent them a Facebook message asking, and was told that the director would be in touch. Tiffany Petrie, director of The Obesity Collective, did reach out and offered to meet us for a coffee, which we accepted. We then learned Petrie would be bringing some friends to the coffee (some backup?). Immediately before the coffee date, they … pulled out! Petrie said she would be too busy for months to meet. The offer is still open from Mandy and Louise! On the types of articles that are being reposted on the WIN Facebook page, which has a huge following - at the moment there’s 100 people following, which includes Louise and Mandy. It’s funny that this group that’s meant to be addressing weight stigma reposts so many stigmatising articles. Things about the ‘war on childhood obesity’, and other articles that make Mandy go “wow”. Overall though, there isn’t too much action happening on that page.  Mandy was contacted by some journalists to comment on the funding that Obesity Australia receives, and was pleased to see the table she provided was reproduced entirely in one of the articles (but without acknowledgement). The Medical Republic released a podcast and media article, which Louise came away from a bit disappointed - the title of the article was framed as ‘why is this being battled out between skinny people’, as if HAES Australia is battling in the ‘war on obesity’. HAES Australia is a body without industry funding to support people who want to provide weight-neutral care. Whereas the WIN is a ‘patient’ group which frames obesity as a disease. Completely different agendas. Mandy wanted the title of this podcast to be “Obesity Australia, if you are listening” - a reference to Russia and Trump, and how Obesity Australia seemed to be listening to the last podcast. Obesity Australia, if you ARE listening and if you REALLY are serious and want to end weight stigma, DO THESE THREE THINGS WE’LL TALK ABOUT HERE.  Number 1: Advocate for medical professionals to disclose industry funding when they are talking to the media and/or their patients. It’s about informed consent! What is behind the advice that someone is receiving? If it’s money, that’s important information to know.  A good example recently from Channel 9 News in a short segment called ‘Study hoped to decrease obesity stigma’.  It’s just a minute or two long. We’ve seen all the ‘war on obesity’ stories, and this is a new take - obesity stigma?! But when you watch the story, it’s nothing new at all. The story is tremendously stigmatising with all the same language about ‘battling’ weight and obesity, framing it as the enemy. It also uses ‘headless fatty’ images, of people in larger bodies with their heads not shown, carrying their fast food lunches around as it was probably filmed on a lunch break. The program banged on about rates of overweight and obesity as if they were the rates of people who were unwell - as if everyone in those groups is diseased. Life expectancy, however, continues to rise (shh). The study mentioned in the story was QUITE hard to get hold of. It’s not even a new study, it was published in February 2019. At least, we think this is the study because they haven’t referenced it adequately in the story. Our statistics match up with theirs, so we think it’s the same one. And the study itself has NOTHING to do with stigma. The title is “Gaps to bridge: misalignment between perception, reality and action in obesity”. But the gap is ‘how to get people to treatment’ - why aren’t more fat people asking for help from their doctors? That’s basically the only question asked in the study, and ‘weight stigma’ doesn’t appear in the study. None of the researchers are weight stigma researchers. Dr Georgia Regis gives an expert opinion as an ‘obesity physician and researcher’ that people in larger bodies need to seek medical help. She’s using the big assumption that everyone in a larger body requires treatment. And was this opinion out of the goodness of her heart? Or … perhaps because she has some vested interest that isn’t declared in this piece?  Dr Regis actually has several conflicts of interest to declare, which we see on the research articles we read - but people seeing her speak on the news don’t get that declaration of conflict of interest. Dr Regis actually received $43,000 over three years from Novo Nordisk, a company that produces weight loss drugs. And that’s not the only treatment industry that she’s accepted fees from - there are other payments here from companies that make products and treatments for bariatric surgery. Dr Regis may of course be giving unbiased and evidence-based opinions. Either way though, just as she is required to do in research, she should be declaring these conflicts of interest to the media she speaks to and TO HER PATIENTS. Transparency! It’s even in the Obesity Australia principles! Fun fact: Novo Nordisk (you’ll never guess) actually completely funded this research paper. They also have made other payments to the authors on the paper, and this is on top of paying for the researcher’s travel expenses to attend ‘author meetings’ about this paper. Where would they need to go !?? Let’s talk privilege, because it’s necessary when talking about stigma. Mandy and Louise have the privilege of being educated, having access to research, and being health professionals. When Mandy and Louise read this research, conflicts of interest have to be declared - but it’s not necessary at the moment that these conflicts are declared to media or to patients. Obesity Australia, if you’re listening - advocate for health professionals to declare conflicts of interest. Number 2: If you’re listening, Obesity Australia, be transparent about industry funded consumer groups. This includes WIN, the Weight Issues Network. WIN does say on their website (in their ‘transparency statement’) that they receive some funding from Obesity Australia, ANZOS and ANZMOS (groups with ties back to Novo Nordisk).  WIN has six principles - transparency is one of them, another is about being ‘safe and empowering’ - providing “information, support, and a place to have a voice”. So, what we’re asking from them is definitely in lines with what they say they’re going to provide. One of our planned ‘coffee questions’ was about where they got their money from - and at first we were told the money was donated. Since then we’ve learned that Obesity Australia gave WIN $5,000 to start them off. We haven’t had a response about how much money they received from ANZOS and ANZMOS. It’s interesting that when we email them we get responses back from Tiffany, who is not actually part of WIN … it’s all very incestuous.  On the WIN page, we learn that funding has come from the Obesity Collective, which is basically the same as Obesity Australia. The other thing is that WIN has now set themselves up as a separate charity, which means people can donate directly to them and get (possible) tax exemptions.  Some other issues we have with transparency - they claim they’re getting pro bono support. We generally understand that as people providing work for free. This pro bono work is coming from PricewaterhouseCoopers. They have a long term business relationship with Novo Nordisk, having been their auditors for years.  WIN has a board - some with lived experience, a clinician, a researcher and some others including a bariatric surgeon (we think some of the people in WIN are this surgeon’s patients). Who we mainly hear from is Lynne Keppler, who has done some media and spoken at obesity conferences. What is missing from the board is people who are not treatment-seeking. All of them describe themselves as a patient or someone living with a condition of ill health.  The WIN also receive some training, some webinars that we’ve seen that come from Dr Arya Sharma, a Canadian bariatric physician and bigwig in Obesity Inc. Who paid for that!? Novo Nordisk paid to fly Dr Sharma in for seminars and meetings - his expertise here is helping people tell their stories and stay on track with their key messages, all of which perfectly align with Novo Nordisk. It’s pretty clear in these webinars that the key messages he wants people to stay on are that obesity is a disease, and that weight stigma is a barrier for larger bodied people seeking weight treatment such as surgery and drugs.  So, what we have is a consumer group that has claimed that they are transparent, when they’re really receiving training from people who are heavily funded by Novo Nordisk and being supported by groups that are supported by Novo Nordisk and other pharma groups and bariatric supplies manufacturers.  It’s hard to see how this is a transparent consumer group that is free of conflicts of interest because it’s all being funded by weight loss treatment industries. That’s our concern. What we’d like Obesity Australia to do, if they’re listening, is encourage WIN to be transparent. For example, where is the source funding coming from for events such as the one run by Dr Sharma?  On their website and Facebook group, WIN encourages people to share their stories. Louise has the question ‘what for?’. Is it so their stories can be packaged up and used to further the agenda (lobbying the government to increase obesity services?). It’s a misuse of the word ‘stigma’. Talking about the stigma you’ve faced takes a toll - and then that lived experience gets media trained and packaged so you continue talking to the media and government groups about how much you need these interventions … it feels really dark. They’re not really asking people for stories about weight stigma, but about stories of treatment seeking.  Number 3: If you’re listening, Obesity Australia, we’d like you to be transparent about the industry funding that health professional groups get. Health professional groups are another way to lobby for change, lobby governments, etc. It would be really good if we could see those entities also be transparent. An example: NACOS, the National Association of Clinical Obesity Services. Louise had never heard of this group before! It’s quite new, having only dropped in September 2019, after WIN dropped in August 2019. Louise read through a NACOS financial report, wondering who they are and how they came to be. Clinical Obesity Services are units in hospitals involving teams of health professionals offering weight loss services. Evan Atlantis, NACOS President,  in his financial report for NACOS wrote that they are committed to improving health services and clinical services for patients with obesity, with considerable  support and grant funding from … Novo Nordisk.  After the NACOS formed, the Novo Nordisk money paid for Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) to write up a report outlining just how dire obesity is and how urgently services are needed (you guessed it, completely the same as the other Novo Nordisk reports written by PWC). PWC wrote 4 out of the 5 “obesity is dreadful” reports produced by Obesity Australia. Guess who is the secretary general of NACOS? Dr Nick … the bariatric surgeon who is also on the board of WIN. If you’re listening, Obesity Australia, here are those three things we want you to advocate for if you’re really serious about addressing weight stigma. NUMBER 1: Advocate for medical professionals to be transparent and disclose industry funding with media, general public and patients. NUMBER 2: Consumer groups that are industry funded be more transparent about all funding, in-kind support and training. NUMBER 3: That health professional groups be more transparent about their funding sources. Is there something that All Fired Up! listeners could possibly think about as you move through media and accessing healthcare? We might look at all this stuff and think “bloody hell, I’m just one person! What can I do?!”. If you’re talking to anyone medical who is trying to sell or advise you on weight loss drugs or procedures, ask them to disclose if they are receiving any payments or training from these groups … and how much. You need to know if your health professional is being potentially influenced by industry funding. Research shows that for the majority of health professionals who are inviting people to use these drugs or surgeries, their training about them has come completely from these groups that make money from them. And ask about the long term side effects! We hope this has been helpful and insightful, and rounded out our journey down the rabbit hole that we started over a year ago. Why is Novo Nordisk, a HUGE pharmaceutical company, so interested in little old Australia? Actually, this is happening globally - and that will be the subject of the next podcast. You won’t believe the size of this octopus.  An update on Professor Simpson, executive director of Obesity Australia who had a grant from Novo Nordisk … we found out how much it was. Let’s remember that the research that Novo Nordisk were funding was NOT about weight stigma, but about cricket sperm. Hmm. And that grant amount for research that has nothing to do with weight stigma? 13 MILLION DOLLARS. The head of Obesity Australia, an organisation which pretends to be all about weight stigma, is being funded to the tune of $13 MILLION by Novo Nordisk in order to research cricket sperm. If people are really feeling they’re providing unbiased advice, they’d be happy to provide their conflicts of interest. When we hear messages from the head of Obesity Australia, think about it, are we really hearing the messages of Novo Nordisk? To be continued! This story isn’t over.   Resources Mentioned Find out more about my amazing guest Mandy-Lee Noble here The Joint International Consensus Statement for Ending Stigma of Obesity The Weight Issues Network website (checkout the logo!) The Medical Republic article “Why is the war on obesity being fought by skinny folks”? The Channel 9 news piece which wasn’t really about weight stigma The study that the Channel 9 news piece was talking about, which also has nothing to do with weight stigma The Novo Nordisk funded National Association of Clinical Obesity Services (NACOS)  

In Part 2 of our Bright Line Eating episode, I explore Susan Peirce Thompson's grand claims that her weight loss program is "the most effective in the world", and come to a very different conclusion. I also chat with Dr Martina Zangger, who spent 2 years as a "Bright Lifer" and has literally been to hell and back. Not only is she thousands of dollars out of pocket, but she's had to overcome a Bright Line induced eating disorder. And she is NOT HAPPY! Diet culture constantly sells us the glossy testimonials, but the ANTI-TESTIMONIAL is much more important. The only winner here is the Bright Line Bank Account - you will not believe how much cash Susan Peirce Thompson is raking in from selling starvation. It's enough to run a small country, yet strangely, Bright Line Eating can't even squeeze out any decent research? CW for this episode, which has LOTS of explicit talk about eating disordered practices, numbers, and extreme dieting. Show Notes Welcome to part two of our deep dive into Susan Peirce Thompson’s program Bright Line Eating - if you missed the last episode, go back and have a listen. Last episode we talked about the rules of the Bright Line Eating program, which is basically a monetised version of Food Addicts Anonymous. We talked about neuroscience with Dr Susan Aamodt, and how she found some peace in the non-diet approach. Susan also gave us a great overview of how our brains regulate body weight, and how the food addiction model isn’t well supported by evidence. Now we’re going to continue by looking at the alleged ‘research’ that ‘backs up’ Bright Line Eating, and then hear from  Dr Martina Zangger who nominated Bright Line for the Crappy awards and brought this rant to us. And to round things out - just how much money is this program making, and where is it heading? Content warning - there is some mention of numbers (weights) as we go through some research. Susan Peirce Thompson is always talking about research in her book, her emails and thousands of messages she sends out to program members (and prospective members) - research that supposedly proves the effectiveness of her program. The truth is that the research is much less shiny and sparkly than Thompson makes out. On her website - four publications are listed. Actually, only one of them is a published paper. The other three are posters from conferences. At conferences (for example, in the nutrition world) there are lecture presentations, panels and then ‘poster presentations’. Anyone from an Honours or Masters level student, a weight-loss industry group can put up a poster - they’re not the same as a published research paper. So, on her website there’s actually only one published research paper. And it’s interesting - Thompson has been in academia for most of her life, yet has so little in her name in terms of research publications. It’s usually a requirement of being employed at an academic institution, to be publishing often. So, let’s look at that paper. It’s from the Journal of Nutrition & Weight Loss, and the title is ‘Evaluation of a Commercial Telehealth Weight Loss and Management Program’, published in 2018. Thompson is not one of the authors. The paper overview evaluated her online eight week bootcamp, part of her monetised program. The paper said that between October 2014 - March 2018 (roughly four years), 18,778 people enrolled in the bootcamp. WOW - this program costs US $900 per person, and nearly 19,000 people have been through this program.  9,996 of these people agreed to participate in this ongoing research study of the program, and then eight weeks later 5,374 people completed the return survey. That’s a drop out rate of around 50%. Remember - you’re just paid US $900 and you’ve dropped out after eight weeks. What they found out:  Demographics - people buying this program are mainly white, well off, older, female. 96% were college educated, with an average age of 55. (Targeting menopausal women who are feeling horrible about their bodies?) Average weight at the start of the program (number warning) was 88.3kg, and after the eight week bootcamp where participants are told to eat three times a day only, with strictly weighed and measured food and zero flour or sugar, average weight loss was 7.5kg. That’s not surprising - restricting yourself so much for eight weeks means some weight loss isn’t surprising. But it does mean you’re paying close to $200 AUD per kilo lost - and we know it’s only temporary loss. Take away from reading this paper is that it’s nothing new. Like so many weight loss papers before it, it shows that when you starve you lose weight. There’s no neurological research being undertaken here, and no attempt to search for harm or screen people (such as for eating disorder behaviours). Pretty flimsy, pretty unimpressive.  Compare this rather limp research to the grand claims she is making in her book - “we believe this is the most successful weight loss program on earth”. Any facts to back up that opinion? There’s an effort in the book to put some numbers in to back up her claims, but she’s using pretty stinky tactics. She brags about the rate of weight loss on her program compared to other weight loss programs such as Weight Watchers (WW) and Jenny Craig. She cites research that on those other programs, that shows that after two years people lost 8-10% of their starting weight. Susan says that people lose 10% of their weight on her program, and 12x faster.  But what she’s doing there is comparing weight loss over two years to weight loss over eight weeks. Stopping research sooner to make your program look more effective. The longer you follow people on these research papers, the more weight they regain. Dodgy, sneaky, not a fair comparison. When you’re trying to peddle weight loss, the strongest evidence is not in the short term result. It’s all about proving that your program can “keep their weight off forever”, because that’s really what everyone’s looking for - and we know that in all these programs people overwhelmingly put the weight back on. So the claims Susan is making are leaving us dumbfounded. There are claims about the percentage of people in her program who have reached goal weight, maintained, etc - with no actual research to back it up. Are we talking about four people or one thousand - how many people are in this research pool? Another red flag - in the book, Susan admits that there are people in her program with eating disorders, and people in her program who are already ‘thin’ but doing the program to achieve a ‘goal weight’.  If she’s saying that there’s a cohort of people who have lost 25% of their body weight and are maintaining it, I’m really worried about those people. They very well could be unwell and potentially have eating disorders, but are being represented as success stories. The three posters (not actual published research) are labelled as ‘research publications’ which is misleading. One is a poster version of the published paper we just went through, and there’s a description of the poster that talks about a completely different, smaller sample of people. Perhaps because they’re talking about a smaller group of people who do have a BMI of 25 or above? Which means many of the people featured in the published article were thin to begin with, which muddies the outcomes substantially. “Bright Line Eating: An effective online program for sustained weight loss” is the title of another of the posters. It’s a poster version of the dodgy tactic Susan did in her book, where the sample isn’t actually discussed (who are they? How many?). There’s no actual statistical or experimental design given in this paper, nothing to tell the reader about how the research is carried out.  There are bar graphs presenting information but with no numbers to tell us about the sample being represented. There’s a bar graph titles ‘decrease in body weight over time’ that has 10% body weight lost at baseline - baseline? This poster is worlds apart from a peer reviewed published paper. Shame on you, Susan, for trying to pass this off as research. Please don’t be fooled, if you hear that Bright Line Eating is research based or evidence based. This is abominable - one weight loss research paper that just backs up that weight loss occurs, but no evidence of long term effects. Let’s talk with Dr Martina Zangger! Martina is fired up about diet culture in general, but most particularly fired up about the Bright Line Eating movement - an unconscionable money-making scheme that encourages eating disorders and is marketed brilliantly by a charismatic charming manipulator making at least ten million dollars a year from her various programs.  Martina’s Crappys rant stuck with us, because speaking from her own experience with the program made for a really strong rant! You can’t just pay once for the eight week boot camp - there are follow up programs! Most participants are women, between 40-70 years of age, middle class and white. They’re spending about $3,000 AUD a year on these programs that they become dependent on. You can’t continue this program on your own, you’d just fall off the wagon - it’s so controlled! So, if you’re very controlled, highly anxious, perfectionistic, perhaps mentally unwell - yeah, maybe you could sustain it on your own. It’s basically a restrictive eating disorder. When Martina was ‘succeeding’ in the program, she had an eating disorder. She developed orthorexia and was close to anorexia, which all developed during the program. It’s a really frightening slippery slope.  Susan suggested some weird things. ‘Goal weight’ was a huge topic of conversation - suggesting that we should go back to our ‘high school weight’ when we were 15 or 16, ‘at our thinnest in our teens’. So screwed up! Martina found the program through a long term friend. They’d both ‘struggled’ with food for a long time, and talked about things like bingeing, being ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and this friend told Martina she was going to start the Bright Line Eating (BLE) program. Martina joined her, and after a week told her friend it was just too hard - but her friend told her to keep going, that they’d try it for a month. The weight loss became really addictive - the rush of hopping on the scale, seeing the numbers change, having to buy smaller clothes. Martina feels embarrassed by how superficial it was, but it was highly intoxicating. Louise doesn't think it’s superficial at all - that pursuit of weight loss is really intense in an eating disorder.  BLE rules were strict and restrictive - no flour or sugar, very little grains, etc. Martina felt the program gave her an illusion of control at a very difficult time in her life - like she could set back the clock to feel younger rather than an ‘old menopausal frump’.  Martina’s mother was on a diet for 67 years of her life, and taught her to diet when Martina was 12. So sad for both of them. Martina was basically then trained as a dieter. Martina has very low self esteem as a young person, and felt that what she looked like could give her the self esteem she was lacking. Martina has a history of abuse in her childhood, and had feelings of being different, not good enough, ‘damaged goods’. But dieting gave her a feeling of being good at something. So, dieting actually had a positive function at that time. Diet culture is all about making people feel that their appearance is their worth.  Rather than think about the trauma you have experienced at the hands of (often) men, you can think about dieting. Instead of having a voice, you have dieting. It’s heartbreaking, and it makes sense. It’s a way of coping and surviving. “It’s a scientifically grounded program that teaches you a simple process for getting your brain on board so you can finally live happy, thin and free” - it’s so seductive, isn’t it? Since Martina’s Crappys nomination, Louise signed up for BLE newsletters and in one month has had 50 emails from BLE! It’s full of the ‘happy, thin and free’ message, and being in your ‘right sized’ body, or the ‘bright line’ body. She’s GREAT at the messaging - hitting every single marketing box, with the credentials (professor of neuropsychology) to make it tick. Martina is an academic with a PhD herself and so thought Susan must know her stuff.  Working out the money side of things - the eight week book camp costs about $1,200 AUD. Then you’re told “you can’t do this alone, you need our support” and you can sign up for “bright lifers”, a one year support program that costs about $700 AUD per year. Then there’s another program for those people who fall off their ‘bright lines’, maybe 60% of people? It’s called ‘reboot, resume’. Thousands of women sign up for that because they feel ashamed that they can’t keep their ‘bright line’. She’s making them pay for the relapse her program causes! There’s another program called ‘Bright Line Mind’, too. It all rhymes, but it’s all bullshit! She says when you’re cooking, if you’re hungry, put some sticky tape across your mouth so you’re not tempted to lick the spoon that you’re stirring your food with. WHAT!?! It’s irresponsible, it’s horrific - and she confidently says it to 50,000 people. For people who fall off their ‘bright lines’, they don’t blame Susan - they blame themselves. They sign up again and again, “I’ve been very bad and I need to learn how to be good”. It’s diet culture. Martina was able to keep her adherence to the program going without falling off her ‘bright line’ - she was brought up with a lot of Swiss discipline and put that all into being ‘good’ in the program. She thinks she was one of the more successful people in the program before deciding it was rubbish and walking away. For about two years she was following the ‘bright lines’ 100%, maybe wavering a little on quantities. Sometimes she would ‘cheat’ and put 10 grams more oats into her muesli at breakfast - cheat! 10 grams! You’re weighing everything, every day. How do you do that and live your life? You have to pack all your food ahead of time, and only eat out at certain places where you could get something ‘clean’.  Martina remembers eating an apple instead of joining in with her family eating gelato (she loves gelato!). One day they were eating gelato and Martina thought, “fuck this!” and had a double scoop of chocolate gelato, and that was the beginning of the unravelling of BLE for her. In spite of all that powerful, positive reinforcement - things were not okay. Martina is so pleased she’s found the courage to walk away from it. She wrote a letter to Susan describing her orthorexia and how the program brought on her eating disorder, and never heard back. She also wrote an email to her ‘house leaders’ who said they were ‘very sorry’ and wished her well. That was all.  No interest in how they might be doing harm. Within six months, Martina put on all the weight she had lost over two years. It was a very scary process, but she thought “no matter what, I’m not going to diet. No matter how much weight I've gained, I'm not going to restrict”. And now she feels the best she’s ever felt - so much HAPPIER! She eats what she wants, trusts what her mind or body tells her it wants, and is happier. Happy, NOT thin, and free! That beginning time of gaining weight back was terrifying. Martina had to pay for therapy (more money!) which was very helpful for her. She learned some principles of Intuitive Eating, and allowed herself binges - she had been so deprived that she would buy big packets of treats and eat them all quickly because she was starving for sugar. Now, she’ll eat any sweets she wants but isn’t needing to binge - because they’re all allowed. The bingeing didn’t have an agenda - she wasn’t trying to get the binging out of the way so she could get past it. The bingeing just had to happen because she’d been so restricted. *I can be smart, beautiful, have a loving heart, have a wise mind. I don’t have to look emaciated to be worth something.*  Martina remembers talking to her 87 year old mother the day before she was scheduled to have back surgery, and how excited her mum was about losing weight after the surgery. Martina’s mother died during that surgery. Both Martina and her mum were victims of diet culture.  There’s such joy in food, in sharing food, in looking forward to dinner out or the really special lunch you have in your lunch box! Louise is amazed that Martina has managed to get out of Bright Lines, recover from the eating disorder that it caused, and found not just peace with food but enjoyment. Susan lifted the BLE program from the FA and OA twelve-step programs, based on the addiction model. Those FA/OA programs are free - and yet she has monetised it and is making millions. It’s ethically completely not okay. Susan gave a sense of community, like a big sister - loving, attentive, ‘I care about you, I love you”, but at the same time “give me your money”. It’s so manipulative. You feel special, and it’s a marketing ploy. Martina doesn’t blame herself, but others do - they call themselves failures. It relies on the disempowerment of women and making them blame themselves. If you’ve been involved in BLE or anything like it and developed an eating disorder, that’s because of the deprivation and restriction, and normal responses to starvation.  No warnings in any of the emails or program notes so far about potential for developing eating disorders, and no accountability - she doesn’t reply to emails where people talk about developing eating disorders, about being ‘broken’, about needing to seek help. Martina generously offers up her email (in the resource notes) for anyone who has undertaken Bright Line Eating and wants to have a chat or converse via email about what they’re going through. You didn’t fail, the diet failed. Thank you Martina, for your courage and honesty. That recovery was so tough and our blood is boiling still about how Susan ignored Martina’s email about her eating disorder. So, how much cash is being raked in by BLE? Let’s look at that research paper again - in US$, she’s profited just shy of 17 MILLION DOLLARS in four years.  Often on All Fired Up we talk about how diet culture is a multimillion dollar industry making money off weight cycling, but this is just one woman! One website that gives out BLE information said that her husband David is the CEO of BLE. This website lists BLE as having 30 employees, and a revenue of 5.8 million US dollars. This website says that in the first quarter of 2019, revenue was listed as 6 million, and in the next two quarters it was 9 million. So, in 2019 this woman made 30 MILLION BUCKS. Link to this website in the show notes.  Think of just how many people that money represents, people who are desperate for the ‘bright lines’. Susan says in her book that by 2040, she wants 1 million people at what she calls ‘goal weight’. That’s $900 million in bootcamp sales! Something that’s struck Louise during this research is just how much positive press there is about Susan out there. There’s just no critical feedback - in fact, there seems to be an absence of even just basic journalistic research to look at her claims. People seem to be just swallowing her ideas and her story - is it that she’s so compelling, or that she’s a neuroscientist and we just don’t question it? There’s a particularly nauseating 2016 media piece about her, where the journalist just gushed about how brave Susan was to leave her academic position to do the BLE thing full time. Is it brave, or is it capitalism? How brave is it to leave academia if you're earning millions! The journalist says “as a scientist, I’m especially heartened by Susan’s desire to use profits generated by Bright Line Eating to fund research on weight loss, since objective data and evidence based approaches are sorely lacking in the field”. Okay? Is that true? In her book, she does talk about how she wants to do more research to prove how BLE works, and talks about something called the ‘Institute for Sustainable Weight Loss’. WTF is that? It’s a ‘charitable’ foundation with a mission statement of ‘advancing the science of sustainable weight loss for everyone’, claiming that they support study into neurological changes that support weight loss. Since the establishment of the institute in 2016, Susan has made millions of dollars and there’s been no research released. But they will accept donations! Louise hasn’t had any emails back after requesting confirmation of the Institute's charitable status. It’s actually registered as a ‘non-compliant charity’ in the state of New Jersey, meaning it hasn’t supplied enough information to charity directories.  So, there you have it - the Bright Line Eating world of mass marketing, dodgy diet claims, making a buttload of money off the agony of everyday people like Martina, and being unresponsive to criticism. Buyer beware! It’s so low calorie, it WILL induce a state of physical starvation which will induce a whole range of homeostatic drivers that will make you preoccupied with food, with your whole body fighting to regain the weight. You’ll be more sensitive to food cues, you'll experience a heightened sense of need for those ‘banned’ foods which makes you more likely to binge or compulsively eat due to the deprivation. Enduring a chronic starvation state slows metabolism and affects leptin, telling your brain you’re starving.  And let’s not forget the serious risk of developing an eating disorder.  It’s an incredibly expensive program to white-knuckle you towards some twisted illusion of ‘freedom’. Susan fails to tell people the entire truth about brain-based weight regulation and defended weight range. She is a neuroscientist but she has ignored the effects of yoyo dieting and chronic restriction. People she’s targeting are already primed to think that they’re food addicts, and she’s blaming the palatability and ‘toxicity’ of food - when really it’s the deprivation that’s causing these heightened responses.  And she’s making millions of dollars and running a non-compliant charitable research institute! Louise is sick of programs like BLE running unchecked, without criticism - it’s time for the anti-testimonial, like Martina’s.  Get in touch - let’s start reclaiming and shaking things up! Resources Dr Martina Zangger’s email is martinaz@westnet.com.au - please contact her if you have also suffered as a result of the Bright Line Eating program. The research publications section of the Bright Line Eating Website Link to the very gushy article on Susan Peirce Thompson in 2016 The website showing the incredible amount of money that Bright Line Eating is making  Link to Institute for Sustainable Weight Loss Below is a screenshot of the 'noncompliant' status of the Institute for Sustainable Weight Loss charity:  

