This Is Healthy Too

I know I have, Lisa definitely, Yeah, guilty, And that's one of the things we grow up learning, Like you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but society actually, when it comes to judging someone by their weight, has told us, oh, yeah, no problem, judge a book by its cover all day long, like because yeah, that is bad. So, Lisa, fat phobia is actually a thing, and some people might not be familiar with that. So I'd like for you to just go ahead and define

that for us and then we can talk about it. Yeah, So similar to homophobia or any sort of phobia that we have, it's some sort of a prejudice, whether you realize it or not, so it could be a little

bit more subconscious against bigger bodies. And the reason we did want to talk about this article is because when I saw the controversy that occurred from Cosmos saying this is healthy and showing very different bodies than the one that you and I saw, I thought, you know, nobody here is to blame, like when we say maybe it's the fat phobic people, even that sounds judgey to those people, when in reality we have been living in a diet

culture bubble that has really, really, really enforced the idea that bigger bodies are burdensome to society. Therefore they are to blame for their illnesses, for their increased medical call for the diseases they get. Rather than zooming out and recognizing how are fat phobia? Our fear of bigger bodies actually gets in the way of us being able to

take care of ourselves. This makes me think of the controversy a while back with Jillian Michaels and Lizzo and the passionate video that you put up coming to Lizzo's defense and the comments that Jillian Michael's making, and we didn't talk about this before, so you don't know it was going to bring it up, but it definitely was the first time that I was exposed to how certain

people are treated. I think I probably before really focusing in on what you were saying, I would have heard Julian Michael's comments and like, oh, well, she's a trainer, she's on a TV show called Vigas Loser, she's an expert,

she knows what she's talking about. And then it would have rolled off my back, like Okay, I'm not gonna think twice about it, but I remember watching your video that you put up and you're calling her out, Jillie Michaels, that is, and I was, We're proud of you, but also it is a very enlightening video for me to be like, oh wait a second, I am part of

the problem. I wouldn't define myself as fat phobic, but I don't do anything to join in on helping ind this type of rhetoric, right, And it wasn't you know the purpose of that video or wasn't too like you said, like go after Jillian Michaels. It was an opportunity to educate where there's this gray area that we're really missing. So people who are in the Jillian Michael's camp, if you will, and then people who are in the body liberation space, you know, over here. So we've got two

different people. They're not having a conversation because they're both advocating for health, but neither sees the other one as really prioritizing health. So the Jillian Michael's camp people think that, you know, wait, is the most obvious sign of not being healthy. Therefore, by putting bigger bodies out there and celebrating them, right, by celebrating different bodies that weren't on the cover of the magazines that you and I saw,

we are sending the wrong message. Whereas people over in the body liberation camp, let's call it, are like, wait a second, we haven't actually made people healthier by selling them on this one body ideal that thin is better,

because then we're failing to consider all the things people do. Obviously, we talked about this on that way in pursuit of that body that is likely not even you know, attainable to them because of their genetic pool and their bodies and you know the way that they're naturally made, and you know, pursuing diet after diet, putting themselves through rigorous workouts in pain, versus can we show ourselves love nutrition

movement in a way that feels good? And the saddest part of all of this is most people didn't make it past the cover that said this is healthy and show different types of bodies. They didn't open up to the eleven women spread where each women really tells a powerful story about how she finds strength and health from exercising in some ways or through her their mental health.

And there was so much nuance to this article, but it became so easy to pick apart because people were so quote unquote afraid of what message we're sending to the youth about their bodies by putting a bigger body, if you will, on on the cover. But why were we not concerned by putting real thin bodies on the

cover when that wasn't attainable or healthy? Okay? So yeah, you mentioned these two camps, and it's like somewhere we got to meet in the middle and prioritize health all around, not just like, oh, you wanna lose weight in a super extreme way and work out a billion hours a day and restrict tons of food. Sure, Okay, that's healthy. But then you want to just go eat whatever you

want and not move your body and worry about anything. Like, I don't know where it all meets together, but health just should not be defined by weight, end of story, right, and on both ends of the spectrum, right. And that's why we have to recognize that we can't judge somebody's

health by the way that they look. So it shouldn't be a dispute to say this is healthy, and then just because it's not what we've traditionally seen for us to say, no, it's obese, and obesity causes a b C d n E. So really, the key kicker here that I want people to feel equipped to go home and have these conversations is that higher weights, obesity, being overweight, all those things do not cause a b C d

