Podcasts about Louise Adams

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 1, 2023 4:58

This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing!In Part 1 we talked about how Novo Nordisk got suspended from The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry for their shady marketing practices. Today, we're going to talk about an investigation by The Observer that found what so many of us have been saying for a looooong time - that Novo Nordisk had paid millions to prominent ob*sity “charities,” NHS trusts, universities and other bodies as well healthcare professionals who publicly praised the drug (typically without disclosure of their funding) and who advised NICE (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) on their reviewing of Novo's weight loss drug to decide whether or not it should be made available.The Observer article by Shanti Das and Jon Ungoes-Thomas “‘Orchestrated PR campaign': how skinny jab drug firm sought to shape ob*sity debate” (Note: per my policy I'm not linking to it because it still comes from a place of weight stigma) found that in three years, Novo Nordisk had shelled out £21,700,000 (about $26,415,301.50 USD) over 3,500 transactions which were separate from their research and development spending.The Observer found:“The payments include donations, event sponsorship, grants and other fees to prominent ob*sity charities, NHS trusts, royal colleges, GP surgeries, healthcare education providers and universities - on top of £28m spent by the company on research and development. A further £4m in payments such as consulting and lecture fees went to health professionals, including experts on ob*sity. The business has also provided financial support for the running of the all-party parliamentary group on ob*sity - a cross party group of MPs and members of the Lords that lobbies the government on health policy.”I've written before about how major papers like the New York Times are writing articles that are, essentially, lobbying for Novo Nordisk's priorities where every expert quoted is on Novo's payroll with no disclosure. One question I get asked a lot is “how is that legal?” First I'll point out that legal and ethical are two different things. Beyond that, there is a tendency to believe that doctors and academics are somehow immune to industry influence (or to the ways that their promotion of the weight loss paradigm will support their careers) such that reporters and others (including those on the pharma industry's payroll) claim that disclosing these conflicts of interest isn't important.An excellent example of the ways in which those who are seen as “impartial” experts in academia are, in fact, on the payroll of these companies and actively shilling for them is Professor John Wilding. Professor Wilding is at Liverpool University, where he leads clinical research on “ob*sity.” He also serves as president of the “World Ob*sity Federation” (an astroturf organization similar to the Ob*sity Action Coalition) which took more than £4.3M over three years, per The Observer. Somehow, this did not make its way onto his conflicts of interest statement. Meanwhile, he was quoted extensively in the media recommending Novo's drug Wegovy. Jason Halford, who is the Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Leeds, told an audience of millions on BBC that Wegovy is “one of the most powerful pharmaceutical tools” for treating “ob*sity.” He did not disclose that he is also the president of the European Association for the Study of Ob*sity (EASO), another astroturf organization (which is to say, an organization that claims to advocate for marginalized people but, in reality, is predominantly funded by and acting as a lobbying arm of, the pharmaceutical/weight loss surgery industry.) The Observer found that the EASO received more than three-quarters of its income (more than £3.65m) from Novo Nordisk. He was also a previous member of Novo Nordisk's UK advisory board.I'm glad Novo Nordisk's lack of ethics are getting wider coverage (though, as I pointed out in part 1, people in fat liberation and weight-neutral health advocates like Mikey Mercedes, Louise Adams, Asher Larmie, myself and others have been talking about this for some time,) but I don't expect it to stop them until we can put enough pressure on them to force them to stop. This is a company that orchestrated aggressive price gouging on insulin, proving beyond a doubt that they will kill people for money. And as pressure in the US is forcing Novo to lower the price of insulin, they seem to have a lot of eggs in the Wegovy basket. Prior to launch, they promised their shareholders the “fastest ever” post FDA-approval launch and that they would double their “ob*sity” sales by 2025. In fact, The Observer found that Novo Nordisk's sales on their new “ob*sity treatments” rose 84% in 2022 to $2.4B – a figure Novo projects will “grow significantly” in 2023.And what will they do to grow this figure significantly this year? I think their behavior makes it clear – absolutely anything they can get away with.Did you find this post helpful? You can subscribe for free to get future posts delivered direct to your inbox, or choose a paid subscription to support the newsletter and get special benefits! Click the Subscribe button below for details:Liked this piece? Share this piece:More research and resources:https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da'Shaun Harrison Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

Novo Nordisk (Finally) Faces Some Consequences for Their Deceptive Marketing Tactics - Part 1

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 29, 2023 8:53

This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing!If you have read this newsletter for any period of time, you've read my accounts of how pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk has been using extremely shady marketing practices (many taken from the playbook that Purdue Pharma used to push oxycontin) to promote their drugs for weight loss. Things likePutting doctors on their payroll to promote their drugs to the media without disclosing their ties to the NovoCreating astroturf organizations that claim to be advocacy groups for higher-weight people but are, in fact, funded by Novo and other pharma and weight loss surgery groups.Marketing their drug through Grand Rounds presentationsCreating PSAs and Sponsored Content using people who (you can't make this stuff up) play doctors on TVCo-opting the concept and language of anti-weight-stigma activists in order to sell their weight loss drugsAnd I'm far from the only person talking about this.Mikey Mercedes has publicly called this out. Louise Adams from Untrapped has been all over it (I had the chance to join Louise Adams and Fiona Willer on Louise's Podcast All Fired Up to talk about this)Asher Larmie, The Fat Doctor, has also been talking about thisAnd there are plenty of others.Part of the issue is that in the United States pharma companies are allowed to market direct-to-consumers , and the rules and regulations that exist are often loosely enforced. That's why I was thrilled to learn that The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI,) a trade association that works in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in partnership with the government and the NHS on behalf of their members, had suspended Novo Nordisk for being in breach of the ABPI code of practice.Interestingly, just a month ago, the president of ABPI was Novo Nordisk UK General Manager and Corporate Vice-President Pinder Sahota. Sahota stepped down from the board in February “to avoid an ongoing process around a Novo Nordisk ABPI Code of Practice breach becoming a distraction from the vital work of the ABPI.”The complaint was made to The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) which is “the self-regulatory body which administers the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry, independently of the ABPI. It was established by the ABPI on 1 January 1993.”The complaint centers around a LinkedIn post offering practitioners a free “weight management” course. The only “weight management” treatment covered in the course was GLP1-RA drugs. Novo Nordisk was, at the time, the only company selling these drugs. The course was “sponsored” (paid for) by Novo Nordisk, but that was not clear in the LinkedIn Ad.Not only did this “course” offer information, but they also offered a free Patient Group Direction (PGD). Per the NHS a PGD is “a written instruction for the sale, supply and/or administration of medicines to groups of patients who may or may not be individually identified before presentation for treatment. May or may not be identified means an individual can either be known to the service/have an appointment (e.g. a baby immunisation clinic) or not be known in advance of presenting at a service (e.g. a walk in centre).PGDs are not a form of prescribing. PGDs allow health care professionals specified within the legislation to supply and/or administer a medicine directly to a patient with an identified clinical condition without the need for a prescription or an instruction from a prescriber. The health care professional working within the PGD is responsible for assessing that the patient fits the criteria set out in the PGD.”The complainant pointed out that the PGD was part of what was being offered to individual health professionals by Novo Nordisk, that it had a value, and that it was being given to individuals for their own personal benefit to run private clinics. The complainant suggested that this amounted to bribing health professionals with “an inducement to prescribe.”The complainant noted that on the website the course had been run several times, so it was likely that a large number of health professionals had received this offer.The ABPI review panel found that the training was provided by a third party, but attendees and PGDs were sponsored by Novo Nordisk. The training mentioned three drugs, the first two (orlistat and naltrexone/bupropion) were presented as having significant side effects and contraindications, while the third drug, Novo's Saxenda, did not include side effect information (though they are significant) and the training noted that Saxenda could be provided by an appropriate health professional with a valid PGD (which was provided by the course.)The training included 21 slides about Saxenda, but no such detail on the other two drugs.Sponsorship of third party trainings by drug companies are permissible by APBI “only if there had been a strictly arm's length arrangement with no input by the company and no use by the company.” In this case, the agreement between the training provider and Novo stated that “Novo Nordisk will be in attendance at training meetings and will be given delegates to follow up” and the panel found that “Novo Nordisk had reviewed the training materials used on the course for medical and factual accuracy.”The panel concluded that “the course (webinar and e-learning) was, in effect, promotional material for Saxenda for which Novo Nordisk was responsible”The Panel found that “the webinar, in effect, promoted Saxenda which Novo Nordisk was responsible for, and considered that Novo Nordisk's involvement in relation to such promotion, including that its medicine would be discussed in detail, was not made sufficiently clear at the outset. Therefore, a breach of the Code was ruled. Novo Nordisk's appeal on this point was unsuccessful.”The contract between Novo and the third party was signed in February 2020, with the intention that 13,000 professionals be trained over 2 years, each of whom were to be provided a PGD making Novo Nordisk's maximum contract £357,500 (about $455,578 USD). As of July 1, 2021, 4,399 health professionals had completed the training and 599 PGDs had been activated.The Panel found that “the provision of funding by Novo Nordisk for the PGD was clearly linked to the promotion of Saxenda; the Panel did not consider there could be any intention other than to directly increase the use of Saxenda. Furthermore, the Panel noted that the cost of the provision of the PGD to prescribe Saxenda was given to individual health professionals. Such funding to individual health professionals did not meet the requirements of the Code and was an inducement to prescribe, supply, administer and/or recommend Saxenda and the Panel therefore ruled a breach of the Code. Novo Nordisk's appeal on this point was unsuccessful.”“The Panel considered that the arrangements between Novo Nordisk and the training provider, particularly in relation to the PGD, brought discredit upon, and reduced confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry. A breach of Clause 2 was ruled. Novo Nordisk's appeal on this point was unsuccessful.”Novo Nordisk's decided to appeal on the basis that they didn't know it was a breach. This backfired spectacularly.The Appeal Board was “very concerned that Novo Nordisk did not recognise that this was a large-scale Saxenda promotional campaign which Novo Nordisk knowingly paid for and which was disguised. In the Appeal Board's view the gravity of the breaches was compounded by Novo Nordisk's failures to recognise that its own behaviour was not compliant with the Code…The Appeal Board was concerned about the potential impact on patient safety of providing unbalanced information to a wide audience, particularly given that the arena of weight loss was a highly emotional arena, and particularly given the lack of balance of Saxenda's safety profile and side effects when comparing it with its competitors.”The Appeal Board decided to publicly reprimand Novo Nordisk for “its failings and the potential impact on patient safety.” They also ordered an audit and decided that “the circumstances were so egregious that a report to the ABPI Board was the only appropriate course of action.”The ABPI Board unanimously decided that further action must be taken, and while they chose not to expel Novo outright, they noted that this option could be exercised at a later date. While a majority wanted to immediately suspend Novo Nordisk's membership, they didn't reach a 75% threshold and so decided to conduct an audit.Subsequent to that audit they determined that Novo Nordisk's actions were ““likely to bring discredit on, or reduce confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry” and suspended them for two years, with reinstatement pending a future audit.In Part 2 we'll talk about some investigative journalism that caught Novo Nordisk in more shady marketing practices. Did you find this post helpful? You can subscribe for free to get future posts delivered direct to your inbox, or choose a paid subscription to support the newsletter and get special benefits! Click the Subscribe button below for details:Liked this piece? Share this piece:More research and resources:https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da'Shaun Harrison Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

