Podcast appearances and mentions of natasha larmie

Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Low Carb MD Podcast. In today's episode, Dr. Tro is joined by Brian Wiley, Amy Eiges, and Dr. Natasha Larmie. Brian and Amy are health coaches at Dr. Tro's Medical Weight Loss & Direct Primary Care. Between the two of them, Brian and Amy have lost over 300 lbs following the ketogenic/low-carb diet! Natasha (@thefatdoctoruk) graduated from Barts and The London Medical School in 2003 and has rotated through several hospital posts over the course of her medical career—General Medicine, General Surgery, OBGyn, Emergency Medicine, Geriatrics and Paediatrics. Around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, she began a personal health journey that led her ultimately to a life-changing discovery—the low-carb/ketogenic diet. In their conversation, Tro and his guests discuss the “health at every size” movement, the failure of the medical system with regard to providing effective solutions for people with obesity, the absurdity of making people weigh their food as part of a weight loss strategy, the relationship between real food diets and mental health, harmful and unproductive stigmas surrounding obesity and weight, how to reach people out there who are in despair of ever finding a sustainable and effective weight loss plan, why focusing primarily on the numbers on the scale is putting the cart before the horse, the journey of becoming a restrained eater, the proper place/understanding of exercise in the context of total health, and why fear and shame are not effective motivators to change. For more information, please see the links below. Thank you for listening! Links: Dr. Natasha Larmie: Website Podcast Brian Wiley: Articles, Blogs, and Podcast Episodes Instagram Amy Eiges: Articles, Blogs, and Podcast Episodes Twitter Dr. Brian Lenzkes: Website Twitter Dr. Tro Kalayjian: Website Twitter Instagram

In the final episode of the series, Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by Arielle, owner of Dance Life in Madison, WI, and her wife Zoe.  Their love for each other and  their passion for encouraging and uplifting folks through dance makes this episode a fun and inspirational way to end the first season of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast'.Together Natasha, Arielle and Zoe discuss:The challenges of recovering from an eating disorder in a larger bodyThe history of belly dancing and the influence of White European culture on this particular form of danceThe joys of embracing one's bellyThe benefits of freeing oneself from the male gazeHow to challenge fat oppression through joyful movementThank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:Dance Life, Madison, WI. Dance Life is on InstagramMore about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Dance Life:Dance Life is a fat positive, body positive in-person and livestream dance studio offering belly dance, burlesque, ballet and cardio dance classes for adults. They are a small business in Madison, WI and they believe strongly that dance and movement is for EVERY body.  They warmly welcome participants of all genders, sizes, races, ages, mobility or ability level and are firm believers in the principles of Health At Every Size® (HAES).  They make sure all bodies are treated with the respect and love that they deserve, and that everybody is made to feel great exactly as they are.  They ensure that everyone knows that they have the right to pursue health behaviors like dance and aerobics if they so desire, and they try to ensure that all their participants are able to relate positively to their body and have a blast.  As Arielle says, all jiggles are good jiggles! 

***Content Warning: Talk of childhood abuse, sexual trauma and mental health. This episode may be triggering for some ***In this episode of the ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by "Kate" who shares her experiences of childhood sexual abuse and how this impacted her relationship with her body and food.  Together they cover:How childhood trauma impacts both health and weightWhy emotional eating is common in trauma survivorsWhy health professionals need to be trauma informedPlease note that the first 8:19 mins do not contain any details of abuse and focus on the impact of childhood trauma on health and wellbeing.Thank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.Resources and links mentioned in this episode:Help after Rape and Sexual Assault (NHS)Victim Support (Childhood abuse)The the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC)Help for Adult Victims Of Child Abuse (HAVOCA)NSPCC (advice for victims of non-recent abuse)Guide to support options for abuse (MIND)SupportLine If you suspect a child is being abused please report this to your local social services department or the police. If you are a child who is being abused, please contact Childline on 0800 1111The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study is free to view, and the CDC also provides some helpful information. 