In this gripping 2 part episode of All Fired Up, I explore the shadowy world of "Bright Line Eating", a super extreme diet cult which cherry picks neuroscience to convince people that they are 'food addicts', and then sells one of the world's most restrictive (and expensive) diet regimes to keep people hooked on the dream of achieving 'goal weight'. Bright Line Eating is the lucrative brainchild of neuroscientist Susan Peirce Thompson, a charismatic saleswoman who holds nothing back when it comes to the hard sell. Join me as I ask the question, who IS Susan Peirce Thompson - a food addict who has finally found the answer to her addictions, or someone who is still desperately stuck in her eating disorder? We also speak with neuroscientist Dr Sandra Aamodt, who literally attended the SAME UNIVERSITY as Susan Peirce Thompson, and has also experienced eating and body issues, but found peace through mindful and intuitive eating and body acceptance rather than continuing to white knuckle the revolving door of weight cycling. Dr Aamodt has very different ideas regarding this whole idea of food 'addiction'. Spoiler alert: Food addiction models = Binge Eating Disorder rebranded!  DO NOT MISS this story, it's a ripper! But CW - these 2 episodes have a lot of talk about weight, details of diet rules, and eating disorders, so take care if you think you might be triggered.     Shownotes     Hello listeners! Remember me? I’m back! What a year we’ve had. I am back from a break where I was taking care of life for a while. Now I’m back and angrier than ever. Today’s episode is a two-parter, and we’ll be keeping the energy and the rants going on a regular basis again. Remember the Crappy Awards earlier this year? One of the nominations has been gnawing away at me. This is from Dr Martina Zangger, who sent us a rant about Bright Line Eating, a program by Susan Peirce Thompson. Bright Line Eating is a severely restrictive diet, and a very expensive program. Martina shares with us that she experienced Orthorexia and was at risk of Anorexia while engaging with the program - she was obsessed with every bite of food that passed her lips, and says she became a ‘not very nice person’ while so hangry and feeling superior to other people. That feeling of being superior and special was encouraged within the program. After two years, Martina was able to move away from the program and regain the weight she lost, and that process was so disheartening. However, two years after leaving that program, Martina is so much more at peace with her body. She’s able to find enjoyment in food, and in sharing food with friends and family. Bright Line Eating  is making Susan Peirce Thompson rich and is such an unethical program from a practitioner who should know better.  I’m still simmering with rage over this Crappy nomination. The impact of programs like this is devastating on people’s lives. Martina lost two years of her life and experienced an eating disorder, and her story of recovery needs to be heard. How are programs like this still happening, and being sold at such enormous profit? After I heard Martina’s story, I’ve been neck-deep in Susan Peirce Thompson and Bright Line Eating. It’s more than a diet, it’s more like a cult. There’s a variety of techniques being used in it to sell problematic ideas and encourage eating disordered behaviour in an apparent attempt to free yourself from ‘disordered behaviour’ - a mindfuck of the next level.  So, I’ve been reading and researching and I’m ready to dive into a two part series - this episode is about Bright Line Eating and Susan Peirce Thompson. We’re going to talk about her story, her book, and more broadly talk about the topic of neuroscience as it applies to body weight, and also dive into food addiction models. In the next episode, we’ll talk more with Martina and her experience with the program, and we’ll round out the deep dive with a closer look at the incredible amount of money Bright Line Eating has made. I really need to preface this episode with a trigger warning, a content warning, about numbers and weight. If that’s particularly triggering for you, maybe these two episodes are ones to avoid. Usually we avoid numbers, and in this instance we’re using them as examples of the harm that diet culture can cause, and as examples of inaccuracies.  We’ll be talking with neuroscientist Dr Sandra Aamodt about addiction and regulating body weight. So, the book. I’ve read the whole thing. ‘Bright Line Eating: the Science of Living Happy, Thin and Free” by Susan Peirce Thompson, 2017. To begin with, Susan is a really good storyteller and has a compelling personal story of how she came to this way of living. And that’s the thing with so many of these diet gurus, isn’t it? They’re quite compelling, charismatic, often good writers. Susan is from California and her parents were reformed hippies. She grew up in a house which sounded super ‘healthy’. Her mother was thin and always dieting, and Susan recounts how she was doing diets with her mum when she was 10 years old - “neither of us had weight to lose, it was just about being maximally healthy”. Susan paints herself as a kid who was always interested in food, even addicted, compelled to compulsively eat food. What I get from reading this was that this child grew up in a house with little food choice around, no processed food, quite restrictive. We know from lots of research in this area that kids who grow up in households with little food variety and where ‘bad’ food is banned, those kids are quite likely to grow up as binge-eating adults. And kids who diet early have a higher risk of developing eating disorders. There’s also a genetic component with eating disorders, which makes me wonder about Susan’s mother and her own eating issues.  One thing that stuck out was the vivid descriptions of what restricting her food felt like as a child - powerful, a feeling of being in control. For most of us on a diet, we feel pretty crappy. For some of us, perhaps those with quite a restrictive relationship with food, that experience of restriction is quite elating. They describe that feeling of being in power, being in control, and get hooked on that feeling of not eating. There’s a disturbing description of Susan ‘going off sugar’ at age 12, of feeling empowered. She also related how, even with these feelings of being empowered, she would sneak food and hide food - which she reads as evidence of her ‘addiction’, but I read as being evidence of the severity of her restriction.  By the time Susan was 15, she described herself as ‘overweight’, and feeling ‘enormous’ compared to her thin mum. Again, she unquestioningly accepts that there was something wrong with her body at 15. My non-diet lens tells me that our bodies are changing when we’re 15. It’s perfectly normal to gain weight as you grow, maybe it was just growth? She continued dieting and stumbled into drugs, from ages 14-20, including acid, ecstasy, meth, crack. Quite serious. She talks about the impact on her weight - when you’re on drugs like that, you do reduce your weight. It’s a harrowing story, to be hooked on such terrible drugs for your adolescence. Susan found herself at rock bottom and in a 12 Step program at age 20, and found recovery from drug and alcohol addiction through the 12 Step model. That’s an amazing story! It is not easy to turn your life around like that, and she did it. But in the book, that victory didn’t bring her peace, because her weight increased and she felt terrible about it. She was also still thinking of herself as a food addict, and began attending 12 Step programs for overeating. Episode 30 of All Fired Up is about Overeaters Anonymous - check it out. It looks like Susan did stuff like that for years and years and years without reducing her weight.  It’s clear in the book that Susan is not perceiving herself as someone who has issues with her relationship with food, but as someone with weight to lose who is addicted to food. At times she received diagnoses of Binge Eating Disorder and Bulimia, but she did not receive any eating disorder treatment. In 2003, she joined a more extreme unnamed 12 Step, which I believe may be ‘FA’ or ‘Food Addicts Anonymous’. Like all the other 12 Step programs, they are free support groups to help people who perceive themselves as food addicts - and FA has very strict rules. No sugar, no flour. Three meals a day, absolutely no other food. You have to ‘commit’ your meal plan each night to a buddy, mentor, sponsor in the program for the next day. You weigh out each meal according to a strict meal plan. It’s intense, it’s extreme. There’s a lot of mentorship and buddyship to ‘support’ each other - but I would say it’s more like policing each other, to make sure they don’t eat. Susan was happy about finally losing weight in this strict program.  But she grew to be distressed with the amount of time the program was taking up - about 20 hours a week of planning, talking to mentors and more. She mentions that her husband considered leaving her, and she was annoyed with the lack of science around the food rules in the program. By this point, Susan had gone to university and studied cognitive science and was now a neuroscientist. She decided she was going to write a book and start an online program, combining her knowledge of the brain with the strict program. What she calls ‘bright lines’, I call ‘very strict rules’ or ‘diet prison’.  The ‘online boot camps’ she began offering took off very quickly, and eventually she hired a team and  published her book. The diet in the book is basically the same as the FA diet - but FA is free, and Bright Line Eating is for-profit. Her husband is now the CFO. The bootcamps are very expensive, as are all the add-ons in the program. Every level of support requires payment, and Susan justified charging this much money for the program by saying that it’s not just the FA program, it’s a community and it’s combined with neuroscience, and that her team is going ‘cutting edge research in the field’. So, not only has she monetised a popular 12 Step program, but she’s using ‘neuroscience’ and the cache of her PhD to help her ideas gain cred.  Susan talks a lot about the brain, and seems to understand that body weight is tightly controlled by our brain (particularly the hypothalamus) and understands that only a small percentage of dieters keep weight off long term. She understands that the hypothalamus is like a thermostat that controls body weight, and it’s out of our conscious control. So, she pays lip service to that, and then spends the rest of the book talking about how her neuroscience tips will fix that - as if it’s broken.  What’s being missed here? The science that shows us changes in body weight are countered by these established processes in our brain. She never mentions this - the ‘defended weight range’ - which is pretty fundamental science about how our brains defend body weight. In her whole book, she never mentions it. In a minute we’ll talk more with Dr Aamodt about that. Susan does talk a lot about leptin regulating our body weight. Leptin is a  hormone stored in fat cells, and as fat cells get larger they secrete leptin which tells our brain that we’re comfortable, we’re at the right weight, we don’t need to seek out more food. Susan claims that people in larger bodies have too much leptin that isn’t getting to our brains to tell us to stop eating - she says that larger bodied people are ‘leptin resistant’ and our brains think we’re starving and tell us to eat more. She claims that the cause of leptin resistance is insulin resistance, which is caused directly by processed food. Very sweeping generalisations - in essence she is saying that larger people are insatiably eating because leptin is being blocked by our brainstem, which causes us to mindlessly eat processed food all day. So basically, we are all ‘leptin resistant’ humans, mindless processed food eating machines. I’ve got some issues! Not all large people are insulin resistant. Insulin resistance is impacted by an enormous range of factors - genetic, environmental and social. It’s incredibly simplistic to say it’s just due to processed food. For Susan, anyone who is larger is by definition sick or deficient. She continually refers to the ‘right size body’, which is your ‘thin’ body. A complete disregard for body diversity, and lack of data to back up her claims about leptin. She’s also left out the impact of weight loss dieting on leptin. When we try and diet and lose weight, our leptin levels drop. This drop stimulates a huge increase in our appetite and interest in food. So, although she’s concentrating on this idea that larger people are leptin resistant, people may instead have lower leptin levels due to dieting and that’s what is telling our brains that we’re starving. So, leptin drops and interest in food is very well documented in neuroscience - because it’s a very primitive and important danger signal to the brain.  Let’s not forget Susan’s target audience of middle-aged women, who likely have dieted many times before and may have lower leptin levels due to this. She knows this. She even mentions the Biggest Loser study which notes how damaged people’s metabolisms were from strict dieting. She says that during the ‘weight loss’ phase of her bootcamp, your metabolism will slow down something like 80-90%, but in the next breath says that there’s no evidence that this will continue to happen - “we’ve never seen evidence of this in Bright Line Eating, there is no reason for alarm”. This really annoyed me. She has no evidence of it because she’s done no research on it. Simply because you don’t look for harm doesn’t mean there’s no harm.  Another claim from the book is that you can choose your goal weight based on the lowest weight you’ve ever been, and she pretty much guarantees you can reach it. This flies in the face of weight science and our understanding of all the factors outside of our control. There’s no evidence to say that Bright Line Eating is any different from any other weight loss program. Talking about cravings - Susan describes them as a “brain-based bingeing mechanism”, located in the nucleus accumbens which has become ‘overstimulated’ by the plentiful food in our current environment. She uses her own experience as a drug addict to paint this vivid picture, describing her need for higher doses of drugs to get the same high. That is tolerance - it’s well documented in addiction literature, especially for opiate receptors. Sarah says food behaves in the same way - flour and sugar in particular are acting in the same way as heroin in our brain. She doesn't have very much data to support this idea that flour and sugar behave like a drug. She mentions rat studies to back up some of her sugar claims, but even she admits there’s nothing in the research to show flour is addictive. Food addiction was excluded from the category “substance related and addictive disorders” in the DSM-V, due to lack of evidence. We’ll hear more from neuroscientist Dr Aamodt on this. One of the ways Susan is trying to convince us that sugar and flour are toxic poisons is pretty weird. She asks us to google images of flour, sugar and heroin and look at how similar they are. For the record - things that look like drugs are not necessarily drugs. In her view, processing things is what makes them drugs. In Susan’s view, the way sugar is processed makes it a more toxic drug. What about the way we process mint tea? Dried chillies? I think that this Bright Line plan will keep people in a state of deprivation and restriction, which increases those feelings of addiction. The longer we’re deprived, the stronger our desire will become for the forbidden thing. We know that if people are full when they’re doing an experiment where they’re exposed to food stimuli, their reward centres are less activated. When you think about it, you’re never going to be full on Bright Line Eating and you’re going to feel like an addict. And if you then go to a bootcamp or on one of the forums, it’s going to feel more real. Another bugbear - she repeatedly scares people by referring to food in this book as ‘drugs’, ‘toxins’, ‘poisons’. But then later she says it’s fine for children to eat them, because they’re ‘young enough to burn off the calories’. What? This is a woman who is desperately attached to thinness as a measure of self-worth.  If she really believes sugar and flour were toxic poisons, why is she recommending them to children? The rules she’s lifted from FA are full on, and she’s using neuroscience-talk to give them a sense of validation.  “It takes some willpower to set up and then little to none when it becomes automatic”. Susan has science-washed extreme deprivation and disguised it as normal.  Susan likens the automatic level of food behaviours to brushing your teeth - but our bodies and brains aren’t hard-wired to desire tooth-brushing as a survival mechanism, and feel under threat when we haven’t brushed out teeth in a while. Susan knows this. She wouldn’t have to set up such extensive support systems if permanent restriction truly was automatic. Introducing Dr Aamodt, who wrote the book “Why Diets Make Us Fat: The Unintended Consequences of Our Obsession with Weight Loss”. She also has a much-watched Ted Talk about why she stopped dieting and switched to mindful eating, which has been watched by 4.5 million people. Before she was an author, Dr Aamodt was Editor-In--Chief of Nature Neuroscience, a leading scientific journal in the field of brain research. Dr Aamodt was pulled into neuroscience due to personal experience -  as a teenager she remembers her mother commenting that she was “eating like a fat person”. She was not at a higher weight at the time, and looks back at photos of that time and thinks “what was mum doing?”. Dr Aamodt began making complicated food rules for herself, like not being allowed to open the refrigerator herself. It was almost like that comment unlocked disordered eating for her. Sandra then spent about 30 years cycling through diets, and while she never met the definition for an eating disorder she veered very close. Sandra vividly remembers how difficult it was to force herself to move away from dieting. In her early 30’s, Sandra was exposed to some feminist writings about dieting which seemed to unlock some things she’d kind of known for years but hadn’t been paying attention to, such as weight being neurologically controlled. She hadn’t connected the dots that her own body would behave that way. We’re biological animals with physiological regulation, but we’re also social animals living in culture where we’re expected to look and eat a certain way. It’s as if one day someone said to Sandra, “you don’t have to do that”. A blog Sandra credits with some of these early moments of unlearning is ‘Shapely Prose’. The biggest advantage of not dieting for Sandra turned out to be psychological, not physical - the amount of mental space that weight and eating were taking up in her brain turned out to be unbelievable when it stopped. She describes it as like having ringing in your ears for your entire life, then one day someone turns the ringing off. In Susan’s experience, you can’t just tell people ‘don’t diet’ - you have to tell them what to do instead. The message of ‘don’t control your weight’ is too uncomfortable.  Sandra came across mindful eating, which gave some structure to make that transition away from dieting. Sandra initially didn’t know when she was hungry - how could she, after all those years of strictly regulating herself?  There’s a lot of psychological research showing that people who diet frequently are not good at picking up interoception signals from their bodies - such as feeling your heart beating. But even after many years of ignoring your body, you can reconnect and hear those signals again. Sandra is much better at it than she used to be. Unlearning takes time! All those neuroplastic changes can be reversed, if you take the time and energy to do it. For Sandra, moving from dieting to not dieting was a huge upgrade. What is the ‘set point’? Scientists call it the ‘defended range’ which Sandra says is a better term. It’s a small range of weight where your body is comfortable. When you’re within your defended range, weight works the way that random people on the internet think that it works all the time. You can make your lifestyle changes and nudge it a little up or down. It’s the range where your body and your brain are not fighting you. The body is comfortable. Once you get outside that range, in either direction, this is where the brain says ‘this is not right, we’re not regulating properly, we need to fix this’. And this is where calories in, calories out becomes unreliable and the way you process food starts to change in dramatic ways. Metabolism changes to try and get you back into that defended range.  It’s normal to be more hungry when you’re not getting enough food! It does seem as though the responses are asymmetrical - that the body’s compensatory mechanisms become more intense over time if you’re under your defended range, but will become less intense over time if you’re above your defended range. So, your brain is much more relaxed with being at a higher weight than being under your defended range. From an evolutionary perspective, starving is really serious and you should never take it lightly.  How do we know our defended range? It’s genetic to begin with - there are strong genetic influences on it. A number of life experiences can affect it, for instance people who didn’t get enough sleep as children generally have a higher defended range as adults. Also, children who had a lot of stress and/or trauma in their lives have a higher defended range as adults.  If your childhood environment is scary, unpredictable, like something bad will happen at any time - there’s a strong evolutionary argument that it would be okay for your body to store extra energy for future dangerous times. The body makes sense! Your body does its best to survive. There’s a genetic link as well in who is susceptible to constantly being invited to ignore their bodies, and whose bodies have such strong hunger and fullness signals that they seem to be completely immune to those kinds of external messaging.  And then dieting itself - attempting to get under your ‘defended range’. The brain desires that we stay within that defended range and functions 24/7 without a break - and we try to combat this with willpower, which we cannot do 24/7. We can do a lot of these things for a while, but at some point it gets to be like holding your breath.  The food addiction model - the idea that if we remove certain foods from our diet we can permanently change our set point, our weight, and our brains will relax and finally do what diet culture says they should do. What does Sandra think about that? Sandra thinks the food addiction model is basically a rebranding of Binge Eating Disorder. The restriction itself is what produces the sense of being ‘out of control’. The easiest way to see that is in experiments on rodents, who aren’t bombarded with media messages telling them their bodies are unacceptable.  Inducing Binge Eating Disorder in rats is actually done quite reliably - rats are starved to about 70-80% of their starting weight, then given high sugar foods. The rats will eat past fullness - they will ‘stuff’ themselves. If you make this a cycle and repeat several times, you can get rats to the point where they will binge on regular boring rat chow. They don’t even require the food to taste good to overeat it. That sounds familiar, right? We are those rats. We often miss the deprivation with Binge Eating Disorder and focus only on the eating. There are also changes in the brain’s reward system that are associated with that behaviour, but that doesn’t immediately jump out at Sandra as being that the solution is to restrict what we eat. If the restriction causes the disorder, it probably isn’t also the cure. If the rats weren’t starved, would they have this response to high sugar food? No. Rats who aren’t starved and are presented with novel foods will eat until full and then stop. These rats are not trying to diet, they’re not struggling with mixed cultural messages - they’re just having a straightforward biological response to a stimulus that suggests that maybe you should put away some reserves for the future because every so often, somebody comes and takes your food away. It’s quite a simple, elegant, neurobiological response to famine. So, the food addiction model is rebranded deprivation models, or Binge Eating Disorder models. Nobody has come up with evidence that is convincing Sandra that it’s any more than that. The scales that measure food addiction have a lot of overlap with the scales that measure Binge Eating Disorder. A definition of addiction that Sandra likes is ‘when we continue to want things that we do not like” being drawn to repeat behaviours that you don’t actually enjoy. And some people would describe Binge Eating Disorder in that way, but Sandra doesn’t think that implies that the treatment is doing more of what created it in the first place (restriction). Huge thanks to Dr Sandra Aamodt for sharing her experience and  bringing us some logic and more of a whole picture, not just a narrow view. In some ways, Dr Aamodt and Susan Peirce Thompson are quite similar. They both grew up in diet culture, both developed eating issues as a result of trying to control their body weight, and they’re both neuroscientists. However, one has chosen to monetize this in the Bright Line Eating program, and one has chosen to help people find real freedom. The idea of ‘freedom’ in Bright Line Eating is very, very different from the idea of freedom that Dr Aamodt and I (Louise) have. Ours is about laying down our weapons and learning to reconnect.  Next episode we’ll talk with Dr Martina Zangger about her experience with Bright Line Eating, and look at the economic reality of how enormous this machine is. And more dodgy research claims! It’ll be a zinger.  Resources Here's Dr Aamodt's wonderful Ted Talk And her awesome book You can get in touch with Dr Sandra Aamodt at sandra.aamodt@gmail.com and on twitter at @sandra_aamodt

Part 2 of our Covid Contiki tour is here! We're continuing our whirlwind trip around the world to see what the data tells us about the relationship between body size and COVID-19. Diet culture is busily creating a narrative that being larger is a huge risk factor for contracting, developing complications, and even dying from the virus, and our BS detectors are UP!  Alongside my fellow travel guides Jess Campbell (nutritionist and medical student) and Fiona Willer (anti-diet dietitian and statistical warrior), we're diving deep into the data to reveal the real picture - and the truth is VERY DIFFERENT from the headlines! In Part 1 we visited China and the USA, and in this episode we're off to France, Italy, and the UK. What we find will blow your mind! This is a MUST LISTEN! CW - this episode discusses severe illness and death, and mentions the "O" word multiple times. If you're finding it all a bit much, wait until you've got some gas in the tank. But if you're ready to get totally fired up about how weight bias is impacting our understanding of this pandemic, let's go!   Shownotes     We’re back, and we’re heading to France! There’s a study out of France that’s again being used to push this idea of BMI being related to not just hospitalisation but seriousness of the COVID19 illness, such as the need for intensive interventions such as ventilation. It’s a small study with the title “Obesity is an independent risk factor for severe COVID 19”. So, it’s upping the ante in this article to claim that body size is an independent risk factor for severity, or how sick you get with COVID 19. The study is of 124 patients who were admitted to the ICU in a hospital in Lille, France. What the New York Times article mentioning this study said was that nearly half of the 124 patients in this study were ‘obese’ (Louise is feeling some fatigue at saying the ‘o’ word). They say that this is twice the obesity rate of a comparison group admitted to ICU for other reasons last year. It also claimed that as people's body weight went up, so did their need for ventilation. Things to look at in this paper - who were the people being admitted? 73% were male, average age 60. The study controlled for age, diabetes and hypertension, but didn’t control for other factors which have been found to be really important here - things like  smoking, cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease. There’s no mention either in this paper of social disadvantage. Lille in France is a working class city with a really high poverty rate, so 1 in 4 people in Lille live below the poverty line. That fact isn’t mentioned anywhere in the paper or in the New York Times article. If you read something about body size and COVID symptom severity, you are not being told the full picture when it comes to health and what impacts on our health and our ability to fight back and recover from an infection which we have no immunity for. Next stop, Italy! Italy has been hit so incredibly hard by COVID, we’re seeing a huge impact there and some horrible statistics on death rates. They’ve managed to get some data together and put out some papers, which is an amazing effort. A paper released recently on the 20th of April 2020 looks at outcomes (deaths) and is pretty heavy-going. It’s a large study, including 21,500 people who died. It digs into the relationship between body weight and death outcomes, seriousness of outcomes, demographics and things like that. Jess takes us through it - this study is of 21,551 COVID deaths, but the data that they had about coexisting conditions was based on a limited sample of 1,890 people. So, that’s the number of people they could access medical files for. We have no idea if what we’re seeing in this paper is actually representative of everyone who dies. There’s a lot of missing data, all we’ve got is 8.7% of the total reported. So, in the total (21,551), 35.5% were female. In the smaller coexisting conditions sample (n=1890), 31.9% were female. 12.2% of those who had died had a BMI of over 30, compared to the general population in Italy where 10.9% have a BMI over 30. They should have age-matched information because we know there’s a linear association between BMI and age through to 70 years. As a comparison, 21.2% of this group has chronic kidney failure, which is way higher than the population prevalence. It’s also notable that prevalence of a BMI over 30 is higher in the cohort of women compared to men, however we see here that men were dying much more frequently than women. If BMI related to increased risk of death, we would see that relationship. We’re not seeing it. Compared with other actual serious conditions like kidney failure and hypertension, heart failure, all of those conditions are a higher prevalence compared to that in the general population in those who died compared to the population prevalence of people with a BMI over 30. The weight relationship here is not even slightly interesting when you compare it with these other conditions. And the difference in gender stands out, which we’re seeing across nearly all of these studies that we’re looking at. Maleness and age. COVID can be caught by anyone, but those who progress to a more severe state are typically male and typically older. Comorbidities of various types can also factor in there. There’s a median of 10 days from onset to death in this study - how horrific. A UK paper we’ll be discussing soon looks at how many people were ambulatory - going about their daily lives without needing assistance or their ability to get around being compromised. 98% of the people in the UK data fell into that category before their admission to hospital. If we add that to our Italian data, we’ve got all these people who were out there working, doing grocery shopping, visiting their grandchildren, and then ten days later were dead. Diet culture tells us that if we eat, move, look a certain way we are protected from all sorts of scary stuff. This worry about BMI is that fear again on a larger scale. Following citations in the Malhotra sharticle, Jess went down the rabbit hole and found a paper from Italy published on 5th April 2020, titled “Influenza and obesity: its odd relationship and the lessons for COVID-19 pandemic”. It claimed “Being obese not only increases the risk of infection and of complications for the single obese person, but recent evidence indicates that a large obese population increases the chance of appearance of a more virulent viral strain, prolongs the virus shedding throughout the total population, and eventually may increase overall mortality rate of an influenza pandemic”. The paper then goes on to present three factors which make higher weight subjects more contagious than ‘leans’, one being increased viral shedding. The paper called for higher weight folks to participate in an extended quarantine period as part of COVID 19 response, based on an association that’s been observed in Influenza A. Jess went to look at the paper it sighted, and it notes a relationship between prolonged viral shedding time, Influenza A  and higher weight, but an inverse relationship with Influenza B. This increase in viral shedding time is about one day. When all Influenza strains were pooled together in this study, there was no relationship seen. This data should be extrapolated with caution because COVID 19 is not influenza. We do actually have information about the clearance rates of the virus coming out of China, saying that there’s no difference between BMI bands when it comes to viral clearance. The second factor in this paper that makes higher weight folks more contagious than the ‘leans’ is increased viral load and breath via fine aerosols. Again, Jess followed the citation to look at the primary reference, and after lots of scrolling to the supplementary table saw that there was no statistical association between viral RNA shedding and any of the BMI categories, unadjusted or adjusted. It’s not statistically significant. And yet, they are reporting that this has been a trend that has been observed. SO DODGY. And then the third factor that contributes to increased contagiousness is “obesity results in a more virulent disease with an increased virulence and morbidity”. This paper was citing three papers, two of which were mice models, and the third a cell culture study. They extrapolated findings from those studies back to a human population - big “uh oh”. This paints a picture of a higher weight body as a petri dish for a more virulent virus, and as something that should be feared. It’s a truly horrific paper, and a really dehumanising narrative. Why are these papers citing test tube and animal models? Because they can’t find the same evidence in actual humans. Actual humans get the flu - it’s not as if we can’t observe humans with flu and must instead turn to animal and test tube models to gather information. So much damage can be done with these studies - what are the real world impacts for people in larger bodies? Isolation is terrible for our mental health. If this paper was translated into some kind of public health policy, can you imagine the disaster? The limitations on people’s freedom of movement based on BMI? It makes our blood boil. The paper gives recommendations in their concluding remarks for higher weight folks - including “lose weight with mild caloric restriction”. They also recommend the use of metformin and other glucose modifying drug treatments, and to practice mild to moderate physical activity. The final country on our whistle-stop tour of the planet - the good old UK. Another hotspot for this dreadful virus. Also somewhere with some really fantastic data. The ICNARC (Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre) has been releasing critical care data weekly, and we now have five weeks of reports to look at. Fiona has been reading these reports each Friday as they get released. We have data on people in intensive care units in a relatively wide are of the UK - who is being admitted to intensive care, who has required lower or higher levels of respiratory support, and who has died. They’ve also given us the background stats (including BMI) for the areas that particular intensive care areas serve. The US data showed us a 50/50 gender breakdown in infection rates. In the UK data we see a much higher rate of males being admitted to intensive care due to COVID - 71.8% of people admitted. We also have data on markers of social disadvantage, conditions that people came into intensive care with, BMI and age. We can see over the five weeks of reports how things have changed - and the reports are additive, so each week’s new data is added to the growing data pool. This means we can see mistakes and assumptions we were making early on as more is revealed. In terms of BMI, there’s no difference between any of the BMI bands until you get to the “over 40” BMI band where there’s a slightly higher representation of people being admitted compared with the background population. That is likely to be an artefact of weight bias - as we discussed with the US data, that admitting staff may be more concerned about higher weight people.` The proportion of people with a BMI over 40 being admitted is dropping every week as more data is collected. We’re looking at three main things with this data. We’ve got people who are admitted compared to the general population. We’ve got people admitted who are receiving advanced support versus basic support. And we’ve got BMI band information, where we can see who in which BMI band needed advanced versus basic respiratory support. In the BMI bands when we look at basic versus advanced support, it’s about 50/50 in all the BMI bands. That would mean that BMI is not driving whether you would need advanced support - it’s not a determinant. If a higher body size meant you needed more advanced support, that would be very clear in this data. Currently in this data we have over 300 people with BMI over 40. It's enough people to see there's no trend. In terms of deaths, we want to know whether larger bodied people receiving medical care die at a higher rate than people in smaller bodies receiving medical care. When the first weekly report came out, it looked like people with a higher BMI were more likely to die versus being discharged from critical care. As the weeks have gone on, that effect has blunted. It’s a phenomenon we call ‘regression to the mean’ in statistics. When you’ve got a small amount of numbers, things can look really significant, and as you add more numbers to that data things look more average. The Index of Multiple Deprivation - categorises people from least to most deprived in society. It’s important to note that the NHS is a public health system, compared to the US health system. In terms of admission based on deprivation in the UK, we’ve got a pretty linear relationship between admission and deprivation. People coming from the least deprived areas have a lower chance of being admitted to ICU (14.8%), and 24.7% coming from the most deprived areas. There’s also a linear relationship with renal support, and with requiring more intensive interventions. This speaks to a background of medical marginalisation. It’s likely these more deprived people are coming in with poorer health to begin with. This pandemic is really revealing inequities in health - it is a stress test on health disparity. That’s what needs to be front page news, rather than fear mongering about BMI. ‘Public health’ is not about health - it’s about housing. It’s about economic access to all things. Equality and safety and opportunity. Dr Malhotra - ‘the root cause of all disease is unavoidable junk food environment’. That’s his take on it. (dick)! From one of the letters to the editor in the Obesity Journal - “The COVID 19 pandemic is challenging the world in an unprecedented way. We at Obesity have been sounding the alarm about the obesity epidemic and now must take up the cause for our patients with obesity in the face of this dual pandemic”. Notice that they offer no advice, no call to action for health services to get better at treating larger bodied people? That’s not actually what they’re calling for. They’re calling for more ‘awareness’, which is a subterfuge for ‘let’s keep up the fat hate’. If they were actually concerned, they would be calling for detailed analysis of how outcomes can be optimized for larger bodied people right now. That's not what they’re doing - they just want the narrative that ‘fat is bad’ to be out there so they can continue selling medication and ‘treatments’ for this ‘equally terrible’ condition. To that we say, “fuck that shit”. Whew, we’re feeling a bit exhausted and jet-lagged from that world journey! Thanks to Fiona and Jess for their hard work, dedication and generosity in digging into all that data and sifting through those papers. (and a special shout out to Fiona who recorded with three children who at one point all stood in front of her having a screaming tantrum) What does this all mean in the bigger picture? Hopefully this has undermined the messages of fear. At the beginning of this recording, we talked about what was firing us up about the corona-crisis. After traversing this territory, what are the take home tips? Fiona says that her take home message is to keep in your sights those people who this is relevant for. If you or a loved one has a higher BMI, Fiona’s advice is to dismiss the headlines. Do not listen to the nonsense of people who have got an ulterior motive to keep you hating your body size. Know that your BMI, if you catch COVID, may be a determinant of whether you get hospitalised or not. But once you’re hospitalised, your chances are no better or worse than anyone else based on your weight. Don’t let anyone spin you the line that you’ve been placed on a ventilator because of your BMI, because based on the data we have right now that’s not true. Jess says her take home message is centered around health disparities and inequities. This is an incredible opportunity for us to dig in once the crisis is over and start to unpick and unpack the different ways in which universal health care like we see in NZ and with the NHS may contrast with the sort of care and access that we’re seeing in the US, such as the ability to pay for care and how it impacts on people’s ability to get treatment where necessary. We here in NZ and Australia are really bloody lucky. No one on the planet has immunity to this virus, and some places on the planet are suffering to a level we can’t even comprehend. Our hearts are going out to you, and we’re really hoping that this ends quickly. Look after yourselves - we will get through this with our bullshit antennas larger and more attuned than ever before. We’re all human, we’re all in this together, and we can do so much better. Resources The study from France The Italian study on deaths from COVID-19 The spectacularly garbage study from Italy claiming that larger people are more contagious than smaller people The UK ICNARC data The nephrologists’ website Find out more about Fiona Willer here Find out more about Jess Campbell here   

