Even If We Ate the Same Foods… We’d Still Look Different. Here’s the Science.

Even if every single one of us ate the same foods, in the same amounts, and moved our bodies the same way… we would STILL look different.

And no....this isn’t an opinion. This is what decades of research show about human variability, genetics, metabolism, hormones, and the natural diversity of bodies.

In this pod I break down:

✨ Why body diversity is biologically normal

✨ The “Poodle Science” metaphor and how it explains our cultural bias

✨ Why thin bodies have become the default “standard,” and why that’s scientifically inaccurate

✨ The REAL factors that influence weight and shape (genetics, hormones, metabolism, microbiome, trauma, meds, stress, and more)

✨ Why “calories in/calories out” is incomplete and often misleading

If you’ve ever wondered why your body doesn’t look like someone else’s… or felt like you were “doing everything right” and still not matching the standard...you’re not broken. You’re not failing.

You’re simply not a poodle. And you were never supposed to be.

Your body is meant to have its own natural range, and when you understand that, everything changes.

If this resonates, you can explore more support, courses, and resources on healing your relationship with food and your body on my website.

My website: https://www.jamiethedietitian.com/

My Instagram: @jamieRD_

✅ Apply to work with me: https://www.jamiethedietitian.com/application-page

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
A big thing that I wish people understood was that
we're all supposed to lookdifferent.
And it's something that youcannot fight.
You are born with a body that isgoing to be uniquely different
from someone else's body.
And there's a predeterminedweight set point and shape that

(00:23):
you have.
And no matter how hard yourestrict or diet or manipulate,
it is going to be very hard toshift that.
Um even if everyone ate the samefoods and exercised in the same
ways exactly, people would stillall look very, very different.

(00:47):
And that's the way it's supposedto be.
I mean, that is what theresearch shows.
But we can also use our ownexperience and understand that
like when we look at lineagesand families, typically they
they look familiar, they havesimilar body types, um, similar

(01:07):
frames, similar weights.
And this is natural.
We're all just supposed to lookdifferent.
And that is why this promotingthis one thin ideal or whatever
kind of build that is idealized,usually, of course, like the
thin ideal, um, it's very, veryharmful because it's promoting

(01:28):
this idea that you could looklike that too, but you can't.
You can't, no matter how hardyou try.
And if you do achieve that andyou're not supposed to be there,
it's gonna wreak havoc on yourbody.
It's gonna be veryunsustainable, it's gonna be
very bad for your health.
And so today I want to talkabout what's called poodle
science.
I'm gonna link a great video foryou to go watch about poodle

(01:51):
science, but essentially, poodlescience is this metaphor and
explanation that that shares howdeeply flawed and harmful that
message of one ideal body andeveryone going off this one
ideal body, how harmful that isto your health and your

(02:11):
well-being and your mental andemotional health.
So, for this idea of poodlescience, I want you to imagine
this group of scientistsstudying, wanting to study all
dogs.
But instead of studying alldogs, they just study the
poodle.
They don't study the Great Danesor the Bulldogs or the labs,
they just study the poodle inorder to understand all of the
dogs.

(02:32):
They measure the poodle'sweight, their size, their
behaviors, and then decide thatall dogs should look and behave
like the poodle.
So then when they meet a GreatDane, they think that the Great
Dane is wrong because it doesn'tmatch the standards that they
set for the poodle based on thepoodle.

(02:52):
Even though the Great Dane isperfectly healthy the way it is
and looks exactly the way itshould for its breed.
That's exactly what happens withhumans.
We have taken this one standard,uh, thin ideal and then have
applied it to these standards ofhealth and aesthetics.
And what is this ideal?
Anyone whose natural body typedoesn't look like that ideal,

(03:14):
which is most people by the way,they are told that they're
unhealthy, undisciplined, needto change their body less than
all of that really, reallyharmful messaging.
And I love to share thismetaphor with folks because
oftentimes when clients come towork with me and um we are
working on healing relationshipwith food and body, but they

(03:34):
have this idea in their headthat they're supposed to look a
certain way, and if they don't,that means something's wrong
with them.
How harmful is that?
How harmful is that?
It's very, very obvious when wetake away diaculture and thin
culture that we are not supposedto all look the same.
And if we have to use thesemeasures of severe restriction
and just everything, all thesebehaviors really impacting our

(03:57):
life and keeping us from livinglife and being truly healthy by
accepting the weight we'resupposed to be at, then we're
we're not supposed to be at thatweight, you know, where our body
decides that, and we need topractice and work on letting go
of society's standards and getrid of that harmful messaging
and those harmful ideas of whathealth is, so that we can really

(04:19):
come to true health and and bodyconfidence and feeling in
control of food and beingpracticing, you know, respect
and intuitive eating aroundfood.
And when I said, you know, if weall ate the same and exercised
the same, we would still lookall very different.
I want to talk about the thesecond thing here, which is that

(04:39):
it's not as simple as caloriesin, calories out that determine
your your body shape and size.
There are uh according toresearch, there are many
different pieces, and and a big,big piece is that genetic factor
that I talked about with poodlescience.
But also we have hormones,metabolism, lifestyle, metabolic
adaption, also gut microbiome isa is a big one, hormones.

(05:04):
I think I mentioned that one.
All of these things really,really impact um how someone
holds weights or gains weight.