March 17, 2025 • 39 mins
To celebrate the launch of TJI’s Body Image Series ‘Every Body’, Tami and Dash speak to Dietitian, Nutritionist, Author, Podcaster, Ted X Speaker, TV Personality and Influencer Lyndi Cohen. Lyndi discusses her experience growing up as a South African migrant in Sydney's Jewish community and how cultural norms and expectations shaped her relationship with body image and dieting. Together, they unpack the link between diet culture and intergenerational trauma in Jewish communities and Lyndi shares practical tips for breaking free from these harmful cycles.
Articles relevant to this episode:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/how-do-you-ladies-stay-so-slim
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/beyond-body-shaming
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/under-the-sheitel
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/my-experience-of-my-body-has-radically-shifted
Email your feedback and voice memos here: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au
Subscribe to The Jewish Independent's bi-weekly newsletter: jewishindependent.com.au
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in
Australia, the Middle East andthe world at large?
But a little bit ashamed thatyou're barely keeping up to date
.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, you've come to the right place.
I'm Dash Lawrence and, in thispodcast series, your third
cousin, tammy Sussman, and Icall on experts and each other
to address all the ignorantquestions that you might be too
ashamed to ask.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Join us as we have a go at cutting through some
seriously chewy and dewy topics.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast.
Ashamed to Admit.
Hello everyone, I'm DashLawrence, executive Director
here at the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
And I'm Tammy, Don't do so well with small talk.
Sussman, Do I Dash?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
No, no, you don't.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It's one of the things I've picked up about you
over the time we've been workingtogether.
Yeah, I like to get straightinto it, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Oh, I know, I know you actually might be.
You might be Finnish.
You know the Finns, they don'tcare much for small talk.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Really.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah yeah.
It's a cultural idiosyncrasy ofthe Finns particularity of
being Finnish.
You just want to get straightto the heart of the matter.
No small talk.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Taboos are my jam, they're my plum povidal.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Speaking of taboos, you've curated a TJI series,
which has just been published,it's called Everybody series,
which has just been published,it's called Every Body.
And over the next six weeks,tammy, I understand our readers
will get to read somefascinating pieces from
Australian writers covering arange of issues relevant to the
(01:56):
taboo topic of body image, frombody dysmorphia to body
acceptance or neutrality.
Tell me, tammy, how did theidea for Everybody come about?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Back in September of 2024, I was at Alana Benjamin's
cookbook launch in conjunctionwith the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
This is the one about Australian Indian Jewish
cooking right.
Correct.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So Ilana Benjamin was in conversation with Lisa
Goldberg from the Monday MorningCooking Club, high-profile
Jewish influencer.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Bala Booster right.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, bala Booster and they were having this
fascinating conversation.
Here were two smart, brilliant,talented, articulate women.
It was such a great launch.
And then it came to questiontime and there's always that
awkward kind of silence at thebeginning of question time when
(03:01):
people are deciding whether ornot they'll raise their hand.
And then, finally, a woman inthe audience raised her hand and
she would have been in her 60sand she says Alana, I'm just
wondering how you managed tostay so slim when you do all
that cooking.
I could feel my jaw drop to theground and I was looking around
(03:27):
the room to kind of see if I wasthe only person having this
reaction, and I have beenaccused of being a highly
sensitive person.
So there was a part of me thatthought you know, maybe I'm just
overthinking it.
So at the end of the launch,alana and Lisa were still
hanging around and I went overand I said hello and I wanted to
(03:47):
get a sense from them how theyfelt about the question.
I said did you find thatquestion off-putting?
But she wasn't surprised,because she has done lots of
events with the other women thatmake up the Monday Morning
Cooking Club and she said thatpeople have commented on their
shapes and their weight before.
(04:11):
So I just said as a throwawaycomment hey, maybe there's a TJI
series in this.
I said, lisa, do you thinkyou'd want to write something?
And she said no, I don't thinkI'm ready to open that can of
worms.
So I left it.
But then some time passed and Ireached out to Lisa again and I
(04:34):
said I'm going to pitch this toTJI and just wanted to just
check quickly before I do.
Do you think you have a piecein you about this?
And she got back to me and shesaid actually, yes, I do have
something to say.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You've also included the voice of community mover and
shaker, Speedy Shatari.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I did, and their piece is fantastic too.
I interviewed a bunch of blokesfor this series as well
Sephardi, mizrahi, ashkenazi men.
I spoke to secular, modern,orthodox and Orthodox women
about hair covering and dressingmodestly and how that impacts
(05:16):
their body image.
I spoke to a body imagetherapist who facilitates
workshops and retreats to helppeople enjoy a positive
relationship with their body andimprove self-esteem and mental
health.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And full disclosure.
That happens to be your sister,lana Sussman Davis.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, and that one is going to be published as a
conversation because we had areally at times funny chat.
We spoke a lot about ourupbringing in a tight-knit
Jewish community as well.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Okay, really excited about this one Tammy To
celebrate the launch of theEverybody series.
Today, on A Shame to Admit,we're going to interview Lindy
Cohen.
We're going to interview LindyCohen.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Lindy Cohen is a dietician nutritionist, author,
podcaster, tedx speaker, tvpersonality and influencer
(06:24):
otherwise known as the nudenutritionist.
She's also the loveliest personand it's a privilege to have
her with us today, lindy Cohen,otherwise known as the nude
nutritionist.
Welcome to A Shame to Admit,gosh, it's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Lindy, tell us a little bit about your upbringing
.
I understand that you're fromSydney's east.
Tell us a little bit about thatand your early relationship
with food and with eating.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well, I was actually born in South Africa, as many of
us Australian Jews seem to be.
I came over in one of the bigexoduses.
In 1994, when I was four yearsold, arrived on my birthday,
lost a birthday, not bitterabout it at all and I actually
moved into the North, not theEast.
I went to Masada College.
I was very much a North girl,riding my bicycle around the
(07:20):
leafy green suburbs of St Ivesand loved it.
It was a great place to grow up.
The challenge is, though, isquite early on.
I was five years old when I wasfirst noticing the fact that I
was bigger than the other girls.
They had these straight up anddown bodies.
I had a little tummy, I hadlittle thighs that touched, and
(07:41):
I already knew at five years oldthat this wasn't right.
It wasn't until I was 11 yearsold that I went on my first diet
, and what that looked like ismy parents took me to see a
nutritionist, and thenutritionist she pinky promised
me that she wasn't going to putme on a diet, and yet she told
me you need to weigh out allyour food, you need to count all
these calories, you need to logthem into your diary, and then
(08:03):
you need to come back in a weekso I can see how you have
improved.
She also noted at the time youare well within your healthy
weight range on the BMI.
However, I do appreciate thatyou probably would like to be
thin, and I said, yes, yes, Iwould.
And so she told me how to dothat, and that was with a diet
of 1200 calories, which is aboutas many calories as a toddler
(08:24):
needs, not a busy that.
And that was with a diet of1,200 calories, which is about
as many calories as a toddlerneeds, not a busy teenager.
And I was such a good girl, mygoodness, I was a good girl.
I stuck to the calories.
I tried to impress everyone, toshow everyone that actually I
could become the picture thatthey all wanted me to be.
But it wasn't long before thislevel of restriction turned into
(08:46):
an obsession, a compulsion, andthen morphed into a binge
eating response.
So while I was willing toself-starve myself, my body had
other plans, and so, in momentswhere I felt depleted or tired,
I'd get home after school, afterwalking to school, walking home
from school, just to burnenough calories and then, having
(09:09):
basically existed on, a snackmight be an apple, lunch might
be a chicken salad, and I'd gethome and I was ravenously hungry
and I would devour any food Ican get my hands on, and my
binge eating didn't discriminate.
I'd binge on carrots, I'd bingeon yogurt or fruit, I'd also
binge on chocolate and cerealand pasta and all the things I
was depriving my body of, whichwas calories, carbohydrates,
(09:32):
energy.
My body was starving and thebinge eating was such a normal
response for me.
And so, by the age of 16, I hadnow this incredibly disordered
relationship with food.
I loathed my body even morethan I had when I had been a
child, and more than that, I hadalso gained weight as a
response of doing this.