Not even a global pandemic can stop the feverish hysteria of diet culture! As COVID-19 wreaks havoc across the world, there’s a sh*tload of truly hideous media articles and speculative research editorials proclaiming that higher weight people get sick more often, more severely, and even die at a higher rate than thin people. This narrative is largely being accepted as an unquestioned ‘truth’ by most media outlets. But where did this idea come from, and what does the data say? This week on All Fired Up we’re travelling around the world on a virtual COVID Contiki tour, visiting the COVID-19 hot spots, finding out where these narratives came from, and digging deep into the statistics to see what’s actually going on. I am joined by my fellow tour guides Fiona Willer, anti-diet dietitian and weight science expert, and Jess Campbell, anti-diet nutritionist and medical student, in an intrepid mission to uncover the truth! This is an epic 2-part series which is ESSENTIAL LISTENING. In such challenging times, we need objective and transparent information. It’s simply not OK to keep serving up weight biased BS. But be warned - this is obviously a very distressing topic, and this episode contains multiple uses of the “O” word (there was no way around it), plus we’re going into explicit discussions of disease, death, and BMI. Look after yourself!       Show Notes This week I have multiple guests in an incredible 2 part series! We are super fired up about COVID-19 and the BS weight-related outcomes being speculated about left, right and centre. Fiona Willer, fearless anti-diet dietitian and weight science expert, alongside Jess Campbell, anti-diet nutritionist and medical student join me to unpack the COVID-covert-crap! We’re in the midst of an epidemic, with a terrible virus taking over the world. On the day of recording (26th April 2020) there’s something like 200,000 deaths across the world and so many countries in lockdown and in crisis. And as usual, we’re pissed off - we’re hungry for data, to understand and unpack the fast-moving science behind COVID-19 and what’s making it tick. This whole podcast is about the impact of how weight stigma and weight bias impacts how we understand the world, and it’s clear now how weight bias is shaping how we understand COVID-19. So, I’m so happy we have two of the finest brains on the planet to join me on this massive research rabbit hole that we’ve been in for the last few weeks. Today we’re going to unpack the science and the published data that we’ve come across. Not all of it - there’s mountains of it - but we’ll try and do a bit of a whistle-stop tour around the planet of what kind of data is coming out of different countries, and compare and contrast that with what is being said in some of our media and our journals. What fun! A “COVID Contiki tour!” So, what are we seeing? There are some really hideous media articles around that are basically claiming this idea that higher weight people are at increased risk of catching Coronavirus, that they have more severe symptoms and a higher death rate. So our starting questions were about whether this is true, and what is it based on? I wanted to start with some examples of the really shitty media articles that are coming out that have really damaged and upset people in larger bodies. Two of them came out on April 16th, 2020 - there was an article in European Scientist from Dr Aseem Malhotra called “COVID 19 and the elephant in the room”. Fiona reckons that the use of this idiom is a bit of a litmus test for uninterrogated biases. A warning that this episode will likely mention the ‘o’ word several times, as we discuss these articles. The first page of Dr Malhotra’s hysteria-raising article says in capital letters “OBESITY - THE REAL KILLER BEHIND COVID”. Dreadful. It basically goes on to claim that being in a larger body is a risk factor for catching COVID-19, and then puts the blame straight back on people by claiming that it’s because of poor diet and body size that people are getting sick, and if only everyone went low carb, high fat immediately, everyone would be okay. He’s also insulting Boris Johnson by saying he got sick because of his weight. A complete ‘sharticle’. The very naive belief that somebody’s body size has any reflection of their current eating habits or physical activity habits needs to die. That’s the problem here. He also comes from a place of stating that the UK is the unhealthiest it’s ever been, based on body weight statistics. The whole sharticle is full of frightening stats, really running on fear, with little to back it up. He does this lovely sentence - “a recent commentary in Nature states that patients with type 2 diabetes may have 10 times greater risk of death when they contract COVID 19”. These are speculative, these articles - they’re commentaries, not based on actual data. But it still raises fear and gives a very suspicious so-called solution as well, because he’s basically recommending everyone changes their diet and they’ll be okay. And lo and behold, when you do a bit of digging into Dr Malhotra, he has a low-cal diet book! Completely unbiased, nothing to sell here! He got such a big platform for writing this article in European Scientist, giving him so much sciency-sounding cred. Articles like this do so much damage to people. And European Scientist is not a journal - it’s a magazine. Sneaky. Think of him as like the UK version of Dr Oz - he’s got the cardiology background but he’s deep into the ‘woo’ science. Then we have a New York Times article that came out on the same day, by Roni Caryn Rabin titled “Obesity Linked to Severe Coronavirus Disease, Especially for Younger Patients”. And it’s accompanied by the tried-and-true headless fatty shot. This article, it should come with a health warning for weight bias and weight stigma. Reading this article is actually what got me started on this podcast episode, because the article does reference some studies and data that were starting to come out which started the rabbit hole for us. This article implies a level of certainty that is not backed up when we actually look at the studies it is talking about. So, in addition to the media stuff, we also see this narrative being built in the academic journals that is really troubling. On April 1st 2020, there was a letter to the editor in the Obesity Journal from William Dietz, called “Obesity and its implications for COVID 19”. This letter claims a strong relationship between COVID and weight. On the same day in the same journal, The Editors Speak Out was published. It tries to make the case that this is a weight related problem and says speculative things like “we are likely to see a collision of the two public health epidemics in the US, with obesity and COVID 19 interacting to further strain our health system”. What’s interesting with that is that this is April 1st 2020, that this journal is posting with a very strong level of certainty that because COVID 19 is a weight related problem, that we need to focus our attention on people’s weight when we think about this illness. They’re pulling on information from previous pandemics too, from H1N1, SARS and MERS, and more broadly from others. They’re reporting lots of animal study outcomes for those, and then trying to project them onto humans - but in real life that needs a lot more clarification. Lots more study is needed to find out whether what we find in an animal model is also found in humans. The reliance on acute respiratory distress data, when we started to realise that COVID was presenting with an atypical ARDS - it’s apples and oranges, the data that they are relying on for those commentary pieces. So, it’s pulling stuff that’s not related and saying ‘it’s definitely going to happen in the same way’. It’s also ignoring the body of evidence of the protective mechanisms of a high BMI for ARDS as well - a lot of those articles say that increasing BMI is associated with worse outcomes with ARDS, and on balance that’s not what the evidence is either. It’s not a fair representation of the research. Whenever provided information about BMI, the tendency for journalists or research teams is to present it in a negative light no matter how borderline it is in real life. The bias goes unchecked. There’s also a perception that talking about body weight is ‘newsworthy’. It’s a topic that is exhaustingly everywhere all the time. And there’s this perception in the media that a negative result - where you test something and find no relation between the things you were looking at - people don’t want to publish that. They feel it’s not a ‘real’ result, and those studies don’t make it into the literature as much as they should. A ‘no relationship’ result should be making it into journals more often. These two opinion letters … let’s remember first of all that the name of the journal is Obesity, with a lens of ‘obesity is bad’. William Dietz is very well known for his weight bias agenda, and is very well paid off by Novo Nordisk and WW (Weight Watchers). So, shall we get started? We have a lot of ground to cover! We thought we’d do it by going around the world to figure out who is doing what research, and what is actually being found. First stop - China. We’re looking at “Obesity and COVID-19 Severity in a Designated Hospital in Shenzhen, China” by Qingxian, Cai, et al. posted on April 1st 2020. This study looks at 383 people. From the title, you can see we’re going after the issue of obesity. This paper is amongst the earliest written about weight and outcomes for COVID, and in the time line it’s early in the world’s experience of coronavirus but far along in China’s experience of it. Something that’s different to other papers like it is that they talk about the types of treatment people have received, and the progression from hospitalisation through to intensive interventions like ventilation. It’s more information than we get from most of the other papers. This paper was the canary in the coal mine for the claiming a relationship between BMI and more severe outcomes. This was the first point at which the media stopped pontificating about what they ‘felt’ about BMI and had something concrete to use. But they found that there was not a relationship between BMI categorisation and severity of illness except in men. When we look at the weight information, we have 383 patients and only 41 have a BMI that China categorises as ‘obese’ (side note - China’s BMI cut off for ‘obese’ is 28). Of those 41 patients, 8 of them had liver disease. Liver disease is a condition where you can develop another condition called ascites, where there’s a lot of fluid sitting around the organs and guts and you’re not necessarily very good at getting off extra fluid. So, it may well be that a number of that 41 had a condition where they were fluid overloaded all the time. They may not then necessarily be in the ‘obese’ bracket if they did not have this liver condition at the same time. It’s not just ‘well’ humans who are in this bracket - and there are more people with liver disease in this bracket than the other BMI brackets. The liver disease is a much more serious disease to have co-occurring with COVID 19. Statistically significant in terms of progressing to severe disease is only seen in this small group of men with higher BMI. Even for a first-year undergrad, you get the message that statistical significance is great from a mass perspective, but it may not actually be clinically significant. If we know that there’s a statistically significant difference, what does that mean? What do we do with that information? If it’s not body weight, if it’s not a condition that’s highly stigmatised, then we say “oh, we should be doing better screening…” but with weight it’s like, “oh well”. Fiona is very keen to get a copy of the data in this study so she can run the numbers herself! The article concludes with the statement that “compared to individuals with so-called normal weight, obese persons were more likely to progress to severe pneumonia due to COVID 19”. And that statement hardly fits the data - they themselves only found that ‘obese’ men progressed to a more severe version! They’re spinning their own data. And THAT’S the only thing that we will hear out of that study. At one point, that paper does mention that people with higher body weight were treated later than the other patients, which might have impacted outcomes. But you couldn’t see clearly from the data what that actually did. We can’t assume that there isn’t a lot of jumbling in who got what treatment underneath the surface of these numbers, compared to a study of a more mature condition. Interesting that this study didn’t control for smoking, when something like half the population of men in China smoke? These things don’t make it into the sexy headline - this early Chinese data is the beginning point for the COVID and weight relationship. When we dig into it, it’s not so straightforward. No paper is complete - all we can do is look at the data from all the places we can get it, and look at the summary papers that have been published so far. We look for a pattern that keeps being repeated across different locations to see if it’s a real thing or not. Findings from these smaller papers could be a quirk of stats, or influenced by the author’s particular perspective. If a phenomenon is a real thing, it’s going to be repeated across many locations over and over again - it’s going to be really obvious that the effect is there. That’s what we’re searching for. More than just hysterical headlines - we need the ‘what then can we do to improve outcomes for this subgroup?’. We’d also expect dose-response with BMI, not just categories presenting with associations that aren’t held across other categories. The way that we treat BMI is nonsense in that we have a continuous measure (going from zero to infinity in a straight line). It doesn’t naturally lend itself to categorisation. Those cutoffs in BMI are to a degree arbitrary, because a human has decided them. They’re not based on something magical that happens overnight when you go from a BMI of 29 to a BMI of 30. Without a set of scales, you couldn’t measure that difference. So, the cutoffs are dodgy from that perspective. And different studies group BMI together in different categories, which means we end up with very different findings across studies. When you lump a group of people in a category, such as BMI of 30-40, we lose all the significant data of the people along the continuum within that group. They’re all treated as if they’re the same, whereas in real life they’re probably quite different in terms of their experience and health conditions. It’s not a fair treatment of the information - especially considering the study has the detail of each study participant’s BMI. Stats should be treating BMI as a continuous measure, otherwise it’s not a fair assessment. Another thing - is BMI being measured, or eyeballed, or estimated? There’s huge amounts of missing data in many studies. The Italian data (coming up!) only had BMI data on 8.8% of the people in their studies - and yet are extrapolating based on BMI. An early paper looking at cardiovascular outcomes from China got the world spinning on the BMI and COVID connection - a small cohort study of 112 patients. The study reported that of the 17 patients who died of COVID, 15 had a BMI of over 25. 15 of those 17 patients who died also had one or more of the following: hypertension, coronary heart disease or heart failure. So, whilst the paper observed an association, it did not establish causality nor did it tease out the relative contribution of each of those conditions to the outcome. This study was really used to push a direct link between BMI and COVID, despite it not standing BMI as an independent risk factor. We also have to remember that the relationship between cardiovascular disease and BMI is complex in its own right, often leaving out of the conversation the impact of weight stigma, weight cycling and medical marginalisation on folks that have heart disease and are also at a higher weight. Next stop - the USA. Published on April 8th 2020, it’s titled “Factors associated with hospitalization and critical illness among 4,103 patients with COVID-19 disease in New York City”. What a sexy title! As you might suspect, this paper looked at COVID patients in New York City. 7,700 people got tested, with 4,103 testing positive for COVID. This paper investigates what happened to them after testing - who got hospitalised, and who of the hospitalised became ‘critically ill’. We do find out that from this sample, 292 people have died and 417 are still hospitalised with nothing in particular happening to them. This is a situation, again, where things are being reported with a whole lot of data underneath that Fiona Willer would love to get her hands on to run the numbers. It’s interesting to find out from their sample who got hospitalised, and who became really sick - because the decision to hospitalise someone is a decision made by another human being. There’s bias built into the system. What we see from this paper is that people who are more likely to be hospitalised are people over 65, and with a BMI of over 30. Then you think okay, that’s because the people doing the admitting are clearly most worried about those two kinds of cohorts. There’s a lot of overlap - in the population we have a situation where BMI’s do increase with increasing age, so we can’t really unpick age and BMI from the other. Age is always going to be there behind other factors. Another part of that phenomenon is that it’s a particular cohort that’s aging - they had particular experiences and exposures in their childhoods, teens, adulthoods, etcetera. Today’s 65 year old is very different from a 65 year old in the 1950’s. We start seeing some more objective measures in this paper - who is progressing on to particular measures once hospitalised. What we want to see is that there’s an increase in the likelihood that people who are hospitalised progressing to ‘critical illness’ in those two categories. And we want to know what is associated with ‘critical illness’ so we can direct resources there. When things don’t go through peer review, we end up with tables that are all higglety-pigglety and driving Fiona Willer to distraction. We can see that yes, men are more likely to progress, and older people are more likely to progress to severe illness. But with the BMI categorisation, the way that it’s presented is not clear. The effect is much smaller for the relationship between BMI and progression to severe illness than it is for hospitalisation. There’s the potential for circular reasoning in this paper - weight/BMI being double-counted. And this paper is all over the place - if Fiona and Jess have to spend days getting their heads around it, the media isn’t going to have much luck. This paper is painful! Where did those 48 people go? What happened to them? A paper should present information in a way that means other research groups can understand it, and attempt to replicate it. That another group of researchers could go and run the same trial - because it’s not a ‘thing’ unless it’s replicated in multiple places. The whole point of a research paper is to illicit replication in another location, and there’s not enough information here in this paper. How did they do their multivariable regression? What did they add in? You can hear the pain in Fiona Willer’s voice here, there’s some sort of traumatic injury forming here with this paper! For those of us without a huge amount of statistical knowledge - this paper shows that you have a higher risk of being admitted to hospital if you have a higher body weight, but once you’re in hospital there’s no link between BMI and severity or risk of death. That’s clear in this data. But going back to that New York Times article we discussed earlier, the lead author of this paper is quoted as saying “obesity also appears to be a factor for higher risk of death from COVID 19”. And she’s saying that to the New York Times without any evidence in her OWN paper. This research article did not even discuss deaths. It did have death statistics noted in the flow chart, but no data was presented on who was more likely to die - let alone specific data to show a relationship between higher body weight and risk of death. This is a key example of how scientific data gets translated into a media message. And this is a pretty scary message - that if you’re higher weight you are more likely to die from COVID 19. And it’s not a message backed up by the science here. We can give these researchers a lot of leeway - there’s no peer review process here, they’re under clinical pressure, there’s a horrifying death rate in New York. There’s a push to get data out so they can work out what ‘best practice’ is for this virus. There’s no thought here that this is malicious - but it shows how important it is to be careful with what we print and to be careful with our data, and to be careful with what we say to the media. This is affecting human lives. At the very least, include the complete data set that you’re analysing so others can use it and go through that review process. Highlighting an article in Wired from Christy Harrison that talks about how troubling these articles are. She points out that this research was not controlling for any factors that we know have a massive impact on people’s health, such as cardiovascular health, diabetes, hypertension - factors like socioeconomic status, weight bias, race. She points out that BMI is quite a lazy tool and we can’t see all that inequality that happens with health risks and how we’re treated in health systems. BMI is used as a scapegoat for the disparities in African-American communities too - instead of digging deep into marginalisation, colonisation, socioeconomic status to see how they’re affecting outcomes. It’s easier to blame it on individual food choices - and easy to say that BMI is a simple, numerical measure compared to the messiness of factors such as marginalisation. There’s a Centre for Disease Control (CDC) report that is being used to back up this relationship between weight and COVID risk/severity. It looks at clinical data for people being admitted during March 2020, the first month that the US started surveying data. There’s 1,482 patients in hospital - 74.5% were over 50, 45% were male, rates were highest amongst people over the age of 65. They had data on people in this cohort for people with underlying conditions - the comorbidities these people might have - but they only have it for 12% of their dataset. Of those 12% - 89% have one or more underlying condition, most common being hypertension (49%), what they call ‘obesity’ (48% - in the US ‘obesity’ is classified as a disease). 34% had chronic lung disease, 28% had diabetes, and 27% had cardiovascular disease. What they’re concluding from this is that older people have higher rates of being hospitalised, and also that the majority of people being hospitalised with COVID have an underlying medical condition - but remember, we only have that data for 12%. Something else to take away - 48% of the 12% had what they call ‘obesity’. In the US, the prevalence nation-wide of ‘obesity’ is 42%. So, it’s only marginally higher in terms of bodyweight across the American population rather than being something statistically alarming. In the UK, we saw as early as the 23rd of March that we saw the first report out of the ICU units that ran in the media as ‘60%, 70% of admissions to ICU were in higher weight bodies’. But of course, this is not news - people showing up in the ICU were only reflecting the population distribution of BMI. Resources The horrible “Elephant in the Room” sharticle from Dr Malhotra The Editors of the journal “Obesity” “speaking out”/raising panic about the link between body weight and COVID-19 William Dietz, obesity researcher with massive links to Novo Nordisk & WW, and his speculation filled “Letter to the Editor” of the journal “Obesity” The New York Times article full of claims of a link between higher BMI and COVID19 Chinese article with data for 383 patients Chinese article for the first 112 Corona virus patients USA article on the New York COVID-19 patients Christy Harrison’s wonderful pushback article in Wired USA Centre for Disease Control (CDC) article on COVID-19 patients Find out more about Fiona Willer here Find out more about Jess Campbell here     

It’s WAY overdue, but the 2019 Crappy Awards are finally here! 2019 was a SH*TTY year of diet culture BS, with countless examples of gaslighting opportunism from profit hungry snake oil salesman. From fashion brands and Big “O” stealing body positivity, to medical negligence and library invasions, NOTHING is sacred to the weight loss wolves hungry to make a buck off body misery! Our listeners have gathered together the MOST loathsome examples of these bottom feeding b*stards in a magnificent rant-fest of epic proportions! If you’ve had a gutful of COVID19, tune in for some truly furious take downs of the weight loss industry! I strongly advise a large quarantini and headphones for this ep as the swear-o-meter is set to high! Featuring guest judge Alyssa, our carry over champ from the 2018 awards ceremony. Who will win???   Show Notes     Goodness me, we’re dealing with multiple layers of fear and uncertainty at this time. We’re going to get through this but bloody hell, what an absolute shit-fight. I hope you’re all staying safe, and that this episode and The Crappys give you a needed belly laugh. Announcement! Why should we wait until the end of the year for The Crappys? For the rest of 2020, we’re going to ‘rant as you go’. If you hear something from diet culture that really gets your goat and gets your blood boiling, you can submit a rant to me anytime. While it’s fresh, do a quick recording -  around two to three minutes – introduce yourself, rant about the thing that’s pissing you off, and send it to me as an .mp3 or .mp4 to louise@untrapped.com.au. I’ll save them up until the next Crappy Awards. A warning for this episode – plenty of swearing! And without further ado, I’m going to introduce the 2019 Crappy Awards! Grab a ‘quarantini’ and let’s rant about diet culture. Alyssa won our previous Crappy Awards in 2018 with a brilliant rant about the ‘cookie diet’ and so joins us as a guest judge this year. 2019 was a huge year for crappy diet culture crap. Huge. And it’s seeped into 2020 – just a quagmire of shit to rake through to pick the crappiest of 2019. Even as a non-competing judge, Alyssa couldn’t help but submit a rant herself. Alyssa nominates the book ‘How Not to Diet’ by Dr Michael Greger. It mentioned weight loss multiple times on just the cover blurbs, and the kicker – this book is about the “ideal weight-loss diet”. IDEAL WEIGHT-LOSS DIET. In a book called ‘how not to diet’. SERIOUSLY! “A timeless proactive approach that can stand up to any new trend” … even his own new trend? There’s too many of them! “Chock full of actionable advice and groundbreaking dietary research. ‘How Not to Diet’ will put an end to dieting and replace those constant weight-loss struggles with a simple, healthy, sustainable lifestyle”. We’ve got weight-loss, weight-loss, weight-loss, then ‘lifestyle’, hence a nomination for The Crappys. Some consistency here with her 2018 winning rant objecting to being mansplained at with the ‘cookie diet’! Dr Michael Greger is another thin white male entering the ‘how not to diet’ space. Is this a joke? A how-not-to-diet-step-by-step-diet? Alyssa has some judging criteria for the official 2019 entries – laugh factor, sarcasm factor, and WTF or ‘mind blown’ factor. Entry #1 – from Anna Hearn, founder of Haven Wellness. It’s a unique fat-positive fitness and yoga studio in Sydney, Australia. Haven focuses on helping members build a compassionate relationship with their bodies which is very different to typical gym culture, and to build a resilience against diet culture out in the ‘real world’. Anna wants to rant about body positivity being co-opted for marketing purposes. Anna had a conversation with a friend who reiterated the idea that fashion brands use thin bodies because ‘that’s what sells’. But, remember campaigns like the Calvin Klein underwear ads that featured some bigger bodies, like rapper Chika? You might then think that you could go and buy Calvin Klein underwear in larger sizes – nope! Anna learned from clients that brands like Everlane and Urban Outfitters also use larger-bodied people in their advertising campaigns but then don’t carry those sizes for customers. So, they’ll use larger bodies in their campaigns but then won’t even let you buy those sizes. Profiting off body positivity while not taking care of larger bodies. Brands want to jump on the bandwagon and profit from the body positivity movement without actually doing the work to create products for larger bodies. Remember when Lorna Jane got in trouble for advertising for a receptionist who had to be a size zero? They then tried to use body positivity in their marketing campaigns, but then quickly went straight back to their regular marketing of tiny women. Entry #2 – Belinda is here to talk about libraries. Belinda loves libraries! Sauntering into the 2020 display to find some new reads for herself, she was slapped in the face with a range of new-fangled diet books and health garbage. Why does this have to invade some of the safest spaces on the planet? Belinda used to live and breathe libraries as a child. Here’s an idea – put all of these lifestyle authors on ‘Diet Island’ where they can live out the Paleo dream! It’s hard to have all this rantiness and no power, but still we do our best. Belinda urges everyone to vote out these books and instead borrow Christy Harrison’s book ‘Anti-Diet’ – ask your library to get it in! Keep the booky places happy and booky. Libraries are where we play, read, learn, expand our minds – not contract our lives! High sarcasm levels on that rant! So many beautiful mic-drop phrases as well. It’s a rare gift to be able to simultaneously rile someone up and make them laugh, but that’s what just happened for Louise with Belinda’s rant. Entry #3 – from Caroline White, the president of HAES Australia, nominating Big Pharma for co-opting the concept of weight stigma for their own purposes. In 2018 we ended on a bit of a high, with the senate committee into the ‘o’ epidemic in Australia recommending the need to eradicate weight stigma from public health campaigns, and for health professionals to understand weight stigma better. During the year, Carolynne had the opportunity to have a conversation with someone from ‘Obesity Inc’. They talked about weight stigma during that conversation, and they said that their reason for addressing weight stigma was that it was a BARRIER TO WEIGHT LOSS TREATMENTS OR WEIGHT MANAGEMENT. To that I say “no, no, no, Novo Nordisk!” You do not get to coopt the concept of weight stigma that fat activisms, fat studies and feminist scholars and other social science researchers have been studying over decades for your own financial gain. You do not get to fund expensive research studies that are weight-biased and partner with cash-strapped public health organizations to push an agenda to have a body size classified as a chronic disease. This contributes to weight stigma and reinforces the notion that weight is under an individual’s control, if not by diet and exercise but now through medication and surgery, which is fantastic for your profit margins but from a public health perspective is horrendous. It risks people receiving treatment that is expensive, unnecessary, and associated with harmful side-effects. Weight stigma is common in our society and studies suggest it is increasing. Part of the reason why it’s increasing is because of the studies that you’re funding. The solution to weight stigma is not to make people in larger bodies smaller. Weight stigma is a social justice problem that needs social solutions. That’s why in HAES Australia’s response to the national ‘O’ strategy consultation, we’ve called for weight inclusive policy that recognizes size diversity and supports the physical, mental and social health and wellbeing of all people across the weight spectrum. We also argued for including physical features as a protected characteristic under human rights legislation, and health promotion and disease prevention policy and guidelines to be free from influence from treatment industries that profit from framing body weight as a disease. Thank you to everyone who filled out the public surveys for this ‘o’ strategy in Australia – it must have come at a cost to many in a world of weight stigma. Well done, Carolynne! Riled us up perfectly. The mention of Novo Nordisk prompted a HUGE wine sip from Louise. Louise calls Carolynne the ‘velvet hammer’ for sending out messages perfectly with calm and rationality. Big Pharma pretending to care about weight stigma, and brands pretending to care about larger bodies, is the theme of The Crappys for 2019 so far. It’s mind-blowing to think that there are humans out there who are actually behind that, who feel morally that there is nothing wrong with it. Louise also wants to thank everyone who answered the HAES Australia call-out to take part in that Australian ‘o’ strategy survey. There was weight stigma hidden in every corner of it. Entry #4 – Jo is an anti-diet Registered Dietitian in the UK doing their very best to spread this message with the blog and website antidietanswers.com and on Instagram. The diet culture demon that’s up Jo’s nose is January wellness challenges! The 30-day challenges that promise you will be a whole new person by the end of the month. You know – Veganuary, Whole30, burpee challenges, ‘grow a bum by the end of January’ challenges, you know the type. There’s two reasons Jo is so pissed by these, and the first is the word ‘challenge’. A challenge is defined as ‘a call to participate in a competitive situation to decide who is superior in terms of ability or strength’. So, by their nature, if you take on one of these challenges and you can’t handle it, you are by definition less able, weak. These challenges are dangerous for our mental health because they set up that dichotomous thinking – all or nothing. And you might not have even wanted to try being vegan, you just felt pressure from others on social media! It’s diet culture masquerading as wellness yet again. There’s been lots of these challenges popping up on social media feeds, not even just January now! Seems like every charity is jumping on the bandwagon asking us to give up something or continue using something. Louise saw one where you’re not allowed to drink any water! ‘Report ad’, we’ve had enough. You could almost get a repetitive strain injury from pressing ‘block and report’ on Instagram these days. Loved Jo’s point about a challenge meaning looking for someone superior. There was a beautiful pause for effect at the start there – she’s definitely nailing the delivery. And rage in an Irish accent is awesome! (Was it Irish? Sorry if we’re wrong, Jo!). It’s awesome to know that there’s people all over the world pushing back and not taking this bullshit anymore. Entry #5 from ‘Anonymous’. Three things. The first one is: qualified dietitians with a public profile who should know better - posting things like ‘detox soup’ recipes in the middle of January. It’s the same old recipe that my Grandmother would have cooked. Who wants soup in January? Give me a break. The second one is a real doozy from a Facebook mum’s group, where someone asked how to make a complaint about a doctor. She has a family history of breast cancer and went to the doctor to ask about the BRCA genetic test and instead got a lecture from the doctor about her weight and how she “needs to go and lose some weight to protect herself from cancer”. Are you fucking kidding me? So, that’s the second one – medical professionals who just blow my head off with their bullshit. And the third one is marketing themselves as a weight-loss thing in my area. For just under $800 you can go to a two-day hypnotherapy-for-weight-loss seminar where your weight troubles will be gone forever. I have a few acquaintances that have done this, and it comes with a ridiculously restrictive diet. On the website it has things like “what’s the cost of not attending?” – “the cost of not attending: nothing will change. You’ll continue down the same frustrating road that you’re on now. Are you sick and tired of that yet?”. It’s a bunch of infuriating gaslighting bullshit. So, that’s my trifecta of misery. Stuff diet culture! Phew! It’s like we’ve gone past rage and into eye-of-the-hurricane-calm, because there was just so much crap in that entry. A fucking dietitian selling detox soup? They should know better. They should be reported to the DAA and not be able to do that with their public profile. Numbing is an interesting response, like we have to shut down because “what the actual fuck?”. Alyssa remembers once making a horrendous raw broccoli soup and doesn’t even know what was possessing her at the time, but it was one of those weird January things. It ended up being a turning point because it was so awful. Australia in January is too hot for soup! It’s so important to get an early diagnosis for breast cancer, and the weight stigma observed here is a reason that people can end up dying of breast cancer (and other conditions and diseases). Absolutely awful. Louise went in and found the hypnotherapy two-day rip-off event online and now has a special place in hell reserved for them. This might end up being a special episode of All Fired Up! Gosh, it must be so hard to have people in your life who are taking part in stuff like this. The person who did this rant is not alone – so many of us have people in our lives who are taking part in diet culture. We know there’s big power in groups (i.e. cults) and you’re more vulnerable when you’re starving – it’s deliberate. Hypnotherapy for ‘weight loss’ doesn’t work. Don’t pay them any money, report them to the ACCC for this bullshit. Entry #6 from Mandy-Lee Noble, Accredited Practicing Dietitian from Nourished Approach in Queensland. You might think Mandy-Lee would nominate a pharmaceutical group as she’s been investigating this with Louise, but instead wants to take this opportunity to talk about a different aspect of diet culture that’s got her fired up. It’s a fad diet called the hCG diet. HCG stands for ‘human chorionic gonadotropin’ hormone, that we produce during pregnancy to sustain a foetus. It mobilizes energy to provide energy to the foetus while someone’s pregnant. The diet was developed by Dr Albert Theodore William Simeons in his 1954 book ‘Pounds and Inches’ and he also published an article about it in The Lancet. So, what do you do? You inject the hCG hormone (or use an oral spray that doesn’t work at all) every day for eight weeks in conjunction with a really rigid 500 calorie diet, with claims that you’ll lose quite a lot of weight every week from areas such as the stomach where people often wish to lose weight. But, due to the hormone, the claim is that you won’t experience the irritability and hunger that you would generally experience with weight loss, and that the weight would stay off. But when you look at the protocol and see the recommendations for when you start to plateau or gain back weight, they’re so rigid. It also recommends going completely ‘oil free’ including any oils in your makeup products. Since the 50’s there have been a dozen studies that found that it absolutely doesn’t work, and the FDA had to put out a disclaimer in the 1970’s saying that it’s not tested for safety and doesn’t work. It regained popularity when good old Dr Oz promoted it on his television show. What really pissed me off about this diet is that I know some people who have followed it, because it was prescribed by an actual GP. An AHPRA registered GP. There are GP’s and pharmacists actually pushing this diet in Australia. Another glass of wine for Louise! Bloody hell. Dr Oz?! GP’s?! Did they learn about this from Dr Oz, because that’s seriously concerning. Louise has also had clients whose doctors have recommended the hCG diet to them. Unbelievable. 500 calories a day is just so low, such a brutal level of calorie restriction. REPORT YOUR GP if they try to prescribe this extremely dangerous, ineffective, damaging diet. This could kill people. This is restriction on a whole new level, it’s very unsafe and totally unreasonable. AND it’s fuck-off expensive. Entry #7 – from Martina Zangger, a 58-year old lecturer at the University of Newcastle in health behaviour sciences. Martina is very pissed off and wants to rant about a diet called Bright Line Eating™ (BLE). It’s run by a woman called Susan Pearce Thompson who has almost become a guru and has tens of thousands of followers – mostly women in their just-pre- and post- menopausal years. The program is an eight-week bootcamp that costs $900 USD, which is probably about 13-1400 Australian dollars. It’s a diet based on no sugar, no flour, measuring meals, no snacks, and weighing everything. You become extremely hangry and Martina developed orthorexia and almost developed Anorexia when she was on it. Martina is fired up about paying a lot of money to this woman Susan Pearce Thompson who is a neuropsychologist and should have known better. The idea is that flour and sugar are addicting and you can’t have anything with those ingredients in it. Being on the diet made Martina a not-very-nice person who thought she was superior to other people. She was supported by the BLE community in thinking she WAS special and that she had found ‘the answer’. The weight regain that happened afterwards was quite disheartening, however she’s now two years out of that diet and feels so much happier. She does accept her larger body and enjoys all foods, enjoys sharing foods with friends and family, and is SO ANGRY at Susan Pearce Thompson and that stupid Bright Line Eating movement. Susan must be making about three million American dollars per year with all of her programs. So that’s the rant – sending everyone love and the hope that they can walk away from diet culture and embrace their natural bodies. No one is taking our Tim Tams! No one is taking our flour or our sugar. That was heartbreaking. We’re feeling for Martina. This flour-sugar bullshit is based on the food addiction models. There’s no such thing as food addiction! There IS such thing as an increased response to restraint, which is what happens when people try to restrict certain things – you will develop an unnatural drive relationship with that substance not because of restriction but because of restraint. How do these people sleep at night? They must be in this little bubble, either a numbing bubble or one where they have no freaking idea. Or … one full of cash? And surrounded by people who worship them because of that money and say positive stuff to them. We’re in a place in diet culture where weight loss at all costs is worshiped. Poor Martina ended up with an eating disorder that she paid dearly for, financially and psychologically. We’re in a new decade now and no one should have to fall for this bullshit, no matter how it’s packaged and sold. It’s dangerous stuff. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time out of their day to record a rant and send it in here to push back. These are really meaningful acts of rebellion, and we’re loving it. We’re riding a big wave of emotion – mostly rage, and a bit of heartbreak. Judging time! Let’s run back briefly through the candidates. First, we had Anna from Haven, who was fired up about body positivity being co-opted by marketing and was talking about Calvin Klein. Then we had Belinda, and she was talking about our libraries being infiltrated by diet and wellness books, and she was going to bring forth all the rage of Harry Potter (which Louise loved). Then we had Carolynne White, president of HAES Australia, ranting about how Big Pharma are pushing to get ‘largeness’ classified as a disease so they can sell drugs for weight loss. We have no words. And then we had the lovely Joanne and her beautiful rage and rant about 30-day challenges like Veganuary. Then we had our anonymous trifecta of misery, about dietitians and their detox teas, doctors prescribing weight loss instead of providing responsible medical care, and the hypnotherapist with the completely rip-off seminar on extremely low calorie diets. Again, no words. Then we had Mandy-Lee Noble with the hCG diet, and then Martina ending us on a real low point with the Bright Lines Eating evilness. What a totally Crappy line-up. OH my goodness, what is wrong with health professionals? This is gut-wrenching. We know from weight research that the vast majority of weight stigmatizing messaging comes from health professionals. We have shitty themes from health professionals, bullshit co-opting of body positive trends by the weight loss industry, and then we have just the real evil fuckery. Alyssa wants to give a special mention to Belinda for making her laugh-cry. Alyssa’s shortlist is Carolynne, the Anonymous submission, and Mandy (can’t get past those bloody injections!). And she’s kind of changed her criteria – how much rage came up in her while listening to the rant, and how much rage came through from the entrant. And there’s a kind of ‘mind-blown’ factor. Louise recalls learning about the ‘dry fast’ on Instagram (because ‘drinking water is an addiction’), and then finding a dude-bro drinking his own urine, and how those moments are a real ‘lowering the bar’, ‘going down another level’ experience. Never say never in diet culture. And the winner is (drumroll please) … Mandy-Lee Noble with the hCG diet! Bloody GP’s that are promoting it despite the FDA saying it’s a waste of freaking time. And the oil-free makeup thing! Jeez. Congratulations, Mandy-Lee! There’s a $100 cash prize this year, which seems like nothing after everything we’ve been talking about! Someone as awesome as Mandy-Lee will put it to good use. Alyssa is excited to pass on the crown to Mandy-Lee and move forward to ‘rage on’ in 2020. The mantle has been passed to someone of extreme strength of character, rage and sarcasm. Thank you, Alyssa, for holding us steady through the bullshit of 2019. And thank you to everybody who sent in these rants! It’s a beautiful thing to hear the rage, the push-back, the ferocity that everyone has displayed. Louise would give everyone first-place. Who would have thought ranting about diet culture would be a pleasant diversion from the rest of our lives during COVID-19? Please look after yourself and your families and loved ones, even if that has to be virtual for now.  

