Hey there, welcome to Healthy Ish. Thank you for joining us today on this Body and Soul podcast. I am Felicity Harley.
Now.
A recent report published by Women's Health Victoria landed on our desks here at Healthy Ish and we were pretty worried about some of the findings. It is called the Labia Diversity Report, and overall it has found increased rates of labia and volver anxiety. To tell us more about the findings, I am joined today by Kate Johnston Utter Utter. She's a manager policy, health promotion and Advocacy at Women's
Health Victoria. Now listening to our chat on extra Healthy Ish as well, where she shares more about the current state of women's health. That was a really interesting chat. You can search for that wherever you get your podcasts. Kate, nice to have you on Healthy Today. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Yeah, I'm excited to hear more about this real Body report. Tell us about it. What were some of the highlights the findings for you?
Sure? So, we at Women's Health Victoria, we did a survey with Yugov in April this year where we surveyed about one thousand women and people with laber between eighteen and fifty about their thoughts and feelings and knowledge about their laber. So what we found was that on the good news was it about a third of our respondents so happy and comfortable with their laber and had no
concerns about the appearance or anything like that. However, about one in six had negative feelings unfortunately, so they were worried about the appearance. They felt ashamed or that there
was something wrong with the way that they look. And when we drilled down into the findings a bit further, we found that this was particularly heightened among our younger women and people with laber, so the gen Z's or eighteen to twenty four, and about nearly a quarter of those young people had real concerns and associates of their labia with words like weird or disgustingly, which was really sad to hear.
So I suppose the big question is why not just gen Zs but everyone else? Why the hang ups? I suppose is that hey, you call it with our labia?
Yeah. Look, I think that there's a couple of things. The first one is that we just actually as women, don't have good information about what labia should look like. It's not doesn't tend to be covered in sex ed at school. Many of our health professionals themselves don't get information when they're doing their training, so they are not
aware unless they work specifically in women's health. And also, as you would know and your listeners, with no pornography and the online environment are really important influencers now in people, and that's what came out in the survey. We've found about one in five gen Z respondents get their information
about what labia should look like from online pornography. So that's an environment where a lot of the laba that people see are either airbrushed or the performers have had surgery, and so there's a kind of very idealized appearance where it's very neat and tucked away like the barb you look as they say, but that's just one type of LaBier. In fact, over half of labia have the labia manora, which is the inner labia extend below the outer labia.
So that's completely normal. But unfortunately, because we don't have good information and people awareness of what is normal, people wrongly think that there's something wrong with them.
It's interesting when you were saying that I mean I worked in magazines for many years around women's health many of the years, and back in the Cosmo days, I remember running a sealed section on volvers and what we call them vaginas back then, and I think that helped normalize what a labor looks like for me because I was just exposed to all these different pictures of books, like which you've done with your fantastic labor library, which I love, love, love love listeners, go and have a look.
Tell us about this and why it has been so successful.
So the Laber Library has well, it's actually been around for ten years. We just didn't update to coincide with the Real Bodies Report, so we've expanded. Our Focio gallery now has one hundred and four images in there, so that's fifty six models, so there's a front and a below image from each one, and we also have extensive information on the site as well, so that's all been fully updated to be current with current research. So that tells you lots of information about like the anatomy of
the volver and the laber functions. You know what's normal and what isn't in terms of health issues and things like that, and where to go for more information. It also has some fantastic resources for parents who might be concerned about their child or their childs come to them with a concern, as well as resources for health practitioners and sex ed providers. So it's a wealth. It's a treat to show of information.
What if we are concerned about I mean, there's no normal. I think that's the main thing, the main message in its no nor It's comes in many different shapes and sizes, as we do as humans, exactly if we are suffering from hang ups, if we're questioning it, if we don't you know, if it comes to sex and we don't want to show it, and when we're embarrassed about it, what can we do?
So I think that firstly, obviously go and visit the labybr just tup that into your browser, I think them and we get great responses from people. There's a little feedback form there and even since the update we've had, like you know, we gets over like eighty percent of respondents saying this really helped them with their knowledge and awareness and the way they feel about themselves. So that's
a great place to start. So if you've visited the Laber Library and you still have concerns or you have any discomfort or anything like that, then obviously go and see a health practitioner. If you're feeling like your doctor isn't comfortable discussing this or doesn't have the knowledge that
you're looking for. I feel I think you should be encouraged to shop around because you know, like any service provider doctors very until you find somebody who does really know what you talking about and is happy to have that conversation with you. And then the other piece of advice we give to people is that if you are of an age where you're consuming pornography, you know there is more diverse imagery out there. You just have to
sometimes put a bit more effort into looking for it. Though. Yeah, be aware that there is imagery out there that is a bit more varied and realistic.
What about changes? Can changes happen to your labia throughout your life? Tell us a bit about this.
Yes, so when you go through adolescents and puberty, obviously your laby a change a lot, and so that can be an issue too sometimes because it's quite like there's a trend towards removing pubic care now. Often when people remove their pubic care in their teenage years, they might have a mental image of what they look like as a child, and their bodies look different because of all of the hormonal changes, So that's something to be aware of.
Then obviously, pregnancy and birth can change your labia. So during pregnancy, your labia may increase in size and appear more swollen and darker in color because of the hormones, and then after birth they will generally return to their pre pregnancy state, but there can be permanent changes, like, for example, if you experience any injuries to your labor
during birth that might leave some scarring. And then there's changes again later in life during the perimenopause in the sort of late forties for most people and after menopause where the inner laba may change color and become a bit thinner, And similarly the tissues of the vulva andlining of the vagina can become a bit thinner as well.
Yeah, but the big takeaway I think for me is just look at the labiers in the library and it will help will reassure you that it's all okay.
Absolutely, that's right. I think when you look in the and yeah, everybody who guys they're basically is like, oh, I had no idea, so very much incare and it's a really it's presented in a very kind of like non sexualized way. It's very safe and you know, lots of really useful information as I said, that sits alongside it.
Yeah, thanks Kate for coming on Healthy.
Thank you.
Folks. I highly recommend you go on and have a look at that Lavier library. I will leave a link to it in the show notes. If you did enjoy this chat, jump on tell Us rate and review this podcast, or of course you can subscribe anything else you know where to go. Bodyansoul dot com dot you follow us on socials. We have our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow, stay healthy,