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by Non diet nutritionist and secondary school teacher, Jeanette Thompson-Wessen.  Jeanette is a qualified nutritionist who specialises in intuitive eating and body image, and also happens to teach during the week. She is known as The Mindset Nutritionist, and is one of the co-founders and directors of Health Professionals Against Weight Stigma (HPAWS).  She is also mum to two girls (for now!) and lives in Kent with her husband.Together Natasha and Jeanette discuss:How to act professional when really you're just the best of friends who don't know how to take things seriouslyWhat is intuitive eatingHow diet culture impacts the nutrition industryBody acceptanceThe dangers of dieting during pregnancyThank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:The Mindset NutritionistJeanette is on InstagramMore about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Jeanette:Jeanette helps people who are tired of dieting feel in control of what they are eating and create healthy behaviours that last a lifetime through eating intuitively.  She has a degree in Nutrition and is a proud member of ASDAH (the Association for Size Diversity and Health).  She has firsthand experience of living in a larger body and the dangers of diet culture. Jeanette has  worked in a Dietetics and Nutrition department helping in heart rehabilitation and diabetes education. She has even worked in family weight management. She wanted to become a nutrition counsellor but thought that she couldn't because of her weight so she became a Food and Nutrition teacher, following her passion to help people and their health. 

In this second of a two-part series of the ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by Natala, a former serial dieter and 'c-list celebrity in the plant-based diet world'. Natala shares her experience of the ugly side of the health and well-being industry, and confirms what we already know - diets can't be trusted. Together they cover:The difference between ethical veganism and the plant-based diet industryThe frightening truth about what goes on behind the scenesHow easy it is to become caught up in the world of healthismThe truth about Whole FoodsThe reason we being told to eat Kale instead of Collard greensThank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

[CW: weight talk, extreme dieting methods, medical abuse]In this first of a two part series of the ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by Natala, a former serial dieter whose incredible story highlights just how dangerous medical weight stigma can be. A former 'c-list celebrity in the plant-based diet world', Natala shares her experience of how she has finally conquered anti-fat bias in a disabled body. Together they cover:Why doctors shouldn't put children on a dietHow doctors should never BLAME their patients for their conditionJust how far people are willing to go to lose weightThe potentially fatal consequences of weight stigmaJust how awesome her brother is!Thank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.Resources and links mentioned in this episode:Episode 7 - weight stigma in Children with Molly Forbes and Body Happy OrgJes Baker is @themilitantbaker on instagramFurther information about Cushings can be found here.For information about how to manage medical conditions without dieting, check out HAES Health Sheets.

Have you been told to lose weight or that you are not ‘sick enough' because of your Body Mass Index? Well, you're not alone. Today's guest tells us about where BMI comes from and why it may not be a helpful health indicator. Dr Natasha Larmie is a GP with over 20 years of medical experience. She is a card-carrying, flag-waving member of the body acceptance movement and is advocating to put an end to weight stigma in healthcare. She has been blogging under the name the Fat Doctor and has appeared in a number of articles, interviews and podcasts as well as a guest speaker and honorary university lecturer.  Today we discuss the unexpected origins of BMI, how to recognise your own internalised fat phobia and where it comes from, how weight stigma affects your health outcomes and why being in a bigger body doesn't equate to being unhealthy. To find more from Dr. Natasha Larmie aka The Fat Doctor find her at www.fatdoctor.co.uk, The Fat Doctor Podcast and Instagram.com/thefatdoctor Follow us on Instagram.com/embodyhealthlondon_ Follow us on tiktok.com/embodyhealthldn Follow us on twitter.com/embodyhealthldn Follow us on facebook.com/embodyhealthldn

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie challenges the claim that ob*sity is a risk factor for cancer, secondary only to smoking.  This is the first time Natasha flies solo and she admits to being a little anxious about it!Today's podcast includes:Why you cannot compare weight with smokingWhy weight isn't a behaviour or something you can easily controlThe embarrassingly flawed evidence that links weight with cancerWhy causation is not the same as association (and why everyone knows better but refuses to acknowledge it)The real reasons why rates of cancers are higher in fat folk and why change is necessaryThank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:Article from the NEJMArticle from the Lancet Cancer Research UK Campaign Essay by a medical student on how the Cancer Research UK campaign was flawed (published by the BMJ)More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by weight inclusive fitness trainer, campaigner and former teacher, Amy Snelling.  Amy co-founded the organisation Fitness Professionals Against Weight Stigma (FPAWS), a community Interest Company that strives to create inclusive fitness spaces where every body feels welcome and comfortable enough to feel the true benefits of physical activityTogether Natasha and Amy discuss:The impact of weight stigma and diet culture on the fitness industryWhy it is normal for fat folk to feel intimidated by fitness spacesHow physical activity has nothing to do with weight lossAll about FPAWSWhat it means to be a thin allyThank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:The FPAWS website and instagram page.Becky Scott (@missfitsworkout) and Emma Green (@emmafitnessphd) Natasha's blog post "why the gym is a scary place part 1 and part 2)More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Amy:After experiencing problems with disordered eating, poor body image and an exercise obsession, Amy turned from primary school teacher to personal trainer in order to try and help others not fall into the same trap with their diet and fitness. After working with clients of all different shapes and sizes, she started to see how fat phobia and weight stigma deeply affected their ability to show up in the gym and their lives generally. She set up ‘Fitness Professionals Against Weight Stigma' to push for more awareness and education in the fitness industry.