All Fired Up is back with a BANG for 2020! And we are SUPER fired up about this Netflix SHOCKumentary ‘The Game Changers’. Ebony McCorkell of EB Nutrition joins me to shout “WTF?” at the dude-bro-fear-mongering- pseudo-scientific thrust of this plant-based propaganda. As an ethical vegan and anti-diet dietitian, Ebony is NOT IMPRESSED with the doco's misleading oversimplification of nutrition science, and we’re both just flat out BEWILDERED at the relentless focus on masculinity (and erect penises!). It’s infuriating that thin white male doctors are apparently able to say ANYTHING without giving credible evidence to support their claims. If you’re tangled up in health knots after watching this doco, this is a must listen!     Show Notes         My guest is dietitian and chef Ebony McCorkell of EB Nutrition, and we’re talking about the Netflix documentary ‘The Game Changers’ (2018).       We’re back for our 2020 season, and this week we’re All Fired Up about SOCK-umentaries! There’s been a string of documentaries in recent years that glorify one particular way of eating while demonizing others. ‘The Paleo Way’, ‘The Sugar Film’ … ‘The Game Changers’ is the newest documentary in this vein, and Louise is seeing more and more clients coming in who have been all shook up by it. The documentary upholds a plant-based diet (or actually, veganism) as the be-all-and-end-all way to eat for hotness, athleticism, and not dying from terrible health problems. It’s got all the classic ingredients – raising fear, and condemning other styles of eating (such as eating meat).       Because ‘The Game Changers’ goes into the science of food and how it affects our bodies, Louise wanted to talk to a professional who works with food. This week’s guest is Ebony McCorkell, who not only is an Accredited Practicing Dietitian and chef (yum!), she’s also a long-term ethical vegan.       As a dietitian and a vegan, Ebony is fired up about ‘The Game Changers’ and the perceived benefits of eating a vegan diet that the documentary espouses. You’d think she’d be cheering for a documentary promoting vegan diets, no? No! The documentary makes far-reaching claims and doesn’t hit the mark on ‘good vegan information’.       Louise has seen in her clients, many of whom have an eating disorder background, just how much doubt watching a documentary like ‘the Game Changers’ can sow – even if they’ve been working on HAES ® and the non-diet approach for a long time. It speaks to how convincing this documentary seems.       Ebony has also had clients coming in telling her to watch it – just like when the previous vegan propaganda film ‘What the Health’ (2017) came out.       A successful documentary has to be thrilling, and unfortunately anyone who has done a nutrition degree can tell you that nutrition is not thrilling!       We both resisted watching the documentary for as long as we could, and when we did watch it, we came away really understanding why our clients are freaking out. The message throughout the documentary is that eating meat is very bad for your health and will kill you.       Using scientific terms and words a layperson might not understand helps to build fear, and also makes the documentary makers and the people they’re interviewing seem more intelligent if they’re talking about all the science without explaining what it means. The black and white ideas of ‘this is bad, this is good’ – anyone who has done a nutrition degree knows that nothing is as simple as ‘bad’ and ‘good’.       The opening sequence with documentary filmmaker James Wilkes bragging about how ‘deadly’ he is, is such a strange opening to a nutrition film – the hyper-masculinity and adrenaline gives a real feeling of ‘I’m in danger’.       While recovering from an injury, James Wilkes began researching (ie, he read some articles) and came across the ‘gladiator diet’ which claims that the Roman gladiator fighters were actually vegan. He went down a rabbit-hole exploring how a plant-based diet might speed up his recovery.       The Roman gladiators, while potentially super strong, were also slaves – not the pinnacle of health. They were forced to fight to the death for entertainment, and not necessarily super-fit. They may not have been fed a lot of meat because they were enslaved and meat is expensive.       It’s a strange flip to the paleo/‘caveman’ diet, with the idea that cavemen were strong and didn’t eat plants, therefore we don’t need to eat plants.       We then see elite and Olympic athletes in the documentary who are also vegan (and mostly men).       In a way, it’s good to see a challenge to the stereotype that vegans, particularly male vegans, are ‘weak’ and ‘wimpy’ – but the pendulum is swinging so far in the other direction to this hyper-masculinity.       Instead of saying that vegan athletes can and do exist, which is the truth, the message is ‘veganism makes you a superior athlete, the end’ – which is not the truth.       An example of vegan athletes being superior to meat-eating athletes used in the documentary is the Connor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz UFC fight. Ebony notes that Connor (the meat-eater) had to drop two weight classes to fight Diaz (the vegan), meaning he was calorie restricting. That’s an exhausting thing to be doing, especially while training. So, the documentary holds up a fight where Diaz won as an example of his superiority due to a vegan diet. In reality, McGregor won a fight against Diaz soon after the fight featured in the film.       The documentary goes so far as to feature Connor McGregor saying “I think maybe I ate too many steaks”, which McGregor may have meant as a joke.       Attributing changes in athletic performance to a switch to veganism is over-simplifying. It doesn’t take into account many other factors, including the placebo effect.       After watching these athletes, we start to hear from the scientists – and we hear science-y sounding words telling us that eating meat is terrible, and eating plants is wonderful.       One aspect of the documentary we’ve heard about more than anything else is the burrito experiment. Three athletes – one is given a bean burrito, one a chicken burrito, one a beef burrito, and then their blood is taken. The blood samples are shaken to separate blood from plasma, and the beef sample had ‘cloudy’ plasma. The scientists in the documentary say this is due to having fat in their blood and the endothelium not functioning properly, leading to poor cardiovascular health. What does Ebony think of this? The cloudiness of the plasma is a normal reaction to eating a meal with fat in it, and what is most likely is that the macronutrient content of the beef and chicken burritos was higher in fat than the bean burrito. If the meals had all been equal in fat content, the plasma would have been cloudy in each sample.       Remember – we need fat in our diets! Fat is an essential nutrient. We need it for nutrient absorption, hormonal regulation and more.       So, a perfectly normal adaptive human response to eating fat has been misconstrued by the documentary as being dangerous.       Louise felt the documentary cherry-picked studies to support their claims that eating meat causes ill health. The documentary maker dismisses research that contradicts his claims by saying it is all sponsored by ‘big food’ and therefore corrupt. As Ebony notes, it’s ironic studies cited as supportive in the documentary were definitely sponsored by ‘big food’. Just because the foods the companies represent are plant-based, doesn’t reduce bias!       Research is not infallible – we SHOULD be criticizing research and how research is interpreted. But we can’t be one-sided in how we critique research; we have to do it to all sides.       A study included cited that eating one hamburger increases inflammation by 70% - Ebony hasn’t looked up that citation, so many measures are unknown such as what inflammatory markers they are looking at. Inflammation is a normal part of eating – Ebony remembers learning from a PhD candidate who was studying inflammation who forewarned that everybody would be talking about inflammation in the future.       Inflammation is part of the digestive process. In order to be able to digest food, the body needs to recognise that it’s a foreign material and break it down. So, it has an inflammatory response to the food – it’s a normal response. ‘Inflammation’ as a catch-all term is unhelpful. We actually don’t yet know of anything we can do (e.g. eat a specific food) to reduce inflammation – there are foods and activities with associations to reducing inflammation, but we don’t have a causal link yet.       The documentary leaves out any discussion of inflammation being a normal physiological response. For example, exercise causes an inflammatory response, which is a good and necessary thing to help your body recover from activity.       “Whenever we eat any animal product, it’s highly inflammatory. Compounds are formed that corrode our cardiovascular system”. How scary is that! And no references here! They really start hitting us with that health fear.       When James the narrator is talking, they usually chuck some kind of reference in the corner – even if it doesn’t necessarily relate to what he is talking about. When the doctors are talking, however, they don’t use any references – they can seemingly just say whatever they want without references. Bold! And we note that it’s thin, white doctors talking. Just saying something doesn’t make it true. This is where Ebony started feeling the rage!       We start using the big words, we throw a few cherry-picked studies in there, we give partial explanations and then start raising the temperature of the health warnings. Throw in a thin, white doctor saying science words and we’re primed to buy into the fear.       Saying the same thing or making the same claim over and over is a cult tactic – it builds peer pressure. It’s starting to feel like a propaganda film now!       Louise found the documentary very male-focused, and here’s the section where the film turns to penises and erections. The bro mentality – it’s about masculinity, muscles and dicks.       A urologist(Dr Spitz) saying “the more meat men eat, the more they lose their manly manhood” – yikes! You have a model penis on your desk, you can say erection!       Looking at the impact of eating a meal on your erection – Louise wrote on her notes “what the fuck?!”. Ebony notes that it’s so outrageous it became a talking point for the documentary.       Dr Spitz conducts another burrito experiment with 3 college aged males.On night one, they all ate meat burritos, and a magic data-collecting cock ring measured the strength and frequency of their erections as they slept overnight. The next night they repeated this experiment with a plant-based burrito. There was no base-line taken for this experiment, it has a VERY small sample group, and HOW does measuring the strength and frequency of involuntary sleeping erections of young men relate to sexual performance? The results were bigger and longer erections on the night of the plant-based burritos. There are so many variables that weren’t controlled for in this experiment. You can’t conclude anything reasonable!       The doctor himself said “this was not a scientifically validated study”. So, they’ve included it as a joke, or for shock value. Either way, it’s not really telling us anything – but it might make us feel more insecure about our masculinity and sexual performance.       No discussion of vegan diets on women’s sexual function or fertility – so many aspects of health got ignored. It’s dumbed down to athletic performance and the number of overnight boners. It’s purposely targeting a particular market – most vegans are young women, so they’re trying to convert more ‘manly men’ to veganism. Louise has a real problem with health scare tactics that are not based on reality, and Ebony agrees – they could have made a documentary without the extreme messaging, showcasing the great plant-based athletes out there and shown how they train, how they adjust to nourish themselves, etc.       One of Louise’s clients thought the documentary was good because it didn’t talk about weight loss – and Louise’s reflection is that it kind of doesn’t have to. There’s not much size diversity in the documentary, and it’s focused more on the new world of ‘healthism’ which is implicitly fatphobic. Just because it doesn’t focus on weight loss, doesn’t mean it isn’t soaked in diet culture.       The sweeping statement that anyone who disagrees with the documentary must be working for ‘big food’ - ???       The ethical aspects of veganism were glossed over, even though this is a common pathway into veganism. Ebony notes that she doesn’t think James Wilkes is an ‘ethical vegan’, but rather a plant-based-for-health person. Ebony personally has been vegetarian since she was eight years old, and became a vegan later, due to concerns for animals. The plant-based-for-health fanatics might develop these concerns for animals by becoming part of the vegan community, but their primary motivation is not animal welfare or environmental concerns. As an ethical vegan, it’s hard to watch your community be clouded out due to a toxic diet-culture group. It’s a very polarizing and uncomfortable thing in the vegan movement at the moment.       There’s a parallel in the HAES and fat activist community. Fat activists have been doing the work for years, and suddenly ‘anti-diet’ is a *thing* in 2020 and becomes an encroachment and misrepresentation of the original values of the community.       This podcast isn’t about bashing veganism or people who eat plant-based, but highlighting how this documentary has a healthist agenda that misrepresents science.       Any mention of a downside to making such a radical nutritional shift is not mentioned in the documentary – such massive fear-based restriction comes with risks! The combination of restriction and guilt is straight from diet culture, and risks creating eating disorders in many people.       As an ethical vegan, if Ebony accidentally consumes something that contains animal products, she might feel a bit sad and remorseful but is able to move past it. If she believed that the food she ate would KILL her, it would be a different experience.       Let’s be critical and move beyond the messaging to find the meta – is this source fear-based? Is it cherry-picking? And what’s the agenda of the people making this?       If you want to explore eating a more plant-based diet, see someone like Ebony to give you some non-diet support!   Resources       Weird gladiator diet research article Joe Rogan podcast with discussion of the Connor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz UFC fight.       Find out more about Ebony, who runs EB Nutrition in Chelsea, VIC and offers online consultations! We’re not putting in a link to the actual Netflix doco, because it’s just exhausting!    

Don’t miss a FURIOUS FROLIC with my amazing guest, the Food Psych herself, Christy Harrison! Christy is COMPLETELY fired up about diet culture bullsh*t and all of the harm it perpetuates. In fact she’s so p*ssed off she wrote a book! Join us as we dissect the history of diet culture and reveal its bigotted roots in racist and sexist propaganda about what type of human belongs at the top of the food chain (spoiler alert: thin white men). Even the Suffragettes sucked! Christy has done some amazing detective work and quite literally, this book will change your life and get you MAD AS HELL! Do not miss this episode!   Shownotes   My guest this week is Christy Harrison, intuitive eating coach, anti-diet dietitian, and host of the amazing Food Psych podcast. She is COMPLETELY fired up about diet culture and all of the harm it perpetuates. In fact she’s so pissed about it, she wrote a book! “Anti-Diet” has just come out, and it’s wonderful to see such an awesome HAES message coming out at Christmas, a time when diet culture ramps up the pressure. And here in Australia it’s not just the Christmas pressure, it’s also summer & so we’re all being doubly pressured with those “summer body” messages. Shape shifting diet culture messages keep on being rebranded & re-sold to us, but it’s literally the same old shit sandwich, as Christy is over it! This book has been a long time coming. Christy started her career as a journalist 17 years ago, but has wanted to write a book since she was a child. This book has had a very winding path, like many parts of her career. Around 10 years ago Christy decided she wanted to write a book about emotional eating. She’d just gone back to study public health & nutrition and wasn’t feeling fulfilled creatively. But before that she worked at Gourmet magazine, where she wrote a lot about food and culture and people’s relationships with food. But Christy had a very negative relationship with food, she had been a disordered eater since the end of college. This lead into her first career in food & nutrition reporting - and it wasn’t from a place of feeling at peace or balanced around food. Christy was obsessed, she wasn’t eating enough so constantly thought about food. She kept researching & falling down rabbit holes, and wanted to make use of it. She got very interested in Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, and the politics of food. This was actually quite problematic and she writes about that in the book. Louise also remembers going through a stage of thinking that people like Pollan & Nestle were fantastic, but reflecting back she was coming at it from a disordered place - through a weight centric lens. It really caught Christy’s imagination, and she wanted to “End the o****ty epidemic”. So around 2009/2010 she started researching for the book. In many ways it did help inform her for the book she ended up writing, but it took a totally different direction. She started to research the cultural history of emotional eating. How did we get the idea of emotional eating - where does it come from? At that point Christy identified herself as an emotional eater, someone who ‘ate her feelings’ - not realising that actually it was because she was restricting herself and not eating enough. Through her research she discovered the work of Janet Polivy & Michael Herman, on the impact of restrained eating (basically they demonstrated that restriction leads to binge eating). She also came across a psychiatrist called Hilary Bruch who had some very offensive ideas on how children come to be larger bodied. Christy also discovered the book Intuitive Eating, and fell in love! It made so much sense as Christy finally saw that before she started to try to control her eating, she ate intuitively and was fine. Christy acknowledges her thin privilege which made it easier for her to accept that everything was fine before her disordered eating started. But this was the starting point for Christy’s formal recovery, and she worked with a therapist to address her eating issues specifically. She worked on healing herself, but she was working in nutrition education at the time & was often required to give people information that was not in line with how she was starting to think. Some of her “best” students started to remind her of her old disordered eating patterns. The cognitive dissonance was huge. So Christy went down a path of opening up to the Health at Every Size philosophy, and starting to specialise in helping people recover from disordered eating. Through her training in disordered eating it became very obvious to Christy that the HAES paradigm is a fantastic alternative to this diet-y paradigm that holds so much influence. Christy’s current podcast, the Food Psych, reflects her transition and commitment to the HAES path. It started in 2013. Christy had been trying for several years by then to write her book, but the pieces did not yet fit together. Which is great - imagine she had written such a fence sitting book! She even found an old email to a friend where she said her book was like the “Michael Pollan take on emotional eating” - her take away was going to be, “you have to eat emotionally the right way, by knowing your farmer!” It’s ok for this to be a huge, long process of un-learning. Some HAES concepts will make sense almost immediately, others will take time to take hold or even make sense. Because Christy was in a thin body, the intuitive eating side of things made sense easily. But because of that privilege the whole social justice and health side of things took much longer for her to come to understand on a deep level. Christy also grew up in diet culture, and HAES flew in the face of everything she had learned about body size and health. Now, 10 years later after having her book idea, it all finally makes sense and all of the pieces fit together. The podcast was a big part of Christy’s learning, she learned so much through researching and talking to people all about these concepts. So when it came to write the book, she already had a lot of information ready to go. There are a lot of fence sitting books in this space, as people in diet culture tend to write almost as soon as they have an idea. And there’s a lot of non-diet books which miss the nuance - for example, selling the idea that intuitive eating will “cure” emotional eating. There are people who don’t understand what they don’t yet understand. And publishers want to make money. The book is truly amazing - it has information about the history of diet culture, and weight science, how diet culture is just a life thief that takes our money - there are many awesome rabbit holes! In the book we meet the activists, researchers, and HAES community - it’s great to hear from them - even a few from Australia! So - what is diet culture? Diet culture is a system of beliefs and values that worships thinness, treating it as a marker of health and virtue, that promotes weight loss as a way of attaining higher status. Diet culture demonises some foods and elevates others. The whole system is oppressive and excludes those who don;t match up. Diet culture has a tremendously negative impact of people’s wellbeing and mental, physical, spiritual, and community health. Diet culture is endemic in Western culture. And it’s relentless - messages are constantly coming, from our media, from doctors, to our peers and families, teachers, books - everything! Everything is steeped in this way of thinking. There’s an awesome chapter in the book on the history of diet culture which is fabulous. Basically, diet culture stems from extremely racist & sexist origins. Diet culture is a system of oppression born out of other systems of oppression that already existed and then became its own system that reinforced all of the other systems of oppression. It became a way of policing people based on their body size. It’s so fucked up! Even Charles Darwin: flat out - fatphobe! And sexist, and racist. All of the evolutionary biologists had this fucked up view about bodies that categorised people on a moral hierarchy. This didn’t make it into the mook, but there was something called the “Great Chain of Being”, which ranked people according to how close they were to God. People from Africa were the lowest ranked on the Great Chain of Being (interesting as the authors of the Great Chain had a political interest in enslaving people from Africa!). The whole idea was a tool to justify slavery and white supremacy. And of course, white Northern European men were the closest to God - surprise surprise! From there the evolutionary models were born, and again people from Africa were the lowest on the chain of evolution, as well as Native American people - because again there was a political motivation to keep them oppressed and they needed to find a way to justify it. And again, white Northern European men at the top of the evolutionary hierarchy. And from these ideas came quasi-scientific practices such as phrenology, where they’d measure people’s head sizes, noses, ears, etc, and draw conclusions about temperament, criminality, etc. And from that it was determined that people of colour and women tended to have more fat on their bodies. And from that the idea that fat bad ‘bad’ because it was a marker of evolutionary inferiority! It is so useful to trace back our diet culture ideas to their roots, and to really understand how bigotted these roots were. So this idea of bigger bodies being “bad” actually pre-dated any kind of “health concern”. The medical establishment were actually late joiners to the “fat is bad” message. People who went to the dr at the turn of the 20th century seeking weight loss were told that gaining weight with age was normal & nothing to worry about. And weight loss was seen as taking dr’s away from serious medicine. It wasn’t until fatphobic ideas were solidly entrenched in society thanks to the efforts of the evolutionary biologists, and insurance companies started to hound drs about the relationship between weight and mortality (based on tiny data sets) that things started to change. So, the medical establishment followed the Zeitgeist. Even the Suffragettes were sizeist - the first women’s rights activists fighting for the right for women to vote. They got a lot of pushback and resistance from the dominant culture about this. One of the ways they’d be challenged was they were painted as larger bodied, masculine looking, “ugly” - as a way to undermine the movement & dissuade other women from joining in. Rather than pushing back against the whole ides of size or beauty being at all relevant to the fight for human rights, the Suffragettes caved, and began to cultivate an image of them as slim, wearing white, traditionally ‘beautiful’. This was effective in many ways (sadly), but women of colour and size were effectively excluded from the movement. It’s so fucked up. Here in Australia, white women got the vote around the turn of the century (1902), but it wasn;t until 1962 that all Aboriginal women in Australia could vote (Louise said the 1970’s in the podcast, this is incorrect!). It’s so sad, in the history of social justice movements it seems that small steps are made but a lot of marginalised people just get ignored. Size acceptance is becoming more mainstream around the world. But we’re a long way off achieving real equality in this space - and in the USA there’s still a long way to go before equal voting rights are attained. Size acceptance as a movement has been going since the late 1960’s, but in reality we’re just getting started - it’s a young movement. There’s definitely an upswing in mainstream attention to size acceptance now which is great. Size acceptance was started by activists with lived experience of being in the world in a larger body. Then they were joined by health professionals and eating disorder experts who also saw the need for greater equality. This was the groundwork for the Health At Every Size movement,which recruited more people in the health space with educational privilege and ability to influence research etc. We’re now at a point where a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life are talking about size acceptance. It’s even ‘the cool people’ talking about size acceptance now - not just outsiders. And that’s interesting because that’s what it takes to get an idea more mainstream. There are definitely challenges when a movement becomes more mainstream, but overall it’s so positive. We can use the ‘cool people’ to open the door, but then allow everybody to come through. Not like the suffragettes! Cool people like Jameela Jamil is very fired up about size acceptance, which is amazing! And how good is it that outdated crap, like the Victoria’s Secret lingerie parade, has been cancelled!?  Watching Lizzo perform at the VMA’s - just watching more diversity. Even in stores here in Australia, mannequins which are larger sizes are appearing in stores. And when we shop online, there’s increasingly models there who are not just a size 4 or 6! It feels like in fashion, and in the traditional “thin ideal” industries, there’s just more diversity appearing & it’s not even being commented on. But then in the health space it feels like it’s getting worse! Where are we in a world in which Victoria’s Secret is actually cooler than your local dr!? The diet industry is clinging on for dear life & doing its damnedest to survive. The diet industry is so scared by body acceptance because more & more people are walking away from weight loss. And the diet industry is built on selling weight loss. Diet culture now frowns on weight loss dieting - it’s now the “wellness diet”. We’re not supposed to be focusing on weight loss, but the modern scourges of vague healthy symptoms like brain fog, and ‘bloating’. All of these symptoms can be caused by restriction and dieting. And so for the diet industry to tell us to ‘solve’ these problems by becoming more restrictive or cutting out more foods - is so insidious and so shady - because they’re the ones who caused these problems in the first place! Diet culture got us into this mess of disordered eating in the first place - and now the ‘solution’ is cutting out more foods? I mean, talk about doing the same thing over & over again & hoping for a different result! In the book Christy talks about how HAES provides a completely new way to look after your health & body. One misconception of HAES is that it’s a “do-nothing treatment”. But it’s not - it’s self-care, not self-control. There’s a lot you can do to support your health that has nothing to do with weight change. Christy talks about emotional eating in her book. She found that people who self-identify as ‘emotional eaters’ don’t actually eat more than regular people in experimental settings. People who self-identify this way tend to be more worried about their health, tend to follow more rules about food, and are hard on themselves when they don;t measure up to their own standards of eating healthily. Also, people are much more likely to eat in response to feelings or when things feel out of control when they’re not eating enough. Unravelling your relationship with food means eating enough, and also working on things like letting go of internalised weight stigma, and letting go of food rules. When people do this, they tend to ‘eat emotionally’ less of the time. In diet culture if we don’t question this idea that we shouldn’t be eating very much, it’s easy to misunderstand out of control eating as a ‘problem’ that needs therapy to cure it, when really it’s all about not eating enough. And sadly so many therapists in diet culture co-sign this idea. Therapists are not trained nutrition professionals, so may take what a person says about emotional eating at face value, not questioning the basics. This is where it’s good to refer to a non-diet dietitian! If a therapist has his/her own implicit weight bias, they’ll be unlikely to see the red flags. In fact they might buy into diet mentality. Christy went to see a therapist who specialised in eating disorders, who told her that the calorie intake she was having was “enough” and “not disordered” even though Christy knew it was nowhere near enough for her! A HAES eating disorder specialist is your safest bet to go to for treatment in order to avoid blatant weight bias in treatment. There’s a whole chapter in Christy’s book about getting angry and why it’s absolutely ok! It’s about waking up and recognising how much impact diet culture has had on our lives, how much time, money, and life has been taken in this never ending pursuit of body change. It’s about pushing back and getting angry is part of that. Particularly women never get validated for feeling angry in diet culture, even though it is 100% valid! Diet culture encourages us to be angry at ourselves. But if we can turn it around & flip it over, that’s a huge shift all in itself! This also helps us make change in the world, because we’re now aiming our anger at the right place. In the “O****ty research” world, they are befuddled by the anger, and try to dismiss it. In New York there was an “O***ty conference” and one of the titles of the presentation was “Paediatric o****ty interventions in an era of outrage”, and they had a whole panel there talking about how angry people are. And they’re using the same tactics targeted at the Suffragettes - dismissing activists as these fat, angry people who can’t see what a great thing the researchers are doing. It’s the same attempt to silence by putting people in an ‘out’ group. Painting HAES activists as “angry” equates it with being “unfeminine” too. It draws on social norms in an effort to police this - you don’t want to “be like them”. It’s these emotional, hysterical women, we’re the rational ones with our science and logic”. When people dismiss anger and tone police they miss an important piece of the puzzle - why are people so angry? If anger is there it’s a signal of injustice. That’s important information. To just dismiss it and to think of ways to keep doing what they’re doing is just not ok. We are not going away! Christy is gearing up for some major backlash. But the HAES community is here for her. Christy does practice self care - trying not to look at comments, particularly recently when her New York Time Op Ed came out. Her editor screened the comments & sent questions to her that were relevant, shielding her from the abusive comments. Venting to husband and friends in the community helps. Not posting publicly and being choosy about where and who to reach for for support. Yoga, unplugging, meditation, being in her body, being in nature. All of it helps. There is something very healing about being in physical space, with nature, animals. Just stepping away from technology. The New York Times Op Ed pieces were Christy talking about the “WW” Kurbo app, the weight loss app for kids, they’re here in the shownotes below. Even the fact that this was in the NYT - kind of a big deal! One of the editors of the opinion section is a Food Psych listener. The fact that people with such influence listen to the podcast is a reflection of how much HAES awareness is growing. The book is called Anti-Diet and it’s out now to buy! Link is below! May you outsell every shitty diet book on the planet! Christy is coming to Sydney in June 2020 for the International Congress on Eating Disorders (ICED) and Louise will be on a panel with her - so cool!! Bring on 2020 and the downfall of diet culture!   Resources Mentioned Link to Christy’s book! Michael Pollan wrote a book “In Defense of Plants” which is totally elitist, but was the absolute bees knees at the time (do not read without a drink) Marion Nestle wrote “Food Politics”, another fatphobic tome which was all the rage. (do not read without a drink) The work of Hilde Bruch included some very offensive ideas on how children came to be larger bodied (Just do not read it, it’s awful) The amazing book Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole is a HAES classic. Christy’s first New York Times Op-Ed on the WW Kurbo App. Her Second New York Times Op-Ed after the first one went gangbusters The “O****ty Society’s” Opening Session which was actually called “Treating Pediatric O****ty in an Era of Outrage”. (do not read without a stiff drink or 3).  

Nothing winds up my anti-diet nutritionist guest Tara Leong more than the influencer-led anti-sugar movement. She is in FITS of rage - to the point of goosebumps - about the mountains of misinformation being spread as liberally as nut butter. She’s LIVID about harm being done to innocent people who are being told that they’ll risk giving their kids cancer if they eat bananas. She is OUTRAGED by the misleading tactics being used by these for-profit companies who aren’t able to print the truth on their nutrition labels. She is f***ed off about fructose. And don’t even get her STARTED on the fruit pyramid! Join us for a much needed discussion about the anti-sugar movement, Tara’s attempts to reach out to Australia’s anti-sugar guru Sarah Wilson, and Sarah’s foray into mental health advice. This is one hell of a conversation!     ShowNotes My guest is Tara Leong from The Nutritionist & The Chef, and she is fired up to the point of GOOSEBUMPS about the influencer-lead I Quit Sugar (IQS) trend! Sugar is definitely public enemy #1 right now, and this global sense of fear is impacting everyone, from all ages and all walks of life. We’ve seen various foods demonised over the years, from fats, to carbs, and now sugars. And leaders of these food fad movements have historically been weight loss gurus or medical professionals. But the anti-sugar trend seems to be dominated by “influencers” spruiking their lifestyle brands. There have been some medical professionals - like Dr Lustig who loves to crow about sugar. But in Australia, the shiny beautiful people, like Sarah Wilson, are really heading up the anti sugar movement. Tara commends Sarah for raising awareness about how we can take care of our bodies, but the messages put out via her “I Quit Sugar” social media channels and in the book “I Quit Sugar” are not based on science and are destructive, especially with regards to the impact these messages have on people’s relationship with food. The whole Sarah Wilson/“I Quit Sugar” phenomenon traces back to 2011. Sarah is a journalist and was the ex editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, back then she was a judge on the first season of Masterchef. After that she moved to Byron Bay and began to freelance, writing articles for newspapers. She literally didn’t have a topic for an article one week, and had read David Gillespie’s “Sweet Poison” book (Gillespie is a lawyer). So she did an experiment quitting sugar, wrote about it, and the “I Quit Sugar” machine was born. She started to sell e-books and from there it became a massive empire. She caught the Zeitgeist - just at the start of the anti-sugar climate. Plus, she’s pretty and can write well, and is well connected. This also came at the tail end of the low-fat movement, when research began to recognise that fat wasn’t actually a villain - so we needed a new villain. Enter sugar! Wellness industry 101: 1. Find the villain, 2. Find very vague modern health symptoms like ‘brain fog’ or ‘bloating’, and blame this on the villain, 3. Use your own vague health symptoms to glowing health story as ‘proof’, 4. Sell people a rule-based program to rid themselves of aforementioned villain. I Quit Sugar (IQS) requires people to stop eating any added sugars for 8 weeks. This was beautifully skewered on “The Katering Show”, 2 comedians with a parody cooking show who did a great job of showing, through comedy, just how awful it is to quit sugar. Modern influencers are using this tactic of telling their own stories, of sharing their own tales of ‘recovery’ from vague health symptoms, to sell their ideas. Influencers use their humanity, their accessibility, they are friendly and you feel like you know them. Whereas health professionals are discouraged from sharing their own stories with clients as it is not seens as ‘professional’, especially in psychology where the space is created for the client, not the psychologist. Influencers use their stories as aspirations, as hope - and of course, thinness! “If you eat like me, you’ll end up being like me as I eat zoodles on my $20000 table! Some of the claims in IQS are quite strange. Sarah talks about having Graves disease, and then later on, Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, which pricked up Louise’s ears, as she has Hashimotos’. She is of the understanding that this condition is largely genetic, and no-one is really sure as to why it switches on. As someone with the condition, Louise has to take a pill every day and has blood tests every 3 months. It is not an easy condition to control - it is something that is always changing. Louise knows that what you eat has bugger all to do with developing Hashimotos’. But on IQS Sarah implies - strongly - that quitting sugar will cure it. Sarah’s claim that a change in her sugar consumption ‘cured’ it ignores the fact that she also takes medication to control it. This is a confound - you cannot claim that autoimmune disease can be cured by not eating sugar if you’re taking meds at the same time. If you want to promote eating in a way that makes you feel good, there’s no issue. But if you want to demonise one thing - ie sugar - there’s an issue! Tara also recognises the wonderful array of nutrients that can be excluded when you promote something as stringent as IQS. A while ago, Tara found a very fancy looking ‘fruit pyramid’ which was presented in a similar way to the old ‘food pyramid’ which used to be promoted as a way to eat. A pyramid is where foods on the bottom are ‘eat lot’ and foods on the top are don’t eat’, or ‘eat very little of’. So the team at IQS developed a fruit hierarchy, and at the top there were bananas! And the fruits you can eat ‘every day’ are berries! Raspberries, lemons & avocados. Now Tara needs to unpack this. Firstly, avocados are not a fruit. Botanically, yes, but not nutritionally - they don’t provide carbohydrates, they provide more fats. Who’s going to slice up a lemon for a tasty snack?! “I really struggle with the ethics of telling people they can only eat raspberries”. Tara calculated that for a family of 4, in order to meet nutritional requirements, a family of 4 would spend around $250 per week on raspberries alone. This is privileged, ridiculous nonsense. To not have even thought of things like expense? And the comments from people thanking IQS for telling them that bananas were dangerous. Tara had a heartbreaking message from a mum who was having a huge panic attack because she was so worried she’s given her kids cancer. The no. 1 pathway into an eating disorder nowadays, for Louise’s clients anyway, is this huge fear of foods and what are considered ‘healthy’ foods. The pro-IQS community really seem to disregard the risk of eating disorder development. Like it’s ‘not a thing’. In preparation for this podcast, Louise has been reading Sarah Wilson’s latest book “First, we Make the Beast Beautiful”. This is her story and she really is open about her lifelong mental health struggles. In it she reveals she had a childhood diagnosis of severe anxiety and insomnia, in her teens severe OCD, and then bulimia, and then bipolar disorder. Louise admires Sarah for writing such a raw and real book about the reality of living with severe mental illness. She is clearly a very intelligent person. But you can see the anxiety in the pages. You can see the pressure of the bipolar. So here is the ethical question - should authors with diagnoses such as these be giving full disclosure before giving out ‘dietary advice’? Especially when one of the diagnoses is an eating disorder? So here we are in the land of the ‘influencer’. Sarah is a journalist who has gone & obtained a health coaching ‘credential’ with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York. Tara has something to say about this Institute. This Institute looks pretty impressive. On their website it says you can study for 6 months and get the health coaching certificate. But you don’t study physiology, chemistry, or anatomy. You just study all the different types of diets out there and whether or not they’re ‘good’. “If I was running an Institute where I’m comparing diets I’d be like - let’s close, because none of them work”! So the degree should be - everything doesn’t work. Here’s your piece of paper! Go out & tell everyone why your diet won’t work - how good would that be! Tara has found that the IQS people always claim that it’s not a diet. They always claim that it’s not restrictive. But Tara cannot fathom how telling someone to cut out a whole food source for 8 weeks is not restrictive? Modern diet culture tells people, if you’re not counting calories it’s not a diet. The recipes are interesting, often full of rice malt syrup, which is of course, sugar. For a while, Louise remembers seeing a whole row of IQS baking products - cakes etc - in the supermarket. And they got in trouble for not being honest on their labels about how much sugar was in them. They only wrote down the sugar content before the rice malt syrup was added, which is of course totally misleading for consumers.* Tara finds this highly unethical & wonders how this was able to happen according to Australian laws surrounding nutrition panels. Rice malt syrup is sugar derived from rice. It does not contain fructose, but it is definitely still sugar. Louise went into a book shop to read IQS. There was a whole page on why you have to quit sugar: because of fructose. So what’s the deal with fructose? Fructose is found naturally in fruit. In the USA, it is manufactured from corn, resulting in what is called high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This is a highly concentrated version of fructose. This is put into soft drink, in the USA - not in Australia. We use sugar cane syrup, so the fructose is at much lower levels of concentration. Research on the health issues linking consumption of HFCS has been done mostly on rats and mice, and they have been exposed to mega-doses of HFCS in these experiments. So we cannot say that the health problems are happening because of the HFCS or just the mega dose. We could all develop health problems if we mega dosed on broccoli! We also can’t generalise rodent studies to human health. So the problem we have is someone not trained in physiology reads these studies and jumps to enormous conclusions. Just because some American rats OD’d on high fructose corn syrup doesn’t mean we shouldn’t eat bananas! Most of the people spouting the IQS ideas are not adequately qualified or trained in the science of nutrition. There are some medical people talking about it, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Many influencers are not reading the research thoroughly or just cherry picking research that supports their ideas, which is not in the spirit of science! Nutrition science is hard, and complex. The relationship between our health and what we eat is confounded by many factors. One important aspect which is never spoken about by these influencers are issues like poverty, oppression, and even the impact of dieting itself, and the anxiety and food guilt created by such nervous attention to food. What Tara doesn’t like is when a professional such as herself speaks up - in a calm manner - to enquire about the harm being potentially done - and they don’t engage. So with the fruit pyramid issue, Tara politely enquired if the IQS people could share with her the research to support the pyramid. They responded by saying there is ‘lots out there’, but also said that the IQS program is not based on science but a “gentle experiment”. This is mind blowing - telling people they can’t eat bananas, telling them to eat only expensive fruits, charging people $99 for this program, making promises to reduce weight and depression - but none of it is based on science? Tara cannot fathom how that is ok to do that to people. “You can’t give a rigid rule and then call it a gentle experiment” - that’s gaslighting. This is modern diet culture. Everything’s exactly the same. We’ve still got the rigid rules, we’ve still got the ‘this is the way to diet’. Except we’re no longer allowed to call it a diet, or pursue weight loss. We’ve got to talk about wellness or healing really ill defined things. And then use the language of self compassion to turn this into something loving and gentle. And its really not! So, IQS is huge - it has made millions of dollars. Last year Sarah decided to shut the IQS company and move on. She’s very much into the environment etc, reducing food waste. And she’s written the book, First, we Make the Beast Beautiful, a very detailed account of her complex mental health issues. And the question is, should she have disclosed this while she was selling IQS? Louise can understand why she wouldn’t have, this is very personal and private information. But if someone has a history of severe mental illness and an eating disorder, jumping on the food advice bandwagon is, in Louise’s opinion, of concern. In a recent article from the UK, Sarah was interviewed by a reported who had an eating disorder background herself, and the interview did not go well for Sarah. Through the reporter’s eyes, Sarah presented as someone who still had eating issues. And the interview did claim that Sarah had given up on quitting sugar, a claim which Sarah has since vehemently denied. Sarah has claimed she was misquoted, and IQS has done an interview with Sarah to present her side. Tara contacted Sarah on social media to ask her if she had quit the IQS movement, and also put some questions to her regarding the potential harm that IQS has caused. Sarah then posted that she had been bullied by Tara, and by the journalist. She also said that someone with mental health issues should never be bullied. Tara then apologised, and asked for clarification about what Sarah felt had been misquoted in the article. She offered Sarah the opportunity to detail what was wrong about the article and said she would share this with her followers in order to clear it up. She gave Sarah her phone, email and other contact numbers. But she did not respond, and actually went offline for a couple of days. Tara can see how this would have been hard for Sarah - being questioned in public, on social media, about your philosophy, is not easy. Tara gets it: she has her own lived experience with PTSD, and close family members are experiencing severe mental health issues. But Tara does not think this means it is ok to hide accountability behind. She believes it may be a reason, but not an excuse. This has not been easy for Tara either - many in her profession have commended her for having the guts to speak up, some have questioned her. But she doesn’t do it for ‘reputation’ - she does it for her clients. When you see such large numbers of people being harmed by the IQS messages, it’s impossible to stay quiet. It’s not about herself. It’s about all of the people out there who are suffering, and using her voice to stick up for them. "Sometimes I feel like I have an ethical duty to speak up for the general public". In the book, it is clear that Sarah has a big heart, and a big brain. She is genuinely trying to help people, and herself. It’s not easy to live with bipolar disorder, severe anxiety, OCD. But in the book Sarah also talks about being diagnosed with an eating disorder - bulimia - and for that, she has not had treatment. She has had all kinds of treatment for her anxiety. But not for the eating issues, which are very much absent from an otherwise very thorough exploration of her mental health. Louise is a biased too, with her eating disorder hat on, but surely that aspect of mental health has to come into this too? Understanding anxiety is important, and an eating disorder for many people is a way of controlling anxiety by controlling food. Sarah talks frequently about her anxiety as a constant grasping at things to give her a sense of safety in the world. So you can see how controlling what she eats, and having clear lists of foods to eat, could control her anxiety. This kind of connection is not made in the book. And for Louise, it’s a missing piece. People writing self help books are in a position of power. It’s not ok to put responsibility back into the lap of the consumer! Tara has copped criticism for calling Sarah out on this topic, even from fellow health professionals. But she asks: where do we draw the line? Do people have carte blanche to just say anything they like, and then withdraw responsibility by citing poor mental health? We’re grappling now with this question, if someone has a mental health issue can they say anything, cause harm, and that’s ok? Trump’s feelings are also potentially hurt, but people are much less upset about it! Is this a gender thing? What would have happened if it was Paleo Pete coming out with a history of severe mental health issues!? We don’t have the answers, but it is important to have this conversation. Tara has reflected and learned a lot from this experience. Maybe Sarah Wilson has, who knows? Tara’s hope is that if a nutrition professional reaches out to an influencer, they’ll at least listen and have that conversation. If Tara was told that some of her advice had caused harm, she’d be concerned and working at understanding the situation and make sure it doesn’t happen again. But we don’t see this with influencers. The Paleo Pete disaster when he wanted to publish a book with a ‘bone broth’ recipe for babies that was so dangerous it could cause death. Pete was contacted by hundreds of health professionals and organisations pleading with him not to do harm. So he self published the book anyway! Wouldn’t you at some stage check in with yourself? Or just blatantly double down? It reflects the strength of these people’s belief in their nutrition camps. Throughout Sarah’s book is peppered this assumption that sugar is bad. She even tells people that in order to fully recover from anxiety, you definitely need to quit sugar! And that’s not an interpretation, it’s down there in her book, in black & white. “You need to quit sugar. Down to 6-9 teaspoons a day”. That’s not a gentle experiment! This is written in a book for people who are living with anxiety. Because this comes from her belief system, in which anxiety is either caused or worsened by fructose, the book has all of these ideas which are very damaging and could ultimately increase people’s food anxiety. That fear of sugar will create or exacerbate the anxiety which the book is apparently all about alleviating. No-one with an eating disorder can read this book. Also, no one in a larger body can read this book - it’s very fat phobic. There is research on gut health to show that plant foods with lots of fibre can improve our gut health, and that can be linked to mental health. When you quit sugar, you likely eat more plant foods, and that increase is what’s responsible for any improvements, rather than the absence of sugar per say. In intuitive eating, it’s all about adding foods, not taking them away. What’s annoying is this increasing normalising of sugar as a bad thing across our society. Kids are picking up on it. Tara’s 5 year old daughter did a lesson in class on how much sugar was in a can of coke! She’s 5! The world that Tara & I live in - we work in the intensive care ward for eating concerns - and we are seeing people flood in, casualties of the anti-sugar crusade. Sugar is the “devil right now’, and as health professionals it is ok that we are concerned. We’re not picking on any 1 person, we’re talking about figureheads of a movement. We need to remember who we’re trying to protect. It’s our kids. Tara hopes that the influencers can see that nutrition professionals are genuinely helping people - we see genuine concern, genuine problems. Tara is not just a schill for Big Sugar! Tara was asked by “The Conversation” to write an article about the dangers of sugar. Instead, she wrote an article about the dangers of always talking about sugar in a negative way. It ended up being one of the most read articles The Conversation had ever published. Tara was blasted by anti-sugar people for ‘giving people diabetes’. All because she used her scientific knowledge to suggest a much less extreme approach to sugar. And of course people suggested she’s been paid off by “Big Sugar” to write the article. She wasn’t! Good things can happen when people push back and ask questions - for example at the end of last year, the Dietitians Association of Australia stopped taking funding from big food companies. But this absolute demonisation of one food group is just ill advised and short sighted. Resources: Find out more about Tara Leong, including her fabulous anti-diet merchandise, here. The wonderful Katering Show & its wonderful IQS satire The bizarre IQS Fruit Pyramid: The now-closed “I Quit Sugar” empire, which still sells the books etc. Sarah Wilson’s book “First, we Make the Beast Beautiful” *Here is the article about the misleading food labels on the IQS range - note that the products were not actually removed from shelves, but they were discussed as misleading. The Daily Mail article by Eve Simmons claiming that Sarah Wilson had quit quitting sugar (strongly contested by Sarah Wilson) Paleo Pete & his baby killing bone broth Tara’s amazing article in The Conversation about the dangers of talking about sugar as the new devil  