n E. Insert hypertension, diabetes, you know, heart disease. Whatever the slew of popular ones that we hear is is there a correlation between the two, Yes, there is a correlation. What does that mean. It means that being of a higher weight is a risk factor for these diseases. But if there's one thing we know about how all science

works is that correlation does not mean causation. So we got very blurry somewhere that if you just lose weight, all your problems will go away, and because you've gained weight, you are the problem. And this has really interfered with doctors taking patients seriously. This is kind of what this is, what weight stigma is. We talked about that a lot with our episode with doctor Joshua. You really broke that down.

So if you want to go a little bit further into weight stigma, highly suggest his episode from season one. But are we giving people the proper care? Are we evaluating their labs, are we looking at what could be causing disease in their body? Or are we simply giving them a prescription to lose weight thinking that their weight

is the problem. And this has led to fat shaming and worst of all, when we just tell somebody just lose weight, it causes negative health behaviors to be pursued, not to mention mental health issues and self esteem issues. So how can we empower people beyond just lose weight or gain weight? Right the specific kind of like what

your body side should be. We need to talk about healthy behaviors and if people made their way into the actual magazine not just past the cover where there was easy you know, I'm pro this, or pro that the gray area of the conversation would have been exposed. Here are healthy things that you can do to promote your

well being. Mental health is part of this conversation. You know, these things are kind of just getting lost in translation because people come with really, really really strong opinions as to what healthy is because of the diet cultural world that we've been sucked into like a vortex, that we take it as hard truth, and we need to kind of back up and put our listening ears on, look for different types of information and really question the beliefs I believe that we've been given so that we can

show up, be compassionate to our neighbors and our friends and our colleagues, and actually help people by being healthier, not being thinner period and not being so judgmental towards how they look and then what you're concluding about their body.

And then I think that, like you said, we're in this vortex and we've heard for much of our life that equals at but that's just not true, right, And I think, like what I loved about the article so much is that it wasn't showing a diversity of body and saying, you know, this is healthy, you should pursue this, because that's what everybody took away from it is you're promoting obesity. You think that you know, all women should

aim to look like this. It's like, let's just move away from that narrative and recognize all bodies are different. So when I see somebody on the cover, it doesn't take away from what I need to look like. Right, Maybe they're an expert that has some information that they need to deliver. Maybe it doesn't matter what they actually look like. But what we are saying by finally not seeing that one body type on the cover of the magazine is that there isn't one way to be healthy.

So maybe the message wasn't this is healthy, but what we've previously seen isn't healthy. It was just expanding our view of what bodies could look like because that is what we see when we're on the street. Right, it should be modeled in our media consumption. Different body types, different races, different nationality, people with scars, people in wheelchairs,

all types of things. Right, we should see that in the media, so that the one person that we put on a pedestal per month on the cover of a magazine, isn't the one ideal that we're all in pursuit of. Yeah, wellness is not one size fits all, and again, for years that's what we saw. So of course that would be some people's thinking. But when you step back and look at the big picture, it's like, oh, whoa. We were brainwashed in a sense to chase after that and

think that that equals healthy. My brain keeps going back to the fact like that I'm picturing a skinny model on a magazine and we're like, Okay, that's okay because she's skinny, But we have no idea the lengths that she went to to get there. We have no idea

her mental state, her stress levels. Maybe she's naturally born that way, but let's say she had to go to extreme measures to get that body, or it was photoshopped or airbrush to look that way, and then we're stuck having to chase after this, which again makes you think of our doctor Joshua conversation. Is the stress we put on ourselves from restriction and not enjoying certain foods. It can be or maybe close to worse than if you

were to just eat the food. Anyways, I think that still everybody is looking for a firm answer what is healthy? We we grasped black and white. We want the quick answers in our life. And this is a beautiful conversation that isn't going to you know, the viewpoint isn't going

to be changed overnight. These are conversations that we need to have with our daughters and our sons and broad in the perspective so that we could really change the narrative and help people recognize that dieting and healthy eating and living are not synonymous. Right. That's that's kind of a secondary conversation that needs to kind of be broken down here. Of course, you can kind of get blurry

here because as you know, I went through orthorexia. I don't know if you identify in that way, but in orthorexia I was obsessed with healthy eating. I was not calorically restricting, Um, you know, it's just obsessive about the quality of my food. And that too was unhealthy. So