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

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

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by Ciekeisha, a stay at home mom and social activist who lives in Texas and shares her firsthand experience of how weight stigma and racism intersect in today's society.Together Natasha and Ciekeisha share a personal and intimate conversation about the following:The intersection between racism and weight stigmaThe social determinants of health including financial stability, access to education and inequalities in healthcare The frightening truth about medical insurance in the USA and how a person's healthcare is determined by their incomeThe proper etiquette for eating chicken wing and raising 21st century daughtersThank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:Ciekeisha recommends you collow @saucyewest on Instagram and check out #fightforinclusivityMore about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Ciekeisha (written by Natasha):Ciekeisha knows what it is like to be a black person living in a larger body.  She has firsthand experience of race and weight based discrimination and how the two often intersect.  She was raised by a grandfather who was passionate about history and a grandmother who took care of a family in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement.  Ciekeisha lives in Texas which has one of the highest racial pay gap in the entire USA. It is no wonder that she is a passionate social justice activist who speaks passionately and eloquently, and has the ability to charm everyone that she meets. 

We are launching season 2 with one of the BEST! Dr. Natasha Larmie is a medical doctor from the UK who spreads awareness on diet culture, weight stigma, and anti-biased medical care. In this episode we discuss her diet culture journey, weight stigma at the doctors office, and how weight became the benchmark for health in the first place. We could not think of a more fiery guest to kick off season 2! You will NOT want to miss this one. Find Dr. Larmie on Instagram @fatdoctoruk

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by writer, campaigner and public speaker, Molly Forbes.  Molly is the Director of Body Happy Org and author of the book "Body Happy Kids: how to help children and teens love the skin they're in". Together Natasha and Molly share a passionate and spirited discussion about:The impact of diet culture and anti-fat bias in childrenWays in which we can start tackling weight stigma in schools and other organisations that work with childrenWeight Management Services and the dangers of weighing children in schoolThe West Sussex case in which 2 children were removed from their loving home after failing at weight lossThank you for listeningIf you enjoy this podcast and would like to support Natasha so that she can continue making them, you can join her on Patreon.  If you fancy connecting with other like-minded people in a safe and non judgmental environment, then why not join her Facebook group the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor'? You can also check out her webiste or find her on all the usual social media channels including Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:The Body Happy Org website.The book Body Happy Kids: how to help children and teens love the skin they're in. A more details analysis of the West Sussex case is available on my website.More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Molly:Molly Forbes is an author, campaigner, public speaker and the Director of Body Happy Org CIC. She is also - most importantly - a mum to two little girls. Molly appeared as one of the hosts on Channel 4's pre-watershed body image boosting show Naked Beach, founded the #FreeFromDiets campaign and is author of the book Body Happy Kids, how to help children and teens love the skin they're in (pub. by Vermilion, Penguin Random House). She also co-hosts the hit podcast Body Cons. A trained journalist and broadcaster with more than 15 years in the industry, Molly is an experienced public speaker and media commentator, regularly delivering talks to a wide range of organisations and appearing on TV and radio to discuss the subject of body image. 