My guest this week is the incredible film maker, speaker & activist Kelli Jean Drinkwater, and she has a huge fire in her belly about how fat people are represented onstage! Fat people have been virtually invisible in the creative arts, but Kelli Jean’s mission is to bring them into the limelight! In order to combat weight stigma and create a world in which all bodies belong, it is VITAL that fat people are represented in the creative arts. And not just as a boring STEREOTYPE, but as fully rounded, amazing, positive and UNAPOLOGETIC humans! Join me for a fantastic conversation as Kelli Jean & I unpack how things are changing in the industry & what still needs to be challenged. And hear all about Kelli Jeans’ simply INCREDIBLE projects! This is a fabulous & inspiring episode from an artist who professionally BLOWS PEOPLE’S MINDS!     Shownotes   My guest is Sydney based film maker, speaker and activist Kelli Jean Drinkwater, who is totally fired up about fat representation in the media. Louise talks about how she & Kelli Jean first met several years ago on the set of Insight, a tv program in which there was an ‘ambush’ of fat activists and Kelli Jean was in the front line of host Jenny Brockie’s fatphobia. Her anger acts as fuel to change how fat people are being represented. We can get fired up in 2 ways, because although on one hand representation and casting of fat characters are getting better, there’s still a long way to go! There’s been a recent spate of films and tv shows especially in the USA which feature fat narratives, but they are still centred around cis gendered, white, heterosexual perspectives, and also the smaller side of fat people being cast. We have stories like Shrill, where the character is fat and staying fat, and Dietland, adapted from the amazing novel by Sarai Walker, where it’s still very good & fat positive but still some decisions made in that process which reflect weight bias. Like in both Shrill & in Dietland the main fat characters had love interests or sexual partners that were just awful men! In Shrill, her love interest feels ashamed of her and makes her leave out of the back door. She’s meant to be this onto it fat woman and wh???? So eventually he comes around and says ok meet my friends, and she doesn’t dump him. And in Dietland the main character is a virgin, and rather than having a good experience she has this awful experience with a fetishist and a feeder who then rapes her. And it’s like - “ok, so that’s the kind of sex we’re going to see?” It could be done differently, and that’s frustrating. And then there’s the movie “Dumplin”, which Louise liked, she never saw anything like that when she was growing up. And it’s lovely to see the thin character (the mum, Jennifer Aniston), as the one always dieting, miserable and insecure. There’s some great characters in this - the fat auntie, who is always supportive of her. But then the aunt dies, and we’re not told why but it’s implied it’s because she was fat!? The love interest in Dumplin was great, he’s the hot guy and he is also lovely, he has no qualms about being attracted to her, and they just get together and it’s all ok. This is a narrative we need to see. Love is possible no matter what you look like. The hot guy can want to be with the fat girl. Kelli Jean related to her love of Dolly Parton, and the camp friends! Also the swimsuit scene at the end - they were in swing dresses and not bikinis??? There are things like that that we’re still not seeing, and Kelli Jean is keen as a film maker to push things further, to include more inclusivity and positivity to fat characters. Having a fat character in a story is not good enough, we need to see it handled properly. Kelli Jean’s first documentary was Aquaporko, all about the fat women’s synchronised swimming team that she started. The women are all extremely smiley, and they’re all in fantastic swim hats - which she got online from Esther Williams. Kelli Jean loved the beach and has always loved swimming and being in the water. But for years she did not go to the beach or swimming because of how she felt about her body. It’s such a basic thing, to swim and be in water, but for fat people this can be fraught. Aquaporko is a beautiful, fun, unapologetic and confronting story of fat people being in their bodies and loving it. And also of being in public, and taking up space. It was an important and transformative film for the people who were involved. That’s why she did Aquaporko, she did not want other people to not do things they love for years and years. The film came about after Kelli Jean got some friends together and at a Sydney public pool they taught themselves synchronised swimming, just for laughs. There was no agenda, but people would clap us when we got out of the pool. It got some traction and media attention, a chapter started in Brisbane & in Melbourne. The Melbourne team practised & became quite good. It got to the point where they were going to do a performance at the pool, Kelli Jean thought - well, I am a film maker, and so the film was born! It premiered at the Mardi Gras film festival in Sydney, and everyone loved it. It won the audience award. It’s colourful, it’s different, it’s a bit camp, it’s just very joyful. It’s shown in 47 countries now as part of different film festivals. It still gets requests to screen. Now Kelli Jean has made a feature film, Nothing to Lose, this also gets attention, but Aquaporko is just loved. Nothing to lose is Kelli Jean’s first feature film. She co-directed it, without funding. It’s the story - in 2013 she was approached by Kate Champion, a very well known choreographer and theatre director for Force Majeur. She wanted to a dance theatre production exploring the fat dancing body, body politics and explore why this is such a taboo subject. In clubs, Kate’s eye was always drawn to bigger people dancing. Realising that she is a very slim, trained dancer, Kate realised she needed to collaborate with a fat artist who understands not just the performance but also the politics. Kelli Jean was the perfect choice! Kelli Jean offered artistic direction on the production, and decided to make a film about it on the way. It took 3 years off and on to make the show, and the film goes from the auditions to opening night. The show and the film explore not just the choreography and what fat bodies can do, but also about the people involved and their relationship to their bodies. It was amazing to have this show, commissioned by the Sydney Festival, choreographed by an accomplished person like Kate Champion. This really is ‘mainstream’ art in Sydney! At the time, nothing like it had been done. Dance theatre isn’t just dance, it’s theatre as well. It was very well received, and there was lots of media attention on it from all over the world. Just the concept of fat people dancing blew people’s minds. In the film they talked about the level of interest - is that just ‘the freak show’ or are people genuinely interested? But it got really positive reviews, almost all positive. Which was a bit disappointing as no piece of art is perfect. On Kate’s advice Kelli Jean and the cast decided during the performance time not to read comments or reviews. To allow themselves to just do the shows without worrying about how it was being received. Which is a good idea - there is an underground, Reddit based group of people who almost professionally hate fat people for no apparent reason. The show toured to Melbourne but not internationally. It’s almost like the people putting on these shows are ok with it because it is very ‘of the moment’ - it is controversial, which gets attention and therefore money. But they are still very cautious about it. Which is why it was good to work with Kate because she is not cautious! So it’s the same thing: yes, you can do a fat story - BUT, it has to be a white woman, and fat but not massively fat - and not TOO happy. And of course that is part of the story - you don’t just go I’m fat & I’m happy about that, we carry all of this baggage around with us all of the time. And so it makes sense that the characters who are written also carry this around - it would be weird if they didn’t. But there is ways we can push. And to not tour internationally is a shame, because it would have gone off! But this is why it’s great that Kelli Jean made the film. Everyone who worked on the film did it for free, for years. Because they believed this story needed to get out, and because the show did not tour. The film premiered at a queer film festival in San Francisco in 2018 and a massive premiere at Quuer screen at Mardi Gras in 2018. It has gone on to have a number of international screenings too, so it is getting seen! Also SBS on Demand bought it, so Australians can view it for free (link in resources). The film is the legacy of the show, and they’re all so glad it’s having success. Louise was in the audience (again) for Kelli Jean’s TED Talk which she gave at the Opera House. That came about from a funny story: Kelli Jean was in the audience at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Opera House in Sydney, listening to Sarai Walker, author of Dietland, who was talking about radical fat acceptance. Her talk was all about the need to stop distracting from ideas of pure, radical acceptance by talking about ‘health’. At the end of her talk all of the questions were about health! Kelli Jean got up and caused a scene! She got up and said - I don’t have a question, but I just want to say I am embarrassed that here we are at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, and here we are again talking about health! It was very triggering for Kelli Jean, because of the Insight experience and how she was hijacked there. Kelli Jean was like, “oh my god it’s happening again”. Afterwards, Edwina Throsby who was the head of TEDx Sydney, came up and said I want you to do a TED talk. Kelli Jean got a standing ovation for her comment at Sarai’s talk (Louise was not brave enough to get up!). For Kelli Jean, it’s not a choice. “I can’t not say something.” Kelli Jean felt bad for getting a standing ovation and taking the focus off Sarai, but she thanked her later for saving her. Here we are, Festival of Dangerous Ideas, with an accomplished novelist with some amazing ideas. And people still could not let go of their bullshit around health.? The entitlement of that - the idea that they can say “no you’re wrong, this is a wrong idea” - rather than “I’m really challenged by what you’re saying”. It’s just “No, you’re wrong, and you’re going to die because you’re fat”. People cannot let that go, because letting that go challenges and threatens their whole way of being in their own bodies, and their own relationships with their bodies. If we go “Hey, we’re fat, we’re going to live in our bodies and wear bikinis and show our bodies and love them and have sexy time and eat whatever the fuck we want”, people can’t deal. A lot of people invest so much time into trying to maintain a thin body, that to suggest that time could be better spent is too much. Small people don’t have it easy either: they may feel they have to invest a lot into maintaining it, because of a belief that it maintains happiness or acceptance or health. Engaging in diet culture is tiring for all of us. If you challenge that, they freak out. People get defensive and don’t want to listen. Kelli Jean gets it - it’s a massive capitalist machine. There’s a lot of money to be made by making sure women hate their bodies. The sexist, [atriarchal structure of capitalism is a lot to challenge. But come on - if you’re paying for a talk which is specifically to challenge you, be challenged! Kelli Jean is sure that if TED talks had a question time, the exact same thing would have happened. The TED talk was one of the scariest things Kelli Jean has ever done. But if someone says to you hey, do you want to talk to potentially millions of people on the main stage of the Opera House about something that you love - you’re not going to say no! There were 2500 people at the Opera House, but there were also 20 000 people watching live around the world! And no auto cue - Kelli Jean had to remember the whole thing off by heart. She did have notes stuffed down her bra. This was also one of the first TED talks to ever address the topic of fat positivity. So it got picked up by TED.com - they call it “Big Ted” in the USA & put on their platform. So now nearly 2 million people have watched it! Of course, when the talk went up there was a huge number of hateful comments. Kelli Jean spoke to the TED people to say that this is really damaging for fat people who might read these comments, so they actually disabled the comments both here and in the USA. Kelli Jean never read them, but heard how awful and violent they were, and she didn’t want people exposed to that. Kelli Jean knows how awful it can be, and knows it’s coming if she puts something out there. But she feels for the people who may not know and be impacted by the vitriol and outright hatred. It’s awful to think there are people out there who have nothing better to do than hate on people, especially women, who are ok with themselves. That threatens the patriarchy, the status quo, and it freaks people out. Some people (??Dylan Meryn?) meet people who troll them & find out they are just sad or have difficult lives or whatever. Kelli Jean does not want to do that! But she does want people to understand that people who troll like that are sad & have their own issues. So the resistance to fat representation centres on 2 main ‘arguments’: 1) “but what about health”, and 2) hatred. Without doubt the most vitriol comes from straight men. But as a queer woman, Kelli Jean could not care less if they find her attractive or if she offends them visually. Which is possibly why they find people like her threatening! This trolling and hatred fuels Kelli Jean’s fat activist fire. And it doesn’t feel like a choice for Kelli Jean. and it’s wonderful to see how far activism has come. There are some really popular and mainstream artists, like Lizzo, and this is very different from when she grew up. Kelli Jean loves the fact that so many fat younger people are owning it, wearing crop tops etc and just unapologetic about their size. As a teenager she never ever saw stuff like that! She bought into it for ages - and then, just got jack of it! Although she’s been in this thinking and activism space for a long time, it is still a process. There are still hard times. Kelli Jean is now directing a short film called “The Rainbow Passage”, it’s about Cadence Autumn-Bell. It’s her story about her transition, and her girlfriend is also transitioning, and they’re in Bathurst (small NSW country town). While fat positivity is important, Kelli jean also wants to focus on body positivity overall, and all of the intersections and layers of this, affirming gender diversity, differently abled bodies, being intergenerational, holding space for people of colour and their stories. Because it’s all interconnected. Intersectional feminism is the only way really! The other project is top secret, and we’re super excited about it! All of these ideas of loving who you are and pushing back against the dominant narrative are interconnected. We talk about the Insight show & how people questioned whether or not Kelli Jean was a swimmer. She just is! At the end of the Insight taping, kelli Jean told them that they could not show any of the scenes from Aquaporko on the show, because they’d treated her so awfully. Kelli Jean is often asked to take part in shows like this and she usually says no, because she will not set herself up for another ambush. It’s understandable that many fat activists are wary about appearing in the media, because they are so often ambushed with the interviewer’s own internalised weight stigma. The host of Insight, Jenny Brockie, obviously has her own issues with weight, because we’d never seen her so un-objective and accusatory towards a guest on the show. Jenny Brockie really went for Kelli Jean, but as usual she handled it like a champ! Resources: A link to the SBS Insight show which they called “Fat Fighters” (we did not know this was going to be the title, another aspect of the ambush) The transcript from the SBS show Insight Sarai Walker’s (author of Dietland) talk at the Festival of Dangerous ideas on radical Fat Acceptance Shrill by Lindy West - the book. Shrill the tv series. Dietland the book and the tv series Dumplin Aquaporko Aussie people can watch Nothing to Lose on SBS on Demand Watch Kelli Jean’s Ted Talk Find out more about Kelli Jean here

This week my guest is the fierce and wonderful president of HAES Australia, Dr Carolynne White! A Facebook post from Headspace in Hervey Bay fired her (and many others) up when it claimed that eating sugary food causes mental health problems! As a mental health expert and anti-diet advocate, Carolynne knows how much this kind of messaging oversimplifies, stigmatises, and downright does damage. The fact that the SUGAR IS EVIL message is being spruiked by one of Australia’s leading adolescent mental health organisations is a worry. Particularly when it’s part of “The Push Up Challenge”, a fund raiser for Headspace which raises awareness about youth suicide by forcing people to do over a hundred push ups a day. Has anyone at Headspace heard of eating disorders? Why is encouraging excessive exercise in teens ok? Do they know how hung up young people are about body image and health? WHAT ON EARTH ARE THEY THINKING!? Join us as we rant about this extremely ill advised campaign. The truth is, mental health and physical health just can’t be separated, and we need to be doing a lot more critical thinking to avoid doing harm! CW: Discussions about suicide, mental illness & eating disorders.     Show Notes     My guest this week is Dr Carolynne White, occupational therapist and health promotion lecturer. Through her professional experience and her PhD research, Carolynne has formed the strong opinion that good mental health is absolutely necessary to support good overall health. Carolynne is also the president of HAES Australia. Carolynne got all fired up about a facebook post from Headspace at Hervey Bay in Queensland, about a ‘push up challenge’ to raise awareness about suicide and to raise money for Headspace. Headspace is a very well funded network of mental health treatment centres for adolescents and young people. Headspace enjoy a lot of government funding here in Australia, and also gather a lot of attention in the media. Their Mission is ‘to provide tailored and holistic mental health support to young people aged 12-25”. They focus on early intervention and prevention of mental illness, as well as focusing on physical health as well. According to the website, the ‘push up challenge’ was started by a ‘bunch of mates’ passionate about the topic. The challenge involves doing 3128 push ups over the month of August - one for each life lost to suicide in 2017. This is a LOT of push ups - over 100 a day. Louise’s first thought - why are headspace supporting an initiative that uses the symptoms of a major mental illness - ie the compulsive exercise aspects of an eating disorder - to raise awareness of mental illness? It just seems very ill advised. Particularly when you consider that eating disorder have the highest mortality rate, particularly from suicide, among young people. The man who started the push up challenge is Nick Hudson, he’s from Perth. He’s a white Aussie bloke in his thirties. Louise found 2 media articles about him which said slightly different things. One said he had heart surgery as a child, and when he got older his fitness declined and he realised he needed more heart surgery. This made him depressed, and one of the ways he came out of the depression was to start this push up challenge. But then another news article which came out about the same time (and was accompanied by a truly awful ‘Fitspo on steroids’ picture) said that his father had suffered from depression for many years but had never told him. When he discovered the depression, he ‘did some research’  on mental health. Then he and his mates, who do push ups as part of their regular fitness regime, decided to turn it into something more. So it’s odd to have 2 such different stories out there in the media, normally people have just one story, but there you go. There is a level of privilege reflected in the message that in order to come out of depression you need to do a few push ups. It’s great that this happened for him, but many people need a lot more help than just exercise to recover from something as complex as depression. Plus, particularly with people that Louise sees in her practice, the LAST thing they need is to focus on counting push ups! The Hervey Bay Headspace post was particularly problematic because he was posting about the evils of sugar as well. He claimed that high intakes of sugar increase the likelihood of developing mental illness, and more severe symptoms of depression. This of course caused a furore ! Having worked in mental health, Carolynne thinks of the impact a message like this would have on an adolescent who might be struggling with their mental health, and how unhelpful it would be. The person who made this claim was a personal trainer, and obviously way outside of their scope of practice or expertise making claims like that. This post did attract a lot of push back from mental health experts. Particularly considering the vulnerability and age of the audience of Headspace! Australian teenagers are really hung up on issues of body image, health, etc, and we are seeing very high rates of eating disorder symptomatology which is being overlooked in this ‘health obsession epidemic’ that we’re all suffering from. The latest Mission Australia Youth Survey (2018) found that 30% of young people reported feeling ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned about their mental health and their body image. These were equal concerns. Younger women reported higher levels of concern than younger men. Gender dynamics play into this. Thinking of a bloke modeling the push up challenge and the impact that might have on a teenage girl…. A paper that has just come in in 2019 looks at the point prevalence of eating disorders in young people in Australia. Data from 5000 Aussie teens aged 11-19 showed that 22.2% met diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder. That’s 1 in 5 kids! 1 in 3 Aussie kids have high levels of concern about their body image and 1 in 5 have diagnosable eating disorders. In girls, the eating disorder rate is 33.3% and in boys it’s 12%. This is a huge concern and we need to centre this in our public health messaging. The push up challenge is an extreme fitness challenge. Looking through the Instagram for the push up challenge, a very narrow range (ie very muscular physiques) are represented. If we couple that with the facebook post which moralises food, it creates an environment which compromises recovery for those suffering with eating disorders. Are the people at Headspace really thinking this through? The Headspace demographic includes very young teenagers who are still very much black and white thinkers. If a 13 year old comes across the Hervey Bay page with its comments on sugar, they don’t have the cognitive capacity to see any nuance or think critically about it. This message is coming from an authority figure and they are highly likely to view it as: do not eat sugar under any circumstances. This is everywhere in Louise’s clinical practice at the moment: young kids developing eating disorders following exposure to well meaning messages about the nutritional value of food. Basically, no-one in high school should watch ‘That Sugar Film’. Adolescence is the THE highest risk time for development of an eating disorder. 14 years old is the average age kids can develop one. This is the exact demographic of Headspace’s audience and for these type of social media messages to be demonising sugar and pushing compulsive exercise, it’s really not on. Headspace have done a great job promoting themselves as a safe place for people with diverse identities to go. They need to incorporate body diversity into their messaging as well, many teens suffering from mental illness will be in larger bodies and need to feel safe and included. All of the eating disorder statistics from the paper on point prevalence we just discussed are higher in kids with higher body weights. People in larger bodies have eating disorders more often than smaller people, but if Headspace is full of gymbunnies doing workouts….hello!? Headspace’s own website discusses eating disorders & their symptoms, with sentences beginning with “Excessive exercise is a symptom of an eating disorder”…  The push up challenge has raised $2.5 million for Headspace, which is phenomenal. It’s a great job - but the methods of fund raising definitely need to be worked on! Headspace do a great job in our community, but they are well funded. There are 107 Headspace centres around the country. They get $95 million a year from the Government, and have just been given another $50 million. And when a psychologist at headspace sees a teenager, they bill Medicare for the appointment. Many of the psychologists are contractors, not employees of Headspace, so they take a % of the Medicare subsidised fee as payment. Headspace do great work, but they are well funded. In comparison we have a desperate shortage of hospital beds for people suffering from severe eating disorders. So many areas of mental health are severely underserviced. It seems that the ‘popular’ ideas get funded. So - if anyone listening wants to raise funds for mental health don’t give it to Headspace, they’re doing alright! This whole push up challenge for Headspace runs on the idea that exercise is always good for mental health. And there’s a real push in mental health to include ‘lifestyle’, or physical health. Carolynne started her career as an Occupational Therapist in a maximum security hospital - as did Louise! When Carolynne started, a report came out of Western Australia which found a huge disparity between physical health of people with mental illness and those without, and the gap in life expectancy. Working in a prison hospital, you see people from all walks of life. People who have experienced extreme poverty, severe trauma, and mental illness, and all of that mixed up together has a huge impact on their physical health. In the past few years there has been increased attention to the physical health status of people with mental illness. The National Mental Health Commission drafted up a consensus statement, and the stats are just astounding. In Australia, 1 in 5 people have a mental illness, and 16% of Australians live with both a physical health condition and a mental illness. If you have both, your life expectancy is reduced by 15.9 years for men and 12 years for women. This is conservative: around the world, the gap can be as much as 20 years. It’s staggering - much more than cigarette smoking. A few years ago Carolynne took part in Partners in Recovery, an initiative for people living with mental illness. During this period, 3 of the people involved died. Carolynne initially thought it might have been suicide. On of them had taken their own life, but one had a heart attack and the other died in their sleep of ‘natural causes’. This is the general case: People with a mental illness who die early, usually die from physical causes other than suicide. The main causes are cardiometabolic: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. All of the issues often attributed to higher weight. In the search to improve health and mortality outcomes, the focus has unfortunately of course landed on people’s weight. Because this is just what people with mental health issues need - a good push up! People with mental illness are more likely than the general population to have a BMI over 35. And that’s not to do with not eating the ‘right’ food or not getting enough exercise! A lot has to do with medication related weight gain. People taking medication to take care of their mental health is really positive, and if a side effect of that is weight gain, focusing on that and ‘blaming’ people for poor lifestyle habits is unfair. Antipsychotic medications, bipolar meds, and some antidepressant medications can have weight gain as a side effect. Many people Louise speak with could benefit a lot from medication, but often hesitate because of fear of weight gain. Or, people choosing to go off medication which is benefitting their mental health because of weight gain. This really brings home the reality of weight stigma. The drive for thinness in our culture is valued above everything else. Carolynne had an experience of gaining weight after being put on medication for depression, which she found confronting as she had previously lived in an always thin body. It’s very understandable, but it makes her sad, as in our culture people’s mental health might be compromised because of that societal pressure. Imagine if we lived in a truly weight inclusive society how the experience of mental illness might be very different? There’s already stigma around mental illness. If you’re going to lump weight stigma on top of that it just compounds the disadvantage that people experience. If someone gets well from taking medication, but then comes to live in a larger body, and experiences weight based discrimination, it’s yet another experience of oppression, exclusion, and marginalisation which is extremely weathering to physical and mental health. Many of the organisations that champion physical health don’t think about mental health whatsoever. So they don’t think about the impact of their campaigns on people’s mental health. The idea of perpetuating weight stigma and the health impacts of that (both physical and mental) - it’s just not thought of. Given the numbers of people suffering with mental illness, it is not ok that they are not considered in these campaigns. Particularly when you consider that people with mental illness are more likely to get these conditions, mental health should be people’s first consideration. The fact that they’re not is another example of entrenched stigma. They’re just erased, not visible anywhere. It’s depressing. This concept of the mind and body being separate goes back to the 16th century, with French Philosopher Descartes who championed the separation of the body from the mind. This is known as Dualism. This is where it all started but we need to get out of the 16th century and into the 2000’s! Mind and body are not separate, and physical and mental health are not separate either. It is super dangerous when we do. Carolynne & Louise first met at an Eating Disorders and Obesity Conference in the Goldcoast, where Carolynne got told off for being ‘irresponsible’ for talking about her non-diet community intervention, and Fiona Willer got pointed at and shouted down by Prof John Dixon. At the conference they had a presentation on the “Live Lighter” campaign. They had a speaker from the Cancer Council talking about the campaign, and a speaker from an eating disorders organisation talking about how they could change their messaging to make it more supportive for people with eating disorders. They used a slide with a stick figure with its’ head cut off, and then another with the head back on, to talk about how a combined approach - one that included mind and body - was much better! This is pretty naive when you consider that people with mental illness will get cancer at about the same rate as people in the general population, but are more likely to die earlier of cancer - because they’re not screened early enough, or their surgeries either don’t happen or are delayed. This separation between mind and body has deadly consequences. There is awareness growing that we need to do something to mend this separation. The Equally Well consensus statement is a good example of this. Equally Well is an initiative which started in New Zealand, as a collective effort to get people on board to improve the physical health of people with mental illness. Equally Well is very much led by people with lived experience of mental illness. In Australia, Equally Well launched in 2017, and many organisations have signed up in partnership with them. Earlier this year HAES Australia signed up. In terms of weight-neutral, non-diet content, Equally Well are not there yet, but we need to be in there in order to influence and give input, so that diet culture and weight centrism doesn’t sink its teeth in! The good news is, Equally Well is definitely NOT funded by Novo Nordisk, so there’s no Big Pharma agenda trying to sell weight loss drugs out of this! Caro Swanson is a champion of Equally Well and a person with lived experience of mental illness. Caro did a keynote speech at the first Equally Well Symposium in Melbourne earlier in 2019, alongside Helen Lockett (‘the other lady! - sorry!!). Caro spoke about her experience of having ‘experts’ come in and take away her power. She was worried that Equally Well would be just like other initiatives and leave people with lived experience out. Caro made the excellent point that people with mental illness are already under a lot of scrutiny, and with the introduction of physical health focus ‘now you’re going to scrutinise the rest of our lives too.’ Carolynne gives the example of a man with schizophrenia living in a group home, who was being judged for eating chips and drinking Coke late at night. But this was the only food available for him to eat after a night shift. We must hold back judgements about people’s choices, and make the effort to understand their lives. Eating ‘well’ is actually a privilege, which not all of us have. Lots of people are doing the best they can to just eat regularly, and everyone needs to just back off! It’s really annoying to hear the story of the man with schizophrenia being judged for his food choices (which is really a judgement about his weight). Taking anti psychotic meds means he could eat kale morning, noon and night and still gain weight! It is not a ‘choice’ and the gain is not under his control. He is doing well to take his meds and strive for improved mental health. No-one enjoys hearing voices, it’s terrifying. If taking meds means increased weight, that needs to be ok. Caro made the excellent point “monthly girth measurements don’t do anything for my mental health’. Equally Well is a collective, lived-experience led, aimed at helping people living with mental illness improve their physical health in an equitable way. Caro’s stand against the weight-centric attitudes is awesome. We really need to ensure that things like waist measurements aren’t just blindly given for no reason: people need to give consent, and have the right to say no if focus on their weight is not comfortable for them. It’s great that HAES Australia are part of Equally Well, so we can really fight for a weight-neutral, inclusive approach to improving physical health for people with mental illness. One of the Equally Well statements says: “obesity is a major contributor to a range of common diseases including metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. People living with mental illness should be offered tailored support for weight management programs as part of routine care”. It doesn’t matter how ‘tailored’ the program is, weight ‘management’ does not work! This approach just ‘ticks the box’, but we really need to apply critical thought. Why are we doing this - what’s the efficacy? If it doesn’t work in the general population to lose weight long term, why on earth would they work in those with mental illness who may suffer multiple barriers, be more disadvantaged and live more disruptive lives? In mental health over the past few years there has been increased focus on recovery and hope. Dieting approaches are the opposite of that! They disempower and get people stuck in an endless cycle. There are so many beautiful pathways to improving health that have bugger all to do with weight. Health professionals need a lot more training in mental health, particularly trauma informed mental health care and an understanding of concepts such as social justice and privilege. It is very important that our efforts to help people don’t traumatise them further. We need to really listen to people’s lived experiences, because everyone is unique. We can’t forget how much awful stuff has been done to people in the name of helping their mental health! I think weight management programs are our modern day equivalent of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” style therapy. Naomi Wolf said that dieting is a powerful political sedative. Maybe one day Equally Well can face off against Obesity Australia! Medication research needs to be done to improve the metabolic side effects, the answer is not to just add in another weight loss medication to the mix. Donate to Equally Well - they will definitely not have a push up challenge! Health is so much more than doing a push up. Resources: The Headspace Hervey Bay FB post which stirred controversy (scroll to July 10th) HAES Australia website Dr Carolynne White’s research profile on the Swinburne University page. The Perth article which talked about Nick Hudson and his reasons to do The Push Up Challenge where he talked about his heart operations. The Triple White article which talked about Nick Hudson & his dad’s depression being the inspiration behind the Push Up Challenge (get a load of the extreme Fitspo image they chose to use…) The Push Up Challenge website The Mission Australia Youth Survey 2018 The Headspace website Details on Headspace funding The Lancet paper on the physical health of people with mental illness The eating disorder point prevalence in Australian adolescents paper The Equally Well Consensus statement An awesome interview with Caro Swanson and Helen Lockett. From Equally Well.  