And by the age of 21, I got tothe point where I go.
(09:55):
Oh my goodness.
It's been a decade of dieting,of obsessing over everything I
eat, of trying to be the goodgirl, of going for these
weigh-ins tracking everything Ieat.
I've seen multiplenutritionists and dietitians by
this point, and it has notworked.
I am so unhealthy, I hate mybody and I am now morbidly obese
(10:15):
.
This has not worked.
This sucks.
What are we going to do aboutit?
And I decided, in what was feltlike a really brave move to say
I'm not going to keep doingthese diets.
I've followed the rules for solong.
I even went to a doctor and thedoctor said you know, maybe you
should try this diet my wife ishaving good success with.
As a 21 year old, I stared himin the face and I wanted to yell
(10:37):
at him.
I've tried, I have tried allthe things for so many years.
I have listened and that wasreally.
It was a life-changing momentfor me because it was my
decision to go.
I don't want to keep doing thisapproach to food that had been
handed down from me, handed downto me and had been taught to me
because it felt intrinsicallywrong.
(10:58):
And bear in mind at this point,I was a dietitian.
I graduated because at 16, inmy dietitian's office, I had
looked at it going.
What a great profession.
I know this is a brilliantprofession for someone who's
obsessed with food.
I can get paid to make otherpeople thin.
How wonderful.
That was the thinking.
It was incredibly disordered.
So, by 21, I graduated goinggosh, I drank the Kool-Aid and
(11:20):
now it's left me here and nowthis is my profession and now I
have to start treating patients.
But dare I start treating themthe way that I had been raised
and taught, and that's when Ihad a moment of going.
I have to fix my relationshipwith food.
I need to become the type ofnutritionist that I would have
loved to have been sent to whenI was 11 years old, and I think
that's what I try and donowadays.
Wow, shkoya, thanks, that was alot.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
When it comes to food and eating, a lot of it comes
down to the way that we wereraised, our relationship to food
, as passed on by our parents,our intimate family members.
So, lindy, I'm wondering whatwas the relationship that your
parents and your family had withfood and eating?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
So I mentioned that I'm South African and that's a
very important detail to addinto this, in addition to being
Jewish, and this kind of createsin some ways, a perfect storm
for certain degree of disorderedeating.
I don't have the statistics toback it up, but I'm an eating
disordered dietitian essentiallyand I speak to a lot of people
about how they eat and what theyeat and what I noticed is
(12:29):
coming from a South Africanbackground.
It's an incredibly patriarchalsociety.
Men are king, women serve men.
A woman's job, from what I wasraised to kind of think, is to
be beautiful and be appreciativeand raise the family and feed
the family, and the man is, youknow, the breadwinner.
And so, growing up in this,that was kind of the messaging I
(12:51):
was receiving from everyonearound me beyond just my family
that I needed to be pretty inorder to be worthy.
My parents certainly were aresult of the culture around
them as well, and so my parentswere exceptional and in no way
hateful towards other people'sbodies.
(13:12):
They were just a reflection ofthe culture and what was around.
And what I came to realize is mymom certainly didn't have a
healthy relationship with foodgrowing up, and the issue is
that had been passed down to herfrom her mother.
So she would talk to me aboutwhen I was growing up.
My mom issue is that had beenpassed down to her from her
mother, so she would talk to meabout when I was growing up.
My mom would make thesecomments about my body, about my
weight Should you really beeating that?
Do you really need to haveseconds?
(13:32):
You're getting a little bit fat.
And you know what Her motherhad said the exact same things
to her.
What I realized is that we havebeen passing down disordered
eating for generations andgenerations, primarily amongst
women, and I decided that itneeded to stop.
With my generation, my mom, mydad, they were just victims of
the same diet culture that I wasand their parents before them,
(13:56):
but there certainly was aculture of it's okay to restrict
, to obsess, to diet.
In fact, it's far better to bedisordered around food than it
is to weigh a little bit moreall of your content and all of
what you're putting out into theworld.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I get the distinct impression that it is as much
about you sharing with othersthe tools and the strategies
that you yourself have learnedalong the way, because you
weren't necessarily given thosetools and strategies when you
were in your teens and twenties.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I certainly think and this is perhaps a bizarre thing
to say that one of mysuperpowers is being able to
accept the fact that I amimperfect and share that
imperfection before I feel likeI have fully developed and
formed.
So, for example, I'm able totalk about the fact that I was
struggling with anxiety and Italked through all the things
(14:51):
that were working for me.
In a way, I kind of felt that Iwas more useful when I was in
the thick of it.
For example, one of the thingsthat makes me fantastic at what
I do is the fact that I've beenthrough binge eating, that I
totally understand thatexperience.
It's almost like you had anoncologist who'd also had cancer
.
You'd go, wow, that's really.
It would be super useful in away, because you think they
(15:11):
really understand me, and so Ido not ever preach from some
kind of like perfect positionand I kind of see that as my
imperfection is my strength andmy superpower, and being able to
talk about it is therapeuticfor me.
Of course, I think there aresome influencers who would
probably use social media as ajournal, as like, instead of a
(15:33):
psychologist or a counselor.
That's not what I'm doing here,so you're not just using people
to therapize yourself.
But I read the book the Giftsof Imperfection by Brene Brown
early in my career and itfundamentally changed the way I
acted and I started to sharemore honestly about what was
happening.
And I started to notice howseeing other people sharing
(15:57):
their perfect moments only howit was messing with my mental
health.
And I thought, once you arewilling to turn up as you are in
perfect, I think it helpseveryone else sigh in relief
because finally we havepermission to be ourselves and
instead of making people dislikeyou, it actually brings people
(16:18):
closer to you.
And I think perhaps somethingthat we have in our culture is
this idea of if I put my bestfoot forward, if I show you only
the good bits, if I amperfectly behaved in public and
all those things, people willlike me more, and I think it's a
misconception that I'd love usto fix in our culture.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
It feels to me that you have this really healthy
relationship with not justimperfection but with shame.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I'd say, that's true.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
How did you overcome that, beyond the Brene Browns,
these influencers?
They talk about the work.
You need to do the work.
What did the work look like toyou?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
So I lean more heavily into science.
I'm a dietitian, nutritionistYou'd expect that and so
exposure therapy for me isparticularly interesting, and I
think it's been very useful forme in the way that I've dealt
with shame, For example, when aninfluencer might say do the
work.
What that looks like for me interms of body image and learning
(17:22):
to not loathe every part ofmyself is exposing myself to
situations that make me feel abit uncomfortable and then
building.
For example, I remember walkingin a crop top when I was young
and not feeling like I had abody that was worthy of wearing
a crop top.
A young boy made a commentbeing like you should put a
(17:42):
t-shirt on until you have a flatstomach in order to wear this,
and it stuck with me.
I think so many people have ashame story similar to this that
you remember, at a certain age,someone making a comment about
your cellulite or a roll or amole on your face, and then you
kind of forget it, and so oneoption I could have had was to
(18:04):
go.
I'm never wearing a crop topagain, but the option I chose
was the exposure therapy.
I thought you know what?
Honestly, I'm not going to havea flat stomach.
I really have tried.
I had a decade of totaldedication to it.
It didn't work for me.
So either I can choose never towear a crop top in my life
again and feel hot and sticky atthe gym, or I simply say let me
just wear a crop top before mybody is perfectly ready, before
(18:27):
it's flat, and see what therepercussions are.
So what's really going tohappen?
What's the worst case scenario?
So I turn up to my gym andpeople might stare at me, so
what.
And so I put myself in thesesituations where I started to
test okay, what is the outcomeif I do this hard, scary thing?
And I noticed there wasn'tactually any repercussions for
(18:47):
it.
People didn't gawk, no one cameup to me and made rude comments
because they weren't a 17 yearold boy anymore.
People didn't gawk, no one cameup to me and made rude comments
because they weren't a17-year-old boy anymore.
And I felt like, oh, you knowwhat?
I actually do have the rightbody to wear a crop top, because
anyone really can.
And so for me, doing the workis these little moments of
exposure.
It is doing things before youfeel ready.