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by fat liberationist writer, creator, and doctoral student from the Bronx, New York, Marquisele (Mikey) Mercedes.Together Dr Larmie and MIkey intimately discuss the following:Weight stigma in big pharma. Do doctors really receive huge sums of money from large pharmaceutical companies? They touch on the opioid epidemic in the USA vs UK and the role played by doctors and governing bodies. How much influence do large pharmaceutical companies have on research?Thank you for listening! Connect with Dr Natasha Larmie and other like-minded people in the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor' community over on Facebook here. You can also find her on Instagram at @fatdoctoruk. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:Mikey's work can be found at the following linkspatreon.com/marquiseletwitter.com/marquiseleYou can connect with Marquisele on Instagram @fatmarquisele.More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Mikey Mercedes:Marquisele Mercedes is a fat liberationist writer, creator, and doctoral student from the Bronx, New York. As a Presidential Fellow at the Brown University School of Public Health, her work focuses on how racism, anti-Blackness, and fatphobia have shaped health care, research, and public health promotion and training. She is passionate about using public scholarship in various mediums to make science and research more accessible to those outside of academic institutions, as well as reshape interventions at multiple levels to make the world safer for fat people of color. She writes frequently about fat politics and race/ism in the sciences and culture, often with a particular emphasis on the public health space. Her ultimate goal is to push the field of public health in alignment with the values of long-time movements for liberation, justice, and abolition. 

It's our first ever compilation episode. "Best of the Guests" revisits some of the best conversations, soundbites, facts, tips and laughs we've had with a small selection of previous guests. We know what you're thinking, you've heard it all before right? Listening back, we found some gems that even we overlooked first time around which is easy to do after 91 episodes. Plus we give you our thoughts and feelings on the interviews. Guests include; Dr Giles Yeo; We talk to esteemed BBC presenter, podcaster and scientist about the genetics of bodyweight and how obesity often is not a choice. Dr Natasha Larmie aka The Fat Doctor; Our most popular episode to date, Dr Natasha caused controversy in her outspoken beliefs on body positivity and bodyweight stigma. Is it possible to be overweight and healthy? Should there be more overweight role models in mainstream media? School of Calisthenics; Tim & Jacko talk to us about exercise through play, how the fitness industry has made exercise boring and how you too can get more like on Instagram. Claire Tracey; Strength & Conditioning coach at Gloucestershire University and former rower, Claire talks about her experience as a female in a male dominated industry, working with professional and amateur athletes both male and female. Phil Learney; The PT Coach talks to us about how communication is the key to successful personal training, why Joe Wicks & James Smith have been so successful and the difference between a Soho PT & a Canary Wharf PT. Anthony Lolli; Star of Amazon Prime documentary "Fat Lolli to 6 Pack Lolli", we find out how Anthony shed 125lbs in only 9 months in preparation for his first ever bodybuilding and how the tragic death of his trainer only weeks out, motivated him more to achieve his goal. Lewis from Grams Edinburgh; Grams is a health food cafe in Edinburgh co-owned by our mate Lewis. He talks to us about his new cafe focused on encouraging people to try vegan food without the heavy-handed approach that puts some people off. He shares the difficulties of creating tasty dairy free, gluten free, meat free cuisine and some of the difficult customers he's faced. Listen back to all of these episodes in our archives and let us know your favourite, along with the myriad of other guests we didn't have time to include. We'll be back soon with brand new guests as well as Mich & Jason's usual musings on health, fitness and the silliness of the industry. Get in touch on Instagram; @JustTheFitnessTip @JasonProUnicyclist @MichaelUlloaPT

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by clinical psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist-supervisor Alexis Conason, PSY.D.Together Natasha and Alexis intimately discuss the following:What influenced Alexis to write her new book  ‘The Diet Free Revolution: 10 Steps to Free Yourself from the Diet Cycle with Mindful Eating and Radical Self-Acceptance'.What a ‘diet cycle' is and why it's not sustainable.Intuitive eating and how it differs from restrictive diets.Disordered eating and how weight can influence the type of care and diagnosis you receive. How trauma can affect both self love and eating habits. Thank you for listening! Are you interested in watching extended versions of these podcasts and supporting The Fat Doctor Podcast? Then why not join her on Patreon. You can also become part of her Facebook Group Friends of the Fat Doctor or check out her website for more including social media.Resources and links mentioned in this episode:Dr. Conason's book ‘The Diet Free Revolution: 10 Steps to Free Yourself from the Diet Cycle with Mindful Eating and Radical Self-Acceptance' is available to buy here and at other book retailers. You can connect with Dr. Conason on Instagram @theantidietplan.More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Alexis Conason, PSY.D.:ALEXIS CONASON, PSY.D., CEDS-S, is a clinical psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist-supervisor in private practice in New York City. Her group practice, Conason Psychological Services, specializes in the treatment of binge eating disorder, disordered eating, body image concerns, and psychological issues related to bariatric weight loss surgery.  She is the founder of The Anti-Diet Plan, a weight-inclusive online mindful eating program designed to help people stop dieting, eat more attuned with their body, and live more peaceful and pleasurable lives. She is the author of The Diet Free Revolution: 10 Steps to Free Yourself from the Diet Cycle with Mindful Eating and Radical Self-Acceptance (June 2021, North Atlantic Books), available wherever books are sold. Dr. Conason is a fierce advocate for helping people recognize and question the societal norms that encourage feeling not good enough about themselves so they can stop fixating on shrinking their bodies and reclaim the space that they deserve in the world. You can find her on social media @theantidietplan.