DO NOT MISS this explosive episode of All Fired Up! The Obesity Collective is a sparkly new organisation gaining attention nationwide for its ostensibly ‘collaborative’ approach to ‘tackling’ obesity, whilst simultaneously erasing weight stigma (oh please how much of a mindboggle is that?!). But who are they really? My guest this week is Mandy-Lee Noble, anti-diet dietitian from Nourished Approach in Brisbane, and she has had a GUTFUL of industry interests penetrating our health narrative. Once we dug a little deeper into The Obesity Collective we found that the tentacles of Big Pharma have a firm hold on the goolies of all our so-called ‘independent’ Obesity organisations. You won’t believe how deep this goes. Next time you read a hysterical news headline highlighting the terrors of Obesity Epidemic, know who funded it!     ShowNotes     Content warning and Apology !! This episode contains multiple uses of the word ‘obesity’. This is a stigmatising term and not one I nor my guest Mandy Lee Noble are comfortable using. However, as the topic of this episode is all about an organisation called The Obesity Collective, there are a lot of “O” words used. There are also lots of swear words to make up for it! My guest, dietitian Mandy-Lee Noble is all fired up about conflicts of interest and vested interests in health care, and within weight centric research and industries in particular. Mandy & Louise fell down a massive rabbithole when they accidentally stumbled across a particularly troubling example of this, the subject of today’s podcast. During a HAES Australia leadership meeting, we came across the “Obesity Australia” website, and their “fact sheets” were rather hilarious. These fact sheets contained not just outdated, but frankly very bizarre advice regarding weight loss. “Obesity Australia” are ostensibly one of Australia’s leading ‘authorities’ on obesity, and many of the country’s leading researchers, practitioners etc, are involved. And yet the fact sheets look like they were thrown together by either a year 9 school boy or an elderly person with very little connection to the real world. One of the ‘fact’ sheets was about drinks you should be having to lose weight, written by former head of Obesity Australia John Funder, whose diet tips have come directly from 1935. He recommends “egg flips” and “Miss Muffett’s favourite tipple, curds and whey”. Does ANYONE know what an egg flip is? And what about curds and whey?? He then goes on to rage against fish and chips, and goes on a bizarre rant telling us to strip the fish and chips of batter, and ‘put it amongst the pickled onion’. What is he even talking about here? Where did the pickled onion even come from? 1970? John also has a huge grudge against potato crisps, which he says are ‘lethal’. Now Mandy, being a bit of a rebel, has on several occasions since reading that thrown caution to the wind and deliberately and vigorously eaten said lethal crisps, and has lived to tell the tale. Another tip was to ‘drink coke zero’, to ‘fool yourself into eating slightly less’. This tip appears to have come from Weight Watchers in circa 1980. Mandy believes this may work through the process of being forced to eat slightly less because you have no teeth! Seriously what’s with the totally SHIT advice here? This is from a highly regarded and very knowledgeable researcher? It’s encouraging behaviours that overall are not hugely health supportive, all in the name of weight loss! John also ‘recommends’ that a ‘rule of thumb’ is to always weigh the same as you did at the age of 25, even if we have less bone and muscle mass as a result. All of the actual research would contest that: there is a plethora of evidence to show that as we age we do get heavier, and preserving muscle mass as we age is very health supportive. It’s quite literally the opposite of what science tells us. People at a higher body mass are actually often healthier than smaller people as they age. Some of the information in the fact sheets started to lead us down a rabbit hole. One of them, written by Professor Joseph Proietto (who does not reveal his association with multiple pharmaceutical companies), states that most people who lose weight will not keep it off, and will regain, so he recommends the use of appetite suppressing medication. As we read, it became apparent that an agenda was peppered throughout these ‘fact’ sheets’. Repeatedly given is the message that most people who lose weight will regain it; that obesity is ‘a disease process’. We experienced a growing sense of unease - just who are Obesity Australia, and who is behind these organisations that claim expertise and leadership in the area of so-called ‘obesity’? People right now may not be hearing from Obesity Australia as much as “The Obesity Collective”. Now, this might sound like a trendy cafe or a tragic boy band, but it’s actually them who have featured in the media quite a bit in Australia recently. “The Obesity Collective” was launched on 31 July 2018 (happy first anniversary!), at a swanky reception at the Charles Perkins Centre, the University of Sydney’s $500 million hub for the study of ‘lifestyle diseases’ such as obesity. Headed by Professor Stephen Simpson, who also happens to be the head of The Obesity Collective. The Obesity Collective describes itself as “a group of committed individuals and organisations from across the community, working together to take on the obesity challenge together, with empathy and a whole of society perspective”. Doesn’t that sound warm, fuzzy….and a little bit scary! Mandy thinks they’re a bit ‘fast and loose’ with words like empathy! So Stephen Simpson is the academic director of the Charles Perkins Centre, and the executive director of Obesity Australia. Professor Simpson’s research interests are probably not what you’d expect: “Developing an integrative modelling framework for nutrition using insects that has been applied to a wide range of organisms, from slime moulds to humans, and problems, including the dietary causes of human obesity and ageing. He has also revolutionised understanding of swarming in locusts, with research spanning neurochemical events within the brains of individual locusts to continental-scale mass migration.” How much has he studied empathy within locust populations? Potentially more than he’s studied it within humans! Professor Simpson has accomplished a lot in his career, he went to Oxford University, and he’s one of these charismatic figures. He is definitely bringing a hip, urban edge to the Charles Perkins Centre, and also to the Obesity Collective, really trying to make it look engaging, warm and welcoming. He’s trying to portray the Obesity Collective as a great collection of warm and wonderful people who are going to combat not only obesity but obesity stigma, which is...an interesting challenge. Professor Simpson recently appeared on ABC’s The Drum program, on a show about obesity and fat shaming. Professor Jenny Lee was on (academic and fat activist), as was someone with ‘lived experience’ who was actually one of the Nepean Obesity Service’s weight loss ‘success stories’. Sarah Harry from Body Positive Australia was also featured, but did not appear live and wasn’t given enough screen time as someone in a larger body not riddled with internalised weight stigma. Jenny Lee was also somewhat sidelined by Professor Simpson, who remained resolute in his attitude that body size is a disease. The message of the show was definitely skewed towards eradicating the ‘problem’ of obesity, but let’s be nice about it. No amount of empathic-sounding buzz words can disguise the true intention. Professor Simpson asked Jenny Lee to join the Obesity Collective, but she declined. So the Obesity Collective’s launch at the Charles Perkins Centre in 2018 was funded by Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company traditionally known for its production of insulin, but with a flooded market, has recently turned its hand to producing weight loss drugs. The Collective is trying to recruit different organisations and individuals including: NGOs, Academics, Young Entrepreneurs, The Private Sector, Community Leaders, Government, Healthcare Providers and people with lived experience. We couldn’t see any evidence that people with lived experience are actually a part of the Collective, there’s just this statement on their website that they’re there. Novo Nordisk have described themselves to be ‘active members’ of The Obesity Collective. It’s very prominent on their website that Novo is the Collective’s main funder. So what have the Obesity Collective achieved in their first year? They’ve been really good at raising the panic button. They’ve been in the media - not just the Drum, but radio, and print media. So they’re getting attention. They released a report called “Weighing in: Australia’s Growing Obesity Epidemic”. The report outlines statistics around the prevalence of obesity in Australia and bangs on about how much fatter we’ll be at this rate and how many diseases are caused by fatness. The cheekiest part of the report is where they re-cycle the statistics on the apparent economic cost projections of obesity, which they took directly from Obesity Australia’s 2015 report which was prepared by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and sponsored by Novo Nordisk. (more about them later in the conversation). !! The 2019 report did not disclose any funding from Novo Nordisk, it said it was authored by The Obesity Collective without naming who actually wrote it. But substantial sections have been taken directly from a previous report which had unlimited funding from Novo Nordisk. The Obesity Collective have also released a ‘fact sheet’ in which they say that obesity is ‘not just about personal responsibility’. Obesity Australia & The Obesity Collective just don’t get that the very framing of obesity is stigmatising. They really don’t get stigma. They actually think weight stigma is their tool to try to get people to lose weight (like take weight loss drugs!). And weight loss drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda, if you can tolerate the side effects, will maybe give you very modest weight loss results - if you can believe their own industry funded research! In 2015 in Australia, Novo Nordisk got TGA approval for their new weight loss drug, Saxenda. Since then, they have been quite aggressive in their tactics in raising awareness of how ‘awful’ obesity is and how urgent it is that we ‘act’. Through avenues such as these organisations, Obesity Australia & The Obesity Collective. The Obesity Collective also provided a submission to the Senate Select Committee on the ‘obesity epidemic’ - as did HAES Australia. In their submission to the committee, they said ‘we are working to transform the way society thinks, speaks and acts on obesity to reduce the impact obesity has on all of us”. What a mind fuck of a statement! In one part, they claim to be working to de stigmatise obesity, in the next breath, they stigmatise it all over again. What they are aiming to do - eradicate larger people - is implicitly stigmatising. They think stigma is a barrier to weight loss. They want people not to feel stigmatised coming in and asking for weight loss drugs. Mandy & Louise have been blown away by how pervasive the industry funding is in this area. We don’t have enough time or woman hours to delve completely, but this rabbit hole is massive. In their submission, The Obesity Collective stipulate the causes of obesity to be genetic, epigenetic, and biological drivers. But on the next breath they say this does not excuse people from committing to try to lose weight. So again, in one breath stating how body weight is not within our control, in the next demanding that we as individuals keep trying to control it. This thread runs throughout: on the one hand, all of the recognition of the science is there, and an almost HAES-y style of writing, and on the other, we’re back to keep trying to lose weight! Same science: different conclusions. They also referred to the Novo-funded report from 2015 in their submission, saying that the overall direct costs of obesity to Australia in 2011-12 Australia were determined to be $3.8 billion, while indirect costs were calculated to be $4.8 billion (PWC 2015). But if you compare even this figure (which Mandy really doesn’t think is totally convincing), considering that our total health expenditure for 2011-12 was $150 billion, then it’s just a drop in the ocean of our health care spending, hardly the health sector crushing scenario we’re often given. The same report also argued that the costs incurred from the stigma of obesity, including discrimination across education, work, and social spheres, is ‘incalculable’. It’s so much more than the actual cost! They are using stigma for their own agenda. These ‘reports’ put out by bodies such as the Obesity Collective or Obesity Australia are always the same format: 1. Obesity is bad, and getting worse, 2. obesity causes all sorts of diseases, 3. obesity is going to cripple our health system, and 4. we MUST urgently act and do something. And - it’s not your fault and it’s hard to fix - so - here’s some thing (ie drugs, put them on the PBS). But who are The Obesity Collective? They are actually a subsidiary of Obesity Australia. Essentially, Obesity Australia are the parent company of the Obesity Collective. Obesity Australia are a registered charity, and they have been in operation since 2011. They describe themselves as “an independent, not-for-profit, legal entity’. The ‘independent’ angle is interesting, because Obesity Australia receives most of its funding from industry ‘partners’, including Weight Watchers, Allergan (a pharma company who make the lap bands), and other pharma companies including inova and Novo Nordisk, who gave around $200 000 to Obesity Australia between 2011 and 2015. In 2011, Allergan kicked in quite a bit of money to get Obesity Australia started - around $150 000. Over 3 years they kicked in around $300 000. Allergan had actually gained a lot of cred for helping to fund these organisations, it helped them to be seen as a company doing ‘good’. But it wasn’t all good: Allergan, and the Centre for Obesity Research (CORE) in Melbourne received negative publicity in the media when their plans to target poor and Aboriginal teenagers for their weight loss experiments were disclosed to the media. Between 2011 and 2015, Obesity Australia received just over $1 million in funding. Of this, 80% was spent on “Board Expenses” and ‘consultancy’. Of that, 30% was “Board expenses”. Tax concessions also apply as this is a charity. It’s a LOT of money for all of that independence. And what exactly are these ‘Board expenses”? Many of the Board members of Obesity Australia have also received other money (for consultancy fees etc) from the pharma companies. Since 2015, Novo Nordisk has provided Obesity Australia with ‘unrestricted grants’ to produce reports about how dire the obesity epidemic is, and the URGENT need for interventions, including - no surprises here - pharmacological medicines. It is an urgent need for Novo, because in 2015 they finally got their weight loss drug Saxenda approved by the TGA. They’re not even bothering to hide it - on the Obesity Australia website you can click through to a presentation by Novo Nordisk to Obesity Australia in which they blatantly reveal that Novo are committed to ‘create legitimacy and urgency for the medical management of obesity’. Really, what Novo are after is to have obesity declared a disease: if this happens, they can push their drugs more heavily and even get weight loss drugs on the PBS, a massive potential windfall for them. The principles of Obesity Australia and the principles of Novo Nordisk are very much aligned with each other. Even the Charles Perkins Centre refer to obesity as a ‘disease’, when actually it’s not. In Australia, the Australian Medical Association do not classify higher body weight as a disease, nor do the World Health Organisation. They do talk about weight being a risk factor, but not a disease within itself. There are many people in larger bodies with no or very few health issues, if we classify this as a disease suddenly a whole pile of people become suddenly sick. How we think about our health status can really impact on our actual health status. And the influence of Novo Nordisk does not end with funding for Obesity Australia, and the unlimited funding for their ‘reports’. In the newly formed Obesity Collective, 8 of their academics on their boards receive direct financial benefits from Novo Nordisk, for consultancy, travel costs, etc, another couple of academics work at an institutions that receive funding from Novo Nordisk and a further 4 people on the Board are employed by PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC). Which is interesting, because Novo Nordisk is a well established and long existing client of the multinational auditors PriceWaterhouseCooper. One of the academics enjoying funding from Novo Nordisk is Professor Stephen Simpson himself - the head of The Obesity Collective, Obesity Australia, and The Charles Perkins Centre. He has just received a grant for his research Ancestral causes of obesity: Understanding epigenetic transmission by spermatozoa; with co-author Romain Barres, Professor, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Professor Barres enjoys unlimited research funding from Novo. This information is not being hidden, it is right there on the Charles Perkins Centre website on Professor Simpson’s information page. It’s hard to find academics involved in Obesity Australia who are not being paid by Novo Nordisk in some capacity. And this reaches beyond the Obesity Collective and Obesity Australia, because Novo Nordisk are busily paying our medical doctors and health professionals as well. According to a news article from Crikey, Novo have spent $3.2 million over 3 years on speaker fees and for experts to sit on its medical advisory boards. Novo’s declarations show 1300 separate payments to Australian GP’s, nurses and specialists over 3 years, with recurring payments to a handful of prominent specialists. Basically, Novo are hell bent on creating an air of scientific legitimacy to penetrate a potentially very lucrative market. The Obesity Australia website has a ‘response’ to ‘recent media attention’ which is really talking about the Crikey series of articles. They don’t actually refute anything that was said in the articles, they simply say that Novo is not their only funding source! They also said that Obesity Australia relies mainly on ‘unpaid volunteers’, which Mandy calls bullshit on! Unless these volunteers are working a million hours, this is simply not true! In their financial reports, there are less than a handful of individuals who are actually listed as volunteers. It said that they have strict guidelines about industry funding and that any engagement with ‘third parties’ are passed through their industry guidelines - “Obesity Australia is transparent around funding and projects that are funded by third parties are passed through our engagement with industry guidelines. These consider the nature of the project to be funded in relation to potential conflicts of interest (real or perceived), and the degree of alignment between the commercial interests of the funder and improving the lives of those living with obesity.” We do have to say that we don’t know the ins and outs of Obesity Australia’s funding from 2017 onwards as they have not posted any financial statements yet. From 2015 onwards Obesity Australia’s financial reports became a lot less detailed. In 2015, Obesity Australia changed and was taken into the Charles Perkins Centre: “Obesity Australia, founded in 2011 has now joined with the Charles Perkins Centre, which will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of Obesity Australia. Obesity Australia remains in independent legal entity and will continue to be governed by the OA Board.” So we now have a lot less detailed financial information about the ins and outs of funding for Obesity Australia & The Obesity Collective, but we know that Novo Nordisk are still a major player in The Obesity Collective. Their logo is all over the Obesity Collective website. It is interesting because the Charles Perkins Centre really pride themselves on actually researching the impact of industry funding on how research and how knowledge is produced. None of the Charles Perkins research on the impact of industry funding has been directed towards Novo Nordisk. In September 2018 there was a flurry of media attention to the Charles Perkins research which showed that industry funding had a huge impact on research outcomes. Basically, corporate funding will skew the results towards industry not the people. Disclosure of payments by pharma and industry is important. Professor Simpson himself has had a lot to say about industry funding, coming out against Coke funding research at the Boden Centre for Obesity Research at the University of Sydney. Professor Simpson said that the Charles Perkins Centre had ‘strict guidelines’ regarding engagement with industry. And Louise had a look at these, and they basically say it’s really important for the centre to engage with industry. So there you go! So they are saying as long as we are transparent about our engagement with industry, it’s ok. Professor Simpson is actually also the Director of the engagement with industry committee! To their credit, The Charles Perkins Centre are transparent on their websites about Novo Nordisk funding their launch, about Professor Simpson’s research grant, and the unlimited research grants from Novo to write a series of reports about how awful the ‘obesity epidemic’ is, but there is a lot missing as well. Off the back of these reports came a shit tonne of publicity. Louise counted 11 different news articles in which the contents of these reports were discussed by either Professor Simpson or one of the Obesity Australia board members, and not once is the industry link mentioned in any of these press releases. This means that for the average person, there is no transparency. The average person would need to visit the website and trawl around to see who is funding the Obesity Collective in order to know. This is NOT transparent. There is a narrative being created which is being orchestrated by big pharma. Mandy has been asked to become involved in this world, but as a completely independent dietitian she declined. We will do a whole podcast on Saxenda, because we don’t have time now! Because the way the research is being conducted needs to be discussed. Also, Novo have more weight loss drugs in the pipeline, and Australians are being targeted for their market. With sparkly shopfronts like The Obesity Collective, positioned in prestigious universities, it’s really hard for the average person to figure out what science is really saying, and what marketing and funding is doing to how we think about all of this. Sydney uni and the Charles Perkins Centre even put on an entire event called “fighting truth decay” which was all about how industry funding can get in the way of seeing the truth! And who hosted it - you guessed it - Professor Locust! What a great technique to build trust, to be a university who talk about the corrupting influence of industry funding. But then to still do it??? Another of the Charles Perkins Centre events was about lived experience of ‘obesity’, but lo and behold they did not bother to record that! Speaking of lived experience, the Obesity Collective say they have this section called the “Weight Issues Network” which is apparently for people with lived experience ‘and their carers’ (condescending much??). But Mandy and Louise could find no evidence of this actually existing. Louise even emailed them asking to join, and so far - no response… In fact - CRICKETS!! How ironic that the lived experience of people in larger bodies is being erased by the Obesity Collective - who do not seem to have any larger people involved. There’s not even a picture of a larger person on their website, I mean COME ON. On the Obesity Australia website you can click through and see the members and they are all small. This is awful to see a committee writing about what they should do to solve the ‘problem’ of larger bodies…...with no one larger in sight. Maybe The Obesity Collective need to think about the reality of inviting people to be involved in a collective that wants to literally obliterate people who look like them. Representation is important, and this is not happening because this organisation cannot see past their own noses. Still stuck in 1935. We’ll end on a really scary quote from a Reuters story from 2017 about Novo where the CEO is talking about taking a ‘bet’ on obesity. “I see a huge opportunity in obesity and I don’t see a lot of competitors moving into the space,” he told Reuters during a visit to London.” “Saxenda only accounts for 2 percent of Novo’s overall sales but analysts expect it to sell more than $1 billion by 2023, according to consensus forecasts compiled by Thomson Reuters. “ So - the big agenda is for companies like Novo Nordisk to provide funding to organisations like Obesity Australia and The Obesity Collective, to push to have Obesity declared as a disease, so they can increase the market for their weight loss drugs. If they can get their drugs on the PBS, there is huge profit involved. What has completely done our heads in throughout are the claims made by Obesity Collective - to be inclusive (no), to de-stigmatise (no), to be mindful of health inequalities (no), to be informed by evidence and prepared to innovate (oh my god), and to DISCLOSE POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST! Which they do - but only if you look really, really hard. The Obesity Collective is a lovely smokescreen, and media reports are still not disclosing the funding. Everyone - please post pics of you eating those ‘lethal’ potato chips!   Resources Mentioned Find Mandy-Lee Noble on her website, on facebook, or email her at mandy@nourishedapproach.com.au The Obesity Collective website (also the Obesity Australia website) The 1935 factsheet about Curds ‘n Whey “Drinks That Make It Worse (!)” Serious prejudice against fish and chips The infamous potato chips as lethal ‘fact sheet’ Joseph Proietto’s fact sheet about the need for weight loss medication All about Professor Stephen Simpson, head of the Charles Perkins Centre, Executive Director of Obesity Australia, and head of The Obesity Collective. The Drum Episode The “Weighing In: Australia’s Growing Obesity Epidemic” report from The Obesity Collective Negative news stories about Allergan targeting poor and Aboriginal teens for their weight loss experiments More negative publicity about conflicts of interest in Australian obesity ‘experts’. The Novo Nordisk presentation where they blatantly reveal their aim to penetrate the Australian market (look under ‘resources from the 2015 summit’). Professor Simpson’s research grant buddy Romain Barr and his Novo affiliation. Professor Simpson’s Charles Perkins Centre Information page with his research grant from Novo. Just some of the payments made by Novo Nordisk to Australian health professionals. The Crikey articles discussing Novo’s plans to infiltrate Australia - there are a series of 4 articles, read them all: https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/07/01/obesity-politics-money-company-novo-nordisk/ https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/07/02/betting-obesity-benefits-disease-classification/ https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/07/03/commercial-bet-obesity-designed-create-the-market/ https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/07/04/betting-on-obesity-winning-hearts-minds-pockets-doctors/ Obesity Australia’s response to the Crikey articles Sydney University research on the impact of industry funding on outcomes: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2017/02/21/industry-funding-biases-drug-study-findings-.html https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/16/pharmaceutical-companies-spent-34m-on-patient-advocacy-groups-research-finds https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/anything-to-declare-corporate-influence-in-medical Professor Simpson being all fired up about industry funding with Coke The Charles Perkins centre transparency guidelines for working with industry 11 news articles featuring The Obesity Collective or its members in which Novo Nordisk funding was not mentioned: https://www.smh.com.au/national/that-was-the-most-heartbreaking-part-australia-s-obesity-epidemic-out-of-control-20190326-p517l5.html https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/research-shows-australians-must-lose-weight-to-save-money-and-help-improve-the-economy/news-story/d4618d77c9d04d14d6f5d3eed04c6185 https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/09/22/how-to-talk-to-a-loved-one-about-their-weight_a_21472370/ https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/‘we-can-really-call-this-an-epidemic’-obesity-rate https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/while-politicians-refuse-to-act-australians-become-more-overweight-20181113-p50fu9.html https://www.afr.com/leadership/fatness-debunked-as-obesity-expert-says-its-not-your-fault-20181113-h17trg https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/personal-responsibility-not-way-to-fix-obesity-crisis-20180801-p4zuwu.html https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/lets-get-creative-in-the-fight-against-obesity-20151201-glcy0v.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/02/25/obesity-cost-in-australia_n_9199240.html https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/obesity-australia-summit-2018-a-new-approach-to-a https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/the-obesity-collective/10056982 The Charles Perkins’ Centre event Fighting Truth Decay Scary story from Reuters about Novo and how it’s taking a ‘bet’ on obesity.

The Fast Track researchers have just published the results of their pilot study, and they are VERY excited about it! But does this optimism match the actual data? Don’t miss an explosive episode of All Fired Up, as I walk you through this paper step by step, breaking down into plain English what actually happened when 21 teenagers were starved three times a week for 6 months, all in the pursuit of short term weight loss. My guest is the incredible Ruth Leach, whose eating disorder began at the age of 9, when her whole family started fasting for ‘health’. Ruth not only survived her eating disorder, she is now a fierce advocate for everyone at the coal face of this deadly illness. We are LIVID about the lack of information being given to parents and kids who are being introduced to a lifetime of metabolic damage, weight cycling and disordered eating. The Fast Track trial is STILL GOING AHEAD, and we need to keep pushing back against this antiquated, weight biased, dangerous approach to teen ‘health’. Share this one far and wide!!   ShowNotes This week we bring you Part 2 of The Fast Track Trial, where we dig into the results of the newly published Fast Track Pilot Study. A pilot study is a mini-version of a larger trial, a practice run for ‘the real thing’, and the results can give you a pretty good idea of what kinds of results we can expect from a larger trial. I really wanted to get a ‘plain English’ summary of what happened in this trial out there. An article in The Age newspaper about the Fast Track controversy stated that: "While the trial is the first of its kind, Professor Baur said it had come off the back of a successful pilot program in which 25 teenagers followed a similar model and saw benefits in their cholesterol, blood pressure, liver and heart function." Which is interesting, because Louise was reading the results of the pilot study at the time, and was noticing that in fact the trial results showed no changes in blood pressure, overall cholesterol, or liver function, and only 1 small change out of 9 measures of heart function. This is quite different to what the media was saying! It is so important to go back to the source and have a look at the scientific studies behind the media soundbytes, so you can fact check and see what actually happened. This should be easy, but in reality it’s not. Reading a study is actually quite complicated, and even when you have degrees and training in science, it can still be quite difficult to make sense of what happened. This is why I am here to unpack it for you! It is important for parents and teenagers who may be being targeted to participate in this trial to clearly understand what is likely to happen as a result of taking part. This is why I am doing this podcast. The article has just been published in the Journal of Nutrition, and the title is “Intermittent Energy Restriction is a Feasible, Effective and Acceptable Intervention to Treat Adolescents With Obesity”. What an impressive and optimistic title! But does the optimism match the data? The pilot trial took place at Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead, kids were recruited from the adolescent  “O” treatment clinic. 45 kids aged between 12 and 17 were approached, and 30 said yes. There were 25 girls and 5 boys, and the average age of the kids was 15. All of the teens were supposed to have a BMI of 30 or more. In fact, they ranged from a BMI of 27.7 to 52.4, so at least one was well below the weight threshold.** 3 of the kids were from Aboriginal or Torres Strait islander background. 6 of them were born overseas. We don’t know more about the cultural background of the rest of the kids. The experiment ran for 6 months under a dietitian. There were no psychologists or eating disorder specialists involved. For the first 12 weeks all of the kids were placed on Optifast (shakes) and allowed just 600-700 calories a day for 3 days of the week. The rest of the week the kids were told to follow ‘healthy eating guidelines’. After 12 weeks teens were ‘invited’ to either keep starving for 3 days a week, or they could change to starving for 2 or 1 day a week, or they could swap to a ‘continuous prescribed healthy eating plan’ for the next 3 months. 7 of the kids didn’t make it past the 8 week mark. These tended to be ‘heavier’ kids. We don’t know what happened to them after that. 2 more dropped out before the experiment ended, so overall just 21 teens finished the whole 6 months.​ The kids were given a Fitbit, but were not given any instructions about physical activity. Mysteriously, the pilot paper never discusses the fitbit results. The primary measure they were looking at was weight loss at 12 weeks, with secondary interest in weight loss at 26 weeks, and they also did a range of health marker measures and one 20 item questionnaire which asked about eating disorder symptoms. 28 of the kids were categorised as ‘insulin resistant’ at the beginning of the study. At 12 weeks, and 26 weeks, the study reports weight change, but it’s actually quite difficult to figure out what that means. This is quite common: weight change in scientific papers can be reported in a huge variety of ways, eg BMI change, z score change, % excess weight loss change. Weight change was primarily reported as ‘percentage point change in BMI 95th%ile’, a very confusing statistic which stops everyday people from figuring out what the actual average change in weight was. A researcher can tell you something is statistically ‘significant’ even if it’s not that meaningful in real life. In the paper, it was reported that at 12 and 26 weeks the kids demonstrated a reduction in the percentage point change in BMI 95th%ile. But what does this actually mean in terms of real life weight change? It is impossible to tell. Luckily, the lead author presented her data at a conference where she did talk about the average kg weight loss for 19 of the 21 study completers. At this conference, she reported that after 12 weeks of intermittent starvation, the kids had lost on average 3.5kg. But by 26 weeks, these changes were not maintained; the teens had regained 1.4kg, so in total after 6 months of regular starvation, they were @2kg less than when they started, and they are likely to keep regaining. That’s not a big change, especially given the huge effort, and we know weight will keep coming back. We know this is the norm for most people who diet: dieting triggers a metabolic defence response, and our bodies fight to regain any weight loss. This is not a failure or a problem, it is the body’s built in response to dieting. What a difference between the raw data at a conference and adding the statistical wizadry in the published paper! There’s more to this story: in the paper,” Figure 3” is a graph which represents each of the kids percentage point BMI95th%ile change at 12 and 26 weeks. There’s a cute little diamond which represents each kid. And when you look at Figure 3, you can clearly see that one kid really stuck out from the rest of them: this kid lost WAY more weight at 12 and 26 weeks than the others, who really didn’t lose much at all. And it seems that this kid - this ‘statistical outlier’ - is responsible for changing the story of this data from concluding that weight loss between 12 and 26 weeks was ‘not maintained’ to saying that it was maintained, all because of one child who may in fact be developing an eating disorder right in front of us. Instead of removing this outlier (which is what a lot of researchers would do, because one person’s unusual results are skewing the data, and this isn’t what science is all about), it was left in. The fact that one person had an unusual response was not discussed in the paper. This is why it’s important to read the studies! To see what actually happened. We can also see in the Figure that at both time points, several of the kids had GAINED weight above the starting point - 3 at week 12 and 5 by 26 weeks. This is normal when we look at it from the perspective of the body’s response to starvation, but weight gain was not discussed in the paper. If you have almost a quarter of your sample over shooting with weight gain, it should be discussed!! Worryingly, the results show a significant reduction in height between 12 and 26 weeks. This was not discussed in the paper. This means that the teens' growth cycle is being interrupted. If a growing body is not getting adequate nutrition, the body will stop growing in order to compensate. Any impact of starvation on the teens’ menstrual cycle was not investigated. Given that 25 of the 30 were girls, this is staggering. Metabolic impact of starvation on the teenagers’ growing bodies was not measured or discussed in the paper. 28 of the 30 kids were reported to be ‘insulin resistant’ at the outset of the experiment. This was exactly the same after 6 months of semi starvation. Measures of cardiometabolic risk including cholesterol, blood pressure, and insulin resistance did not change after 6 months of intermittent starvation. Small changes in plasma triglycerides were reported, but these were in the normal range to begin with. A small increase in fasting plasma glucose occurred at 6 months, but overall no changes in insulin resistance occurred. Expensive and complicated vascular structure and function (heart) measures were taken, of 9 vascular measures only one was significantly changed by 6 months - arterial wall thickness. Measures of these factors were not taken for all of the completers. The comments made to The Age newspaper regarding the effectiveness of the Fast Track pilot are not true. The teenagers in the pilot study did not see "benefits in their cholesterol, blood pressure, liver and heart function". At best, one aspect of a secondary marker of heart function improved at 6 months, but the majority of bio-markers were unchanged. Dietary restraint - a measure which can indicate disordered eating and presence of an eating disorder - was significantly increased by 26 weeks. These scores were elevated to start with and became even higher as the starvation diet progressed. The paper does not discuss this at all. Although the paper reported ‘improvements’ in emotional eating and eating for external reasons, these scores were not unusual to begin with, therefore any reductions do not reflect a real life improvement, they are likely just reflecting the fact that the teens were eating less overall. Of 7 measured areas of quality of life, only 2 showed improvement by the end of the 6 months. Interestingly, the results showed that improvements in quality of life were more likely to happen for those kids who did manage to maintain their weight loss at 6 months, the ones who didn’t maintain their weight loss were worse off. Given that we know that all of these kids will continue to regain weight, it seems likely that their quality of life measures will worsen. However, the researchers will not follow them up long enough to find out. So they’ve just reinforced the idea that their self confidence is based on their weight. These outcomes are not great, yet their conclusions are effusive! I am sorry (not sorry) but the conclusions do not match the data. This Pilot study is being used to justify the Fast Track trial, and there is no plain English version out there. My guest Ruth Leach is an eating disorder survivor, her whole family suffered with eating disorder thanks to her dad’s obsession with fasting and his subsequent eating disorder. Ruth is tenacious, she organised a group complaint co-signed by 35 health professionals and people who have experienced eating disorder (many of whom attributed the cause of their disorder to teenage dieting). In the 1960’s Ruth was a ‘fussy eater’ - this would now be labelled as ARFID but back then there was no definition. When Ruth was 9, her dad went on a ‘wacky diet’ to prevent cancer - a fasting diet. The whole family began fasting. Ruth’s sister was 12 when they started fasting, and her growth was impacted - she didn’t grow very tall - Ruth is 8 inches taller than her - and she did not get her period until she was 17. Ruth developed childhood Anorexia, and then developed Bulimia as a teenager. She attributes the fact that she was able to grow taller to the binges she engaged in - they allowed her body the nutrition it craved in order to allow growth. Ruth follows the work of Gwyneth Olwyn, who talks about the concept of ‘extreme hunger’. A lot of people see bingeing as negative, but Ruth’s ‘extreme hunger’ was just her body trying to recalibrate after years of starvation. In Ruth’s early 50’s Ruth’s dad died, from complications of cancer. Even throughout his illness, he kept on fasting - he had an eating disorder. He was hospitalised repeatedly for re-feeding syndrome, and eventually this killed him. At this point Ruth’s eating disorder flared up, and she has been battling Anorexia again. Ruth’s dad did everything ‘right’, but still died of the cancer that fasting was meant to prevent. This is part of the reason the Fast Track study affected Ruth so much. It was only when Ruth’s dad was dying and her symptoms were returning did Ruth realise that it wasn’t just her, but her dad who was eating disordered. Ruth went through years of hell, but is out of her eating disorder now. Ruth became involved in peer support and online eating disorder support networks. Through the process of her recovery, Ruth learned about weight science and the ‘BMI lie” and how the ‘war on obesity’ is a complete beat-up. So much weight bias rampant in the field of ‘obesity’, and also the multi-billion dollar diet and weight loss industry that keeps the beat-up going. One of the reasons the industry is so huge is because our bodies have a built in mechanism to regain weight if we fall below our set point. This theory of set point is well established in science. This ‘war’ against obesity is really a war against biological reality. Ruth is concerned that the Fast Track trial will launch kids into either an eating disorder or a lifetime of disordered eating. The kids will also be introduced to a lifetime of weight cycling, and all of the health issues that come from that. The metabolic impact of repeated dieting causes a lot of the health damage that is attributed to higher weight itself. Ruth’s own life experience, and the experience of everyone in her peer to peer support networks, is that adolescent dieting ‘cost us dearly’.  For some, it has cost their lives: Ruth knows of at least 18 people in the last 2 years who have died from their eating disorder. And as teenagers, many of these people did the same thing that the kids in the Fast Track are being told to do. The Fast Track model is utterly a model of anorexia nervosa being sold to larger kids. Ruth’s complaint to the Fast Track ethics committee went into great detail about weight cycling and the risks to metabolic health, and also the risk of eating disorders. It was a very detailed complaint. We already have so many studies which demonstrate this risk. One study mapped out the pathway to developing an eating disorder. This starts with a child feeling dissatisfied with their body and experiencing bad body image, stigmatisation based on weight, and then dieting. So many of these kids have already crossed 3 out of the 4 stages of development of an eating disorder. So when the head researcher says there is no risk, Ruth asks how can you say that when there is good, consistent science based on thousands of people to say otherwise? The study the Fast Track is based on relies on just 21 kids’ results. And there was no follow up so we have no idea what happens to them a few years down the track. The study talks about the kids being placed on a healthy diet, but also says they were drinking Optifast shakes. On what planet is a shake an example of a healthy diet, especially for growing kids! This is an extreme intervention, but to realise in plain English that this means in all likelihood, your child will lose @3.5kg and then put it back on again, and not see any major health improvements - why on earth would you do this to your impressionable teen? This weight cycling aspect is not something the Fast Track parents or kids are being told about. The Fast Track has also been designed to stop following kids up at one year. At year 2 they have the option of reporting in again, but not a lot of effort is going into seeing what happens longer term. We really need to stop doing these short term studies and to design weight loss trials (if we do them at all) to have a 5 year follow up period - this is the only way we’ll be able to see the patterns of eating disorder development. What will the kids do when they overshoot in weight? Why isn’t anyone following people up? This research is already established - The Minnesotta Semi Starvation experiment showed clearly what happens to a starving body when it re-feeds. We really don’t need to keep ‘proving’ the risks, we need instead to stop exposing people to them. Out of the complaints that were lodged and following meetings with eating disorder organisations like the Butterfly, the Fast Track researchers said they would update the parent consent forms to better inform parents of the risks. That was back in February, and still we’ve heard nothing. In 2019, if you’re going to go into a weight loss experiment, you need to know what the science says about what you can reasonably expect in terms of weight loss and regain, and what to expect in regards to risk. This isn’t rocket science, it’s a basic human right! If they wrote down exactly what to expect, I wonder if anyone would sign their kid up! The increases in restraint are concerning, this is a marker of eating disorder development. Regardless of weight, this is a worry. In Ruth’s networks she advises parents to look at sudden weight losses in their kids, regardless of BMI - look at the disordered relationship with food, not the size of the child’s body. The fast Track researchers are saying that their adjustments to the study protocol - as in, checking more frequently for eating disorder markers - will increase safety, but how on earth can you detect an eating disorder behaviour if the study itself encourages disordered eating and rewarding restriction? If we put together the diary of someone with an eating disorder and a journal of the Fast Track kids, they would look almost identical. If someone was getting really sick, they won’t see it ! They will look like weight loss ‘success’ stories. People with eating disorders feel really good, and positive, when they are restricting. They can feel calm, clear headed, and energetic when they are starving. This is not a normal response to starvation, and it’s a deadly response. The Fast Track researchers will not be able to view this as troubling, and the kid will fall through the cracks. How do you get $1.2 million to fund a study with such unimpressive results? The data do not match the conclusions. Even the title of the pilot study is seriously overblowing their actual findings. We need to listen to the American Academy of Paediatrics - where it specifically says discourage dieting, and skipping meals, and encourage healthy eating. It’s not hard. This experiment is unacceptable. It only makes sense through the lens of weight bias. If we’re worried about people’s health, there’s better ways than risking the metabolic damage that comes from weight cycling from crash diets. At this point the Fast Track trial is still continuing, in spite of the enormous global protest. Please sign the petition! Emerging news this week - the Fast Track researchers have published another paper, a meta-analysis which claims or concludes that hospital based weight loss programs for kids and teens definitely doesn’t cause eating disorders. The team have now told the Butterfly Foundation that they are planning to post this study and the pilot study up on the Fast Track website as a way of communicating risk to the parents and teens who might be enrolling. I will dive into this paper & let you know - is there a difference between the data and the conclusions? Spoiler alert: they’re doing it again….. Informed consent is everything, and this is a serious problem with the researchers slapping up their own research as a way of getting around presenting potential participants with straightforward risk information. This brings up the very issues we’ve talked about today - how on earth are parents supposed to be able to read and understand this dense data? That’s why we need the plain English website where we clearly tell people about the risks and likely outcomes. Visit the Fast Track parents information website! ** Via a letter from a legal firm, the Fast Trackers informed me that this statement is incorrect, and that in fact the kids all had an 'age and sex adjusted' adult equivalent of a BMI over 30. No other aspects of my interpretation of the paper (including the interesting tweakery between the presentation figures and the addition of the outlier which changed the results) were challenged by the team. Resources Mentioned: Ruth’s complaint My complaint The Fast Track parent information website Gwyneth Olwyn Sign the Petition Join our fb group Connect with Ruth on Twitter Ruth’s tumbler post The ‘experts in the room’ blog What’s wrong with ‘obesity prevention’ ?