Testing The Claim That Pediatric Weight Management Interventions Decrease Eating Disorders

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2023 27:55

This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing!I think that one of the more dangerous and disingenuous parts of the new American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines is their claims about eating disorders. These are claims that I am hearing echoed in other spaces as well, so I wanted to write about them in depth. In terms of the guidelines themselves, I wrote a deep dive about their three main recommendations around “Intensive Health Behavior and Lifestyle Treatment (IHBLT), weight loss drugs, and weight loss surgeries here. I also looked into undisclosed conflicts of interest here.When it comes to eating disorders they claim (in bold, title case) that “Evidence-based Pediatric Ob*sity* Treatment Reduces Risks for Disordered Eating.” Is this remotely true? Let's get into it.They begin by saying “concerns have been raised as to whether diagnosis and treatment of ob*sity [in the case of these guidelines starting at the age of two] may inadvertently place excess attention on eating habits, body shape, and body size and lead to disordered eating patterns as children grow into adulthood.”Well, let's examine the situation. They are “diagnosing” kids as having a “disease” based solely on their body size and shape, and then recommending “Intensive” interventions and dangerous drugs and surgeries that put significant focus on food and food restriction with the goal of changing the child's body size and shape. There is nothing inadvertent about this, it's about as advertent as it can get.They go on to claim “Cardel et al refer to multiple studies that have demonstrated that, although ob*sity and self-guided dieting consistently place children at high risk for weight fluctuation and disordered eating patterns, participation in structured, supervised weight management programs decreases current and future eating disorder symptoms (including bulimic symptoms, emotional eating, binge eating, and drive for thinness) up to 6 years after treatment. “I'll get to the research they cite in a minute, but I want to point out that in their list of current and future eating disorder symptoms, they left a few out including (from the AAP's OWN 2016 paper on eating disorders prevention in adolescents):“Severe dietary restriction, skipping of meals, prolonged periods of starvation, or the use of self-induced vomiting, diet pills, or laxatives”Let's remember that even if their “intensive” behavioral therapy recommendations don't devolve into disordered eating and eating disorders (and they certainly could,) their recommendations around pharmacotherapy and weight loss surgery literally induce all of these symptoms, sometimes for the rest of the child's life.It's pretty difficult to reduce eating disorders symptoms when you've created 100 pages of guidelines to literally recommend them. This reminds me of something the brilliant Deb Burgard says, which is that we prescribe to fat people what we diagnose and treat in thin people, and in this case the people are children.Now, I don't know if those symptoms are left out accidentally because the authors are so ignorant about eating disorders and higher-weight kids that they assume higher-weight kids aren't susceptible to these (potentially fatal) symptoms, or if they left them out on purpose because they know that being honest about this renders their claims of their “treatments” decreasing eating disorder symptoms not just false, but patently ridiculous. Either way, the fact that they don't even mention these symptoms means that, at best, they don't have the expertise necessary to even talk about this, let alone create guidelines.Ok, so let's look at the research they cite to back up their claims that ob*sity “treatment” reduces risks for disordered eating.Forkey H, Szilagyi M, Kelly ET, Duffee J; Council on Foster Care, Adoption, and Kinship Care; Council on Community Pediatrics; Council on Child Abuse and Neglect; Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. Trauma-informed care. Pediatrics. 2021;148(2):e2021052580Given that this clinical report doesn't mention supervised weight management programs, eating disorders, or eating disorder symptoms, I would suggest that it does not support their claims.Something interesting that it does talk about is that higher-weight children are “more likely to experience discrimination, both overt and as a series of microaggressions (small slights, insults, or indignities either intentional or unintentional) that accumulate over time” and that “the lifelong effects of toxic stress are statistically related to many adult illnesses, particularly those related to chronic inflammation, and causes for early mortality.”This is important because the authors of the AAP guidelines are ignoring it in order to uncritically assume that if higher-weight kids have these health issues then it is because of their weight without mentioning that (as explained in a study they, themselves, cited) it might not be their weight but, in fact, the weight stigma they experience that is the root.The next study is Jebeile et al., (2019) Association of pediatric ob*sity treatment, including a dietary component, with change in depression and anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis. We're getting warmer here, at least this study actually talks about “ob*sity” treatment. However, they do not examine eating disorder symptoms, they look at changes in depression and anxiety. They find that “structured, professionally run pediatric ob*sity treatment is not associated with an increased risk of depression or anxiety and may result in a mild reduction in symptoms.” First, note the use of “may result,” not exactly a clear conclusion. Beyond this, the studies offer follow-up between 2 weeks to 15 months. We know that weight regain typically starts around the 12 month mark, but this study fails to address (or even consider) what will happen to depression and anxiety symptoms during/after weight regain. I wonder if the study authors actually meant to cite this study, by the same authors:Jebeile et al.. (2019). Treatment of ob*sity, with a dietary component, and eating disorder risk in children and adolescents: A systematic review with meta-analysis. I noticed right away that there was a letter written about this study by Louise Adams. I know Louise, I have been a guest on her podcast All Fired Up (including recently with Fiona Willer to talk about the dangers of Wegovy and Saxenda). Her letter to the editor was behind a paywall, and while I could access it, I knew that if I wrote about it nobody else who wanted to read it could. So I reached out to her and I got something even better. I received the full text of the letter she wrote (not the shorter version that they published.) Here is the summary, the letter is re-printed in its entirety at the end of the piece. Her work is always spot on, you can check out her work and sign up for her newsletter here. Here is Louise Adams' summary of the issues with this study: Given the errors and serious omissions in Jebeile et al's article, the findings and conclusions of this review are unreliable. I am concerned that the overarching message of this paper projects an air of certainty regarding the long-term safety and efficacy of adolescent weight loss interventions on ED risk that does not reflect adequate data and places children and adolescents at risk of harm. I am concerned that this paper will be used as evidence to justify ever more invasive weight loss trials and products in vulnerable adolescent populations. The authors' conclusion that ‘structured and professionally run ob*sity treatment leads to a reduction in the prevalence of ED, ED risk, and ED-related symptoms for most participants' is extraordinarily misguided, given that (a) quality long-term data were available for only 7.5% of the sample, and (b) clear evidence of a subset of adolescents who developed ED symptoms was present in the longer term studies. Moreover, the high numbers of missing data due to adolescents lost to follow up is important to note and cannot be overlooked as a potential indicator of even higher risk.In our conversation, Louise pointed out that her concern that this study would be used to justify additional weight loss trials is exactly what happened here. She also mentioned that in the “conflicts of interest” section of her letter to the editor, the original study authors pushed for her to include “The author discloses that in addition to practicing as a consultant clinical psychologist in private practice, she derives income from an online anti‐diet program for adult chronic dieters.” She points out that their zeal for conflict of interest disclosures did not extend to their own study. In fact they claimed “no conflicts of interest” despite the fact that they worked at the adolescent ob*sity clinic and that Baur didn't disclose her role as president of the weight loss industry-funded World Ob*sity Federation. I discussed the issues with the false equivalence between anti-diet work and diet industry work here. The last study they cite is Cardel MI, Newsome FA, Pearl RL, et al. Patient-centered care for ob*sity: how health care providers can treat ob*sity while actively addressing weight stigma and eating disorder risk. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2022;122(6): 1089–1098The short story about this study is that it reads like a bunch of diet industry shills trying to co-opt the language of weight-neutral health in order to obfuscate the plain fact that intentional weight loss is incompatible with eating disorders prevention and treatment, so they can continue to market the same old failed “interventions” for “ob*sity”* and dodge responsibility for all the harm they create. I did a deep dive into this paper here.The challenges in diagnosing EDs in the context of the treatments recommended in these guidelines are due to the fact that the behaviors recommended by these guidelines (and created by the drugs and surgeries recommended) are consistent with eating disorders symptoms. Another way to say this is that the same behaviors that are considered red flags for an eating disorder in thinner children are being recommended as “healthcare” for higher-weight children bolstered by the dubious claim that they will reduce eating disorder symptoms.I do not think any of the research they cite comes close to supporting their claim that “evidence-based pediatric ob*sity treatment reduces risks for disordered eating.” In fact, I think significant research (which I wrote about here) shows that if the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines are followed, they will create a generation of kids struggling with disordered eating and eating disorders , starting as early as two years old. Compounding the issue, since (by their own admission,) the “treatments” recommended by their guidelines almost never result in significant, long-term weight loss, these kids will still be higher-weight and, thus, have a more difficult time getting properly diagnosed with these life-threatening conditions (especially if their doctors read claims that the weight loss “treatments” the kids have survived supposedly prevent eating disorders.) This will do the most harm to higher-weight kids who are multiply-marginalized and/or under-resourced who, even if they can get a correct diagnosis, will have a very difficult time getting treatment. The top eating disorders organizations have come out unequivocally against these guidelines:International Federation of Eating Disorders DietitiansNational Alliance for Eating DisordersShame on the AAP for bending themselves (and the data) into pretzels to defend and recommend a dangerous and failed weight loss paradigm to children as young as two years old.Here is Louise's full letterProfessor David YorkEditor-in-ChiefOb*sity Reviews444 W Willis #307DetroitMI 48201Dear Professor York,I am writing to bring to your attention my significant concerns about an article recently published in Ob*sity Reviews:Jebeile, H, Gow, ML, Baur, LA, Garnett, SP, Paxton, SJ, Lister, NB. Treatment ofob*sity, with a dietary component, and eating disorder risk in children and adolescents: A systematic review with meta-analysis. Ob*sity Reviews. 2019; 20: 1287– 1298. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12866Please note that I send you this communication not with a view to being published in your journal (unless you believe this to be appropriate - I leave this decision to your discretion), but to ask that you consider the points I make below and consider retracting the article.This review sought to investigate the impact of ob*sity treatment, with a dietary component, on eating disorder (ED) prevalence, ED risk, and related symptoms in higher weight children and adolescents. The review analysed 29 studies, claiming data for 2589 adolescents. The authors concluded that ‘structured and professionally run ob*sity treatment was associated with reduced ED prevalence, ED risk, and symptoms'. I have three main concerns about the quality of this paper: (1) review methods, (2) follow up period definitions and (3) omission of dietary restraint analysis. These concerns are detailed below:1. Review Methods: Decision to Run a Meta-AnalysisThe fact that a meta-analysis was conducted rather than a narrative summary is troubling considering the heterogeneity of the studies included. The 29 studies involved interventions ranging from 1 week to 13 months. 11 of the studies had no follow up period. Those with follow ups varied considerably, ranging from 12 weeks to more than 5 years post intervention. The intervention types and locations were vastly different: including inpatient and outpatient hospital programs, school-based health clinics, and even an intervention in which adolescents attended a Jenny Craig program.A systematic review of 9 adolescent weight management interventions exploring the same subject - ED risk factors - by De Giuseppe and colleagues (2019) shared five papers in common with Jebeile et al (2019). However, De Giuseppe et al concluded that a meta analysis was not possible due to heterogeneity of the papers, and instead conducted a narrative summary of the findings. I believe that Jebeile et al should also have conducted a narrative review due to the heterogenity of the studies. Both Jebeile et al and De Giuseppe et al conducted a quality assessment, albeit using different assessment tools. Jebeile et al used the US Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Quality Criteria Checklist (Handu et al 2016) and rated 11 of their included papers as ‘positive' and 25 as ‘neutral'. The De Giuseppe et al (2019) study utilised the Effective Public Health Practice Project Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies (Thomas et al, 2004). For 4 of the 5 studies in common, Jebeile et al 's quality ratings were higher than those assessed by De Giuseppe et al :Study Cited Jebeile et al (2019) De Giuseppe et al (2019)Cohen et al (2018) Positive ModerateDeNiet et al (2012) Positive ModerateHalberstadt et al (2016) Neutral WeakGoossens et al (2011) Neutral WeakSaverstani et al (2009) Neutral ModerateThere is clear disagreement between these authors as to the quality of the same studies, with Jebeile et al consistently producing more positive assessments.2. Follow Up Period Definitions 18 studies cited by Jebeile et al included follow up periods. In their Eligibility Criteria they stated that data at last follow up was ‘defined as a period in which there was no contact with study personnel and no intervention delivery' (pg 1288). Given this definition, the paper should have consistently referred to follow up periods from the end of intervention rather than baseline.However, throughout the paper and supplementary document, Jebeile et al (2019) repeatedly provide data reflecting time periods from baseline, often without explicitly stating that the period cited was taken from baseline and did not reflect their given definition.An example of this is on page 4 under “Prevalence of diagnosed eating disorders”, where Jebeile et al stated that “from 110 participants who completed the 24 month follow-up measures in the study by Braet et al…”. This should have been reported as a 14 month follow up.A further correction is needed in that the Braet et al (2004) study only had data on ED measures for 89 participants, not 110. Another example of this type of error in the reported number of participants occurred in the reporting of the De Bar et al (2012) study, where they stated that the intervention had n=100 in usual care and n=100 in the usual care control group, when in fact there were n=90 in the intervention group and n=83 in the control group. It is of concern that both of these errors overstated the number of participants in their dataset.Defining the follow up period in one way in the Eligibility Criteria and reporting it another way throughout the paper had the impact of making the included studies' follow up periods appear longer than they actually were. It is critical that the correct follow up period definition is adhered to, as Jebeile et al have used these to claim that a ‘strength' of their meta-analysis was that it ‘addresses concerns over longer term ED risk….with follow-up timepoints of up to 6 years from baseline, including seven studies with a follow up of >2 years” (p. 1295). If we use the correct definition for follow up periods as beginning from the end of an intervention period, only 3, not 7, of the studies in their meta analysis have a follow up period of 2 years or longer, representing just 7.5% of the total sample. This low number certainly does not adequately address concerns over longer term ED risk in adolescents, and represents a weakness, not a strength, of the meta analysis.3. Quality of the Analysis of Risk Posed by Adolescent Weight Loss InterventionsJebeile et al's claims regarding the safety of adolescent weight loss interventions is at odds with the widely held view, supported by theories of the etiology of ED development (Ahern, Bennett, Hetherington, 2008; Berge et al, 2018, Fairburn, Cooper, Doll, Welch,1999, Golden et al, 2016, Ouwens et al, 2009, Polivy & Herman, 1985, Stice & Presnell, 2007) and a substantial body of longitudinal research (Field et al, 2003,Neumark-Sztainer et al, 2007, Patton et al, 1999, Stice 2001, Stice et al, 2000, Stice et al, 2005, Urvelyte & Perminas, 2015) which demonstrate that over time, dieting is a major risk factor for both increased weight and increased risk of development of disordered eating and ED. In order to accurately assess the impact and potential harms of adolescent weight loss interventions, three conditions must be met:1) Quality data that captures disordered eating/eating disorder symptomatology for a period of at least 2 years, if not longer, after the diet intervention ends. This is because in childhood and adolescence eating disorders can take considerable time to appear; Stice and Van Ryzin (2019) have identified a 4-step pathway of eating disorder development which demonstrated that eating disorder symptoms did not appear until, on average, 26.8 months after youths began dieting.The need for longer follow up data has been apparent for a considerable time: over 20 years ago, Casper (1996) discussed this need to improve research standards and recommended even longer minimum follow-up durations of 4 years.2) ED instruments that have been developed and normed for higher weight adolescents. These measures should include an exploration of internalised weight stigma, so that researchers can untangle the apparent positive impact of weight loss from the experience of a reduction in internalised and external weight bias. Unfortunately such ED instruments do not yet exist. In the absence of such sensitive measures, quality studies must include follow up data for ED measurements of some kind.3) In order to determine the efficacy of weight loss interventions, best practice is to include a control group from the same population (Brown et al, 2019). It is even more important in youth, since BMI algorithms include the speed of growth, not just height and weight, and weight loss and gain are being assessed in relation to other youth. To answer the question of the impact of dieting, it is important to track the weight trajectories of larger bodied adolescents who do not diet. Phenomena such as regression to the mean (RTM) in higher weight adolescents and normal variations in growth spurts can impact significantly, and without control groups the true impact of weight loss interventions on larger youths will remain unknown. Brown et al (2019) have called for researchers to “clearly, and without reservation, acknowledge the distinct possibility that RTM could explain the improvements after intervention (p.4)”.None of the studies included in Jebeile et al's meta-analysis met all 3 of these requirements. None of the studies included a randomised control group with 2 year post intervention data. Only 3 studies - Braet et al (2000, 2006), and Goossens et al (2011) meet criteria for providing ED measures with a follow up period after the intervention of 2 years or longer. Once drop out rates and the number of adolescents with complete ED data at follow up are factored in, Jebeile et al's paper included quality data on 195 adolescents; just 7.5% of the sample.It is accurate to state that the meta-analysis