In this week's episode, Bonnie is joined by Dr. Natasha Larmie aka "The Fat Doctor". She began blogging her own weight loss journey only a year ago before pivoting to a weight-inclusive approach to food and health. This is where the name "The Fat Doctor" was born as a way of removing the power the word had as an insult. Natasha is a weight-inclusive GP who is on a mission to end weight stigma in the medical profession.  They will touch on such topics as: Weight stigma 101 Breaking down the definition of "FAT" How does your brain navigate trauma? Approaching HEALTH as a Doctor and weight bias in healthcare How to arm yourselves to navigate weight stigma? Concrete examples of what you can do going to your next Doctor visit Weight stigma is not your fault! Additional Resources: Connect with Dr. Natasha: Instagram: @fatdoctoruk   Website: https://www.fatdoctor.co.uk/   Webinar to manage Weight Stigma at your doctor's office: https://www.fatdoctor.co.uk/events/   Wegovy article referenced in podcast: https://www.marquiselemercedes.com/writing/wegovy Connect with Bonnie on Instagram: @diet.culture.rebel Looking to take the next step in becoming a Diet Culture Rebel? Apply for Small Group Coaching at bonnieroney.com If you want to hear more Diet Culture Rebel, be sure to subscribe and tune in for new episodes!

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by close friend, self-appointed sister and Lawyer, Vangeya M'hone.Together Dr Larmie and Vangeya discuss the following:How weight gain has always been a looming presence in Vangeya's life since early childhood.How Vangeya had previously been weight cycling with a plethora of different diets in the past.Vangeya's experiences as a tall, Black, plus-sized woman in Law in the UK. The connection between fatphobia and racism. How two delayed medical diagnoses have affected Vangeya's life and weight and how they are connected to one another.   Thank you for listening! Connect with Dr Natasha Larmie and other like-minded people in the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor' community over on Facebook here. You can also find her on Instagram at @fatdoctoruk. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:You can connect with Vangeya on Instagram at @vangeya.m.And LinkedIn here. More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Vangeya M'hone:Vangeya studied Sociology with Social Policy at the University of Warwick before converting her degree to law and ultimately building a specialism in Real Estate.While having built a successful career in the legal sphere, Vangeya has decided now is the time to live out her passions. Therefore, in recent months Vangeya has been committing more of her time to indulging her love for the written word and seeing how she can pursue her writing as a career.  In summer 2020 Vangeya took the first steps toward this goal by being part of an ensemble project that saw her fulfil a lifelong ambition of becoming a published author.Vangeya is a lover of cooking, travel and all things Austen.

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by board-certified endocrinologist Dr Greg Dodell.Together Dr Larmie and Dr Greg Dodell discuss the following:Discuss the differences between medical education in the UK and the USA.How Dr Dodell became involved in offering weight inclusive care.The harm that can be caused by not providing weight inclusive care.They discuss the fixation on weight by doctors with it comes to endocrine disorders such as diabetes and PCOS.They discuss differences between medical care in the UK and USA in terms of cost of care. Thank you for listening! Connect with Dr Natasha Larmie and other like-minded people in the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor' community over on Facebook here. You can also find her on Instagram at @fatdoctoruk. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:Dr Dodell's wife Alexis Conason Psy.D.'s book ‘The Diet-Free Revolution' is available for pre-order at here.You can connect with Dr Greg Dodell on Instagram at @everything_endocrine.You can also connect with Alexis Conason Psy.D. on Instagram at @theantidietplan.More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Dr Greg Dodell:Dr. Dodell is a board-certified endocrinologist. He received his medical degree fromAlbany Medical College. He completed his internal medicine and endocrinology Fellowship at St. Luke's - Roosevelt Hospital Center, affiliated with Columbia University. He is in private practice at Central Park Endocrinology, PC.