The “Fast Track to Health” trial is a year long semi starvation experiment aimed at Australian teenagers. Protest against the trial has been immense, with 20,000 people signing a petition to stop it, multiple complaints lodged to the Ethics Committee who approved the trial, numerous protest statements from eating disorder organisations, and substantial media attention. But the protest has fallen on deaf ears, and the trial looks set to go ahead. This week on All Fired Up, I speak with Emma Hagan, who was 10 years old when her parents took her to a paediatric “O” clinic to help her lose weight. Within a year, Emma was hospitalised with Anorexia, and 13 years later, she is still battling to find recovery. According to the Fast Track team, stories like Emma’s simply don’t happen - they believe that any risk is ‘minimal and manageable’. To which we say: BS. Stories like Emma’s need to be heard. Don’t miss this important conversation!   Shownotes The “Fast Track to Health” trial is a weight loss experiment running out of 2 childhood obesity clinics at Children’s hospitals in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. The trial is aiming to recruit 180 larger bodied teenagers aged 13 -17. In the trial, teenagers will be placed on a very low calorie diet (less than 800 calories a day) for a month, and then subjected to 3 days per week of fasting (less than 700 calories a day) for 11 months. The severity of calorie restriction on kids in growing bodies over such a prolonged period of time has alarmed thousands of health professionals around the world. We know that intermittent fasting is very trendy right now, but the research shows that in the long term, this kind of diet produces no different results than any other diet. On this type of diet, people lose a little bit of weight in the short term, and then the weight comes back. When Louise heard about the trial, she was horrified, and submitted a group complaint to the Ethics Committee who approved the trial which was co-signed by 29 health professionals and 2 organisations. The complaint detailed the lack of research evidence to suggest any efficacy for intermittent fasting, and called for the trial to be stopped on the grounds that it is dangerous and risked the physical and mental health of the teenagers. Dieting in adolescence is the number 1 risk factor for development of an eating disorder. And the more restrictive the diet, the higher the risk. There is a huge body of longitudinal research in the eating disorders literature to show that this risk is significant. Eating disorders health professionals spend a lot of time trying to prevent eating disorders. In teenagers, we really try to emphasise helping kids of all shapes and sizes to take pride in the bodies, to develop a relaxed and attuned relationship with food, and to discourage crash dieting. This trial flies in the face of all known advice usually given to kids. Of course, this intervention is being justified by saying that well, these kids are in larger bodies, they ‘need to lose weight for their health’. So suddenly, something that is extremely dangerous for an adolescent is ok if your body is above a certain number? Louise’s complaint was ultimately rejected by the Fast Track trial’s Ethics committee. They consulted with an anonymous panel of ‘experts’ who agreed that the risk was there, but said that the risk was worth it in the hope that the kids might lose a bit of weight. Louise then started the change.org petition, which has been signed by 20000 people. This petition is calling for the trial to be stopped. This is unprecedented - a weight loss experiment really hasn’t had this level of protest against it before. Numerous complaints to the Fast Track Trial's Ethics committee (more than 60) have been submitted, in groups and by individuals, and all of these complaints have been rejected. Unfortunately, all of these complaints have been dismissed, with the research team consistently justifying their trial. They have even claimed that the risks of eating disorders are ‘minimal and manageable’, which is an extraordinary statement. Anyone who has experienced an eating disorder, or works with young people with eating disorders, knows how absolutely serious and difficult to manage they can be. There’s no such thing as ‘minimal risk’ when you put someone on a crash diet, and there’s no such thing as ‘manageable risk’ when you look at an adolescent with an eating disorder. Dr Louise Baur has said that she is ‘not aware of any studies of hospital based weight loss programs for adolescents which show evidence of harm’. This is a very reductive way of looking at the research and accumulated knowledge of eating disorder development. Dieting, body dissatisfaction and eating disorder development in adolescence go together, and to say ‘look, it doesn’t happen on our watch’ is irresponsible. It’s like looking at the data and saying ‘yes, we know that smoking causes lung cancer, but it wasn’t our packet of cigarettes and we’ve never seen a study to prove it was our cigarettes’. A number of eating disorder organisations in Australia and around the world have called for the trial to be stopped, and posted statements protesting against the trial. There has also been a lot of media attention, some of it recognising the harm, and some of it quite weight biased, centring the ‘need for weight loss’ above all else. We’re not getting anywhere in stopping the Fast Track trial, and our concern is that parents and teenagers are not being adequately informed of the risks, dangers, research, and lived experiences of dieting as a teenager. So we have launched a website to help the general public better understand the issues and the protest. In the website, we go through the research on the efficacy of weight loss for teenagers, particularly intermittent fasting, and of course the risk of developing eating disorders. The website is www.fasttracktrial.com.au Please visit this site, and share it. We don’t believe the gravity of the risk is being adequately shared right now. One aspect which has been erased by the researchers is the stories and lived experience of people whose lives have been scarred by medically supervised dieting. According to the Fast Track team, these stories don’t happen. But they do. These stories need to be heard, and heeded. Today we meet Emma Hagan, and she is here to share her experience. Her eating disorder was directly caused by a paediatric ‘o’ intervention. Emma is still undergoing treatment for her eating disorder, and it is difficult for her to talk about these issues. We are very touched that she is willing to stand up and tell her truth. TW: those with eating disorder or in recovery, the following information may be triggering, as Emma discusses her illness and symptoms in detail. Emma is fired up, because of the way the media have treated this story - ie centring weight loss above her story. A media story just released about the Fast Track trial and the push back against it featured Emma and her experience. However, the article really didn’t pay adequate attention to Emma’s experience, instead favoring a weight loss story from one of the Fast Track participants. Emma found out about the Fast Track trial when she was on the train to Day program for her eating disorder treatment. She was horrified, and thought how did it get past ethics? Many people expressed this reaction - how did it get through ethics? Because the diet is so extreme, and so prolonged, and the target age is the highest risk age group for developing an eating disorder. Emma grew up in a larger body, and experienced teasing and bullying because of her weight. At the age of 10 she ‘practically begged’ her parents to help her to try to lose weight. At the time it was self preservation, she was tired of being picked on. Emma’s parents were aware of the risks of dieting, and wanted to be responsible, so they took her to a childhood ‘o’ clinic. They consulted with the paediatritian to design a safe weight loss program for Emma. Emma’s family did all the ‘right’ things. Emma was taught the difference between ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ foods. Early on they instilled the idea that weight loss is good, weight gain is bad, certain foods were good or bad. Emma said it was hard to lose weight when she was at school, with her friends, just trying to be social and a normal 10 year old. That’s not compatible with weight loss. Emma loved food. Over the Christmas holidays, she ‘gained weight’. When she returned to the “o” clinic, she was lambasted for it. This pushed her to increase exercise, decrease food intake, and it became very obsessive. She got to the point where she had lost ‘enough weight’, was told by the paediatritian to stop, but by then she couldn’t. The eating disorder had taken hold. The clinic taught Emma that restriction was a good thing. And the level of restriction she was on was less severe than the level required in the fast Track trial This happened over a period of around 1 year. By the age of 11 she was diagnosed with Anorexia, was hospitalised, and fed on a tube. Emma was sick for many years. Her hospitalisations did not stop at the age of 11. There is a culture of eating disorders in adolescence, which Emma’s parents shielded her from. But still the disorder had her in its grip. Emma is now 24, and still in treatment. Emma blamed herself, not the diet or the ‘o’ clinic, for her illness. She thought she’d taken a good thing ‘too far’. She never questioned the whole paradigm of ‘weight loss is a good thing’, she did not know of HAES or the impact of diet culture or weight stigma. The paediatritian visited Emma in hospital when she was 11, and pretty much told her it was her fault. She seemed surprised that Emma had developed an eating disorder. In retrospect, this was very unfair of her, but at the time it made sense to Emma. One of the repeated messages we are hearing from the Fast Track team researchers is that the risk of an eating disorder is ‘minimal and manageable’. Emma thinks this is dismissive and idealistic. Eating disorders are not ‘managed’. They have their own life. They are obsessive and possessive, and not able to be placated by a professional. Professional oversight did not prevent Emma’s eating disorder. For 13 years, Emma has had a supportive eating disorder treatment team, but if has only been the last 6 months she has been able to embrace recovery. Emma has a team of professionals: a psychiatrist, psychologist, dietitian, and a supportive family. Eating disorders don’t just affect one person, it’s the whole family. It’s surprising in this day and age that we even need to be talking about the risks of dieting - that people like Emma need to stand up and say, this happened to me. It seems pretty obvious that starvation, even if it’s ‘clinically approved’, will lead to an eating disorder. It’s not rocket science! But there is a real push at the moment to erase stories like Emma’s. The Fast Track team even presented a paper at the International Congress for Eating Disorders (ICED) which said that hospital based weight loss programs for teenagers and kids did not cause eating disorders, were safe, and actually ‘beneficial’. The paper hasn’t been released yet, but as soon as it is, Louise will report on it! Because often in their research, the Fast Track team’s conclusions don’t match their data. The Fast Track teams’ prior research shows very little benefit to people in bigger bodies, and yet they’re pressing on with this experiment which is so precarious….. In years to come, we are likely to see a real push back in the form of legal action against programs like these. Emma was interviewed by Melissa Cunningham, the health reporter from The Age newspaper. Emma found it challenging to go through the interview process, she is very insecure about her eating disorder and it was difficult to talk about. She had thoughts like the article wouldn’t go ahead because she wasn’t ‘anorexic enough’. The reported also wanted photos of Emma at her most emaciated, which Emma refused to supply. So they took photos of her now. Reading the article, Emma was genuinely surprised. She even thought - maybe it wasn’t the right one? Because it centred around a dad who had a 14 year old daughter in a larger body, she was active and healthy but always compared herself to her ‘rake thin’ sister. So the dad decided to enrol his daughter in the Fast Track trial, and now the daughter is 8 weeks in, a few kilos lighter and is ‘so happy’. This trial is supposedly for teens in larger bodies who have ‘health complications’ - this girls health status is never mentioned - it’s all about weight. Emma’s story, and the whole story of the protest and the complaint, was sandwiched between this ‘feel good’ weight loss story. Revolting! Considering that it was Emma writing an email to the journalist to raise awareness of the concerns about the trial, to have the whole thing spun into a weight centric erasure of Emma’s story - sucks. The article also minimised the protest against the trial, it only mentioned Louise’s complaint, it did not name the petition, the eating disorder organisation warnings - it really downplayed the push back. Emma emailed the reporter with some ‘Frank feedback’. Her whole experience was washed, erased, by diet culture. There is no good outcome from this trial. There will be minimal and short term weight loss, but the kids won’t be followed for long enough to capture the regain. Failing to pick up eating disorder risk factors, the trial will likely result in ‘interventions’ like this being rolled out to more and more teens in larger bodies. This is a terrifying normalisation of extreme dieting. This trial is the opposite of body acceptance. If they find evidence of eating disorders developing, this means that these kids have been guinea pigs, exposed to known risks even after we have raised the alarm. The researchers might say if they catch it early enough - it’ll be good. But Emma’s WAS caught early - in fact, Emma’s was created by the intervention itself. Early intervention did not save her from a 13 year nightmare. If I was a journalist and heard Emma’s story, I can’t imagine then preferencing a small weight loss story above hers. This speaks to the magnitude of weight bias in our culture. There is such a danger in unexamined weight bias. We have unexamined weight bias in the clinic, in the researchers, in the reporter investigating the story, in the politicians and NHMRC who we are appealing to - weight bias impacts everywhere, it is significant and difficult to undo. We need to listen to the voices of people like Emma. This can happen. It could happen to you too. Please - visit the website, and get across the information about the risks and research. We really need to heed the lessons of 70 years of weight loss research, and make major changes. Weight loss dieting does not work. Big changes need to happen, we can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again & expect a different result. Non-diet approaches to health help people to learn wonderful and health sustaining behaviours which can stick, without harming. Look for HAES Australia, or visit the Ellyn Satter website. Resources: The Fast Track parents information website The Age article where Emma’s story was erased The HAES Australia website The Ellyn Satter Institute Join our fb group - Stop the Fast Track Trial  

Wellness influencers are everywhere; our social media is littered with shiny haired, sparkly toothed, spray tanned gurus eager to sell us a 'better version' of ourselves. Wellness is just diet culture in organic recyclable wrapping, and my guest Virginia Sole-Smith, feminist author, has had ENOUGH already. Who is responsible for this epidemic of commercialised wellness? WELL, ACTUALLY, our cultural obsession was engineered by thin white men! That's right, back in the late 1990's a bunch of privileged white dudes created a whole new way of gaslighting women! No longer content with the simplistic demand for thinness, wellness culture has added extra layers of guilt - not only MUST we be thin, we must also care about the environment, never eat processed foods, recycle, and remain ZEN. It's exhausting, confusing, and we've had enough! Join us for an epic rant! Show Notes My guest is the fierce and fabulous Virginia Sole-Smith, journalist and author of “The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America”. Virginia is enormously cheesed off with privileged, thin white men who get off on telling us what to do with our bodies and how big/small we need to be. I found a brilliant article that Virginia had written entitled “Well, Actually...The thin white men who rebranded dieting as “wellness”” - and just HAD to talk to her more about this. There are a truckload of ‘mansplainers’ in the wellness space. And in her article, Virginia is tracing back the timeline of our current wellness saturation. Virginia points out that currently, wellness ‘influencers’ are often thin white women, and they cop a fair amount of criticism for their messaging - RIGHTLY SO - but when we look at where they’re getting this world view of wellness from, it does tend to go back to thin white men who really think they know how everybody should eat. Back in the 1980’s diet culture was heavily influenced by thin white men like Dr Atkins (Atkins Diet) and Dr Agatston who invented the South Beach Diet. We’ve had men telling us what to eat for decades! This trend dovetailed with women entering the workforce since the 1970’s. If we can keep women focused on our bodies, on trying to stay as small as possible, that saps a lot of energy when we could be out dominating the world. In the 1990’s Naomi Wolf wrote in The Beauty Myth that dieting is the most potent sedative in women’s history, it keeps us focused in a really narrow way and not participating in the world. We can trace this trend of the Thin White Men back even further, back to Kellogg, to Banting, to these thin white men who dominated and create the narrative of deprivation for us to follow. Even Jenny Craig launched her business with her husband Sid who was really the driver of the business model, while she was ‘the face’. This often happens - a woman is the front of house but a man is powering everything. Guys often take credit for their thinness when in reality they’re born on 3rd base - they have bodies that are genetically programmed to be a smaller size. Others are programmed differently, theirs just happens to fit a cultural ideal. It’s not really through anything they did, it’s just biology & genetics that set them up this way. The ‘bootstrapping’ mentality - if you have success, that’s definitely down to you, but concepts like adversity, hardship, oppression - none of that really applies to the Thin White Men. In the mid 2000’s, Thin White Guys got more subtle, and more overtly political than their diet peddling forefathers In the 1990’s and even early 2000’s, we knew when a diet was a diet. But when Thin White Men like Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food) and Michael Bittman (Vegan Before 6) came along, they talked about food with an environmental and political agenda, this whole other mission of reducing meat consumption and embracing organic farming. Concepts like this - having a more sustainable food supply, or eating more plant based foods, - are fine, and useful ideas, but the Thin White men turn these concepts into dogma, and take it into communities who just don’t have access to this way of living and to be honest have bigger problems to face than the quality of the food they’re eating, and say hey, you should eat like me and the “o*esity crisis’ will be solved. For many people, it’s hard to connect with organic farmers, but if it is framed in terms of the weight issue, this becomes something that really grabs people’s attention. This is where the groundwork for our modern concepts of wellness came from - now it’s not about dieting, now it’s about wellness and healthy eating and sustainability. Except it’s not, it’s still about weight! We’ve really lost the environmental agenda but we’ve still attached this morality to these food choices. This is where it gets really elitist and classist and racist, in addition to the misogyny that’s been there all along. I’m better than you because of how I eat. Louise admits that early on in her anti-diet career, Michael Pollan’s book was for sale in her practice! He was so convincing. It took her a while to recognise how elitist and snobby (and white) it was to tell people that a certain way of eating was morally superior to another, without taking consideration of the multiple layers of disadvantage and inequality people experience. Michael Pollan did one great thing - he called out the ‘fake’ diet foods (especially low fat yogurt, how gross) which were very unsatisfying for people. The problem was he replaced it with another diet and did not empower people to trust their bodies. Pollan never questioned the thin is good rhetoric, he even talks about his way of eating as a way to solve the ‘problem’ of larger bodies. Pollan’s second book, “The Rules of Food”, is like a women’s dieting magazine article, but it’s written by a man. Ewwwww. The mansplaining of wellness is not just an American Thin White Man thing. In the UK, Jamie Oliver also talks up the power of unprocessed foods as a way of solving the apparent ‘crisis’ of larger kids. At first, approaches like Oliver’s seemed exciting, and Louise had his cookbooks as well, it was fun to enjoy cooking again with lots of fresh foods. But as time progressed it seems that his message has increased in fervour, that the reason to eat like this is to change the problem of fat bodies. Jamie’s habit of lunch box shaming drives Virginia crazy, as kids don’t really have a lot of choice as to what’s in their lunch box. It’s particularly stigmatising to poorer and disadvantaged kids, which is evil! Here in Australia, the King of the Humans when it comes to Thin White Men mansplaining wellness is Pete Evans or ‘Paleo Pete’, a celebrity chef from Masterchef who owned a pizza restaurant and was normal until he discovered the Paleo diet, lost 300 grams, and became an absolute zealot. He’s gone really extreme, totally rogue, anti-fluoride, anti-vaccination etc. The amount of moralising and dressing up wellness as a disguise for thinness is really awful with Pete. It seems he is everywhere right now as well. It’s really dangerous the way people like this use flimsy arguments or bring up totally shit studies to support their extreme views. And we are vulnerable to these people and these messages. In her article Virginia writes that celebrity influencers like Gwyneth Paltrow have been ‘simultaneously inspiring and terrorising their audiences”, and this works well for Paleo Pete too. It’s 5% inspite and 95% terrify and gaslight, introducing this distrust in our bodies. Don’t trust yourself, you need to outsource everything to this guru or expert. This was the foundation for Virginia’s book The Eating Instinct, that as humans, we generally know when we are hungry, what we feel like eating, and when we are full. We can trust this. Virginia is a journalist, who used to be a ghost writer for celebrity “lifestyle’ books, and used to cover ‘wellness’ for women’s magazines - right in the thick of it! As a feminist it was really hard and Virginia struggled with the messages women were being given around food. For a long time, Virginia looked for the ‘right’ diet - one that would work. And Michal Pollan offered that, or so it looked, so for a long time Virginia was on that bandwagon. In 2013 when Virginia’s daughter Violet was born, everything changed. Violet was born with a congenital heart condition and she almost did. As a result of this, she stopped eating completely and was dependent on a feeding tube for the best part of 2 years. Virginia had done everything ‘right’ - really trying to look after her prenatal nutrition, exercise etc, and now her baby would not eat and no-one knew why. There are no experts, there are no plans here. There’s just me and this kid and we’ve got to figure this out! When Violet was too scared to eat, it really brought home the reality of food as a basic instinct. It’s not about finding the right ‘plan’, it’s about figuring out our own relationship with food. Virginia realised it wasn’t just about nutrition: food needed to provide comfort. In order to get Violet to eat, she needed to teach her that food was safe, comforting and pleasurable. In diet culture emotional eating is viewed as a ‘bad’ thing, when in fact this is what we’re programmed to do. Babies eat emotionally! The act of feeding a baby raises our oxytocin levels - the hormones associated with love, safety and comfort. And this is breast or bottlefeeding! Diet and wellness culture views eating as something to get ‘right’ nutritionally, and ignores all of these other important aspects of our relationship with food. Even in some non-diet spaces, there’s a message that if you learn the principles of mindful eating you’ll stop comfort or emotional eating. This is different to eating to numb difficult emotions - which we may call comfort eating, but it’s not really providing comfort, it’s more a habit of eating to escape or check out from difficult emotions. It’s more accurately described as ‘distress’ eating. At the heart of this kind of eating is restriction, and you can’t get away from this type of pattern unless you have full permission to eat. Once this sense of permission and safety is established, a beautiful self-regulation can appear, so you feel safe eating whatever you feel like, and you also know when you’ve had enough. That’s pretty radical, and something a lot of adults struggle with in diet culture! Many people who come to the non-diet approach arrive because they want to stop the binge or comfort eating. But establishing a safe foundation of food safety needs to happen first - not elimination of binge eating. When you start the process of permission and food safety, often you will eat more than you might be used to while everything is settling in. This can be scary for people, but it is necessary to keep embracing full permission, as it’s only when we feel truly safe that we can start to feel more in contact with physical signals. Going through the process of eating more is not pathological - you are healing from this deprivation induced trauma. It can take time & can be messy! In diet culture the restriction mindset is so dominant, particularly for women we are taught that we should always want less. It’s so difficult to eat, especially in public. This is this patriarchal message about food that we’ve really internalised. It’s a very radical thing to reject that, and to say I embrace my hunger, my appetite, my body, my right to take up space in the world. We’re fighting not just for ourselves, but for others, and for future generations. During Virginia’s experiences with Violet, she got to know a lot about paediatric feeding problems and how they are treated. In the USA, babies are treated at feeding centres, not eating disorder clinics. It’s behaviour therapy - kids are encouraged to push through their fears, and get rewards for eating a bite of food. Virginia was horrified - knowing that her daughter was going to grow up in diet culture, with so many messages already there to not listen to her body - and the programs would really strongly reinforce this. Virginia believed that Violet’s response to the trauma was logical, and that treatment needed to honour that. She researched & found out about the child lead model, a longer process but one which really allows the trauma to heal and for the child to re establish a sense of safety and comfort around food. The behavioural approach is quicker, it’s a kind of boot camp model. But for Virginia, it was like looking at dieting versus intuitive eating, and she wanted to do the intuitive model. Virginia began to realise that it is the loss of the eating instinct - the loss of knowing hunger, fullness, and a sense of safety and comfort - that underpins many eating struggles. So she wrote a book about it! The book has many stories of how people get disconnected from their instincts, and how this impacts their lives. Virginia’s experiences with Violet have really helped her with her second daughter, to navigate things like appetite fluctuation without panic. The feeding philosophy which underpins Virginia’s approach to Violet is called “The Division of Responsibility in Feeding” developed by Ellyn Satter, she’s been around for decades. This says that feeding is a relationship, that parents and kids have distinct roles. Parents are in charge of what, where and when to eat. Kids are in charge of how much to eat, and whether or not to eat everything on offer. With this model, food intake may not look ‘balanced’ at every meal, but over time, they tend to get everything they need. Also what appears is this ability to self regulate, for the kids to really know what they need, it’s so awesome. When you have kids who are intuitive eaters, things change all the time. And that’s ok. It’s about honouring the child’s instincts, not policing their nutrition intake. This is where the lunch box policing is not helpful! There are many other considerations than dietary quality. An awful news article came out recently comparing the lunch box contents of rich kids to poor kids, with the conclusion of look how much better the rich kids are eating…..tone deaf! It is a privilege to be able to think about dietary quality. It is ok to give your kids comfort food. And processed foods! Violet wouldn’t have learned how to get comfortable to eat without baby food pouches. Certainly, there’s something wonderful about improving our food supply. But we need to not shame people, and also to honour people’s individual relationships with food. Feeding kids is not easy! We need to honour the work parents are doing. Resources Mentioned: Virginia’s amazing piece for Bitch Media: “Well, actually…..” More about Ellyn Satter & The Division of Responsibility model The awful news article on school lunch boxes Find out more about Viriginia Sole Smith

Diet culture has a nasty habit of targeting women at vulnerable times in their lives, and this is particularly evident in pregnancy and birth. This week on All Fired Up!, I am venting with the incredible Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant from Be Nourished, who bravely walked into a medical conference and called out the rampant weight stigma which is hurting pregnant women. This is a not to be missed episode, how women in larger bodies are being treated by the medical profession is just NOT OK. Women are being told that their vagina is “too fat to give birth”, that they won’t live to see their babies grow up, that they need to lose weight! The fact is, most women in larger bodies have healthy pregnancies and births, but are having the bejeezus scared out of them with some seriously odious threats. Reclaiming your body and your power is possible. It’s time to take your body sovereignty back!!   Show Notes Hilary and Dana, anti-diet health professionals from Be Nourished, are utterly fired up about the never ending pressure that diet culture puts on women at vulnerable times of our lives, particularly with regards to fertility, pregnancy, and birth. They were invited to speak at a conference where they could talk about body positivity and managing risk in pregnancy. Whilst an awesome and much needed topic, they were the only speakers to talk about weight stigma. In the medical community there is some acknowledgment that weight stigma impacts health, but the vast majority of professionals are seeing weight stigma as a barrier to losing weight, which is just not reflective of a deep understanding of these issues. Stigma itself affects health, greatly, and this is not being researched nearly enough. Multiple sources of oppression intersect in pregnancy. Women are of course oppressed in general in a patriarchal society. Women of colour, and women in larger bodies who are of colour, suffer the most from these structural oppressions. Women who experience stigma can have a harder time giving birth, because of the stigma, not their weight alone. The history of gynaecology is implicitly racist and sexist. Early experiments in gynaecology were performed on Black women without anaesthetic, as it was believed they could not feel pain as much as white women. although we own the bodies that are giving birth, we are often told that we are ‘not qualified’ to make choices about our births. The concept of ‘weathering’ is when multiple levels of stigma impact on our bodies. Serena Williams’ experience of birth is reflective of this impact of stigma and the inherent disregard for women’s agency in pregnancy and birth. Higher rates of caesarian sections occur in women with higher BMI’s. But why? How much of this is due to the belief that as a woman in a larger body, you can’t deliver safely? This idea of ‘colouring’ - that when we internalise weight stigma, it colours our decisions and choices. The midwifery model is to view birth as an event, not an emergency. The vast majority of women in larger bodies have successful pregnancies and births. And if something goes wrong, this can be managed most of the time. The actual risks of complications in birth are being exaggerated by statistical buggery. Women are facing systemic discrimination in the area of birth. Women are often told they can’t give birth in their local hospital, in rural & remote Australia they are being flown to hospitals in capital cities. Imagine the impact of this. We are so vulnerable at this time and we need our support networks. Physicians are frequently scaring women and telling them that their weight means they are automatically a high risk pregnancy. This is because many health professionals receive training which views a larger body as a problem or a risk factor. If we believe we are not capable of a birth, this will reflect on outcomes. Once women pick up the idea that the medical professionals will judge their bodies, they will avoid pregnancies in order to avoid judgement, or choose to avoid medical care altogether. Society is messed up and your body is not, medical providers have been given a biased education. It is ok to grill your health professionals in order to assure that you are safe. If you do have a complication during birth, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or a bad mother.   Resources Mentioned: Find out more about Hilary & Dana at Be Nourished Watch the Being Serena Documentary Nothing dear, you’re not qualified! The article about risks of birth defects in larger women and how statistical buggery is being used to inflate the risk. Fantastic article about how the medical community fat shames mums. This is the one where the woman was told her vagina was ‘too fat’ to give birth. And the awesome comment from Dr Shah. The Australian study on weight bias in maternity care. Awesome FB group for ‘plus size pregnancy’ Help with diabetes through a weight inclusive lens - Megrette Fletcher    