revealed more about how much we do not know about the link between adolescent weight loss interventions and ED development, rather than claiming evidence of safety. I am concerned that the way this paper is written obscures the true message of the data. The authors' conclusions do not mention the dearth of meaningful long-term data, instead the opposite message - one that suggested a degree of certainty - was conveyed.A closer examination of the 3 studies with longer term data on ED is warranted. Braet et al (2000) conducted a three-armed intervention on 136 adolescents aged between 7 and 17 years. There was no control group. The intervention compared 3 conditions of a CBT based ‘healthy eating' program. A follow up was conducted 4.6 years after the intervention ended.ED data were available for only 53 of the original 136 participants (39% of the sample). A large number of adolescents did not return for follow up, and it is plausible that these youths may be experiencing negative impacts from the intervention. The authors called for “caution in interpreting these data” given the large amount of missing data.Participant data for the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ) was gathered at baseline and at follow up. The results of the DEBQ showed a significant reduction in external eating, a significant increase in restrained eating, and no change in emotional eating.Braet et al also administered the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) at the 4.6 year follow up. These results revealed that girls scored higher than average on the Drive for Thinness subscale, and boys scored significantly higher than average on the Body Dissatisfaction subscale. 9% of the sample had a score of five or more on the Bulimia EDI-subscale. Analysing a subsample of 76 of the youths, one had been hospitalised in an eating disorder unit.In terms of weight reduction, the Braet et al study showed that mean % overweight was 55% at the outset and 42% at follow up. Without a control group it is not possible to interpret these results. Further, almost half of the subsample reported that they had continued to seek weight loss after the intervention ended. This would impact on ED measurements: if adolescents are still dieting, some ED symptoms (eg binge eating) may not be apparent. This does not mean however that they have not been harmed, or that an ED will not develop in the future.It is important to note that other authors in the field have cited the Braet et al (2000) study as evidence for the emergence of ED symptoms after weight loss interventions.For instance, Goossens et al (2011) make the following statement: “results from a recent study...demonstrate that despite initial improvements (post-treatment and 2-year followup), eating pathology stagnated and even tended to increase in a subsample of youngsters at 3-year follow-up.”It should further be noted that the description of Braet et al's (2000) study presented in Table S2 in Jebeile et al's paper lists only the DEBQ and omits the EDI . Furthermore, the elevated Bulimia subscale scores in Braet et al's study were omitted in section 3.6.1. Bulimic Symptoms, despite the obvious relevance. In fact the Braet et al (2000) study is completely absent from this section, which is of concern. Jebeile et al state that “Two studies reported on participants with scores above a clinical cut-point for bulimic symptoms”. This should be corrected to say 3 studies, and include an overview of the Braet et al (2000) EDI data including that girls scored higher than average on the Drive for Thinness subscale, boys scored significantly higher than average on the Body Dissatisfaction subscale, 9% of the sample had scores above a clinical cut-off point for Bulimia, and one participant had been hospitalised for an eating disorder.The study by Braet et al (2006) followed 150 adolescents through a ten-month inpatient weight loss program. 2 years later, 110 youths provided weight data and Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) data was collected for 86 participants at baseline and follow up. This represents an absence of data for 43% of the sample.In terms of weight, the authors reported a 10% reduction in adjusted BMI, but without a control group it is not possible to ascertain the actual impact of the weight loss intervention. Of note, 75% of the sample were reported to be regaining weight after the intervention, even though 78% reported that they were engaging in further weight loss attempts after the study period ended.The overall EDE scores were reported as reduced at the 2 year follow up mark, but detailed subscale data was not reported. The same sample was discussed in a 2009 study by Goossens et al, where they reported increases in dietary restraint scores, and further warned that “in younger age groups, as was the case in this study, restraint attitudes have probably not yet reached their peak, and, as a consequence, full-blown eating disorders are still hard to detect.” The authors themselves are acknowledging that even a two year follow up is not enough time for ED symptoms to start showing in this population.The third study by Goossens et al (2011) was conducted on a sample of 108 adolescents aged between 10 and 17. There was no control group. The intervention was a 10 month inpatient program (the same program reported in Braet et al 2006). The follow up period was five years and two months after the intervention ended. Overall, 48% of the sample were lost to follow up, and the authors obtained complete ED measures (Child Eating Disorder Examination [chEDE] and the EDI) for 56 adolescents.No participants met criteria for binge-eating disorder (BED) at baseline. However, at follow-up, 5.4% met BED criteria. 8.3% of youths who did not report Objective Binge Eating (OBE) at baseline reported OBE at follow up. 8.5% of youths who did not report Subjective Binge Eating (SBE) at baseline reported SBE at follow up. Half of the adolescents who reported OBE at baseline still reported OBE at follow up.In summary, the data for studies with follow up periods of 2 years or longer show that from an initial pool of 394 youths, data on 195 were available, representing just 49.5% of the starting sample. Within this group, roughly 5-9% are showing signs of disordered eating and increased risk of ED following weight loss interventions. Disordered eating symptoms arise over time, and are easily erased when meta analyses include no or short term follow up periods. It is imperative that any research in this area focuses on long term outcomes, not allowing the shorter term data to obscure the big picture. We must also keep in mind the fate of the large group of adolescents (in this case, roughly half) who are lost to follow up. The fate of these youths is too often overlooked, and it is plausible that many of these people end up with disordered eating and ED.3. Omission of Dietary Restraint AnalysisJebeile et al's paper does not include a section reporting the impact of adolescent weight loss interventions on dietary restraint (DR) , a glaring omission given this is a central precursor to and symptom of eating disorders. In the studies included in the review, ample data was collected for DR and warrants further analysis.The differing frames between the eating disorder literature, in which DR clearly features as a central symptom of EDs, and the ob*sity research literature, in which DR is viewed as desirable for larger bodied people, is critically important to highlight. The treatment of ob*sity requires a practice that has been found to be a gateway to the development of eating disorders for people with eating disorders. For ob*sity researchers to omit any analysis of the impact of adolescent weight loss interventions on DR is a tacit admission that higher weight people should be prescribed what is diagnosed as disordered eating in thinner people.Many of the papers in the meta analysis demonstrated increases in DR soon after the intervention (eg, Braet et al 2000, Braet et al 2006, Brennan et al 2012, Goossens et al 2011, Halberstadt et al 2016, Saverstani et al, 2009). Several of the authors involved in these studies themselves raised the issue of dietary restraint as an important issue to study in adolescents, noting that it is important that interventions do not make DR worse. For example, Braet et al (2000) note that “ we wanted to avoid the type of dietary restraint that has been linked to the development of eating disorders” .In comparison, the De Giuseppe et al (2019) analysis discussed DR at length, noting conflicting results. Some studies found the interventions reduced DR, whilst others found they increased it. Regardless of whether DR is viewed as a precursor to both weight regain and the development of ED (Jansen et al, 2009, Stice et al, 2005), or viewed as a necessary and potentially useful method of weight control for larger sized adolescents (Smith et al 2018), this topic needs to be analysed, discussed and argued, not ignored.Given the errors and serious omissions in Jebeile et al's article, the findings and conclusions of this review are unreliable. I am concerned that the overarching message of this paper projects an air of certainty regarding the long-term safety and efficacy of adolescent weight loss interventions on ED risk that does not reflect adequate data and places children and adolescents at risk of harm. I am concerned that this paper will be used as evidence to justify ever more invasive weight loss trials and products in vulnerable adolescent populations. The authors' conclusion that ‘structured and professionally run ob*sity treatment leads to a reduction in the prevalence of ED, ED risk, and ED-related symptoms for most participants' is extraordinarily misguided, given that (a) quality long-term data were available for only 7.5% of the sample, and (b) clear evidence of a subset of adolescents who developed ED symptoms was present in the longer term studies. Moreover, the high numbers of missing data due to adolescents lost to follow up is important to note and cannot be overlooked as a potential indicator of even higher risk.I respectfully request that this paper be considered for retraction. Thank you for considering my submission, I await your response.Yours sincerely,Louise AdamsClinical PsychologistUntrappedSydney, AustraliaDid you find this post helpful? You can subscribe for free to get future posts delivered direct to your inbox, or choose a paid subscription to support the newsletter and get special benefits! Click the Subscribe button below for details:Liked this piece? Share this piece:More research and resources:https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da'Shaun Harrison Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

