Hating Your Body Is Solvable

body my entire life. I've always felt chubby and out of shape, even when I was at my smallest size. Even now, as I'm still trying to lose weight, I'm working to find a way to love my body, no matter what size it is. Our conversation today is with someone who's work I've turned to over the years for encouragement and now for solutions. The goal is to not hate yourself, right, and so there's also a term called body acceptance that embody neutrality that's becoming more popularized now.

I think that a lot of us are striving for because it also feels unattainable for a lot of us to quote unquote love our bodies all the time. About two thirds of American adults are classified as overweight or obese, so it may be unsurprising that in twenty nineteen, the weight loss and diet control market was valued at around seventy eight billion dollars. Even as we work to change our bodies, many Americans like me are also fighting the

stigma that comes with being classified as fat. It never really used the word to describe individuals who haven't already used that word to describe themselves, because I do think, of course, you have to be aware that it does come with, you know, people sensitivity, and people have different feelings about the word, so I do get that. Gabby Gregg, also known as Gabby Fresh, was my portal into the

world of plus size fashion and body inclusivity. For the past decade, She's been an outsn advocate for looking and feeling dope in your clothes for folks of all sizes. She's been and continues to be a cheerleader for showing skin with confidence, even as a lot of our society tells us bigger folks to hide it. Her lingerie and bikini lines woke up the fashion industry at a time when most popular brands didn't manufacture clothing beyond the size eighteen.

I'm Gabby Fresh. I'm a body positive digital content creator, and hating your body is a solvable problem. Why is it important for the plus sized community to be able to wear bikinis, to be able to wear lingerie that fits? Why is that important? Number one, we deserve the same access to the same trends and things as everyone else. So just baseline, we deserve beautiful bikinis and lingerie because

everyone else has it, and why shouldn't we. But beyond that, I think the bigger mission is to help people feel good in their bodies. And we've been told historically as people that we should not feel good in our bodies, that we should not show our skin, that we should

cover up and hide and be invisible. And so a two piece swimsuit is kind of the most skin you're ever probably going to be able to show in public, And so that has to be an experience where you feel like you should be seen and should be accepted and should feel good in your skin and so like, because it also feels unattainable for a lot of us to quote unquote love our bodies all the time, and even I I definitely don't love my body every single day.

I'm not obsessed with it, but it's more about kind of overcoming this culture that tells us we have to hate ourselves and constantly be on a weight loss journey.

That's kind of a body positivity and fat positivity is even more radical where and it's I say that ironically, like it shouldn't be radical, but the idea that you can accept and love your body even if it's fat, which in our culture, of course, the word fat has been so stigmatized and so associated with things like lazy or unhealthy or a million other things, and so it's really this idea. It says like, no, you can be

fat and happy, you can be fat and beautiful. You can be fat and all of these other amazing things. And to really accept that and learn that, I think is kind of transformative idea and process to go through. Is it somebody who has lived that experience? So I grew up. I didn't grow up like I didn't get I didn't gain a lot of weight until after college.

But I grew up being pretty average size I guess they would describe, But I remember the entire time always never being a big fan of by size or seeing other people that were in better shape, and I was just back when I was an average kid. And I'm also one of those people that looks back at pictures it says, I can't believe I thought I was fat then versus now. So can you talk a little bit about that. Look what that looked like for you growing up and kind of what set you what made this

such a journey that was you were kind of drawn to. Sure, I was kind of average size until middle school. I started getting chubby around faither sixth grade, and I remember, specifically for me, I actually moved schools from like public, diverse school to a private, very white school, and that is where I became super self aware of not only

my race and my class, but also my size. Like all three of those kind of converged at once for me because I was surrounded by like rich, thin white girls, and I had never felt so ostracized and so othered before. And again, just like you, though, I look back at those pictures now of me when I was like ten, eleven, twelve years old, and I'm like, I can't believe this

little girl hated her body. In college, I had a live journal, which is kind of funny to say now, But at the time, they were basically these online forums and diaries where you shared your day with people, and I found different communities there, and one that I was introduced to was specifically for plus size fashion and politics, and that really opened my eyes for the first time to the fact that other people who looked like me and had my body type were happy and were kind

of against diet culture in Okay with the bodies they

lived in. And so from there, I decided to start a blog called Young and Fabulous and be a resource for not only my own outfits, but also just like a place where women could come and learn about what's trending, how where to shop, talk in the comments, and give each other advice and all of that, because one of the things back then there was nowhere to shop, so I kind of shared tips on like how to make things work for you even if they're not in your size,

and so that's how I started my blog. It was one of the first of its kind back in two thousand and eight, and so because of that, MTV reached out and I credit you for kind of being my portal into the world of inclusivity when it comes to plus size bodies, especially because you were a Twitter, VJ. Was it twenty twelve, twenty eleven? Okay, and so now it's twenty twenty one obviously, and Instagram is filled with plus size influencers, lots of people speaking about body positivity.