(19:08):
Feeling that discomfort andrealizing it's actually the
world won't end as a result ofit.
And, in addition to exposuretherapy, I think I often use
humor a lot to cope with shame.
So, for example, my body hasnever been acceptable to anyone.
At the same time, let's say youknow, when I was going through
my disordered eating, I'd loseweight.
I'd run into people that you'retoo skinny now I can't believe
you've lost so much weight.
(19:29):
And I'd run into people who sayyou look amazing or I gain
weight, and then I'd be too fatto people.
And do you know, I just can'twin.
And I've accepted that andthat's very therapeutic in
itself.
But the other week the algorithmspat me out into the wrong side
of the internet and my content,which is all about helping
women not sacrifice their oneprecious life for something like
(19:51):
as silly as a stomach roll.
I got into the wrong side ofthe internet and all these men
mostly men really came after mein the comment section, created
incredibly long, convolutedvideos calling me fat and awful
and ugly and just like mockingmy body, and really it just
escalated.
(20:11):
And for me I think you know Idon't take it too seriously
because I think these sad littlepeople no one wants to listen
to these people in real life.
So now they've gone on socialmedia so that they can be heard
by someone else and I have likea lightness in it where I kind
of see the sense of humor in it.
I don't take them too seriouslyand I think that's kind of
healthy.
(20:32):
So what?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
you've got to have your little South African mum
voice when you see those videosand say, oh shame.
Look at that nebish or rahmonesover there making fun of lindy.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, shame oh, my goodness, I can't believe
they're so embarrassing.
Yeah, no, totally, and sothat's been a really helpful
thing for me.
I mean, mind you, not to say Idon't have moments of shame, but
I also think like it's beingwilling to share your shame with
the right people.
I, you know, I wouldn't take ifI had really tender shame.
I'm not taking that to theinternet and sharing it with
(21:05):
anyone who can take that shameand do whatever they want with
it.
I am protecting myself.
Certainly, I do share a lot ofmy imperfections, but I am in no
way, as I said, just puttingout all my inner thoughts and my
darkness for the entire worldto pull apart.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
I think shame is a huge theme in the Jewish
community.
It's one of the reasons why wecalled this podcast Ashamed.
To Admit, I've been wanting tohave you on the show for some
time, but we waited until therelease of the Jewish
Independence Body Image seriesand in that series I interviewed
(21:47):
a wide variety of AustralianJews, and pretty much every
person I spoke to mentioned dietculture, body shaming, high
standards, before we startedrecording.
Dash, who lives in Melbourne,mentioned Sydney specifically as
(22:08):
perhaps a potential hotspot forissues with body image or diet
culture, because we're such abeach-focused, perhaps, society.
So one of the questions that Iasked almost all of the people
that I interviewed were what aresome of the red flags that you
(22:29):
see in the Jewish community inAustralia when it comes to these
high standards and thesechallenges with body image?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I think, as Jews, we have a complicated relationship
with food.
You know, you have your Babatelling you to eat enough a
serving.
It's delicious, and at the sametime you have this implicit
messaging to say that you needto stay thin because that is
what is needed from you.
So I think one of the red flagsfor me is this constant push
pull that we feel to eat as muchas our community requires and
(23:06):
to, as women, particularly ifI'm hosting, the right amount of
food, if you're Jewish, is toomuch food, but don't you dare
eat it.
Right, make delicious stuff,but don't you dare touch it.
Or not where everyone can seeyou, you must eat it, but don't
let it show that you've actuallyeaten food.
And I think that, polaropposite of concepts, it feels
like a really red flag for me.
(23:33):
I think there is a realnormalization of disordered
eating in our community where wethink it's standard practice.
And that is how my parents gotto the point that they thought I
can send my 11-year-old to thenutritionist to help her be thin
, because everyone else wasdoing it.
It was normal, in fact.
Not only that, it was reallyencouraged, as I'll be doing the
best thing for my child bydoing this and my parents
genuinely thought they werehelping me.
They didn't want me to have togo through a life of weight
(23:56):
stigma and issues strugglingwith food, so they really were
trying to do the best thing forme, and so it's that
normalization of just thinkingwell, this is how we are with
food and that's the way it is.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So my sister and I were discussing our grandparents
who were Holocaust survivorsand the impact that that had on
us.
We often talk about how thesesurvivors came out of the camps,
emaciated, and then it wascelebrated when they put on the
(24:30):
weight, but not too much,because there were still
cultural norms that they had toadhere to.
And Lana put forward this ideawhich I'd never thought about
before, and that was they'd hadthis history of being othered
and of being portrayed as lessthan, or disgusting, or unwanted
(24:52):
, and so, as part of theirassimilation, perhaps, they
needed to strict to the societalnorms.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I think you raise such an important point that
could help to explain why Jewsare the way we are when it comes
to food and why we have thisassociation with disordered
eating.
You have a people who have beenintermittently starved
throughout our centuries, and weknow from new and updated
research that the body holdsonto trauma and it's passed down
(25:24):
through generations andgenerations, so actually stored
in the body, which I think couldexplain why we know there's a
genetic link towards having aneating disorder, but more from a
cultural perspective, somethinglike binge eating disorder,
which is the largest eatingdisorder by a landslide an
absolute landslide, just for abit of perspective.
I think anorexia nervosa isaround 2%, binge eating is
(25:46):
around 50%.
Binge eating is a response tostarvation.
Essentially it's a protectivebehavior to prevent you from
depleting yourself, and so it'sa very normal response that you
would have a people who had beenstarved who would then result
in a degree of emotional eatingor binge eating.
A way of feeding their body anddealing with stress through food
(26:09):
as a way to soothe their soul,because it was something that
they felt like they were notallowed.
I think you also then have thisintergenerational play where
you have a survivor who had beenstarved, who has a real
pressure about going.
I cannot leave food on my plate.
Therefore, my children mustfinish everything on their plate
.
Therefore, the raised childrenwho learn how to ignore their
(26:33):
hunger and fullness cues and aredriven to eat for emotional
gains or reasons far outside ofhunger and appetite, which is
what we know we should be aimingfor, and so I think it's really
built into our biology, inaddition to our culture, and I
think that's probably what'sdriving it.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Lindy, I'm curious whether you see any other
commonalities across yourclients Like.
Is there something particularabout the migrant experience?
More generally, that means thatpeople are perhaps more
vulnerable to disordered eating.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Now in my clinical work I see this.
When we start to seeintergenerational dieting, that
is when I see people emergingwith disordered eating They'll
tell me stories about.
I went to Weight Watchers withmy mum when I was eight years
old.
It was the one thing my mum andI could bond over.
We could drive in the car andperhaps we didn't know what else
to talk about.
We always had calories, or wehad this snack or I've lost this
(27:28):
much weight, and so I think wecan't ignore the fact that for
generations women have beenconnecting over food.
It's been our way of.
Dieting is a hobby, if you must, and sometimes when people let
go of dieting, they're alsoletting go of that hobby that
they have.
Is there a connection I'venoticed between certain cultures
, the cultures where I thinkfood is a predominant feature?
(27:50):
So Indian culture, I think, isquite similar to us, is about
food and family.
I think there is a degree ofthat, but I don't think I see as
high a disordered eating rateshas a very public face.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I'm wondering whether you have been more conscious of
(28:26):
your Jewishness since this sortof recent wave of anti-Semitic
attacks and I'm wondering howyou're sort of reckoning with
all of that, given that you dospeak to the wider Australian
public quite regularly.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
So my social media account has been mostly
apolitical.
There have been certain thingsthat I have jumped on board with
to help promote, whether it'ssomething like the yes Vote, for
example, but generally prettyapolitical.
And with the recent rise inantisemitism, I started to
notice a thing where I saw allmy jewish friends posting in an
(29:03):
echo chamber of jews to jews.
Can you believe this ishappening?
And I know these people, I knowyou don't have that many people
who aren't jewish who arefollowing you, and then I could
look at my following and I couldsee do you know what I, who I
have?
I probably have, you know, 30to 50 year old-old women,
australian women predominantlycertainly big, in the US too who
(29:24):
aren't Jewish, and I could seeno one's talking about
anti-Semitism beyond the Jews.