How to Tell If A "Weight Bias" Training Is Diet Culture in Disguise

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2022 6:54

This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you appreciate the content here, please consider supporting the newsletter by subscribing and/or sharing!As the diet industry works hard to co-opt the language of weight-neutral health and fat liberation and misuse it to sell weight loss interventions, I'm seeing more and more “anti-weight bias” trainings that are actually just diet industry marketing in disguise.Sometimes the trainers are very aware of what they are doing, sometimes they are actually well-meaning but simply duped by diet culture. Regardless, this is especially dangerous since the attendees leave thinking that they've learned how to reduce or eliminate weight stigma, when in fact what they've learned is how to be uncompensated, unwitting marketers for the diet industry, increasing weight stigma in the process.Here are some common red flagsThe trainer is one or more of the following:* Involved in “ob*sity medicine” * Paid to sell/prescribe/provide weight loss interventions* Taking payments from the weight loss industry* Represents an astroturf organization like the Ob*sity Action Coalition, Ob*sity Society etc.Taking the position that “I don't want to stigmatize fat people, but I want to dedicate my career to eradicating them and making sure that no more ever exist” is not an anti-weight stigma stance.You cannot be invested (ideologically or monetarily) in anti-fatness (aka anti-ob*sity) and be anti-weight stigma, they are mutually exclusive positions.The training uses pathologizing/person first languageThe words “ob*se” and “overw*ight” were literally made up to pathologize and medicalize higher-weight bodies. “Overw*ight” is inherently shaming (as it indicates that a body is “over” whatever is being considered a “correct” weight,) and “ob*se” comes from a Latin word that means “to eat until fat,” so much more stereotype than science there. Person-first language (saying person with ob*sity, person affected by ob*sity, person with overw*ight etc.) does NOT come from weight-neutral health community or fat liberation community. It was co-opted from disability community (where it is controversial) by the weight loss industry in the service of their goal of declaring that simply existing in a higher-weight body (regardless of any measure or concept of health) is a “chronic lifelong health condition” (that requires their profit-driving interventions.) This is not about reducing stigma, it's about increasing the bottom line of the weight loss industry.The training suggests that weight loss is a solution for weight stigmaIf they list bullying, lack of accommodation, or other types of weight stigma as a reason that people need access to weight loss interventions (including and especially drugs and surgeries) then they are inciting bias, not reducing it. While weight stigma is real and does real harm, and fat people are allowed to make whatever choices they want in dealing with it, in an anti-bias training it is wildly inappropriate to teach that oppressed people should have to change themselves (including risking their lives and quality of life with dangerous and/or expensive weight loss interventions,) to escape oppression. Teaching that oppressed people should change themselves to suit their oppressors is not an anti-stigma position. Even if someone believes that fat people are less healthy, healthism does not justify weight stigma.If the curriculum is not focused on creating a world that fully affirms and accommodates fat people, then it's likely diet industry propaganda.They suggest that the “real” injustice is a lack of access to weight loss interventionsI'm seeing this more and more from people who work for/take payments from the weight loss industry. They try to claim that the true injustice and stigma is that some people don't have access to their dangerous and expensive interventions. This has, actually, nothing to do with reducing weight stigma and, instead, is part of the weight loss industry's long game to get their procedures covered by insurance, which will vastly increase profits.Playing the Rename GameThere is definitely a place in anti-bias training for discussing language. However, if, instead of working to dismantle stigmatizing diet culture concepts, they are just renaming them (ie: instead of “willpower” use “commitment,” instead of “ideal weight” use “goal weight” etc.) then they are just repackaging diet culture.Reducing bias isn't about using different words for the same harmful concepts and practices, it's about dismantling the biased paradigm and using words that create a new paradigm (instead of “ob*se” use fat/higher-weight, stop conceptualizing weight as ideal, healthy, a goal etc.)They claim that the problem is that there isn't enough anti-fat educationIf they are claiming that healthcare practitioners and others should receive more education about pathologizing fat people and prescribing/recommending weight loss interventions, this is a weight loss marketing seminar, not an anti-bias training. NovoNordisk is involvedHaving made (and continuing to make) a literal fortune from price gouging on insulin, NovoNordisk is bringing this same attitude (and the Perdue Pharma Oxycontin marketing playbook) to their weight loss drug Wegovy, which they promised their shareholders would be a massive profit-driver. I wrote more about this here. You can also check out this episode of the excellent podcast Untrapped during which I got to talk about this with the brilliant Louise Adams and Fiona Willer! Their message is “don't blame fat people, but do focus on eradicating them”If they are only admitting the fact that weight isn't a simple matter of calories in/calories out so that they can use that as a reason to promote diet drugs and weight loss surgeries then, again, you are not at an anti-stigma training, you are at a marketing seminar for the diet industry. (Even worse if they are acting like they just discovered this fact, when true anti-weight stigma and fat liberation activists have been screaming it from rooftops for literal decades.) Bottom Line:A true anti-weight bias/anti-weight stigma training de-pathologizes fatness and promotes a world that fully affirms and accommodates fat people. While there may be harm reduction models that fall short of this, if any of the red flags above are present, it tell me that I should do even more digging about who is creating/funding/providing this training, and who is profiting from the ideas presented. Please feel free to put other red flags that you have noticed in the comments below.Did you find this newsletter helpful? You can subscribe for free to get future newsletters delivered direct to your inbox, or choose a paid subscription to support the newsletter and get special benefits! Click the Subscribe button for details:Like this piece? Share this piece:More ResearchFor a full bank of research, check out https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings: Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da'Shaun Harrison: Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this. Get full access to Weight and Healthcare at weightandhealthcare.substack.com/subscribe

Weight Loss Drugs Part One

money wellbeing louise adams

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2022 65:13 Transcription Available

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!