really the focus needs to be on a healthy behavior. Right, What are the things that we can do that isn't obsessive so that it's sustainable, so that each daughters, son, me and you Amy, every individual can start to really recognize that health is an inside job, and it takes considering ourselves and really throwing out an internalized message that I will be healthy when I look like X. Because when we are pursuing that, we're throwing out all those

things that feel good. Right, Exercises just to burn or to chisel, not because it You know, when we move our bodies, when we are rolling my wrists on the camera right now looking at Amy, we're bringing synovial fluid into our joints. Like what about longevity? The view of health has become so narrowly defined by weight that we've forgotten so many amazing things of how we can take care of our bodies. One naysayer, I just wanted to pull it up because I think again it's it's these

are important conversations to have is she wrote. I get what it's like dealing with insecurities. Trust me, I get it. But the answer isn't to minimize the role of weight, diet,

and exercise plays in our health. So this, to me, just made it so clear that this person didn't open the cover to really explore what was beneath, that all they saw was a bigger body, and because of everything that we've heard about bigger bodies, there was an assumption that these individuals were less healthy because of that belief that not, you know, the traditional body that we know is a cause for disease. But like we said, there

is a correlation between higher weight and disease. That does not mean that everybody at a higher weight is going to get a disease. This is a risk factor, but that doesn't mean there are confounding factors that all happen inside of a body that have are outside of your control that do cause disease. And so it's really need to back up and recognize your This article had nothing to say about diet and exercise in a negative way if anything, and you read the pages, these women seem

to have beautiful relationships to food and exercise. All they saw was the weight and they got stuck up on it because of their fear of their bodies essentially. So I mean, just take this conversation that we're having and continue it with your yourself. It may not be something

that you need to discuss with others. I mean, maybe it is if certain comments come up, But I feel like this is a conversation we also need to be having with ourselves because it might be new to you and you might need to think, oh, how have I quickly judged someone because of their weight or assumed something about them because of the shape or size of their body, when really I know nothing about their relationship with food,

I know nothing about their relationship with movement. It might be on point, but we make certain assumptions that maybe they don't take care of themselves like society says. And this to kind of further your point here, um Jessamin Stanley who is a black, bigger bodied yoga teacher on Instagram, Jessamine Stanley is her name. You can check her out.

She's definitely made a big impact over the years. She wrote this, and I think that a lot of us can kind of agree with this, But she said, the reality is yoga has absolutely nothing to do with what you look like. When I first started, I was often the only fat person at classes, and frequently the only black person, so it was very alienating. I grew up with the misconception that fitness means thinness. Now we understand that being thin can also be unhealthy. Things have to

be stable, long lasting, and feel good for you. But I love that idea, because there's so much to unpack that fitness means thinness, right, like that was what we were sold on, and that's not what fitness and movement is. I mean for me, even maybe it's it's exploring the word fitness, Maybe it's changing it to movement for me that feels a little bit more organic to me than

exercise or fitness. So these are just like little things that have kind of built up in our brain, these associations between health one body size, fitness, thinness, who knows, you know the millions of other correlations that we've built up along the way. And then it's too like what are we chasing? Are you chasing wellness like mind, body, spirit, or are you chasing thinness? I think that other body sizes, some people might be scared of seeing on a magazine cover.

They may have it more figured out than some of the people criticizing them, and they may be living a more fulfilling, joyful, satisfying life. That's a presumption on my part. I'm not saying that I think you're You're absolutely right. And that's again that narrow idea that health is one thing. When we look at people in the blue zones who I always love to reference. The blue zones are the

places in the world where people live the longest. The things that make up the defining characteristics of those who live there are things like they have really long meals with their community each day, they prioritize sleep. All these things that get sucked away from you when you are in pursuit of thinness in a way that is not

even possible for you personally. So you know, you're missing out on meal times, you're eating as little as possible, You're not socializing with friends because you know your diet doesn't fit into that world. You're waking up extra early to get that work out in. I mean that's causing an increase in cortisol in the body, the stress hormone.

It's just, you know this idea Exactly what you're saying is that we need to expand out on what health is, how we get it and recognize that it's not just diet exercise, diet exercise, what does your body look like? And not being scared of magazine so shout out Cosmo.

