The Burnt Toast Podcast

Today Virginia is chatting with Cole Kazdin, author of What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety, which explodes a lot of the problems with our current eating disorder treatment system.Remember, if you order Cole's book (or any books we mention on the pod!) from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, you can get 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.BUTTER & OTHER LINKSShira RosenbluthFor anyone who needs to recover into a fat body, you’re asking them to sacrifice the safety of their eating disorder in the sense that it’s harder to exist in this world in a fat body than in a thinner one.Gloria Lucasjust journal or do a crossword puzzlebacklash against the diagnosis of atypical anorexiaa very good piece about atypical anorexiaVirginia's story on KurboMadeline DonahueLindsey GuileCole on InstagramFAT TALK is out! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Episode 95 TranscriptColeI’m a journalist and now author. I worked in television news for many, many years and then left that work about 10 years ago to return to print journalism. If you’re a freelance journalist, you end up reporting about everything, right? Crime and the environment and breaking news. But I found myself focusing more and more on mental health reporting and in part that was because I was in a very unsatisfying moment of eating disorder recovery myself. And when I started reporting on mental health, specifically mental health around eating disorder recovery and the eating disorder epidemic, it really shifted the focus of my work to the point where it was all I wanted to really write about and thus the book. VirginiaIt’s called What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety. It’s incredible, Cole. Your reporting is top notch and then you also put your own story into this which I know can be difficult to do—to really go there—and you weave in other people’s stories. It’s just a beautiful mix of memoir and reporting.ColeThank you. VirginiaWhat made you decide this needed to be a book and this kind of book?ColeI had an eating disorder on and off through most of college and into my adult life. When I finally got treatment, I was very prepared for that treatment to be excellent and I’m done and now we don’t have an eating disorder anymore. It was so unsatisfying to me that it wasn’t remotely like that. It was more than the residue of the eating disorder. I was not very healed.So, I started approaching it as a journalist, with the idea of seeing if I was the only one that felt this way. Is this in my own head? Am I crazy? Am I not able to recover because it’s just me? And also, as you know, as a journalist you can access people that would never talk to you if you are a patient. VirginiaOh yes. It’s a definite perk. ColeSo I was writing short pieces about why doesn’t eating disorder recovery feel better? And what are the inequities in eating disorder care and in diagnosis? And the more I started reporting this, and the more people I spoke with both everyday people like myself who were suffering, and the clinicians, the researchers, the more I started to understand that not only was this not just in my head, this is the way it is. And understanding the scope of that, I felt an urgency to write a longer piece about this, to write a full book where I could reach all those points.I use a lot of memoir because I think the transparency piece is very important. Eating disorders are very lonely and you really feel like you’re the only one suffering even though you know on paper that you’re not. So, I just wanted people to know how messy and difficult it is, to normalize that. And that no one is alone if they’re suffering from this.VirginiaI mean, this whole concept of “full recovery” is so interesting. I feel like I’m beginning to see some pushback about that in the eating disorder therapist community. My good friend Shira Rosenbluth has talked a lot about her own eating disorder journey and this idea of full recovery being frankly unrealistic for so many people, given the current reality of treatments. Who currently gets to be fully recovered from an eating disorder?ColeWhat is so tricky about this is that no one can agree fully on what it means to be recovered from an eating disorder.VirginiaI mean, that’s mind blowing right there. ColeRight. So, some organizations and clinicians define it as “you’re no longer engaging in the symptoms:” Starving, binging and purging, or whatever combination of those. Like, that would be a metric of recovery, that you’re no longer engaging in those symptoms. But then, in so many treatments, your underlying traumas or anything else that’s contributing to why you might have developed that eating disorder are not addressed.I had a very good treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is considered a gold standard—I don’t want to use the word “standard,” because there really is no standard of care with eating disorders. But the definition of recovery is so nebulous. NEDA, that National Eating Disorder Association, has a kind of definition where they say it’s addressing the physical medical issues, so whatever medical issues arose as a result of one’s eating disorder, then the behavioral symptoms, again whatever behaviors you’re engaging in that are disordered. And then the third category is the psychological piece, which no one can really define.VirginiaThat’s what we can’t nail down. And even right there, that feels complicated because you might make progress on behaviors and even the psychological piece, but have lingering medical complications, right? So that feels like a troubling metric. And then: In the same way that abstinence is not full recovery from alcoholism or drug abuse, just making someone “behavior abstinent” is not the same thing as actually working through the disorder.ColeRight. And that’s why I think it feels so tricky, especially because we move around in this world where all of these behaviors that supported our disordered way of being—dieting, restricting food, giving up whatever the thing is, they are completely normalized in our culture. So if we have a feeling, oh, I don’t think I want to eat pasta. Okay, is that the eating disorder? Is that just our world that we live in?I passed a store or restaurant in LA that said “Pasta! But with the calories of a salad.” Like, I don’t even know what that means. I won’t even unpack that here, we don’t have the time. But if that’s the world we’re moving around in once we’re recovered, then that’s the psychological piece—and that’s not even thinking about what your family history is and any other contributing factors.One thing I’m starting to shape in my mind when I think about recovery is this idea of safety. And I think that’s the missing piece of recovery: Safety in our own bodies, and safety in the world that we’re living in. If we don’t have a sense of safety, we cannot be recovered. And I think the way you insulate yourself from the diet culture world we live in is with community. So, I think safety and community go hand in hand. And that’s what makes recovery feasible.Because for especially people in marginalized communities who may feel the stress of say everyday racism, that person who may go through eating disorder treatment comes out into the world and still feels unsafe in their body. So will they be recovered? So, I don’t think you can have recovery without safety. And I think that’s one piece that’s not really being talked about.VirginiaThat becomes such a complicated piece of it. For anyone who needs to recover into a fat body, you’re asking them to sacrifice the safety of their eating disorder in the sense that it’s harder to exist in this world in a fat body than in a thinner one. So there’s that layer to it. And then also all of that plays into who even accesses treatment in the first place. Like, who gets diagnosed, right?ColeI spoke with Gloria Lucas for the book, who’s an educator who’s doing some really interesting work in this area. She works with a lot of indigenous people who have a real connection of their body to the land. Their body is the land, the land is their body. She said, “how can anyone recover until they give the land back?” I thought, oh shit. VirginiaThat’s not something we can sort out in our treatment protocols. It shows the need for systemic change here. It’s not just people’s personal work to do.ColeExactly. So we have to parse out what is the personal work that I can do? How can I kind of cobble this together? And you do, unfortunately, have to cobble this together. Because even if a person speaks to their general physician, that person may not know how to refer them or what what is the best treatment for them. So you have to piece this together yourself and know that there are a lot of systemic elements here that may not shift anytime soon.VirginiaYou have a lot of examples in the book of these moments in therapy where it’s just so clear that the treatment is not serving you or really anyone. There was one anecdote of the therapist who told you that when the need to purge arose, you should just journal or do a crossword puzzle. And you were like, Have you ever purged?I’d love to talk about some other examples of this one-size-fits-no-one advice and how that also becomes such a barrier to recovery for people.ColeI mean, one-size-fits-no-one is the perfect way to put it because I cannot imagine any actual human who could benefit from some of this guidance. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the disorder and I think that’s also why so many people who have suffered from eating disorders may go into the field of treatment because they actually understand what someone is going through.I think another not helpful and I would go so far as to say harmful piece of therapy was a sort of exposure therapy where the therapist wanted me to begin to include foods in my diet that I had previously restricted.Now, that is not a bad idea.VirginiaIt’s the goal ultimately. ColeRight. I think it’s important to have a diet where you can eat anything and you’ll choose what you like and don’t like, right? You don’t have to eat everything, but you can.So, she would give me assignments like “eat a food this week that you previously restricted.” Now, it was, I think, way too early in my recovery. Especially cognitive behavioral therapy, which did help me in many, many ways I do want to say, but there is a real textbook. This is a 20 week program. This is what we do week one, this is what we do week two, and there is no real attempt made to understand the individual because that’s not even what they’re trying to do. They want to change your behaviors using this way. I just envision that being studied for a population of people and not looking at individuals.So she would ask, “what’s something you never ate?” “Well, pancakes.” “Okay, so this week, eat pancakes.” Well, I don’t think I was ready to eat pancakes.And if we had talked a little bit more, just her getting to know me, Cole, and my behaviors, maybe she would have seen that and said, “let’s do that next year instead of week six or whatever,” right? Because then you’re white knuckling your way through the assignments And of course, many, many people with eating disorders do have black and white thinking, very rigid thinking. I went into treatment, really wanting to get an A+ so I was going to do every single thing she told me, whether it felt right or not, because I was still very sick. But it felt like a force feeding and it felt really violating. At the time, I went along with these things because I didn’t trust myself. And I shouldn’t have trusted myself, right? Because I had gone a very long time making very harmful choices. But there is somewhere in there where you also feel heard. Instead, I really felt like I have no agency. I’m kind of choosing to hand this over, because obviously I’m making harmful decisions. I want to get better, A+ to me for even wanting that, and I’ll do whatever you tell me.VirginiaI mean the parallels there to diet culture are so strong, right? Like, I can’t trust myself, I have to follow somebody else, I have to follow this program perfectly. If I don’t follow it perfectly and it doesn’t work, it’s my fault. That’s what diets teach us. So that’s disturbing when this is supposed to have the opposite goal.ColeI empathize with the clinicians sometimes, even the ones that give us advice that’s not helpful or that can even be harmful. Because eating disorders are so complex. For many people there is a neurological underpinning here that doesn’t explain the entire eating disorder, but explains part of it. I did not get hungry, I needed to be told when to eat. I still do that. I need to sometimes treat food like medicine, like, “you have to eat a yogurt right now. You’re not even remotely hungry, just eat it because you’re crashing right now.” So it’s difficult to understand that, while also understanding that someone may have grown up a certain way, where they treat food a certain way, maybe they had food scarcity, maybe they had a mother who always dieted.There are just so many factors in why these eating disorders manifest the way they do. And it can be different for every person, but the therapy does not usually approach eating disorders in that way.VirginiaRight. We have multiple diagnoses, but we still have this kind of catch-all approach. Like, we don’t really know what category you are. So we’ll lump you over here, in this diagnosis. And obviously, that’s doing such a disservice. Even within within a category like anorexia or bulimia, there’s going to be so many different versions of that. So to have the therapy be this kind of cookie cutter approach… and I don’t even know if classifying it as subtypes would be helpful or just like further stigmatizing, honestly. But at least, meet people where they are. And when it’s time to eat the pancakes, put the emotional support in place to help you eat the pancakes instead of just making it a homework assignment.ColeRight, and weight being still such a factor throughout. We’re hearing more backlash against the diagnosis of atypical anorexia, a diagnosis which still drives me crazy. And when I went into therapy for the first time, I was not weighed or medically checked or recommended to go to a doctor. I was very, very, very thin but I did not look like someone who could be cast in a movie about anorexia. So that made me wonder, Oh, am I not that sick? Am I not thin enough to be that sick? And and this was before the atypical anorexia classification emerged, when I was in treatment. But you can’t look at weight and we know that now. Like, we can’t look at weight as any indicator of whether someone is ill or not. But that is still a metric.VirginiaThe whole atypical anorexia thing is a nightmare. I mean, there’s nothing atypical about it. It’s most of the people with anorexia. ColeIt’s infuriating. VirginiaThat stereotype is so harmful. I’ve interviewed folks who’ve talked about eating disorder therapists trying to be reassuring and being like, “I won’t let you gain that much weight.” So the way weight is sort of handled throughout the recovery process is also pretty fraught.ColeAnd is the idea of weight restoration correlated with BMI? Yes, it is. We don’t have to pivot to a BMI conversation, because you have those banked, but if that’s the definition of weight restoration, that’s problematic.VirginiaCan you define what weight restoration is? We might not be as familiar with that term.ColeRight, of course. So if a person comes into treatment, when a doctor is thinking about how do we restore them to a “normal,” “healthy” weight, where do they go for that information? The BMI chart. I have heard people who when they get to a certain weight in a residential treatment, they are told they can now go back to restricting their food a certain way or you can return to exercise. Often people are not permitted to exercise if they are at a low weight.And again, if someone has the same behaviors, but is in a larger body, I was told by people I spoke with in the book that they are told they can exercise because they’re in a larger body.VirginiaIt’s just wild. And we’ll link to a very good piece about atypical anorexia for anyone who needs to learn more about that whole conversation. Folks who come in bigger bodies are less likely to get diagnosed in the first place. They’re often sicker when they finally get to treatment. And then, yes, the behaviors are not taken as seriously or they’re even like, well, we don’t want you to gain too much, like that kind of narrative around their weight restoration as opposed to what do we need to get you back to. ColeAnd the classifications are tricky, because there’s the catch-all for everyone who doesn’t fall into anorexia, atypical anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, purging. There’s a catch-all for those people who don’t meet all of the dynamic diagnostic criteria to fall into one. Most of the people who show up in community clinics for eating disorders are in that catch-all, so that tells us something. I mean, the catch-all is exasperating but good because someone could maybe get insurance.VirginiaRight, you can get some treatment covered. ColeHahaha. As if, but maybe! VirginiaIn theory.ColeIn some universe. On paper.VirginiaIn a European country, perhaps.ColeIf you are in Norway. Those criteria are necessary, and maybe helpful for some people, but they also show us how off we are as a scientific community, and as a medical community, in understanding eating disorders, the fact that there’s this “and everyone else” category. Virginia“We don’t know, you seem sick.” It’s maddening. It’s so reductive and overly simplifying people’s struggles.We also need to talk about the therapist who, as you say in the book, did legitimately help you in a lot of ways. And then later, when you got back in touch with her, you discovered she was consulting for a weight loss company. That’s a real record scratch moment for a lot of us. I don’t know that people understand how much of a revolving door there is between eating disorder treatment and weight loss management. ColeI wanted to be so careful with this because it not only makes me angry, but it breaks my heart. It really feels like a betrayal when you discover that not only someone maybe you worked with but other people in the field in high positions, in research treating patients or in relationships, sitting on the board of a diet company or working with a diet company. It’s crushing and I don’t understand it.That’s how I am as a human, but when I flip to the journalist part, I want to really hold myself to task for what I’m not seeing, because I went through this first person. So come on, what’s the reason that someone in an eating disorder field would form a relationship with a weight loss company? There’s got to be something I’m missing. And I don’t think there is.I think weight loss companies have a lot of money. Being an eating disorder clinician is a rough job, a lot of your patients do not get better. There is no standard of care. If you are in this field, it’s because I believe—I want to believe, I have to believe—you care about people suffering from these disorders that you understand. So those people are not people who are, like, trying to make fast cash. So, I’m trying to navigate in my own head why there’s crossover because there’s so much crossover.Weight loss companies have booths at eating disorder conferences. Noom is in the eating disorder game. They’re doing a ton of research, they have grants, they are creating programs to treat binge eating disorder. Some of those programs look a lot like weight loss apps, but have maybe therapy combined with the weight loss apps. It’s still this weight loss centered model. Many people I spoke with who use weight loss apps also said it re-triggered an eating disorder for them. These weight loss apps are very dangerous. Potentially very dangerous, no very dangerous. I can say that. And the eating disorder crossover, if one wants to be cynical about it —one researcher I spoke with said, “they are creating a customer base.”VirginiaI mean, that’s where I go. ColeAnd when that researcher said it, I said, “Well you said it, I’m just writing it down.” VirginiaI also think from the weight loss company’s perspective, it makes total sense because the thing they are always criticized for is that they are promoting disordered eating. So, if they can say “no, no, we’re treating eating disorders,” that’s like their solution to what is a PR nightmare. I remember reporting a story on Kurbo, which was Weight Watchers’ weight loss app for kids. And their spokespeople were very much like, no, no, this is preventing eating disorders because we’re helping people do family meals and have schedules and regular snacks. And the fact that we have a list of red foods you’re not supposed to eat that includes avocados and bagels is like, what, don’t worry about that. A lot of it, from the industry’s perspective, makes sense to me.ColeAnd it doesn’t mean it’s not out there, but I haven’t seen a lot of weight loss sponsored research on anorexia. VirginiaThere was that wild study I cited it in my first book, the subject was something like lessons obesity treatment can learn from anorexia.ColeI mean, I guess what I’m saying is that none of these weight loss brands are trying to treat anorexia. All of those studies that companies are doing, that is still not even thinly veiled obesity treatment.VirginiaOh, because they’re like, “we’re solving binge eating disorder.”Cole“We’re solving binge eating because we’ve got all these people that are using our app and losing weight, maybe for six months. We don’t talk to anybody after. Bye!”So it’s all under that same umbrella of getting people smaller. And it still implies that people with binge eating disorder would be larger bodies out, of control, can’t stop eating. It doesn’t address anything underlying.VirginiaRight. It just assumes that the binge is the whole problem and if you can solve that by teaching them restriction, how could that ever backfire? How could that ever go wrong?ColeAnd a lot of these programs have food logs and calories. It’s still the same thing and I’m not sure it can really help anybody.VirginiaNo. The other thing I’m thinking, hearing you talk about what is the motivation on the therapist side, I think it’s the underlying anti-fat bias, right? It’s the thinking that if we can just make everyone thin or “normal” weight, then we won’t have to worry about all of this. Like, if we can just find that solution, then our problems go away. ColeAbsolutely. And even in not just the more nefarious weight loss companies doing research in the eating disorder field, you see a lot of these university affiliated centers for eating disorders and obesity, right? You see that title everywhere. I mean, that was one thing when I was researching my book, I did not want to interview anyone that was connected with a center that is “treating obesity” the way you treat eating disorders. I mean, that, to me, I find so offensive. VirginiaYeah, that’s the study of what can we learn from anorexia to solve the obesity crisis? Where you’re just like, what are you doing? How did we lose the plot? ColeExactly. We lost the thread here, guys. Get it back. VirginiaLife-threatening mental illness is not the solution.ColeI still don’t understand. I mean, I do understand, of course, but it’s just very disheartening when you see the eating disorder numbers. There was a line from your book, I keep thinking of over and over again, this idea of to make a cake, you got to break a few eggs.VirginiaAnd also, don’t let your kids eat cake. ColeAnd also, don’t let your kids eat cake. VirginiaThat is the mindset for sure.ColeThere’s this idea that at least people with eating disorders are controlling what they eat.VirginiaIt’s considered the lesser evil, instead of being understood for the immediate, urgent threat that it is to somebody’s health. If you are concerned about kids’ future health, if you’re concerned about their metabolic health down the road or their heart health down the road, preventing the eating disorder is a good thing to do. Eating disorders are not great for heart health and metabolic health. So maybe that’s step one, before you get all in a lather about type two diabetes. Just a thought, just a thought. ColePeople with eating disorders are at an elevated risk to attempt suicide. I mean, there are things that have nothing to do with body that people with this mental illness are at a higher risk for. And we don’t think about that as much as much either, but it’s an important part of the conversation.VirginiaThat’s really the lie on the whole “well it’s all about health” argument for the war on obesity. If it was all about health, this would be the more urgent matter in front of you. I mean, there’s no question.ButterVirginiaWe wrap up Burnt Toast with our butter segment. Do you have a recommendation for us?ColeOkay. Tom Wambsgans on Succession. Everyone is so unhinged on that show and I just really am enjoying that. I’m here for all of it. But I’m also loving the work of this artist. I discovered her through reading a piece in New York Magazine. I don’t want people to think I understand art! Madeline Donahue, she does these beautiful paintings about motherhood and sort of all the tender tumult of motherhood. Which I think is my real butter, which is human contact right now. I want to just touch my friends and snuggle my son. That just is my real answer. Human contact is my butter at the moment.VirginiaYeah, thats a great answer, but I’m excited to check out her work as well. I’m actually going to do an art recommendation, too.ColeHow fancy!VirginiaMy butter this week is Lindsey Guile who is an amazing body liberation feminist artist who I’ve just started to get to know. She’s also in the Hudson Valley and she had this incredible exhibit and our local art center and it is, I’m not kidding, like eight foot tall charcoal drawings of beautiful, naked, fat women and they are exquisite.ColeAmazing! VirginiaI’m just obsessed with her. She’s got a great Instagram where you can see her work. She draws bodies in the most incredible way and she’s also delightful and a wonderful human being. So, excited to shout out two amazing artists and, of course, the train wreck that is Succession. So good. I love it. Cole, thank you so much for doing this. This was so delightful!ColeThank you so much for having me and for what you’re doing here with this podcast and Burnt Toast. I think it really is building the solution. It’s the only way to do it to talk about it and grab more people into it.VirginiaThank you. I really appreciate that. Tell folks where we can find you follow you and how to support your work.ColeOh, thank you so much. I’m on Instagram and my website is my name. My book can be purchased wherever books are sold, but especially at your local indie bookstore!Read WHAT'S EATING US

Today Virginia is chatting with fat rights advocate Tigress Osborn. Tigress is Chair of the Board of NAAFA, The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, and helping to lead the Campaign for Size Freedom, which just scored a huge victory in New York City and there is more to come. Remember, if you order books we mention in today's pod from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, you can get 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.BUTTER & OTHER LINKSCampaign for Size FreedomNAAFA FLAREPHX Fat Force Smith College magazine profile of TigressClothestimeThe Overweight Lovers In The House & Heavy DDante Earle Tubbs from Contrast PhotosThe Crown ActTipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight Based DiscriminationVirginia's piece for Slate in 2021International Weight Stigma ConferenceLast year Burnt Toast worked with The States Projectgive to NAAFAthe Association for Size Diversity And HealthNOLOSEsign the petitionWondermineBlack Fae Day@IoftheTigress.FAT TALK is out! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Episode 94 TranscriptTigressSo I am the chair of NAAFA, which is the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and I have been the chair since the beginning of 2021 and on the board for several years before that. But I actually started my life as a public figure of fat visibility and fat activism as a nightclub promoter in Oakland, where I created an event called Full Figure Fridays. So I’ve been doing some form of fat activism since about 2008.VirginiaAs I was prepping for our conversation, I read the profile on you that ran in the Smith College magazine. Burnt Toast’s own Corinne Fay went to Smith, my sister went to Smith and another friend of mine—so I had multiple people sending me that, like, look at Tigress on the cover!TigressLook at this fat lady on this magazine!VirginiaThey knew I would be overjoyed and I was. There was one quote I really loved in the piece where you said, “My aunts were the Lizzos of my neighborhood, but they still talked about how they should be on SlimFast.” Tell us a little bit about how you grew up understanding fatness.TigressI’m from a mixed race family and I had fat aunts on both sides of my family. My Black aunts were confident and were sexy and wore tight dresses and got dressed up to do fancy things and go out. My fat aunts on the other side of the family and the other people on the other side of my family who were fat or thought of themselves as fat didn’t have that same boldness. And I really received that as a racial difference.But I think we ended up with that quote in the magazine was because I was talking to the reporter about people’s perception that Black women have it easy when it comes to body image. I definitely saw a racial difference in my family, but I also still saw my aunts thinking that they were supposed to lose weight. I still saw other people talking about their bodies. As a smaller kid, I was a slim. Then puberty came around. My biology kicked in and I was a teenager who was curvy. I probably wasn’t even officially plus-sized until I was a late teenager, but I remember having a difficult time finding clothes for my graduation because we’d been advised to wear white under our gowns and finding something white and plus size in the limited stores that were available… I was a teenager before Torrid. There was none of this “just go to Torrid.”There was a store here called Stewart’s Plus and it was the trendiest of 90’s fashion, like bright prints and bright colors and stuff like that. It was the closest thing I could get to a teenager look because Lane Bryant, back then especially, was really matronly. Everybody else was going to Clothestime to buy their Guess jeans or whatever.And I was one of those teenagers who had subscriptions to all of the teen girl magazines. Those magazines were for me what Instagram and Tiktok are for teenagers today. Like, where you see the body standards that you are supposed to aspire to, where you’re told how to be beautiful, how you’re supposed to be as a girl or as a young lady. But they weren’t like Instagram and Tiktok in that they didn’t have also a vein of alternatives to that, right? In Seventeen magazine, the person who was supposed to be like the person who looks like me as a young Black girl is Whitney Houston. I don’t look like Whitney.VirginiaThat’s a realistic standard for one to aspire to.TigressExactly. So I grew up with all the messages from the culture—I’m an early MTV kid, I was really into really into music videos, I watched music videos any chance I had to watch them. And you didn’t see curvy people, let alone actually fat people, in music videos, except for a handful of men.I was thinking the other day about how much I love the rapper Heavy D when I was a teenager. One of the only places where I will allow the term ‘overweight’ is his song The Overweight Lovers In The House. So I had a burgeoning identity as a fat girl, not just in a sort of this-is-a-way-I’m-an-outsider or this-is-a-way-I-don’t-fit-in kind of way. I remember trying to write something for one of my teen magazines that I was going to send to them about how important it was for me to see the fat boys, to see that you could be cool even though you were fat.VirginiaWhy can’t we see fat girls, too?TigressYeah, it never occurred to me to be like, “where are the fat girls?” The only fat person was Oprah and her whole little red wagon thing was when I was in 8th or 9th grade.VirginiaShe’s fat but she’s actively, determinedly, pursuing not-fatness.TigressI remember as a late teenager I discovered BBW Magazine, Big Beautiful Woman magazine. I can remember my aunt being like, “Oh, these are fat ladies who aren’t really fat because they’re fancy.”VirginiaThese are Fancy Fat Ladies.TigressBecause they had access to a completely different kind of clothes, because they are fashion models. As limited as that was, a magazine has access to different clothes than we had access to in small town Arizona. VirginiaYeah, and they can shoot you in a dress that doesn’t zip up in the back and it looks like it fits from the front. There’s this whole smoke and mirrors piece of it that they can manipulate. TigressYeah, all of that, but it was really meaningful to me to start to see. I can remember the expansion of print magazines in my early 20s because there was BBW. There was one called Grace, then there was there was a Black fat positive magazine called Bell. VirginiaYeah, I remember Grace and Bell. TigressI remember seeing that when I moved to California and I was in an area where there were more Black folks, then there were more Black magazines available to me. When I grew up, where I grew up, it was Essence and Jet only. Essence might have someone a little larger in it from time to time back then, but there wasn’t regular plus-size representation when I was a teenager in those magazines. And of course, Jet Magazine had the Jet Beauty of the Week that was like, a woman in a swimsuit. I remember them as being curvier than some of the women I saw in other magazines, but they were not arguably fat, right? VirginiaWhen you talked about your aunts still on the SlimFast, and still struggling in that way, even though they were also representing to you this joy in fatness that you weren’t seeing from your white relatives—do you think that the way Black magazines were portraying Black bodies at the time was a factor in that? Or where do you think that came from?TigressI think there sometimes are actually cultural differences around what body types are accepted. I think a lot of it was male gaze kind of stuff. Like, “men still find me attractive.” And there was a kind of creativity and community-mindedness around finding clothes or making clothes that was different. My community was a community of Black folks who love to show out. So when you have to show out, you’re going to find or make some clothes. You’re not going to just settle for whatever the clothes are available to you, if that’s limited. And so there was partly that. I think there were personality differences, there was cultural difference. It wasn’t all racial, but as a kid, I definitely received it as racial.As an adult, I can see more nuance. I can see all the ways that even if there is some community protection around body image, there is still body shaming and you’re still ingesting the messages of the regular culture.I was trying to explain to a Gen Z colleague, upon the passing of Sir Jerry Springer, what it was really like to be coming of age in the era of daytime talk shows and how much of that was very specifically body shaming. They would have these episodes all the time that were like, “Too Fat For That!” The Too Fat For That episode was the one where your BFF comes on with you to try to get the world to help save you from yourself, because you are wearing biker shorts and cut-off tops. “Just because they make it in your size or you can stretch it to your size doesn’t mean you should wear it in your size, girlfriend.” I think my aunts were somewhere along that spectrum of like, well, maybe I will wear these biker shorts or maybe I would be the friend who’s on TV telling her, girl, you shouldn’t be wearing that. I think the magazines were reflective of the culture, but also reflective of respectability politics. Respectability politics allow for a certain kind of fat, they allow for the church ladies to be fat, but there’s still all this stuff about appetite and control and what’s ladylike. So, I think it’s just a mixed bag across the culture and shows up in some really racialized ways and gets experienced in some really racialized ways. Whatever you’re getting in your home culture, you still have to participate in the mainstream culture, right? Because unless you go to an HBCU, you go to a predominantly white college. Unless you start or work for a Black-owned company, you are working for and with white folks. There are some protective elements around community standards or different beauty ideals, but you still have to operate in the whole rest of the world. Weight Watchers is still just dominating daytime television commercials and Oprah with her little red wagon and People Magazine every time you go to the grocery store with the “I lost 100 pounds and I’m half of myself.” All of that stuff is still there. And that was still there for me, even though I have these aunts who were just really glamorous and amazing to me.The folks that stand out to me the most from my younger childhood as glamorous were fat women—including one of my mom’s friends who was not a Black woman and who had this cloud of Miss Piggy hair. She just reminded me of Miss Piggy and she was an Avon lady so she always had the makeup. And my Aunt Linda is still doing it, with her and her wigs and her all things, outshining everybody when she shows up at a barbecue. I don’t know how much of that is just personality. I don’t know how much of it is despite being fat or how much of it is because of being fat. Like, “I better make sure I’m the best dressed and the best makeup and the best hair and the best everything else because I don’t have the body everybody thinks I’m supposed to have.”VirginiaYeah, there’s a little bit of the Good Fatty, maybe.TigressI think so.Virginia“I need to perform this in a certain way.” But it also sounds like it gives them a lot of joy.TigressAnd it gave me a lot of joy! But I was still very clear, especially as a teenager, that if you have a choice, you shouldn’t be fat. And if you have enough willpower you do have a choice. VirginiaOf course, that’s how bodies work. TigressI was in that sort of infomercial era of my early teen years my early years at Smith where the sort of like Richard Simmons Deal-A-Meal era and the Susan Powter Stop the Insanity era. Do you remember her? Everybody remembers Richard Simmons probably.VirginiaI think that’s safe to assume. Or if not: Children, Google your history.TigressLearn who Richard Simmons is. He is very important to our cultural understanding of bodies. I’m not even exaggerating, like, Richard Simmons is very important to our cultural understanding of bodies. But Susan Powter pitched herself as a feminist and was loud and unapologetic and had long nails and makeup and red lipstick and this platinum buzz cut haircut. She wouldn’t be exercising in stilettos, but she was posed in stilettos. She was an “it’s okay to be sexy” feminist. There were many things I loved about her message but she was always on these infomercials screaming about how dieting is insanity, stop the insanity! Here, buy all of my diet my exercise videos because they are the only ones that are not insanity.VirginiaJust starting to head in the right direction and then doubling back.TigressLooking back at some of that 80’s and 90’s super diet-y or intended to be anti-fat stuff, I think there’s a sort of rebellious read on it. Richard Simmons videos were the places of highest fat visibility for me outside of my own family and neighborhood. I could see fat people dressed in bright, colorful, fun clothes, dancing and sweating to the oldies as a dance party. My favorite part of those videos when I was in my late teens and early 20s was the part at the end where it’s almost like a soul train line and everyone dances down and then they put up the numbers of how much weight they lost. If you remove those numbers, that’s some of the best fat joy exploration! I think you could reclaim that stuff by by sweating to the oldies for 50 cents on the DVD at your local thrift store. You’re not supporting diet culture, but you can have a subversive read.VirginiaThere definitely needs to be a deep dive into this, because Richard Simmons was certainly making some deliberate choices in casting his videos in that way. In not just showing all the thin aerobics models. But then, of course, pairing it with the weight loss message.TigressExactly. It’s really an example of how everything came at me at that era of my life. I think I’m watching this at the end for the weight loss inspo, but really what I end up remembering about it 20 years later, is just how much fun those people looked like they were having and how they were getting in shape regardless of whether they had those numbers to put up. But they wouldn’t have been in that video if they didn’t have those numbers to put up, so that’s where the it takes the turn.VirginiaBut, they were in their bodies. They were joyful in their bodies. TigressSo in the midst of all this, I did learn about NAAFA when I was in my first year at Smith because we had this early 1990s campus diversity day called Otelia Cromwell Day. It was named after the first Black Smith grad. And in the spread of workshops, there was stuff about race, there was stuff about gender, and there was a workshop by Carrie Hemenway who worked in the Career Development Office at Smith, that was called something like “Large-Bodied Women.” She was an active member of the Boston chapter of NAAFA. Back in those days, NAAFA had chapters in major cities. Now we’re more virtually based, but Carrie was really active in the Boston chapter and did this workshop at this women’s college in the early 90s.This would have been the fall of 1992, so long before #bodypositivity or anything like that. That was where I learned about NAAFA and I didn’t get involved directly in NAAFA until years later, but just the idea that there is an organization that exists. That was first time I’d heard the idea of just using fat in a positive way. Like, what we were talking about earlier about my aunts and stuff—you still called those ladies full-figured or big-boned. You didn’t call them fat. Even if you were somebody who loved fat women, you still didn’t say that, at least in the circles around that were around me. So that idea, that was where I was introduced to the idea that you could just use fat as a descriptor or even as a positive identifier. And I’ve never forgotten that. Just knowing NAAFA was out there in the world doing something different than what Richard Simmons and Susan Powter were doing when it came to fat people was so empowering to me. I remember one of my friends going home for fall break and trying to explain to her mom that she wasn’t going to diet anymore because it was okay to be fat. I don’t remember her mom’s reaction either, but I just remember us planning that conversation on the bus on the way home, because it was going to be this groundbreaking new approach.VirginiaYeah, and unfortunately it still feels too groundbreaking, right? TigressIt always feels like one step forward, two steps back. Sometimes it feels like one giant leap for humankind and then a bouncy house of bouncing back from that leap.VirginiaThat bouncy house image is very much how I feel at the moment. TigressOh, I bet. I can’t even imagine what is coming at you. People are so mad at fat people for daring to be. Like, how dare you be? You’re inconveniencing me by being. It’s the level of vitriol directed at people because they have the nerve to stay fat and not be constantly trying to apologize to the world and demonstrate that apology through actively dying and—actively dieting. Well, actively dying, that might not have been a slip. That is actually often also true in terms of what diet culture expects of us. There’s a perception that we’re dying because we’re fat and there’s just not enough discussion about how the things we’re doing trying to not be fat are actually the things that are killing us. But people get really mad.NAAFA is supporting fat rights legislation all over the country and I wandered into the comments on one of the New York Times articles about this. The article itself was already framed too much as a like, should they exist or not? And can legislation help allow fat people to exist? I mean, overall, there were lots of great points in the article and I’m grateful that the New York Times is even talking about this issue. But also: Please don’t start the fat rights article with an anecdote about the founder of Weight Watchers. Like, I don’t know, just don’t. But the article itself is for a mainstream news outlet, at least it’s highlighting some fat points. And then I wandered into the comment section, and I was like, “Oh, right.”VirginiaHere we are in the dumpster. TigressWe are not even in the dumpster. We’re in the mud underneath the dumpster.VirginiaThat oozy material.TigressThat’s right. When the dumpster has been so bad that it rusted out the bottom and underneath there is sludge. That’s where we are. We can’t even see the light from the top of the dumpster. Sometimes the worst is the people who think they’re most helpful. I got one letter from this woman who was mad about the magazine cover, because—for people who haven’t seen the magazine cover, it’s me in a tight dress with all my back rolls out.VirginiaIt’s fantastic, it’s beautiful.TigressThank you so much, shout out to my photographer, Dante Earle Tubbs from Contrast Photos in Arizona. It is a gorgeous photo and I have no shame in having my fat vanity and saying that is a gorgeous photo. And, she pulled this quote that I never could have imagined would be on the cover of a magazine about how the world should be prepared for fat people to be audacious because we’re not going to stay in the shadows, in the corners, anymore.VirginiaIt’s amazing!TigressAnd so, some people, both in positive and negative ways, just reacted to the cover without reading any of the rest of the magazine.VirginiaMost of the sludge under the dumpster has not read. They’re not reading.TigressThat’s right. “What! Fat people and audacity? Let me have my thindacity and contact them to tell them how they’re gonna die.”So this lady writes to me—well, she had clearly written this to the editor of the magazine, but just wanted to make sure NAAFA didn’t miss it so sent a copy directly to us. And it was just like, “I’m a retired ophthalmologist and Tigress and Lizzo would not fit in my exam chair.” Well, first of all, lady, I’m wearing glasses in some of the pictures. So clearly, I’ve been to an opthamologist. That’s not really the point. But also kind of the point.VirginiaMaybe have better exam chairs? That sounds like a you problem..TigressTalk about audacity! You have the audacity to write to a civil rights organization and say, “I am fully admitting that my office was inaccessible to people and that’s their fault and they’re going die?” Because she did the whole “and if they ever had to have eye surgery, their eyes would explode.” “And if, in fact, they had to have any surgery, they’d be more likely to die.” And then she closed on, “I don’t think fat people should be discriminated against, but I pity them.”Well, first of all, you clearly do think we should be discriminated against because you didn’t do anything about that exam chair in your office while you had a whole career. But also, you reached out to a stranger to tell them that you think they’re gonna die and then you patted yourself on the back for being smarter than them. I guess that’s not legal discrimination. We can’t legislate against you. We can legislate against that problematic chair. VirginiaFor sure.TigressWe can’t legislate against you just having this attitude, but you don’t get to tell yourself that you’re not discriminatory. You don’t get to say, “I’m not a bigot, but I just pity these fat people and had to tell you that I pity you.” You’re not being the bigger person here. I’m the bigger person, literally and figuratively, because you failed at being a bigger person, if that’s what you thought you were doing. Because that’s just a put-you-in-your-place letter. That is not a concern for your health letter. That was not like, here’s a list of optometrists near you that might have a chair that can accommodate you because I care about your eyesight, right? It’s none of that. It’s just a holier than thou expression of dismay that you have the nerve to live.VirginiaSo, let’s talk about the legislation piece of things, because this is really exciting work you all are doing. Tell us about the Campaign for Size Freedom.TigressSo the campaign for size freedom was founded by NAAFA and FLARE. FLARE is the Fat Legal Advocacy Rights and Education Project, which is a project with the law office of Brandie Solovay and was started by Sondra Solovay, who’s one of the icons, and has been the voice of common sense and good legal sense around anti-fat discrimination for for many, many years. So the FLARE project does all this really incredible work. We work with them all the time.We started the Campaign for Size Freedom with them to support passing more legislation that is related to protections around body size. And the project is supported also by Dove. So it’s really exciting in that way, in that it is really the largest corporate social responsibility investment in fat liberation, ever. There’s no record of anything like what Dove is showing up to do there. And, I know that there are a lot of folks in fat community who hear Dove and they kind of go, “hmm body positivity, they stole it.”VirginiaI did want to ask about this. I mean, they were definitely one of the first brands to embrace body diversity. But there’s a fair critique that they often co-opt the rhetoric.TigressI was literally in one of the protests campaigns about Dove in the mid-2000s. It was called Beyond Beauty. Dove launches their “Real Beauty” thing and then there was this Beyond Beauty photoshoot with all of these visibly fat, Black and brown people and visibly disabled people and just a variety of ages and identities and all that stuff. This is either a supplement to or in protest of the way that Dove is showing these images, even as they’re trying as much as you can expect capitalism to try. We want to always give credit to the folks who are genuinely trying and also hold accountable the folks who are trying and missing it. But I do think that Dove has come a long way.And, there’s still always going to be a segment of fat liberation community who are anti-capitalist and just don’t work with organizations like Dove, ever.VirginiaRight, the Green Peace of this movement. We need that voice as well.TigressWe need lots of different kinds of voices and lots of different kinds of approaches in the movement. And for us, we really, really vetted Dove. We really liked some of the work that Dove was doing, a lot of work around supporting The Crown Act. So when they showed up with us saying we want to support you around legislation, they didn’t show up as like, “we want to develop a stretch mark soap and so we need some fat consultation,” it wasn’t a thing like that.The Burnt Toast Podcast"The Way Our Hair Grows Out of Our Heads is a Problem for People."Virginia Sole-Smith and Sharon Hurley Hall·July 28, 2022Listen now (27 min) | I think it's important for people to recognize that no matter how fascinated you might be by a Black person’s hair, we are not an exhibit or curiosity. You're listening to Burnt Toast. This is the podcast about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and I also write theRead full storyIt was like, we are really looking at our corporate responsibility practices and this is a thing we’re seeing in the research. Because they do so much research around girls and self esteem and I think with an increasing awareness around expansive ideas about gender, but they’re still pretty centered in this “girls and women” language and space, but they’re working on it. We’re going to keep working on that. But they do so much research around girls and self esteem and they were just seeing more and more in their research about how much body oppression and size discrimination affects girls and their self esteem. And so they were like, what’s a thing we can do about this?And they have several campaigns that they’ve run that are looking at how kids see their bodies and highlighting how teenagers are affected by beauty standards and body standards. So the legislative piece is really important because their research was showing people are reporting all of this discrimination. Like, when we talk not just to the kids but also to the moms about how they live in their bodies, we’re seeing all of these things about discrimination in our research and we want to be part of the solution to that. So, I’m excited about the support from from Dove. And they’ve been very good about letting the fat people drive this.VirginiaI’m here for this.TigressNAAFA and FLARE really are out in the front of the project. And right now there is pending legislation in New York City that is super exciting because it’s about to pass which will make New York one of the most populous places on earth that has protections against height and weight discrimination. By the middle of this summer, we will have a law in New York.VirginiaI just got chills!TigressBut what a lot of people don’t know is just how rare that is. Because we have this sense as Americans that if somebody does something wrong to you, you can sue them. And you can, you can sue people, whether there’s explicit law protecting you or not, but your chances of being able to win when there’s not an actual law about the thing that you are trying to sue over becomes increasingly more difficult. Especially around an issue where there’s such cultural pervasiveness about people’s own attitudes. So Sondra wisely says in her book, we could be already treating fat people fairly under the law with other laws that exist just around general fairness, but we don’t apply those laws. The lawyers don’t know how to apply those laws, the judges don’t know how to apply those laws. Having the explicit protections helps.VirginiaI just want to quickly say Sondra’s book is Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight Based Discrimination. It is an incredible resource for learning more about all of this.Shop the Burnt Toast Bookstore!TigressIt’s incredible resource and it’s also an incredible