2) these women thinking they somehow invented deprivation is WILD
3) my mom is anorexic. She’s in her 70s and she almost died because she literally stopped eating and fucked her body up so much a couple of years ago. My family does not discuss this AT ALL.
4) my entire family praised my teenage niece for losing all this weight…. Turns out she was developing type 1 diabetes. She went into a diabetic coma in the middle of the night and would have died if her dog hadn’t lost her shit and woken up my sister-in-law.
5) when I was a junior/senior in college (so about 2005/2006) my mom and a friend tried to talk me into getting bariatric surgery so I would have better luck launching into a career.
6) I’m so very fucking tired. At this point in time I don’t WANT to be skinny because ABSOLUTELY FUCK EVERYONE who praised the women in my life for disappearing when they were actually dying and FUCK the people who want ME to be less, especially when they want it out of “love”.
7) that got weirdly emotional lol apparently I have feelings about this.
8) Body positivity was fake but I miss it now that it’s gone.
I’m about halfway through and internally screaming about how this is all textbook orthorexia!! It’s also not lost on me how much of the advice sounds like intuitive eating if you skipped the first few principles and went straight to the food/eating part but made it worse
The Evie quote about “pretending to feel empowered in my own body” made me go THERE IT IS. Evie is all about convincing women that empowerment is a scam.
“She’s not trying to shame anyone, she’s just telling the truth” evie repeats twelve times, with the obvious subtext being that if you feel shame for your weight thats just you struggling to accept “the truth”
yeah that felt like a solid throughline in all the content; this assumption that fatphobia (whether internalized or externalized) isn't learned, but natural
Did anyone else - when Katie was talking about fatphobia connected to anti-blackness - think about Annie in “Sinners”???? Because she was curvy and sensual AS FUUUCCCKKKKK and that’s all I could think about.
Caro your point about how the voice in your head doesn’t go away after you find a partner made me cry. I had a breakdown this week because I’ve convinced myself that if I don’t lose weight my partner is going to leave me because all her friends are skinny and beautiful and are so confident and just generally better, and she was like “literally what are you talking about they all have completely different bodies and that also has nothing to do with who they are or who you are.” It didn’t even matter what they looked like or that my partner tells me constantly that she loves me and my body, my conditioning just completely overrode everything I saw and logically knew.
What a mic drop moment at the end. I love you guys. You always give me so much to think about. I always listen first and then listen again with my teen daughters. I appreciate how you have informed yourselves on weight neutrality and fat activism as part of your feminism.
Love you guys and have so many thoughts, as always. I see a capitalism angle — our bodies are being turned into something that can be sold back to us. Also, anecdotally, having a baby helped me finally love and respect my body. Pregnancy and childbirth and caring for a newborn kind of forced me into embodiment…. It held a mirror up to me like “you fool, you are your body and your body is fucking amazing… “
It's like I go through something in my own personal life and Diabolical Lies magically does an episode about it weeks later?! Didn't think I could love this discourse any more than I already do, and yet here I am.
To be vulnerable, I'm unfortunately also someone who's dealt with my own experience of this narrative. I recently fell into the marketing of a brand that sold me another "lifestyle change" program ahead of my upcoming wedding. At first, it seemed like checking in with a 'macro coach' who appeared to care about my sleep, social life, and even digestive system was so in line with what I felt was 'different' than the rest. Then, $200/month later for several months, I was given constant feedback that my 8k step counts weren't ideal, my workouts weren't good enough, my numbers could be better. When they were better? Sodium was too high, fiber could be better, better luck next week. And even though I was feeling okay for a while, I realized my "calories" were slowly becoming smaller, and smaller, and smaller. After a truly ~mental spiral~ after weighing my cucumbers on a digital scale, I canceled the program. (Not to mention the $$$ in payments owed) because even though I canceled, I signed a contract (internal scream.)
At the end of the day, despite how appealing their message may seem, wellness influencers and brands are a BUSINESS. They care about maintaining an image that keeps you paying them so that you too, can keep changing yourself. And arguably, make yourself the smallest version you can be.
Here's to the wonderful liars that listen to this podcast who know their worth, and rise above it all, as hard as that may often seem.