Why is this?
And I had this gut feeling thatI don't think they don't care.
I just don't think they don'tknow.
They don't know a Jewish person, they're not connected to us.
Therefore, it's hard to carewhen we've got so much that's
(29:44):
going on in the world and somuch that's awful.
I don't think they see it intheir newsfeed, I just don't
think it's coming up, and sopart of me felt as though it was
a sense of like, never again isnow in that this really starts
to feel very reminiscent of whatwas happening pre-Holocaust
days and I thought well, I dohappen to have this platform and
I can reach a whole bunch ofpeople who I think would
(30:07):
understand what it would be liketo take your children to school
and feel genuinely scared aboutdropping them at the gate and
to feel like it's normal that wewould have a Jewish event and
that you wouldn't know whereit's actually going to be
located until a few hours beforethe fact.
The fact that it's normal forus to go to an event and have be
interrogated about who we areand what we are, and to go
(30:29):
through a security scanner tocheck that there's no weapons
this is normal stuff for us.
But I knew that this was notsomething that anyone outside of
our community really understood, and so I have done a few
series of sharing about it a fewtimes, and most of the
outpouring has been we had noidea this is happening.
This wasn't that we don't care,it's just that we didn't know,
(30:51):
and I'm so sorry, and this isn'tthe Australia that we want to
live in.
And that was 98% of theresponses and it was so nice.
Actually, it was a lot ofresponses from Germany and the
Germans just being likecompletely outraged that this is
happening.
There certainly was a 2% ofpeople who were essentially like
yeah, let me explain to you whyeveryone hates the Jews, which
(31:15):
was an instant block and delete.
Obviously, as you can imagine,I'm not going to try and win
those people over.
You don't deserve to have myfree content, so see you later.
Bye, but I think that was kindof an interesting thing.
It felt incredibly scary to doposts like that.
I hate that.
I felt really scared.
My heart rate was going out ofcontrol, I swear like I had like
hot sweats.
I really did plan out how I wasgoing to tell the story as well
(31:39):
.
It wasn't just a flat dash.
I'm just going to post this.
I knew it had to be done and ithad to be done in a way that
helped people understand what itwould be like to be a person in
Australia right now.
Who's Jewish?
Speaker 1 (31:53):
How many followers did you lose?
Speaker 3 (31:57):
A few hundred, several hundred, I'd say
probably 1, thousand by the endof it, and that was to be
expected.
But for most people, I think itwas also this idea of you don't
know a Jewish person and if youmight like me, then I might be
the only Jewish person You'relike.
Oh, I like her and she's Jewish.
So it was also just from athing of going yeah, Jews aren't
(32:18):
bad when we're contributors.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Thank you for doing that.
I know that there are a lot ofpeople in your situation who
would not do that for fear oflosing followers or influence.
In inverted commas Was there afear that maybe the today show
(32:40):
wouldn't have you back on oncethey knew?
Speaker 3 (32:44):
certainly there absolutely was.
A lot of the producers followme.
A lot of the producers saw thatI got a lot of messages from
people in the media.
So the producers on today showsaying I can't believe, I'm so
sorry this is happening for you.
This isn't the Australia that Iknow, so I also have a lot of
media contacts who are also kindof like witness to this and
shared an experience, but Icertainly did have that fear of
(33:07):
going.
I know there will berepercussions for this.
The story in my mind would belike this will be posted in some
Facebook groups and there willbe a boycott of some description
and attacking and therecertainly was a whole bunch of
really nasty messages that werebeing sent.
They didn't talk about Israel,hamas.
It really was a conversationaround antisemitism in Australia
.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
It's pretty astounding, isn't it, that you
can talk about your personalexperience, talk about the fear
and insecurity that people inyour community feel.
Not mention politics, notmention a war.
Really keep it to your personalexperience, and for some people
that's too much and thatprovokes them into saying all
(33:49):
kinds of hateful things.
It's a sad reflection, I think,lindy, of both the power but
also some of the perniciouselements of social media, which
is the thing that has given yousuch a big profile and is a big
part of your success.
The flip side of it is it alsobrings out the worst in people.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
I guess.
So I've got to say, thoughthere were countless Muslims who
wrote to me in response to that, saying I'm so sorry this is
happening, palestinians whowrote to me saying I'm so sorry
this is happening to you.
And yet what I found reallyinteresting is the people who
were writing me awful messagesjustifying Jewish hate were
people who were neither Jewish,nor Muslim, nor Palestinian.
(34:32):
They were white Australians forall intents purposes, who had
no skin in the game, but feltlike they were really informed
and they'd done their research,apparently in the you know,
watching enough videos on socialmedia to think that they had a
really clear stance and Ithought that was kind of an
interesting take on it.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Interesting observation.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
So you shared your like eating diary with the Daily
Mail five years ago.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
The really reputable- .
Speaker 2 (35:05):
The reputable Daily Mail wanted to know about what
you'd eaten for two weeks, Ithink.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Day on a plate.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I love the fact that on day one, your first meal, do
you remember what you noted onthat first day of the diary?
That you had your coffeecappuccino with shavings of lint
chocolate on top.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Just because no one was expecting that.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
You obviously have chocolate from time to time in
your morning coffee, is thatright?
Speaker 3 (35:40):
It's not just time to time, it is an integrated and
an essential part of how I stayhealthy.
And I know for some peoplegoing well, that doesn't really
make sense.
What are you talking about?
Chocolate helps you stayhealthy.
For me, if I do not integratechocolate into my diet in a
mindful way, I will go and Iwill go and binge eat on it and
it will become an emotional crux.
And there are people who say,well, I can't just have a few
(36:03):
squares of chocolate, I justbinge eat the entire packet.
And I would say, well, tryintegrating it in a way that
makes sense.
Am I going to binge on thelinch shavings of my cappuccino?
No, I can't.
But it sends a message to mybrain saying chocolate is
allowed, we include it.
Nothing is off the limits toyou and part of my recovery.
A really key part of it was, youknow, what's so common is that
(36:26):
we eat perfectly healthily whenwe're, when we're in front of
other people, but when we're athome, that's when we do all the
you know quote unquote almostthe naughty eating.
We eat the foods that we don'tthink we're allowed to eat, and
I encourage the.
The exact opposite I would likeyou when you are out with your
friends, that's the time to haveice cream, that's the time to
share the pizza, that's the timeto eat all those yummy,
(36:47):
delicious foods, so that whenyou're at home, that's not binge
on all the junk food that noone can see.
That's a very unhealthyrelationship with food, and so
for me, it's that active pursuitof eating those foods,
including them in a mindful way.
You know what?
I don't fall with the bandwagonanymore.
I don't have to start fromscratch every Monday.
I'm not an all-or-nothing eater.
I'm incredibly consistent withmy eating.
(37:07):
Yes, I eat chocolate, probablymore than I did when I was in my
restrictive eating day,certainly more than during my
restrictive eating days, but I'mmuch healthier as a result of
it.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Dash, I thought you were going to take that question
in a really different direction.
I thought you were going totake that question in a really
different direction.
I thought you were going to sayI love that, lindy.
When you said you have yourmorning coffee.
You have it with a pickle onthe side.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
No, I'm a real sweet tooth, so this is great.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Eye-opening.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
This is the message I need to hear.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Lindy, we ask all our interviewees.
Is there anything you'reashamed to admit?
Just in general, like notrelated to your line of work,
not related to being Jewish.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
One of the shames I have is that I cannot put my
washing away, and so I basicallybuild these pyramids of
clothing in my study.
So it's kind of where I'mfilming the podcast.
But the rest of my house ispretty like clean and immaculate
, but then I basically havethese sections in my house where
it's kind of like you know what?
Speaker 1 (38:08):
That's okay, that's fine.
Thank you for making me feelseen for the hundredth time
today.
I'm sure many of our listenerswill relate.
You have been an absolute dreamguest, so generous with your
time.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Lovely to meet you, Lindy.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
That was our conversation with Lindy Cohen,
the nude nutritionist, andthat's it for today.