artifact of how slow this change has been because Sondra wrote that book in the the late 90’s and it’s really accurate still.VirginiaI did a piece for Slate in 2021 about how body size comes up in custody, states taking custody of children. I wrote about this in my book, too, and referred back to all the research she did on that in the book about BMI being a criteria. These were cases that were coming out in the early 2000s. And it is still happening, that BMI can be a reason to lose your children.TigressAbsolutely. A lot of people don’t people don’t know that, unless it happens to them or unless it becomes so sensational of a story that it hits the headlines. And when it hits the headlines, it’s really devastating. Not just for those families, but also for all kinds of other families who begin to be really, really afraid. That work is so important. Sondra’s work over the course of fat liberation, her whole career is so important, but also it is a shame for us as a culture that her book is still so contemporary. But that is part of what the Campaign for Size Freedom is trying to change.We’re trying to amplify the issue so that people understand this is a really serious civil rights issue. The list of where anti-fatness shows up in our social justice concerns is really short, right? When do people put it on the list as a social justice concern? That that happens very rarely. But the list of places that we care about social justice and anti-fatness shows up within that is a very, very long list because it’s basically every area where we care about social justice. If you care about racial justice, if you care about economic disparity, if you care about gender oppression, if you care about queer antagonism, if you care about issues about the carceral system, if you care about immigration, if you care about reproductive rights. If you feel like all of those are areas where anti-fatness shows up and adds an additional layer of oppression for people, an additional set of hurdles for people in everything from can you get fertility treatment to can you get a desk that fits you at the school you’re trying to attend?VirginiaCan you get an exam chair that fits you at the ophthalmologist?TigressAnd can you get people to care about that and see it as an issue that they should change things instead of an issue that you should change your body?But the tide is turning. Public opinion polls show that people are in favor of protective legislation. People are starting to recognize things as discrimination. I was at the International Weight Stigma Conference last year and one of the researchers there was presenting some research they were doing about asking people to self-assess whether they’d been discriminated against or not. What they found was, when you just asked fat people, “have you ever experienced discrimination because you’re fat?” Many of them will say no. But then when you start breaking down the questions: Have you ever experienced this in your workplace or that in the doctor’s office? Have you ever experienced this in your educational setting? Those same people who said no actually check a bunch of things that they are experiencing discrimination, they just haven’t thought of it that way.VirginiaIt’s kind of reminding me of the way the #MeToo conversation helped us understand what sexual harassment and sexual assault really are. Because for so long, we only had kind of like the movie version of these concepts. And realizing, like, oh, wait, actually your boss making this kind of comment. TigressThat’s right. VirginiaBut we miss the nuances of it, because we’ve been fed one narrative of what is okay.TigressI don’t want to overemphasize that parallel, but something else I see in that parallel is the blame the person that’s happening to dynamic. If your boss said something funky to you, well, you shouldn’t have worn that shirt to work, right? And it’s the same if your boss said something funky to you about your weight, well, you just shouldn’t have been fat and then that would have happened to you. And cultural attitudes around that are changing. Now there’s that under the dumpster sludge clash. There’s a loud voice, especially on the Internet, of how you’re gross and you’re going to die. But also, there’s so many more fat people and people of all sizes saying that’s just not true. And even if that’s what you think, what does that have to do with fat people having civil rights? The older I get, the less invested I am about whether I care what people think about what I look like in this body. It’s still there for me because that’s how pervasive it is. I’ve been doing fat liberation work in some way or another for 15 years and the voices are still there for me. So if you’re new to this of course you’re still going to struggle with it, right? It’s still tough, because we do still live in that SlimFast culture.I know you know Marilyn Wann because I’ve heard you talk about her on the pod. What I loved about Marilyn’s book when it came out was, again, just the existence of this reminds me of something. It is Fat! exclamation point, So? question mark. And that’s so  is really important and it’s really important in the work that we do at NAAFA now. Because when people say, like, you’re just a hater because you can’t lose weight. No, we’re not. And even if that were true, even if I’m just a lazy fat person who is mad at all the thin people because they’re thin and I’m not and I can’t wear your Kim Kardashian clothes or whatever—even if all of that is true, my employer should still have to pay me fairly.VirginiaRight.TigressMy doctor should still have medical equipment that allows me to get information I need about my health. All of these pieces that fall under this legal discrimination umbrella are all things that should not happen to fat people, regardless of what you think about our health or our attractiveness.VirginiaOr how much it’s our fault or that whole willpower conversation that’s really besides the point.TigressCompletely beside the point. There are some audiences where I just will refuse to talk about health. I lead a civil rights group. We can talk about health in so much as there are health disparities that are represented by anti-fatness and weight bias within the healthcare system. We can talk about that. But if you just want to talk about like, do I have high blood pressure? Not your business, not my employer’s business, not my landlord’s business. That’s my doctor’s business and my business and my momma’s business—and sometimes not even hers.That’s what the Campaign for Size Freedom is doing, it is lifting this conversation so that more people are aware that there are so few places in the world that have made it explicitly illegal to discriminate based on body size. In the United States, that list is really short. Michigan has a civil rights law. Washington State has it in part of disability law. And there are a handful of municipalities across the country with either appearance based discrimination law or civil rights law. And it is soon to be New York City. [Virginia’s note: The NYC bill passed right after we recorded this!]It is also hopefully soon to be New Jersey, New York at the state level, Massachusetts and Vermont, all of whom have pending legislation in the wake of New York City. And there’s at least one other state coming but we haven’t publicly talked about it yet. But there’s a non-coastal state coming. We’re not only doing this on the East Coast.Virginia We like the middle of the country states. TigressThat’s right. These East Coast places are places where it arose organically. In Massachusetts, this work has been being done for years. And I mean, like, 10-12 years ago, people like Sondra and people from NAAFA. Back then there was an organization called the Society for Short Statured Americans who was partnering with NAAFA. That organization doesn’t exists today, but we are partnering with Little People of America. People have been doing this work in Massachusetts for years. They’ve been making attempts at the state level in New York for years. But it’s brand new in New Jersey and Vermont, but it all rose organically there by either legislative leaders who looked around the world and said what’s missing from our civil rights laws? What can I take on here? Or by people listening to their constituents who brought issues to their offices. Now we are looking at the whole country and thinking about where do we want to push next? The dream is a federal civil rights law. VirginiaAbsolutely. TigressWe don’t think that in the current federal political culture that we can do that. And especially without having done it in several states. VirginiaYeah, you need to incubate it in a few states. Tigress I mean, we see that with the Crown Act. We saw that with marriage equality, we’ve seen this with other civil rights issues. VirginiaLet’s talk about what the Burnt Toast community can do. We are big supporters of state legislation being the seat of power and where things happen. Last year Burnt Toast worked with The States Project and we raised a ton of money for state government elections to turn some states blue—actually Arizona was our focus state! TigressThank you!VirginiaYeah, it was rough out there, but we did raise a bunch of money and had some key victories. This is something that the Burnt Toast community feels really passionate about. Obviously, this legislation is something we feel hugely passionate about. So, tell us where you need us.TigressYou can follow NAAFA and follow the Campaign for Size Freedom, the hashtag we’re using is #sizefreedom. You can like and comment and reshare and all the things that help boost the signal. If you have money to give, you can give to NAAFA. We are a 501(c)(3) charity. Even though we have this investment and support coming from Dove, we are still an under resourced and understaffed organization, as is all of fat liberation.Donate to NAAFA!If this is an issue you care about and if NAAFA is not the right organization for you—if we’re too moderate, we’re too conservative, we’re too focused on legislation and you care about other things—there are other fat organizations that you can give to. ASDAH, the Association for Size Diversity And Health, they are the Health at Every Size people and they are also now the examining Health at Every Size to see if that’s even the right framework anymore. Super radical work happening at ASDAH, Black led, queer led radical work.Donate to ASDAH!And in the health care space, NOLOSE is also a 501(c)(3). So if you care about that, if you care about the tax receipt. NOLOSE is a queer-centered fat liberation organization.Donate to NOLOSEBut also, you can give money to the folks who aren’t going to have a tax receipt for you but are doing mutual aid in the community, are doing really important activism in the community. Look around your own local communities and see where you can put some dollars into fat things, if you have dollars to give.Whether you have monetary contributions you can make or not, you can sign the petition on our website. And if you sign the petition there, the reason we’re asking for your address is so that if we start doing work in your area we can get in touch with you directly. You can get on our main mailing list to just get other updates about other work. We’re an advocacy organization, we’re not a lobbying organization. There’s all kinds of other work we’re still trying to do. We run a pretty robust program of virtual events so that folks can get to us online and get to each other online for everything from education to joy. August is fat liberation month, so we’ll have even more programming during fat liberation month. And: If you’re still working on using the word fat, keep working on it. It is good for you, it is good for folks around you. And it’s a sort of bat signal to other fat people of whether you have some politics around this. I live in Arizona, there’s all kinds of fat people here. But there’s not all kinds of fat community here because the amount of folks who have a fat liberation framework is not the same as the number of fat people who exist here, right? Finding each other in your local community can be hard. And it is one of the best things, as much as the Internet can be toxic, it is one of the best things about the internet, finding your own. And if you’re local to me, hit me up in my DMs! We can plan some fatty rabble rousing in the Phoenix area.But, give your time, give your energy, give your money, give your platform. Those are the things that people can do. When you can’t physically give your energy, send vibes, good vibes. We take all the good fat vibes.VirginiaWell, this platform is always available to you. So please let us know when there’s a specific thing on the docket and you’re like, “I need a lot of people to sign this petition, I need a lot of people to call representatives.” We are here for it. TigressAnd do that you get in touch with your representatives after they vote for these things, because we want we want to keep those kinds of people in office. We want to keep them knowing that this is a community issue. We want to expand the bills, expand the regulations in places where they’re not protective enough or next time the fight comes back around. The New York City Law is incredible. It will be life changing to people and it is limited to housing, employment, and public accommodation. So there are still other spaces that it’s not taking on.When we do the next round to cover those spaces, we want the people who supported us on this round to know that we paid attention to that. And we want people who didn’t support us on this round to know that we paid attention, too. So don’t just write the pressure letters, write the follow up thank you. Those are really important.VirginiaThat’s so smart.ButterVirginiaAlright, Tigress, what is your Butter today?TigressMy butter today is I’m really loving watching Midnight Diner on Netflix. It’s it’s not new. It’s a Japanese. It’s a half an hour Japanese serial. It’s a little bit soap opera-ish. I’m just really, really loving that as my bedtime story every night. I’m relatively new to podcast world, so I really am loving Wondermine, which is a podcast about about joy and community. Those are two of my favorite things lately.VirginiaThat is wonderful. Mine this week is that Somebody Somwhere is back for season two. I don’t know if you watched, Bridget Everett is a treasure, just a treasure.TigressI watched the first season and I didn’t know it was coming back. Right now I’m just kind of head down, catching up on some work things so I’m only watching Midnight Diner at night and then listening to all of my fat podcasts. But, the second season, I can’t wait. Have you started it already?VirginiaI just watched the first episode and it was just delightful. Her chemistry with her best friend—I’m terrible at remembering character names, but everyone knows who I’m talking about. TigressI love that character.VirginiaI love them so much together. I would watch them to hang out and just talk about nothing and I would be so delighted. TigressI’m going to have to get into that this weekend.Can I say one more butter? The second Saturday in May is Black Fae Day, for Black folks who are into the whole magical creature realm, who do cosplays and meetups and stuff like that. So I’m also working on getting together my Black Fae Day costume. I haven’t found an Arizona meet up yet, but I’m going to do a photoshoot with the same photographer who did my Smith cover. I’m super excited about that. So y’all can follow me on Instagram, you’ll see my Black Fae Day costumes. But also you can just follow that hashtag and like support Black creators who are doing this really incredible cosplay. I think for some of them this is not even cosplay, Fae is their aesthetic and that is why they just look like fairies every day. But I am really, really excited about that.VirginiaI’m so glad, I didn’t know about that. And I’m really excited to look on Instagram for the hashtag with my five year old because she is a fan of fairy things.Thank you. Please come back anytime. Tell folks where we can follow you and support your work.TigressYou can learn more about NAAFA and you can follow us on most of your favorite social media sites. We’re most active on Instagram and Facebook. And you can follow me on Instagram at @IoftheTigress.VirginiaWonderful. Thank you so much, Tigress. It was really a pleasure having you here.TigressIt was so great to be here. I cannot wait to I got my copy of the book. I can’t wait to dig in. I’m really excited for to interact with the the Burnt Toast family. Do you call your fans Toasties or something?VirginiaCorinne came up with Burnt Toasties recently, and I sort of love that. Also one of my favorite little bits of troll commentary was the guy who called me high priestess of the indulgence gospel, so I’m kind of running with high priestess these days. I think we are all part of the indulgence gospel.TigressI love that.VirginiaHe definitely meant it as a burn and I took it as the honor of my life.TigressOne of my favorites lately was somebody who inboxed me to tell me that I’m so fat I look like Kung Fu Panda. And I was like, I will see your Kung Fu Panda and raise you one. I posted this picture of me with a giant hippo statue. Please look for that on my Instagram. I love that picture. And also, fuck that guy. Reclaiming the troll trash and turning it into treasures is way more fun than the whole don’t feed the trolls thing. Like, yes, don’t feed them. But also take everything they say and make it a hashtag that you love.VirginiaNow I need a high priestess costume.TigressWell, I hope to interact more with followers of the indulgence gospel and all the Burnt Toasties out there. Please do find me and say hello.

It's time for the May Indulgence Gospel! Instead of answering your questions this month, we're reading Virginia's hate mail. Buckle up! If you are already a paid subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Patreon.If you are not a paid subscriber, you'll only get the first chunk. To hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to go paid. Also, don't forget to order Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture! Get your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctosr, or any kind of health care providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.BUTTER & BOOKS_____ Is a Breakfast Food by Marjory SweetThe Unhoneymooners by Christina LaurenThe Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn SolomonSabrina Strings’ Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat PhobiaDa’Shaun Harrison Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blacknesschapter one of FAT TALKOrder any of these from the Burnt Toast Bookshop for 10 percent off if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)OTHER LINKS@SellTradePlusThe Cut did a profileFresh Air interviewthe face shieldinterview with Aubrey Gordonyes, fat marathon runnersvery popular article in The Atlantic about how eating ice cream is associated with lower rates of Type Two Diabetesa tweet about Elizabeth WarrenCREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!VirginiaYou’re listening to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. I also write the Burnt Toast newsletter.CorinneAnd I’m Corinne Fay. I work on Burnt Toast and run @SellTradePlus an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus sized clothing.VirginiaAnd it’s time for your May mailbag episode! But instead of answering your questions this month, I decided it would be fun—cathartic? something?—to open my other mailbag, which is the place in my computer and in my DMs where the trolls live.CorinneYes, you’ve been getting a lot of this lately.VirginiaIt started when The Cut did a profile on me, right before the book launch. There were a lot of feelings about orange crackers. Which I feel like we have spoken to?CorinneYou addressed it very directly on TikTok.VirginiaThen after the Fresh Air interview came out, and the book launched, it’s just been a lot of people in their feelings. CorinneYou made it to Fox News.1VirginiaI did. I did make it to Fox News. I always knew I could do it.CorinneI didn’t realize that that was a thing, that they’ll be like, “Oh, something that was on Fresh Air. Let’s twist this into something that will make our audience mad.”VirginiaNo spoilers, Corinne! Because we’re gonna get into just how mad they got. I should say, Corinne hasn’t read most of these. I’m making her come in cold because I’m a little numb to it all at this point. CorinneI’ll be reacting in real time. VirginiaI felt like we needed some human reaction. I also want to say: In choosing what messages to talk about in this episode, I was mostly looking for the it’s-so-bad-it’s-funny comments, the orange snack cracker type of thing. But I do also want to get into some of the repeat themes that come up that I think are super troubling in this conversation. We are going to read some fairly disturbing emails. Content warning for anti-fatness, misogyny, every other kind of bias you can think of, white supremacy. It’s going to be a wild ride. Take care of yourself if that’s not something you want to listen to.CorinneMake sense. This is also a paywalled episode. That means to hear the whole thing, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. It’s just $5 per month or $50 for the year.VirginiaAll right, before we dive in, Corinne, how are you doing? What is new with you?CorinneI’m doing good. It’s starting to get a touch hot here, so I’m feeling a little bit of dread.VirginiaIs it time to get out the face shield?CorinneI’ve been wondering if we were going to talk about that sun visor again. Why don’t I just admit now, that it did not get a lot of wear.VirginiaBut it seemed so great!CorinneThe thing is, I wear glasses and it’s really hard to wear with glasses. VirginiaYeah, that does feel like a big design flaw. CorinneI need a sun visor in prescription glasses.VirginiaImagine if your whole face was your prescription.CorinneYes, exactly. What I ended up doing instead was just buying prescription sunglasses, which was great.VirginiaIt does feel like that plus a hat does achieve a lot of the same goals as the sun face shield. CorinneI no longer need a face shield because I have prescription sunglasses. VirginiaAll right. Well, it is an official Butter recommendation so we should probably go back and add a footnote. But if you don’t wear glasses, it might be amazing for you?CorinneTotally. Or maybe if you have less chunky glasses? What’s new with you? Besides.VirginiaBesides the trolls? Things are good. It’s garden season. I am excited about that. It’s been very nice to have that safe space to be in when my introvert self—and I want to be clear, this is just like how I would respond as an introvert to any amount of… There’s a lot of output with this season. Before we even get into the trolls. So it’s good. We had a lot of shrubs not survive the drought last year, which I’m sad about. But I’m also like, it’s a reason to buy a new plant.CorinneYou’ve got to treat yourself.VirginiaI’m mourning but I’m moving on. Okay, should we dive in? Should we do our first letter? CorinneI think we should.VirginiaOkay. This is from Lou. This is the kind of email I like to file under “Men Who Listen to Podcasts and Send Me Thoughts.” So Corinne, I will have you read this.CorinneHello Virginia,I was just listening to your podcast on NPR and I have to say it's been scientifically proven that being obese is an health issue, that goes for children and adults! I disagree that it's a body image problem. It's costing the health care system millions of dollars! Your information is misleading and harmful to say it's not an issue! Please do your due diligence and research the health effects rather than dismissing it as an image problem and chastising the medical community for addressing the issue. These obese, people, Lizzo for example, promote that fact it's ok, now you're writing books not addressing the issue. If you thought it was ok next time you go to the doctors get on the scale! The fact you don't reiterates what I'm saying and does not go along with what you're saying.. This problem all started when junk food and fast food came along - look back to old photos even the eighties - people were not obese - this is insane what's going on!VirginiaLou has a lot of thoughts. Lou also uses a lot of exclamation points. And has very creative comma use.CorinneCreative comma use for sure. My first thought is: Did Loui listen to the interview or did Lou read the title and react immediately?VirginiaThis is a common theme of Internet trolls.CorinneWould you say that the point of your book is that there’s a body image issue?VirginiaNo. I would not say that. CorinneI would not say that either.VirginiaThat’s not how I would characterize my work, no. We’re talking about systemic bias and how it harms people, including their physical health. I’m always sad when they bring Lizzo into it. Can we just leave Lizzo alone? CorinnePoor Lizzo.VirginiaShe doesn’t need this. She didn’t ask for it. You’re mad at me, Lou, not at Lizzo. So yes, this is very much a greatest hits troll playlist. Like, “It’s been scientifically proven with,” but he doesn’t link to any research or supporting evidence. He’s not looking at the data. "It’s costing the healthcare system millions of dollars.” There’s so many people who have put in thousands of hours of work unpacking these premises.Ragen Chastainhas devoted decades of her life to this. And then, "please do your research." That's one of my favorite things because I do research this? For a living?CorinneYou think they just let Virginia write a book without doing any research?VirginiaThey came up to me on the street. It was the wildest thing.CorinneYou sent them an email and said, “We have a body image problem. Can I write a book?”VirginiaThis is not specific to just Lou. One guy sent me link after link after link and they were all fitness guru podcast episodes. I understand I am just a woman who researches this professionally and has written about these issues for decades, and you are a man who listens to podcasts. But it still does not mean you have to send me personal emails about it.CorinneThere’s also not a lot here, besides ranting.VirginiaYeah, ranting and claiming that I don’t have any facts on my side while they have all the facts but they never actually use facts. The thing that really gets to me is how men write these emails where it’s like “You are wrong. Let me tell you how you are wrong. Please do your research,” and I’m just like, well I have 50 pages of footnotes, Lou. Do you?CorinneYOU please do your research. You please do YOUR research.VirginiaHere’s another fun one from a man. This guy wrote:In response to your grifting nonsense I would usually say hush! back into the kitchen with you and make me a sandwich—CorinneOh no. Virginiabut, sadly, we all know how that would end.CorinneHow…how… how would that end? VirginiaI can only assume he thinks it would end in me eating the sandwich and getting fatter and him having no sandwich?CorinneWow, what a burn.VirginiaOr I would be putting glass in his sandwich? I don’t know, there are a lot of options. CorinneThat is just so obnoxious. VirginiaObnoxious is the theme of today. Alright, this one I pulled from the comment section on The Cut interview which, as we discussed, there were a lot of feelings about crackers. But there was also some dark shit that came out. I think you already saw this one, Corinne, but why don’t you read it?CorinneBut I want my kid to be pretty and personally I feel thin lean bodies with toned muscles are more beautiful. Also, from experience, they feel better when you move them around in general.VirginiaI love this comment so much because he doesn’t even pretend it’s about health. Like, forget it. You’re right. The jig is up. I don’t care about health. I want my kid to be pretty.CorinneI mean, as I said to you, this one disturbs me because of the part about moving bodies around. What are you even talking about? All I can think of is dead bodies and how they would feel when you move them? UGH. Sorry guys.VirginiaI totally read it as, he thinks his own lean body feels good to move around. But you were like, “Is he moving around the children?”CorinneYeah, when he picks up his children they feel better when they have thin, lean, toned bodies? It’s so disturbing.VirginiaBut at least that one is honest. You know, he’s like, “Yeah, my kids would be prettier if they’re thin.” And I want to be clear, fat people are very pretty. But this is the belief system that we’re operating against. CorinneYes, right. This is another one where you’re like, “Oh, what a quirky thing that you’ve come up, with that you just like thin people better.”VirginiaJust a personal preference. CorinneWhere did you get that?VirginiaIt’s not really about any larger systemic bias. It’s just that he likes “pretty” kids. I mean, could you imagine being this guy’s daughter? Holy shit. CorinneHe knew about the band first. That’s the energy this is giving.VirginiaIt really is.CorinneHe discovered The Shins or something.VirginiaYes. Okay. One more gem I wanted to share from the ‘Why Are Men’ portion of this. This person writes: First, stop expecting guys to like fat girls. Second, don’t let girls think it’s cute or sexy to be fat.CorinneI guess the title of your book was, I Expect Guys to Like Fat Girls. So you did kind of ask for it. VirginiaAlso, the whole chapter where I was like here are 101 reasons why guys should like fat girls.CorinneFat girls are hot. VirginiaIt’s so interesting to me whether men will find fat women attractive.CorinneThe only explanation for this is that you posted a story saying it’s illegal for men not to find fat girls hot.VirginiaWell, obviously. I have that whole series.CorinneCall 911.VirginiaBut what’s fascinating about this, again, is that this is his worldview, right? He’s like, “Well I don’t think fat girls are attractive. And how dare this woman not talk about that at all?”Because I don’t care who you find attractive. But how dare this woman be implying any level of okay-ness with herself and with fat people in general? That interferes with his whole worldview that guys aren’t supposed to like fat girls.CorinneYes. And like, “don’t let girls think that.” Don’t allow them to have their own thoughts.VirginiaAnd I will say, I do encourage girls to have their own thoughts. CorinneThat’s true. That’s true.VirginiaAnd I do think it’s cute and sexy to be fat.CorinneI do as well. And I have found that other people do also.VirginiaSo I guess this guy is right that I am pushing that message out there. I’m fine with girls thinking it’s cute or sexy to be fat. Because of how it is.CorinneYou do let girls think that.VirginiaI let them think for themselves. I can see how that’s upsetting to him. I think for myself, I encourage other girls to think for themselves.Also, the gender binary heteronormative bullshit of the whole thing. Like, there are a lot of girls who don’t care? It’s so irrelevant?Yeah, so the men tend to go for the “I’m going to try to out-research you except I have no research” or it gets very personal and, again, I picked the lighter ones. There were many more specific comments on my body and other fat bodies. And we’re not going to read those.But before people are like, “it’s not all men.” We do get emails from women, too. So next up, this one is from Nikki. Corinne, do you wanna read this one? CorinneI listened to your interview on Fresh Air. I am sorry you get hate mail. This message is not intended to be hateful, however, when you use terms like "thin privilege" you should expect some push back. Using the term privilege makes it seem like those of us not "living in larger bodies" are just lucky. I get up at 4 every day of the week to exercise. I run at least one marathon a month. While I'd like to have an extra beer and dessert every night, I don't. It takes an incredible amount of determination and effort, and on some level pain, to achieve a fit body. This is not privilege or luck - it's hard work, and the use of thin privilege is offensive and discounts my effort, and that of everyone else who hasn't just given up and made excises. Yes, some people are naturally thin. I am not, nor are many of my friends who maintain the same fitness regimen. We work at it. You could too if you wanted to, then you would share in the "privilege" of the fruits of your labor.VirginiaOh, Nikki. I feel very sad for this one.CorinneIt is absolutely fucking insane to be running a marathon a month.VirginiaI feel sad, Corinne just really wants to focus on that. Yes. That is a lot of running.CorinneSomeone write in and tell me if that’s even allowed? But it is very sad.VirginiaShe is sketching out a lot of very disordered behaviors. Obviously, we don’t know this person. We know nothing beyond what’s in this email. We’re not going to diagnose her.And she’s right. Some people are naturally thin. Many people are not. Many people are torturing themselves to maintain thinness. That is kind of the whole problem. And it is even harder for people who are torturing themselves in the pursuit of thinness, the way this person is, and don’t achieve thinness because their bodies are not genetically set up to go there. So, that would be the thin privilege layer of this.And I know this podcast does not need me to explain thin privilege, but we will link to my interview with Aubrey Gordon where we talk through it all, if anyone is new to that concept. Also, Chapter Four of my book is all about thin privilege.But: The fact that you are personally working very, very hard to maintain your body does not mean you don’t benefit from the way this world treats thin people better than that people.CorinneAlso, Nikki. Have you never encountered a fat person who had a fitness regimen?VirginiaYeah, no, definitely not. Definitely no fat marathon runners. So yes, she’s equating her body with all of her habits. Also, just have the extra beer and the dessert. CorinneI know, come on.VirginiaThat sounds rough. I also want to speak to how she said, “I’m sorry, you get hate mail. This message is not intended to be hateful.” That is another thing that comes up. In the Fresh Air interview, Tonya Mosley actually asked me about the pushback I receive. And I think I referred to this stuff as hate mail, because again, the ones about “make me a sandwich,” and comments about my body, that is hate mail. But then I got a bunch that were like, “this isn’t hate mail. This is a debate.” And I just want to clarify: Just because somebody writes a book, and happens to be a woman on the Internet, does not mean she owes you a personal debate, or to help work through your personal points of contention with her work. CorinneNope. VirginiaYou can totally disagree with me. And she’s right that there’s nothing abusive in this email to me. CorinneShe’s not calling you names. VirginiaIt’s not hate speech.CorinneBut she is using a lot of quotes. “Thin privilege.” VirginiaIt’s not exactly trolling. But it is not an email that she needed to send. I do wonder a lot about the psychology of people who listen to an interview with someone on the radio they disagree with and go to the trouble to find their email and write a note. Like, what are you expecting to happen? Are we gonna hang out? What is the end game?CorinneLike you might get the email and be like, “Oh, you’re right. You’re right.” VirginiaAll these years I’ve spent researching this and writing this book were for nothing, because now I know Nikki isn’t letting herself drink beer. CorinneYou can tell she’s mad that she’s putting in all this effort and you’re not.VirginiaYeah, well, I’ve got sandwiches to make, Nikki. I can’t help you. I’ve got all these men who need me to make them sandwiches.CorinneI’ve got marathons to not run.VirginiaOkay, the next note is from Angela, and there is a lot going on here as well.CorinneVirginia, Im curious if you also have discussions at home about serious health outcomes associated with fatness.There are many healthy people with high BMIs. But there are also considerable risk factors. We have watched debilitating and deadly health problems in our family related to type 2 diabetes. Stroke. Death. Debilitating neuropathy. Loss of limbs. These are health outcomes we talked with our kids about as they benefited from thin privilege. That their eating habits especially impact this. It did not alway resonate. But its an honest discussion. They watched relatively you g relatives who were not all that fat SUFFER!Fat bodies are beautiful. They should not be shamed. All body sizes should know about the very serious risks associated with type 2 diabetes. Sort of fat, skinny fat people get diabetes too. Its a COMPLICATED conversation. And if you don’t shield your kids from a robust conversation they will still feel safe in their body and home. Kids hate being sugar coated and lied to. You can repeat this mantra of acceptance but it is only one side of the health conversation. You can only have this baby like dialog for so long before your kids realize that you are passionately loving your body and cashing in on a movement. You sound really smart and lovely on the radio. I urge you to broaden your thesis.Respectfully,AngelaVirginiaThis person is making my argument and not making my argument at the same time. It’s very hard to hold it all together. They make the point that all body sizes should be concerned about long term health risks, which is something I am also arguing for. I’m saying, “let’s take weight out of health conversations.” Everyone can think about what’s doable within their life to promote their health, if they want. She’s saying that sort of fat and skinny fat people get diabetes, too. Also just regular skinny people get it. So that’s useful. It is a complicated conversation.But then she’s like, “Don’t just tell them to love their bodies.” So I don’t understand exactly what she wants. I guess she wants us to also fear monger to kids about long-term health issues?CorinneThis person is clearly grieving or something, you know? They clearly have watched someone they care about suffer and are somehow trying to transfer that onto their kids, which seems really unfair.VirginiaI got a couple other versions of this, where people were telling me about their family history and basically saying, “Well, this is why I tell my kids, we can’t eat junk food. And this is why I tell my kids they have to exercise.” And it just really breaks my heart.Because the fact is, a lot of this is genetically predisposed. Lifestyle habits definitely do matter, but teaching your kids from a young age that they have to think about food and how they exercise as this constant battle against a looming future health risk really takes away their ability to just be children in their body. And I say this as a parent of a kid with a chronic health condition. It’s something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. How do we make sure you are not defined by the health condition you have and get to just be yourself and live your life? And if that means you’re not perfectly healthy all the time, I think it’s more valuable to me that you get to enjoy your life.And I think this is even more true if this isn’t an active health issue you’re managing. If you’re just worrying about what might happen 10, 20, 40 years down the road and staying in this place of fear about it. It definitely feels very rooted in trauma, but I don’t think it’s actually health-promoting.CorinneI agree with you. It seems really stressful. And if there’s one thing we know about chronic health conditions, stress doesn’t usually help them.VirginiaAnd if you are concerned about your child’s future metabolic health, eating disorders really do a number on your metabolic health in ways that linger for decades after recovery. Preventing eating disorders is not promoting diabetes. This is actually very much in service of preventing Type Two Diabetes, to the extent that any health condition can be prevented. CorinneI mean, there was that recent, very popular article in The Atlantic about how eating ice cream is associated with lower rates of Type Two Diabetes.VirginiaBut I do like that she called me smart and lovely on the radio. I appreciate that. Another hallmark of the emails from women is the mix of the compliment and the not compliment.Corinne“You’re smart and lovely but stop this baby-like dialogue.”Virginia We contain multitudes, Corinne. I can hold those things together. It reminds me of my very favorite of all of my troll comments, the guy calling me a high priestess of the indulgence gospel. I still feel like it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me?CorinneIt is really wonderful. VirginiaTruly, beautiful poetry CorinneIt is like beautiful poetry. VirginiaAll right. Next up is another delightful email. This one came with the subject line “Hey, fatso,” so you can imagine where we’re going. Take it away, Corinne.CorinneI need to make a comment about your statement that being thin has something to do with slavery. First, I am old enough to be your grandmother. I have been fat all my life because I am a big Norwegian woman with a DNA that goes back to the Vikings. I have a lot of trouble staying healthy because I have a number of digestive issues. And it has ZERO to do with slavery. That’s an insult!You are one of those spoiled overindulged know it all product of a generation of overindulged spoiled children, who barely understand or appreciate the generations that came before. You got a little golden book of American history, then hung your hook on the most controversial subject you could find, so you could make a few bucks. My own daughter is an athlete and has Type 1 Diabetes - she has to stay thin or she dies. Obesity is also a result of many other metabolic diseases and the last thing anyone thinks about is slavery - enjoy your profits you greedy little monster.VirginiaGuys, I am sorry we’re not releasing a video of this, because Corinne’s expressions when she is reading these emails are so amazing. And it’s making me laugh a lot.CorinneI don’t even know where to start, you greedy little monster.VirginiaSo, okay. I mean, this is in chapter one of the book. Anti-fatness is rooted in anti-Black racism. And modern diet culture can be traced back to the end of slavery in the United States. This is when we see the thin ideal really heighten and intensify in terms of media representations and in terms of how medical researchers at the time were talking about what constituted “good health.” The ideal became much thinner because it was a way of centering white bodies over Black and brown bodies. This is all in the book. Obviously, you also need to read Sabrina Strings’ Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da’Shaun Harrison Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness to get the deep dive. So what happened is, in the Fresh Air interview, Tonya Mosley and I had a very nuanced and detailed conversation about this. And then Fox News and the New York Post and Breitbart and the Daily Mail and several other conservative media outlets I am forgetting picked up this particular chunk of the Fresh Air conversation and ran all these stories about “author says wanting to be thin makes you racist.”What’s interesting is, some of the pieces are literally just taking my quotes from the transcript but with a framing that’s like, ‘can you believe!’ and I’m like, “well, you’re laying it out quite well?” But they know exactly how to tweak it for their audience, it’s like a dog whistle to really stir up this response. So, this was the first of many emails from people very offended that I said being thin has something to do with slavery. This “little Golden Book of American history,” and “you’re hanging your hook on this most controversial subject,” all of that is coming straight from this. Like, how dare you? How dare you call out whiteness? How dare you call out the fact that whiteness has been complicit with the thin ideal for decades and decades and hundreds of years. That’s what she’s upset about.Also, she’s descended from Vikings, so she should be proud of that. Good for her. And again, we see the fear mongering with the kid with the Type One Diabetes “has to stay thin or die.”CorinneI can’t with this person. VirginiaYou have no words. Okay. So this one came in under the subject “speaking engagement,” because if you are on my portfolio website and you use the contact form, you can say it’s a press request or speaking engagement or whatever and I guess they thought if they just picked other I might not be reading those and they would be right. I have stopped reading those this week. So this person used “speaking engagement” as the subject and then wrote:I would like to retain your services for a speaking engagement. My colleagues and I simply don’t believe you exist, we do not believe such a racist bigoted piece of shit such as yourself could exist, you must be fake. We’d be willing to pay you to regurgitate the garbage ideas in your rotten brain. I hope CPS takes your kids away if God forbid you have any, they deserve better than having racist, unhealthy, hate filled bigot as a parent.Go fuck yourself.So I just want to know: My speaking fee is quite high. Do we think they’re going to also cover travel? Like, I just need more details on the speaking engagement offer.CorinneYeah, I hope you called them.VirginiaDefinitely forwarded it right over to Ariel, my speaking agent.CorinneWhat kind of colleagues do you think this person has?VirginiaI assume the other people who live in his mother’s basement?CorinneIf I got this, I would be looking up their colleagues, calling them, and being like, “Did you know your colleague just sent me an email that says ‘Go fuck yourself?’”VirginiaThis person has no colleagues, Corinne. This is not an actual request for a speaking engagement.CorinneYeah, I mean, this is disturbing. “I hope CPS takes your kids away?” That’s so sad and scary. VirginiaThis was not the only one that went there. The comments on The Cut piece also had a frequent refrain about child abuse. Because we stock orange snack crackers. So I just want people to really sit with what child abuse means to them. There were also a few threats of physical violence and legal action, which I’m not going to read for all of our well being and my own safety. Again, I was thinking we would mostly stay in the funny make-me-a-sandwich place with this and then all this really toxic stuff has been coming in.It’s interesting, because I do not internalize it. None of this makes me doubt the importance of doing this work or makes me think, “Oh, I better not be outspoken about this.” None of it works. But it is a profound energy drain that every time I open my email or my DMs on Twitter or Instagram right now, I’m thinking what am I going to see? How many people am I going to report and block?And there’s this shrugging response that some people have of like, “well, what can you expect?” And I just find that very disappointing. I think we can expect better from humans. I do. I mean, I know. I’m not naive. I’ve been public on the Internet for a long time now. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this kind of thing blow up. But I don’t think that this is a reasonable cost of doing business. CorinneIt also just it makes me curious. Do you think that the people who we vehemently disagree with are getting this kind of email? Like, are people emailing Tucker Carlson like this?VirginiaThat’s an interesting question.CorinneIt’s just very strange.VirginiaI would assume yes, to be honest. I mean, think back to the 2016 election. The Bernie Bros were not great. Everyone, I’m a Bernie Sanders fan. We don’t need to get into that. But I had a tweet about Elizabeth Warren go viral during that election—and I’m not a political journalist. This was just me tweeting my feelings about Elizabeth Warren. And that Twitter thread blew up with the Bernie Bros coming in and saying really nasty stuff to me. Not quite on this level, not threats of physical violence level, but it was definitely not a respectful discourse.CorinneYeah. And people were very fatphobic to Donald Trump.VirginiaLots of woke progressives are very fatphobic.CorinneBut I just feel like, who does this? Who is sending these emails?VirginiaAgain, it’s a lot of men. And apparently a couple of grandmas, a couple of angry grandmas? CorinneViking Grandmas.VirginiaThe other thing that’s a dog whistle here is all of these emails calling me racist. What they mean is racist to white people. That’s what they’re talking about. They’re saying that I am being anti-white.CorinneWhich is a premise that I don’t accept.VirginiaCorrect. I also don’t accept it. CorinneOkay, we need to bring things up a little. So here are some nice comments.This comment came from the Friday open thread.VirginiaWhich was beautiful, I loved it so much. CorinneYes. I’m going to read one from Diana. Virginia, this is a love note. I write a mental love note to you in my head every time I read the newsletter and listen to the podcast, but have been too shy to share it until now. I am so grateful to you for this difficult and important work you are doing. You are so brave to speak up on behalf of all of us and to put this target on your back. Your work has changed my life. It has changed my kids' lives. It has made me a better parent who will never, ever count bites of broccoli again. It has changed the way I work with clients in my private therapy practice. It inspires me to constantly grow, question, and evolve. You write so beautifully, so movingly, and you're so damn smart and talented. I cried at the end of listening to you read the first chapter of Fat Talk. I shared it with everyone I know because it was so brilliantly written and so moving. You're a hero, and I'm grateful for you every day. You are changing the world. The trolls see how powerful you are and it scares them. The more powerful and radical your message, the louder and nastier the trolls will be, so every time you get an awful DM, take a moment to center yourself with that knowledge. Their vitriol is a sign that you're doing this right, that you're ruffling feathers, that you're challenging the status quo. Keep up the good workVirginiaI mean, I may cry? That was far too nice to just me. I did not ask you to read some nice notes at the end here, so that people would say I’m brilliant or whatever! That was not the point of this, Corinne. But thank you, that is amazing, really amazing. And it is really helpful to just hear that the work is helping people. Like I said: The mean comments don’t make me want to stop. But it’s nice to be reminded why we’re doing this, for sure. So you are all high priestesses of the indulgence gospel, or whatever gender term you would like to use to describe yourself. Thank you.ButterVirginiaShould we do some butter?CorinneYeah, let’s do some butter. I want to recommend this book. It’s called _____ Is a Breakfast Food.2 It is written by my close personal friend, Marjory Sweet, who is cook, and a farmer, and a baker, and the reason that I ended up in New Mexico. She is now back in Maine. But, it’s a cookbook, it has recipes, but it’s also a little like avant garde personal meditation on breakfast and how we eat this meal.VirginiaWe are very pro-breakfast here!CorinneAnd it has a bunch of interesting, unfussy recipes, as well as little writings from Marjory and quotes from women about what they like to eat for breakfast. I just thought people might enjoy it. It’s a cool format, too—it’s spiral-bound and it has little photo inserts. VirginiaIt looks really neat. I’m very excited. And I, as discussed, have been in a breakfast rut for 20 years, but I would be excited to try some different breakfast things. Plus, I bet you could eat them for other meals as well?CorinneYes, definitely. Sometimes recipes are just good for entertainment, too. VirginiaYeah, that is true. I was thinking the other day, especially in this phase of life I’m in where my children don’t eat most of the foods I like, a lot of my cookbooks are really just recreational. CorinneTotally. What’s your butter? VirginiaMine is two books I read in the past week. Because as I was dealing with this onslaught of feelings from the men and the grandmas, I realized that I had no bandwidth for any challenging media consumption. I barely made it through an episode of Succession. I was like, “I can’t follow this business conversation.” CorinneYes. That makes sense. VirginiaAnd I actually have two books I need to read for my book clubs that are coming up very soon. And I can’t do it. They’re like serious fiction and I don’t have it in me. Anyway, so these were two delightful feminist romance novels that I read last week. One is The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren, which was a treat. And the other one is The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon.Shop the Burnt Toast Bookstore!What I will say about The Unhoneymooners, if you read feminist romance for a lot of sex, it’s not one of the ones with a lot of sex. It is delightful, but you just want to know going in it’s not a super sexy one. But it’s really fun. You do have to suspend some disbelief about original premises of these things. And the ex talk is really fun because it is two public radio hosts who get put together to make a podcast where they have to pretend to be exes. And again, suspend some disbelief about what NPR station would think that was a good idea. But especially if you’re into podcasts, like there are lots of discussions of PodCon and public radio sort of banter, so that makes it a fun world.CorinneThat sounds really fun. VirginiaYeah, they were both perfect. I’m sad they’re over.Alright, thank you guys. This was very cathartic for me. These have been coming in and I’ve been usually not reading them or just shoving them into a folder in my email which I call Men Yell at Me in honor of lyz’s newsletter, who for sure knows firsthand what it’s like to get these emails. Thanks so much for listening to Burnt Toast!CorinneIf you’d like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and leave us a rating or review. The trolls are showing up in the podcast reviews, too, so leave us a review and help us keep our five star rating! Reviews and ratings also help new listeners find the show.VirginiaThey really are showing up, guys! I didn’t just make Corinne say that. So yeah, get in there and leave a review. Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts!---Click at your own risk: https://www.foxnews.com/media/npr-podcast-argues-thinness-product-white-supremacy-patriarchySince recording, Marjory’s website has sold out of books, but the book is available now at Vestige and General Store should be available online soon at Post Supply.