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The Wednesday wellbeing show 9th of November 2022 with Helen Louise Adams

Amanda Joy's Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2022 51:36

Tonight on the #Wednesdaywellbeing show I'm chatting about MONEY.. Helen Louise Adams is the leader of a growing global movement called the Female Business Revolution. She helps female entrepreneurs create unlimited income with the most powerful tool at their disposal - their intuition! She is passionate about empowering women everywhere to reclaim their sovereignty over money, not only for their security but also for them to be able to live the first class lives they desire and deserve!Listen at 8 pm on DH9digital and on The Wednesday Wellbeing Show.Support the show

Noom With Dr Alexis Conason

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2022 74:24

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??

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Noom With Dr Alexis Conason

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2022 74:24 Transcription Available

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??

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5-10% Weight Loss Is Good For Your Health & Other BS With Ragen Chastain

health bs weight loss ragen ragen chastain louise adams

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 17, 2022 54:33

"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!

5-10% Weight Loss Is Good For Your Health & Other BS With Ragen Chastain

health bs weight loss ragen ragen chastain louise adams

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 17, 2022 54:33 Transcription Available

"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!

Teens and body image: Starting at home

Butterfly: Let's Talk

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 6, 2021 26:07

With so many developmental and even physical changes happening in their lives, teenagers are particularly vulnerable to body image issues. Spurred on by social media, they're constantly comparing themselves to others.Having a positive body image can help teens to develop self-esteem, self-confidence, and to develop socially. It can lead to better mental and physical health later in life.The problem is research shows that, consistently, body image is one of teens' top three concerns. Also, the number of adolescents reporting body dissatisfaction is increasing, exposing more and more youngsters to long term effects.Dr Justin Coulson, one of Australia's top parenting experts says a healthy body image starts at home. “The last thing we should be doing is shaming bodies,” he says. “When a child feels disconnected, shamed and unworthy, they're less likely to take the input of their parents.”Clinical Psychologist Dr Louise Adams agrees: “Body image is about much more than our bodies,” she says, “It's actually how we feel about ourselves, based on our physical appearance, and how our physical appearance has been treated in the world.”In this episode, we look at how the home environment can have a significant influence on a teen's body image. For example, positive role-modelling and demonstrated kindness toward our bodies and others' can act as a protective factor to other influences our teens can't control.We also hear from Jem and their dad, Richard, and Ashlee and her mom, Christine – Jem and Ashlee have both battled debilitating body image issues, but their families have learned to review body image in ways that are helping to see them through.To find out more about Justin Coulson's work go to https://www.justincoulson.com/To hear more from Louise Adams go to https://untrapped.com.au/And for more on Butterfly's Body Kind Families program, visit www.butterfly.org.au/bodykindfamiliesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The OBCC With Cara MacB

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2021 41:18

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 OBCC With Cara MacB

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Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2021 41:18 Transcription Available

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

Louise Adams - CEO of the Year building a Bridge from a childhood dream

Brave Feminine Leadership

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2021 48:59

Together we cover slideshows with her grandfather, cricket and highland dancing. Louise was awarded CEO of the year in 2020 by CEO Magazine and we discuss leadership as a lifelong journey. Louise inspires hope that we are building momentum in seeing more Female leaders. Join me to hear this pasionate, open and vulnerable leader who is committed to making a difference.

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#44: Finding Food Freedom with Louise Adams

The Eating Disorder Trap Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 24, 2021 31:37

Louise Adams is a clinical psychologist and the Vice President of HAES Australia. Louise is also the director of UNTRAPPED, an online program for people with eating and body weight concerns. She is the host of the non-diet podcast, All Fired Up!. Louise has written two books. The Non-Diet Approach Guidebook for Psychologists and Counsellors (2014, co-authored with Fiona Willer, APD) is a professional manual which guides psychologists and counsellors in the application of the non-diet approach. Her second book, Mindful Moments (2016) is for the general public, and teaches people how to apply self-compassion based mindfulness techniques in their everyday lives. We discuss topics including: The Damage caused by diets Social justice of HAES The prison of diet culture The reasons that people are terrified of letting go Misconceptions with eating disorder clients _____________________ If you have any questions regarding the topics discussed on this podcast, please reach out to Robyn directly via email: rlgrd@askaboutfood.com You can also connect with Robyn on social media by following her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review on iTunes and subscribe. Visit Robyn's private practice website where you can subscribe to her free monthly insight newsletter, and receive your FREE GUIDE “Maximizing Your Time with Those Struggling with an Eating Disorder”. For more information on Robyn's book “The Eating Disorder Trap”, please visit the Official "The Eating Disorder Trap" Website. “The Eating Disorder Trap” is also available for purchase on Amazon.

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231: The Fast Track Trial And The Obesity Collective With Louise Adams

Real Health Radio: Ending Diets | Improving Health | Regulating Hormones | Loving Your Body

Play Episode Listen Later May 7, 2021 95:00

The post 231: The Fast Track Trial And The Obesity Collective With Louise Adams appeared first on Seven Health: Intuitive Eating and Anti Diet Nutritionist.

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Episode 65 - Special with Louise Adams and Natalie Aldridge

BUIHA Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 6, 2021 33:22

Rambo chats with GB International women's players Natalie Aldridge and Louise Adams. They chat about their start in the game, the opportunities for female players and the new Ozone training facility in Bracknell.

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#Please Stop Inspiring Me With Summer Innanen

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2021 61:16 Transcription Available

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

#Please Stop Inspiring Me With Summer Innanen

Fearless Rebelle Radio with Summer Innanen

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2021 61:16

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

#190: Body Image Ideals + Inside the Obesity Collective - with Louise Adams

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 16, 2021 46:39

I’m interviewing Louise Adams, clinical psychologist and founder of UNTRAPPED, about the hazardous influence of body image ideals in society and on social media. We also talk about the dangerous agenda behind the Obesity Collective, its worldwide reach, and what we can do to fight this agenda. Show notes: summerinnanen.com/190 In this episode, we chat about: - Louise’s history with dieting and what brought her to this work, - Her reaction to fitness influencers on Instagram and the dangers of thin people co-opting body positivity, - The expense associated with trying to attain the “ideal body,” - What the Obesity Collective is and the dangerous agenda behind it, - Why the shift from the “war on obesity” conversation to “combat weight stigma” isn’t necessarily the good thing it appears to be, - Why you need to really examine who is behind the media you are consuming, Plus so much more! Get the shownotes: summerinnanen.com/190

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Louise Adams, Chief Operating Officer – Australia and New Zealand of Aurecon on the power of visibility for leading in a new era