So depressing to feel like we are back in the 90’s. I totally agree with your take that we are lying to ourselves if we think that it ever got significantly better and that body positivity was anything but skin-deep, but I do think this iteration feels more 90’s and early ‘00’s (and pre-90’s-esque) in its focus on thinness without strength training. It seemed like the “ideal body” got slightly curvier and more athletic in the 2010’s. I’m not sure obsessiveness over weightlifting and fitness is much better than trying to be ultra-thin (and the “ideal” was just as unattainable by all but a privileged few), but at least with fitness there’s a skill attached and some actual muscle “growth” involved and you’re not literally starving and shrinking in every measurable way. It’s also literally empowering to get stronger. And I think the cultural messaging was meaningful. There was something about seeing the ripped women in the 2017 Wonder Woman movie kick ass that felt way more inspiring than watching a waifish Meg Ryan pretend to do a push up in the 1995 movie Courage Under Fire. (They literally cut the scene mid- push up because I don’t think she could do it.)
Maybe I’m kidding myself about the degree of real change that’s taken place over the last few years on this issue, but I just can’t believe we are back to glorifying starvation and deprivation and literal weakness again. It feels ever so slightly more misogynistic than the previous focus on fitness and seems to align too conveniently with the trad wife/focus on the man as the “strong” head of house/head of government cultural focus. It just feels like these manosphere men want women who they can physically control and dominate over. Women who make them look and feel bigger. And women are more than happy to accommodate.
To Caro’s point at the end of the episode on all the data collection we have at our disposal that is clinically irrelevant and just causes unnecessary anxiety I cannot agree more.
I have seen way too many people get these pan-scans (full body mri/ct scan) and have incidental findings that then trigger unnecessary workups that just overload the system/are very costly to the system. They do not contribute to any health benefits and can also cause unnecessary interventions that can have long term effects/consequences.
I did not know about the lowering if the BMI scale from 28-25, that is WILD!
“Income inequality is the real public health crisis” GO OFF KATIE!!
Really girding my loins for this one as a fat lady *laughs uncomfortably*
As a fellow fat lady, the first past is a little rough but Katie and Caro do an excellent job tearing it all apart.
I agree!!! I actually have MAAANNNYYYY thoughts to share lol
looking forward to it!
A few thoughts in no particular order….
1) I really like embodiment vs empowerment.
2) these women thinking they somehow invented deprivation is WILD
3) my mom is anorexic. She’s in her 70s and she almost died because she literally stopped eating and fucked her body up so much a couple of years ago. My family does not discuss this AT ALL.
4) my entire family praised my teenage niece for losing all this weight…. Turns out she was developing type 1 diabetes. She went into a diabetic coma in the middle of the night and would have died if her dog hadn’t lost her shit and woken up my sister-in-law.
5) when I was a junior/senior in college (so about 2005/2006) my mom and a friend tried to talk me into getting bariatric surgery so I would have better luck launching into a career.
6) I’m so very fucking tired. At this point in time I don’t WANT to be skinny because ABSOLUTELY FUCK EVERYONE who praised the women in my life for disappearing when they were actually dying and FUCK the people who want ME to be less, especially when they want it out of “love”.
7) that got weirdly emotional lol apparently I have feelings about this.
8) Body positivity was fake but I miss it now that it’s gone.
I’m about halfway through and internally screaming about how this is all textbook orthorexia!! It’s also not lost on me how much of the advice sounds like intuitive eating if you skipped the first few principles and went straight to the food/eating part but made it worse
The Evie quote about “pretending to feel empowered in my own body” made me go THERE IT IS. Evie is all about convincing women that empowerment is a scam.
“She’s not trying to shame anyone, she’s just telling the truth” evie repeats twelve times, with the obvious subtext being that if you feel shame for your weight thats just you struggling to accept “the truth”
yeah that felt like a solid throughline in all the content; this assumption that fatphobia (whether internalized or externalized) isn't learned, but natural
This really seems like the “pro-ana” Reddit communities that promoted self-harm to get skinny. It’s frightening that this is out there.
yeah i think it's noteworthy that all the comparable "communities" that are worthy of parallel also happened online
Did anyone else - when Katie was talking about fatphobia connected to anti-blackness - think about Annie in “Sinners”???? Because she was curvy and sensual AS FUUUCCCKKKKK and that’s all I could think about.
Starting this episode while in the gym 😅 Peak irony over here.
"Also: Palestine" 🫠
Caro your point about how the voice in your head doesn’t go away after you find a partner made me cry. I had a breakdown this week because I’ve convinced myself that if I don’t lose weight my partner is going to leave me because all her friends are skinny and beautiful and are so confident and just generally better, and she was like “literally what are you talking about they all have completely different bodies and that also has nothing to do with who they are or who you are.” It didn’t even matter what they looked like or that my partner tells me constantly that she loves me and my body, my conditioning just completely overrode everything I saw and logically knew.