Today Virginia is chatting with her longtime friend and colleague Christy Harrison, MPH, RD! Christy is a journalist, registered dietitian, and certified Intuitive Eating counselor. She’s the author of Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating. And today we are talking about Christy’s new book, The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses, and Find Your True Well-Being.And remember, if you order The Wellness Trap or Anti-Diet from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, you can get 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.BUTTER & OTHER LINKSchristyharrison.comListen here for Virginia's conversation on Christy's new podcast, Rethinking Wellness. Virginia's first bookthe SIFT checkLove Is a Revolution by Renee WatsonFAT TALK is out! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Episode 92 TranscriptVirginiaSo this is the first time we’ve gotten to catch up since you became a mom! And I just want to say: It’s very annoying that I’m leading with this question. Women get asked all the time to talk about this. Men rarely do. Although, I would ask it, if I had more male podcast guests who had recently become dads. But yeah: How are you doing? How do you feel like entering motherhood has changed or informed your relationship to everything you work on? ChristyI’m doing okay. But I’m having a really hard time balancing mom life and work life. A big part of me just wants to leave work and be a stay-at-home mom. But honestly, we can’t afford to do that. And right now, I’m the primary earner and my husband is the primary childcare. So there’s that piece, the capitalism piece. And, I do love my work. I couldn’t imagine not having that be at least part of my life. So it’s just been a real adjustment of switching gears, switching back and forth.I work from home and my daughter’s home. And so I will go fill my water and she’s there and wants to play or go to the bathroom. It’s great, but.VirginiaIt’s a constant mindset shift. Am I in work mode? Or am I in mom mode? And somehow you’re always in both, which is tough.ChristyEspecially in this day and age, when your email is in your pocket. So when I’m watching her, one eye is on the phone and then I feel terrible because I’m not present. And then, when I’m working, one ear is out for her or wanting to be with her. My heart is pulled in that direction. I just love her so much, and I want to spend all my time with her. She’s just at such a cute age right now, too. She’s starting to talk and walk and you know, all the things. All the milestones. So it’s been a real adjustment. But in terms of how it’s affected or informed my relationship to the topics I cover, that’s also been really interesting. It’s made me so grateful that I was fortunate enough to heal my own relationship with food before having kids. And that is such a huge privilege. And expensive, right? That was like a decade of psychotherapy, at least.VirginiaA lot of hard work and resources.ChristyExactly. It feels like it’s paid off in the sense that, yes, my body has changed, but I’m not fixated on that. Yes, food is sometimes tricky with her, like getting her to eat , but I’m not fixated on that.It’s one thing to say, “yes, Division of Responsibility, trust your child’s body,” when you’re not in it. But it’s quite another when you have a toddler sitting in front of you screaming or fussing because they’re hungry but refusing to eat. So, there’s that piece, too, of wanting to make sure she has enough. Thankfully it’s not coming from this orthorexic place of “I need to get her more vegetables.” It’s literally like, “what will this child eat?”VirginiaAnd how do we avoid hunger meltdowns an hour from now? ChristyYeah, exactly. It’s a strategy thing of managing her day and your day. If she’s hungry in an hour, you just give her more in an hour. And that’s fine. But as she’s starting to have more scheduled stuff going on there is that reality of having to plan.VirginiaRight, what if we’re in the car in an hour and it’s actually not that easy? And yet that’s when they realize that they wish they ate that yogurt. We have all these best practices but in the moment, you can just forget it all.ChristyWhen it’s your kid and you want to do the best for them. A lot of it is not life and death, but some of it really feels that way, like with the choking stuff. That’s something I have gotten kind of anxious about and been really meticulous about. “Okay, we have to cut this in this way and squish this thing,” and now it’s getting so vague because my daughter is over one. And so now a lot of the guidance that you see from reputable sources online is like, “well, if they’re under one cut the blueberries this way, but maybe they can have a whole blueberry once they’re one but maybe no.” Like, “see what your child’s capacity is,” you know?VirginiaJust try it out. Figure it out. Can you measure their esophagus?ChristyAnd I’m like, “No, thank you! Let’s just keep squishing them!” And. of course, my husband might have a different idea of what to do. It just feels so fraught. Even when you go to the pediatrician, for guidance, right? What should we do about this question that feels so fraught and we can’t come to an agreement? And they’re like, “Well, you could do it this way but you also could do it this way.” And like, “see what you think.” And it goes back to this do what feels right for you situation.And we go to a pediatrician who’s a very conventional MD, not integrative or functional, or anything like that. But for a lot of things, I think there aren’t clear cut answers. It’s been really a lesson in having to let go and trust and just do the best we can to set our boundaries and our strategies and then maybe change them as things evolve. VirginiaI think it’s such an exercise in learning to trust, getting to know your child and yourself as a parent and learning what makes sense for you. But the problem is, you don’t know that immediately. So there’s this gray area where you’re trying to figure out how to trust that and nobody ever has really good advice for getting to that place. It’s just time and experience that gets you more comfortable navigating those things. And it’s so much emotional and mental labor.ChristyYeah, it really is. Thankfully, I’m sort of out of the place where I was furiously googling at 3 in the morning. That first six months where you’re just like what is even happening? Like, “is this crying normal?” I feel like that all is somewhat in the rearview now. No one really talks about the toll that that takes on our mental health, right? That sense of not knowing what the hell is going on and feeling like you’re responsible. VirginiaOh, it’s a trauma for sure. And it has a long tail, I think, of processing how deep that fear was. Those 3 am rabbit holes, that’s a real thing.ChristyAnd I mean, I didn’t even have to go through what you went through with a medical trauma.VirginiaOh, yeah. But just for everyone, across the board. Having a human that you are now responsible for keeping alive. It’s a whole thing for sure. ChristyAnd they just send you home with them. Like, “okay, good luck!”VirginiaWhat are they thinking? ChristyUgh, its ridiculous.VirginiaWell, I think you are doing an amazing job. And at the very same time that you’ve been doing all of this, you’ve also been getting a new book ready and that’s what we’re here to talk about. So first of all, big applause for that! I think you had a similar timeline with this book as I had with my first book where you were writing it while you were pregnant.ChristyThat’s right. VirginiaI think we were emailing about due dates of babies and books and how close together you want them to be. And then, of course, coming back from your maternity leave, and jumping right into getting ready to launch a book. It’s a lot. ChristyIt’s a lot. VirginiaSo the new book is called The Wellness Trap. It is a deep dive into the underbelly of modern wellness culture. It is fascinating! So impeccably researched, of course, because it’s Christy. Tell us what inspired this and what made you want to go deeper into wellness, especially right now.ChristyIn late 2020 I was seeing how the pandemic was making us so much more vulnerable to wellness culture, and how the wellness industry, wellness influencers, were capitalizing on COVID to sell products that had no good evidence behind them. Wellness culture in general was like leading people down rabbit holes of myths and disinformation and driving increases in conspiracism. We were starting to see QAnon popping up in wellness spaces and driving the anti-vax movement further into the mainstream, and just generally leading to some really weird and dangerous places. So, that was the impetus to do the book at that time. I had covered wellness in a chapter in my first book and that’s a chapter that seemed to really resonate with a lot of readers. Wellness is the new guise of diet culture and it’s so insidious. People like will be like, “I’m recovering from my eating disorder. Now I’m just gonna get really into wellness.” It’s such a such a fraught territory. That’s a lot of what we talked about when you interviewed me for your first book, right? The sustainable food movement, Michael Pollan, and all the problems with that. The anti-fat bias that’s inherent in those arguments, but also the anti-food bias, right? The demonization of certain foods and lionization of others and the orthorexic mindset that can come out of that. I see that so much with my clients who are recovering from disordered eating.But something I’ve also seen a lot over the years with both clients and readers and listeners, is that people will come to me saying, “my functional medicine doctor diagnosed me with leaky gut syndrome,” or “my naturopath told me I have adrenal fatigue,” or “this person online told me I have chronic Candida and they told me to cut out all these foods and take out all these supplements as a way to treat it but it’s really messing up my relationship with food,” like, “How do I do these things that I need to to take care of my health while maintaining a peaceful relationship with food?” And I feel like that’s been happening more and more in recent years. VirginiaYes, and I just want to pause here for a minute because I have a feeling a lot of folks listening are like, “yes, yes, that’s me.” It is so common.Talk a little bit about how you do approach this with clients? How do you think about it in terms of the book? Are there conditions where elimination diets are sometimes helpful and informative? Or do you see this very much as misdirecting people from really working on things that would actually be health promoting?ChristyIt’s such a good question. I want to empathize with anyone who’s in that position, first and foremost. I’m someone also with multiple chronic illnesses and things that took years to get diagnosed and have been down wellness rabbit holes myself, so I very much empathize with the desire for answers.And yet, for those those three conditions I mentioned, which I cover in the book—chronic Candida, leaky gut syndrome, and adrenal fatigue—there’s this whole other layer to this. Not only is it not evidenc-based to cut out foods and do elimination diets for those conditions, but actually there’s not really good evidence that those conditions really exist. The symptoms people experience are very real, and there are grains of truth in each of each of those conditions. People might be fatigued, but it’s not coming from your adrenals being exhausted or overworked. People might have digestive issues or acne and bloating and dry skin and all these disparate symptoms that might be related to something underlying, or might be all kinds of different conditions that are going on, that are not caused by a chronic overgrowth of yeast in your body. Or people might have digestive issues that are causing them distress, and that have a real medical explanation or are in part driven by disordered eating and some underlying medical stuff, but that’s not because your gut is leaky, and it’s causing all these all these symptoms throughout your body.It’s really hard to untangle that. I think it’s become more common for people to want to seek out a holistic provider or someone who’s going to get to the root cause of things because so many of us are disillusioned by the health care system. I definitely have gone through my own experiences that left me feeling like conventional medicine was really lacking for chronic diseases and illnesses that I have. And so we get sort of excited by and attracted to providers who say, “I’m going to get to the root cause. I’m not just going to give you medicine, but I’m also going to figure out what’s actually going on give you a treatment that’s holistic.”VirginiaI have endometriosis and I have migraines. I completely remember just feeling so dismissed. No one in my regular doctor’s office was considering my symptoms as anything more than just pain management. Like, “Let’s try Advil. If that doesn’t work, let’s try more Advil. And then let’s try some kind of prescription painkiller,” was the beginning and end of the conversation. So of course, it was so appealing to try to find some more cohesive explanation, right? Like some other condition or some thing that would link all of these murky symptoms together. It’s such an understandable place to be at and it makes me really angry at mainstream medicine for ignoring particularly women.ChristyThere are these things that I think conventional medical care is not necessarily set up to address. These quick 5 to 15 minute appointments that we have with most of our providers don’t really allow enough time to get into the details. One thing that integrative and functional and alternative medicine providers of all stripes provide really well is empathy and time. But my experience and that of many people I’ve talked to, has been that can outweigh, at first, the fact that some of these providers aren’t giving evidence-based treatments, and in many cases are actually doing the thing that they accuse conventional medicine of: Prescribing a one size fits all solution. It’s painted in wellness culture, as if conventional medicine just wants to slap a bandaid on it, they want to just give you medicine to make the symptoms go away. They just care about symptom management, they don’t want to get to the root cause. Everybody’s treated the same. It’s not personalized or individualized. But actually, in a lot of these wellness spaces, it’s kind of the same thing. Instead of giving you pain management or treating everyone who has a certain condition with a certain protocol, it’s okay, let’s give everyone who has this so-called condition, whether or not it’s a genuine condition, let’s have them cut out all these foods. Let’s have them take these supplements. Let’s have them do these protocols.It’s not actually really addressing holistic health. It’s not addressing people’s wellbeing in a global sense. I think in many cases, we see people who struggle with those protocols and develop really disordered eating as a result. I’ve had some people tell me, “I told my functional medicine doctor that I had an eating disorder history and to please take that into account and then they still recommended these elimination diets.”Doctors don’t have the time and the resources to be up on everything. Our medical system is set up to be sort of siloed. So people have their specialties and unfortunately, disordered eating is seen as a specialty. It’s not seen as something that’s relevant to every provider. VirginiaMaddening. It obviously is going to underpin everything.ChristyAs I talked about in my first book, eating disorder treatment is seen as a special silo and that it’s a really small percentage of the population that has eating disorders, really does a disservice to everyone. Because disordered eating—maybe not clinical eating disorders, although those are also far more prevalent than actually diagnosed—as a larger space and percentage of the population is so rampant.Most providers, I would say, when they’re talking to someone, any patient that comes in their door is likely to be struggling with some level of disordered eating in our culture. I think this is especially true when we look at people with digestive disorders, right? One study found that 98% of people with eating disorders have a functional gut disorder, and 44.4% of people who in one study went to a specialty clinic for digestive disorders actually had disordered eating.VirginiaSo really, practitioners should be taking that as a baseline or at least that should be one of the first screening questions they’re asking with any new patient intake. Figuring out what this person’s relationship is with disordered eating and how do we need to protect them before we consider any protocols.ChristyI think that that needs to be a first line question, a first line treatment. Getting people help for their disordered eating before putting them on any sort of elimination diet, I think, is essential. From what I’ve seen, in the research and what I’ve seen in my own clinical practice, I think that elimination diets are not the panacea they’re made out to be. They are, in a lot of cases, not effective. They can certainly drive people further into disordered eating, but even beyond that are not necessarily effective at identifying any sort of food sensitivities. The placebo and nocebo effect are very real. People have pre-existing beliefs about certain types of foods and when you do an elimination diet where you’re systematically removing and then reintroducing foods, those beliefs can get activated. I think that providers in many cases exacerbate that, right? Like, okay, take out all these foods. And then you’re going to bring in gluten, you’re going to bring in dairy. Watch for symptoms. If you notice bloating, this and that. It’s making people hyper-focus on perceived symptoms. And the mind body connection is very real. We know that the placebo effect actually has physiological effects on our body. It can activate the endogenous opioid system, which is how our body creates pain relief for itself. And so in conditions where pain is a big part of it, we can definitely have strong placebo effects and strong nocebo effects show up. So if someone is struggling with chronic pain or digestive pain, digestive distress, and they’re bringing back in a food that they believe is going to be harmful to them it really can activate this sense of increased pain and also just the act of hyper focusing on symptoms can make you notice them more in general.VirginiaAnd there’s even some evidence that the GI symptoms you may be trying to resolve through the elimination diet, this process of tinkering and taking foods in and out can cause some of those same symptoms in some folks, right?ChristyAbsolutely. Not eating enough and having a fearful relationship with food absolutely has effects on the digestive system. Tinkering and taking foods in and out can change the microbiome. There’s a lot of buzz about the microbiome and gut health in wellness culture. And it’s always geared towards like, “we need to optimize the microbiome by taking out anything processed, by taking out all these foods that are considered to be bad and harmful.” But actually, we need diversity in our gut flora, right? That same diversity in the microbiome seems to be associated with better outcomes. And the science on the microbiome is in such in such an infancy state that we really don’t know the correlation versus causation there.Virginia It’s way too early to be translating that to clinical practice guidelines.ChristyAnd yet, so many in the functional and integrative medicine spaces are doing just that. They are taking really early stage science and using it to recommend diets and other protocols to people across the board, right? Telling everyone to take out gluten, even though research really shows that there isn’t even necessarily such a thing as non-celiac gluten sensitivity. Because a lot of the research looking at people who self identify as having non-celiac gluten sensitivity will have people who already believe they’re sensitive to gluten, and then they go into a challenge where they’re given gluten and they know it, and they have symptoms, right? But of course, when you believe something is bad for you, the nocebo effect is very real. It can create real physical symptoms.So it makes sense that people would report more symptoms in that case. But when people who believe they have non-celiac gluten sensitivity are blinded to the existence of gluten in their diets—so they’re given a baseline diet that is the same for the control and the study groups, and then given gluten in a hidden form, like in a muffin or in a pill, then people don’t actually report differences in symptoms. There’s no difference between the gluten group and the non-gluten group. VirginiaI feel like that doesn’t sit that well with a lot of folks, Christy.ChristyI know, I know. And I’m sorry to ruffle feathers. I mean, I was so there back in the early- to mid-2000s, when the early days of the gluten-free fad started happening. I was convinced that gluten was at the root of my problems and no one could tell me otherwise. I think I would have been very resentful to hear something like that at that time, too.But, in my heart of hearts, looking back on it and even even at the time, I know that part of me was like, “Is this really helping? I don’t actually know. Like, I’m not sure If I feel better. I’m still bingeing, I’m just bingeing on gluten-free foods now. And my stomach is still hurting, I’m still having a lot of these other symptoms that I later realized were connected to endocrine and autoimmune conditions.” So it wasn’t totally clear. I think for anyone who hears that and has a reaction and feels defensive and like, well, I don’t have celiac disease but I still react to gluten. I totally understand that. And it’s possible. It is possible. Who knows, right? But some people who have Celiac Disease are not diagnosed. So, that’s one thing to consider. Another thing to consider is whether or not there might be some placebo and nocebo effects at play. And whether whether you really do truly know that you feel better over time, right?Because the placebo/nocebo effects are powerful drugs, but they can start to wear off over time. So giving yourself enough time to see, like, is this continuing to have an effect? If not, maybe it’s not gluten at all. Maybe there’s something else going on. And I think to listeners of this podcast, I would say especially consider your relationship with food. Consider whether disordered eating might be a play in anything going on for you.VirginiaI just appreciate your empathy for all of that. I think it is tough for folks who have been experiencing these symptoms and really miserable and it’s so understandable to want these things to be the answers. But it’s not helping us in the long run if seizing on a diet-based changed as the answer also creates all this other distress and stress around how to manage that diet change.ChristyAnd sometimes those diet changes can lead to more diet changes, right? If you feel like, okay, gluten, I don’t know if it 100 percent did the trick. I think in wellness culture and with wellness practitioners we are often encouraged then to cut out more foods, cut out more foods, cut out more foods, right? It can become this slippery slope into really restrictive and Orthorexic territory. VirginiaI really want to talk about the anti-vax rabbit hole that you had to go down in this book, as well. I’ve done some reporting on vaccine controversies and talk about intense comment sections—it’s a wild ride. So I see your labor on this particular aspect of it.When I became a parent in 2013, it seemed like we were just coming out of a period of really intense vaccine anxiety related to autism myths. (Thank you, Jenny McCarthy.) So when I had my first baby, there was lots of pro-vaccine sentiment in my parenting circles of people pushing back against that narrative. But of course, since COVID, we now have all this new vaccine fear-mongering. It seems like a lot of folks who were previously either pretty pro-vaccine or at least not taking a strong position have gotten more vaccine hesitant. Tell us a little bit about what you learned in terms of how the wellness industry is influencing all of this.ChristyWhat I’ve found is that the wellness industry is very much at the heart of the anti-vax movement in this COVID phase. There’s been this longstanding entanglement. What we’ve really seen in this COVID phase is prominent wellness influencers who’ve been spreading a lot of other misinformation about food and supplements and other alternative medicine concepts. I don’t know if I should name any names here or not. I talk about them in the book. VirginiaOh, name names. ChristyOkay, well, we’ve got people like Joseph Mercola, Kelly Brogan, Christiane Northrup, some of the big names in alternative medicine were among the anti-vaxxers who played leading roles in spreading misinformation about COVID vaccines on social media. They get people in with a diet and alternative medicine info, like the promise of healing chronic conditions or getting off medication through lifestyle changes and things like that. Then the anti-vaccine content becomes folded into those messages.So, they’ll falsely claim that vaccines are unnecessary and harmful, toxic, and that if you’ve been vaccinated you need to detox but also that you need to boost your immune system through diets and supplements, which of course many of them sell. They’ll push back and say, I’ve meticulously sourced these supplements and they’re the best on the market, and I stand by them or whatever. But, that is in fact how they make millions of dollars in many cases, through selling supplements. So, something to consider, right? VirginiaSounds like a red flag for sure. ChristyThey’ll systematically target people in these wellness spaces and parenting spaces, as well. Recently there has been a lot more calling out of social media companies complicity with this because these anti-vax entrepreneurs would you use Facebook ads to target people and that was a very big part of how they built their audiences. Or they would use other social media platforms to get people in, to get people into their groups. And there’s been some cracking down on on anti-vax misinformation on social media, although not nearly enough. One thing I’ve seen, a few months ago with Joseph Mercola is that he’ll post something kind of wellness-y but innocuous that doesn’t seem at all related to vaccines. The body of the tweet will be like, what the shapes in your poop can tell you about your health or something. And then you click the link and the actual link go is to an anti-vax piece of content.VirginiaOh my God. It’s like putting like disinformation on top of disinformation! Also the shapes in your poop don’t tell you your horoscope or whatever he’s claiming.ChristyRight, right. No, it’s totally ridiculous. So that’s how wellness and the anti-vax movement are so intertwined. But I think even leaving aside these, I think the wellness space itself was really primed for this kind of misinformation to spread because it really preys on the idea that you shouldn’t put anything quote unquote unnatural in your body. Like, I think that’s the primary way that people get pulled into this worldview is thinking about pure food, but then it sort of bleeds over. There’s a slippery slope of that purity type of thinking to household products, makeup, skincare, anything in on or around your body, right? It has to be totally pure and meet all these arbitrary criteria. Then from there it can be a really easy slide to rhetoric around vaccines being supposedly unnatural or toxic or whatever and conspiracy theories about Big Pharma are really kind of endemic to wellness culture already.A lot of people listening to this probably are like, “Well, I’m too smart for that. I wouldn’t be vulnerable to that. I think that’s bananas,” you know. And that’s fair. And I think for many people it might be true, that the really bizarre conspiracy theories aren’t necessarily going to take you in. But I interviewed a number of former anti-vaxxers who are smart people, thoughtful people, parents, who wanted to do the best for their kids. And I think that really makes people vulnerable. VirginiaI mean, just thinking of what we were talking about at the beginning, of the anxiety about your baby choking on blueberries. Like, when you think about the baseline fear that we very naturally are living with as we’re trying to raise our children and keep them alive. We’re incredibly vulnerable. It does make sense to me that getting a little piece of this, and then you get another little piece of this. No one goes for the microchip theory first, but you can see how really smart rational people could build their way towards that. And that’s super insidious. ChristyEven if you have one or two crunchy parent types of things that you’re interested in or do. In the book, I talked to Renee DiResta who’s now a researcher studying mis- and disinformation who herself got interested in these ideas because when she had her first baby, she was looking for information about cloth diapering and making your own baby food, which were things she was interested in. Even though she isn’t like really a crunchy parent, but she had a couple of crunchy interests.VirginiaAll of this is fascinating and depressing and enraging, and making me feel many things. Like, where do we go with this? What do we do to start divesting if we’ve bought into some of these ideas and systems? What should we be advocating for instead? ChristyI think, at the societal level, we really need to make some changes to how the wellness industry is regulated to how the supplement industry is regulated to how social media is regulated. I talk a bit about that in the book. Amending section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is kind of in the weeds, but also a huge deal. Section 230 is called the 25 words that created the internet. It basically allows any social media company not to have the same legal requirements on it that a publisher would have. So you know how people can sue Fox News for defamation, right? They’re allowed to bring a defamation suit against a publisher because of the legal requirements on publishers to publish the truth and not defame individuals or companies. Whereas social media companies and other platforms online that host user generated content are not considered publishers of information. So, anything that users post is not subject to those same requirements. So one proposed solution is to amend the Communications Decency Act to not exempt algorithms for promoting things. Because social media algorithms amplify myths and disinformation. They have been shown to spread that farther, more widely, deeper than the truth. And that’s because these algorithms are designed to maximize engagement. They’re designed to keep people clicking.VirginiaOn the most extreme things. Christy They get engagement from people who are fighting in the comments. They keep you on the platform to be served ads longer. That’s what’s effective. It’s not done that way nefariously. These algorithms weren’t programmed to make us outraged intentionally. It’s just what happened to create the most engagement. So, if we could amend the Communications Decency Act to say platforms may not be liable for everything their users post, but they are liable for algorithmically amplifying content. VirginiaThat would be huge. ChristyAnd in fact, Congress has been debating amending Section 230 recently. So call your Congress people.Find your reps!But at the individual level, too, I think there are ways to keep yourself more safe from this kind of mis- and disinformation, both practically and also psychologically. One thing is called the SIFT check which is a method for sussing out misinformation and separating the wheat from the chaff. It was developed by a researcher at Washington State University Vancouver named Mike Caulfield who studies digital media literacy. It’s four steps: SIFT. So it’s Stop; Investigate the source; Find better coverage; and Trace claims, quotes and media to the original context. Don’t just take this one social media post as a referendum on what you should be doing.VirginiaWhich usually have no sourcing, statistics that have no citations attached. Totally just numbers that someone put on a picture in Canva.ChristyYep, exactly. The whole point of SIFT really is to have a quick check to say let me just take myself out of the flow of this information rather than deeply engaging with it because Caulfield’s point is that critical thinking is actually deeply engaging with something. That’s what disinformation wants you to do because the more you deeply engage, the more primed you are for more disinformation, right? So if you can quickly take yourself out of the flow of it, that helps you from getting indoctrinated by it and it helps also keep it from spreading.VirginiaSuch good advice and it’s something we can teach the kids, too, which I really love. It seems like a really useful tool to keep in our back pockets.ChristyTotally. Butter for for your Burnt ToastChristyI’ve been really enjoying the show Severance. I am not not super far into it yet. I’m several episodes in, so I won’t give any spoilers and anyone who’s listening don’t give any spoilers, but…VirginiaI won’t but good choice. ChristyIt’s fascinating. I think it’s also really appealing to me maybe because of my difficulty balancing work life and mom life and everything else. It’s making me think deeply and interestingly about what it means to have a separation between the two. And the fact that the messiness and the difficulty with that balance and the need to like pare down our commitments, is actually a very human thing and a very important thing. And if we are severed in our work life and personal life, the incredible harms that can cause and the way that late stage capitalism pushes us in that direction, to try to be a ton of automatons who are just working through everything. With everything that’s happened in the last several years, I think more and more people are now pushing back on that. So it’s an interesting show for this time.VirginiaOh, it’s brilliant. Brilliant. And this is not a spoiler, but I will just say when you get to the season finale, it is the most riveting 45 minutes of television I can remember watching in years. Dan and I were just mouths open the entire time, like what is happening! I was so tense, but it was in a good way. So it’s a great recommendation for anyone who hasn’t gotten there and season two is coming soon. ChristyExactly. Then you can get in there.VirginiaSo my recommendation is a really great YA novel I just read called Love Is a Revolution by Renee Watson. The main character is Nala who is black plus-sized girl in living in Harlem, and her relationships with her friends and her family. It’s so great because it centers a fat character but it is not about her weight. That’s just there. At one point somebody says something about, like, does she like her body and she’s like, stop assuming I don’t like my body just because I’m fat. Like, go away. I’ve been very into light and comforting reads in the last, oh, I don’t know, five years. Maybe because a lot of the time what we do for work is heavy and I need escape. But I’m also always looking for great fat representation and this definitely checks all of those boxes. So anyone looking for a great weekend read. And I would say totally appropriate for 10-11 and up, for sure, for kids. ChristyThat’s awesome. I’m going to check that out, too.VirginiaChristy, thank you so much. This was great. Everyone, of course, needs to go get The Wellness Trap anywhere you buy books. Tell us how else we can support you and support your work.ChristyYeah, thank you so much for having me. It’s such a great conversation. People can find me at my website, Christyharrison.com. I also now have not one but two podcasts. I have a new podcast calledRethinking Wellness with Christy Harrisonthat continues the conversation about all these things we’ve been talking about. I was just so fascinated by everyone I interviewed for the book and wanted a space to continue those conversations. So definitely you can check that out wherever you’re listening to this.VirginiaPerfect thank you so much, Christy. This was wonderful.ChristyThank you so much, Virginia.