I think this was Cosmo UK possibly that featured these women and that they were like, you know what we're going to do things differently, and I hope that more and more we start to see people do things differently and that'll empower people to speak about it, maybe other companies to follow suit, and then we can start seeing diversity out there instead of like what we saw growing up, which was one type of body type that everybody's chasing after.

That again, yes, is not normal. It's not for some people. Yes, that might be how they were born, and I get it. Lisa and I always to like to recognize that we come from a place of privilege to white then girls here talking about this, so that's not lost on us for one second. I think it's even more important that we use where we sit to say, hey, this isn't just you know, the bodies that we were born into aren't the elite bodies that everybody should go after. I

mean we're different shapes and sizes. I mean we might be thin white girls, yes, but we do look differently. And I feel like in my unhealthier days, I probably would have been looking at Leasta like, oh, I wish I could be as thin as Lisa. But then there's always someone looking at someone wishing they could be as thin as that person, and it's just this unhealthy pattern. Well, I'm just thankful that we're starting to get to a

place where we're seeing different bodies. And I hope that ten twenty thirty years from now, the conversation looks way different than where it is now, and that we've normalized normal bodies, right, and let's see a range of let's celebrate all women's bodies who have something to do or say in this world, like, let's just see them all

and then just redefining in general what healthy is. I love that we hope that this conversation provided some tools for you to better navigate this conversation that often becomes just black and white when you see a nay say or who may say obesity causes disease. You have the tool the ability to pause for a second and say,

wait a second, here, there's a correlation, but there's not causation. Therefore, what I do next about this information, Whether it's a belief or an action, it matters, and you have a choice to really pivot the conversations that you have in your home. Okay, So Lisa, can I before we go share something real quick that I'm not proud of from my past. So if I would go to a particular workout class. Since you brought up yoga a minute ago,

I'll talk about that. If I had a instructor that I thought was overweight, I immediately had a thought like, oh, is this class going to be good? I'm not proud of that, but I had that thought. And if I had an instructor that was super thin, I was like, Okay, I think I'm probably gonna like this class, and that's

messed up. But the reason why I share it is to give other people hope that if you've had those similar thoughts before, like, you can change your thinking and you can walk into a yoga class and if the instructor looks different than you thought, you can and be like, Okay, this class is probably gonna be amazing. Uh. Not to

prejudge a teacher based on their size. Yeah, And I think, like you said, change your thinking, it's expanding your consciousness, Like you're becoming so much more of a wholesome thinker that hasn't just been brainwashed by diet culture to think that health means somebody looks a certain way. And I think that's making you a better overall person as well. And I know that wasn't something easy to admit, Amy, And you did so for good reason, because it's going

to stop somebody in their tracks. Perhaps the next time they have a thought just like that, and then you can bring curiosity to it, because that's how compassion happens for yourself and for others. It m it's not overnight thinking that changes the way we have been thought to think. It's about Oh I just had this thought. Oh, but Amy said this. Let me take a moment to like, let that settle in my body and see what I

really feel here. Okay, I'm going to move forward with this thought that is an accurate one, a compassion one, one that reflects who I am. Fear driven, yeah, fear driven yes. And and again not even your fault. The big conversation that has been going on for years and years and years has put the thoughts like that into your head. I don't think that we're just born thinking that about people. Know, it's been put into our minds.

But um, when we're putting in the work and we're trying to do better than we have a choice in how we want to move forward once the information is presented to us. I love that. Okay, So we haven't done an episode just Amy and I solo in a long time, and we usually have a guest on board, so we just wanted to take this moment to thank

our Outweigh fam all of you for being supporters. There are those of you who have been with us since day one, and then there are those of you who joined on more recently, and your loyalty listening to episode after episode is not lost on us. We love getting your emails. Future emails can go to hello at Outweigh podcast dot com. We listen to your stories, we take your feedback, and we're just so grateful to have a

community that is so willing. It's been such an honor to co host this with Amy, and we just wanted to share gratitude while we didn't have a guest. Yes, thank you Lisa for all that you do, and then yes to our amazing listeners. I feel like, through their stories that are shared with us and then things that I learned from you, I'm at work in progress constantly, and I'm thankful to have Outweigh as one of my tools, a tool in my toolbox to help me keep growing.

So thank you Lisa, and we will see all of you next Saturday. Every Saturday we put up a new episode, so we'll see then