I remember you were the one, the first one to put out of the fat knie I remember, or the earliest one that I remember. A lot of that was all you were kind of the tip of the spear and a lot of those ways. How did you find yourself being in front when it came to making bus size bikinis, making plus size laundry? So after I left MTV, I actually was approached by in Style magazine to become their first plus size editor and launch a page on

plus size fashion. There. One of the things I shared early on, I think, I believe in twenty ten or twenty eleven, when I was at MTV, we went to Las Vegas for an award show, and when I was at a Vegas pool, I shared a photo of me in a bikini, and that bikini was so hard to find. It was like I could had to search the internet high and low, and I was so excited to find it and I posted it and people freaked out because They were like, oh my god, bikinis exist for us.

We didn't know that, Like where did you get this? And it was so hard to tell them like, actually, this only goes up to a size eighteen, but like, here's the place I got it. Not long after that, I was approached by an online retailer called Swimsuits for All, who asked if I'd be interested in doing a capsule collection with them. I said yes because there was so few kind of fashion forward and trendy swimsuit options for us, and so I was nervous. It was my first time designing,

It was my first time putting out a product. I didn't know exactly how it would be received, but I did know that demand was there, and so when that launched in twenty twelve, it immediately went viral, kind of broke the Internet and broke their website. Actually their website crashed.

It sold out immediately, and I think everyone was just like, Wow, this is a game changer, because I think even, you know, even the brand didn't realize how big of a demand there was, and I the market at large definitely didn't realize because there were none that existed, and they thought that anyone who was plus sized would not want to show skin, would not want to be in a bikini. So to see that kind of demand and reaction I

think kind of really changed the marketplace. And since then, each year the plus size swim market has grown exponentially, and like, that's really exciting for me, Gabby. I personally feel that the limited availability of size fuels the self hatred many people experience around their bodies, Like, if you can't find your size, it's like society telling you you shouldn't exist. Recently, I went to buy a suit and I'm a big guy, but it's by no means I possible for me to find a suit on a rack

at the store, and the experience was pretty upsetting. As I walked in the suit, guys typically do this thing where they're just like, well, I mean, I don't know, we might need to find some more material, and you know, I don't know, this is gonna be it's gonna be a struggle, and I feel like that's that's always hard.

One thing that's always been inspirational to me is being able to see a lot of plus size influencers, primarily women that are like really in the space and looking beautiful and lots of clothes, and I see that fashion choices are beginning to Expand do you think that women's fashion when it comes to plus size clothing has outpaced men's fashion when it comes to plus size clothing, Because what I'm finding is that for men, it feels like trying to find that same fervor and those same options

has still been a bit of a struggle for me, well for me personally, And I don't know if maybe I'm just not looking at the right places. I think the male fashion customer is just different than the female fashion customer, like generally speaking, and like often isn't looking for the same fashion items as the as women are.

And so I think historically men have been fine with like a plane button down and some jeans or a T shirt, you know, And I think women a lot of us have really been pushing for like more statement pieces,

more eye catching pieces. That being said, like I do know that there are I was so excited, for example, like when Aso's uh not only launched plus sizes for women, but like a few years ago finally launched plus sizes for men, And that made me so excited because I constantly am hearing from men and my dms, Like, I'm so excited for what you're doing, but like, do you know of any places for me to shop, because like Macy's or Ords, Drum or whatever may carry bigger sizes

for men in general, just like among the get yeah, we did too. We still even now as much as you were saying, like women's plus size fashion has outpaced men, like I still almost exclusively shop online. We still don't have any instore options. We have like our typical Lane Bryant tour in which are like our two kind of biggest retailers, big box retailers, but like, we don't have a lot of in store options some again, some of the department stores have plus size sections, but they for

the most part are pretty dire. They're pretty bad. We're kind of stuck in the corner on the top floor, in the back next to the dishes. You know you talked about ass like and a lot of these plus and extended sizes, they also have a limit, and I know that there's been some like I think even some of your lines to like eventually have a limit. YEA, how do we solve that? How do we get to a place where there is a size for everyone and

they're not being a limit that we can't reach. Because even when you were talking about not being unable to get the one bikini that was in size eighteen, Yes, and if they're one person came along and they were twenty and it's like, oh, that's it. That's it for me. And I've experienced that myself in different sizes as well. So how would you how do you solve for that? Yeah,

that's a really tough one and a great question. It's something that's an ongoing conversation within the community because you know, inevitably wherever you kind of stop, whatever size you stop at, there's going to be someone larger than that size who feels excluded, when in reality, you're trying to be inclusive and you're trying to extend the sizes. And so I will be the first to say, like my swimsuit line

and my laundry line both are not inclusive enough. Like we I really wish I had more control over the side range, but ultimately that's not my call. But the consensus I've seen is like, we wish all plus size brands went to at least a size thirty or thirty two. Unfortunately, like what we're facing in capitalism is like, of course, at the end of the day, you want to have the highest margins and the most profits, and and that is sometimes at conflict with what's needed in the community.