Leading Women

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 14, 2021 32:07

This episode, Shadé Zahrai interviews Louise Adams, Chief Operating Officer – Australia and New Zealand of Aurecon. She is also a Mentor of the Minerva Network, National Advisory Board Member of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Member of Chief Executive Women and Board Director of Aurecon Australasia. She was named 2020 CEO of the Year by The CEO Magazine, a 2018 Scholar by the Chief Executive Women and received a High Commendation as one of the Champions of Change Female Leadership Award by Consult Australia. Valuable Discussion Points (01:21) What is the story of Louise's leadership journey? Louise felt that her leadership journey started out quite accidentally. Her passion was to travel and she wanted to link her career with her ability to travel, having some opportunities to travel with the work. One of the directors of Aurecon wanted to open an office in Western Australia and offered Louise the job of leading the office there. As the office grew, she grew with it. She continued to jump at opportunities that took her overseas. She headed overseas to the UK, the UAE until she was offered another role back in Australia. (05:16) What is the “what next” moment for Louise? When Louise was starting her career, whenever an opportunity was given to her, she would jump in without really knowing where it was heading. Now, she is at a point in her career where she can visualise where she wants to be next, what she aspires to become and where she wants to be in 10 or 15 years. This is her "what next" moment. She has built herself a bank of experience, connections, networks and professional reputation that rather than just taking in the opportunities as they come to her, she can now start to design opportunities and create opportunities for herself in areas that she wanted them to be to put her on the right path for her planned future endeavours. (16:02) What are her thoughts on young people who are really driven, ambitious and want to keep moving and growing but without really thinking about, where they are now and how they can demonstrate that they can deliver here and now? A CV is a reflection of the experiences that you have in your career and a CV is like a report card that can open opportunities for you. You've got to really appreciate that the depth of the CV comes from actually making the most of opportunities. Louise advises young people that she mentors to sort of hasten slowly and prove themselves in their roles. (24:46) With all of Louise's leadership experience, nothing could have prepared her for 2020, what was 2020 like for her and what wisdom did she gain from that year? For her, 2020 is going to go down as the most challenging year in most people's professional careers, if not personal lives. What really resonated with her was that every time she faced thousands of people who are looking to her for leadership during times of crisis, she emphasised the importance of authenticity and the willingness to be quite open about that she won't always have the answers. Key Learnings Leaders have perhaps tended to hold expectations of themselves or perhaps other people held expectations of leaders that leaders naturally know the answers to everything. We live in such a fast changing, evolving world that can be disrupted and is constantly disrupted, be it by technology or by the circumstances the world finds itself in 2020. Leaders need to be able to show vulnerability, to show that it really is impossible for one person to have the answers to everything. Decades ago, a typical army approach to leadership may have worked, where leaders can say I know what you need to do because I've been there and I've done that before. Nowadays, with the size and complexity of organisations and often the multidisciplinary nature of organisations, it's very rare for you to have a leader that actually can look at everybody in the organisation and say, I've done what you've done. Add to that the fact that you're introducing technology at such a rate, you're often as a leader, going to be asking people to do things that you really haven't had to do yourself. Louise added being specific about where one wanted to go in their leadership journey to the Leadership Toolbox. Where do you want to be in 10 years? What sort of CV would you need to have to get that job that you want in 10 years? And then comparing it with your CV on the day with the CV that you needed in 10 years and looking for the gaps. Ask yourself, what are the career opportunities that I need to go and create for myself to make the ideal CV that I'm going to put on the table in 10 years to get that ultimate outcome that I want. Quotable Quotes “You don't suddenly wake up at a point in your career and say, I'm a leader, and therefore I have all of the suite of tools and experiences and skills to be a leader that leadership in and of itself is this ongoing lifelong learning journey.” – Louise Adams “You need to earn the right to be able to have people follow you.”– Louise Adams “We were starting to see this ongoing trend where people and communities were standing up to corporations and saying, we expect you to stand for more than just profit. And I think, therefore, there's a lesson to be learnt for leaders that you really have to find. What is your passion?”– Louise Adams Important Resources and Links If you would like to learn more about how CommBank is ensuring women are advancing their growth in business, visit https://www.commbank.com.au/women-in-focus.html. Host of the Leading Women podcast, Shadé Zahrai helps women hack their careers to advance faster, overcome their limiting beliefs and confidently create the life they deserve. She is featured in Forbes, the New York Times, TED, Daily Mail and other media. If you're interested in learning more about Shadé and the issues she's currently discussing, visit https://www.shadezahrai.com If you're interested in connecting with Louise Adms or viewing her professional portfolios and achievements, visit her LinkedIn via https://www.linkedin.com/in/louiseadamsaurecon The Leading Women podcast is produced by Nicole Hatherly, recorded at RadioHub Studios with post production by Cooper Silk and Iain Wilson.

Weight Bias and Mental Health Concerns for Kids & Teens in a Pandemic with Louise Adams

Sunny Side Up Nutrition

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 1, 2021 36:33

This week we are sharing a conversation that Anna M. & Elizabeth had with Sydney-based clinical psychologist Louise Adams. Louise is the founder of Treat Yourself Well Sydney, and the creator of UNTRAPPED, an online program to help people find food and body peace, and escape from the endless diet cycle. She is also Vice President of Health At Every Size®️ Australia, has written two books, and hosts a terrific podcast called All Fired Up (a must-listen!). We discuss: Why treating patients using a weight-inclusive / HAES®️ framework not only produces more positive and sustainable health outcomes, but why it is the most ethical way to treat people. The prevalence of weight bias in the medical community and how that affects the way people receive treatment and why people often think dieting or invasive surgical procedures are their “only” option to improve their health. How weight bias was quick to rear its ugly head right at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in the form of “concerns” over the correlation between weight/BMI and health risks associated with the virus. The harm in throwing around terms like the “covid 15” in reference to weight gain, particularly for kids and teens who are already super stressed. How the pandemic is affecting the mental health of kids & teens, a significant portion of whom are struggling with depression & anxiety. Some things parents can do to help their kids & teens get through this difficult time. [CW: we had to mention the “O word” a few times — we are well aware of the stigmatizing nature of this word and try not to use it — but sometimes when referencing research or the rhetoric of weight-biased researchers, it’s unavoidable.] Links: Untrapped All Fired Up Podcast Covid Contiki Tour Part 1 All Fired Up Podcast Covid Contiki Tour Part Sunny Side Up Nutrition Podcast Lutz, Alexander & Associates Nutrition Therapy Pinney Davenport Nutrition

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Will engineers be the rock stars of the future?

Engineering Reimagined podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 14, 2020 19:38

So many sectors around the world, including aviation, tourism, hospitality and retail have been hit extremely hard by COVID-19, leaving millions of people jobless. Fortunately, many engineers have quickly adapted to digital ways of working despite delayed or cancelled projects. Given their skills in finding solutions to complex problems, will engineers be the new rock stars of our post pandemic world? Aurecon’s Chief Executive for Australia and New Zealand, Louise Adams, speaks with Trish White, Board Director of Engineers Australia, about the role they will play in global economic recovery and how they can pivot to different industries where their skills are required right now. Find us online at aurecongroup.com/podcast or email us at engineeringreimagined@aurecongroup.com. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

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Engineering during and beyond COVID-19 – an ANZ perspective

Engineering Reimagined podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2020 25:24

In this special episode of Engineering Reimagined, Maria Rampa talks to Louise Adams, Aurecon’s Chief Executive of Australia and New Zealand, on COVID-19’s impact on the engineering sector across both countries and the opportunities available to industry post the crisis. Engineering geologist and Aurecon’s Spatial Team Leader Camilla Gibbons also shares her insights on how lessons learned from the Christchurch earthquake could be helping to inform New Zealanders’ responses to the current crisis. Find us online at aurecongroup.com/podcast or email us at engineeringreimagined@aurecongroup.com.

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45: Diets for kids and teens: What does the research really say? with Louise Adams, clinical psychologist

The Full Bloom Podcast - body-positive parenting for a more embodied and inclusive next generation

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 8, 2020 47:06

We're joined by the hilarious clinical psychologist and author Louise Adams, who is fired up about changing how society views health, diets, weight loss, and bodies. We discuss “childhood obesity” research, including Louise's criticisms of an ongoing Australian weight loss trial. Louise also takes us point by point through the research used to justify a weight loss app for children and teens so that parents can evaluate for themselves its claims about diets. *We recorded this episode before the devastating fires began in Australia. Please visit the Australian Red Cross to learn what you can do to help. Read the full show notes for this episode. Get our ABC Guide to Body-Positive Parenting. Submit a question for season 3.