Maybe our partners have points and we should let ourselves be loved!!! Easier said than done but also worth acknowledging lol
What a mic drop moment at the end. I love you guys. You always give me so much to think about. I always listen first and then listen again with my teen daughters. I appreciate how you have informed yourselves on weight neutrality and fat activism as part of your feminism.
Really good episode, thank you!
thank you! glad you enjoyed
Love you guys and have so many thoughts, as always. I see a capitalism angle — our bodies are being turned into something that can be sold back to us. Also, anecdotally, having a baby helped me finally love and respect my body. Pregnancy and childbirth and caring for a newborn kind of forced me into embodiment…. It held a mirror up to me like “you fool, you are your body and your body is fucking amazing… “
It's like I go through something in my own personal life and Diabolical Lies magically does an episode about it weeks later?! Didn't think I could love this discourse any more than I already do, and yet here I am.
To be vulnerable, I'm unfortunately also someone who's dealt with my own experience of this narrative. I recently fell into the marketing of a brand that sold me another "lifestyle change" program ahead of my upcoming wedding. At first, it seemed like checking in with a 'macro coach' who appeared to care about my sleep, social life, and even digestive system was so in line with what I felt was 'different' than the rest. Then, $200/month later for several months, I was given constant feedback that my 8k step counts weren't ideal, my workouts weren't good enough, my numbers could be better. When they were better? Sodium was too high, fiber could be better, better luck next week. And even though I was feeling okay for a while, I realized my "calories" were slowly becoming smaller, and smaller, and smaller. After a truly ~mental spiral~ after weighing my cucumbers on a digital scale, I canceled the program. (Not to mention the $$$ in payments owed) because even though I canceled, I signed a contract (internal scream.)
At the end of the day, despite how appealing their message may seem, wellness influencers and brands are a BUSINESS. They care about maintaining an image that keeps you paying them so that you too, can keep changing yourself. And arguably, make yourself the smallest version you can be.
Here's to the wonderful liars that listen to this podcast who know their worth, and rise above it all, as hard as that may often seem.
So depressing to feel like we are back in the 90’s. I totally agree with your take that we are lying to ourselves if we think that it ever got significantly better and that body positivity was anything but skin-deep, but I do think this iteration feels more 90’s and early ‘00’s (and pre-90’s-esque) in its focus on thinness without strength training. It seemed like the “ideal body” got slightly curvier and more athletic in the 2010’s. I’m not sure obsessiveness over weightlifting and fitness is much better than trying to be ultra-thin (and the “ideal” was just as unattainable by all but a privileged few), but at least with fitness there’s a skill attached and some actual muscle “growth” involved and you’re not literally starving and shrinking in every measurable way. It’s also literally empowering to get stronger. And I think the cultural messaging was meaningful. There was something about seeing the ripped women in the 2017 Wonder Woman movie kick ass that felt way more inspiring than watching a waifish Meg Ryan pretend to do a push up in the 1995 movie Courage Under Fire. (They literally cut the scene mid- push up because I don’t think she could do it.)
Maybe I’m kidding myself about the degree of real change that’s taken place over the last few years on this issue, but I just can’t believe we are back to glorifying starvation and deprivation and literal weakness again. It feels ever so slightly more misogynistic than the previous focus on fitness and seems to align too conveniently with the trad wife/focus on the man as the “strong” head of house/head of government cultural focus. It just feels like these manosphere men want women who they can physically control and dominate over. Women who make them look and feel bigger. And women are more than happy to accommodate.
To Caro’s point at the end of the episode on all the data collection we have at our disposal that is clinically irrelevant and just causes unnecessary anxiety I cannot agree more.
I have seen way too many people get these pan-scans (full body mri/ct scan) and have incidental findings that then trigger unnecessary workups that just overload the system/are very costly to the system. They do not contribute to any health benefits and can also cause unnecessary interventions that can have long term effects/consequences.
I did not know about the lowering if the BMI scale from 28-25, that is WILD!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CmXhFHoAexu/?
igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Not sure if I'm doing this right but I was screaming crying when @katiegattitassin referenced this Nick kroll skit.
I'm new to posting on Substack so I may have some anything wrong!
The link works perfectly!