It’s the 50th episode of All Fired Up! and we are delving into the Keto Diet craze!! Join me and my fabulous guest Jessi Haggerty, RD and nutritionist, as we set the record straight on all of this ketosis nonsense. As Keto fever sweeps the planet, we really need to stick on our critical thinking hats. Just what is ketosis, and why is everyone trying to do it? Is it really the answer to life, the universe, and everything, or is it just another fad? (Spoiler alert: the answer begins with the letter F).   Show Notes Urgent call for action - In Sydney and Melbourne, the “Fast Track to Health” trial is about to kick off, and researchers are planning to subject adolescents to a starvation diet for an entire year. Please sign the petition to get this stopped! Jessi Haggerty, RD and nutritionist, has had a gutful of all of the ‘hot diets’ around in January. She has a special pet hate for the Whole 30, which she talked about on her podcast recently. The sister diet to the Whole 30 is the Keto diet! Keto is THE hot diet right now. Jessi wrote a great blog on this topic - a Dietitian’s take on the Keto diet - which is really awesome. Jessi’s intern did a lot of the writing and heavy lifting for this blog, so a shout out to her. The Keto diet has taken the low carb movement to the next level. It’s not like going low carb/high fat is new - we saw it in the 90’s with the Atkins diet. Well, the Keto diet is Atkins 2.0, but it’s even harsher than Atkins! Keto started as a medical solution for children with epilepsy. Paediatric dietitians help kids with epilepsy follow a very high fat, medium protein & very low carbohydrate diet. Dietitians typically recommend that 40-50% of our intake be carbohydrate based, on a keto diet this goes way down to about 5%. The primary reason for doing this for kids is seizure prevention. It is an extreme measure that is only used when the medications don’t work. Because doctors and parents know how difficult it is to stick to such an extreme diet. But this is a last ditch effort in a very difficult situation. And for these kids, the keto intervention only works about 50% of the time. The mechanism of why this type of intervention might work to reduce epileptic seizures is unclear. Somehow, this diet was adopted by the mainstream as a way to lose weight. Go figure! Some people talk about using Keto for disease management, but overwhelmingly people are using it as a weight loss/fat loss tool. Like any weight loss diet, keto has major downsides. Restriction like this is not fun for people, and can lead to disturbed eating patterns and even eating disorders. Metabolic disturbance is also a serious consequence of dieting. How on earth did this diet get so popular! It’s really big in gym culture in Australia - it’s just so popular. We just keep going for fewer and fewer carbs - what’s next! There is a difference between ketoacidosis and ketosis. Ketoacidosis can happen if you are diabetic and your blood sugars get very low. Ketosis is when your body doesn’t have enough sugar in your system to keep everything running efficiently, so your liver creates ketones to keep your body going. Ketones are your bodys’ ‘back up’ mechanism which makes sure you can survive, and find food again. Ketones are not your bodys preferred source of energy, they are a back up system to take care of you when you don’t have enough carbohydrates. ...And this is being sold as a ‘healthy diet’ for people!? We literally hear people bang on about ketosis as if it is a superior way of living. Just because our body can use alternative sources of fuel, doesn’t mean that we should or need to be aiming for it! You’re just putting stress on the body in the name of weight loss. What is the impact on the brain of starving it of glucose and carbohydrates? Brains love these! Jessi’s blog post brought the ire of people who have tried Keto and say that it has ‘worked for them’. Jessi challenges them - what do you mean by ‘worked’ - (it’s going to mean weight loss!). A lot of people told Jessi that it helped lower their blood sugar levels. Which if course will happen, because you’re not eating any carbohydrates! Fiona Willer talks about the concept of ‘metabolic austerity’, where when your body is really deprived of food, it isn’t even well enough to be sick…It doesn’t mean that the underlying health condition has improved, it’s just being suppressed. For every negative response to her blog, Jessi got 10 messages from people who said the Keto diet had major side effects - they couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t concentrate in classes etc. It chips away at you little by little. Of course, not being able to poo is a problem because not enough fibre! This is a big deal! People are voluntarily not pooing? No thanks! Plus, the bad breath thing. It’s a side effect of the ketones having that specific smell. Gross! Keto diets have become so popular in Australia, that in some rural and remote areas the pharmacies have sold out of urine strips, so people with actual health condition can’t monitor themselves. Because gym dudes want to check they’re in ketosis! To be so obsessed with wee and to forget all about poo, doesn’t seem right to me. This diet is so unsustainable. Getting and staying in ketosis is really difficult. A lot of people who are doing this are torturing themselves and not even getting into this ‘glorified state’. It’s a lot of work for very little benefit. We have no solid research that this diet is helpful at all, aside from the evidence for kids with epilepsy. We don’t even do this treatment for adults with epilepsy. The research is only short term. And we know from 70 years of weight research that weight loss is likely to be temporary only, and the impact on metabolism is quite scary potentially. Although Jessi wrote the blog a while ago, she is still getting comments! One comment said that Jessi is “drowning in carb-tard cognitive dissonance”! WTF! The Keto people are a bit us and them - what is a carb-tard! If they’re saying there is something wrong with people’s brains because they eat carbs - that’s the pot calling the kettle black! If this diet makes you feel restricted and you’re struggling, it’s probably not for you. If it works for you, that doesn’t mean that the entire body of science is wrong. If the majority of people aren’t doing well, that means something - go elsewhere! Selling this as if there is no risk is the real cognitive dissonance. Won’t it be nice when we can go back to the high carb fads again! There will always be a fad to talk about. Louise tells her story about being scammed out of $300 with a ‘keto ultra diet’ pill! There is a lot of privilege involved in selling ketosis. It’s paying a lot of money to starve yourself. If you are tempted to diet, take a step back and ask yourself - what is the problem I am trying to solve here? Is there even a problem? A lot of the time, nothing is wrong. And these weight loss ‘solutions’ create a whole world of problems. And take a close look at the science. And always go non diet!!! Resources Mentioned: Starving Our Teens - Update on the Fast Track to Health” blog Sign the petition to Stop The Fast Track Trial The A Current Affair story about the Keto Diet pill scam A Dietitian’s Take on “Going Keto” by Jessi Haggerty - blog and podcast and Instagram  

Welcome to the All Fired Up Second Annual Crappy Awards! In this nail biting episode, we hear rants from people all over the world who are letting us know their thoughts on the sh*ttiest diet culture trend for 2018. Hilary Smith, social justice warrior, pole dancer AND winner of last years’ Inaugural Crappy awards, is here to judge the contestants, and my goodness it’s a stiff competition! Pour yourself a drink and get ready to be utterly gobsmacked by the utter diet culture bullsh*t delivered in 2018!   Show Notes It’s time for the 2nd annual Crappy Awards show! Thank you to everybody who submitted their audio rants, we have a very high standard of entries this year! And it is fantastic to have applications from listeners as well as non-diet health professionals. What was the worst, most irritating diet culture trend for 2018? I am joined by last year’s Crappy Award winner, Hilary Smith, who has kindly agreed to come on the show to judge this years entrants and crown the new winner! Hilary will judge each nomination according to Creativity, Quality of the Argument, Passion, and Number of Swear Words. Louise needed to have a little rant about her pet peeve for 2018, the f*cking intermittent fasting craze, with a special mention to Michael Mosely for expanding the spread of such bullsh*t. And to all of the health professionals and researchers pretending that this stupidity is the key to long lasting, effective weight loss, Louise says SCREW YOU! Crappy Award Nominee #1, from New Zealand’s Tania Vincent from Thrive Nutrition: A horrific facebook ad for a fat shaming phone app, using cute little cartoon characters to sell calorie control. Crappy Award Nominee #2, from listener Jade Pettersen: After having gastric surgery, it seems like your body becomes public property! And the support groups online are like breeding grounds for eating disorders! Crappy Award Nominee #3, from listener Ava: Louise reads a heartfelt email about how the weight loss surgery business model is targeting vulnerable people. A good friend of Ava’s was encouraged to take out her superannuation to pay for the surgery, even though her friend has significant mental health issues. Ethics anyone? Crappy Award Nominee #4, from Mind Body Well psychologist Janet Lowndes: The incredibly unethical “Fast Track to Health” trial being run here in Sydney and Melbourne, where adolescents are being  put on intermittent fasting diets for an entire year, in spite of the lack of efficacy for this type of diet. This is just a recipe for an eating disorder, and it is equally heart breaking and enraging that it’s allowed to proceed! Crappy Award Nominee #5, from Heather Eisman all the way from Alaska!: The “Bright Lines Eating” program by Susan Peirce Thompson, a horrendous example of monetising the 12 step programs and increasing restrictive thinking in people who already have eating issues. Crappy Award Nominee #6, from UNTRAPPED member Alyssa: Unsolicited health advice from thin people who think they are doctors. Crappy Award Nominee #7, also from Alyssa: The Cookie Diet - almost no words! Crappy Award Nominee #8, from Anna Hearn from Haven Wellness: The entire diet culture and its relentless toxicity, in particular this idea (incorrect) that we can all ‘choose’ our own body weight. Not supported by science! Crappy Award Nominee #9, from Sona, member of Haven Wellness: Policing people who speak about HAES beyond the idea of body acceptance/body love. Crappy Award Nominee #10, from Natalie Haider, psychologist and yoga instructor from Haven Wellness: Placing the pursuit of health on a pedestal while ignoring all of the other ways humans can be absolute shits to each other. Crappy Award Nominee #11, from listener Mia in California: “WW” and the awful Mindy Grossman, planning to get WW into every home on the planet. Please bugger off Mindy. The Second Annual Crappy Award Prize is a Bullshit Button! The Crappy Award winner is Alyssa, nominee #6, for unsolicited health advice! Unbelievably well delivered sarcasm means Alyssa wins, with 4 equally amazing ties for second place! Resources Mentioned: Hilary Smith’s award winning Crappy rant from last year’s show: The incredibly fatphobic ad for the Huawei mobile phone calorie counter app, thank you to Tania Vincent from Thrive Nutrition for this entry! Find out more about the amazing anti-diet psychologist Janet Lowndes Find out more about Anna Hearn & Haven wellness here

Strap yourself in for a wild ride on the rollercoaster of yo-yo dieting! My guest is utterly fierce HAES psychologist and eating disorder specialist Deb Burgard @BodyPositivePhD who is DISEMBOWELLING a new study which claims that yo yo dieting is actually really good for you. You will not believe how shaky this science is, or the lengths that Deb went to in order to sniff out the truth! Join us for a fabulous rant about the evils of the weight cycling industry, mouse research, dodgy science, cake icing, white supremacy, and more!   Show Notes   The fabulous Deb Burgard is fired up about the weight scientists desperately trying to legitimise the failure of dieting by using mouse research to justify weight cycling. The vast majority of people who diet put the weight back on. The evidence to support this is extremely robust - Level “A” evidence according to the National Health & Medical Research Council. We are as sure that people will put weight back on as we are that smoking causes lung cancer. The evidence just doesn’t get any stronger in research! But the weight loss industry has profited from selling the hope of long term, permanent weight loss, and it has even convinced us that when we fail, it’s us that’s the failure, not the product itself! It’s probably one of the largest gaslighting industries in the world. It’s hard wired in us to regain weight, it’s a normal process of our bodies returning to homeostasis. We are supposed to have size diversity. Weight suppression is a pathology, not an achievement. But we only recognise it as a pathology in thin people, and we completely miss it in larger people. Higher weight people with exactly the same illness (AN) won’t get the diagnosis as easily (or at all!) as a thin person with AN. We prescribe for fat people what we diagnose as eating disordered in thin people. Deb is renowned for standing up and calling things as she sees them. She’s not afraid to call out the weight cycling industry and challenge the paradigm! Deb has seen people for 30 years, she’s seen how people suffer at the hands of diet culture. Larger people with lives worth living, the casualties of this idea that they’re supposed to spend their life pursuing thinness. For Deb, pursuing diet and weight loss is a giant waste of time which we can’t get back. No-one should have to lose years of their lives dedicated to this project of weight loss, which science shows us won’t work. Deb wants everyone to divest from the weight cycling industry, because it’s a death industry. We need all hands on deck to dismantle weight-centric business models. It’s a white supremacy model, based on oppression. Deb has been around for a long time, she grew up absorbing the atmosphere of the women’s movement and the civil rights movement, and for a long time she has fought for social change. Getting together and fighting battles really does and can change the world. When we wake up and realise that it’s not us, but the world that is wrong, and we come together as a community, we become strong. Looking at diet culture nowadays is kind of like the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, where you’re standing there looking around for the other people who can see that he’s naked! We need each other. We need to know that other people think like this! Deb has a big community of people, both locally and online, and this community has helped her to find and use her voice, and to gallop the HAES movement forward. This is how we got started on today’s topic: in a chat room, a new study came out on mice which showed that mice who weight cycled - ie the mice who went off and on diets - lived longer than mice who stayed fat. The paper concluded that people should still try to diet, even if they will put it back on, because presumably the same effect would generalise to humans. It’s a really irritating way to interpret the failure of dieting - that even though diets don’t work, we should just put up with weight cycling and yo yo diet all of our lives, because the less time spent being fat, the better. Weight science history - at first, it started out aiming to make fat people not fat anymore. But when that didn’t work, the aim became 20% weight loss, that didn’t work, so they went to 10%, and that still didn’t happen, so now they’ve dropped the definition of weight loss ‘success’ to 5% and even less - not because science shows benefits there, but because humans just don’t lose that much weight in weight loss studies.* People like Paul Ernsberger have been turned away from studying weight cycling and actively discouraged. The Look Ahead study is often talked about as an example of ‘proof’ that people can lose weight & keep it off, even though that study was stopped early because it turned out that making people lose weight didn’t actually reduce their risk of having a heart attack. Deb talks about how people in this study were older, and even the control group were losing weight. Also, the people in the intensive lifestyle intervention group were subjected to intense pressure, and knew they would be weighed every year, so everyone made a big effort in the 6 months leading up to the weigh in. So this is actually a study of weight cycling, not a triumph of effortless lasting weight loss. Behind the scenes, people in these studies talk about how much bullshit goes on. When people are not weighed and just provide answers, they know what the researchers want to hear, and there's shame about weight regain too. Deb loves to really dig into the research studies, to go beyond the headlines and abstracts and really ask the question - what did they do here? In the mouse study, it is a particular strain of mice that were studied. Deb went & spoke to people who know more about mice research than she does, including the authors. The study concluded that weight cycling in mice was a good thing. There’s a few issues here. Paul Ernsberger speaks about the unique properties of species like mice. They are basically a food supply for predators. When there is a lot to eat, they don’t need to turn on their genes to make them live longer, because they’ll be able to quickly procreate and make lots of offspring. When there’s not a lot of food around, these genes in the mice switch on, allowing them to live longer and procreate later, ensuring that they will continue to exist as a species. As an apex predator, humans do not follow this pattern and do not display this type of change. So right there, there’s reason to doubt that whatever we see in mice when they are deprived of food will be similar in humans. So mice research in this area really doesn’t generalise well to understanding humans. The other interesting point here is how these mice were fed in order to produce ‘obesity’. The study says they were fed a high fat diet. Paul Ernsberger says that it is probably more accurate to say that the mice were fed the equivalent of cake icing! For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Even the most extreme human diets don’t mirror this type of diet. So interestingly, even when mainlining cake icing, ⅓ of the mice didn’t get fat, so they were eliminated from the study. As Deb points out, in humans, many of those at higher weights are not like that because they’re all eating fast food. They’re just larger people. So the mice who started small and became big through force feeding are really different to the human population who basically have multiple reasons that they may be larger. So of the ⅔ of the mice that were left, a huge number of them got a condition called ulcerative dermatitis and either died or had to be euthanised. This was more than 200 animals out of 500. But the authors are using their lifespans to argue for weight cycling? It is possible that the mice who were being fed only the cake frosting diet were getting sick and dying, so now we have a completely confounding factor here. How did this paper get through? Deb has asked the author but really didn’t get an answer, apparently another paper is coming out. Basically, the weight cycling mice were given a break from the relentless cake icing feeding, and it may very well be that break from a horrible diet which was related to their longer lifespan, not weight cycling. So Deb went to the company that bred the mice, and asked how long their lifespan was. The average lifespan of this strain of mice was apparently well below what all of the mice in the experiment lived for! So all of the mice in this experiment - including the ones who were always fat - lived longer than the average lifespan for this strain. This fact was not mentioned in the paper. New headline - “cake frosting prolongs life if it doesn’t kill you?!” A well fed population, a population with good nutrition, means we change - our puberty happens earlier, it also means we are heavier. And yes, this change brings different health challenges. There’s definitely a health disparity between higher weight people and lower weight people. This may be about fat cells driving things. But also, If you’re treated poorly it’s going to have an effect on your health. And we have very good evidence that larger people are not treated well. So it is plausible that there is an interaction between all of these factors - structural oppression, weight stigma, health care inequities - with our biology - and to ignore all of these factors and focus only on the narrow physiology is another case of the Emperor’s new clothes. Some people would argue that all of the rat and mice studies are impacted, because they are social animals but in experimental conditions they all live separately. Researchers really want to be doing research follow ups for longer than they are right now, but grant money and structures don’t support such models. We absolutely need more research to understand the whole phenomenon of weight cycling in humans, given that most of us will weight cycle. But it’s not an area which is heavily researched. Many weight loss studies don’t last long enough to cover a whole weight loss/regain cycle - they stop the research at the end of the weight loss period, and don’t look further. There is a real issue in research in weight science of not following people for a minimum of 5 years, which really should be the standard. Short term weight loss research really is a waste of time and money. We should do less research, but do it for longer time periods, to gather meaningful information. The harms of interventions are also not being captured in current research models, even though Stunkard was saying it back in 1959! Speaking of harms not being captured, researchers in the eating disorder field are planning to present at the ICED conference in 2019 saying that dieting in adolescents doesn’t lead to eating disorders! This will no doubt be based on research with flaws like we’ve mentioned. It’s really sad how the diagnostic criteria for binge eating disorder completely misses the restriction part. Those of us who work with people with binge eating issues know how restriction shows up - in a feeling of guilt after a binge, in experiencing thoughts about restricting food, and in restrictive behaviours - but it’s just been disregarded by the powerful people who were in charge of creating the diagnosis whose weight bias stops their ability to imagine that fat people could also be restricting! Our eating disorder criteria is tragically bound to weight biased understanding of eating disorders. It’s sad that the people in power had so little understanding of the phenomenon they were describing. It’s back to white supremacy again. The drive to make some bodies have more worth than other bodies is evil. If we don’t understand this history, we will repeat the mistakes. Food insecurity also impacts on all of this. People who publish research on binge eating disorder who trumpet about how their intervention not only led to a reduction in eating disorder symptoms but also to weight loss, are missing the point. They are embroiled with the eating disorder and not seeing the bigger picture. You’re just at the bottom of the diet cycle. But many researchers are so weight biased that they don’t understand that people with this disorder can not binge for months. They are capable of restriction. Restriction is part of the problem! If you’re too good at restriction you’re going to run into trouble one way or another. what we think of as success is actually part of the problem, if you just look at the psychology of this. Back in the days when homosexuality was considered an 'illness', Evelyn Hooker presented psych test batteries to psychiatrists and asked people to pick out who was gay from examining the tests. She showed them there was no difference between psych results based on sexuality. Here’s another way of thinking - if we presented eating disorder experts with a list of behaviours of something a client was doing, and asked them to determine if the person had an eating disorder. If people agree that it is an eating disorder if a person is thin, but not if a person is fat, this is a problem. It’s not ‘tips’ from the weight control registry, it’s a disorder! Science is supposed to be about stepping back from our presuppositions. We need more people who think critically, ask questions, and push back. We need to recognise our bias. It is part of science to come up with alternative hypotheses. It can be difficult to get access to the training in order to critique studies, but thinking critically is a time-honored tradition of all people resisting oppression.   Resources Mentioned: The NH&MRC slide from the fabulous Fiona Willer: *A really good study which talks about the history of % weight loss targets The mouse study on weight cycling The Look Ahead study Find out more about Deb here and here

This week I have an epic and inspiring mega-rant for you, with Dani Galvin, eating disorder survivor, insta influencer and fat activist from @iamdaniadriana. Dani is unapologetically HAPPY and embracing life, and because she dares to do all of this in a larger body, she’s a troll magnet. Trolling on the internet sucks, but trolling fat people for simply existing takes things to a new low. Join us for an awesome and fierce conversation about why the world needs fat activists, the psychology of troll mentality, what it’s like to have an eating disorder when you’re fat, and much, much more!   Show Notes Dani has had a gutful of trolls on her Insta account, who on a daily basis harass and threaten her via DM and public posts on her Insta account. The aim of trolling isn’t debate or healthy criticism – it’s bullying, and they want to scare people off the internet. Dani’s convinced that the trolls have some deep seated psychological issues. Happy people just don’t feel compelled to bully strangers on the internet. Dani believes that forgiveness is a powerful tool – it helps her to let go of the impact. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t speak out against it! Places such as Reddit are dark holes where the hatred is real. Dani gets a lot of DM’s with links to Reddit, which is always bad. Or messages from people accusing her of promoting obesity. These people aren’t even reading her captions, they just look at her body at make judgements. It pisses them off that Dani exists and doesn’t feel ashamed of her body. She’s had trolls say things such as they ‘wouldn’t even rape her’. As if rape is a privilege? Trolling like this reveals the multiple levels of hatred and misogyny underpinning this kind of behaviour. This is not normal. Louise used to work with sex offenders in gaol, and agrees with Dani that threats of sexual or other violence is all about control – not sex. It’s using sex as a weapon to intimidate and exert power and control over women. Louise’s hat is off to all fat activists on SM! This message is so needed, but to think about how dangerous it is because of the constant trolling – it’s another level of trauma. It doesn’t bother Dani as much anymore. She’s had so many micro aggressions against her body in the real world, that online doesn’t matter. It worries Dani that the level of aggression towards people like Dani will scare other people in larger bodies away from fat activism or even just being ‘out and fat’. It’s a huge process to wake up from diet culture, to reject the idea that something is wrong with you or your body, and to stand against diet culture. It takes a long time, and everyone ends up in different places. Not everyone will end up being a fat activist! It’s ok for people in the body positivity process to be in different places. We’re all different and we need to respect that difference of experience. We need to think of the concept of psychological diversity as well as body diversity! To get over the trauma of diet culture, we all need to go through the stages of grief in order to let it go. This can take time, and it’s not easy. Regardless of how far you move away from diet culture, it’s not realistic to wake up every day loving your body! It’s not about loving your appearance. It’s about finding peace and acceptance. It’s about honouring and riding the tough stuff. And the reason you feel like this isn’t your fault – it was taught to you by diet culture. The default is diet culture, and it’s easy to be performative in that. It’s harder to stand up and cognitively and emotionally work through this shit. Dani has been in LOTS of therapy, and has done a lot of work to get where she is now. She didn’t wake up one day glowing with body love. Many of us are expected to be ‘performative’ in diet culture, by which Dani means we are expected to perform certain social rituals to meet social norms. Such as, taking part in body shaming when we’re with a group of women, or taking part in conversations which encourage food guilt. Diet culture performances, like feeling bad for eating the office birthday cake, is so in-built and multi generational. It’s literally never questioned in diet culture. Why can’t we just go to the party and enjoy the cake? There’s this strong idea that we need to diminish ourselves in front of others in order to be a ‘good person’. We’re doing it to fit in, to be accepted by others. Diet culture emphasises that what we eat equals who we are. And that certain types of food consumption patterns make us better or worse people. This is monstrous and serves to further oppress marginalised groups. When you’re a fat person in diet culture, how does the performative stuff show up? Being performative in diet culture as a fat person means always trying to lose weight – being a ‘good fatty’. There’s this strong idea that you can’t start living your life until you meet the goal of being thin. Dani had a list of things on her computer that she’d never do until she lost weight. These included going on a holiday, falling in love, wearing a swimsuit and getting a tattoo – things she’s done now, in her fat body! Dani had an extreme eating disorder for many years. She is scared by statistics that show that 1 in 4 people who diet will develop an eating disorder. There’s a push in certain research circles to say that dieting doesn’t lead to eating disorders in fat people. For Dani, dieting was a ‘gateway drug’ to an eating disorder. Not the only factor, but definitely a big one. Dani thinks the reason eating disorder professionals are making these claims is because now that eating disorders in higher weight people are being recognised, they don’t feel comfortable not prescribing weight loss! Weight stigma anyone? Dani’s eating disorder was really vicious, and she remembers being given the seriously screwed up mixed messages – ‘you’re taking it a bit far…but you’re doing really well.” Comments and perceptions like this meant that for Dani, during the last 2 years of having her eating disorder, all she thought about was wanting to die. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses, and a large proportion of these are suicides. How many people in larger bodies are dying because of weight stigma in eating disorder treatment? The DSM needs to stop using the BMI as a criterion for diagnosis. No other mental illness has a weight requirement. Imagine just how high the eating disorder rate in people in larger bodies is. Dani suffered terribly from her eating disorder, but because of her higher weight, she struggled for it to be recognised and properly treated. It was by chance that she stumbled across a therapist who finally saw her and what was going on. Without that, Dani might not be here. There’s a lot of evidence to show that the impact of weight stigma on health is just as impactful as BMI itself. Dani appeared on a tv show alongside some of the ex Biggest Loser contestants (who had put on all of the weight again) and a whole pile of people doing weight loss surgery. Dr Dixon was there, spruiking the fact that diets don’t work therefore give everyone surgery. Dani was the lone voice of body positivity! We’ve let weight and diets become our church and we’re now equating our appearance to something spiritually meaningful. Dieting is literally the new religion. It’s healthist and exclusionary. The ‘obesity epidemic’ rhetoric puts all fat people in the same category and labels them as diseased, AND pretends that body size is a choice. This rhetoric keeps us all imprisoned, as thin people are terrified of fat too. It's rare to come across a health professional that actually cares about your experience as a human on the planet, to see beyond your BMI. Dani’s wish is to continue to advocate for larger people via her Insta platform, and she won’t let the trolls stop her! Her hope is that if she has kids or grandkids and they’re fat, that their experience won’t be like hers was. Her Insta account is a safe haven for people in larger bodies. Find Dani on Instagram @iamdaniadriana Resources Mentioned: Dani’s website The article which gives an overview of how weight stigma is potentially responsible for all of the health impacts usually attributed to higher BMI. The TV segment we were talking about with Dani featured – this version has been edited by Dani, so it’s not triggering. Where Dani gets all of these amazeballs bikinis! – on Insta: @alwaysforme @eloquii @asos @alwaysformellc

As Health At Every Size becomes more popular, there’s also a truckload of controversy ! Is there such a thing as being “too fat” for a Health At Every Size Approach? Should we put a weight limit on weight inclusivity? Can we do Health At Every Size AND weight loss? Hell No!!, say my guests, the incredible Dietitians Unplugged Glenys Oyston & Aaron Flores. Join us for a fierce and fabulous rant about “health concerns” and fatphobia, paradigm straddling, and Aaron’s pet hate, splinterarsing!   Show Notes  

We all know that diet culture is full of shit, but in this week’s episode of All Fired Up the shit gets REAL. My guest is Jessica Campbell, nutritionist and medical intern, and she could not believe her eyes when she saw a documentary in which larger bodied teenage girls were being given pills full of thin people’s shit, in an effort to ‘cure them’ of their fatness. This documentary is part of a larger research trial currently running in New Zealand into faecal transplants. There is no doubt that research on the gut microbiome is fascinating stuff, but it’s also very much in its infancy. To put teens under such scrutiny and to take such a massive risk is just gobsmacking. We have no idea what the impact of eating other people’s shit will be. And does anyone care about weight stigma?? Don’t miss an incredible discussion about the ethics, impacts and implicit bias of making fat people eat shit.   Show Notes  

We’re headed across the ditch to find out what on earth is going on with New Zealand’s OBSESSION with fitness trackers! Anti diet dietitian and All Blacks Fan Sarah Peck is LIVID because every time she turns around, someone is slipping her kids a fitness tracker! Not to mention the horrendous “Healthiest Schools Challenge,” in which kids as young as 5 are being forced to count their steps in a competition bound to send some kids down the rabbit hole of obsessive exercise. Hear how Sarah has fought back and even taken on New Zealand’s “king of the humans” on national tv!   Show Notes  

Nothing winds up my guest Fiona Willer like a cargo cult conference - when it LOOKS like an academic conference, SOUNDS like an academic conference, but is actually an alphabet soup of questionable people pretending to be ‘experts.’ In the “obesity” conference circuit, it seems anything goes when it comes to weight loss, no matter how ludicrous and/or downright shifty the science is! At centre stage of the coconut fringe festival is ‘TAPPING’ for weight loss, seriously the ultimate in pseudoscientific balderdash. Don’t miss Fiona’s razor sharp review of EFT: you really won’t believe the outlandish claims of this overhyped ‘energy psychology’ trend.   Show Notes  

This week on All Fired Up!, I share 3 incredible stories of women pushing back against diet culture bullsh*t! First up is the incredible Nicole McDermid from @theembodiedjourney on her ballsy call for action to the eating disorders community. Then, Drs Carolynne White @carolynneot and Natalie Jovanovski tell all about how they brought the weight-inclusive health approach to the attention of politicians! And finally, the story of Jessica Sanders from @re_shape_ and how she used her anger at the stats on young girls getting labiaplasty to develop a body acceptance book for pre teens! This episode will have you punching the air and put a fire in your belly! We can all do something to push back against toxic diet culture! No matter who we are, we CAN ALL untrap from the crap!   Show Notes

This week on All Fired Up! my guest is the incredible dietitian, diabetes expert & mindful eating pioneer Megrette Fletcher. She has had a GUTFUL of how diet culture is dumbing down diabetes, especially this idea that weight loss is the answer to everything! Don’t miss a fabulous deep dive into all things insulin resistant. Learn what diabetes really is, how gloriously complex it is, and how you can take a completely non-diet approach to looking after it! It really is possible to eat what you love and love what you eat with diabetes!   Show Notes  

Diet culture has unleashed more fresh hell upon us, with the arrival of eating disorder treatment centres SELLING WEIGHT LOSS. An ad campaign for one of the USA’s biggest ED treatment centres looked more like an ad for JENNY FRICKIN CRAIG than a legit treatment program. My guest this week is the fiercely pissed Jennifer Rollin, eating disorder therapist and anti-diet badass, who took serious offence to this most distasteful PR move. Don’t miss this fascinating story of what happened when David meets Goliath. Is anywhere safe for ED treatment if you’re in a larger body? We have a long way to go before weight inclusive treatment is accessible to all!   Show Notes  

This week on All Fired Up!, my incredible guest is Dr Lilia Graue, physician and anti-diet coach. Lilia is also an expert in mindfulness, and she is NOT HAPPY about the way diet culture has hijacked mindful eating and made out like it’s a nifty new diet. Join us for a truly incredible deep dive into the essence of mindfulness and mindfulness philosophy, and hear exactly why, because of its very definition, mindfulness is WEIGHT INCLUSIVE and NOT about changing your body! This is a not-to-be-missed episode, share it with literally everyone you know!   Show Notes  

This week I chat with the fabulous Jodie Arnot, anti-diet fitness professional and co-founder of the Moderation Movement. She is RAGING about the toxic, obsessive, exclusionary and downright cult-like culture of gyms. It seems like there’s no safe place for us to go and simply enjoy moving our bodies anymore: instead, we’re very likely to feel like we’ve stumbled into a weight loss centre. It’s bad for everyone, but particularly for anyone in a larger body, finding a safe space to exercise is like finding the proverbial hen’s tooth. Just what has happened to make the culture like this, and what can we do to make it better?   Show Notes  

Straight from the pits of hell is diet culture’s latest trend, water fasting! People are actually PAYING MONEY to go to ‘treatment centres’ to be professionally starved for weeks on end. My guest this week is Sarah Barnitt, a listener from Chicago who is OUTRAGED that this ridiculous trend is taking hold all over the USA - water fasting! The worst part is this practice is being promoted by Instagram Influencers like the “Balanced Blonde,” who is apparently ‘recovered’ from orthorexia but needs to be cured of her many illnesses by starving herself. Join us down the rabbit hole of extreme self delusion, as we investigate these disturbing trends.   Show Notes  

This week I’m All Fired Up about weight loss & women’s health with Terrill Bruere, anti-diet dietitian and ladyparts expert. Terrill has HAD IT with the constant ‘lose weight & you’ll cure your PCOS/get pregnant/fix your hormones’ messages that women are barraged with in the world of women’s health. Terrill brilliantly and kindly unpacks just how complex conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome are, and BLOWS UP some serious myths at the same time! If you are a woman, or if you know one, you NEED to hear this!!!   Show Notes  

This week we are SEETHING about the weight loss industry targeting millennials! My guest is anti-diet dietitian and 100% genuine millennial, Megan Bray from Food Mind & Body. She is being literally STALKED by a weight loss app called Noom, who are making all sorts of outlandish claims about their shitty product. Megan is also utterly FED UP with the rise of the ‘influencer’ and how her insta feed is now full of so-called health professionals spruiking everything from charcoal toothpaste to laxative tea. In my day (good old GenX), we used to KNOW when we were being advertised to. Now, the advertising is lurking EVERYWHERE and posing as our friend! Is this progress, or are we worse off now? Don’t miss this great rant!   Show Notes  

ACT is a type of psychological therapy which is all about letting go of thoughts and ideas which are not serving you, and moving on to an awesome, authentic and meaningful life. A book called “The Weight Escape” uses ACT to promote weight loss, which is the WORST possible misuse of ACT! How gaslighting to tell people to 'let go of thoughts about weight loss' and then SELL THEM A DIET! My guest this week is Margit Berman, a fierce HAES warrior and ACT expert. Margit is here to tell us all about her new books, which are much more authentic and useful ways to use ACT in a non-diet way. Seriously an incredible conversation!   Show Notes

For decades, author Geneen Roth has been widely regarded as an anti-diet heroine. She’s written some kick arse books encouraging women to stop dieting, embrace their bodies, and look more deeply at their relationship with food. So just WHAT THE HELL is going on, as lately she’s riding the diet wagon. Not only is she terrified of sugar, she’s even openly trash talking weight?? My guest this week is Katie Thompson, psychotherapist and eating disorders specialist. She is MAD AS HELL at Geneen Roth and has officially BROKEN UP with her. Join me for an excellent discussion about who Geneen Roth is, why we think she’s betraying us, and how we can push back against guru gaslighting!   Show Notes

This week I gained an insider’s perspective of Overeater’s Anonymous (OA) with my courageous guest Halina Brooke. As an ex-member, she is livid and ready to vent her spleen about the goings on in this super secretive organisation. Just what is OA all about, and how helpful is it for people who seek their guidance? Is OA helping people to recover, or is it just trying to force people to be ‘better’ at disordered eating?   Show Notes

This week my guest Meg McClintock is mad as HELL about “Weigh Down Ministries,” a church devoted to weight loss. We thought it was a joke at first but nope, it’s a thing. As an anti-diet dietitian and a Christian, Meg is ROPEABLE about the idea that ‘thinness is Godly’. You won’t believe the outrageous claims being made by this eccentric evangelist!   Show Notes

This week we’re All Fired Up on sugar! My incredible guest is Marci Evans, anti-diet dietitian, speaker, and eating disorders specialist. She’s had an absolute GUTFUL of the sugar hysteria gripping our planet, and is here to set the record straight! Is sugar addictive? Do we need to constantly police our intake? Why is Sarah Wilson’s hair so shiny? Has the world gone completely round the twist? Don’t miss this fabulous dose of sensible sugar talk!   Show Notes

Don’t miss an utterly HYPNOTIC episode of All Fired Up! This week Fiona Willer is guest-hosting, interviewing an incensed Louise Adams about hypnosis, psychology, and weight loss. There are some seriously weird and inflated claims going around about hypnosis being the ‘Holy Grail’ for lasting weight loss, but wait til you hear what these outrageous claims are based on!! Here’s a clue – the 1980’s called, they want their dodgy data back! Before you or anyone you care about buy any hypnosis based weight loss products, please listen to this podcast, and save yourself the money!   Show Notes

This week I am in a fit of rage with anti-diet dietitian and mum of two Alison Stewart. A flurry of headlines announced a new program in NSW schools to force kids to be more physically active, all in the name of 'reducing obesity.' Weighing kids, fitness assessments, and fitness report cards were just some of the scary sounding stuff printed in the papers. But what is really going on here? Alison and I took a deep dive beyond the hysterical headlines, into the actual study that these were based on. And we found that the headlines don't match the study. And we also found that the study's conclusions don't match the actual data. The deeper down the rabbit hole we went, the more interesting it became! SO much bulls**t! Don't miss this fascinating episode!   Show Notes