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Cathy Guisewite, Dairy Queen chocolate-dipped vanilla cone

Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2019 25:25

Ack! Cathy Guisewite wrote and drew the Cathy comic strip, syndicated in newspapers across the US from 1976 to 2010. She got her start in a very unorthodox way, having never drawn a comic strip in her life, in a time when men dominated the Sunday morning funnies. You're going to want to hear this story! If you've ever taped a Cathy comic to your fridge or cubicle, you know the character is obsessed with chocolate chocolate chocolate and is often seen in a department store dressing room, scrutinizing herself in a bathing suit. So Rachel Belle chats with psychologist and Non-Diet approach advocate, Louise Adams, about how today's trendy diets (intermittent fasting, Keto, Paleo) are just as kooky and harmful as the cabbage soup & grapefruit diets of years past. And summer just isn't the same without at least one cone topped with an ethereally creamy, mile-high swirl of soft serve. Dairy Queen has been in the cone biz since 1940 and its director of product development explains what makes soft serve different (ahem, better? *cough*) than hard packed ice cream. Cathy Guisewite's book, "Fifty Things That Aren't My Fault: Essays From the Grown-Up Years" is out now! Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram & sign up for the Your Last Meal newsletter.

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A history of pubes

The Hook Up

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2019 29:27

What do you do with your hair down there? Maybe you pluck it, maybe you wax it, maybe you've lasered it all off… But why are we so obsessed with removing our pubes, and has it always been this way? Nat tackles those questions and learns how everyone can embrace whatever landscaping they choose … and how to deal if a partner can't get around it.

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Fast Track Trial with Louise Adams

Do No Harm Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2019 82:02

The Fast Track Trial is a trial in Australia that is being done to determine the efficacy of intermittent fasting for weight loss in teens. My amazing guest, Louise Adams, has spent the last year actively trying to get the trial stopped because it is unethical. The connection between dieting, especially fasting, and the development of eating disorders is quite strong. This is particularly concerning in relation to young people. She has collected studies, letters of support from medical professionals and organizations in Australia, as well as over 20,000 signatures from around the world on a change.org petition opposing the trial. Unfortunately, her efforts have been unsuccessful and the trial is proceeding. Content Warning: This episode includes information about fasting, eating disorders, weight change, and a brief discussion of normal adolescent weight gain. In this episode, we discuss: A bit about who Louise is and how she started working with eating disorders and the HAES movement A description of the Fast Track Trial Reasons why dieting can lead to eating disorders, particularly in teens How Louise has been fighting against the trial going forward What risks are not being fully explained to participants What the initial results of an initial study mean in practical terms Who the people behind the trial are And much more! Resources: Untrapped website FB group for Stop the Fast Track Trial Parent information for the Fast Track Trial That Time I Was in a Child Weight Loss Study link: About Louise: Louise Adams is a clinical psychologist, the founder of Treat Yourself Well Sydney and the creator of the UNTRAPPED online program and community. She has written two books, Mindful Moments and The Non-Diet Approach Handbook for Psychologist and Counsellors (with Fiona Willer, APD). She has been practicing in this field for more than 20 years. Louise is Vice President of Health At Every Size Australia. She has a special interest in problematic eating, body image, and weight struggles. Louise fights to educate people about the cruel trap of dieting, which only sets us up to fail. She uses an evidence-based anti-dieting approach to empower people to achieve permanent lifestyle change. Louise is wholly committed to the Heath At Every Size (HAES) movement, and to spreading the word about shifting our attitudes about weight and health. Louise is determined to make a difference in changing society’s perceptions about health, diets, weight loss, and bodies. Louise believes that people can approach health and happiness without attaching it to weight changes. She is for body diversity and against fat prejudice. As well as her work with individual clients at her private practice, Louise conducts workshops and conferences for the general public and health professionals interested in changing their approach to weight issues. Louise is the host of the popular podcast All Fired Up!, and often turns up in magazines, newspapers, radio, and on television to spread her message. She blogs, she tweets, and she never shuts up about these issues!

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Let's Go Kickass Today: Ronnie Herel and George Kay, Jo Bradshaw and Anna-Louise Adams

Let's Go Kickass Today

Play Episode Listen Later May 14, 2019 49:45

A monthly podcast talking to inspirational people from the fields of Music, Adventure and Culture. Produced, presented and edited by Vicky Carter. Logo Design by: Hannah Eachus Jingle by: Nicola T Chang

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Claire Louise Adams at The Best You EXPO

Bernardo Moya's The Best You EXPO Talks

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2019 19:33

In this talk, Claire Louise Adams shares her knowledge on the Empowered Life. These talks come from the archive of The Best You EXPO. The Best You EXPO talks are live talks recorded at events in London and Los Angeles. The talks are approximately 45 minutes long and cover all aspects of personal and professional growth. Talks on public speaking, finding love, increasing confidence and low self-esteem, how to make more money, get more clients, increase your social media presence, talks on NLP and so much more. We are talking about over 500 talks and more being recorded all over the world, so there is something for everyone.

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[REPOST] #114: How to Smash Diet Culture with Self-Compassion with Louise Adams, Non-Diet Psychologist and Author

Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 24, 2018 88:40

Psychologist and author Louise Adams discusses why the Health at Every Size approach is essential in treating disordered eating, the problems with the "obesity epidemic" rhetoric, how trauma and body neglect shaped her relationship with food at a young age, why self-compassion is an essential antidote to shame, how to move from a deprivation mindset to an intuitive mindset with unconditional permission to eat, how to set firm and compassionate boundaries, and lots more. PLUS, Christy answers a listener question about how to handle feeling like you need to lose weight to manage a health condition, and how to stop judging yourself for eating "too much." This episode originally aired on July 24, 2017 Louise is an Australian clinical psychologist, author, podcaster, trainer, and speaker. She owns Treat Yourself Well Sydney, a specialist psychology clinic for weight-inclusive health and wellbeing. Louise founded UNTRAPPED, an online diet-recovery program, and hosts the All Fired Up podcast, where she meets with experts from around the world to debrief, rage, and unpack the (often misguided) messages we’re given about weight, food, exercise, and health. Louise has a special interest and expertise in weight struggles, eating disorders, and body image. Her practice is rooted in the HAES principles of equitable support for people of all shapes and sizes. Louise’s life goal is to dismantle the prison of diet culture and emancipate people to appreciate compassionate, joyful, relaxed relationships with food, movement, and their bodies. Louise has published two books. The Non-Diet Approach Guidebook for Psychologists and Counsellors (2014, co-authored with Fiona Willer, APD) is a manual for health professionals. Her latest book, Mindful Moments (2016) is for the general public, a practical guide to applying self-compassion for people who are time poor. Louise is a member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS), a member of the Clinical College of the APS, and treasurer of HAES Australia. In addition to everything else, Louise runs non-diet training workshops for other health professionals. She regularly speaks to the media on all issues health related, and has experience on radio, print and television. Read more about Louise at www.untrapped.com.au. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, to start your intuitive eating journey. If you're ready to give up dieting once and for all, join Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course! Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions. To learn more about Food Psych and get full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych.

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Inside the Birdcage

SHAMELESS

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2018 58:19

Oh my goodness WHAT A WEEK!On this episode we're covering the bachelorettes who can't help but spread dangerous health advice, whether or not the Melbourne Cup Carnival is unethical (and our experience in the Birdcage) and, finally, the Victoria's Secret Catwalk.RECOMMENDATIONS: This week, Mich recommended this episode of the The Tim Ferriss Show podcast with Seth Godin. Zara recommended the fiction book Normal People by Sally Rooney.Oh, and we are launching a RECOMMENDATIONS NEWSLETTER. Weeeee. You can subscribe to that right here. If that link doesn't work (damn podcast app) head over to our Insta bio @shamelesspodcast - we will also put the link there.To listen to Louise Adams' podcast, click here.Again, here is the fantastic piece on reaction culture written by Man Repeller's Haley Nahman.Thank you so much for joining us for episode 35! Before we go - we’re a little independent podcast. It’s just Zara and I sitting in her family's office. So if you love Shameless and want to help us grow, you can do a few things: The first is click ‘subscribe’ on Apple Podcasts, that helps new listeners find our show every week..The second thing is you can tell a friend! Invite them to our Facebook group, Shameless Celebrity Gossip, or let other people know about us on your Insta Story. Lastly, send them this episode if they need some smart celebrity news in their life.This episode was produced by Michelle Andrews, with royalty free music from BenSound.

Psychology, Hypnosis & Weight Loss: The Facts

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 22, 2018 45:45

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

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Psychology, Hypnosis & Weight Loss: The Facts