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by speaker, writer, Certified Health Coach, and thought leader in the fields of Body Image, Health at Every Size, and Weight Stigma Ragen Chastain.Together Dr Larmie and Ragen intimately discuss the following:What is weight stigma and fatphobia?Where and how weight stigma manifests in the life of people living in bigger bodies. Ragen discusses the highs and lows of her experiences as both a fat athlete and a thought leader in the area of weight stigma. They bust myths regarding health and weight loss in both research and medical practice and the harm that it causes. Thank you for listening! Connect with Dr Natasha Larmie and other like-minded people in the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor' community over on Facebook here. You can also find her on Instagram at @fatdoctoruk. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:You can find out more about Ragen's Monthly Workshops (including video library of past workshops) at https://danceswithfat.org/monthly-online-workshops/.You can find the HAES Health Sheets for Diagnosis-Specific Weight Neutral Healthcare information and research bank at: www.HAESHealthSheets.comOr connect with like-minded people at Ragen's Weight Neutral Fitness for All Shapes and Sizes community ‘Fit Fatties' here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fitfatties.More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.

This week Diana and Lisa caught up with Dr. Natasha Larmie, AKA The Fat Doctor UK, to discuss anti-fat bias in the medical community, her activism around weight-inclusive care, and how patients can advocate for themselves in the face of weight-based discrimination at the doctor's office.

In this episode of ‘The Fat Doctor Podcast', Dr. Natasha Larmie is joined by her sister - children's author and singer/songwriter - Tanya Phoenix. Dr. Larmie and Tanya discuss their  ancestry, how it influenced the culture surrounding food and body image in their childhood home and yet although they grew up in the same home, ate the same food, and experienced the same weight shaming on a regular basis they both turned out very differently. Together Dr Larmie and Tanya intimately discuss the following:Why their family was so focused on body image and thinness.Dr Larmie discusses how the body shaming she experienced as child has followed her into adulthood.Research based evidence into how body shaming and dieting in the family can negatively affect children. How weight loss isn't necessarily a sign of health from both a physical and mental perspective. Thank you for listening! Connect with Dr Natasha Larmie and other like-minded people in the ‘Friends of The Fat Doctor' community over on Facebook here. You can also find her on Instagram at @fatdoctoruk. Resources and links mentioned in this episode:You can find out more about Tanya on Instagram at @firebirdinthefigtree. You can learn more about Tanya's brilliant stories at @beatrixphoenixwrites.  More about the show:How would you react if someone told you that most of what we are taught to believe about healthy bodies is a lie? How would you feel if that person was a medical doctor with over 20 years experience treating patients and seeing the harm caused by all this misinformation?In her podcast, Dr Natasha Larmie,  an experienced General Practitioner and self-styled Fat Doctor, examines and challenges 'health' as we know it through passionate, unfiltered conversations with guest experts, colleagues and friends.She tackles the various ways in which weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact both individuals and society as a whole.  From the classroom to the boardroom, the doctors office to the local pub,  weight-based discrimination is everywhere. Is it any wonder that it has such an impact on our health? Whether you're a person affected by weight stigma, a healthcare professional, a concerned parent or an ally who shares our view that people in larger bodies deserve better, Dr. Larmie and the team at 'The Fat Doctor Podcast' welcomes you into the inner circle.More about Tanya Phoenix:The daughter of immigrants and the descendant of genocide survivors, Tanya Phoenix is a singer/songwriter, author and ‘truth teller' who is no stranger to ‘otherness' as a self-described ‘short, fat, bald, barren, bipolar and mindfully single woman' and has a strong affinity for anyone who is marginalised and oppressed. Tanya hopes her stories will facilitate adults and children to have meaningful conversations about important subjects such as otherness and inequality.  When Tanya isn't writing or singing she is often enjoying walks with friends and family in the British countryside or honouring her ancestors with a slice of cake. 