Right It's like, ethically, what is the right thing to do versus what is going to make you the most money. And so I definitely hope to continue doing more swimwear and laundree and I hope that I'm able to extend the side is beyond a size twenty six because I think we need to. And it's it's definitely consistent feedback

that I've heard. There was a trainer, Jillian Michaels, who got out, who came out and was she kind of went to battle with Lizzo, who is a great singer, pop star who is also plus size and very body inclusive, and Jillian Michaels looked at her and said that she's basically said she's unhealthy and she's promoting obesity. How do you feel about the critics that are saying things like

that about this movement, that it is a promoting obesity. Yeah, I mean that's kind of the oldest response in the book that I've heard since I started over a decade ago, it's constantly like you're promoting obesity or like you're unhealthy, And I have so much to say about that, mostly because the truth is especially right now, I am unhealthy, mostly not because of my weight, but because I have

chronic illness and lyme disease. And so my big thing is like health should not be an indicator of value, right, Like it doesn't matter if someone is healthy or not. They should be respected as a human being and they still deserve to be seen and to be heard. And like, I don't care if someone is healthy or not. I want, of course, I want us as a society to care

about our health. But like, at the same time, as individuals walking down the street, you can't tell me who's healthy and who's not just based on how they look, Like you don't know anyone's personal behaviors. There's a million reasons someone is thin, there's a million reasons someone is fat. And someone's health status should not be indicative of like how they deserve to be treated as a person. If someone struggling with their health, why are you telling them

they shouldn't wear a bikini? Like how are those two things correlated? Like it's like one you don't really know someone's health status into even if they are unhealthy, that doesn't mean they can't enjoy their time on a beach looking cute. Like I don't I don't get why those

two things are related to people. If you care so much about health, then do be on the front lines, like working to get people educated about nutrition, like get let's let's get better food options and food deserts, like let's work on that, versus you just telling someone they're ugly and they're gonna die. What do you hope to see in the fashion world as a result of your

influence in the next five to ten years. I guess I could say we're still tokenized, right, Like it's still like a niche issue to be Oh, look at the body issue, or look at we look at this runway show. We included three plus size models. How amazing are we? You know? And so it's still kind of a talking point and a headline when a plus size model does something.

And so I think when plus size models and when plus size black models are being included consistently in campaigns and in fashion editorials, and like when our sizes are being offered at every store and it's not the exception, but it is the rule. I think that's when it's truly going to feel like, you know, there has been a shift in the tide where we are just included, and it's kind of the exception for us to not

be included versus to be included. Gabby, what can listeners who are struggling with self hatred and body image issues due to combat them? And what can listeners do to support people who are struggling with body image issues and self hatred? Yeah, so I think a couple things, But one thing I always start with is like, if you are struggling to accept your body, following influencers or just

people who look like you is life changing. And I know it sounds kind of superficial or not that important, but I cannot emphasize enough how much representation matters and how much seeing someone who looks like you and who

reflects your body and your experience is important. So, like, even if when you're following so incisitions in the beginning, you might even be judging them because a lot of us have that internalized shame and internalized fat phobia, So you might be like, oh, she should not be wearing that, Like why is she wearing a string bikini. You might have that initial gut reaction, and that's because you have been conditioned to feel that way, and so like it's

even more important for you to follow those people. Over time, what you'll find is that, like, those reactions will dissipate because when you're seeing that on a day to day basis in your feed and you are normalizing that to yourself and realizing, like, oh wow, these women like themselves and are allowing themselves to express themselves through fashion or

through creativity and like enjoying their lives. And like, when you're seeing a fat person do all the things you've been told they're not supposed to do, and you see that consistently over time, you give yourself that grace too, and that permission to live that way as well. Gabby, thank you so much for being with us. Of course, thank you so much for having me. This is a great conversation. Gabby Fresh is a body positive digital content

creator Solvable listeners. I want to thank you so much for listening in on these last two episodes that were way more personal for me. It's been meaningful to get to talk with experts about how to solve these difficult problems and I'd love to hear more from you. What are the challenges that you're struggling with and what are some problems you'd like to hear us discuss on the show. What solutions do you need? You could tweet at us

with the hashtag solvable. Could tweet at me at oh it's big Ron that's at O h I T S b I g R O N, or you could tweet at Pushkin at Pushkin pods that's at p U s h k I N p O d S. Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank, research by David Jah, booking by Lisa Dutton. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias, and our executive producer is Mio Lobel. I'm Ronald Young Junior. Thanks for listening.