FAT TALK is now out in the world! To celebrate, Corinne is here to chat with Virginia about the writing and reporting process. If you love what you hear, you can order the hardcover, ebook, or audiobook (or if you’re in the UK and the Commonwealth, the paperback) anywhere you buy books. Split Rock has signed copies (feel free to request a personal inscription!). If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctosr, or any kind of health care providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.LINKSThe Eating InstinctDiet Coke, obviously.a great review in the Washington PostRead an excerpt from Chapter 11 herelast week’s podcastAmyLynn Steger StrongAubrey GordonSabrina StringsDa'Shaun HarrisonMarquisele MercedesGirls and Sex and Boys and Sex by Peggy OrensteinVirginia's sensitivity reader Doman excerpt of the dads chapter in The AtlanticThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!VirginiaYou’re listening to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. I also write the Burnt Toast newsletter.CorinneAnd I’m Corinne Fay. I work on Burnt Toast and run Selltradeplus. I am super excited because today we’re talking about FAT TALK, which is officially out this week. I thought it would be fun to ask Virginia some questions about writing the book and that whole process—because it has been a process.Order FAT TALK here!VirginiaIt has been a process. And you have been along for a lot of the process! I appreciate you. I appreciate you doing this. Thank you. CorinneI’m really excited to hear a little more behind the scenes and I think our little Burnt Toasties will be excited, too. VirginiaIt’s a little weird to be interviewed on your own podcast, but let’s do it. I’m into it! This is stuff you’re not going to hear in the other media coverage. It is Burnt Toast exclusive content!CorinneSo, this is your second book. I’m really curious about how the idea for this one came about.VirginiaAfter I wrote The Eating Instinct I was doing press and events and talking to people. I was hearing a lot from parents, in particular. It was a little surprising to me because I don’t think of that one as a parenting book, although my motherhood story is in it, but it has a lot of non-parenting stuff, too. But that’s definitely who gravitated to the book. So, I was hearing these questions over and over from folks. “What do I do about my kid and food and my kid and weight and what the doctor says?” and all the things we always talk about. It became clear to me that people were really saying, “I want my kid to have a good relationship with food. I want them to love their body. I don’t want them to get an eating disorder. But I don’t want them to be fat.” And we can’t have it both ways.You can’t encourage a child to have a healthy relationship with food and body if we are only allowing certain bodies to have that. That’s where I realized, in a way, The Eating Instinct did not go far enough. It started with food, which I think is the place a lot of people start with this work, but what we had to get to is anti-fat bias. That’s the bedrock of the whole conversation. So I thought, oh, I need to write a book for parents about anti-fat bias. Like what it is, why you have it, how to unlearn it, how to raise kids in a world that throws so much of that at us.CorinneThat makes a lot of sense. How did you start the writing process? Was there a first sentence or a first chapter you wrote? Did you make an outline first? Where does it all begin?VirginiaI actually tried to write a totally different book after The Eating Instinct for a while. That’s something that I think only me and my agent know. I thought I was going to write a book about girl culture and girlhood… I don’t really remember. It didn’t work. So I spent a long time writing that proposal and I knew it wasn’t going to work. I sent it to my agent—and I love my agent, we have a great relationship. But when something’s not working, she does not email me back super fast. Some time went by and it was also COVID. I think I got it to her in early 2020 and then the pandemic hit and everything was crazy. But she was like, “Yeah, this isn’t hanging together as a book. There’s no hook.”I’m trying to remember when I had the epiphany of like, oh, wait, it’s Fat Talk, that’s the book. Well, originally I was calling it Fat Kid Phobia. But that concept came to me at some point in 2020. And of course, I had zero child care. I was potty training a two-year-old and house training a puppy and trapped in my house with both of them. So the book proposal was definitely happening around the edges of the chaos of COVID lockdown. But once this book came to me, it was so much clearer.I spent months slogging through the proposal for the idea that didn’t work. And this proposal I was able to—when we finally got some childcare later in 2020—just bang out in two weeks. It really came together fast. I think that’s often a sign for me that I’m actually headed in the right direction, if writing does not feel super slow and torturous. In order to sell a nonfiction book, you write a very full proposal that includes an outline. So you kind of have to do an outline whether you like outlining or not. As a writer, I—it will probably not surprise people to know—do like outlining for big projects. I’m a somewhat compulsively organized human being. Corinne knows there’s a lot of spreadsheets in my life, color coded things. CorinneSome really beautiful work in Excel. VirginiaYes, thank you.So you do have to do an outline. And I just want to say: Writing a book proposal is the worst. It’s the hardest, most horrible part of the process because you’re basically trying to put together a whole book that you haven’t researched yet. You don’t actually know everything that you need to know. So it feels like you’re making it up and there’s a lot of impostor syndrome.Because it was my second book, I did not have to write a sample chapter. Usually, you have to write a sample chapter, as well. So that was nice. My agent was like, “They know you can write a book now.” But you have to write this whole overview that explains what the book is, and who the reader is, and why it matters, and why now, and all of these things. Then you have to do a table of contents and detailed chapter summaries. So I had done all of that and once I had the contract and it was time to start working on it, I did have the outline to work from. I was basically taking it chapter by chapter—except I always leave the introduction for last. That I don’t write until the very end. So the first sentence of chapter one is the first sentence I wrote, which is very linear. There were other chapters where I started it one way and then threw that out and found a different way. That definitely happens. It’s not so paint by number. But for getting it started, the outline was really, really helpful. I was also doing all the reporting, finding sources, doing all the interviews. And that was really different this time around because of COVID. I wasn’t doing any in person interviews, really. It was all over Zoom which is such a different reporting experience after doing years of in person reporting, but I ended up really liking it. I could talk to way more people because I didn’t have to travel to them. And unless people blur their backgrounds, you do immediately get dropped into someone’s life in a nice way, whereas if you meet them in a coffee shop or something you don’t always have that sense of them.CorinneYeah, that is interesting.VirginiaSo from January 2021 through June 2022. It was just slogging through chapter after chapter, researching, writing, researching, writing. Rinse, repeat.CorinneAnd while you’re writing, do you have a spot that you like to write? Is it your office? Is it somewhere else? A dreamy Airbnb?VirginiaGod, I wish. No, I am not that romantic writer. I’ve never been to a writer’s retreat. I would love to but I feel like I’m just not cool enough for that. Plus, they don’t usually involve childcare. They seem like something that’s great for single men. If folks know about good writer retreats for moms, hit me up because I would go to one. But no, I write in my office right here where I’m sitting talking to you. This is where it all happens.I don’t actually like to work outside of my office in my house. I have a funny video from midway through COVID of me working on the couch because, again, we had no childcare, and Beatrix who was two-and-a-half, repeatedly closing my laptop saying, “Mama no work.” Me sobbing like, “But I have to work.” Funny memory. Trauma. Anyway!I prefer to work in my office and keep that work/life division but often because I’m with my kids after school, I’m bringing my laptop downstairs to finish stuff in the living room while they’re getting snacks. My boundaries are not perfect, but that’s the idea. I do a lot of early morning writing, too. I just find I can get like 2000 words written in two hours in the morning if I start at like 5am. And if I started at 9am, the same 2000 words will take me three days. I don’t understand what it is, just so many more distractions. Something about that early morning time is helpful. CorinneInteresting. And what about snacks? Any snacks that made Fat Talk possible?VirginiaChocolate chips! Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips by the bowlful. They are really important to my process.CorinneBeverages? VirginiaDiet Coke, obviously.CorinneOh right, I forgot.VirginiaThis book definitely ran on Diet Coke. So much Diet Coke. Extra toasty cheez-its. When I’m in intense, head-down, book-writing mode I don’t have a lot of time for food prep. So it is very grab-and-go. Oh, and here I have one on my desk right now: Uncrustables. My little snack for later.CorinneNot just for kids? VirginiaNo, I think uncrustables are like the unsung genius. They’re tasty. They’re portable. They’re very efficient. If you like a power bar or one of those things, an Uncrustable is the same concept. It’s just peanut butter.CorinneOkay, I need to try.VirginiaThey’re delicious. They’re in a little pillow of bread. What’s not to love?CorinneSounds good!I feel like a really important part of Fat Talk is all the stories and interviews and anecdotes that are within the chapters. I’m so curious about how those work. How do you find people to interview? What are the logistics—you mentioned Zoom? And is it ever super awkward? Because I imagine it would be.VirginiaYeah, it’s really changed a lot over the years. This is probably the aspect of my professional life that has been most impacted by the internet and the way we live now.When I started my career as a journalist, if you worked in women’s magazines, finding we called them “real people stories” was the bedrock of every feature. You always had to have your real people’s stories. Often, at Marie Claire or whatever, it was sending a junior editor like me out into Times Square. There’s a story I did—one of my real, real proud moments as a women’s magazine story writer—was my first coverline piece, which was “I Dumped Him During Sex!” where I found a bachelorette party in Times Square to get their wildest breakup stories, one of which was the girl who broke up with her boyfriend during sex.CorinneI could see why that was a coverline. I am buying that magazine.VirginiaI know, it was very compelling. My editor was really happy with me. I mean, it fell apart fast in fact checking because she was sober when we had to call back to fact check. We did manage to keep it, I think we changed her name because the next day, she was like, “I do not want to be quoted telling that story.” And I was like, “Why? I can’t imagine!”Traditional journalism was that man-on-the-street or drunk-bachelorette-on-the-street reporting. And obviously, now I live in the woods so that’s not how my life works anymore. Thank God, honestly. That was not my proudest moment.Then it shifted to doing a lot of call-outs on social media. And it is weird because you feel like you’re casting almost sometimes. You’re like, “I want to write a story about this so I need to find someone who’s experienced this.” And you have to think how to word the call out in order to connect with people who will resonate with the story, but not so that you’re like manipulating who will respond to you. You put a lot of thought into how to explain the story in vague  yet enticing terms. I don’t know, it’s very strange. So for this, it was a lot of me posting. I would do it on my own social media, I would put the call outs on Burnt Toast, so there are a lot of Burnt Toast readers who contributed stories to the book!Corinne Oh, cool!VirginiaBut also Facebook Mom groups and different Health at Every Size or fat activism groups on Facebook were really useful. Just trying to find the forums where people people who would resonate with the topics are already talking about this stuff and might have stories that they want to share. It is interesting, because some people love talking to a journalist and are really excited to open up their lives and some people think they like the idea and then when you actually get on Zoom or on the phone with them, it suddenly feels incredibly invasive. Which is very valid because it is very invasive. You know, it’s really tough. I think that’s the awkward part.  I really care about my sources and I really care about them feeling safe and feeling good about sharing their story, especially in a book like Fat Talk. I even care about that drunk bachelorette and I should not have interviewed her. That was a violation of trust between us, having met in the bar that night. Especially for the type of reporting that this book is, where I was often going back and having multiple conversations with a family, interviewing different members of a family, getting to know them over a few months.I feel really protective of them and I have to balance that with, I need to ask certain questions, or pull out certain details in order for the story to work and make sense to the reader who doesn’t know them and needs to be brought into this full picture of their lives. So it is a weird tension. The best you can do is just try to make clear that you are trying to do justice to their story. It usually helps for folks to care about the issue and want to help raise awareness. There have been times in my career where I’ve been like, yeah, that was our goal but I don’t know that we achieved it and you still had to tell this really personal story. The other thing that we did in this book was we changed the names of all the kids and any grownups affiliated with the kids, unless they were someone who had already been public with their story in a different article or something. Because I just really felt—and my editor agreed with this, too—that if you’re 14 and you talk to me about your eating disorder, that doesn’t need to show up in your Google results ten years from now.CorinneTotally.VirginiaWe ended up even changing names of people who probably didn’t care, didn’t even have like a super personal story. But I was like, let’s just do it across the board and protect people. I feel good about that. CorinneWhen you go into interviews with these people, do they know what the book is about? Like, are you like “I’m writing a book about anti-fat bias” or are you just like, “I’m writing a book about food.” Do they know your perspective?VirginiaI feel like that was important for people to understand, because this is a book that will get some pushback. I mean, it just got a great review in the Washington Post which is so lovely and then there are 800 garbage comments in the comment section, just like total dumpster fire of comments. So I did want people to understand this is a book that brings out anti-fat trolls. That was another reason for changing names, right? The last thing I want is any of those people finding these kids or their parents who have been through enough, and bringing that to them. So I would always give a little spiel and sometimes send links to my previous work and my other book.The traditional journalism rules are like, be super impartial and reveal nothing about yourself and be this blank slate for your sources. And in this day and age and with this kind of project, I feel that is ethically dubious. I think that journalism can have a perspective. Certainly the journalism I do is activism-journalism, kind of a hybrid approach, and people can understand that. I mean, not every source agreed with me for sure. There was one woman where we had an interview where she was really eager to dismantle diet culture and talk about how it impacted her life and how she didn’t want to pass it on to her kids. And when I circled back to her months later, she was like, “I’m taking my child to a weight loss clinic.” She was in a totally different place with it. And that’s really heartbreaking, but that’s her story and her right, of course.CorinneNow that the book is out there, do you have a favorite chapter?VirginiaThat is really hard, Corinne! That’s like do you have a favorite kid or a favorite book.CorinneOkay, okay. VirginiaI don’t know. Do you have a favorite chapter?CorinneI would have to revisit the table of contents, but there are definitely stories that I read that have really stuck with me.VirginiaI’m curious which ones. CorinneDefinitely the one about the parents who were locking up Oreos. VirginiaYeah. The lockbox.CorinneI have spent a lot of time thinking about those kids and that family. VirginiaThat family was amazing to work with. They were really open. I got to interview the mom, the dad, and both kids, and we’ve stayed in touch. They taught me a lot. That’s the “Snack Monsters and Sugar Addicts” chapter. I also really love chapter 11: “I Got Taller and Gymnastics Got Scarier,” about anti-fatness in youth sports and dance. (Read an excerpt from Chapter 11 here.)CorinneI like that one, too. That one was really good. VirginiaI was nervous to write it because I did feel like I had to check a lot of my own biases, as someone who hates sports and never played sports and never wanted to play sports and don’t really understand the function of sports in our society as a force for good. I did have to sort of dig deep because I just want to be like, “it doesn’t matter. Just don’t play sports. They’re terrible.” Because that’s not where most people are on that topic.And so I had to really think about like, Okay, what do sports offer kids in terms of relationships with their bodies? Like, what’s positive about it? Oh, wow, fat kids are actually missing out on a whole ton of things because of this. And also, let’s talk about all the toxicity and the hustle culture and deciding that kids bodies are this tool for coaches to manipulate however they want. There’s so much there.Are you a sports person? I don’t know this about you.CorinneI played a few sports, at least at the beginning of high school. And then I kind of dropped out of them all by my senior year when I was just like, “I’m more of like an arts person.” But I do kind of regret it because I do feel like you get a lot from sports. Like, I feel like there’s camaraderie and also just the opportunity to find joy in moving your body, which I think I did and really lost for a while.VirginiaI don’t think I ever experienced that as a kid because I was unathletic and self-labeled as unathletic and then reinforced as unathletic. Gym class was just a torture zone to me. Like, I was mortified to be there all the time. From really early on, from like first and second grade, I can remember just being horrified of gym class. CorinneYeah, there are some really young kids who go to the gym I go to—I think they work with some high school programs? And I always just wonder, what if I had discovered this when I was 17 instead of 37? VirginiaI do feel like the focus on team sports is really misguided in that way, because so few adults can play team sports. If we’re really trying to foster a love of movement for kids, shouldn’t we be focusing on things that you do in an individual way? That you can easily do as an adult? That are accessible? CorinneOr team sports that are for the joy of it rather than like, can we beat the next town over and anyone who can’t run a mile in six minutes is going to be cut and you should be barfing after every race or whatever.VirginiaThere’s a funny thing. It’s not in that chapter actually, it’s in the dads chapter. But one of the dads I interviewed talked about being a wrestler in high school and how in order to make weight they would chew tobacco and spit. Because if you could spit enough, you could lose water weight. And I was just like, I mean, if there was ever an example of how youth sports are not centering children’s health! Because this was a totally fine practice, like his teachers would be like, “Great. Just go sit in the corner. You got to spit because we got to go to states.”CorinneWhat about other highs and lows of writing fat talk? Are there times where you were like, “This is amazing. I can’t believe I am doing this.”? And I’m sure there were also times where you were like, “I’m giving up.”VirginiaMore of those, I think. I don’t love all the book writing motherhood metaphor stuff, but it is a little bit like childbirth, where I think I’ve blacked out a lot of it. Like, I am like talking to you about the schedule and I’m like, how was I getting that done? I don’t understand.VirginiaChapter one was really hard to write. Chapter one is the longest chapter in the book. Folks are going to have heard it on last week’s podcast because we’re doing the audiobook excerpt. And it was a lot of reporting. It was really when I sat down and wrestled into the ground the arguments about weight and health and like how the childhood obesity epidemic is in many ways a government and media creation. I think I was really afraid to wrap my head fully around all of those arguments before I did that chapter. Then once I did it, the first draft of it was like 20,000 words long. It was so long. And it was like, I gotta rein it in a little. Some of this is actually chapter two. But I remember just feeling like, okay, now I can get through the rest of this book. I think, for so many of us, as you work your way through being anti-diet and getting into fat liberation and all of this. There are these third rail arguments that you’re always afraid to have, where you freak out when people say this. Like, what do I say when someone says, But what about health? And that was the chapter. I was like, I have to look at all of those and figure out how to knock them all down. And I wasn’t sure I could before I got into it. So that was a high. The lows were more related to the stress of writing a book on top of running a newsletter on top of—I think for at least the first chunk, I was still freelancing. And having two children who I’m supposed to be raising. The time management stuff. There was a real womp-womp moment. I turned in the manuscript, the first draft of the manuscript at the end of June 2022 and I thought I wouldn’t have to start revises until September so I was like, I’m gonna have my summer. It’s going to be so chill. This is great. I can come up for air. I was very burned out. It been like so much work to get that book written. And then they were like, so Labor Day for revises? And I was just like, I oh my god I have to get back into it so fast. I had a week of decompressing before my editor sent the draft back and was like, “Okay, now we need…”And thankfully her notes were pretty minimal. That was like when I had you read it, your notes were excellent. And Amy read it and gave me a lot of notes and my friend Lynn Steger Strong, who is a brilliant novelist, read it. Then I was taking everybody’s notes and trying to put it all back together. It wasn’t torture, but I was aware of being very at capacity at that point. So that was a little bit of a low.I think you think of book writing as just writing the book and done, but there’s all the prewriting and proposal, then there is writing, and there is revising. And then pretty much as soon as you’re done with revising, it’s time to start planning for the launch. CorinneWhat about anyone whose work really influenced this book? VirginiaEvery major fat activist, for sure. You know, Marilyn Wann, we’ve talked about our love for her. Ragen Chastain. Aubrey Gordon, obviously. Sabrina Strings, Da'Shaun Harrison, Marquisele Mercedes. There is just a list of people that I’m constantly learning from. In terms of thinking about the structure and the writing of the book, I think Peggy Orenstein’s journalism is a model that I use a lot. Her Girls and Sex and Boys and Sex were so well done. The way she balances narrative and argument is something I’ve really studied a lot and try to model my work on. I think it’s really easy for these books to either be all polemic and rant or very research heavy and dense and hard to get through. I think what I bring to the table is the narrative piece. I think a lot about how to weave it all together. And yeah, Peggy’s work is a big influence on me for that.Shop the Burnt Toast Bookstore!CorinneYeah, that makes sense. If you could ask one person in the world to read this book who would it be?VirginiaI feel like it’s Michelle Obama. CorinneOh, I love that answer. VirginiaBut I think she’s going to be mad at me about chapter one. She is the most well known and obviously the person with the most influence in terms of progressives who centered on childhood obesity as their fight, when they should have been fighting poverty and inequities. I talk a lot about how that contributed to all of the fearmongering around childhood obesity, that we all grew up with and that parents today carry so much around. I also really try to do justice to the fact that her own body has been the source of so much scrutiny and racism and anti-fatness. And this is something my sensitivity reader Dom was really helpful in making sure I really pulled out in the draft. Because I think it makes sense with the narrative that she grew up with around bodies and then the way her body and her daughter’s bodies were like products for our country to dissect was horrific. And also, I would love her to keep pushing on this. I see it now in her new book, the way she still talks about bodies. There’s a very, like, girl boss kind of attitude towards that. And I’m just like, Oh, we’re not quite there. And Michelle, you could do so much good on this. I would just love her to become an anti-fat bias activist.CorinneWell, as we discussed, there’s a big part of the book beyond writing, which is editing. Is there anything that didn’t make it into the book that you were really sad about leaving out? VirginiaThe funny thing is, I’ve written thousands of words that didn’t make it into this book. I always copy and paste and drop them into another document because at the time, I’m like, this is so important and I can’t believe I’m cutting it and I’m going to need it. It’s just so painful to me to take this out. And now I cannot tell you one thing that is in that folder, like I have no idea. CorinneMmm, interesting. VirginiaI know I cut some stuff that felt super important and now it’s just gone. But what I will say was harder was I did interview lots of people whose stories didn’t make it into the book, like didn’t even make it into the first draft. And I do think about some of those. There are a lot of those narratives that I would have loved to include. Like I interviewed this really great trans dad about his body journey and how diet culture shows up in the trans community and his relationship with his kids and all of that, and it just didn’t end up fitting. The dads chapter ended up being about straight white dads. (Read an excerpt of the dads chapter in The Atlantic!)I wanted to really deal with that cis male Peter Attia hyper macho narrative and I didn’t find another space to get into trans dads. And it felt weird to do a chapter just on trans dads. And you know, that’s not my story to tell. That’s one interview I was just thinking about the other week. I was like, oh, I didn’t get him in and that was such a great conversation, and it did influence all of those conversations. There’s a mom in Indiana, I’m thinking about, too, who didn’t make it in. There was fascinating stuff about her childhood growing up poor and food insecure. And all these different stories, the essence of them still really informed the book. But this is a really long book. It’s like 120,000 words. And if I had included everyone I wanted, it would have been like 200,000 words, and no one would read it.CorinneDon’t be disheartened! It’s an easy read.VirginiaThank you, Corinne. I appreciate that. CorinneIt moves along. VirginiaIt’s a zippy read, right?CorinneIt’s a zippy read. There we go. Okay, well, I almost hate to ask you this. But how long before you start thinking about your next book? Or you already thinking about it? VirginiaAhh, no. No.Corinne It’s like asking seniors what they’re going to do after they graduate.VirginiaNot okay with that question. My children feel really sorry for me that I don’t write children’s books. And they bring this up often. At dinner the other night, Beatrix said to me, “Are there no pictures in Fat Talk?” And I said, “there are no pictures.” And she goes, “and there are no pop-ups?” And I was like, “there are no pop-ups.” And she was like, “really?? Not one pop-up? Maybe a little pop-up?” She was so sorry for me. CorinneI love that so much.VirginiaShe just made a book in kindergarten that she brought home to show me that does have pictures and a pop-up page.CorinneJust a suggestion, mom.VirginiaYes. She just really wanted to be clear that it’s nice that I have this book, but she has published hers with pop ups and I just haven’t quite achieved that yet. CorinneIs this your way of telling us you’re going to write a children’s book with pop ups?VirginiaI think I’m absolutely not going to do that. But I will say one of the questions I get asked most often is about this gap in kid’s lit. I think it’s improving, to be honest. I think we’ve had lots of great children’s and YA authors on the podcast, that we are getting more and more options. But I haven’t seen a Fat Talk for kids. I don’t think it would have pop-ups. I think it would probably be for older kids, but that’s something I’ve pondered, how to engage kids directly in questions of anti fat bias.CorinneI love that idea. VirginiaYeah, but I’ve gotten no further with it. I mean, writing for kids is a whole different genre and skill set. So bottom line, no. I have no ideas. There are things kicking around. My daughter would like a pop up book. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.CorinneBottom line, please leave me alone.VirginiaIt is a terrible question. CorinneI know, I’m sorry.VirginiaI’m just trying to get through this. It took me a while after The Eating Instinct to find this book. I’m going to just trust that the next one will show up eventually.CorinneI can’t wait to hear what it is when it happens.VirginiaEventually, somehow. With or without pop-ups.Thank you for doing this. This was really fun! Thank you guys so much for listening to Burnt Toast.CorinneIf you’d like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and leave us a rating or review. These really helps folks find the show.

Today is a very special episode: You are all going to be the very, very first people to hear me read Chapter 1 of FAT TALK: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture, which comes out in just 5 days, on April 25. We are excerpting this from the audiobook, which I got to narrate. If you love what you hear, I hope you will order the audiobook or the hardcover (or if you’re in the UK and the Commonwealth, the paperback) anywhere you buy books. Split Rock has signed copies and don’t forget that when you order from them, you can also take 10 percent off anything in the Burnt Toast Bookshop.If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of health care providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.LINKSThat photo by Katy Grannanarchived in the National Portrait Gallery’s Catalog of American PortraitsAnamarie Regino on Good Morning AmericaLisa Belkin's NYT Magazine articlea report published in Children’s Voicea judge ordered two teenagers into foster care2010 analysis published in the DePaul Journal of Health Care LawFat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American CultureFearing the Black BodyHilde Bruch's research papersNational Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA)Judy Freespirit and Aldebaran wrote the first “Fat Manifesto”Several studies from the 1960sresearchers revisited the picture ranking experimentthe 1999–2000 NHANES showed a youth obesity rate of 13.9 percentreaching 19.3 percent in the 2017–2018 NHANESData collected from 1976 to 1980 showed that 15 percent of adults met criteria for obesity.By 2007, it had risen to 34 percent.The most recent NHANES data puts the rate of obesity among adults at 42.4 percent.The NHANES researchers determine our annual rate of obesity by collecting the body mass index scores of about 5,000 Americans (a nationally representative sample) each year.A major shift happened in 1998, when the National Institutes of Health’s task force lowered the BMI’s cutoff points for each weight category, a math equation that moved 29 million Americans who had previously been classified as normal weight or just overweight into the overweight and obese categories.in 2005, epidemiologists at the CDC and the National Cancer Institute published a paper analyzing the number of deaths associated with each of these weight categories in the year 2000 and found that overweight BMIs were associated with fewer deaths than normal weight BMIs.in 2013, Flegal and her colleagues published a systematic literature review of ninety-seven such papers, involving almost three million participants, and concluded, again, that having an overweight BMI was associated with a lower rate of death than a normal BMI in all of the studies that had adequately adjusted for factors like age, sex, and smoking status.But in 2021, years after retiring, Flegal published an article in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases that details the backlash her work received from obesity researchers.After her paper was published, former students of the obesity researchers most outraged by Flegal’s work took to Twitter to recall how they were instructed not to trust her analysis because Flegal was “a little bit plump herself.”the BMI-for-age chart used in most doctors’ offices today is based on what children weighed between 1963 and 1994. a 1993 study by researchers at the United States Department of Health and Human Services titled “Actual Causes of Death in the United States.” the study’s authors published a letter to the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine saying, “You [ . . . ] cited our 1993 paper as claiming ‘that every year 300,000 deaths in the United States are caused by obesity.’ That is not what we claimed.”“Get in Shape, Girl!”The Fat Studies ReaderToo Fat for Chinaas I reported for the New York Times Magazine in 2019, it has become a common practice for infertility clinics to deny in vitro fertilization and other treatments to mothers above a certain body weightMichelle Obama 2016 speech, another speech, a 2010 speech to the School Nutrition Association, 2013 speechMarion Nestle, a 2011 blog postfood insecurity impacted 21 percent of all American households with children when Obama was elected TheHill.com story on SNAP“I could live on French fries,” she told the New York Times in 2009, explaining that she doesn’t because “I have hips.”Ellyn Satter's an open letter to Obamaseveral other critiques of “Let’s Move"“I don’t want our children to be weight-obsessed"The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!---You’re listening to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and body liberation. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, and I also write the Burnt Toast newsletter.And, as I may have mentioned, I’m the author of FAT TALK: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture, which comes out in just five days. WHAT. So we have a very special episode of Burnt Toast for you today. You are all going to be the very, very first people to hear me read Chapter 1.We are excerpting this from the audiobook, which I got to narrate. It was way more intense than I expected, more difficult than podcasting, but also very fun and one of the most rewarding creative experiences I’ve ever had. I will also say that Chapter 1 was the most physically exhausting one to record because it’s the longest chapter in the book. (No I did not know that sitting still and talking for hours would be physically exhausting but it is!) So if you’re daunted by the length of this episode, please know that other book chapters are easy breezy! Maybe not easy breezy, but they are shorter, whether that is on paper or in your ears. But this is also the chapter I am most proud of, in a lot of ways. I’m so excited for you to hear it. (Content warning for explicit discussions of medical anti-fat bias, childhood trauma, dieting, eating disorders and some unfortunately necessary use of weight numbers and o words. Take care of yourselves!)And of course, if you love what you hear, I hope you will order the audiobook or the hardcover (or if you’re in the UK and the Commonwealth, the paperback) anywhere you buy books. Split Rock has signed copies and don’t forget that when you order from them, you can also take 10 percent off anything in the Burnt Toast Bookshop.Preorder FAT TALK!Thank you so much for supporting this entire process. I give you: The Myth of the Childhood Obesity Epidemic.Chapter 1: The Myth of the Childhood Obesity EpidemicAnamarie Regino is a 25-year-old in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who looks a lot like every other 25-year-old on TikTok. She posts videos of her dogs and her tattoos. She lip syncs and tries out new ways to wear eyeliner. And she participates in sassy memes: “Soooo . . . this whole meme that’s going around with ‘decade challenge’?” she says in a video from 2019. “I just want to say: I think I won that.” Then Anamarie’s current lipsticked smirk is replaced by a photo of her from 2009. In both shots, Anamarie is fat. In fact, in other recent TikTok videos and Instagram posts, Anamarie proudly describes herself as fat, affectionately calls out her double chin, and uses hashtags like #PlusSize and #BBW (short for “big, beautiful woman”). But this video is also tagged #WeightLossCheck, because in the 2009 photo, Anamarie is significantly larger than her adult self. Twelve-year-old Anamarie has a half-hearted smile, but her dark bangs are swept over most of her face. It is the classic awkward “before” shot.It’s not, however, the most famous photo ever taken of Anamarie. That photo, shot by Katy Grannan when Anamarie was just four years old, first ran in a 2001 New York Times Magazine story and is now archived in the National Portrait Gallery’s Catalog of American Portraits. Anamarie’s body became part of our historical record when she was removed from her parents’ custody by the state of New Mexico because she weighed over 120 pounds at age three, and social workers determined that her parents “have not been able or willing” to control her weight.The case made international headlines, with Anamarie’s parents telling their story to Good Morning America and to Lisa Belkin of the New York Times Magazine, for the article that accompanied Grannan’s portrait. Anamarie’s mother, Adela Martinez-Regino, had long been concerned about her daughter’s appetite and her rapid growth, and then, her delayed speech and mobility. She sought help from medical professionals repeatedly from the time Anamarie was just a few months old, and multiple tests ruled out any known genetic cause, such as Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare chromosomal disorder that causes children to never feel fullness. But Anamarie continued to grow. And doctors grew frustrated by what they perceived to be a dangerous pattern: Anamarie would lose weight when undergoing their intensive medical regimens, including prescription liquid diets that provided her no more than 550 calories per day. But she would regain the weight when the protocol ended and she was once again left in her family’s care. To the doctors, the risks to Anamarie lay not in their use of aggressive weight loss tactics on a toddler but in what happened when her family let her eat. “They treated her for four years, doctor after doctor. Not one of them could help. Then they took her away for months, and they still couldn’t tell me what was wrong,” Martinez-Regino told Belkin. “They’ve played around with her life like she was some kind of experiment. [ . . . ] They don’t know what’s wrong, so they blame us.”Martinez-Regino also reported that when Anamarie was taken from her parents, they had to listen to their daughter screaming for them as a nurse wheeled her away. During her months in foster care, Anamarie lost some weight and got new glasses but also stopped speaking Spanish (her father’s native language) and was understandably traumatized by the separation from her parents. The state’s decision to take custody of Anamarie was immediately controversial: “If this were a wealthy, white, professional family, would their child have been taken away?” Belkin asked in her piece, noting how often doctors and social workers perceived a language barrier with the Regino family, even though English was Anamarie’s mother’s first language. As a nation, we debated the question in op-eds, on daytime talk shows, and at water coolers: Should a child’s high body weight be viewed as evidence of child abuse?Anamarie Regino wasn’t the first or the last child to be removed from parental custody due to her weight. In 1998, a California mother was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse after her thirteen-year-old daughter, Christina Corrigan, died weighing 680 pounds. A handful of similar cases popped up in Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas over the subsequent decade, according to a report published in Children’s Voice, a publication of the Child Welfare League of America. And in 2021, a British case made international headlines when a judge ordered two teenagers into foster care because their parents had failed to make them wear their Fitbits and go to Weight Watchers meetings. A 2010 analysis published in the DePaul Journal of Health Care Law by a legal researcher named Cheryl George summarizes one prevailing cultural attitude on such tragedies:Parents must and should be held accountable for their children’s weight and health. Parents can be a solution in this health care crisis, but when they are derelict in their duties, they must be held criminally responsible for the consequences of their actions.George acknowledged the “fear and anxiety” caused when a child is removed from parental custody but quickly dismissed that as a priority, quoting an earlier article on the subject: “If a child remains with his or her parents in order to affirm the ‘attachment,’ we may be overlooking the looming morbid obesity problem,” she wrote. Never mind that removing custody in an effort to address this “morbid obesity” overlooks a child’s emotional and developmental needs, as well as several basic human rights.A New Mexico judge dismissed charges against Anamarie’s parents after a psychiatric evaluation of Martinez-Regino found no evidence of psychological abuse. But the family was left to sort through the wreckage of those harrowing months, while continuing to seek answers that doctors could not provide to explain Anamarie’s accelerated growth. And Anamarie’s story embedded itself in our national consciousness. She became a kind of “patient zero” for the war on childhood obesity. Even Belkin’s piece, which is largely sympathetic to the family, frames Anamarie’s body as the problem. Belkin makes sure to emphasize how this toddler’s weight made her unlovable, describing Anamarie’s “evolution from chubby to fat to horrifyingly obese” in family photos, and noting that Martinez-Regino “knows that the sight of her daughter makes strangers want to stare and avert their eyes at the same time.” Having a fat child was framed as the ultimate parental failure. Anamarie’s story confirmed that our children’s weight is a key measure of our success as parents, especially for mothers.Nowhere in the public conversations around Anamarie’s early childhood was there ever any attempt to understand what Anamarie herself thought of her body or the treatment she received because of it. Today, her social media makes it clear that she’s proud to have lost weight but also proud to still identify as fat, and maybe also still working it all out. (Anamarie—quite understandably—did not respond to my interview requests.) But in the late 1990s and early 2000s, our anxiety about the dangers of fatness in children far outstripped any awareness of their emotional health.Today, this conversation has evolved, but only so far: We want our kids to love their bodies, but we also continue to take it for granted that fat kids can’t do that. A child’s high body weight is still a problem to solve, a barrier to their ability to be a happy, healthy child. This thinking is the result of a nearly forty-year-old public health crusade against the rising tide of children’s weight. We’ve been told—by our families, our doctors, and voices of authority, including First Lady Michelle Obama— that raising a child at a so-called healthy body weight is an essential part of being a good parent.But when we talk about the impossibility of raising a happy, fat child, we’re ignoring the why: It’s not their bodies causing these kids to have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and disordered eating behaviors. Even when high weight does play a role in health issues, as we’ll explore in Chapter 2, it’s often a corresponding symptom, a constellation point in a larger galaxy of concerns. The real danger to a child in a larger body is how we treat them for having that body. Fat kids are harmed by the world, including, too often, their own families. And our culture was repulsed by fat children long before we considered ourselves amid an epidemic of them. “It is easy for us to assume today that the cultural stigma associated with fatness emerged simply as a result of our recognition of its apparent health dangers,” writes Amy Erdman Farrell, PhD, a feminist historian at Dickinson College, in her 2011 book, Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture. “What is clear from the historical documents, however, is that the connotations of fatness and of the fat person—lazy, gluttonous, greedy, immoral, uncontrolled, stupid, ugly, and lacking in will power—preceded and then were intertwined with explicit concern about health issues.” To understand how we’ve reached this anxious place of wanting our kids to love their bodies, but not wanting them to be fat, we have to first go backward and understand the making of our modern childhood obesity epidemic. And we need to see how it has informed, and been informed by, our ideas about good mothers and good bodies.A SHORT HISTORY OF FATPHOBIAJust as we think of childhood obesity as a modern problem, we often frame fatphobia as a modern response and wax poetic about the days of yore when fat was seen as a sign of wealth, status, and beauty. But when historians dig back through old periodicals, newspapers, medical records, and other historical documents, they find plenty of evidence of anti-fat bias throughout Western history. The ancient Greeks celebrated thin bodies in their sculptures, art, and poetry. By the 1500s, corsets made from wood, bone, and iron were designed to flatten the torsos of the European aristocracy. And early novels like Don Quixote and the plays of Shakespeare are full of fat jokes and fat characters played as fools. For the purposes of understanding our modern childhood obesity epidemic, it’s most helpful to see how Western anti-fatness intensified at the end of the late nineteenth century and then strengthened in the early decades of the twentieth century. This happened in response to the end of American slavery and increasing rights for women and people of color, as Sabrina Strings traces in her seminal work, Fearing the Black Body. In Fat Shame, Farrell notes that for much of the nineteenth century, fatness was attached to affluence and social status “and as such, might be respectable [ . . . ] but also might reveal gluttonous and materialistic traits of specific, unlikeable, and even evil individuals. By the end of the 19th century, fatness also came to represent greed and corrupt political and economic systems.” Around the same time, advances in medicine and sanitation led to a decrease in infant mortality and infectious disease death rates. This meant that by the early 1900s the scientific world could begin to consider the ill effects of high body weight in a more concerted way. And scientists brought their preexisting associations of fat with sloth and amorality to this work.The template for our modern body mass index was first designed as a table of average heights and weights in the 1830s by a Belgian statistician and astronomer named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. Quetelet set out to determine the growth trajectory of the life of the “Average Man,” meaning his white, Belgian, nineteenth century peers. He never intended his scale to assess health. But in the early 1900s, the American life insurance industry began using his work to determine what they called an “ideal weight” for prospective clients based on their height, gender, and age. How closely you matched up to this ideal determined whether you qualified for a standard life insurance policy, paid a higher premium, or were denied coverage. And as the medical world was connecting these first dots between weight and health, we see the unmistakable presence of anti-fat bias. “A certain amount of fat is essential to an appearance of health and beauty,” wrote nutrition researchers Elmer Verner McCollum and Nina Simmonds in 1925. “It is one indication that the state of nutrition is good. [ . . . But] we all agree that excessive fat makes one uncomfortable and unattractive.” Health and beauty were synonymous to these researchers, and many other medical experts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Much of the early scientific work around weight was rooted in the racist belief that fat bodies were more primitive because they made white bodies look more like Black and immigrant bodies. Black women, in particular, were (and still are) stereotyped as a “mammy” (a fat and asexual maternal caretaker of white families), a hypersexual “Jezebel,” or, more recently, a “welfare queen” (a fat, amoral, single mother whose existence endangers the sanctity of the white family). The almost exclusively white and predominantly male fields of medicine and science were eager to find “proof” of white people’s superiority to other racial groups and made broad generalizations about racial differences in body size and shape (as well as facial features, skull size, and so on) to build their case.In 1937, a Jewish psychiatrist named Hilde Bruch set out to challenge the theory of fatness as a sign of racial inferiority by studying hundreds of Jewish and Italian immigrant children in New York City. She examined their bodies (with a particular focus on height, weight, and genital development). She visited their homes to observe children eating and playing, and she interviewed their mothers extensively. And Bruch determined that there was nothing physically wrong with the fat kids in her study—which could have been a huge breaking point in our cultural understanding of weight and health. But although she disputed the notion that fat white immigrants and fat people of color were biologically inferior to thin white Americans, Bruch still framed fatness as a matter of ethnicity: “Obesity occurs with greater frequency in children of immigrant families than in those of settled American background,” she declared in a 1943 paper. And instead of blaming physiology, Bruch blamed mothers. Her papers on childhood obesity explain the children’s fatness as “a result of the smothering behavior of their strong willed immigrant mothers,” writes Farrell. “These mothers simultaneously resented and clung to their children, trying to make up for both their conflicting emotions and poor living conditions by providing excessive food and physical comfort. Bruch described the fathers of these fat children as weak willed, often absent, and ‘yearning’ for the love that their wives devoted to the children.”Bruch’s description of immigrant parents of fat children is a neat precursor to the treatment the Regino family received during Anamarie’s custody case. Anamarie’s father, Miguel, goes unquoted in the New York Times Magazine feature and most other media, while her mother is required to defend herself as a parent and assert herself as an American repeatedly, in the media and with doctors and social workers who assume she can’t understand them. “There were so many veiled comments which added up to, ‘You know those Mexican people, all they eat is fried junk, of course they’re slipping her food,’” the Regino family’s lawyer told Belkin. The social worker’s affidavit recommending that Anamarie be placed in foster care concluded by saying, “The family does not fully understand the threat to their daughter’s safety and welfare due to language or cultural barriers.” Martinez-Regino said such comments showed her that “they decided about us before they even spoke to us.”So anti-fatness, racism, and misogyny have long intersected with and underpinned one another. Even when a researcher like Bruch set out to challenge one piece of the puzzle, she did so by reinforcing the rest of our cultural biases. The immigrant children she studied weren’t diseased—but their weight was still a problem, and their mothers still held responsible. It would be decades before anyone thought to question either assumption. In 1969 the nascent “fat acceptance” movement took off with the establishment of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). In 1973, two California activists named Judy Freespirit and Aldebaran wrote the first “Fat Manifesto” for their organization, the Fat Underground: “We believe that fat people are fully entitled to human respect and recognition,” they began. A later clause specifies:We repudiate the mystified “science” which falsely claims that we are unfit. It has both caused and upheld discrimination against us, in collusion with the financial interests of insurance companies, the fashion and garment industries, reducing industries, the food and drug establishments.These early activists created spaces where fat people could find community and support and begin to understand the way they were treated as a form of chronic oppression. Along with disability rights activists, they operated on the fringes of feminism and queer activism, and their ideas were far from any mainstream conversations about weight.But around the same time, a handful of researchers began studying fat stereotypes as a way of understanding how we learn and internalize biases. In several studies from the 1960s, researchers showed children drawings of kids with various body types (usually a disabled child, a child with a birth defect, and a child in a larger body) and found that they consistently rated the fat child as the one they liked least. In a 1980 experiment, a public health researcher named William DeJong found that high school students shown a photo of a higher-weight girl rated her as less self-disciplined than a lower-weight subject unless they were told her weight gain was caused by a thyroid condition. “Unless the obese can provide an ‘excuse’ for their weight [ . . . ] or can offer evidence of successful weight loss, their character will be impugned,” he wrote. In 2012, researchers revisited the picture ranking experiment from the 1960s with a group of 415 American fifth and sixth graders and found that anti-fat bias had only intensified. They noted, “The difference in liking between the healthy and obese child was currently 40.8 percent greater than in 1961.” So, the farther we come in claiming to understand and care about the health of fat children, it seems, the less we like them. As Anamarie’s mother said in the New York Times Magazine story: “They decided about us before they even spoke to us.”THE MAKING OF THE MODERN OBESITY EPIDEMICIn 1988, Colleen was ten years old, living in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. She had never heard of fat acceptance or the Fat Manifesto or early research on anti-fat biases. But she experienced fatphobia every day. At home, family members would make comments like “You look like you’re going to have a baby with that belly” and remind her to suck in her stomach and stand “like a lady,” with her hands clasped in front of her middle, especially when she went up to receive Communion at church. At school, kids teased her mercilessly, calling her “Tank” when she played four-square at recess. When everyone got weighed in her gym class, Colleen recalls stepping on the scale in front of all her classmates and then having to put her weight on an “About Me” poster that was hung in the school hallway. Highlands Ranch is a mostly white, affluent suburb of Denver also known as “The Bubble,” and Colleen thinks its’ lack of diversity played a role in her experience. “There was a sense of perfectionism and I didn’t fit that ‘perfect’ or ideal body type.” When the bullying reached a breaking point, her parents called a psychologist—and put Colleen on the popular ’90s weight loss plan Jenny Craig. “I remember my mom saying, ‘You need to nip this in the bud right now,’” says Colleen, who is now a forty-two-year-old physician’s assistant, still living in a larger body, and still living in Highlands Ranch, with her husband and eleven-year-old son. “I think she felt that if I was fat at that age, I’d be fat for the rest of my life, and live this horrible life where everyone would make fun of me, and I’d never be accepted.” There was no discussion of consequences for the kids bullying Colleen at school. Her family