You've been listening to Aamedto Admit with me Tammy Sussman
and executive director of theJewish Independent, dr Dashiell
Lawrence.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King
and theme music by Donovan Jenks.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
If you like the podcast, then leave a positive
review.
It helps other people find theshow.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
You can tell us what you're ashamed to admit via the
contact form on the JewishIndependent website or by
emailing ashamed atthejewishindependentcomau.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
As always.
Thanks so much for your support.
Go eat something delicious andlook out for us next week.
Are you interested in issues affecting Jews in
Australia, the Middle East andthe world at large?
But a little bit ashamed thatyou're barely keeping up to date
.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, you've come to the right place.
I'm Dash Lawrence and, in thispodcast series, your third
cousin, tammy Sussman, and Icall on experts and each other
to address all the ignorantquestions that you might be too
ashamed to ask.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Join us as we have a go at cutting through some
seriously chewy and dewy topics.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to the Jewish Independent Podcast.
Ashamed to Admit.
Hello everyone, I'm DashLawrence, executive Director
here at the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
And I'm Tammy, Don't do so well with small talk.
Sussman, Do I Dash?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
No, no, you don't.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It's one of the things I've picked up about you
over the time we've been workingtogether.
Yeah, I like to get straightinto it, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Oh, I know, I know you actually might be.
You might be Finnish.
You know the Finns, they don'tcare much for small talk.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Really.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah yeah.
It's a cultural idiosyncrasy ofthe Finns particularity of
being Finnish.
You just want to get straightto the heart of the matter.
No small talk.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Taboos are my jam, they're my plum povidal.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Speaking of taboos, you've curated a TJI series,
which has just been published,it's called Everybody series,
which has just been published,it's called Every Body.
And over the next six weeks,tammy, I understand our readers
will get to read somefascinating pieces from
Australian writers covering arange of issues relevant to the
(01:56):
taboo topic of body image, frombody dysmorphia to body
acceptance or neutrality.
Tell me, tammy, how did theidea for Everybody come about?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Back in September of 2024, I was at Alana Benjamin's
cookbook launch in conjunctionwith the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
This is the one about Australian Indian Jewish
cooking right.
Correct.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So Ilana Benjamin was in conversation with Lisa
Goldberg from the Monday MorningCooking Club, high-profile
Jewish influencer.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Bala Booster right.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, bala Booster and they were having this
fascinating conversation.
Here were two smart, brilliant,talented, articulate women.
It was such a great launch.
And then it came to questiontime and there's always that
awkward kind of silence at thebeginning of question time when
(03:01):
people are deciding whether ornot they'll raise their hand.
And then, finally, a woman inthe audience raised her hand and
she would have been in her 60sand she says Alana, I'm just
wondering how you managed tostay so slim when you do all
that cooking.
I could feel my jaw drop to theground and I was looking around
(03:27):
the room to kind of see if I wasthe only person having this
reaction, and I have beenaccused of being a highly
sensitive person.
So there was a part of me thatthought you know, maybe I'm just
overthinking it.
So at the end of the launch,alana and Lisa were still
hanging around and I went overand I said hello and I wanted to
(03:47):
get a sense from them how theyfelt about the question.
I said did you find thatquestion off-putting?
But she wasn't surprised,because she has done lots of
events with the other women thatmake up the Monday Morning
Cooking Club and she said thatpeople have commented on their
shapes and their weight before.
(04:11):
So I just said as a throwawaycomment hey, maybe there's a TJI
series in this.
I said, lisa, do you thinkyou'd want to write something?
And she said no, I don't thinkI'm ready to open that can of
worms.
So I left it.
But then some time passed and Ireached out to Lisa again and I
(04:34):
said I'm going to pitch this toTJI and just wanted to just
check quickly before I do.
Do you think you have a piecein you about this?
And she got back to me and shesaid actually, yes, I do have
something to say.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You've also included the voice of community mover and
shaker, Speedy Shatari.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I did, and their piece is fantastic too.
I interviewed a bunch of blokesfor this series as well
Sephardi, mizrahi, ashkenazi men.
I spoke to secular, modern,orthodox and Orthodox women
about hair covering and dressingmodestly and how that impacts
(05:16):
their body image.
I spoke to a body imagetherapist who facilitates
workshops and retreats to helppeople enjoy a positive
relationship with their body andimprove self-esteem and mental
health.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And full disclosure.
That happens to be your sister,lana Sussman Davis.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, and that one is going to be published as a
conversation because we had areally at times funny chat.
We spoke a lot about ourupbringing in a tight-knit
Jewish community as well.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Okay, really excited about this one Tammy To
celebrate the launch of theEverybody series.
Today, on A Shame to Admit,we're going to interview Lindy
Cohen.
We're going to interview LindyCohen.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Lindy Cohen is a dietician nutritionist, author,
podcaster, tedx speaker, tvpersonality and influencer
(06:24):
otherwise known as the nudenutritionist.
She's also the loveliest personand it's a privilege to have
her with us today, lindy Cohen,otherwise known as the nude
nutritionist.
Welcome to A Shame to Admit,gosh, it's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Lindy, tell us a little bit about your upbringing
.
I understand that you're fromSydney's east.
Tell us a little bit about thatand your early relationship
with food and with eating.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well, I was actually born in South Africa, as many of
us Australian Jews seem to be.
I came over in one of the bigexoduses.
In 1994, when I was four yearsold, arrived on my birthday,
lost a birthday, not bitterabout it at all and I actually
moved into the North, not theEast.
I went to Masada College.
I was very much a North girl,riding my bicycle around the
(07:20):
leafy green suburbs of St Ivesand loved it.
It was a great place to grow up.
The challenge is, though, isquite early on.
I was five years old when I wasfirst noticing the fact that I
was bigger than the other girls.
They had these straight up anddown bodies.
I had a little tummy, I hadlittle thighs that touched, and
(07:41):
I already knew at five years oldthat this wasn't right.
It wasn't until I was 11 yearsold that I went on my first diet
, and what that looked like ismy parents took me to see a
nutritionist, and thenutritionist she pinky promised
me that she wasn't going to putme on a diet, and yet she told
me you need to weigh out allyour food, you need to count all
these calories, you need to logthem into your diary, and then
(08:03):
you need to come back in a weekso I can see how you have
improved.
She also noted at the time youare well within your healthy
weight range on the BMI.
However, I do appreciate thatyou probably would like to be
thin, and I said, yes, yes, Iwould.
And so she told me how to dothat, and that was with a diet
of 1200 calories, which is aboutas many calories as a toddler
(08:24):
needs, not a busy that.
And that was with a diet of1,200 calories, which is about
as many calories as a toddlerneeds, not a busy teenager.
And I was such a good girl, mygoodness, I was a good girl.
I stuck to the calories.
I tried to impress everyone, toshow everyone that actually I
could become the picture thatthey all wanted me to be.
But it wasn't long before thislevel of restriction turned into
(08:46):
an obsession, a compulsion, andthen morphed into a binge
eating response.
So while I was willing toself-starve myself, my body had
other plans, and so, in momentswhere I felt depleted or tired,
I'd get home after school, afterwalking to school, walking home
from school, just to burnenough calories and then, having
(09:09):
basically existed on, a snackmight be an apple, lunch might
be a chicken salad, and I'd gethome and I was ravenously hungry
and I would devour any food Ican get my hands on, and my
binge eating didn't discriminate.
I'd binge on carrots, I'd bingeon yogurt or fruit, I'd also
binge on chocolate and cerealand pasta and all the things I
was depriving my body of, whichwas calories, carbohydrates,
(09:32):
energy.
My body was starving and thebinge eating was such a normal
response for me.
And so, by the age of 16, I hadnow this incredibly disordered
relationship with food.
I loathed my body even morethan I had when I had been a
child, and more than that, I hadalso gained weight as a
response of doing this.
And by the age of 21, I got tothe point where I go.
(09:55):
Oh my goodness.
It's been a decade of dieting,of obsessing over everything I
eat, of trying to be the goodgirl, of going for these
weigh-ins tracking everything Ieat.
I've seen multiplenutritionists and dietitians by
this point, and it has notworked.
I am so unhealthy, I hate mybody and I am now morbidly obese
(10:15):
.