Dr Natasha Larmie (aka "The Fat Doctor") on getting serious about the harms of anti-fat bias in healthcare.   In this episode, Natasha shares her arrival onto the Instagram scene, what the weight stigma research shows, the difference between implicit and explicit biases and how they impact clients and patients, what’s really happening when a doctor prescribes ‘weight loss’, the makings of the ‘Healthcare Professionals Against Weight Stigma Group’ and how you can begin to contribute to the collective dismantling of weight stigma.   As mentioned in the podcast: Impact of weight bias and stigma on quality of care and outcomes for patients with obesity. S. M. Phelan, D. J. Burgess, M. W. Yeazel, W. L. Hellerstedt, J. M. Griffin, M. van Ryn  Healthcare Professionals Against Weight Stigma Group (UK based)  Amanda Lee @mandapaints – Amanda shares her personal lived experience with weight stigma in healthcare More about Natasha:  I'm a weight inclusive GP with over 20 years medical experience who is campaigning against weight stigma in healthcare. I've been fat for most of my adult life, and I'm only now beginning to realise just how much of an impact anti-fat bias has had on my physical and mental health. In coming to this realisation and embarking on a lifelong learning journey, I began exploring the issues surrounding weight-based discrimination and how they impact the health of my patients. My mission is to educate the healthcare profession and empower the fat community to rid the world of weight stigma – Dr Natasha Larmey. Connect with Natasha: Website Instagram Linkedin Facebook Twitter

E45: Health at Every Size, with Natasha Larmie @fatdoctoruk I'm so happy to share today's episode with Natasha Larmie who is a GP with 20 years of medical experience. She is on a mission to fight weight stigma in the NHS and she has an instagram page as well as a blog where she shares her journey and post articles about fat phobia, weight stigma and weight-inclusive practice. Follow her work in her instagram @fatdorctoruk and her blog: https://www.fatdoctor.co.uk/ Nota em português: Hoje trago a Natasha Larmie, médica de família no UK com cerca de 20 anos de experiência. A Natasha tem uma página do IG e um blog (link em cima) onde fala de gordofobia, estigma do peso e onde ela partilha a sua jornada com o intuito de promover uma prática médica inclusiva e sem o foco no peso. Espero que gostem e, não se preocupem que em breve vou fazer um live no instagram com a Mafalda Fonseca (já gravei um episódio com ela) onde vamos falar disto tudo, em português claro! O episódio está ainda disponível no Spotify, apple podcast e em todas as outras plataformas habituais. Se gostares, partilha e deixa uma review. Por último, se quiseres contribuir para o meu projeto, podes fazê-lo através da Donorbox:
 donorbox.org/embanhomaria
Sigam ainda Em Banho Maria no instagram @embanhomaria e no facebook com o mesmo nome.

Até aos próximos episódios!

On episode #81 we're joined by Dr Natasha Larmie who calls herself "The Fat Doctor". Natasha is a GP with 20 years experience and a campaigner against weight stigma, specifically within the medical profession. She began blogging her own weight loss journey 9 months ago where "The Fat Doctor" moniker was born as a way of removing the power the word had as an insult. Natasha hit the mainstream after appearing on ITV show This Morning, debate weight loss "guru" Steve Miller on the topic of fat role models for children. Natasha hit news pages across the world, with prominent names like James Smith, Layne Norton and Dr Spencer Nadolsky coming out on social media to criticise her directly. So we wanted to get to the bottom of things and find out what "The Fat Doctor" really thinks. Does she think being fat is healthy? Does she believe all weight loss is bad? Why does she call herself "The Fat Doctor"? What are her views on "body positivity" and the "Health At Every Size" movement? And is the Fitness industry too toxic a place to truly help everyone? All of this and more, including Jason remarkably managing to show horn in a question about Pro Wrestling and it's not even silly or irrelevant. You can follow Dr Natasha on Instagram: @fatdoctoruk On Twitter: @thefatdoctoruk And you can see where it all began, on her blog charting her weight loss journey including the moment she decided to stop losing weight, at https://www.fatdoctor.co.uk/

In this episode, Lynnly chats with Dr. Natasha Larmie, also know as the Fat Doctor UK, about weight stigma and medical care. The books that Dr. Larmie mentions are:Health at Every Size by Linda BaconSecrets from the Eating Lab by Traci MannSchedule a free coaching call with Lynnly https://calendly.com/lynnlywood/coffee-chat