is white and now upper middle class, but having a fat child still subjected Colleen’s parents, who grew up working class themselves, to stigma and scrutiny. Colleen’s weight was their problem to solve, and her mother, especially, was determined to fix it.Indeed, by the 1990s, fixing everyone’s weight had become a national project. In 1997, a Boston pediatrician named William Dietz, MD, PhD, joined the front lines of the fight, as director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I took the CDC job because I thought that obesity needed to be a national concern, and I couldn’t really do that much about it in an academic setting,” he tells me. Dietz and his colleagues had been warning about a rise in body size for both children and adults since the mid-1980s, based on data collected in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, known as NHANES, which is executed every two years. Data collected beginning in 1971 showed that just 5.2 percent of kids aged two to nineteen met the criteria for obesity then. By the survey begun in 1988, that percentage had nearly doubled, and the 1999–2000 NHANES showed a youth obesity rate of 13.9 percent. That rate has continued to climb, reaching 19.3 percent in the 2017–2018 NHANES. A similar rise in body size was documented for adults: Data collected from 1976 to 1980 showed that 15 percent of adults met criteria for obesity. By 2007, it had risen to 34 percent. The most recent NHANES data puts the rate of obesity among adults at 42.4 percent.The statistics alone were startling, but Dietz wanted to find an even more effective way to communicate to Americans the scale of the obesity epidemic. One day early in his CDC tenure, while chatting with staffers in a hallway, Dietz suggested they plot the NHANES findings across a map of the United States, to designate which states had become “obesity hot zones,” using a green to red color-coded system. “Those maps, more than anything else, I think, began to, well, transform the discussion of obesity,” Dietz tells me. “Nobody argued thereafter that there wasn’t an epidemic of obesity because those maps were so compelling.”Dietz’s maps, which are updated every year, and the NHANES numbers are dramatic, unprecedented, and, to some extent, indisputable. Americans are, on average, bigger than we were a generation ago. And our kids are bigger, on average, than we were as kids. We’ll look more at explanations for this rise in body size in Chapter 2. But what I want to note about these numbers now is how they continued to climb even as public health officials were printing their maps and assembling this evidence of their epidemic; even as weight loss became our national pastime. One conclusion we can therefore draw: The weight loss industry and public health messaging have failed, quite spectacularly, in their quest to make anyone smaller. They may even have had the opposite effect. But it’s also worth looking at these statistics in a little more detail, to see what else they tell us.The NHANES researchers determine our annual rate of obesity by collecting the body mass index scores of about 5,000 Americans (a nationally representative sample) each year. BMI is a blunt tool, never developed to directly reflect health. But it’s useful for tracking populations in this way because it’s easy to calculate by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of his or her height in meters. From there, researchers can sort people into the categories of underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese, depending on where they fall on the BMI scale. This entire project of categorizing people by body size— and determining that there is only one “normal” weight range—is flawed and loaded with bias. And to make matters more confusing, the cutoff points for those categories haven’t stayed fixed over the years. A major shift happened in 1998, when the National Institutes of Health’s task force lowered the BMI’s cutoff points for each weight category, a math equation that moved 29 million Americans who had previously been classified as normal weight or just overweight into the overweight and obese categories. The task force argued that this shift was necessitated by research. But just a few years later, in 2005, epidemiologists at the CDC and the National Cancer Institute published a paper analyzing the number of deaths associated with each of these weight categories in the year 2000 and found that overweight BMIs were associated with fewer deaths than normal weight BMIs. (Both the obese and underweight groups were associated with excess deaths compared to the normal weight group, but the analysis linked obesity, specifically, with less than 5 percent of deaths that year.)Rather than revisiting the cutoff lines for BMI weight categories after this research came out, many researchers objected to that study being published at all. “There was a lot of criticism that our finding was very surprising,” the study’s lead author, Katherine Flegal, MPH, PhD, told me in 2013. “But it really wasn’t, because many other studies had supported our findings.” These included studies that the Obesity Task Force had reviewed while debating BMI cutoffs—so many studies, in fact, that in 2013, Flegal and her colleagues published a systematic literature review of ninety-seven such papers, involving almost three million participants, and concluded, again, that having an overweight BMI was associated with a lower rate of death than a normal BMI in all of the studies that had adequately adjusted for factors like age, sex, and smoking status. They also found no association with mortality at the low end of the obese range. This review was also met with criticism and fury by mainstream obesity researchers. The Harvard School of Public Health held a symposium to discuss all the ways that Flegal’s work made them mad. “I think people will be endlessly surprised by these findings,” is how Flegal put it to me then, while she was still employed by the CDC and presumably felt required to be circumspect about the criticism her work received.But in 2021, years after retiring, Flegal published an article in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases that details the backlash her work received from obesity researchers:Some attacks were surprisingly petty. At one point, Professor 1 posted in a discussion group regarding salt intake that JAMA had shown a track record of poor editorial judgment by publishing “Kathy Flegal’s terrible analyses” on overweight and mortality. Similarly, again using a diminutive form of my name, Professor 1 told one reporter: “Kathy Flegal just doesn’t get it.”After her paper was published, former students of the obesity researchers most outraged by Flegal’s work took to Twitter to recall how they were instructed not to trust her analysis because Flegal was “a little bit plump herself.” The most depressing part is how well these personal attacks, rooted in fatphobia and misogyny, worked: For years, Flegal’s findings have been all but ignored by doctors and other healthcare providers, for whom using BMI to determine health has remained accepted practice.Doctors use BMI to determine health for kids, too, using a similar calculation, and then plotting that number as a percentile on a BMI-for-age chart, which shows how they are growing compared to same-sex peers of the same age. BMI doesn’t take a child’s muscle mass or level of pubertal development into account, both of which influence body composition. And the BMI-for-age chart used in most doctors’ offices today is based on what children weighed between 1963 and 1994. “It’s true that the demographics of the population have changed,” says Dietz, noting that obesity rates differ dramatically by racial identity. Black kids, especially, tend to be bigger than non-Black peers and start puberty earlier, which impacts their growth trajectory. But Dietz stops short of acknowledging that maybe we should use a different scale to assess the weight/health relationship of these kids, pointing to research done by the World Health Organization, which found the growth curves of upper- and middle-income, healthy children in six different countries to be similar. “You know, you need to draw the line somewhere,” he says.Dietz drew that line in 2010, when categories on the pediatric growth charts were renamed. Kids who were previously identified as “at risk of overweight” were relabeled “overweight,” and kids who had been classified as overweight were now designated as “having obesity.” This decision, along with the earlier 1998 reshuffling of the adult BMI scale, was controversial. “There was a feeling at the time, from a conservative faction, that obesity was too drastic a diagnosis [for kids],” says Dietz, who pushed hard for the change. He stands by it a decade later, though he does acknowledge that the “overweight” range, defined as the 85th to 95th percentiles on the growth chart, is more of a gray area. “There are a lot of misclassifications there because you find kids who just have a large frame or are very muscular,” Dietz says. “Whereas body weights in excess of the 95th percentile are almost invariably fat.”I want to point out here that there is anti-fatness even in how Dietz (and Flegal, in her work on adult BMI categories) make allowances for bodies who are “just overweight,” or on the low end of obesity versus the higher end. Such distinctions still rank different kinds of fatness in ways that silo and stigmatize people at the top of the scale and ignore that they have just as nuanced and complicated a picture of health as anybody else. Or would, if anybody bothered to study their health in non-stigmatizing ways. In fact, kids’ body weights above the 95th percentile vary tremendously in composition—we just don’t have a good tool for measuring them. A child in the 99th percentile might have a BMI of 29 or 49, but they’re plotted along the same line because the chart doesn’t go any higher.The debates within research communities over how to define obesity rarely make headlines—only the resulting scary statistics, which is how those numbers bake into our collective subconscious as truth, even though they cannot tell the full story. A particularly dangerous one is the claim that “obesity kills 300,000 people per year!” This figure is used by doctors, the media, and for years by Jillian Michaels, the celebrity personal trainer and host of the TV show The Biggest Loser. But where did we get this number? From a 1993 study by researchers at the United States Department of Health and Human Services titled “Actual Causes of Death in the United States.” These scientists combed through mortality data from 1990 and attributed 300,000 American deaths due to heart attacks, strokes, and other medical issues to “diet and activity patterns.” The only contributor with a higher death toll was tobacco (400,000). The researchers made no mention of weight, and they also analyzed data for only one single year. Nevertheless, in 1994, former surgeon general C. Everett Koop joined forces with then First Lady Hillary Clinton to kick off their “Shape Up America” campaign, citing that 300,000 figure as proof of the need for a “war against obesity.” Other researchers also referenced the figure often enough that in 1998, the study’s authors published a letter to the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine saying, “You [ . . . ] cited our 1993 paper as claiming ‘that every year 300,000 deaths in the United States are caused by obesity.’ That is not what we claimed.” But the “epidemic” was already underway.What motivated researchers and public health officials to hype their “war on obesity” in this intense way? Many operate from a place of deep concern for their fellow humans. Dietz, for example, struck me as personable and passionate about helping children during both of our conversations. But he has also been financially entangled with the weight loss industry for much of his career. After his tenure at the CDC, Dietz served on the scientific advisory board of Weight Watchers. And even before joining the CDC, Dietz was a member of the group then known as the International Obesity Task Force. Now known as the World Obesity Federation, this task force began as a policy and advocacy think tank “formed to alert the world to the growing health crisis threatened by soaring levels of obesity,” according to the organization’s official history. The task force was framed as an independent alliance of academic researchers—but many of these researchers, including the organization’s founder, a British nutrition scientist named Philip James, were paid by pharmaceutical companies to conduct clinical trials on weight loss drugs; James even hosted an awards ceremony for the drug manufacturer Roche. In 2006, an unidentified senior member of the task force told a reporter for the British Medical Journal that the organization’s sponsorship from drug companies “is likely to have amounted to ‘millions.’” And in the years around that first shift in the BMI cutoffs— the one that resulted in twenty-nine million more Americans in the overweight and obesity categories—the Food and Drug Administration approved a flurry of weight loss drugs: dexfenfluramine (sold as Redux) in 1996, sibutramine (sold as Meridia) in 1997, and orlistat (sold as Xenical and Alli) in 1999. More overweight and obese Americans meant a larger potential market for the makers of those drugs. In America’s “war on obesity,” the weight loss industry had just negotiated its arms deal.While both Redux and Meridia were later recalled due to concerns about heart damage, the FDA approved several more weight loss drugs in 2012, 2014, and 2021. Today the US weight loss market is valued at over $70 billion. Dietz is now the director of the Strategies to Overcome and Prevent (STOP) Obesity Alliance at the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness at George Washington University. Like IOTF before it, the STOP Obesity Alliance looks like an academic think tank but actually comprises “a diverse group of business, consumer, government, advocacy, and health organizations dedicated to reversing the obesity epidemic in the United States,” according to its 2020 annual report, which further discloses that in that year alone, the alliance received $105,000 from corporate members including Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company that manufactures liraglutide and semaglutide, two recent weight loss drugs to get FDA approval, and WW, the brand formerly known as Weight Watchers. They also received an additional $144,381 from Novo Nordisk to sponsor a research project on primary care obesity management.Dietz is perfectly upfront about all of this when I ask him about the role of corporate sponsorship in obesity research. “We would not have been able to do this work without that kind of support,” he tells me. “Does that bias my judgment about medication? I don’t think so. But, you know, that’s an external kind of thing.” It doesn’t feel problematic to Dietz to be funded by drug companies because he views weight loss medication as “the biggest thing that’s been missing in obesity care”—a silver bullet that’s going to transform people’s lives—because he doesn’t question the premise that fat people must need their lives transformed. “Companies and practitioners have the same goals. And that’s to treat obesity effectively and to be reimbursed for that care,” he tells me. “Those go hand in hand. So, there’s no way of avoiding that conflict of interest.” The bias is baked in.Almost thirty years later, Colleen can’t even remember if she lost weight on that first diet, though she does recall going to her brother’s Cub Scout camp out in the mountains of Colorado and watching all their friends eat hot dogs while she ate her Jenny Craig meal. “It was always, ‘Come on, Colleen, you know that French fry is not on your diet,’” she says. Dieting became an ever-present feature of her tween and teen years. Colleen gave up on expecting her body to fit in; she channeled all her energy into being “the smart one, the sweet one, the people pleaser,” as she puts it. “I had a lot of friends, I was part of the ‘popular clique,’ but I felt like I had to conform in those ways,” she explains. “Everyone else was the same physical body type, and pretty soon they were all kind of going out with each other. But boys weren’t interested in me.”So, Colleen excelled at being a good friend and being good at school. When she got to college, she decided to major in nutrition. “I was so, so sick of people telling me what to eat, how to eat, how to do anything,” she explains. “I wanted to go find out for myself what the truth is behind all of this.” But Colleen studied nutrition from 1999 to 2003, the same years when the 300,000 deaths figure and the state maps were making headlines. “It was a very weight-centric education, to say the least,” she says. When a guest lecturer came to campus to give a talk on how we can be both “fat and fit,” Colleen recalls her professors telling students to completely disregard it. They were sure it couldn’t be true—after all, our own government research had told them everything they needed to know about weight and health.MODERN MOTHER BLAMEElena, forty-one, grew up in New York City and New Jersey and has her own list of childhood diets prescribed during the war on obesity’s early years: Richard Simmons’s Deal-a-Meal, Weight Watchers, and “Get in Shape, Girl!” a workout video series marketed to tween girls, which involved a lot of pastel leotards, ankle weights, and side ponytails. “I remember my mom taking me with her to this twelve-week weight loss group she was doing, and at the end of it, we all went out for pizza to celebrate, which seems so absurd now,” says Elena. Her mom dieted steadily, but it’s Elena’s dad who took it even further. “He was in the Air Force Reserves and he’d have to hit certain weights every so often, so I remember him, like, not eating or eating and puking and eating,” she says. Nobody suggested this was a good idea, but it certainly communicated to Elena that her own “chubby” body was not okay.Her extended Afro–Puerto Rican family reinforced that narrative: “My grandmother would make comments, and I remember one of her friends would always say, ‘You’re fat!’ to me. But in Spanish, so she would say, ‘Ahhh, gordita!’ and it’s like, a term of endearment and a term of criticism all in one,” Elena says. “You were not supposed to be fat. But also, my grandmother would fry a chicken for me, for like, a snack. It was very convoluted.” Elena isn’t sure if her grandparents and their friends were measuring her by Puerto Rican or white American beauty standards, but she knows which metric she used on herself. “I compared myself to the typical teen and fashion magazines of the 1980s and 1990s, which were very white and thin,” she says. “My friends were of varying races, but they were almost all thin, so I also compared myself to them. I knew my weight was different from what was mostly around me. And I hated that.”Like Colleen, Elena was also teased constantly at school and didn’t date in high school. But some of her most intense trauma came from pediatricians. “I remember one doctor just berating me in front of my mother, telling me, ‘You have to stop eating fast food!’” Elena says. She was nine years old. She liked fast food but ate it only rarely. “Getting to go out to eat at all was kind of special,” Elena says. “She made all these assumptions about me, and remember being so crushed.” Elena told her mother she’d never go back to that doctor. “And probably from the time I was twelve, until I needed a physical for college, I just didn’t go.” Elena is now a public health nurse—finding her way into a version of the profession that so stigmatized her, just as Colleen did with nutrition—and lives with her husband and two children in Philadelphia. She spends her workdays making home visits to low-income, expecting, and new mothers. Elena weighs the babies after they’re born, but she never asks a mother to get on a scale. “I never talk about my clients’ health through the lens of weight. Never,” she says. “The health impacts they face are due to racism and poverty, not weight. So, I approach it that way: How can we get you money and resources? How can I radically listen to and accept you? That’s my role.”Elena parents carefully around weight, too; her kids never hear her discuss diets or body size. If they hear someone described as “fat,” Elena never says, “Don’t say that!” because she doesn’t want to reinforce that fat is bad. “I say, ‘Yes, fat people exist, and I am one of them, and there’s nothing wrong with being fat. But we don’t need to comment on everyone’s body because that might make people uncomfortable,’” she explains. “But none of this has stopped my brain from saying, ‘Oh my God, please don’t let my kids be fat.’” And even while she speaks so positively about bodies to her children, Elena has also done everything she can to prevent their early weight gain. “I breastfed each of them for three years; we eat vegetarian, rarely drink juice, and never set foot in McDonald’s,” she reports. “The motivation for all of this was ‘no fat kids.’”And yet. When her now-eight-year-old daughter reached kindergarten, Elena noticed her “chunking up a little.” The same thing has happened in the past year for her five-year-old son. “It was just this realization of, ‘Oh man, genetics are real,’” she says. “I’ve never said anything about this to my kids. I would never say that to anyone. But I think about it every day.” Part of what Elena is struggling with is the intense desire to spare her kids the anxiety she felt around weight as a child. She’s already told their pediatrician not to discuss weight loss in front of them. But she also worries how their weight reflects on her as a mother. “All of their friends are stick thin. Like, it’s a striking difference. And so, I wonder, do people look at them and think I’m a bad parent?”When I follow up with Elena more than a year after our first conversation, that fear of being a bad parent, of being to blame for her children’s bodies has escalated. “My son gained forty pounds over COVID and has high cholesterol and fatty liver,” she writes in an email. “I really fucked him up. And it’s really awful. I feel terrible.” We’ll talk more about the links between weight gain and health in the next chapter, but whether Elena’s son’s bloodwork is related to his body size or not, I know one thing is true: Elena did not fuck him up. She loved her child and kept him safe during a global pandemic, which has left scars on all of our bodies, hearts, and minds in complex ways. Subjecting him to the same kind of perpetual weight anxiety that Elena experienced as a child is unlikely to help, as we’ll see in Chapter 3. But I am not surprised that this is the solution she reaches for: “We’re going to a healthy weight clinic in January and I’m back on Weight Watchers.”Elena is responding to the same cultural narratives that judged Anamarie Regino’s mother before her, Bruch’s Italian and Jewish immigrant mothers before both of them, and Black mothers from the time they were enslaved. These narratives predate the modern obesity epidemic, which is to say, they’ve also shaped it. As the first data on the rise in children’s body size was unfolding, doctors, researchers, and public health officials immediately turned the conversation to parental responsibility: how to make parents “aware” of their children’s weight, and how to get parents to make better decisions about the family’s food and activity habits. “The researchers in this camp suggest that we need to educate mothers about how to determine whether their children weigh too much,” noted Natalie Boero, PhD, a sociologist at San Jose State University, in an essay for The Fat Studies Reader published in 2009. “Implicit in this critique of American culture is a blame of working mothers for allowing their children to watch too much television, for not having their eating habits more closely monitored, and for relying on convenience foods for meals.”“Implicit in this critique of American culture is a blame of working mothers for allowing their children to watch too much television, for not having their eating habits more closely monitored, and for relying on convenience foods for meals.”Research began to pile up pinpointing links between children’s higher body weights and these kinds of poor parenting decisions. And this has resulted in tangible limitations on how fat people, especially fat women, are allowed to parent. As comic storyteller Phoebe Potts explores in her 2021 one-woman show Too Fat for China, many countries ban fat parents from adopting. In addition to China (where Potts was rejected for having a BMI of 29.5), BMI has also been a deal breaker for adoption proceedings in South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand as well as parts of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. And, as I reported for the New York Times Magazine in 2019, it has become a common practice for infertility clinics to deny in vitro fertilization and other treatments to mothers above a certain body weight.It’s easy to classify stories like Anamarie Regino’s as rare and exceptional, the sad, salacious stuff of daytime talk shows that blow up in brief Twitter storms and then become memorialized in internet memes but don’t factor into our everyday lives. But every time we put a mother on trial for making her child fat, we put all mothers on trial for the size and shape of their children’s bodies. For moms like Elena, it’s nearly impossible to separate out her fear of judgment from her fear of fat because we’ve always dealt with these as one and the same in our culture. It’s also incredibly difficult to separate her experience of anti-fat bias from her fear for her child’s health, because what we know about kids, weight, and health has been informed and shaped by that same stigma. This is why, in almost every interview I do with someone who has lived with an eating disorder, they tell me about what their mother said or did about their weight and how it contributed to their struggle. The “war on childhood obesity” of the past forty years has normalized the notion that parents, but especially mothers, must take responsibility for their child’s weight, and must prioritize that responsibility above their own relationship with their child as the ultimate expression of maternal love. And almost nobody pushed that message more fervently than the most famous mother ever to take on this fight: former First Lady Michelle Obama.DIET CULTURE IN THE WHITE HOUSEIn November 2008, it was then president-elect Barack Obama who gave an interview to Parents magazine where he explained how “Malia was getting a little chubby.” He described how he and Michelle got serious about the problem and made changes to the family’s diet. According to Michelle, the result “was so significant that the next time we visited our pediatrician, he was amazed.” When the Obama family arrived at the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama made fighting the war on childhood obesity her central mission, perhaps at least in part because it felt like a safe issue for the nation’s Mom in Chief to take on as she battled extreme levels of scrutiny and misogynoir as the first Black First Lady. She told the story about Malia and the pediatrician repeatedly when promoting her “Let’s Move” initiative, which ran from 2010 to 2016. “The thought that I was maybe doing something that wasn’t good for my kids was devastating,” she said of that doctor’s appointment, in a 2016 speech to a group of parenting bloggers. “And maybe some of you can relate, but as an overachiever, I was like, ‘Wait, what do you mean, I’m not getting an A in motherhood? Is this like a B-? A C+?’”In another speech, Obama spoke more directly to parents’ failings, saying, “Back when we were all growing up, most of us led lives that naturally kept us at a healthy weight,” before describing her own idyllic childhood as full of healthy habits like walking to school, playing outside, eating home-cooked meals with green vegetables, and saving ice cream as a special treat, all because her parents imposed such policies whether kids liked it or not. “But somewhere along the line, we kind of lost that sense of perspective and moderation,” implying that kids’ weights are rising because parents have become too lax and indulgent. Obama also painted a grim picture of what kids’ lives had become, thanks to this loss of parenting standards: “Kids [ . . . ] are struggling to keep up with their classmates, or worse yet, they’re stuck on the sidelines because they can’t participate. You see how kids are teased or bullied. You see kids who physically don’t feel good, and they don’t feel good about themselves,” she said in a 2010 speech to the School Nutrition Association. Later in the speech, she added: “And by the way, today one of the most common disqualifiers for military service is actually obesity.” References to military readiness are sprinkled throughout Obama’s “Let’s Move” speeches, reinforcing the “war” rhetoric around weight first popularized in the 1990s by Koop and Clinton, but this time placing kids on the battlefield.By 2013, Obama was putting the responsibility for childhood obesity even more squarely on parents:When it comes to the health of our kids, no one has a greater impact than each of us do as parents. [ . . . ] Research shows that kids who have at least one obese parent are more than twice as likely to be obese as adults. So as much as we might plead with our kids to “do as I say, and not as I do,” we know that we can’t lie around on the couch eating French fries and candy bars and expect our kids to eat carrots and run around the block.The “Let’s Move” campaign often portrayed the physical activity part of fighting obesity as fun; Obama hosted dance parties at public schools and went on TV for a push-up contest with Ellen DeGeneres and to dance with Big Bird. Nutrition activists were frustrated that Obama often seemed more interested in dance parties than in holding large food corporations to higher standards. “‘Move more’ is not politically loaded. ‘Eat less’ is,” wrote Marion Nestle, PhD, a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University in a 2011 blog post. “Everyone loves to promote physical activity. Trying to get the food industry to budge on product formulations and marketing to kids is an uphill battle that confronts intense, highly paid lobbying.”Meanwhile, although anti-hunger activists mostly supported Obama’s goals of reforming school lunch programs, there was some quiet resignation in that community that she had chosen to focus on childhood obesity, which accounted for 19.7 percent of kids aged six to seventeen when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, instead of food insecurity, which was arguably the bigger issue, impacting 21 percent of all American households with children. But the relationship between hunger and fatness has long been fraught with stigma: In the early 2000s, conservatives began to argue that the United States Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) and other federal food programs should be abolished because, they claimed, poor Americans couldn’t be hungry when so many of them were fat. “We’re Feeding the Poor as if They’re Starving,” ran the headline of a 2002 Washington Post column by Douglas Besharov, director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Social and Individual Responsibility Project. “Today the central nutritional problem facing the poor [ . . . ] is not too little food, but too much of the wrong food,” he wrote.In fact, as we’ll see in Chapter 3, it’s possible to be both fat and not eating nearly enough food. But rather than clarify this misconception, anti-hunger organizations, pediatric health, and nutrition organizations, as well as journalists like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, and public health researchers like Nestle, set out to document how our modern “toxic food environment” represented an immediate threat to the health of all children. Very quickly, fighting childhood obesity became a progressive cause deeply intertwined with protecting SNAP and other social safety net programs. But when Obama had to pitch a legislative agenda, she needed to pick an issue that would spark outrage among liberals and conservatives alike. And framing kids’ weight as a matter of good parenting and personal responsibility was easier to sell across the aisle. “I do think the administration cared about fighting hunger, but it’s definitely not what they led with,” one anti-hunger advocate told me. “I’m not sure what political calculations they made around that. Part of it is that I think people just have a really hard time understanding the intersection of obesity and hunger.”Obama did talk openly about the fact that poor children of color tended to weigh more than wealthier white children. But by zeroing in on their weight, she steered the conversation away from dismantling oppression or shoring up social safety net programs. Instead, Obama championed an in-depth overhaul of school nutrition standards, which culminated in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. That piece of legislation is now hailed as a centerpiece of Obama’s progressive legacy; it’s the reason you see whole grains on school lunch menus and fewer vending machines in schools. It also expanded after-school programs’ supper offerings around the country and brought free school lunch and breakfast to over thirty thousand schools nationwide, both of which were huge wins for the anti-hunger community. But what progressives discuss less often is the fact that those school initiatives were paid for by pulling funds from SNAP, ending a temporary increase in food stamp funding five months earlier than expected. The original bill took money from a different pot, but when the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry marked up the bill, they quietly shifted the funding source. Money that low-income families had been using to pay for dinner now covered their kids’ tab for lunch.Over a decade later, the question of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act funding is still a sore spot with many food and hunger activists, all of whom declined to go on record to discuss what happened. “We believe that kids deserve the healthiest meals possible. There are lots of good things in that act, but paying for it through SNAP just didn’t make any sense to us,” an anti-hunger activist who worked on the bill told me. Indeed, over 50 percent of SNAP recipients are children, and several studies have shown that when you cut a household’s food budget, the nutritional quality of family meals drops fast. Anti-hunger groups lobbied Democrats to block votes on the bill for several months, leading to bitter disagreements with the child nutrition organizations they had previously considered allies. The anti-hunger groups worried about families falling off a financial cliff, but the nutrition groups were focused on achieving their nutrition standards overhaul. “An additional five months of the temporary increase in SNAP funding is a price worth paying for a lifetime of reforms and ten years of resources to address childhood hunger and obesity,” argued Margo Wootan, who was then director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in a piece by TheHill.com. “This bill wasn’t a Sophie’s Choice. It was more like choosing between your child and your pet fish. Like the temporary increase in SNAP funding, goldfish never live long anyway.”However Michelle Obama herself felt about the funding decision, the Obama administration sided with the nutrition advocates to get the bill passed. And it’s clear that Obama’s own passion for nutrition and health meant she viewed dieting as a necessary evil for both parents and kids. “I have to tell you, this new routine was not very popular at first,” Obama told the parenting bloggers in 2016. “I still remember how the girls would sit at the kitchen table and I’d sort out their lunches, and they would sit with their little sorry apple slices and their cheese sticks. [ . . . ] They’d have these sad little faces. They would speak longingly of their beloved snack foods that were no longer in our pantry.” Obama also spoke longingly of her own beloved, banned foods: “I could live on French fries,” she told the New York Times in 2009, explaining that she doesn’t because “I have hips.” Instead, she follows a strict diet and exercise routine.I want to stop here and note just how much scrutiny Obama has faced personally about her body size and shape. In her latest book, The Light We Carry, she talks about becoming aware of her “differentness” as a tall Black woman when attending Princeton, and that experience only intensified during her husband’s first presidential campaign and throughout their time in the White House. I remember watching her wave on television from some early campaign stop and noticing that her upper arms jiggled a little; a few months later, the jiggling had stopped, and it seemed like everyone was talking about Obama’s sheath dresses and toned biceps, which were nicknamed “Thunder” and “Lightning” by New York Times columnist David Brooks, who thought she should “cover up.” And much of the public discourse about Obama’s body was racialized, because she was our first Black First Lady and therefore was in a position “to present to the world an African-American woman who is well educated, hardworking, a good mother, and married,” noted the feminist historian Amy Erdman Farrell, PhD, in Fat Shame. Obama’s job was to reject the mammy, the welfare queen, and every other derogatory stereotype about Black women, and thinness was a part of how she did that. Depriving her kids and herself of French fries was “an ideological lesson, teaching the girls how to survive in a world that will scrutinize their bodies unmercifully for signs of inferiority and primitivism,” writes Farrell. “Fatness is one of those signs, this lesson teaches, one too dangerous to evoke.”It’s impossible to say how conscious Obama was (or is now) of the potential downsides of taking such a restrictive, even authoritarian, approach to food for herself and her children. She acknowledges in The Light We Carry that her “fearful mind” “hates how I look, all the time and no matter what,” and recalls envying smaller girls like the cheerleaders at her high school: “Some of those girls were approximately the size of one of my legs.” But she also makes frequent casual references to the joys of vigorous exercise and bonding with friends through “spa weekends” that include a punitive schedule of three workouts a day. And while she argues that the way out of anxiety and fear is to celebrate our differentness as a strength, Obama never names a larger body as one of hers.In terms of her public agenda, it’s worth noting that her speeches also frequently included disclaimers that “this isn’t about how kids look, it’s about how kids feel.” But her office ignored the lobbying efforts of fat activists and even mainstream child nutrition experts like Ellyn Satter, a therapist and nutritionist who developed the “Division of Responsibility” framework for feeding children that we’ll discuss in Part 2. “Don’t talk about childhood obesity,” she implored in an open letter to Obama. “Research shows that children who are labeled overweight or obese feel flawed in every way—not smart, not physically capable, and not worthy. [ . . . ] Such labeling is not only counterproductive, it’s also unnecessary.”Satter also wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times, which ran alongside several other critiques of “Let’s Move,” including one from Alwyn Cohall, MD, a professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University and director of the Harlem Health Promotion Center, who argued, “Public health interventions that address the real reasons why people gain weight and suffer from chronic diseases will not ostracize or discriminate because they are not focused on the surface level symptoms, but rather on the more profound reasons why they occur.”Obama never appears to have addressed this criticism directly, though she did begin to add lines like “I don’t want our children to be weight-obsessed,” to her public talking points and in her 2021 Netflix show Waffles + Mochi, she takes the focus off weight entirely to instead teach kids how to have fun trying new foods (mostly vegetables). But the “Let’s Move” rhetoric around parents taking responsibility for their kids’ weight tied in nicely with our larger cultural narrative of weight as a matter of personal choice. And the way she downgraded herself as a mom when Malia’s weight became a problem made Obama relatable to other mothers taught to judge themselves by this same standard.Today’s generation of parents grew up embedded within the war on childhood obesity. Some of us were its direct victims, like Anamarie, Colleen, and Elena. The rest of us represent a kind of collateral damage— even if we were thin kids, even if we didn’t feel pressure to diet ourselves, we still internalized its key lessons: Fat people can never be healthy. Fat people can never be happy. Fat children are less lovable. And parents, especially mothers, of fat children, are doing something wrong unless they are fighting that fatness relentlessly with apples, cheese sticks, and a “take no prisoners” mindset. “To her mother, she is beautiful,” Lisa Belkin wrote of four-year-old Anamarie in the 2001 the New York Times Magazine piece, before hastening to add that “Martinez-Regino is not so blind that she does not see what others see.”Reading that, I paused to consider how much harm happens when parents must define their children, and their own parental success, by body size in this way. What was lost, in those three months of forced separation but also throughout Anamarie’s childhood, and Colleen’s, and Elena’s, and those of so many others? What if Anamarie’s mom had just been allowed to see her child, and love her for who she was? What if all parents got to do that with and for our kids?

It's our April Ask Us Anything episode! We're covering Ozempic, clogs, chafing, and what if you just don't want your kid to be fat. If you are already a paid subscriber, you’ll have this entire episode in your podcast feed and access to the entire transcript in your inbox and on the Burnt Toast Patreon.If you are not a paid subscriber, you'll only get the first chunk. To hear the whole conversation or read the whole transcript, you'll need to go paid. Also, don't forget to preorder Virginia's new book! Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture comes out April 25, 2023 from Henry Holt. Preorder your signed copy now from Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the USA). You can also order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Kobo or anywhere you like to buy books. (Or get the UK edition or the audiobook!) Disclaimer: Virginia and Corinne are humans with a lot of informed opinions. They are not nutritionists, therapists, doctors, or any kind of health care providers. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions they give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.BUTTER & OTHER LINKSSellTradePlusUniversal Standard body shortsGirlfriend Collective also has a shorts body suit thingCasey Johnston's couch-to-barbell programVirginia's book launchDacy Gillespie, Mindful ClosetJia Tolentino’s Ozempic pieceThe mainstream media's bad Ozempic coverageMarch mailbag episodeKatherine ZavodniReclaiming "treats"the lunchbox pieceVirginia's Charlotte Stone clogs Clogs for wider feetClogs with a strapCorinne, resident Burnt Toast underwear expert.Panty DropKade & VosChafing Shorts: Snag, Thigh SocietyMegaBabe Thigh RescueTrouble Cookies.Mother GrainsBob’s Red Mill sorghum flourTrue & Co brasCREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet body liberation journalism.---VirginiaYou’re listening to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith I also write the Burnt Toast newsletter.CorinneAnd I’m Corinne Fay. I work on Burnt Toast and run SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus sized clothing.VirginiaAnd it is time for your April mailbag episode! We have so many good questions this month. A lot of parenting food questions. I think maybe because I just ran the lunchbox piece in the newsletter it’s on everybody’s minds. But also, as usual, some fat fashion stuff. Clogs are coming up later. And Ozempic, because obviously. So it’s gonna be a good one.CorinneThis is also a paywalled episode, which means to hear the whole thing, you’ll need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. It’s just $5 per month or $50 for the year. Here’s how to join us.VirginiaSo before we dive in, how are you doing? What’s new with you, Corinne?CorinneI’m doing well. One thing that’s new with me is: I just signed up to do a powerlifting meet. So I’m feeling nervous. VirginiaWell, yeah. Is this like a competition thing, where people come and watch? CorinneI think so. I mean, obviously, I’ve never done something like this before. It’s in Albuquerque, and it’s being run by my gym. And it’s all women’s. VirginiaThat sounds very cool. CorinneI’m just having a little of like, Oh, what did I do? Let’s see. Wow. Am I going to be the most amateur, weakest person there? I might.VirginiaBut you’ll still be super strong and amazing. Because the weakest person at a powerlifting competition is still the strongest person in most other rooms.CorinneThat’s a good point. And I think one great thing about lifting is, it’s really more about your own goals and competing with yourself. But still.VirginiaSo is it like whoever lifts the most is the winner?CorinneSo my understanding is very loose, but I know there are different weight classes. So you compete against people who are roughly around the same size?.VirginiaInteresting. Okay.CorinneAnd then I think it’s a cumulative weight of how much you lift, like combined squat, deadlift, bench press. VirginiaWow, that’s so cool. Julia Turshen recently did one of these.CorinneI feel like I was slightly influenced by Julia Turshen.VirginiaDid she enable you? Julia, good job! The pictures and videos she posted of it looked super exciting. And it looked like a very professional athletic setting. I would be intimidated for sure.CorinneThe other thing that I’m sure we’ll end up talking about again, but you have to wear a singlet which is like, where am I gonna find a singlet? And knee socks.VirginiaKnee socks! Why knee socks? CorinneI’m like, oh my God, I’m never gonna find knee socks that fit me, but I’m trying to figure out if I can wear Universal Standard body shorts as a singlet, because I already have one of those. VirginiaThat feels like a great solution. CorinneIt’s singlet-esque? But I don’t know what the actual requirements are.VirginiaGirlfriend Collective also has a shorts body suit thing.CorinneI should look into that. VirginiaBut I feel like you should be able to work with what you have. Especially for your first one. Once you’re a pro and doing this all the time, you’ll get, like, something with rhinestones. CorinneOnce I’m a sponsored Olympic athlete. Yes.VirginiaI love that like we’re getting to follow along on the journey. Obviously we’re going to need another installment on this afterwards.CorinneOkay, yes. And just to be clear, the meet isn’t until July, so, so I have a lot of time to think about it.VirginiaI’m just saying though. A few months ago, you were recommending Casey Johnston and her couch-to-barbell program. And you were like, “I’m just using a broomstick.”CorinneIt’s true. VirginiaAnd now!CorinneIt’s true and now I’m lifting actual pounds.VirginiaVery, very cool. CorinneYeah, what’s new with you? VirginiaI feel like what’s new with me is that I am surviving, not thriving a little bit. So this is going to come out in mid-April. So we’ll be two weeks out from book launch. So I will either be better or I will be way worse. I mean, having had two children, it’s sort of similar to the last month of pregnancy when you’re like, it’s all you can think about, this thing is happening, but you have no control over it. I mean, at least with the book, you know, like the date it’s coming. Which with pregnancy, they have yet to really figure out, unless you’re scheduling. But I counted it up this morning, I have recorded 18 podcasts so far. Of other people’s podcasts. Like for talking about the book. 18 people’s podcasts. CorinneOh whoa. That’s wild.VirginiaAnd like, seven of them were in the last week and a half? So I feel like my voice is hanging on by a thread. And I’m just getting a little mush-brained about it. I need to step back a little.Obviously, I am super grateful. I love that people want me to talk about the book. I love that people are excited about the book. I cannot wait for it to be out. But it’s just at a point where there are a lot of details. Like, review all the press release materials, review the marketing plan…. I forgot we were recording today. And it’s not the first thing I’ve forgotten. Like, I forgot the kids had a dentist appointment. We made it, but I’m just like, my brain is holding too many pieces of information. Some things are getting dropped. I’m just coming in with a sort of scattered energy. But I’ve got the Throat Coat Tea that I’m living on right now. And we’re gonna do it! CorinneDo you have any upcoming book promo stuff that you’re really excited to do?VirginiaWell, I did an interview yesterday that I can’t talk about yet, because I don’t think it will be out by the time this launches. CorinneTop secret. VirginiaThere are two top secret ones that will be coming out in the week or two after this podcast episode. And they’re both very exciting. And I will say that I was very happy with my outfit for one. So that was good. And the other one the outfit matters less because it is not visual. I will say no more! Preorder FAT TALK!And yeah, that part’s been fun, actually figuring out clothes for like the book tour Dacy has been helping me and maybe some time we’ll do a follow up about finding clothes for this. Because it’s a very specific level of, how dressy do you want to be versus comfortable? So maybe there will be an essay of what I wore for the book tour.CorinneI would love to read that.VirginiaOkay, so we’re going to do some questions! The first one is a hot take opportunity. This came in over Instagram multiple times. People would like to know what we saw of Jia Tolentino’s Ozempic piece in The New Yorker.CorinneOkay, well, now is my time to be embarrassed when I admit that I read it really lightly. I did a really light skim sort of read, and was like, seems fine. And then I’ve seen everyone else being like, “This article is horrible.” And I’ve been like, wow, I really need to revisit that and find out why people are so upset.VirginiaI’m glad to hear people are saying they’re upset! I felt like no one was talking about it at all for a little bit. And I was like, what is happening? I feel like the New York magazine piece came out, which I wrote about and that was not great. And then this piece comes out two weeks later, and I’m just like, why? Why did it come out? It’s the same piece really. And I want to be clear that I love Jia’s work. I loved Trick Mirror. I think she writes phenomenal stuff. The piece she did on Angela Garbes last year was just incredible. And this was… not that. It is very much centering the story on thin people who would like to be thinner if they take Ozempic. There’s one fat person interviewed for the story. And, you know, of course, every fat person is entitled to their own experience of fatness. But her quotes just reinforced so many stereotypes. She talks about wanting to lose weight because she feels like she can’t hike or run at her current size. And it’s like, come on. We can do better. CorinneIf you want to hike and run, you could work on hiking and running?VirginiaRight! There are so many fat hikers and runners on Instagram. CorinneI thought the compounding pharmacy thing was kind of interesting.VirginiaOh, like explaining how sort of like loosey goosey it is and getting the drugs? CorinneBecause I’ve seen a lot of people on TikTok being like, I’m getting this patented drug from a compounding pharmacy. And I’m like, wait, is that real? Like, what is that? So I thought that part was interesting.VirginiaIt was interesting. But when she goes through the process of getting it herself, I always just worry—this is the eating disorder handbook stuff.Corinne True true. You’re literally telling people how to do it. VirginiaAnd I get that that’s not hard to find. We all have Google. But is that something The New Yorker should be doing? Does The New Yorker need to teach us how to get our weight loss drugs? I don’t know. I feel like the general trend in the Ozempic coverage–And this is not just Jia, not just New York Magazine. But by and large, this coverage has this underlying question of: If we have now found a silver bullet that will make people thin, does that mean we can just forget about anti fat bias? And that is so dark. We cannot just say, now that we have a way to make everybody thin, it’s okay to hate fat people, because we can just make them thin.CorinneThat’s a good point.VirginiaI’m not judging anyone’s individual decisions about this. But this larger discourse is not helpful. That’s my hot, grouchy take. CorinneThat’s the hot take! I would love to know also, if any listeners have strong feelings about it? VirginiaYes. Comments are open!CorinneOkay, the next question is:Q: The one thing I can’t shake as a new mom is worrying about making my daughter fat. How do I shake that? I grew up fat and it was hard. I want better for her. But does that mean dieting?VirginiaThis is a very understandable fear. But no, it does not mean dieting. CorinneI want to validate this parent’s worries, because you're coming from a place where it sounds like you struggled a lot. And you don’t want your kids to struggle, and that totally makes sense.VirginiaI think what I’m stuck on is, “I grew up fat and it was hard.” Yes, absolutely. Not denying that. But was it hard because you were fat? Or was it hard because the world made fat not okay?And so, this is kind of the Ozempic thing, right? Is the answer to erase fatness by which we mean erase fat people? Or is the answer systemic change and unlearning this bias on a personal level? But I know, that is a terrible question. You cannot make all those systemic changes by yourself. That is not doable. So it is really, really hard.CorinneThe one thing that’s sort of not explicit in this question is whether the kid is actually fat.VirginiaShe says she’s a new mom. So I’m thinking she has a baby. So she probably doesn’t know? CorinneBecause my next thought was, you could talk to your kid about it being hard. But maybe not for a newborn.VirginiaBut maybe start now! Get the conversation going.CorinneStart thinking about it. You can talk to yourself about it. I think now might be a time to start therapy. VirginiaTherapy, always a great option.You are not going to make your daughter thin or fat. You don’t actually control her body size. The number of factors that go into determining body sizes is this sort of endless and murky list, and no one really knows what are the largest drivers. But how you feed her, and how much you make her run around are not the largest drivers of her body size. And putting all your energy there is only going to cause damage, which you yourself probably know, because when you say it was hard, I’m guessing that some kind of childhood dieting might have been a piece of that.So I feel like we need to let you off the hook of the “I’m gonna make her fat.” She may be fat. There is nothing wrong with that. It is not your fault. And what she really needs is for you to unconditionally accept her body.CorinneI also think this could be a really good time to think of some advocacy you could do, whether that’s looking into school policies about bullying or even at the legislative level, like laws about anti fat bias. Or just trying to be an advocate in your community for body liberation or fat liberation? VirginiaI love that. And I just wanna say this is hard. It is really unfair that that is asked of us. But that is where we are on this issue. And we’re only going to make progress if we all approach it from that perspective. CorinneAnd I want to reiterate: The thing about bias is, the solution is never to get rid of the people we’re biased against. Or to change them somehow.VirginiaRight. So it’s okay. Maybe your daughter is going to be fat and how are you going to support her and advocate for her and make your home a safe space for her body?CorinneAll right, I’m going to read the next one too: Q: I am trying very hard to be very neutral about food with my son who’s four years old. From the start, I have not labeled foods as good or bad. I have not restricted access to sweets or desserts. But lately, I’ve started questioning this. I’ve always felt pressure because I am not able to manage cooking meals. So from the start, my son was fed using a grazing technique where I would put together various foods and he would eat what he wanted. As he has gotten older, he is more specific in his tastes in a way that feels normal to me, pretty much macaroni and cheese or similar foods most of the time. There are other things he will eat, but I feel a lot of grief about my inability to get it together and provide regular hot balanced meals, also for myself. Recently, I’ve been trying to limit his intake of sweets just a little bit and it feels like a backside but I’ve been confused. Only two cookies and even suggesting he eats something before he gets the cookies. This week’s mailbag episode made me reorient when you talked about not doing this and reminded me why I wanted to avoid this restriction based language. And I admit the reason I started thinking about this was twofold. I filled out a research survey that made me admit a lot of things about our household eating that I feel low level guilty about and I felt the sting of perceived societal shaming.And my son started talking about treats. I was a bit miffed as categorizing something as a treat, as opposed to food which he labeled the rest as, was something I was trying to avoid. Then I realized this could have come from daycare television, the fact that we give the dog treats, and so I am overreacting. I find it’s so hard to be consistent in my parenting in many avenues and food encroaches on that too. Giving food as a reward for example, this is something I do for myself, and I like it. But perhaps it is part of the problem of saving food for a special occasion as opposed to having it because you want it.I need some perspective, please. Is it ever useful to direct a child to a more balanced diet as opposed to just modeling it? I do not mean telling them that specific foods help your eyes. What a relief to see that debunked, but more that many foods are yummy. And basically some form of kid specific ‘everything in moderation.’VirginiaThe first thing I want to say is: You are doing a great job. You are feeding your child. It does not matter that you are not cooking. And that the food is not hot or homemade. It does not matter at all. You are meeting your son’s needs by making sure he is fed every day, and making sure that he has enough to eat in order to grow. That’s the most important thing and you’re doing it. You’re winning! You’re doing great. And this really drives home for me the stigma we have around the idea that you can’t feed kids processed foods, you have to cook meals. All of this is so unhelpful because there are just so many reasons why that model of family meals is not a good fit. There could be disability issues. There could be cost issues, time bandwidth issues, all sorts of hurdles. There could also just be that you don’t like cooking. You can still be a good parent and not like cooking. It’s not a requirement. SoI just want to encourage you to take some of the shame away. Corinne That’s a great place to start. I totally agree. I was thinking about the study that you mention in FAT TALK about how it doesn’t matter what you’re eating and it much more matters that kids are just eating. VirginiaOh, that’s a quote from Katherine Zavodni, who’s one of my favorite pediatric dietitians. So teaser for everyone who hasn’t read the book yet, but it’s a quote that I want to put on our fridge! She says, “The most important thing about good nutrition is making sure kids have enough to eat.” Because if you have enough to eat, all the minutiae of micronutrients, and macronutrients tends to work itself out. Now, obviously, there are kids with severe food issues like feeding disorders, allergies or other medical conditions where it may be more complicated. Their nutritional needs may be more specific. But if your kid is not dealing with one of those things, and has enough to eat on any given day, you have done your job as a parent.CorinneAnd you also talked about the studies on family meals, right? And how the benefits come from eating together rather than making sure it’s a home-cooked meal. VirginiaI’m so glad you brought that up. All the research on family dinners, which talks about how important they are for kids’ overall well-being and health—it’s because families are spending time together. So you could do that around breakfast, you could do that around a snack, you could do that in ways that have nothing to do with food. Like maybe you regularly have a long car ride to commute to school and work together. And that’s when you talk and catch up on your day. Kids need connected time with their caregivers. Food is just one helpful way to do it.CorinneIt doesn’t matter if you are eating snack plates, or macaroni. VirginiaSome of my most connected meals with my kids are when we’re eating takeout or bowls of Cheerios for dinner! Because everyone is relaxed and you can focus on each other. And you’re not in this place of, “I put all this work into this meal and nobody likes it.”