This has not worked.
This sucks.
What are we going to do aboutit?
And I decided, in what was feltlike a really brave move to say
I'm not going to keep doingthese diets.
I've followed the rules for solong.
I even went to a doctor and thedoctor said you know, maybe you
should try this diet my wife ishaving good success with.
As a 21 year old, I stared himin the face and I wanted to yell
(10:37):
at him.
I've tried, I have tried allthe things for so many years.
I have listened and that wasreally.
It was a life-changing momentfor me because it was my
decision to go.
I don't want to keep doing thisapproach to food that had been
handed down from me, handed downto me and had been taught to me
because it felt intrinsicallywrong.
(10:58):
And bear in mind at this point,I was a dietitian.
I graduated because at 16, inmy dietitian's office, I had
looked at it going.
What a great profession.
I know this is a brilliantprofession for someone who's
obsessed with food.
I can get paid to make otherpeople thin.
How wonderful.
That was the thinking.
It was incredibly disordered.
So, by 21, I graduated goinggosh, I drank the Kool-Aid and
(11:20):
now it's left me here and nowthis is my profession and now I
have to start treating patients.
But dare I start treating themthe way that I had been raised
and taught, and that's when Ihad a moment of going.
I have to fix my relationshipwith food.
I need to become the type ofnutritionist that I would have
loved to have been sent to whenI was 11 years old, and I think
that's what I try and donowadays.
Wow, shkoya, thanks, that was alot.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
When it comes to food and eating, a lot of it comes
down to the way that we wereraised, our relationship to food
, as passed on by our parents,our intimate family members.
So, lindy, I'm wondering whatwas the relationship that your
parents and your family had withfood and eating?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
So I mentioned that I'm South African and that's a
very important detail to addinto this, in addition to being
Jewish, and this kind of createsin some ways, a perfect storm
for certain degree of disorderedeating.
I don't have the statistics toback it up, but I'm an eating
disordered dietitian essentiallyand I speak to a lot of people
about how they eat and what theyeat and what I noticed is
(12:29):
coming from a South Africanbackground.
It's an incredibly patriarchalsociety.
Men are king, women serve men.
A woman's job, from what I wasraised to kind of think, is to
be beautiful and be appreciativeand raise the family and feed
the family, and the man is, youknow, the breadwinner.
And so, growing up in this,that was kind of the messaging I
(12:51):
was receiving from everyonearound me beyond just my family
that I needed to be pretty inorder to be worthy.
My parents certainly were aresult of the culture around
them as well, and so my parentswere exceptional and in no way
hateful towards other people'sbodies.
(13:12):
They were just a reflection ofthe culture and what was around.
And what I came to realize is mymom certainly didn't have a
healthy relationship with foodgrowing up, and the issue is
that had been passed down to herfrom her mother.
So she would talk to me aboutwhen I was growing up.
My mom issue is that had beenpassed down to her from her
mother, so she would talk to meabout when I was growing up.
My mom would make thesecomments about my body, about my
weight Should you really beeating that?
Do you really need to haveseconds?
(13:32):
You're getting a little bit fat.
And you know what Her motherhad said the exact same things
to her.
What I realized is that we havebeen passing down disordered
eating for generations andgenerations, primarily amongst
women, and I decided that itneeded to stop.
With my generation, my mom, mydad, they were just victims of
the same diet culture that I wasand their parents before them,
(13:56):
but there certainly was aculture of it's okay to restrict
, to obsess, to diet.
In fact, it's far better to bedisordered around food than it
is to weigh a little bit moreall of your content and all of
what you're putting out into theworld.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I get the distinct impression that it is as much
about you sharing with othersthe tools and the strategies
that you yourself have learnedalong the way, because you
weren't necessarily given thosetools and strategies when you
were in your teens and twenties.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I certainly think and this is perhaps a bizarre thing
to say that one of mysuperpowers is being able to
accept the fact that I amimperfect and share that
imperfection before I feel likeI have fully developed and
formed.
So, for example, I'm able totalk about the fact that I was
struggling with anxiety and Italked through all the things
(14:51):
that were working for me.
In a way, I kind of felt that Iwas more useful when I was in
the thick of it.
For example, one of the thingsthat makes me fantastic at what
I do is the fact that I've beenthrough binge eating, that I
totally understand thatexperience.
It's almost like you had anoncologist who'd also had cancer
.
You'd go, wow, that's really.
It would be super useful in away, because you think they
(15:11):
really understand me, and so Ido not ever preach from some
kind of like perfect positionand I kind of see that as my
imperfection is my strength andmy superpower, and being able to
talk about it is therapeuticfor me.
Of course, I think there aresome influencers who would
probably use social media as ajournal, as like, instead of a
(15:33):
psychologist or a counselor.
That's not what I'm doing here,so you're not just using people
to therapize yourself.
But I read the book the Giftsof Imperfection by Brene Brown
early in my career and itfundamentally changed the way I
acted and I started to sharemore honestly about what was
happening.
And I started to notice howseeing other people sharing
(15:57):
their perfect moments only howit was messing with my mental
health.
And I thought, once you arewilling to turn up as you are in
perfect, I think it helpseveryone else sigh in relief
because finally we havepermission to be ourselves and
instead of making people dislikeyou, it actually brings people
(16:18):
closer to you.
And I think perhaps somethingthat we have in our culture is
this idea of if I put my bestfoot forward, if I show you only
the good bits, if I amperfectly behaved in public and
all those things, people willlike me more, and I think it's a
misconception that I'd love usto fix in our culture.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
It feels to me that you have this really healthy
relationship with not justimperfection but with shame.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I'd say, that's true.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
How did you overcome that, beyond the Brene Browns,
these influencers?
They talk about the work.
You need to do the work.
What did the work look like toyou?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
So I lean more heavily into science.
I'm a dietitian, nutritionistYou'd expect that and so
exposure therapy for me isparticularly interesting, and I
think it's been very useful forme in the way that I've dealt
with shame, For example, when aninfluencer might say do the
work.
What that looks like for me interms of body image and learning
(17:22):
to not loathe every part ofmyself is exposing myself to
situations that make me feel abit uncomfortable and then
building.
For example, I remember walkingin a crop top when I was young
and not feeling like I had abody that was worthy of wearing
a crop top.
A young boy made a commentbeing like you should put a
(17:42):
t-shirt on until you have a flatstomach in order to wear this,
and it stuck with me.
I think so many people have ashame story similar to this that
you remember, at a certain age,someone making a comment about
your cellulite or a roll or amole on your face, and then you
kind of forget it, and so oneoption I could have had was to
(18:04):
go.
I'm never wearing a crop topagain, but the option I chose
was the exposure therapy.
I thought you know what?
Honestly, I'm not going to havea flat stomach.
I really have tried.
I had a decade of totaldedication to it.
It didn't work for me.
So either I can choose never towear a crop top in my life
again and feel hot and sticky atthe gym, or I simply say let me
just wear a crop top before mybody is perfectly ready, before
(18:27):
it's flat, and see what therepercussions are.
So what's really going tohappen?
What's the worst case scenario?
So I turn up to my gym andpeople might stare at me, so
what.
And so I put myself in thesesituations where I started to
test okay, what is the outcomeif I do this hard, scary thing?
And I noticed there wasn'tactually any repercussions for
(18:47):
it.
People didn't gawk, no one cameup to me and made rude comments
because they weren't a 17 yearold boy anymore.
People didn't gawk, no one cameup to me and made rude comments
because they weren't a17-year-old boy anymore.
And I felt like, oh, you knowwhat?
I actually do have the rightbody to wear a crop top, because
anyone really can.
And so for me, doing the workis these little moments of
exposure.
It is doing things before youfeel ready.
(19:08):
Feeling that discomfort andrealizing it's actually the
world won't end as a result ofit.
And, in addition to exposuretherapy, I think I often use
humor a lot to cope with shame.
So, for example, my body hasnever been acceptable to anyone.
At the same time, let's say youknow, when I was going through
my disordered eating, I'd loseweight.
I'd run into people that you'retoo skinny now I can't believe
you've lost so much weight.