. So then let’s talk about feeling like you need to limit his intake of sweets. I think you’re going there because you’re feeling ashamed about what you’re doing. So I’m hoping just lifting some of the shame lets you step back from that a little bit. I also think the research shows pretty clearly that requiring kids to eat in very specific ways, like micromanaging their plate by saying “you have to eat something else before you get the cookies” or “only two cookies,” does not. in the long-term, serve kids’ relationship with food. It tends to result in kids who are overly fixated on the foods that have a lot of rules around them. You’re going to find yourself in power struggles where it’s like, why only two cookies, why not three cookies, why not two and a half cookies.Don’t feel bad that you’ve done this, because I think we all get into these sort of panic moments where we do this because we’re just struggling and it feels like the “right thing to do.” But I don’t think it will ultimately serve you or serve your child. I think modeling eating a variety of foods is the best thing we can do. And even using phrases like “balance” or “everything in moderation,” I don’t love because not every day is going to be about moderation. And that can turn into a rule. Because what is “moderation?” And then the last thing I’ll say is, I think we touched on this in a previous episode. But I don’t think treat needs to be a bad word. Yes, we give the dog treats. Dogs’ existences are largely treat-based, at least in my house. We give ourselves food as rewards when we’re stressed out or we need some extra comfort. When we talk about keeping all foods neutral, I think we can take it too far, to this place where it feels like we’re not supposed to have any feelings about food at all. And that is not realistic or fair, or in line with how humans interact with foods.So we do use the word treat in our house. And this came up with the lunchbox piece. because I have a category of treats on the little chart I made for Beatrix and folks were like, “I can’t believe you have a treat category.” And I realized they had a different definition of that word. If you don’t have restrictive rules around when or how much treats you can eat, then treat is a neutral word. It just means foods that feel extra fun. Just something extra fun you want to have on your plate along with your other foods. And if you’re not saying “we only eat treats once a day,” or “we only eat treats on Saturdays;” if it’s not paired with restrictive language, then it’s still keeping foods neutral. Does that make sense?CorinneI think especially with the lunch box example, you’re using treat as a category to make sure you’re getting a treat. That seems really positive.VirginiaBecause I want them to know that those foods are welcome in their lunchboxes. Yes.CorinneOr required, even! VirginiaNone of it’s required, Corinne, they can skip the treat if they want! But it’s a part of the meal. CorinneMaybe that’s a way that this person could reframe it. It feels like you’re hearing your kid say treat and thinking they’re feeling like it’s something to be restricted. When could you be like, “Let’s make sure you’re getting enough treats.”VirginiaThat’s a great re-framing. I hope this helps. This is a big question. And I can tell you’re working through a lot of big stuff. So we would like an update. Please keep us posted!CorinneYou’re doing a great job.VirginiaYes. CorinneI’m gonna read the next one as well. Q: My daughter is in fifth grade. At school she’s often given food in addition to what she brings for her lunch and snacks. Candy is handed out as an incentive. Snacks, as well as non-edible items, are available to purchase with Classroom Bucks earned for good behavior. Several days a week she has after school activities that include a good deal of snacking. For the most part, I’ve accepted that I have no control over what she eats when she’s away from me. However, she is regularly coming home not hungry for the dinner I’ve prepared. It’s becoming more frequent lately that she’ll snack so much at school, and at after school activities, that she will eat only a couple bites of dinner, and occasionally nothing at all. Dinners are usually meals she likes and she always has the opportunity to choose a backup option if she doesn’t. So I don’t think it’s an issue of filling up because she won’t get food she likes at dinner. She chooses and packs her own lunch and snack. We generally have a rule that if you put it on the grocery list, Mom will buy it, which is to say she has a lot of control of choice and regular access to candy and snack foods, both at home and in her lunch.Is it diet culture to expect her to come to dinner ready to eat? Or is it valid for me to feel miffed that she’s already full? And yeah, I realize we’ll all have an off day or skip a meal once in a while. This is becoming a regular occurrence though.VirginiaI don’t think it’s diet culture exactly. I think it’s performative parenting culture a little bit, where we are very tied to this idea that, again, the family dinner is this all-important cornerstone of the day, where we have to provide a certain kind of meal. And that it is only successful if our children eat the meal. If they participate in, and enjoy the meal. And even if we’re like, “they can choose how much they’re hungry for,” if they don’t want to eat it at all, it’s really hard.I say this from extensive personal experience. It’s really hard to not feel like you failed because you’re like, “I just spent 40 minutes making this and you ate two bites and ran away.” But what I also want to say is: 9 out of 10 family dinners in my house involve one or both children eating two bites of the meal and running away. I think it’s very, very, very common at sort of all ages. And yes, it is often because they had a lot of snacks in the afternoon. Because that is when they were really hungry and needed to eat. And so my expectation that 5:30 or 6:00 pm is when we’re all going to sit down and eat this big meal together is out of line with the reality of at 3:30 or 4:30 pm, they are ravenous and need to eat. And so we’re just always going to have that mismatch and it is what it is. Nobody needs to feel bad.CorinneThis relates back a little to the parent who’s feeling guilty about not cooking meals. It’s kind of the flip side where this parent is cooking meals and feeling bad about them.VirginiaI also want to speak to the piece about food given out at school. I don’t love candy being handed out as an incentive in class. And that is not because I don’t want the kids eating the candy. It’s because I think it does play into making candy seem so special and coveted. And for kids who have more restrictive relationships with candy at home, I don’t feel like it’s helpful. Does that make sense? I don’t have a problem with there being a birthday party in class and everyone’s eating cupcakes or candy just being there, like if the teacher just wants to have a candy jar on their desk and kids can help themselves. But it’s layering on the messages about earning the candy that I really don’t love. Because diet culture is going to teach kids so many different ways that you have to earn your treats.But I have not figured out a way to eradicate this practice from the American public school system. It’s a very common tactic. And I think teachers have very, very hard jobs and if handing out M&Ms for getting math problems right makes it easier to do their job? I don’t know, man, I think that’s where we are. CorinneYeah. VirginiaAnd if it’s happening in the context of, your child also has all this great regular access to candy and treats because like you said, you’re involving her in the grocery list and lunch packing and all that, then I don’t think it being handed out as an incentive is going to do that much damage.They can understand that at school, M&Ms are being given as a reward. And at home, there is a bag of M&Ms that I can just eat.CorinneWith the teachers handing out candy as incentives, I’m worried more about the kids who are not getting candy as incentives.VirginiaOh, what a terrible message. That’s so sad. You did this wrong. No candy for you. It is tricky. And I mean, I don’t mind kids purchasing snacks with Classroom Bucks. That feels a little more diffuse to me. That’s giving them some independence. And after school activities should include snacks because the majority of children are starving after school. I think the key here is don’t demonize the way she’s eating because she’s getting her needs met. Just maybe take some pressure off yourself. If dinner is usually something she likes, if there’s an option to choose a backup option and she doesn’t, then she’s just not hungry. CorinneAnd maybe that can take some of the pressure off dinner. Like maybe you just make a snack plate.VirginiaSomething simpler. Or make something you’re really excited to eat.CorinneSomething you like! VirginiaThat’s what I often do when I can tell the kids are not in like super dinner oriented phases. I’m like, Okay, then I’m picking what I want. And we also do a bedtime snack. And in fifth grade, she’s probably staying up late enough that she’s up a few hours after dinner. And if she was really hungry for dinner at 3pm, and then she wasn’t that hungry for real dinner at 6pm, by 8 or 9pm, she probably needs something before she goes to bed. Alright, should I read the next one? Q: My question is about restricting food, not for dietary reasons, but because of the financial and waste concerns. My spouse and I wince when we see our kids drowning their waffles in maple syrup and leaving a plateful of it, eating all the prepackaged expensive foods we try to save for their lunches and eating all the Girl Scout cookies so they don’t have to share them with a sibling.I’ve told my kids that they never need to hide food, but I find them doing so in order to get the last of something like the Oreos they want to keep from their brother. I buy Oreos every time we go to the store, and our house has plenty of sweets and other snack foods, but eventually we will run out of things. How do we keep them out of the scarcity mindset while still dealing with the realities of eating with a family? I really feel you on the syrup. It’s so expensive. CorinneI know I was thinking you’re basically watching your kid pour gold on their pancakes. VirginiaIt’s so much. CorinneI mean this whole question is relatable to me. I definitely had some anxiety growing up about like, I feel like my dad would always eat stuff that I wanted, like leftovers or like the last cookie or something, you know?VirginiaYeah, it’s really tricky because the bummer answer to this is: A finance-based scarcity mindset can be just as damaging as a diet-culture based scarcity mindset.CorinneSo true. VirginiaKids who grow up without enough to eat, or with this sort of ever-present worry about there being enough to eat often end up with some disordered eating stuff down the road, understandably, because when there is food, they’ll feel like, “I have to eat it all. Because I don’t know what I’m going to eat it again.” It’s totally logical. So this can be really tough. And I’m not sure from this question, if you are struggling to afford these foods? Is there a true food insecurity issue in your house? Or if it’s more just, you are on a budget. CorinneYou only go grocery shopping once a week and Oreos don’t last the whole week.VirginiaSo I’m not sure which one we’re dealing with. But I just want to say if affording food is really hard for you, then obviously, your first priority is getting whatever support you can around that. Which could be finding out if you’re eligible for SNAP benefits, making sure your kids are on the school lunch program, all the stuff that I am sure you are already doing. And don’t need me to explain to you.If it’s more just the “Good God, that was a $9 bottle of syrup” moment, I think it’s okay to say to kids, “This is a more expensive food.” So we’re going to be mindful of that. With syrup, if you have little ramekins or bowls, you can say, “We’re going to give everyone their own syrup.” And pour generously! Don’t flood the plate the way they would flood the plate, but pour generously enough so that every kid feels like they have their own and they don’t have to share it.We do this sometimes with something like brownies. Or if we have cake or some dessert that we don’t have as often. When I know the kids are going to be really excited about it, I often will just go ahead and portion it out. Not because I’m trying to control how much they eat. But because I want them to know, “I’m definitely getting mine.” This actually just happened with Cadbury Mini Eggs, which are just a prime example of a scarcity mindset food because you can only get them for a month a year and they’re the best candy. It’s so hard! Dan brought home a big family-size bag from the grocery store. And between me and the girls, it was gone by the next night and he was like, “Really? Really? There are none left?” I think he was mad he didn’t get any. But I was like, “Yeah, no there are none left.” I know that you thought that was a big bag, but we haven’t had these in ages and we’re all real jazzed about it.CorinneYou need to start portioning out some for Dan.VirginiaI suppose that would have been nice of me. CorinneSo if you’re portioning out the brownie—what does that mean? Like you cut the brownies into four squares and give everyone a square? VirginiaI usually give everyone two squares because I feel one brownie is never enough.CorinneOh, you cut them into normal sized pieces. VirginiaOh yes. I just cut up the brownies. But rather than put the pan of brownies in the middle of the table, which might make everyone worry, like, “Am I going to get the piece I want?” Especially because, in my household, center-of-the-pan brownies are highly coveted. It’s a whole thing.  So I’ll just go ahead and be like, “Here’s your center brownie.” So they don’t have to be anxious about whether they’ll get one.Maybe also, talk to your kids about which foods they worry about wanting the most. It’s useful to know what that is. So you can think about how to ease up that fear, in a way that is in line with your budget. But maybe the kid who’s hiding the Oreos, you buy them their own jumbo bag of Oreos and they don’t have to share. And maybe if that’s in your budget, you do that for a few weeks and see how that goes. And maybe every kid gets their own favorite snack food in that kind of quantity, which they don’t have to share with a sibling. And then it’s understood that all the other stuff is shared. It’s not teaching restriction or scarcity to say, “Okay, let’s make sure everyone has their seconds before you have thirds.” That’s manners. That’s okay. CorinneOr to maybe just one week buy like super extra amounts of Oreos and be like, eat as many Oreos as you want this week. VirginiaAnd see what they do with that. That would be interesting.CorinneAll right. Here’s a question for you: How comfortable are your Charlotte Stone clogs?VirginiaThey are comfortable for clogs, is what I would say. And I love clogs very much. But they are a little bit of a scam in that they are not actually the most comfortable shoe. So I do not equate them to sneakers. For sure sneakers are more comfortable. Birkenstocks are more comfortable. But I wear my Charlotte Stone clogs the way other people might wear a ballet flat, or a loafer, like a dressier shoe. And I feel like no dressy shoe is ever really that comfortable. They’re pinchy or they give you blisters. And so by that standard, these are quite comfortable. Because they have a built-in memory foam padding situation. So you’re not walking on a block of wood the way you are with some clogs. I feel like I got shin splints from those, back in the day. They’re definitely more comfortable than that. But I wore them downtown yesterday. And I did move my car to avoid walking two blocks because it was uphill. So I don’t wear them for extensive walking. CorinneBut you would say they’re more comfortable than some clogs?VirginiaI think yes. Of the various cute clog brands.CorinneFashion clogs.VirginiaThey are the most comfortable fashion clog I have tried and I have tried probably three or four brands. Like they’re better than Number Six. They’re better than Swedish Hasbeens. CorinneMy issue is that clogs are always too narrow for me. I can never find clogs that fit.VirginiaYeah, and I mean I have narrower feet, so I don’t know how useful Charlotte Stone is on that front.CorinneThey do have a lot of sizing info. I tried some Charlotte Stone non-clogs, like they had a cute sneaker-ish thing, because they go up to size 12. Which should be what my size is, but they were way too narrow. Like I could not even get my foot in.VirginiaThat’s such a bummer. Somebody could get into the wide width clog market and do very well.CorinneOh God, seriously. I found one clog that works for wide-ish feet. It’s called Haga Trotoffel or something.VirginiaThat sounded like a very accurate pronunciation. CorinneI’ve had a pair, but it’s the non-padded pure wood kind. So it’s just not super comfortable to me.VirginiaThose are rough. Ever since I sprained my ankle, I am very cautious. Where am I going to wear these clogs? What sort of terrain am I walking? I really want to find some cute ones with a strap at the back for more stability. I think Charlotte Stone has ones with a strap that I’m thinking about trying, except I don’t need more clogs. CorinneNumber Six also has some that are really cute and the base is almost flat. That might be more uncomfortable. I don’t know.VirginiaWell I wear the lowest height Charlotte Stone clog. I do not go for their super platforms. I am not 22. That chapter of my life is closed. But they’re not a Dansko clog! Let’s be clear. And, I would say to be realistic that if you live on the east coast, or the Midwest, they’re like, a three month a year shoe. They’re great in the spring. They’re great in the fall. They’re going to be too hot in the summer and they’re going to be useless in the winter. So factor that in. Okay, so next up: Q: I have a question about chafing. Since giving birth for the second time in 2021, my body has changed and I probably fall in the small fat category. I’ve dealt with chafing between my thighs and in the summers before, but now that I have to wear outside clothes and get out of the house more, I am dealing with chafing in the groin area even in the winter, which is the thing I didn’t I don’t have prior experience with. I am looking for recommendations for underwear that have a wide enough gusset to hopefully prevent this. And any other tips to be more comfortable in this regard with this new body of mine? Corinne, you’re the underwear queen!CorinneI have a lot of thoughts about this.VirginiaYou are the resident Burnt Toast underwear expert.CorinneMy first thought is: Are we sure this is a chafing issue? VirginiaOh, what else could it be? CorinneWell, another thing that can happen when you become fat is you get irritation in your skin folds area. So just something to throw out there, because I’ve heard people having confusion around that before. It’s like a yeast infection you can get in your skin folds. It’s like a diaper rash. And you can treat it with diaper rash cream or zinc cream.VirginiaAquaphor?CorinneNo! Aquaphor? Isn’t Aquaphor like Vaseline?VirginiaYeah, but I used it on my kids’ butts when they had diaper rash. CorinneOkay, well, maybe I don’t know anything about diaper rash.VirginiaMaybe that was a bad move.CorinneI feel like a lot of diaper rash cream has zinc in it, and it coats your skin to protect it. VirginiaI know what you’re talking about now.CorinneIn terms of wider gusset underwear, there are not a lot of good options. The one option that I have found out about which I have not tried but have ordered and am currently waiting on is this underwear from the brand Panty Drop. I’m kind of confused about what’s going on with them because it seems like they merged with another brand which was Kade & Vos. Okay. But they claimed to have wider gusset underwear. And another thing you could consider would be boxers or boxer briefs.VirginiaI was wondering about even a boy’s short underwear. Something that has a longer thigh situation.CorinneIt goes down further.VirginiaOr bike shorts as underwear. CorinneAnd I mean, people definitely make chafing shorts. VirginiaYes! I just ordered some from Snag.CorinnePeople also like Thigh Society. So you could shop around and look for chafing shorts that you could just wear as underwear. VirginiaRight, just under your jeans or other hard pants, And where are you on MegaBabe or the other chafing balms? Do you have one you like?CorinneI have MegaBabe. I almost never need it. Just, whatever way that I’m designed, it’s not an issue for me right now. Virginia I get chafing but I haven’t tried MegaBabe. I actually have a very low tech hack. But I use Old Spice antiperspirant, which is my husband’s antiperspirant, and I use that as my antiperspirant. And so then I just put it between my thighs as well. And I find that holds up pretty well. I sometimes have to reapply it during the day, like on a very hot day. And one of the reasons I think I don’t wear dresses as much anymore is, chafing is an automatic reality in dresses. And some shorts too, depending on how they’re cut. So we feel you. This is a reality of fat life for sure! CorinneIf you have fat friends, you can talk to them about it because a lot of people have this problem.VIrginiaIt’s an evergreen conversation. Everyone will have opinions.CorinneOkay, next question: Q: Any tips on changing the dialogue with mom friends or friends in general who are progressive and informed otherwise, but still mired in diet culture? I feel like I’m the only one who isn’t intermittent fasting or doing keto.VirginiaI posted a meme on Instagram today, there was something like to all the women who are bullying each other to order salads, aren’t you so sad that you hate your life so much. And my DMs are currently flooded with people asking some version of this question: How do I keep going out to dinner with my friends who are so in this space? One person was telling me about being out to dinner and this group of women were trying to split tacos. Like tacos are small to start with. And they were all like, “Well, I can’t eat a whole one.”CorinneI’m like, “Am I ordering 9 or 12.”VirginiaCorrect. The number of tacos I need to be full is a very high number. I would not split one in two. It’s already only two bites!CorinneIt’s like trying to split a popsicle.VirginiaIt’s a total mess. So I feel like my first piece of advice is, can you make new friends? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know. CorinneMy first piece of advice is just like, Man up. Tell them you don’t want to talk about it.VirginiaThat’s better than mine.CorinneI mean, maybe it’s harsh. It’s a little tough love. Your advice is good too. There’s gotta be other people out there who are sick of this. Like, every person I know could benefit from some examination of their relationship with diet culture. So I just feel like, you can’t be the only one who’s struggling.VirginiaThere are almost 30,000 people subscribed to this newsletter, who probably feel the same way as you because why else are they reading the newsletter and listening to this podcast?.CorinneOkay. Actually, this is a little off topic. But can I tell you something? So, as previously discussed, I go to the gym. I have a trainer there. And this week, when I saw her, she was like, “Hey, so this person contacted me who found me through Burnt Toast.” VirginiaYay! CorinneSo I’m just saying what that basically means is there is another person in the city that I live in, who’s reading Burnt tToast who I don’t know. And none of my friends know. VirginiaRight! But who maybe would be an awesome friend. CorinneOr who at least also has some skepticism of diet culture stuff.  So that’s got to be true for you as well.VirginiaAnd you have powerlifting in common! Yes, in my close group of friends, we really never talk about this. And maybe it’s because they read the newsletter and know that I’m not the friend for this. CorinneThey’re scared. VirginiaBut we have so many better conversations because this is off the table for us. And we never made a conscious decision to do it. It just kind of happened. I do feel like in the past, we had more diet-y conversations. And we’ve all kind of shifted away from it. And it’s been lovely and great for our friendships. And so maybe you do need to officially say it to these people: I love you. But I just don’t want to talk about diets. This really isn’t good for me. I just end up feeling shitty about myself. And there are so many more interesting things to talk about here.CorinneYeah. I think it’s good for people to know that too. If people are totally unaware that talking about their diets constantly is hurting people, then they should know. And they deserve to know that.VirginiaCompletely agree. And often this talk is very performative because we think we have to talk this way. And so you being the first one to say, “What if we just ordered what we wanted to eat and didn’t do this whole dance?” I call it like playing the game of Salad Chicken, where you’re like,“Could I order the pasta? No, not if she’s ordering the salad.” Like, if you could not do that? Man, dinner is gonna be way more fun. So just give people permission to not do it and see what happens. And if they really can’t get there, then I circle back to: Can you have other friends? Or can you say to them, I don’t want to spend our time talking about this but I’m really sorry you’re struggling and how can I support you?CorinneOh my God, I love the idea of responding to someone who’s excited about intermittent fasting with, “I’m sorry, you’re struggling.”VirginiaHow can I support you in this starvation?CorinneI’m so sorry that you’re not eating food.VirginiaYou’re right. That might not be the moment.CorinneNo, I like it. VirginiaI think it could work? I think it’s an option. CorinneI mean, I think this is also that sort of situation where you can be like, “It’s so interesting that we’re all so focused on our weird diets.”VirginiaThe patented Corinne “It’s so interesting!”CorinneJust an anthropological, outsider observation.VirginiaIt’s always, always a good moment for that. All right. Should we do Butter? CorinneYes. I do have a Butter. What I want to recommend is this recipe called Trouble Cookies. It’s from a cookbook called Mother Grains, but it’s also on the Bon Appetit website. And I feel like it’s a little annoying to recommend because it does have a really annoying to find ingredient which is sorghum flour. [Reminder that if you preorder FAT TALK from Split Rock Books, you can also take 10 percent off any book mentioned on the pocast!]Shop the Burnt Toast Bookstore!VirginiaOh Lord.CorinneBut you can order it from the internet!VirginiaCorinne will find a link for you.CorinneBob’s Red Mill’s has it. So if you have that kind of grocery store. Anyways, they also have coconut cashews and toffee bits and are extremely delicious. I’ve been trying to get my mom to make them for like a month and now I’m moving on to the Burnt Toast community. Please make Trouble Cookies and tell me how good they are.VirginiaI will try them. I will report back if I can get it together to get sorghum flour. I could use a new cookie. We’re just a standard chocolate chip cookie household. CorinneI feel like chocolate chip cookies are good. But sometimes, a different direction is really good, too. VirginiaIs there chocolate in it? CorinneNo, it’s coconut toffee bits cashews.VirginiaCould I put chocolate chips in instead of the toffee bits.CorinneI mean, I feel like you could? But it’s really good. Do you not like caramel-y, coconut-y stuff?VirginiaAmy will tell you it is very hard for me to have a dessert that doesn’t have chocolate in it.CorinneOkay, this one is not for you. VirginiaI’m just always like, but where’s the chocolate? CorinneOh my God.VirginiaWhat am I doing here?Corinne I’m the opposite. And I mean, I really like chocolate. But I also really like a coconut-y caramel-y vibe. VirginiaI do too. I’m just like, but how much better if there was chocolate. That’s all I’m saying.CorinneI feel like maybe you could dip it in chocolate? VirginiaAll right. I don’t know. I’ll try them out. I’ll report back. Maybe I’ll do half the batch with the toffee, half the batch with the chocolate chips. I can tell you my kids won’t touch them if there’s no chocolate. So that’s like a non-starter. CorinneReally? Wow.VirginiaOh, please. CorinneI feel like a lot of kids don’t like chocolate. VirginiaThat is not the case in the Sole-Smith home. See previous anecdote regarding Mini Eggs consumed in a day. And center brownies. It’s very clear what we’ve come here to do.CorinneAll right, what’s your Butter?VirginiaAll right, my Butter is, I am breaking up with underwire bras. Breaking news. CorinneThis is big news. VirginiaYou’ve all been wondering. I’m not totally breaking up with them because I haven’t quite found a non-underwire bra that works under every outfit. Because there can be a uniboob situation? But I have recently purchased some non-underwire bras. And I realize now that I don’t know how I made it through the whole pandemic while still wearing underwire bras every day. Every day!CorinneMe neither! I feel like when we originally talked about bras on a mailbag episode, I recommended the bras that you ended up getting.VirginiaThe True & Co bras? CorinneYes! And you were like, “Oh, never heard of them.” VirginiaWell, you influenced me. And then Marielle Elizabeth really influenced me. And I bought a bunch of them and they’re awesome.CorinneThey’re really good. The sizing is super flexible. I can wear anywhere from a 1x to a 3x. And I have a big chest.VirginiaYou do have to look for the full cup. Because I ordered some that were like a half cup and they do not work if you are someone with a big chest. CorinneYes, they have full cups and regular cups. VirginiaSo you have to look for the full cup. I can only find them on Amazon right now. I don’t know. CorinneThey’re only on Amazon now. VirginiaIt’s really irritating. I would like there to be other options. But the other one I’m wearing a lot of, is I have some of the Paloma bras from Girlfriend Collective. And actually, this one isn’t the paloma, it’s the high necked? I don’t know. But I like it because it feels just like a tank. Yeah, I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get here. I will be 42 a few weeks after you hear this episode. It’s taken me a while. But now, I realize that I don’t have to accept permanent marks on the side of my body from bras. Like what was I doing? I think I thought I really needed more structure. I’ll unpack it all in an essay at some point. But for now, I just want to report the liberation that I am wearing underwire bras much less frequently. And it’s delightful. CorinneI love that. VirginiaAll right. Thank you all so much for listening to Burnt Toast!CorinneIf you’d like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and leave us a rating or review. These really help folks find the show.--The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and also co-hosts mailbag episodes!The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

​​Today's episode is a Comfort Food rerun featuring a conversation between Virginia, Amy Palanjian, and Darcy Lockman. Darcy is a clinical psychologist and author of All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership. All the Rage explores how egalitarian relationships become traditional ones when children are introduced to the household and why a disproportionate amount of parental work falls on women, no matter their background, class or professional statusDarcy’s book was foundational for me in starting to understand this issue more deeply. One thing I really like about Darcy’s work is that she does invite men into the conversation. It’s not just ranting, it’s about how we can change the conversation and move forward. And remember, if you order All the Rage from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, you can get 10 percent off if you also preorder (or have already preordered) Fat Talk (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture comes out April 25, 2023 from Henry Holt. Preorder a signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. And! You can now preorder the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player and become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.LINKSDarcy's WebsiteKids Don’t Damage Women’s Careers — Men DoMommastrongCREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!---​​You’re listening to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast where we talk about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith and I also write the Burnt Toast newsletter.This week I am out on spring break. It’s been a while since we did a rerun, so for new listeners reruns come from Comfort Food, the sadly now retired podcast I made with my very best friend Amy Palanjian of Yummy Toddler Food.This episode was called mealtime mental load struggles. It’s an interview that Amy and I did with Darcy Lockman, who is the author of All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership. We aired this episode on September 19, 2019, so you have to put yourself in the pre-pandemic world. It’s definitely a conversation that’s ahead of its time because we were still months away from the pandemic which really laid bare all the disproportionate ways that mothers, and really all non cis men people, carry families.Darcy’s book is one of the texts that was just so foundational for me in starting to understand this issue more deeply. One thing I really like about Darcy’s work is that she does invite men into the conversation. It’s not just ranting—not that I don’t love ranting about straight men—but it’s not just ranting about how they’re failing. It’s also talking about how we can change the conversation and move forward. One quick note I want to make before we dive in: Darcy’s book does focus on heterosexual partnerships, and therefore this conversation is very cis/het focused. If I were to do it today, I would definitely broaden that out a lot. I have since heard from plenty of queer couples who also struggle with this issue. Though it is also true that queer couples are often a lot more proactive about addressing and working through mental load divisions, just because they aren’t falling back on the hetero gender conditioning bullshit. So there’s obviously a lot more layers than we could get into here and I am aware that that piece is missing. It is one I would love to circle back on in the future.Episode 88 TranscriptVirginiaHello, and welcome to episode 43 of Comfort Food. This is the podcast about the joys and meltdowns of feeding our families and feeding ourselves.AmySo, we’ve talked about the challenges of sharing the mental load of meal times in past episodes, check out episode 15, 31, and 35. But this week, we brought in an expert who really knows what the research says about how and why this gender divide happens and we’re going to talk about what we think everyone should be doing about it.VirginiaI’m Virginia Sole-Smith, I’m a writer, a contributing editor to Parents Magazine and author of The Eating Instinct. I write about how women relate to food and our bodies in a culture that gives us so many unrealistic expectations about those things,AmyI’m Amy Palanjian, a writer, recipe developer and creator of Yummy Toddler Food. I love helping parents stop freaking out about what their kids will and won’t eat and sharing doable recipes that fit into even the busiest family’s schedule.VirginiaI am so excited to introduce our guests today, Darcy Lockman, who is the author of All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership. I am trying to remember where I first found out about Darcy’s book, but I mostly just remember rushing to buy it and reading it voraciously in about three days. I encourage you all to do the same. Darcy is a clinical psychologist practicing in New York City, also a journalist who’s written for the New York Times, Washington Post, and many other places. Darcy, welcome to the show!DarcyThank you so much for having me, Amy and Virginia.VirginiaWhy don’t you tell us a little more about yourself and your family, especially because I think everyone’s going to be interested to know what prompted you to write a book about all this equal partnership stuff at home.DarcyWell, when I tell you, I have two kids and I’m married to a man, I bet you can imagine. I live in Queens and I have two daughters. They actually started school today, second and fifth grade. I live with them, and my husband, and our dog. And I was really surprised when we had kids, starting with our first daughter, but kind of snowballing through our second, how much of the workload of all of it fell to me. It was hard to articulate and name. My husband, despite the fact that we both work full time—we actually met in grad school, we’re both therapists—he seemed to be sailing through his life without much having changed. And that wasn’t the same for me. Which is not to say that he didn’t spend time with and adore our children because he certainly did and does. But his life was still going to work and then coming home and like hanging out with the kids. Whereas I suddenly had like 1000 new things to do every day. And it wasn’t anything that we planned that way. We would have certainly identified as progressive and egalitarian before we had kids. And if it had just been our problem, I would have thought, Okay, what am I doing wrong? But I noticed that all of the women around me with young kids spoke about what happened at home in the same way. So every day in the early years of parenthood, I just found myself asking this question: Why are we all still living this way? This wasn’t what we expected. What’s going on? And it became such a burning question that I ultimately decided to try to answer it by writing a book.VirginiaYou’re speaking to a lot of our souls right now.DarcyI’m sure. AmyWe talk a lot about mental load issues in the kitchen in many of our episodes. And in your book, you have an anecdote about making chicken nuggets that I’m sure will speak to a lot of us. Can you talk a little bit about why you think family meals in particular remain such a gendered issue and also tell the chicken nugget story?DarcyI’ll start with the chicken nugget story because I think that everyone has this chicken nugget story. We had been at the beach all day, my husband and my kids. This was not this summer but the past one. We stayed all day. It was a gorgeous day, and we didn’t eat dinner. So we’re driving home in the car and I’m thinking, okay, what are the kids going to eat? They’re starving, they need to get to bed. So you know, I said to my husband, “oh, we have chicken nuggets in the freezer. Let’s give them those when we get home,” and he said, “Okay.”So, we get home and the kids need to shower off because they’ve been at the beach. My little one was five at the time, so I was helping her shower. My older daughter went to shower herself, and my husband went into the kitchen. So I assumed he was making dinner for the kids, because we had discussed it in the car. So about five minutes later, after my younger daughter and I had showered, we came out together, I dried her off, she was getting dressed. And I walked into the kitchen and my husband was just standing there drinking a beer and there were no nuggets in the oven. They hadn’t even been gotten out of the freezer. I mean, clearly, nothing had happened. And it wasn’t even like an elaborate dinner. This kind of thing happens all the time, wherein I’m the only one thinking about what the family needs. And my husband’s not a bad guy. He’s not a selfish guy.VirginiaHe’s not thinking those steps ahead.AmyI mean, my husband is not a bad guy either. But it’s like you are telling the story of my house.VirginiaI was just thinking about every day this summer we would—like not every day but a lot of weekends, we would take the girls to the pool. And I was always like, “let’s eat lunch at the pool.” You know, they have like hot dogs or chicken fingers or whatever. And I was always like, “let’s just eat lunch at the pool before we go home.” Because I’m picturing getting home in a wet swimsuit, figuring out lunch, and he was always like, “Ah, it’s so expensive. Let’s just go home for lunch.” And I was like, I don’t understand how you don’t understand why that’s so much worse.DarcyYou do understand why he doesn’t understand. I mean, “Let’s go home and you make them lunch instead, while I go clean up.”VirginiaRight, while I take a shower. And we’ve saved $40 on pool food, which I get is ridiculous, but it’s aggravating. DarcyWell he didn’t pay you $40 for your time, right? VirginiaExactly. DarcyThis is the thing. There’s all this unpaid labor that women end up doing. And it really adds up over the life course. And it makes a big difference to people’s financial lives. I read recently—I keep coming across this stuff that I wish I could have put this in the book. Women over 65 are twice as likely as men over 65 to be living in poverty and a lot of that is attributable to how much more time they have spent in their lives to in free labor.VirginiaThat is staggering. That is really staggering.DarcyWe laugh about it, understandably, because this is our experience and it’s hard not to laugh, because we are living it—laugh and be enraged.VirginiaLaugh and cry a little bit. DarcyBut there really are serious consequences to the fact that women are the ones who carry most of this stuff. So, the chicken nuggets story. Everyone has that story. And it happens so regularly. And I think women remain more responsible for the mental labor of meals because they’re more responsible for everything. So I think it’s of a piece, I don’t know, a special piece of it. It’s one part of it. It’s just consistent across the board.VirginiaAnd it’s such a big source of labor at home that if you’re doing everything, of course, you’re going to be doing this giant thing.DarcyRight. And kids eat three times a day. The lawn needs to be mowed, I don’t know how often because I don’t have a lawn.AmyOnce a week.VirginiaYeah, like maybe every once every two weeks.AmyDuring the growing season.DarcyAnd if it doesn’t get done the consequences are not catastrophic. You can’t stop feeding your family.VirginiaRight, the lawn is far more optional than the chicken nuggets. DarcyI got a lot of notes from men after the book came out saying, “I do all the yard work.”VirginiaYeah, I hear that a lot. Yeah, “I’m in charge of the outside.” Like the outside is not where the kids are most of the time. It’s just not where most of the work is.DarcyThere was a great study that came out after my book came out that I wish I could have in my book, but urban men who don’t have outdoor work to do, such as in my family, we don’t really use a car, we don’t have a yard, there’s no gutter to clean. Urban men don’t make up for the difference in the labor they don’t have to do outside by doing more inside.VirginiaInteresting. They’re just really living their best lives. DarcyLying on their beds playing on their phones. That’s their best lives. I’m sorry, I do get really cynical. VirginiaWe’re not putting anybody’s husband, including yours, who has obviously been a good sport about this whole project, we’re not putting anyone on blast here. But I remember reading the chicken nuggets story and circling it in my copy of the book. When you’re talking about it in the book you wrote, “it was not laziness, it was something I had no name for and nothing I could hope to understand.” And that really struck me because it does feel like this opaque thing, where if you’re the person, the woman, who’s thinking the six steps ahead and used to figuring out like, “Okay, what do they need to eat? And when are we doing this?” and juggling all of that, it feels so hard to understand why the other person can’t see the same needs. But what did the research show you about why that’s happening? Why are men failing to see and let alone act on these really basic needs of kids needing dinner?DarcySociologists have really good language for this. They talk about how girls are really raised to be communal, to think about other people and their needs and concerns a lot of the time, and how boys are raised more to think about their own sense of agency, to be agentic, as they say, about their ambitions and their pleasures, and not think about others quite as much. So in that context, it makes sense that when in adulthood, you have a man and a woman living together, these two different ways of being are going to come together in a household in exactly this way.VirginiaWow, that’s fascinating. So it’s very much a socialized thing versus like, oh, women are just natural caregivers?DarcyWomen are no more natural caregivers than men. We do make a lot of false assumptions about biology. Women can gestate babies, but beyond that, men and women are equally capable of thinking about others and doing all of this stuff. Even when they study the physiological responses of mothers and fathers to babies, they’re exactly the same. They don’t really find any differences. In the 70’s they started looking at dads, which hadn’t been done before that. And they did studies in nursery wards of men’s heart rate, skin conductance and blood pressure when interacting with their infants with their newborns, and they rose at the same rate as women. There were no physiological differences in responses. So the only thing that differs between men and women is that men take a step back in the presence of their wives.But what happens is parenting skills are learned and not innate. So if men are always taking a step back, that way the learning curve is going to be much different for men and women. So women tend to spend more time with babies early on and then they learn more and then they know more. We make these assumptions about nature that are untrue. In fact, one of the things that I learned while working on this, and I almost can’t believe I didn’t know this before, is that men’s hormones change when they spend time in intimate contact with a pregnant woman. So there is a like neurobiological mechanism that primes men for fatherhood, just as it does for women. It doesn’t get a lot of play, right? We have all these assumptions about how men are a nice addition to a family but really, children are about mommies. What what they have found, what neuroscience is finding, is that changes in the brain around parenthood have more to do with being a primary parent than with being either gender. So when they look at the brain activity of primary care fathers, it’s basically the same as that of primary care mothers. So again, it’s about time spent with the baby, as opposed to being either a man or a woman.VirginiaThat’s fascinating. So it really is a learning. There’s a learning curve and you have to be in there doing the work to learn this stuff.DarcyThere’s so many things about the way we have parental leave structured in this country where men don’t get any, that the scale is really tipped in so many ways, toward the mother from day one.VirginiaRight, there’s this whole framework.AmyI was going to say, and then the culture of mom guilt, if you are not doing all of the things. DarcyInterestingly, that culture intensified in the mid-90s, which is when mother’s labor force participation peaked. Just as mothers were achieving more at work, and more commonly in the workplace, the bar for what being an adequate mother was, was really raised. And Sharon Hayes, who is a sociologist, called this “intensive mothering.” She called these new standards intensive mothering. And we all know what they are, because we live them. I’m in my 40s, I was not raised in the same way, in the same environment, that my kids are being raised in, just in that parents were a lot less involved. We kind of did our own thing, which wasn’t bad.But now what we see is this concerted cultivation, as it’s been called. All this attention being paid to kids, in every facet of their being. And while what parents are able to provide for their kids does vary by socioeconomic class or status, really that demand for intensive mothering does not change. It’s there, you see it in every stratosphere of socioeconomic status, the demands that mothers place on themselves and feel you have to live up to.VirginiaOh, this is really resonating as it is back to school time. My six year old is starting first grade and Amy and I were just texting this morning about trying to be more hands off about things like first grade homework and not being obsessive about all these things that I know it doesn’t even occur to Dan to be obsessive about. But I’m worried that I will look like I’m not on top of things if we don’t do XYZ.DarcyIt feels very public for us, we have to be doing these things. Because it’s such a vulnerable thing, raising kids. We want approval, so this is how to get it. Be really intense about it all the time.AmyI think that that plays into how we’re feeding our families, too. I mean, we want our kids to love us through food. And I think there is an expectation—well, maybe this is just me because I’m a food blogger—that we’re going to make certain types of meals. VirginiaI don’t think it’s just you. I think feeding kids is very performative these days.AmyThere’s a lot of boxes that I feel like we need to check with every meal that the deck just seems so highly stacked against like reality.DarcyYeah, I remember reading a lot of parenting articles and anytime there was a reference to food, the writer would be very careful to say like, “I was cutting my child’s organic carrots.” And I was so determined in writing this not to do that. I don’t write a lot about food, but I’m not going to say that I do anything organic or natural. I do eat that stuff as much as anybody, but…VirginiaIt’s a standard you don’t need to perpetuate.DarcyThere is a performative piece of it.VirginiaWell, and it’s this self fulfilling thing where as feeding kids gets more and more complicated and layered. If we go back to sharing the load with a partner, you’re increasing the learning curve for that partner who started at a disadvantage, not because not because men are disadvantaged in this, but because there was all this pressure for him to be less engaged. And now when they do step in to try to do things, it’s like, no, you’re doing it wrong. Like there’s that whole like piece of it, right? Where we’ve made it so complicated.DarcyYeah, except, I like to stay away from—and I know you’re not meaning to do this—the mother blaming thing. You know, “we’ve made it so complicated, we tell them they’re not doing it right.” There is that concept, of course. I don’t mean to say It doesn’t exist. The name for it—again, sociologists have all these great words—is maternal gatekeeping. The idea that women keep men out by tell them telling them they’re not doing it good enough.VirginiaRight. I was very interested in how you articulated this in the book, say more about this.DarcyThere’s this term maternal gatekeeping and it’s about women criticizing their husbands and so their husbands take a step back, because they don’t want to be criticized, and then the mother ends up doing it all. When I’ve had casual conversations with people about this topic, and especially before the book came out, I definitely had people say to me, “Well, women are just too picky and so men just back off because the women are so critical,” right? Because it’s like, let’s just keep blaming women for everything.I interviewed women for the book, who would say to me, “That makes me so mad because my husband, when I’m out, will let our our toddler stay up till 10 o’clock. And when when I say to him, ‘What were you thinking?’ He says to me, "‘Well, he said he wasn’t tired.’” And obviously, that’s not the way that you can interact with a four year old. You tell them when it’s bedtime, you don’t wait until they say they’re tired because it’s going to be midnight. But she said to me, “If I am critical of that with him, am I being a shrew? Or am I being a reasonable parent?” And the answer, of course, is always that I’m a shrew, because women are not allowed to comment without getting put in this kind of bucket of maternal gatekeeping, I suppose. One of the men who I interviewed for the book, a sociologist, would say that a man would say to him, “Well, my wife says, I don’t vacuum good enough so I just don’t do it anymore.” And I was nodding along during this interview. And then Michael Kimmel, the academic, says to me, “I say to him, ‘if you were working on a report at work, and your colleagues said, this isn’t up to par, would you say to them, Well, I’m just never going to do it any more then?’ That’s not the way you work on a team.”If you and your wife have different ideas about what what is acceptable, you have to come to an agreement about what the standards are. So men sometimes back out of work by saying, “Well, I don’t do it well enough for you so you’re just going to have to do it.” And that’s actually one of the strategies that’s been identified that men use as a way to get themselves out of having to do labor in the home.VirginiaAnd make women feel guilty in the process.DarcyLike, “you’re such a nag for asking me to take out the garbage,” is really a story about a man shirking responsibility. Like, why is the nag the bad guy in that story?VirginiaWhy is she even having to ask?DarcyWhy isn’t the person who isn’t behaving like an adult in their own home the one who’s taken to task? And misogyny has always answered that question.AmySo how do you think about these things that we have to do every day to take care of our families, when one of the parents actively enjoys something more than the other? This isn’t really true in my house, but say, I really, really love cooking, and my husband really, really doesn’t. How do you divide that and feel like, you’re not just doing everything?VirginiaBecause you aren’t going to really, really love it when you’ve done it seven nights in a row.DarcyI think that’s such an individual decision. It’s a good question. If you’re going to think about how many hours everyone is spending on labor, you might say, “well, I’m the cook of our family. Why don’t you be the launderer of our family?” or something. My husband and I actually tried that because he’s a horrible cook, for lack of experience more than anything else, but for him to catch up to where I am is taking much too long and I don’t like jarred spaghetti sauce. So he started doing the laundry instead and that seemed fair to both of us. Though I do have a friend, a male friend, who said to me, “I know this isn’t the right thing to say but I’m going to say it to you anyway,” because he does all the laundry, too, because his wife loves to cook. He’s like, “Jenny loves to cook and I don’t love to do laundry, so it’s still kind of not fair to me.” So, both people’s feelings of fairness, I suppose, need to be addressed. But I think whatever works for people is fine. There’s a couple of sociologists wrote a book in which they say, “equality is not so much an endpoint as a process.” And I think that really sums it up nicely because it’s a process of discussing how do we each feel about what our responsibilities are. And if either of us is unhappy, we really need to find something that works a little bit better. So whatever people want to negotiate is certainly fine. I mean, some people want the wife to do everything and the man to do nothing. There are traditional couples who live that way and if everyone’s satisfied, great. VirginiaI don’t think there’s a human out there who loves cleaning toilets, but someone has to clean the toilets. So, there’s always going to be that balance of like, maybe he does the laundry, but doesn’t love it, but she is probably doing other tasks that she doesn’t love, even if she does love the cooking. Like, there’s that trade. It’s nice that we can take pleasure in some of the domestic work. Nobody’ is going to love it all.DarcyThere’s a lot of negotiation and just paying attention. The couples I found who had achieved the most success in terms of both feeling comfortable with what each was doing were really on top of the idea that sexism was going to seep into their relationship if they weren’t careful to really talk a lot about how they were feeling about this stuff. Because it is a big issue in marriage. It’s actually the third cited reason for divorce after infidelity and growing apart.VirginiaWow, yeah, that’s staggering.This is building on what you’re saying about not blaming women for maternal gatekeeping, but at the same time, it does feel like there’s this real push/pull here. Most of what we need to happen is for men to step up and do more and engage with this issue, for sure, but there is also a degree to which women could be stepping down in some ways and letting go or at least prioritizing their own needs above this need to serve everyone else in the household.We talked about this a few months ago, because after I read your book and came to you at a party and was like, “Okay, I have questions.” There was this thing that happened between me and my husband, who I should say, is really, really,very much a shared parent and in this with me 50/50 and in a big way. But there was a day where we both recognized the societal sexism seeping into our lives. Which was, I was really horrified when he chose to take a nap on an afternoon when we had childcare. I felt like this was so self indulgent, that he would nap when our children were being cared for by another person. And he was like, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I had paid a responsible person to watch my children, I had a free afternoon, I took a nap.”You really helped me realize that wasn’t a situation where he needed to be more like me and feel like if he’s not with the kids, he has to be doing 97 productive things at all times. In fact, I should feel more permission to take self care for myself. I could also take the nap. In the book you called this like male entitlement versus female unentitlement. I would love for you to explain that distinction and talk a little more about why moms can be a little more entitled sometimes.DarcyYeah. Women today, working mothers today, spend as much time with their children as stay at home moms of the 70’s.VirginiaWe’re doing too much.DarcyAnd clearly there are still only 24 hours a day. So what the research has found is that women accomplish this by cutting back on leisure time, self care and sleep. Your husband isn’t cutting back on his sleep.VirginiaNo, or his leisure time. DarcyAnd I know, like, on a Saturday, the kids will be playing or whatever and my husband would be lying in our bed, which is his favorite place in the world. And he’ll be like, “come snuggle with me.” And I’ll be like, “are you kidding me? I have like 300 things I have to get done while the kids are napping.” And then I’m annoyed with him because he’s so happy to just lie on the bed and do nothing.So it’s really hard to strike a balance because there are 25 things that need to be done. But I think women do need to be more self indulgent in that way. I could. But it’s hard for me to relax when there are 25 things that need to be done because there isn’t infinite time to get them done.I don’t want to, as you say, rag on my husband in particular, but if he were more on top of those things, I would have less things on my list. And then maybe I would feel more comfortable lying down for a little bit with him on a Saturday afternoon. So I think maybe the same thing is true. I remember when we had that discussion, and maybe I didn’t give enough credence to the fact that him doing more might allow you to feel more comfortable to nap. A family is a unit and a system, right? So there’s that.But yes, women do feel less entitled to pursuit of their own pleasure when their children’s needs are in the air.VirginiaThat was a situation where the children’s needs were being fully met, like in that hour.DarcyBut I assume there were lots of other things around the house that that needed to be done.VirginiaThere could have been a load of laundry moved along but nothing was at a crisis point that particular day. I think that’s exactly the difference we’re talking about where, for women, it’s much harder to feel like you can relax even when things are basically done. There’s an endless list that we could be working through.DarcyAlso, there’s this invisible sense—this just happened in our house—this invisible sense about who’s in charge of what. We got a puppy in October. It was after I finished writing the book. My kids were so eager for me to finish so we could finally get this puppy. So we got the puppy. And I said to my husband, “you’re in charge of veterinary care. That’s on you.” Because, you know, we’re trying to divide things and it’s easy for me now to feel entitled to give him stuff because I still do more. So I was like, “yes, you’re on vet.” So we ran out of heartworm medication a few months ago, and I didn’t tell him and I knew he didn’t know. But he said to me last night, “has she not been on our heartworm medication?” And I was thinking, but you’re on vet. But there was this assumption that I was going to tell him when it ran out.VirginiaBut then that’s not him being on the vet. DarcyAnd we had this discussion about it last night, and we both felt in this discussion like I had dropped a ball. This is the mental load stuff, right? It’s so assumed that women are going to bear it. Like “I’m vet” might be him showing up to the vet once I’ve figured out that she needs the medicine and made the appointment.But there’s a lot of interesting mental load research about men and women’s assumptions about who is ultimately responsible. And I’ll tell you what the research has found, which is that men and women both hold women responsible for the mental load. When men are carrying the mental load, it’s usually around reminding women of things they have said they will do for the man. Like “you said you were going to buy me a new jacket.”VirginiaThat’s helpful. DarcyThere’s so much research on all this stuff. It was really a fascinating field to dig into. If depressing, also.AmyMaybe we can try to give our listeners some tips that you’ve found from talking to couples who are happy with their balance. This doesn’t even have to be specific to food or feeding a family, but just are there common denominators among couples who feel happy with the way that the load is being shared?DarcyIt’s a very good question and the answer is yes. There is one absolute common denominator. Both members of the couple understand that without close attention, things are going to fall in a certain way and both members of the couple have articulated to each other very explicitly, that they are invested in living in an egalitarian relationship. It really does take exactly that much attention. I was on Twitter last year and a woman posted an article by Jessica Valenti and the headline was “Kids Don’t Damage Women’s Careers — Men Do”. And the article said the reason that women are aren’t getting ahead as they might is that their responsibilities at home are outsized because men’s are undersized.Anyway, this woman posted this article and she wrote, “this is true, but it doesn’t have to be this way.” So I messaged her, I said, “Why is it not this way for you?” And she wrote back and said, “Because I married a Swede,” which was kind of funny, but then I said, “can I interview you?”And it turned out she was a she was getting her doctorate in sociology and in family studies. She knew what all the research showed and when she met her boyfriend, who then became her husband, she said to him, “Look, I’m not going to live this way. This is what all the research shows is going to happen. And I want us to jointly commit to staying on top of this,” and he agreed. So whenever things started to get off balance, they would reconvene and reconfigure. And before they had their kid, they sat down and thought about everything that was going to need to happen. I don’t know how they did this because it’s hard to anticipate that stuff. They talked about who was going to do what, who was going to do pickup—this was before they had a child. So it seems to be like this joint commitment to living equally is a thing that is required of couples in order to actually pull it off. A joint and explicit agreement. Because then when you come back to it, if things get off balance, it doesn’t have to be in anger, which is how so often how it goes, at least in my house. They could just say to each other, “hey, we’re not meeting this goal we set. Let’s recalibrate.” So that’s what all these couples do and that’s how they’re able to pull it off. It’s really startling, to me at least, how much attention it takes in order to make it work this way.VirginiaIt sounds like, too, though, one more optimistic takeaway from that is, yes, it requires just a huge amount of attention. But it’s also both members of the couple recognizing that this happens because of a larger force. This is cultural pressures. It’s less about blaming this one guy for not seeing the tray of chicken nuggets or whatever. It’s more about like, oh, wait, we’re both vulnerable to these larger pressures. It’s taking over again. How do we as a team fight back against that?DarcyThat’s a great point. And people have said that to me my husband and I read this together and it alleviated a lot of the pressure on both of us because we realize just what you said, Virginia. It’s the societal forces. It’s not that he’s a jerk. It’s not that I’m a martyr. It’s the water that we swim in. And we can fix it and not be mad or upset.VirginiaRight, not make it so personal. I’ve read a lot of books on this topic and All the Rage is the one that I have found that is the most accessible for both women and men to read. It’s not husband blaming and shaming because it is focused on this larger cultural problem. It’s a great book to read as a couple because it’s not as antagonizing as some of the other ones. Not to diss any other writers, because I think rightfully there is a lot of anger around this issue and women need to express that anger. But when you’re looking for okay, how do I actually move forward on this.DarcyI’ve gotten the best emails from men which have totally floored me, who were like, “this is totally me and I want to do better,” or, “I thought I was a feminist but this really opened my eyes to some things going on in my home.” I did not expect that kind of feedback from men when the book came out.VirginiaThat’s amazing. DarcyThat has made me quite optimistic that there are men who are seeing themselves here and wanting to do something better.AmySo, Darcy, can you tell our listeners where they can find you?DarcyYes. My book has a website.VirginiaThank you so much for being here, Darcy. I feel like I could talk to you for easily another hour because this research you’ve done is so fascinating, and there’s so much ground we can cover but really appreciate you being here with us.DarcyI really appreciate you having me. Thank you for your interest.VirginiaComing up next we are going to do some listener updates.UnrelatedVirginiaSo for this week’s unrelated we are going to do a smorgasbord, if you will, of many updates based on some of the great emails you guys have been sending us. So Amy, what do we have up first?AmyOkay, so Sara, after we did our unrelated about exercise programs that we like, sent us a recommendation for a program called Mommastrong. It started by a woman named Courtney Wyckoff. She’s a mom of three years, nearly postpartum with her third, and the program focuses on core strength and functional fitness. I love that there’s a daily 15 minute workout posted so that you can squeeze that in whenever you have 15 minutes and then there are five minute hacks. It just sounds like it’s so appropriate for this phase of life that we’re that we’re in. She also has a ‘fix me’ section for common aches and pains which I’m going to go check out.VirginiaYeah, upper back hunching, sciatica. I can relate to some of these pains. She also talks about that she has an almost 100% safe space as far as body diversity and body positivity, very little weight talk. And when there is weight talk, like in the Facebook Group, the moderators are on it so you can avoid that kind of stuff, which is pretty awesome. This looks great. I’m really excited to check this out.AmyShe had suggested that we interview Courtney for our episode on moms and fitness, but we did it too fast so we did not have a chance to consider that.VirginiaRight, that is Episode 41, where we got more into mom workout stuff, so definitely check that one out. But if this is a topic you guys are interested in, we can maybe do another episode and try to get Courtney to come on because she sounds awesome.So then the next update, in Episode 39 where we talked about snacking, Amy and I railed against the idea of children eating raw cauliflower, even if it’s purple or green or some fancy cauliflower. You see this a lot on Instagram, in the like Instagram rainbow bento box type snacking stuff. And we were talking about how that’s not realistic but Ruth emailed and says:Hi Virginia and Amy. Here in the UK, raw cauliflower is a standard crudites component. Definitely not an insta-invention for us. It’s my dad’s, a university professor in his 60’s, favorite and he is not cool or on Instagram. It is delicious with hummus and my kids, ages one and two, like it, too, when they go through a blessed phase of eating anything outside their staple diet of raisins, apples, cornflakes, and oatcakes.So, I have to say, I am half British—my mom is British—and I did not know raw cauliflower was a thing. So blame to all my British relatives for not enlightening me faster. But yeah, I guess it’s not just an Instagram trend.AmyI do like that she specifies that it is offered with a dip because that is often lacking in the rainbow displays. It is often plain. If it’s like a vehicle for eating ranch or hummus, I could see Tula using it as a spoon to get more hummus in her face.VirginiaWould she eat the cauliflower underneath the hummus, though? because my kids have been known to lick pretty aggressively.AmyI don’t know. I can try it out and see but she likes dips a lot. VirginiaAlright, next update. This was a really sweet note. This is from Jessica, who emailed in response to Episode 40 about growth charts that we did. She says:Thank you, Virginia, this week for mentioning that Beatrix is in high growth curve percentiles for height and weight. Despite being pretty in tune to hidden diet culture-y messages, listening today I realized that I still had an assumption that your kids were fed the “right way” and therefore must have bodies that were beyond critique. My 19-month-old daughter is in the 90/90 club. She’s tall and sturdy. And hearing that one of my feeding role models children has the same body type gave me so much peace.Oh, I really love that. First of all, 90/90 toddler body is absolutely beyond critique in my mind. They’re adorable. But yeah, I mean, the whole point of this is that healthy bodies come in a range of shapes and sizes. Some kids are going to be big and some kids are going to be small. AmySome kids are going to be like 90/10 on that curve.VirginiaRight or 10/90. There’s a lot of combinations. This is the big argument for getting away from fixating on weight. You can really embrace Health at Every Size and understand that human diversity is a pretty great thing, but I can definitely understand that anxiety, especially if you’ve had a pediatrician saying the wrong things about your toddler’s body. So, I’m glad I could help. Beatrix is glad she can help too. I mean, she doesn’t help but she will be glad.Thanks so much for listening to Burnt Toast. If you’d like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and tell a friend about this episode. Tell a partner about this episode. Maybe have a conversation about all of these issues.You can also consider a paid subscription to the Burnt Toast newsletter. It’s just $5 a month or 50 for the year. You get a ton of cool perks and you keep this an ad and sponsor free space.

Today Virginia is chatting with Jessica Wilson, MS, RD. Jessica is a dietitian and community organizer who co-created the #amplifymelanatedvoices challenge which went viral in 2020. She is also the author of It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies which came out in February. If you are someone who has been in the anti-diet, intuitive eating, Health at Every Size spaces for a while, this conversation may give you some really big questions to sit with—it definitely did for me. If you’re newer to these spaces, I hope that this work helps you feel more welcome and more seen. And remember, if you order It’s Always Been Ours from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, you can get 10 percent off that purchase if you also preorder (or have already preordered!) Fat Talk! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don't forget to preorder! Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture comes out April 25, 2023 from Henry Holt. You can preorder your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. And! You can now preorder the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.BUTTER & OTHER LINKSJessica's Instagram: @Jessicawilson.msrd. Jessica's TikTok: byJessicaWilson.Critiquing the Health at Every Size communitySabrina StringsDa'Shaun Harrisonyet another women’s magazine story about Ozempicintuitive eating and chocolate cakethe kid who can enjoy Oreosnecklace extenders for fat necks! CREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!Episode 87 TranscriptJessicaSo I have been a clinical dietitian for over a decade. I started in college health and I was taught zero things about eating disorders. I was very excited because people in their late teens and early twenties must just want to eat food and just learn how to adult!VirginiaThat sounds right. JessicaThat was my assumption. I was not ready for people to not want to eat food. Like, I became a dietitian because I wanted to talk to people who wanted to eat food. Like, that makes sense.VirginiaThat does make sense.JessicaSo, I was not ready. I was probably bad at it for a good two years, working with people with eating disorders and disordered eating because the nuances and complexities were just not what was written in books. It was all about, “They probably experienced trauma and this is why they have eating disorders so this is what you have to do,” and “ideal body weight.”VirginiaOh man.JessicaYeah, that was the books.Virginia“Ideal body weight” should definitely be part of a conversation about eating disorders. That sounds great. JessicaSo, I went from there into the Health at Every Size community and then I went out of the Health at Every Size community and into more body political spaces.VirginiaWe are talking about your incredible new book It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies which came out last month. I mean, Jessica, the book is powerful. So important, so beautifully written. I really could not put it down. You can ask my family, I was reading it last night and ignoring them. I want everyone who works in food and bodies in any capacity to read it because it feels like such an important and desperately missing piece of this conversation.You argue that our continued focus on body positivity, on diet culture, on wellness culture, all of this is keeping us distracted from systems and structures that truly oppress bodies, and that this focus is enabling us to avoid a deeper, and I would say probably much harder, conversation about liberation. So let’s start there. Why do we need to do this reframing?JessicaI really appreciate that you teased that out and were actually open to this conversation because I don’t feel like this is where our field is. We’re still using “anti-diet” and “diet culture” and thinking that is good enough, thinking that is an umbrella-enough term to speak to everyone and their experiences.Sabrina Strings has done a great job, Da'Shaun Harrison has done a great job of really breaking down how anti-fatness is connected to anti-Blackness and therefore structural racism and systemic inequalities. But somehow, we get caught. We just jump into what’s easier. And it’s easier to talk about a drive for thinness, or diet culture, or Ozempic, and how that’s impacting people’s bodies and thinking that is the problem. Or Ozempic is the problem. When, like, why are people shrinking themselves? Why is that happening, in a cultural context? Why are we not talking about white supremacy and capitalism and the safety and survival that is gained from folks by shrinking themselves?But when we talk about just the drive for thinness or the thin ideal, or any of these simple conversations, it’s easier. It’s a harder conversation to talk about structures and so it keeps us really comfortable. It doesn’t ask us to stretch, it doesn’t implicate us in any of this stuff. Those of us who are white, those of us who are thin, we just get to talk to our people about not wanting to be on a diet anymore. People aren’t seen in those conversations. We already know that folks of color, especially Black folks, don’t see themselves within the eating disorder diagnosis. That is for many reasons, but a lot of our choices to shrink our bodies and make us not as hyper visible come from safety and survival. So the more we talk about thinness, the more we talk about the cures and wellness or body positivity, the less we’re going to see our clients. And of course that has an impact on the care we give. That impacts who sees themselves within the field.VirginiaI’m coming at this as a journalist—I’m not a clinician of any kind—and in reading your book, I was thinking a lot about how much the media has contributed to this through the eating disorder stories that we tell. I came from women’s magazines. I did a lot of harm. The eating disorders stories we told (and that the media continues to tell) always centered the thin white girl. That’s another layer to this I just want to name that. It’s the way that dietitians and therapists are approaching this work through the white lens. It’s also then being reinforced by the media’s discussion of these issues. And we’re seeing it for sure in the Ozempic coverage right now, which is just yet another women’s magazine story about weight loss.Let’s talk a little more about this misconception that eating disorders develop when people are so concerned about their own bodies, disturbed by their own bodies, and how this leaves out anyone who’s struggling because their body disturbs other people. JessicaThe body positivity conversations are always meant to fix this misconception that we have about our bodies. It’s the idea that our bodies are fine just the way they are and we just need to think they’re fine and then they will be fine. [Body positivity teaches that] the problem is within us, in the way that we can think about our bodies.But that says nothing about the messages that we’re getting about our body from society. I may feel great about my body, but I still have to leave my house. Making me feel great about my body does nothing in the context of society. Thinking a size twelve is fine when I really want to be a size six, or whatever it is for white women. Yes, you can do that work, because it’s fine. But when we’re talking about other folks, it’s not fine. I can’t think myself out of my reality.VirginiaI can’t think myself into accessing medical care. JessicaOr jobs.VirginiaJobs, clothing access, all of that stuff. And it’s tough because people’s individual pain is valid and real. But it’s just so much attention going towards this one very specific experience of that pain and not enough attention going to the rest.Can you talk more about how eating disorder treatment fails Black women? I’d also love if you wanted to talk to us about Lexi who’s so important in the book and why concepts like diagnosis and recovery just don’t even necessarily make sense as treatment goals for some of these folks.JessicaI’ll start with a brief overview of Lexi’s story. She was a gymnast from age three and was always literally judged alongside thin white girls. As a Black gymnast, she was inherently “too muscular,” or “too powerful” for the more ‘elegant’ events. And she wanted to do the ‘elegant’ events, like beam and bars. So in order to be judged as appropriate for that, shrinking her body was something that meant winning. She never thought that her purging, that her laxative or whatever cleanse was disordered, because it just made sense. VirginiaIt was what she was being told to do.JessicaRight. Her scores were improving. She was “winning.” What was wrong with it? It was totally just normal for her. It wasn’t until I was like, “you might want to eat more than broccoli for dinner.” She was like, “hmmm, no.” I was like, “so this is the work that I do.” She’s like, “Yeah, this isn’t disordered. This is normal. Black girls don’t get eating disorders. That is for frail people. I’m not interested in being thin at all. This is about winning. This is not about thinness.” VirginiaInteresting.JessicaRight. So it just wasn’t the language that we use, like a drive for thinness or whatever it is. She also wasn’t underweight. She’s probably technically, according to BMI standards, overweight and always being told by medical and professional folks to lose weight. VirginiaPurging, all of that, was never getting flagged by any health care provider as something to worry about.JessicaExcept for the dentist.VirginiaWell, I’m glad someone noticed, but they aren’t exactly equipped.JessicaNo, and they’re not going to coordinate any care. They’re just going to be like, hmm this thing, and be like that’s, that’s what’s going on here.And then all our recovery models that are focused on “ideal body weight” and weight gain and all of these things. Why would that be something someone would consider when their life is, I wouldn’t say exponentially better because that’s entirely subjective, but what they’re doing is working, is how I put it. So this recovery questionnaire or these steps of meal plan exchanges or whatever it is, why would I be doing that? I don’t even have an eating disorder to begin with. What are you telling me to do? VirginiaThat definitely makes sense in the gymnastics context, but then how is this failing all Black women, not just Black gymnasts? JessicaSo Lexi found safety and survival in what she was doing in gymnastics. But I was talking about Black women who are invisible but also hyper visible in any situation. For those of us who have been told we’re too much or we literally don’t fit into certain scenarios. There can be professional and social capital gained when we literally shrink our bodies because we become less literally and less of a threat to people around us, more palatable.I tell the story of Mia in the book, who was in an all white grad program and saw that people were treating her differently as she went on her “wellness journey” and ended up losing weight. Me saying, “Hi, I saw in your chart—” which I did, “—that you have an eating disorder diagnosis.” She’s like, “No, that’s not why I’m here. That’s might be what it says.” But what she wanted was supplements to make her hair grow back. And that was it. She was like, “That’s not what I have. This is what I’m doing because it’s working.” And I’m like, I don’t have tools to deal with this situation. This is not what I was taught. So what do I do now?VirginiaWhat do you do? Obviously, the practices that Mia and Lexi are engaging in are taking a toll on their health, but they’re also logical ways to keep their bodies safe. How do you navigate this obvious need for safety, and also this concern that you’re not eating enough?JessicaI think it’s great that you use the word navigate because I feel like some people would use the word treat, you know? Because what they have going on is, in theory, not a diagnosis. We’re not going to pathologize what they’re doing.This is when the conversation becomes broader. So again, keeping it small and talking about the societal pressures of basic thinness or whatever it is really scapegoats a conversation about systems and structures and white supremacy. The solution, in theory, is changing society. But in those moments, all I can do is validate their reality, rather than saying, “actually, what I need you to do is…” or “you would feel better if…” I did get caught up into that, because it was like a desperation for me. It made it all about me in a moment. I was pushing what I thought she needed or what I wanted to see for myself because I wanted to be able to help this person. But the solution is not a clinical intervention, it’s a societal change.VirginiaWhich is hard.JessicaRight, what do you do?VirginiaIt’s a difficult place to find ourselves.JessicaSo, I introduce Fearing the Black Body and she’s like, “Yes! This is what it is. And maybe I’ll read this later.” But right now, this is not, a conversation that I can have because this is how I need to survive right now.VirginiaThere’s a lot of heartbreak to this work you’re doing. A lot of heartbreak. JessicaYes. It wasn’t until like a month ago that I just cried after an appointment. It wasn’t even like I let it build up. I was just able to sit in that moment and shed a few tears just because it was sad, not because it had anything to do with me or anything to do with that patient. This society is just trash and I’m going to be sad about that right now rather than making it about me and whether or not I’m able to cure this patient or whatever it is. And then I moved on. It was like, that was sad and I’m allowing it to just be sad.VirginiaThat sounds really important but really hard. I can imagine the struggle to to sit there in the moment and not make it about you. Not push like “but wait, we need you to eat bread.”Jessica“I need to problem solve this. I’m here to give the solution.”VirginiaThat’s really hard. And I mean, not to push for solutions because I understand it’s the systemic change, but I guess I’m just curious, what you would want to see from particularly all the white dietitians and folks in the field who are who are not going to innately have this context?JessicaAs dietitians or therapists, we just focus on the food. You know, I am seeing someone like Mia get an eating disorder dietitian, when it’s not about the eating at all. So can I get you somebody who can talk to you about your identity development in context, so that you can see what is going on. You still get to make your own choices, but I want you to know that your body is not the problem. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about society. I always think that healing comes from community. And that isn’t our body image groups or our eating disorder groups for these people. Turns out, that’s not going to be the solution. So yeah, what does that community look like for folks? VirginiaYeah, I loved when you talked about that in the book and and helping someone find online community with shared identities and they were like, “Oh, okay, you’re not sending me to an intuitive eating group?”JessicaThat’s because I had done that. Because that’s what we’re supposed to do, send people to an eating disorder support group. And, you know, we had done that. And thought that that’s what I was saying, again, I’m like, oh, no, no, no, no. That’s not what we’re doing.VirginiaI was also really struck in the book by these moments where it’s another Black woman talking to you like, “this is how I need you to behave.” And this concept of respectability coming up. I wonder if we could talk about that a little bit. Who is expected to perform respectability? And how is this another way we’re robbing Black women of bodily autonomy?JessicaI will start by saying in the context of respectability, a lot of people will say it’s a bad thing, across the board, for Black women to be telling other Black women how they should be acting in community. And recognizing again, the complexity of what older Black women or other Black women may have experienced and been policed for. Laughing loudly is a great example that I use in the book.VirginiaThe woman in the bar.JessicaMy friend was being told to be quiet and stop basically laughing as loudly. The older Black woman was like, “That’s not how we should be acting in public,” basically. Another friend of mine was talking about how they were policed growing up and not knowing at all the context for this. It was just that they were acting incorrectly. There wasn’t a greater conversation about “I’m worried about you, if you go out you into society and how you will be treated.” There wasn’t any care given, it was just you need to not be doing X Y or Z thing. Like, I am worried about not even you, but society and how it functions. If we do these things, we may mitigate some of that harm. And if we do, the problem is still not on us. So how can we have these conversations?I saw it a lot in the earlier earlier 2010s in the Health at Every Size community, it was very much “exercise intuitively, eat your way into being a good fatty” and those are well documented by fat folks. But yeah, the good fatty respectability and we can see it in food choices. You know, the whole foods sprouts, a person trying to gain some social capital by eating quinoa and kale first.VirginiaIt definitely resonated with me, with the good fatty pressure of how am I performing that I’m a fat person who exercises, all of that. As opposed to just just being able to be. You talked about wanting to just be Basic Black. JessicaTo not be special or magic. Just to be average. Really just be.VirginiaTrying to be magic all the time sounds exhausting. And I want to talk about Lizzo, too, because this is a great example that you get into where respectability politics gets layered onto her, the Black magic stuff gets layered onto her. Expecting her to be the person who holds all of our body positivity hopes and dreams. All of that. It’s a lot of pressure for one phenomenally talented person who is just trying to make great music. We really saw this in 2020, you write about this in the book, with the whole smoothie debacle. JessicaLizzo was very open and honest about having a very crappy 2020 or a really crappy October or whatever month it was, and decided to do like a smoothie cleanse. And for some people that is as far as they read into the situation. I had fat friends who were discussing cleansing, like she was doing a juice cleanse or whatever, but digging in, it was like smoothies and almond butter and apples and protein bars, or whatever it was. But how easily it was like, “Lizzo has gone against the body positivity rules.”VirginiaShe has failed us.JessicaLike, she said smoothie, she said cleanse. This is over. My love affair with Lizzo and everything that I had put onto her to make me feel better about my body is over because she said the word cleanse. I understand people getting triggered by other people’s behaviors, but how have you put so much of yourself into Lizzo’s existence that this is devastating?VirginiaYou don’t know her.Jessica No! She owes you nothing! Like, I don’t understand. Thin folks having commentary about why not to cleanse and this and that. And sure, do people do whatever program she was on for weight loss? Maybe! but she doesn’t owe us anything. VirginiaShe is a person existing in a world giving her all kinds of messages and pressures. Why are we expecting her to never have any reaction? Even if she was pursuing weight loss, that’s her own business. She’s dealing with her own shit. JessicaPeople are always telling her to put more clothes on and she’s too fat. In the world, as a Black woman, even if she was trying to lose weight, I get it. It sucks.VirginiaIt was really interesting to see that backlash. And I admit, I had a moment of sadness. I don’t feel that Lizzo owes me her eating habits, but I just had a moment of just like hearing the word cleanse.And to be honest, I’m uncomfortable with it because I’m thinking more recently there’s this whole thing with Gwyneth Paltrow with that new video. That, to me, feels so much more overtly harmful. Because Gwenyth is detailing behaviors in very specific ways and she’s also selling a lot of these things. And Lizzo was like, this is something I’m doing for me. She wasn’t selling it in quite the same way. So I don’t know if that feels like a distinction to you or not. JessicaIts a really good point. I didn’t see anybody being triggered by Gwyneth. They were laughing at her and and talking about how it was basically an eating disorder. That was super easy, not eating anything but bone broth and vegetables. That’s easy. But I didn’t see the think pieces. I saw the think pieces on like why she’s weird. And selling us her silliness, for sure. But it wasn’t like “I’m triggered because I was looking to Gwyneth.” But both are celebrities and both owe us nothing. But why are we like so accepting of a thin white woman like telling us she’s actually disordered versus somebody saying that she’s only eating almond butter, apples, smoothies, protein bars.VirginiaI think it is because nobody looks to Gwenyth for body acceptance. You look to her as aspiration of the thin white ideal that I’m striving for, but you don’t look to her to feel better about your own body. And Lizzo people want her to do that emotional work for them. JessicaThat’s a great connection. VirginiaIt’s a complicated one. Speaking of annoying white people, can we talk about Walter Willett? There’s a chapter in your book where you go to this thing called the Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference. It was a shit show and it really makes clear this intersection between healthism and racism that I would love to get into. Maybe we should start by talking about what healthism is, because that might be a newer concept for folks. And then we can talk about Walter.JessicaI think of healthism as the morality of being a “Healthy” person—I put healthy with a capital H because it’s a social construction. At Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives that meant the absence of disease and like quinoa and kale, and olive oil lifestyle. 1. You were not unhealthy and 2. You were eating in all these ways and exercising and performing capital H Health.We have collectively as a society not decided on what health looks like. There is no absolute metric by any means. So then the purity and morality of all of that… a lot of people have critiqued Health at Every Size for for healthism as well. Doing these things in order to be healthy as a fat person. Lifestyle change yourself out of everything. And not even lifestyle change, but like meditate yourself out. Like you won’t actually have to take medication if you do X, Y, and Z things and that’s something you should aspire to.VirginiaRight. We frame taking medication, which is receiving health care, we frame it as a failing, like it’s a last resort. You only do that if you can’t get your lifestyle under control.. As opposed to that being a pretty necessary way for a lot of us to exist in the world. JessicaYeah, totally. And Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives made that clear. As we know, Health is not poor. Health is not Black and brown. Health is very thin, and depending on what five years span we are in, it might be fit. It might be bulky, it might be however we want it to be. Like, whatever health is changes. And of course, health is BMI and all of that jazz, as well.VirginiaAnd at that conference, it was also not eating nearly enough food. JessicaHahaha, good point.VirginiaYou kept describing a prune and strawberry shake.JessicaI hadn’t put together the Walter Willet of it all and the public health of it all. It just got like very scarcity about foods, like what if they don’t have eggs for breakfast? What if it’s vegan? What if everything is vegan? I’m just never going to be full on anything. And the portions were teeny tiny. It was very tea time vibes.VirginiaLittle plates. Nobody really wanting to admit that they’re hungry even though it’s lunchtime. Of course you need to eat food, you’re sitting in this nine hour conference. I was very glad you got tacos or nachos or something at night to survive. But they had you there on a panel, so talk a little bit about what you thought you were doing at the conference and what they wanted you to be doing at the conference.JessicaSo Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives had invited me to talk about health disparities. This was their first time back in person post-COVID. And they needed to talk about health disparities, because apparently they just hadn’t before. And because it was 2022, they needed at least one Black person. I was the only Black person speaking at this conference, which was wild. And our panel was, of course, the end on the last day. So if people had left beforehand, they wouldn’t have to sit through what I was going to say. And initially, it was going to be a presentation. And I was always, like, very confused. I was just hearing that this person Walter—I was not given a last name—needed to approve these slides, because it’s all part of a curriculum that needed to be approved.It got down to the things that I had wanted to say, like the way that the structures and systems are causing the health disparities, it’s not the humans themselves. Like, we are not health disparities. Your Blackness, your brownness, your fatness, your queerness—all of those things that you are are the health disparities. No, no, it’s how we treat people is the problem. And they were like, I don’t know. And I was like, I would like to critique the Mediterranean diet, and they’re like, oh no, I don’t think we can do that.VirginiaWalter is not going to like that.JessicaIt was bananas. Anyhow, I ended up on a panel with another woman of color and a white dude about health disparities. Why would there not be a white dude on a panel about health disparities? I talked about fatphobia, anti-fatness, racism. That was the first time anybody had named racism and white supremacy in a presentation, on the last day in the last hour, after talking about food insecurity forever and never mentioning food apartheid.And the people in the audience, there were the stares, but also there was nodding. There were the aha moments when I was talking about health disparities, particularly in people’s bodies being risk factors. I said, “as a Black person, I would not walk into an office and you would not immediately say, ‘you need to not be Black.’ But when a fat person walks into your office what you’re going to say is that they need to not be themselves.” Like, it was those moments that people were like, I see. I see.Then the most stark moment was when Walter got back to the podium and thanked the white guy for talking. And then wrapped it up and said what he had said was very important. But the other two, the women of color on the panel? Didn’t mention us at all. Didn’t thank us at all. It was like, case closed. It’s like we weren’t there there. It was wild. VirginiaFor folks who don’t know, just say who Walter Willett is and his position in health and nutrition spaces.Jessica He is a very esteemed researcher and was the director of the nutrition department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He’s an emeritus, I believe, right now, but still highly regarded. He’s proudly referred to as the father of nutrition research. He’s got like a gazillion publications all about the Mediterranean diet and heart disease and how we’re all basically going to die if we don’t start eating nuts.VirginiaI interviewed him several times many years ago in my women’s magazine phase, and let’s just say everything about your chapter, I was like, yep, yep. They were hard interviews because I was in a weird place of starting to do this unlearning but I’m reporting for Marie Claire magazine. I’m not getting taken seriously as a journalist because I’m a woman from a women’s magazine in that context. And he is a man who knows all about nutrition. So, there’s that thing to navigate. I was very much in a Health at Every Size framework at that point, but even that is like pretty wild. Walter is not here for the Health at Every Size framework. I’m trying to ask those questions and it’s just like talking to a wall. I felt like I really understood that experience much better after Katherine Flegal published her piece. For folks who don’t know, she was a longtime CDC epidemiologist who published a lot of the literature reviews showing that higher BMI does not correlate with instant death the way we are taught and Walter Willett is one of the researchers who just like eviscerated her for that work. Public shaming and so much blatant sexism and fatphobia. So nothing about this was super surprising, but I’m really sorry you had to experience it. And also, I’m so glad you wrote about it because we need these godlike men to be deconstructed. So, thank you.JessicaI appreciate the empathy and sympathy for sure. But, you know, I did say yes to this. But that’s just how I have navigated all of these spaces. I have not been a martyr, like if I don’t, then somebody else won’t. But I’m like, what actually goes on here? How are all these policies created by this one guy? How does it work? Why are people so enamored? I was like, I really want to see this for myself. I don’t want to just critique blindly. VirginiaI mean it’s fascinating because these are supposed to be scientists with some kind of scientific objectivity. And yet, there’s so much cult of personality. It’s really not very objective at all.The other important critique that we’ve touched on a little bit is how you get into the problems with Health at Every Size and with intuitive eating and how these concepts do not go nearly far enough to actually serve folks because they are not articulating the existence of racism and have so many other problems. Let’s talk about intuitive eating. I think that’s something that people throw out as a term that feels really comfy and safe and like the opposite of all the things they’re trying to get away from. So it’s maybe unnerving for folks to hear that Jessica doesn’t like intuitive eating that much.JessicaPeople have definitely come and been mad and angry about my critiques of intuitive eating because they hold on to it so much, I find, from their own recovery. Like if it was helpful for them—shock and surprise, they’re mostly often white women—it’s supposed to work for you. Of course it did!VirginiaYou’re who they made it for. JessicaYeah, of course. I’m not talking necessarily to you or trying to validate your experience.I will back up and say that I was 1,000% an intuitive eating dietitian. I was Health at Every Size, intuitive eating, 1,000% this is the way to go. This is not dieting. This is listening to your body. What could be wrong with that? Intuitive just as a word sounds amazing. But just me trying to have more complex conversations with particularly the Health at Every Size and ASDAH communities, the think tank there and trying to bring in race, specifically, and fatness and Blackness—there was just no receptivity to it at all. I was told that this is actually just about fatness, there’s no need for us to talk about other intersecting identities. Like, thanks, Jessica, what we like is that you’re a person of color at this table. But could you just be quiet and be here so that we can like say that you’re at our table? No, that’s not really what I’m going to do.And then I decided to not be a Health at Every Size provider anymore because it wasn’t helping the people who were in my community at that time. And I had move to the Bay Area, and we’re very involved in body politics and a lot of those people were queer, they’re trans, fat, folks of color, with multiple intersecting identities. And they were like, yeah, this whole Health at Every Size thing. It’s great for fat, white women with health care and money, but it’s not, it’s not helping me when I go to the doctor’s office. This card of Health at Every Size principles is not helping me access health care and be treated like human.VirginiaAnd is that because a provider interacting with someone with multiple intersecting identities is just like, that’s just another barrier you’ve thrown up at that point? To be presenting this card like, this is my Health at Every Size manifesto. Because they’re already dealing with so many barriers, if they piss them off by not getting on the scale, then that doesn’t help them get the health care they need?JessicaThe performance for our health care providers and how that’s safety and survival. Yeah, my friends were saying, I’m still Black or I’m still brown when I go to the doctor’s office. Them not weighing me or me having perfect lab results is still like not going to protect me from the medical racism that I’m experiencing there. So, that’s nice for you, this is our reality. So, I started having more conversations there.And at the same time, I was having intuitive eating groups and the people in my groups were more on the body politics understanding and intersecting identities, but were also great at questioning intuitive eating. Like, they’d go through the book and be like, “Okay, tell me when I’m supposed to eat. Tell me what is too full. Tell me what to do if it’s lunchtime and I’m not hungry. Do I eat then when I’m not hungry?” Like 21 questions of how to do intuitive eating well. I was like, oh, goodness, when you were dieting, this was laid out for you perfectly and you’re looking for the same safety and structures from intuitive eating. Maybe that is not the conversation that we need to be having. People who don’t have access to food, people who have experienced trauma or for whatever reason don’t have access to bodily cues, people who have food aversions, there are so many things that would interrupt and make intuition not applicable. But again, we’re still providing 10 principles. It looks very familiar to the safety I found in whatever I was previously doing.VirginiaIt’s another plan I can try to implement.Jessica1000% and until the most recent edition, it had “cope with your emotions without food.” Like that sounds very familiar. Never eat emotionally. Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before.VirginiaIt’s making it the hunger/fullness diet. And all the language around eating, like making decisions about what to eat based on your hunger as if we don’t ever eat for reasons beyond hunger. It’s so overly simplifying things. JessicaNever for pleasure. It was after I published the book, I think it was reading an article about intuitive eating and how someone ordered chocolate cake because she wanted it. And she ate three bites and like pushed it away. And the person in the interview was just marveling at her self control to only eat three bites, and I’m like, this is weird. If she had finished it, we’re going to be fine. Tomorrow is going to be Tuesday. We’re all going to be fine.VirginiaThe amount of cake is really not the question here.I write a lot about these issues in parenting. And with kids there’s a lot of talk in the Division of Responsibility model about letting kids decide how much they should eat, which is a great principle. Absolutely. But it’s often framed with the promise of you will then get kids who can take or leave the treat foods, who don’t eat the cookies. And I’ve been guilty of this, I’ve used this language and then really reflected on it. Because it’s like, wait, the goal is not the kid who’s like, I don’t care about Oreos, I have like no response to Oreos. The goal is the kid who can enjoy Oreos and not feel guilty about it afterwards. So the amount of Oreos they eat is totally beside the point. But I think often it gets sold to parents as like “this will fix picky eating because this will get your kids to be less interested in treats and more interested in vegetables.” And it’s like, well, that’s just the same as another diet.JessicaI think about community care in this aspect. Lexi likes to tell the story about how when—so she had to come stay with us during COVID for a variety of reasons including personal loss and grief. So she ended up at our house and it was like the second or third day. We all went and did like a giant grocery shop. And she came back and had a bag of mini peanut butter cups. And I walked away to do something and came back shortly after and the bag was empty. And I’m like, oh, okay, I’m curious about that. She’s like, “Oh, yeah, it’s sugar stomach, like that’s just the thing that happens.” I’m like, “oh, what’s sugar stomach?”VirginiaWhat’s sugar stomach?JessicaShe’s like, “Well, you get something that you’re not allowed to eat, you eat it all, because you know you’re not supposed to eat it again tomorrow. And then you don’t end up eating dinner because you have sugar stomach and you’re too full.” It was like, oh, that’s interesting. Is this how you think about all things with sugar in them? Yes, of course and that is all of my upbringing. And I was like, Oh, okay.So I went got the best peanut butter cups out there—the Trader Joe’s ones, I will fight you over that. I went and got them for myself and when I would eat them during the day, I would just walk past her and leave one or two or a handful or whatever. And she said at the beginning, “I was mad. Like, I’m just eating two. Or like, what if I wasn’t thinking or craving them right now but now I’m just eating two.” And you know, at the end, she left and, thankfully for me, left half a container of those peanut butter cups in the fridge because it was like whatever. That’s what community care can look like because now you’re able to eat as many of them as you want to and feel fine because they’re delicious. I want you to feel fine after peanut butter cups.VirginiaRight. And it’s not that oh, you only ate two or you left half the container. It’s that you were able to engage with this food in a positive way without having a whole thing about it.JessicaAnd “never eating them again,” but also eating them again. ButterJessicaIt’s stereotypical to be a food thing, but I’m still going to recommend tater tots in the air fryer.VirginiaOh, that sounds great. JessicaYep, they can be made into so many things or eaten just by themselves. They’re a food that I stopped eating at whatever age but have brought back as a 40+ year old and am very happy about it.VirginiaThat sounds great. And do you use ketchup other condiments or just straight?JessicaAll of the above. I have them with eggs, I have them on the side of things. You can make them into nachos or whatever you want. VirginiaOh, I like that idea. Just as like a good fundamental base of a meal.JessicaHow can I plan my meal around tater tots as the primary food?VirginiaI love it. I love it. My butter this week is just a little practical hack for fat folks. As my body changed, a lot of my necklaces didn’t fit anymore. And I didn’t expect this, I didn’t know necks get fatter. Of course, they get fatter. It’s great. It’s fine. But it was a little moment of sadness. I had some favorite necklaces that I couldn’t wear anymore. And I just discovered necklace extenders are a thing that they sell! You can get them on Etsy, you can get them lots of places. (Here are the necklace extenders I bought.)They’re just a little extra two inches of chain that you can clip onto your necklace so that a necklace that has gotten too tight now fits. I’m wearing one right now! It’s such an easy hack and I just want to make sure that everyone knows about it because it’s bringing me a lot of joy to have favorite necklaces back in rotation. It’s such a small thing, but really nice. Jessica, thank you so much. Tell listeners where we can follow you and how can we support your work.JessicaI am on Instagram @Jessicawilson.msrd. I am going to try my way at the TikToks, I’m very excited for this journey. I am byJessicaWilson. I’ve started collaborating with some young folks, I’m going to make the move.VirginiaI’m there, too, and we can go on this journey together maybe because I’m there and I’m struggling.JessicaBooktok is apparently is a thing! So, books and life and food, there’s so many options.VirginiaWe’re doing it.JessicaAnd then the book is on audiobook, ebook, and in bookstores wherever books are sold.VirginiaAnd it is It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies. Thank you, Jessica. This was wonderful.JessicaYou’re welcome. It was great talking to you.