(19:29):
And I'd run into people who sayyou look amazing or I gain
weight, and then I'd be too fatto people.
And do you know, I just can'twin.
And I've accepted that andthat's very therapeutic in
itself.
But the other week the algorithmspat me out into the wrong side
of the internet and my content,which is all about helping
women not sacrifice their oneprecious life for something like
(19:51):
as silly as a stomach roll.
I got into the wrong side ofthe internet and all these men
mostly men really came after mein the comment section, created
incredibly long, convolutedvideos calling me fat and awful
and ugly and just like mockingmy body, and really it just
escalated.
(20:11):
And for me I think you know Idon't take it too seriously
because I think these sad littlepeople no one wants to listen
to these people in real life.
So now they've gone on socialmedia so that they can be heard
by someone else and I have likea lightness in it where I kind
of see the sense of humor in it.
I don't take them too seriouslyand I think that's kind of
healthy.
(20:32):
So what?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
you've got to have your little South African mum
voice when you see those videosand say, oh shame.
Look at that nebish or rahmonesover there making fun of lindy.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, shame oh, my goodness, I can't believe
they're so embarrassing.
Yeah, no, totally, and sothat's been a really helpful
thing for me.
I mean, mind you, not to say Idon't have moments of shame, but
I also think like it's beingwilling to share your shame with
the right people.
I, you know, I wouldn't take ifI had really tender shame.
I'm not taking that to theinternet and sharing it with
(21:05):
anyone who can take that shameand do whatever they want with
it.
I am protecting myself.
Certainly, I do share a lot ofmy imperfections, but I am in no
way, as I said, just puttingout all my inner thoughts and my
darkness for the entire worldto pull apart.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
I think shame is a huge theme in the Jewish
community.
It's one of the reasons why wecalled this podcast Ashamed.
To Admit, I've been wanting tohave you on the show for some
time, but we waited until therelease of the Jewish
Independence Body Image seriesand in that series I interviewed
(21:47):
a wide variety of AustralianJews, and pretty much every
person I spoke to mentioned dietculture, body shaming, high
standards, before we startedrecording.
Dash, who lives in Melbourne,mentioned Sydney specifically as
(22:08):
perhaps a potential hotspot forissues with body image or diet
culture, because we're such abeach-focused, perhaps, society.
So one of the questions that Iasked almost all of the people
that I interviewed were what aresome of the red flags that you
(22:29):
see in the Jewish community inAustralia when it comes to these
high standards and thesechallenges with body image?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I think, as Jews, we have a complicated relationship
with food.
You know, you have your Babatelling you to eat enough a
serving.
It's delicious, and at the sametime you have this implicit
messaging to say that you needto stay thin because that is
what is needed from you.
So I think one of the red flagsfor me is this constant push
pull that we feel to eat as muchas our community requires and
(23:06):
to, as women, particularly ifI'm hosting, the right amount of
food, if you're Jewish, is toomuch food, but don't you dare
eat it.
Right, make delicious stuff,but don't you dare touch it.
Or not where everyone can seeyou, you must eat it, but don't
let it show that you've actuallyeaten food.
And I think that, polaropposite of concepts, it feels
like a really red flag for me.
(23:33):
I think there is a realnormalization of disordered
eating in our community where wethink it's standard practice.
And that is how my parents gotto the point that they thought I
can send my 11-year-old to thenutritionist to help her be thin
, because everyone else wasdoing it.
It was normal, in fact.
Not only that, it was reallyencouraged, as I'll be doing the
best thing for my child bydoing this and my parents
genuinely thought they werehelping me.
They didn't want me to have togo through a life of weight
(23:56):
stigma and issues strugglingwith food, so they really were
trying to do the best thing forme, and so it's that
normalization of just thinkingwell, this is how we are with
food and that's the way it is.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So my sister and I were discussing our grandparents
who were Holocaust survivorsand the impact that that had on
us.
We often talk about how thesesurvivors came out of the camps,
emaciated, and then it wascelebrated when they put on the
(24:30):
weight, but not too much,because there were still
cultural norms that they had toadhere to.
And Lana put forward this ideawhich I'd never thought about
before, and that was they'd hadthis history of being othered
and of being portrayed as lessthan, or disgusting, or unwanted
(24:52):
, and so, as part of theirassimilation, perhaps, they
needed to strict to the societalnorms.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I think you raise such an important point that
could help to explain why Jewsare the way we are when it comes
to food and why we have thisassociation with disordered
eating.
You have a people who have beenintermittently starved
throughout our centuries, and weknow from new and updated
research that the body holdsonto trauma and it's passed down
(25:24):
through generations andgenerations, so actually stored
in the body, which I think couldexplain why we know there's a
genetic link towards having aneating disorder, but more from a
cultural perspective, somethinglike binge eating disorder,
which is the largest eatingdisorder by a landslide an
absolute landslide, just for abit of perspective.
I think anorexia nervosa isaround 2%, binge eating is
(25:46):
around 50%.
Binge eating is a response tostarvation.
Essentially it's a protectivebehavior to prevent you from
depleting yourself, and so it'sa very normal response that you
would have a people who had beenstarved who would then result
in a degree of emotional eatingor binge eating.
A way of feeding their body anddealing with stress through food
(26:09):
as a way to soothe their soul,because it was something that
they felt like they were notallowed.
I think you also then have thisintergenerational play where
you have a survivor who had beenstarved, who has a real
pressure about going.
I cannot leave food on my plate.
Therefore, my children mustfinish everything on their plate
.
Therefore, the raised childrenwho learn how to ignore their
(26:33):
hunger and fullness cues and aredriven to eat for emotional
gains or reasons far outside ofhunger and appetite, which is
what we know we should be aimingfor, and so I think it's really
built into our biology, inaddition to our culture, and I
think that's probably what'sdriving it.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Lindy, I'm curious whether you see any other
commonalities across yourclients Like.
Is there something particularabout the migrant experience?
More generally, that means thatpeople are perhaps more
vulnerable to disordered eating.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Now in my clinical work I see this.
When we start to seeintergenerational dieting, that
is when I see people emergingwith disordered eating They'll
tell me stories about.
I went to Weight Watchers withmy mum when I was eight years
old.
It was the one thing my mum andI could bond over.
We could drive in the car andperhaps we didn't know what else
to talk about.
We always had calories, or wehad this snack or I've lost this
(27:28):
much weight, and so I think wecan't ignore the fact that for
generations women have beenconnecting over food.
It's been our way of.
Dieting is a hobby, if you must, and sometimes when people let
go of dieting, they're alsoletting go of that hobby that
they have.
Is there a connection I'venoticed between certain cultures
, the cultures where I thinkfood is a predominant feature?
(27:50):
So Indian culture, I think, isquite similar to us, is about
food and family.
I think there is a degree ofthat, but I don't think I see as
high a disordered eating rateshas a very public face.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I'm wondering whether you have been more conscious of
(28:26):
your Jewishness since this sortof recent wave of anti-Semitic
attacks and I'm wondering howyou're sort of reckoning with
all of that, given that you dospeak to the wider Australian
public quite regularly.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
So my social media account has been mostly
apolitical.
There have been certain thingsthat I have jumped on board with
to help promote, whether it'ssomething like the yes Vote, for
example, but generally prettyapolitical.
And with the recent rise inantisemitism, I started to
notice a thing where I saw allmy jewish friends posting in an
(29:03):
echo chamber of jews to jews.
Can you believe this ishappening?
And I know these people, I knowyou don't have that many people
who aren't jewish who arefollowing you, and then I could
look at my following and I couldsee do you know what I, who I
have?
I probably have, you know, 30to 50 year old-old women,
australian women predominantlycertainly big, in the US too who
(29:24):
aren't Jewish, and I could seeno one's talking about
anti-Semitism beyond the Jews.
Why is this?
And I had this gut feeling thatI don't think they don't care.
I just don't think they don'tknow.
They don't know a Jewish person, they're not connected to us.
Therefore, it's hard to carewhen we've got so much that's
(29:44):
going on in the world and somuch that's awful.