It's time for another community episode! This month, Virginia and Corinne are exploring how we feel about the word fat: Who gets to use it? What if you just don't want to use it? What is the power of reclaiming it? Thank you to everyone who contributed today. If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. And don't forget to preorder! Fat Talk: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture comes out April 25, 2023 from Henry Holt. You can preorder your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. And! You can now preorder the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she gives are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.CW: In this episode we do mention some specific weights and sizes. If numbers are triggering to you, you might want to skip this episode. BUTTERWhen Whales FlyGirlfriend Collective high waist compression leggingsPaloma braSuperfit HeroBOOKSOrder any of these from the Burnt Toast Bookshop for 10 percent off if you also preorder (or have already preordered!) Fat Talk! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)Fat! So? by Marilyn WannShrill by Lindy WestLittle Witch Hazel by Phoebe WahlOTHER LINKSTuesday’s newsletterSellTradePlusOur March mailbag episodeWho gets to call themselves fat? What if you just don't want to use the word fat? What if you just don’t want to be fat?I had a huge ribcagethat This American Life episodeMarielle ElizabethCatherine's TikTokthe good fattyThe Fat LipCREDITSThe Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith. Follow Virginia on Instagram or Twitter. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.VirginiaYou're listening to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting and health. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. I also write the Burnt Toast newsletter. CorinneAnd I'm Corinne Fay. I work on Burnt Toast and run @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus sized clothing. VirginiaSo you are all very lucky because you are getting two Corinne episodes this month. We had our regular March mailbag episode, and I asked her to join me for today's community episode. Thank you, Corinne!CorinneThanks for having me. The theme of today's episode is, “How do we feel about the word fat?”VirginiaThis is something we've been talking about because, as we're going to get into, there's stuff in the—well I was going to say news, but it doesn't exactly make the news. CorinneIt’s news for us. VirginiaIt’s news for us. It's not on the evening news. But there's a lot of stuff happening in fat activism circles right now, which got us thinking about this question again. Because it's an evergreen question, right? We've covered it on the newsletter before: Who gets to call themselves fat? What if you just don't want to use the word fat? What if you just don’t want to be fat? And it feels like time to get into these questions again.So, Corinne, tell us your story. When did you start using the word fat? And specifically, when did you reclaim the word fat for yourself? CorinneI have this core memory of reading a teen magazine with one of my friends in middle school. The magazine said something about, like, plus size models or something. And I remember just being like, “But what is plus size?” Like, I don't know what that means and I know that I’m on the edge. And I just remember my friend being like, “Oh my God, Corinne, you are not plus size.”VirginiaOh and she thought that was very reassuring. CorinneYeah, and I think also was genuinely like “you're not.” I was probably like a size 12 and plus size models are smaller than that.VirginiaYeah in modeling land, as we learned from the midsize queens, thats on the large size for many plus size models.CorinneYeah, I had a huge ribcage.The other childhood memory I have of fatness is I remember coming across the book Fat! So? VirginiaOh, by Marilyn Wann, right? CorinneYeah, in the public library. Like, I stumbled across it.VirginiaOh, what a great find for a kid! CorinneI know. I would love to know what librarian put it on a display shelf.VirginiaBless her or him or them.CorinneI found it and I remember being like, I really want to read this. I'm so interested, and also I don't want anyone to see me reading this and think that I'm fat. It felt very not allowed.VirginiaWere you fat at that point?CorinneI mean, I think it was probably around the same age, like I was probably like a size 12 or 14, but also like 12 years old, you know?VirginiaSo in that gray space where holding a book with the word fat on the cover, you would feel like you were announcing it. Like coming out.  CorinneYes, and suddenly people would notice that I was fat as if they hadn't been noticing the whole time. I think there is something about when you do sort of decide that you're going to embrace that word, you do have to admit that you are fat and people know you're fat. Like, there's this way in which if you don't talk about it, then no one notices. VirginiaIf you're not talking about it, even if they're noticing, maybe most people who are kind to you and in your life will not talk about it.CorinneAnd then I think around 2016, I really had a mind change around it. Honestly, I think it was really influenced by Shrill by Lindy West and also that This American Life episode. I think that was the first time that I was really seeing some of my experiences reflected back to me in media. And then I was fully just like, I'm fat. VirginiaThat's so powerful. Shrill was so powerful for so many people. The book and the show. That totally makes sense.CorinneWhat about you? VirginiaI don't have one moment like that, like finding Marilyn Wann or finding Lindy. And I think part of it is because my fatness came on quite gradually, if that makes sense. Like I was a thin kid, I had thin privilege. I got fatter my freshman year of college, but still wore straight sizes. Then did a lot of dieting and stuff in my 20s to stay in straight sizes. So my 30s were about giving up dieting and settling into my adult body, which has always intended itself to be a small fat body. So it was the process of stopping fighting that.But I think I struggled to claim it a little bit. Finding “small fat” was really helpful for me, because I didn't want to be claiming fat and implying that my experience was that of people who deal with more oppression than I do.The other piece of it that was more conscious was, that I really wanted to reclaim the word in our house around our kids. And by reclaim, I mean just claim it for them because they didn't have a negative association, you know? I wanted to give them a baseline of fat as a positive word. That helped me really lean into it.Particularly, I would say in the last five years or so, it's been really cool to see my kids use it in a very offhand whatever kind of way.  That is also why I put it in the book title. Preorder FAT TALK!And so, every interview I'm doing for the book now, I feel somewhat surprised, but also not, that one of the questions is always, “tell us, why do you use the word fat?” CorinneInteresting. VirginiaParticularly by straight size folks, I'm being asked it a lot. Like, “why do you say the word fat?” And, “do I have to say fat?” And, “can I say fat?” And, “what's the power of teaching kids to say fat?” It makes me realize how many people still are, like, nowhere with that reclaiming concept. CorinneJust in getting ready for this, I googled Fat! So? and was looking at some excerpts online and I was really struck by how relevant it seems. It seems like the same stuff we're talking about now in a lot of ways. And it came out in 1998. VirginiaOh, God. Thank you, Marilyn Wann. I don't think I realized it was quite that old. I thought it was like 2010s or something. CorinneYeah, I was really surprised. VirginiaIt must be very irritating to be in that first or second wave of fat activists who put all that work out and then there is all of us being like, “we've newly acquired this language,” and they're like, “yeah, it’s been there. Thanks. Thanks for that.” Yeah, we see the labor for sure.CorinneWell, on that note, we're gonna hear from a Burnt Toast community member named Valerie, just about the power of reclaiming that word. I am what's considered super fat, which is the terminology we use at the nolose fat liberation queer conference, where I really learned most of what I know about fat liberation. Even if someone can only see my face over Zoom, it's very clear that I am fat. And I have been fat since I was nine years old. I was very severely bullied in late elementary, middle, and high school for my weight. And though my parents never put me on a diet or made me feel bad directly about my body—and they are both in larger bodies—they dieted constantly in my youth, so I absorbed those messages anyway. It's important for me to use the term “fat” to destigmatize it, and emphasize it as a neutral term like height or hair color, as much as anything can be neutral. I find that when I lead a conversation by using the word fat, things go better. And using this language with children has been especially powerful as I use my standard script of, “oh, fat isn't a bad or good word. It's a neutral descriptive word. Someone can be thin or fat, tall or short, but any word can be used to hurt someone's feelings if you say it in a way that's intended to hurt them. But there shouldn't be anything bad or mean about saying that word fat.” I know I can't undo all of society's messaging, but I hope that at least being introduced to body neutral concepts by a fat adult can plant some positive seeds for the children in my life.VirginiaHearing Valerie's story is making me realize I don't want to talk about it, but I guess we have to talk about “The Whale” and the travesty that is Brendan Fraser’s Oscar and the makeup artist Oscar. Listening to Valerie talk about all this so beautifully, I'm just again, like, why did they think it was okay to tell this story without talking to, from what we can tell, any super fat people at all? It just was nowhere part of their work. Or even a moderately fat person, I don't feel like was consulted in the making.CorinneI have to admit I've been kind of avoiding hearing about “The Whale.” VirginiaVery valid. We will not use details here because I don't want to trigger anyone. It's so toxic. CorinneDid you watch it?VirginiaNo. I'm extremely grateful to Lindy West and Roxane Gay who really took that bullet for all of us. They both watched it. I felt like enough folks watched it and wrote beautiful critiques and I am reading their critiques and learning from them and do not need to put myself through it. But it was really a selfless act for them to do that, because it does not sound like a pleasant viewing experience at all. It's just maddening.I didn't watch the Oscars, either, because I go to bed early. But just seeing the clips afterwards and seeing just so much joy for him. And like, “Oh, he's always been this amazing, wonderful actor,” and his speech was full of fat jokes and weird references. Corinneoh god.VirginiaI'm sorry. I can't celebrate him. You cannot, as a dominant group, take a marginalized group’s story and decide you can do whatever you want with it. It's unacceptable. Even if you land on a few powerful moments. Even if you manage to come up with a few things that resonate as true for some people in that marginalized group. It’s still not okay. CorinneIt does feel like we're really at the point in culture where like taking on someone else's identity for entertainment purposes is not cool. VirginiaLike we could move past that.We don't need to keep ranting about “The Whale.” Valerie, thank you for sharing your experience. We need more of these stories. I also really like what Valerie says about how powerful it is to talk to kids about this and to explain that fat as a neutral, descriptive word with kids. Because I hear this a ton from parents. With fat parents, I think it's like, “I'm figuring out how I feel about the word but also what do I do with my kids?” And with straight-size parents, it's like this total deer-in-headlights moment, when their child uses the word fat. They're like, “I don't want to imply that fat is bad, but I also don't want them to hurt people's feelings. What do I do?”So let's hear from Bea, who had some great thoughts about that.I have kids in the loudly-saying-awkward-things phase. It's easy when it's about me.“Mama, Little Witch Hazel in the book looks like you. She's fat. She has hairy legs and long hair.”“Oh, wow. Yeah. And her nose sunburns like mine.”Not hard to treat the word “fat” as applied to me as if it's perfectly neutral. But when they talk about other people, if they say, “that person is in a wheelchair,” I can say, “Yep, isn't it cool? We all get around differently.”“That person's skin is brown.”“Yes, it's beautiful how many colors people are made in.”I want race and disability and body size to be things they can talk about, without shame. And without the idea that their small, white, able bodies are in any way better than others. But when they say that person's fat, it's hard to say. “Yep, it's great that bodies come in all different shapes and sizes.” Because of the “yep.” Because the person may not feel neutral about being called fat. My four year old recently, exuberantly told our neighbor that her legs were really big. And the neighbor just grinned. But I was at a loss for words other than quietly reminding the kid that every body is great and in our culture, we still don't comment on other people's bodies.CorinneBea is touching on the fact that while a lot of people have reclaimed the word fat, it still can be used as an insult and it's kind of hard to walk that line. Because even though we might feel one way about the word, we can't really predict how someone else may feel about it. VirginiaAlso, kids’ ways of commenting are so specific. I love that the four year old is like, “your legs are really big.” That is such a kid way to put it. I'm glad the neighbor was fine with it, it seems. But I totally get as a parent, you're like, I don't even know what to do with that. It is tricky. And you want to make space for people's boundaries around talking about their bodies are really important to respect. And I think you can totally do that while framing fat as a positive thing. CorinneEven the thing about saying “we don't comment on other people's bodies,” it's like, do kids really hear that? I feel like 50 percent of what kids say is just commenting on what other people are doing.VirginiaI don't think they necessarily will get it and perfectly execute it, but I think it seeps in over time. Like, I don't comment a lot on my kids bodies. Do you know what I mean? I model that. I give them the same boundary. You're then teaching them that their bodies are their own. Another way it comes up a lot with kids is like siblings hitting each other. That is a good moment to be like, “we don't touch other people's bodies in ways they don't like.”Corinne Wow. Yeah.Virginia“So please stop pushing your sister because she took the Calico Critter you want to use.” CorinneNot to be specific. VirginiaNot that that happens in my house nine times a week. But anyway, I think of comments around fatness, other people's fatness, in that same vein. You're not shaming the fatness. You're just helping them understand body autonomy. CorinneThere's just been a lot going on on the internet around this. There have been a lot of fat creators who have decided to pursue weight loss. There’s been the whole “Midsize Queens” thing. I did just see Marielle Elizabeth post that Ozempic is actively seeking plus size content creators to work with. So, prepare yourself for that. VirginiaI assume Marielle was like, “Get the fuck out of town.”CorinneI think she was posting it as like, “Heads up. This is coming.” Like, this is being pitched to creators. VirginiaOf course it is. Of course it is. I mean, it's really hard because people's individual choices around their bodies are their own business. And, when fat creators take this turn, it often comes with a really clear intention to distance themselves from fatness. And that is really harmful. I mean, that is what we saw with Catherine's TikTok, responding to the creator whose name I forget [Note from Corinne: Gabriella Lascano, Google at your own risk]. She was saying things like, “I've had it all wrong,” and you know, “They've lied to you to think that it's okay to be this size.” It was very, like, conspiracy theorist and super unsettling to see that turn. CorinneI think the other thing that makes it so complicated is the money part. I don't know, my choice whether or not to pursue weight loss might change a lot if someone was paying me to do it. VirginiaThat's a great point. Yeah, that's super murky. I mean, that's like the actress from “This Is Us.”CorinneOh, Chrissy Metz? VirginiaIt was in her contract that that character was going to lose weight. And of course, for that actor, that was a breakout role. Like, how do you not say yes to that part? Well, then you're signing on to this whole thing. The other thing is, just because someone is public and fat does not mean they are a fat liberationist or a fat activist of any kind, right? That is something that I think we as consumers of content need to be more discerning about. Like, if you're following someone for their great plus size fashion, I hope it's Marielle Elizabeth who is also wildly articulate and brilliant about talking about fat liberation. But there's a lot of fat fashion influencers who have been very visible, but who are not necessarily focusing on fat liberation. That's a complicated space. CorinneFor me, it just keeps coming back to the money thing. You're not seeing someone who's just making a neutral choice. You're seeing someone who is being paid to advertise something. Virginia100 percent.It's also true that any fat person is experiencing the bias of going into doctor's offices and having their weight weaponized against them and having weight loss prescribed without any second thought. So, this is Layla talking about this experience of doctors offices and how that can really trigger the spiral of “I can't be this size” and needing to distance from fatness.A few years ago, I went to the doctor for what I thought was a routine checkup. And as they do before every appointment, they asked me to step on the scale. And I was pretty shocked at the number that I saw, it was the most I had ever weighed in my life. I knew that my clothes had been fitting tighter, I knew that I had put on weight after having a baby, after moving three times in four years, after COVID. So I meet the doctor, and she asks, “ I understand you have some questions about your weight.” And I say, “I noticed my weight has been steadily increasing, I don't even know the right question to ask. Like, am I overweight? Or am I fat?” And she scanned her computer and she said, “Well, according to the BMI chart, your current weight puts you in the obesity category.”So, I wasn't just fat, I was obese. And it felt like my brain was shrinking away from the sides of my skull. I just felt this hot prickle of shame on my skin and in my stomach. And what I heard in that moment was, “you eat too much.” The whole experience made me feel very shameful. But it also really forced me to reconcile the bias I’d had against fat people and also made me wonder how, as a woman, I'm supposed to navigate what my doctor is telling me with what society wants from me, what I want for myself, and what I want to be able to model for my young daughter when it comes to having a positive body image. And so I really appreciated this question about who gets to call themselves fat, and really hope to learn more about how to understand and be an ally for people who are in fact, in larger bodiesVirginiaThis is a complicated one, right? And listening to this, I mostly just thinking, wow. If we had true weight inclusive health care where getting on the scale was not going to dictate your entire fucking medical appointment, Layla would probably have a completely different relationship with her body. And so would millions of other people. CorinneYeah, I found this one honestly relatable because the experience of going to the doctor's office as a person in a larger body is like you're trying so hard to prove yourself, like, prove that you're ‘the good fatty’ or whatever. To me it sounds like she's almost trying to end-run the doctor being like, “you need to lose weight.”VirginiaThat makes sense. And I know from interviewing doctors about this, that there's a weird chicken and egg thing where often the patients bring up weight loss because they assume the doctor wants them to be losing weight. Then the doctor is like, well, they asked about weight loss so I have to prescribe weight loss. It's a weird self-fulfilling prophecy being driven by bias on both sides, which is a very complicated dynamic. And I say this not to criticize the patient who brings that up. That's an understandable survival strategy in a very fraught encounter. But it definitely narrows the scope of the conversation. Who knows what else was going on with her health? She mentioned having had a baby, getting through COVID, moving a bunch, so tons of stress. Maybe weight gain is not the most important thing about what's going on with Layla’s health.CorinneYeah, and shame just doesn't help.VirginiaThis also shows why it's important, to whatever extent feels possible, to neutralize the concept of fatness. Because if we didn't have that knee jerk shame response, it also wouldn't matter so much when doctors bring it up in the way they do. Which is not to say it's on you not to experience bias, because you're experiencing bias. But if we could more clearly hold that, the way you would if someone made a racist statement. This is that person's problem. Not a problem with my body. Holding onto that is hard to do with this.CorinneOne of the reasons why we do reclaim the word fat is to also be able to acknowledge and center the experience of people who are experiencing more stigma. And now we're going to hear from Ann.For me, reclaiming fat has been part of the work I'm doing to prepare to be a parent in a few years. My mom has her own struggles with her weight, even getting bariatric surgery at one point and it made me really uncomfortable with who I was. For some things being midfat is annoying, like planes, restaurants, seats. For some things, it's frustrating. I'm starting to be sized out of in store Torrid and Lane Bryant, for example. But the biggest thing that frustrates me is buying furniture or tools. I needed to buy an 8’ ladder for my house. Every single one I looked at was rated for 250 pounds or under. I couldn't even find a ladder that would accommodate my weight. Or if I do find something weight rated for me, like folding chairs, it's super ugly or not as useful as the straight size. Some people don't even have to think about a chair breaking on you.CorinneHard relate. It's so hard to find shit like chairs.VirginiaYeah, I had a friend tell me recently that our dining chairs are not super comfortable for her to sit in and I was horrified. I'm really glad she told me. They have arms and I think they just cut in too much? So I do now have two armless ones that we can bring out when someone comes over. I really wanted to use this as an excuse to buy an entire new set of dining room chairs, but that felt somewhat excessive. Although, obviously, every seat at my table should be size inclusive.CorinneYou do have a good excuse now. It's an accessibility issue in your private dining room.VirginiaBut I do now have some better chairs. This is maddening. This is maddening that it is, in so many realms of life. CorinneAlso, just… a ladder? You know not everyone using ladder is 250 pounds or less. There's no way on earth!VirginiaAbsolutely not. That's really just so dangerous. Ladders freak me out just baseline. I'm really scared of ladders, so the idea that like they aren't making them sturdy enough is really upsetting.CorinneIt seems like the cut off is so often like 250 pounds. I'm just so curious how that became the number. VirginiaIt's probably some industrial technicality like that's the scale they have to test the stuff. CorinneLike it only goes up to 250? VirginiaLike it has nothing to do with any market research on who their customer is or what sizes people's bodies actually come in. They're like, this is the scale we have here in the factories. There's no thought in trying to be size inclusive or they would have found a way to both make a better ladder and rate it higher.CorinneOr maybe it's a liability thing. Like they're only responsible for if the ladder breaks for someone who weighs under that amount.VirginiaSo maybe that's an incentive to get it as low as possible, to be responsible for the least number of people falling off your ladder. Oh, god, that's so shitty. I think you're right.This one also reminded me that as we're talking about language, it is useful to make the distinction between midfat and midsize. This has tripped me up in the past. We now all know from midsize queens, that midsize is like, a size four with a large ribcage. Or technically it was supposed to be between straight and plus sizes, but it's being very misused and being used to distance from fatness very concretely. Whereas midfat is between small fat and super fat, right? CorinneThis is from The Fat Lip. Midfat is defined as 2x/3x, Sizes 20-24, Torrid 2-3.VirginiaGot it. Okay. And of course, that's super confusing because sizing is not standardized at retailers. There's so many brands where the 3x is like a 1x somewhere else. But just having the language is useful.CorinneOkay, next we're gonna hear from Krisanne who had an experience where she actually didn't use the word fat, but I think reclaiming the word is what enabled her to do this advocacy.So by the definitions of the fat community, I would be considered midfat. I've been small fat or midfat for most of my life. But at 52 years old, it's only been in the last couple of years that I've felt comfortable using the term “fat” as a neutral term to describe my body. I had a lot of things to unpack with that term always being derogatory, but now it's just a fact. So I'm trying to be very cognizant when I use it that people know that I'm being neutral, that it's really obvious. I'm just stating a fact about my body size and I'm not passing a judgment about myself.If I'm in a situation where I don't want to get into it, I don't want to open up a discussion about the term fat, I'll just say “larger body.” Like when I was trying out office chairs at the furniture showroom, I said to the sales guy that one thing I really appreciated about the chair I ended up buying was that it came in three different sizes, so I could get one that was actually designed to fit my larger body. I wanted him to know that I valued that aspect of the product and that that was part of why I was buying it. But I didn't need to get into the bigger discussion about the word fat. So large or larger would be those factual but not as loaded words that I will use if fat feels like it's too much in the context.One word I'm not a fan of is curvy, because first of all, it's euphemistic, but it's also inaccurate for me. I'm not curvy. I don't have an hourglass shape. I don't have large breasts. And it's also a word that emphasizes some sort of feminine “ideal” and it seems to be coded as fat but still stereotypically feminine, as if that's a thing that I'm supposed to aspire to.CorinneI liked this comment a lot. I could relate. And I think I've done the same thing myself. It's just that thing where you know someone else might be uncomfortable with the word fat, so you use “larger body” or something like that to describe the same thing. I also liked what Krisanne had to say about the word curvy and feeling like it wasn't a word that applied.VirginiaYes. You think curvy, you think hourglass shape. And as someone who's not an hourglass shape, I'm always like, what do I do with that? But who does have boobs, for the record. I don't know. It's just a weird. A weird term because it comes with this whole like set of definitions about which curves are good.CorinneIt feels like curvy is like you can still be like curvy and be sexy. There's something, like Krisanne says, feminine or something like that.VirginiaThere are so many terrible euphemisms. Fluffy is another one that drives me crazy. CorinneOh, my God! Fluffy is the one I was gonna bring up. I hate that one.VirginiaI admit, there was a point in my life where I thought it was cute. And I'm not okay with that.I also think that euphemisms are just so unhelpful, like you said when you were reading that teen magazine and not knowing what plus size meant. This is the other reason to reclaim fat and to use fat if you feel any identity with it, because: Let's just be clear about what we're fucking saying. And not dress it up. All right. So we're going to end with Lauren who shares a recent experience where being able to say “I'm fat” helped to concretely improve a medical experience.This one is just lovely. Lauren, yay you. I love that you did this advocacy. And I love that the physical therapist was so responsive.I'm looking for a physical therapist for a shoulder injury in addition to some other things. Filtering for my neighborhood, there were two insurance possibilities. One openly said that they'll help you with weight loss, which is a huge red flag. So I took a chance, on the strength of a very upfront Black Lives Matter policy, and filled out the intake form for the other physical therapist. This physical therapist called me a few days later to confirm my appointment and see if I wanted to be put on a waitlist to get in sooner. We talked about my complaints a bit: primary shoulder with secondary leg tendonitis. But she hadn't gone over my forms yet. We hung up.No more than 30 seconds later, she called me back having looked over my information on the intake form. There's a spot for anything you'd want them to know, so I wrote something to the effect of “I am fat, I believe in a weight neutral framework and will not accept weight loss as a treatment suggestion as my complaints are unrelated to my body size. I just request that if you're not comfortable working with a Health at Every Size philosophy that you let me know so I can continue researching PTs. But if you do, I'm looking forward to working with you.”So back to this physical therapist. Calling me back, she sounded so excited. “I just love how you advocated for yourself and you have absolutely contacted the right place. The local newspaper just did a three parts on a piece about how our medical system is overly focused on weight loss and the O-word epidemic and I cut out the article from the Sunday paper and hung it up because it's important to remind myself and also let other people know where my values are.” I'm all about building strength and balance in the body you have and helping you do the things that you want to do. For me, it was such a shot in the dark and such an incredible affirmation from a thin medical professional. I started with him this month and maybe it will be different experience once we get going though I kind of doubt it. Listening to you, Virginia, and Aubrey Gordon and Mikey and so many others, as well as finding community in the comment sections, the Facebook groups and cultivating my care team to be weight neutral has been such a life changing experience. Embracing the reality and cutting through the bullshit has led to some really positive relationships in my life. Thank you.CorinneI loved the physical therapists response. It made me really happyVirginiaThat she had the newspaper article cut out? Amazing. More of this. And I think this just really underscores why, even if you're in a context where you're not exactly using the word fat, like in the previous story, I think the act of reclaiming it is what enables you to then do that kind of advocacy.CorinneYesVirginiaThank you so much for everyone who sent in your voice memos. We really love hearing from you. It's so fun to have all your voices on the show. And I hope this discussion was helpful or if you are someone who's thinking about how to use this word, maybe this moved you a little bit forward towards feeling good about saying fat.ButterVirginiaWe are going to wrap up like we always do with butter. Corinne, what do you have for us?CorinneMy butter is a an essay that I just saw from the writer Carmen Maria Machado. She just published kind of a musing on the movie "The Whale," which we just talked about. The piece is called When Whales Fly. And I recommend it. It was just a really good read.VirginiaAnd again, I'm so grateful to everyone who was willing to interact with that movie in order to produce much better art. That's really the best possible outcome of that travesty. So thank you, Carmen, always for your beautiful work. My Butter is the leggings I keep talking about. If you're following me on Instagram, or read Tuesday’s newsletter, I'm sorry. You've already heard about this. But I just tried Girlfriend Collective for the first time. And, like, can you even call yourself into fat fashion if you haven't done Girlfriend Collective? I feel like I just got a punch on my card or something. It was important that I do this. I have the high waist compression leggings. And they are the only leggings I have had in a very long time that do not fall down.Now, I will tell you, when I said that on Instagram, I immediately heard from a bunch of people who said they fall down. Because that's how clothes work. Like, I can't guarantee this. I did hear from a lot of hourglass shaped people saying this. So maybe the fit model may be more of an apple, for lack of a better word, shape. So if that is your struggle—and it's not a struggle, our bodies are great. But if clothes that fit that shape is your struggle, then this might be a good brand for you. They're super comfortable, they do not fall down. They really hold their shape, no saggy knees, etc. The fabric is very thick. At first I was like, will these move with me? Like, it's dense. But I actually really like it and it's probably more athletic feeling. I don't think these are a dressy legging.CorinneLike a little shiny?VirginiaIt's a little shiny, but I don't mind it. I'm enjoying it. And I did get the Paloma bra to go with it. That's just one of their sports bras that I'm also really liking and this is my first time doing like a “set.”CorinneDid you get a cute color?VirginiaI got navy blue, but I might have wild iris on order. It hasn't come yet, so stay tuned because it's a really pretty periwinkle/purple. (Spoiler: It has arrived.)CorinneThat sounds amazing. VirginiaI'm not wearing them to be athletic in, I was wearing them to do my taxes last weekend and I was like, “Everything about this day is a dumpster fire but I do love my outfit.” So that was good. CorinneYeah, I recently started wearing a lot more leggings because of going to the gym. Like I started wearing to them to the gym and then I was like, “Wow these are so comfortable.”Virginiaand you're like why am I wearing real pants? CorinneI need to be wearing leggings all the time. VirginiaYeah, well you were doing actual athletic things in them with your weightlifting.CorinneI mean it went from that to everyday life.VirginiaI have different leggings I wear if I'm going to do one of my Lauren videos or go walk the dog in the woods. And these are my nice leggings. CorinneOh wow. Okay.VirginiaThese are my cute leggings.CorinneWow, fancy leggings. I mean, they do wear out.VirginiaFor a long time I was on the Universal Standard bandwagon of leggings and those leggings don't fall down either. They're very high waisted ones. CorinneOkay WHICH ones though? Because they have like 10 different leggings. VirginiaMaybe I have next to naked?CorinneIs it like a matte?VirginiaIt's matte and it’s much thinner. It's much thinner than the Girlfriend Collective. And my criticism of them is that they pill in the thighs. CorinneOh, yes. Are they black?VirginiaI have black and navy and I have like a seafoam color.CorinneYes, that's the next to naked. VirginiaOkay. Super comfortable.CorinneThose ones do pill.VirginiaAnd there's not really any compression. And I didn't know that I liked compression. I want to be clear, I'm not saying compression like makes me look thinner. I still look fat. I just like it. It feels more…CorinneA sensory thing?VirginiaIt's a nice sensory experience.CorinneYes, like being wrapped in a little cocoon.VirginiaTotally. I like it and I know Mia O'Malley was talking about this and how it helped her feel more supported, like her belly and her back. I mean, it's mild. It's not like you're wearing a back brace. It's just like, I feel like my posture is a little better in them. Anyway have you tried Girlfriend Collective?CorinneI feel like I tried them a long time ago and I remember thinking they fell down.VirginiaDon't trust me on anything, guys.CorinneThe leggings I like now are Superfit Hero.VirginiaThey are next on my list. CorinneI actually think they are similar. But they have a pocket which I really like. VirginiaThat's an upgrade.CorinneAnd it's the athletic-y material. They don't have a waistband and then I like these ones from Universal Standard that are more cottony and have a waistband. I do wear them to the gym but I also would wear them to run errands or whatever. But it's not an athletic material, It feels more just like a stretchy pants.VirginiaThis is good intel. Alright people, this was a great conversation about fatness and also an unexpected deep dive into leggings science.Thank you so much for listening to Burnt Toast!CorinneIf you'd like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and leave us a rating or review. These really help folks find the show.