I don't think they see it intheir newsfeed, I just don't
think it's coming up, and sopart of me felt as though it was
a sense of like, never again isnow in that this really starts
to feel very reminiscent of whatwas happening pre-Holocaust
days and I thought well, I dohappen to have this platform and
I can reach a whole bunch ofpeople who I think would
(30:07):
understand what it would be liketo take your children to school
and feel genuinely scared aboutdropping them at the gate and
to feel like it's normal that wewould have a Jewish event and
that you wouldn't know whereit's actually going to be
located until a few hours beforethe fact.
The fact that it's normal forus to go to an event and have be
interrogated about who we areand what we are, and to go
(30:29):
through a security scanner tocheck that there's no weapons
this is normal stuff for us.
But I knew that this was notsomething that anyone outside of
our community really understood, and so I have done a few
series of sharing about it a fewtimes, and most of the
outpouring has been we had noidea this is happening.
This wasn't that we don't care,it's just that we didn't know,
(30:51):
and I'm so sorry, and this isn'tthe Australia that we want to
live in.
And that was 98% of theresponses and it was so nice.
Actually, it was a lot ofresponses from Germany and the
Germans just being likecompletely outraged that this is
happening.
There certainly was a 2% ofpeople who were essentially like
yeah, let me explain to you whyeveryone hates the Jews, which
(31:15):
was an instant block and delete.
Obviously, as you can imagine,I'm not going to try and win
those people over.
You don't deserve to have myfree content, so see you later.
Bye, but I think that was kindof an interesting thing.
It felt incredibly scary to doposts like that.
I hate that.
I felt really scared.
My heart rate was going out ofcontrol, I swear like I had like
hot sweats.
I really did plan out how I wasgoing to tell the story as well
(31:39):
.
It wasn't just a flat dash.
I'm just going to post this.
I knew it had to be done and ithad to be done in a way that
helped people understand what itwould be like to be a person in
Australia right now.
Who's Jewish?
Speaker 1 (31:53):
How many followers did you lose?
Speaker 3 (31:57):
A few hundred, several hundred, I'd say
probably 1, thousand by the endof it, and that was to be
expected.
But for most people, I think itwas also this idea of you don't
know a Jewish person and if youmight like me, then I might be
the only Jewish person You'relike.
Oh, I like her and she's Jewish.
So it was also just from athing of going yeah, Jews aren't
(32:18):
bad when we're contributors.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Thank you for doing that.
I know that there are a lot ofpeople in your situation who
would not do that for fear oflosing followers or influence.
In inverted commas Was there afear that maybe the today show
(32:40):
wouldn't have you back on oncethey knew?
Speaker 3 (32:44):
certainly there absolutely was.
A lot of the producers followme.
A lot of the producers saw thatI got a lot of messages from
people in the media.
So the producers on today showsaying I can't believe, I'm so
sorry this is happening for you.
This isn't the Australia that Iknow, so I also have a lot of
media contacts who are also kindof like witness to this and
shared an experience, but Icertainly did have that fear of
(33:07):
going.
I know there will berepercussions for this.
The story in my mind would belike this will be posted in some
Facebook groups and there willbe a boycott of some description
and attacking and therecertainly was a whole bunch of
really nasty messages that werebeing sent.
They didn't talk about Israel,hamas.
It really was a conversationaround antisemitism in Australia
.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
It's pretty astounding, isn't it, that you
can talk about your personalexperience, talk about the fear
and insecurity that people inyour community feel.
Not mention politics, notmention a war.
Really keep it to your personalexperience, and for some people
that's too much and thatprovokes them into saying all
(33:49):
kinds of hateful things.
It's a sad reflection, I think,lindy, of both the power but
also some of the perniciouselements of social media, which
is the thing that has given yousuch a big profile and is a big
part of your success.
The flip side of it is it alsobrings out the worst in people.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
I guess.
So I've got to say, thoughthere were countless Muslims who
wrote to me in response to that, saying I'm so sorry this is
happening, palestinians whowrote to me saying I'm so sorry
this is happening to you.
And yet what I found reallyinteresting is the people who
were writing me awful messagesjustifying Jewish hate were
people who were neither Jewish,nor Muslim, nor Palestinian.
(34:32):
They were white Australians forall intents purposes, who had
no skin in the game, but feltlike they were really informed
and they'd done their research,apparently in the you know,
watching enough videos on socialmedia to think that they had a
really clear stance and Ithought that was kind of an
interesting take on it.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Interesting observation.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
So you shared your like eating diary with the Daily
Mail five years ago.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
The really reputable- .
Speaker 2 (35:05):
The reputable Daily Mail wanted to know about what
you'd eaten for two weeks, Ithink.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Day on a plate.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I love the fact that on day one, your first meal, do
you remember what you noted onthat first day of the diary?
That you had your coffeecappuccino with shavings of lint
chocolate on top.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Just because no one was expecting that.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
You obviously have chocolate from time to time in
your morning coffee, is thatright?
Speaker 3 (35:40):
It's not just time to time, it is an integrated and
an essential part of how I stayhealthy.
And I know for some peoplegoing well, that doesn't really
make sense.
What are you talking about?
Chocolate helps you stayhealthy.
For me, if I do not integratechocolate into my diet in a
mindful way, I will go and Iwill go and binge eat on it and
it will become an emotional crux.
And there are people who say,well, I can't just have a few
(36:03):
squares of chocolate, I justbinge eat the entire packet.
And I would say, well, tryintegrating it in a way that
makes sense.
Am I going to binge on thelinch shavings of my cappuccino?
No, I can't.
But it sends a message to mybrain saying chocolate is
allowed, we include it.
Nothing is off the limits toyou and part of my recovery.
A really key part of it was, youknow, what's so common is that
(36:26):
we eat perfectly healthily whenwe're, when we're in front of
other people, but when we're athome, that's when we do all the
you know quote unquote almostthe naughty eating.
We eat the foods that we don'tthink we're allowed to eat, and
I encourage the.
The exact opposite I would likeyou when you are out with your
friends, that's the time to haveice cream, that's the time to
share the pizza, that's the timeto eat all those yummy,
(36:47):
delicious foods, so that whenyou're at home, that's not binge
on all the junk food that noone can see.
That's a very unhealthyrelationship with food, and so
for me, it's that active pursuitof eating those foods,
including them in a mindful way.
You know what?
I don't fall with the bandwagonanymore.
I don't have to start fromscratch every Monday.
I'm not an all-or-nothing eater.
I'm incredibly consistent withmy eating.
(37:07):
Yes, I eat chocolate, probablymore than I did when I was in my
restrictive eating day,certainly more than during my
restrictive eating days, but I'mmuch healthier as a result of
it.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Dash, I thought you were going to take that question
in a really different direction.
I thought you were going totake that question in a really
different direction.
I thought you were going to sayI love that, lindy.
When you said you have yourmorning coffee.
You have it with a pickle onthe side.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
No, I'm a real sweet tooth, so this is great.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Eye-opening.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
This is the message I need to hear.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Lindy, we ask all our interviewees.
Is there anything you'reashamed to admit?
Just in general, like notrelated to your line of work,
not related to being Jewish.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
One of the shames I have is that I cannot put my
washing away, and so I basicallybuild these pyramids of
clothing in my study.
So it's kind of where I'mfilming the podcast.
But the rest of my house ispretty like clean and immaculate
, but then I basically havethese sections in my house where
it's kind of like you know what?
Speaker 1 (38:08):
That's okay, that's fine.
Thank you for making me feelseen for the hundredth time
today.
I'm sure many of our listenerswill relate.
You have been an absolute dreamguest, so generous with your
time.
Thank you so much for coming in.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Lovely to meet you, Lindy.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
That was our conversation with Lindy Cohen,
the nude nutritionist, andthat's it for today.
You've been listening to Aamedto Admit with me Tammy Sussman
and executive director of theJewish Independent, dr Dashiell
Lawrence.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King
and theme music by Donovan Jenks.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
If you like the podcast, then leave a positive
review.
It helps other people find theshow.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
You can tell us what you're ashamed to admit via the
contact form on the JewishIndependent website or by
emailing ashamed atthejewishindependentcomau.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
As always.
Thanks so much for your support.
Go eat something delicious andlook out for us next week.
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