June 1, 2025 • 42 mins
What shapes how we see ourselves? From the media we consume to the chairs we sit in, the world is full of cues that influence how we feel in our bodies. We explore how these cues get under the skin and share new research revealing how fat cells behave differently as we age, independent of diet or exercise.
Titi and Zakiya sit down with Ronald Young Jr., host of Weight For It, to unpack the social, emotional, and biological weight we carry. It’s a reminder that health, biology, and self-worth don’t fit neatly into a BMI chart.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs.
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Today we're having a conversation that hits close to home
(00:25):
for a lot of people. We're talking about weight, body image, identity,
and self acceptance. Our guest is Ronald Young Junior, who's
the host of Wait for It, which is a podcast
that unpacks the complicated feelings we carry around in our bodies.
And it's not just weight, but waiting, the idea that
we're constantly postponing life until we hit a goal weight
(00:47):
or fit a certain look.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
This conversation is going to be a little different from
what you're used to here on Dope Labs. It's a
lot more intimate, it's more personal, and then we'll jump
into the science because there's a lot of that too
with this topic.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's right, So let's go ahead and get into the recitation.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Okay, So what do we know? While we know that people,
especially in the US, are constantly bombarded with messages about weight,
from TV to TikTok to the doctor's offices.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yes, and we also know that those messages tend to
kind of frame body size as a moral issue, right,
Like thenness gets tied to discipline, and then fatness is
anchored to laziness. And that's just not what the science
tells us. So let's talk about what we want to
know in this lab. Well, for one, outside of how
(01:36):
we physically our bodies are built, what are the forces
that shape how we feel about our bodies?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And I have an inkling, But I also want to
talk more about how gender plays a role in all
of this.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, and not just gender tt but where you live
and what do people in your family look like? How
all of that plays a role. So that makes me
think more about the science. And I want to know
what the science actually say about health, metabolism, and weight.
I think we're ready. Let's jump into the dissection. Today.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
We're talking to someone who has brought the conversation about
weight front and center. He's done it in a beautiful way,
and his work has earned multiple awards.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
My name is Ronald Young Junior. I'm an audio producer, storyteller,
and host of the podcast Wait for It Spelled Weight.
I also cover pop culture and television and film on
some of my other work, including Leaving the Theater.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Podcast Yes thank you for being here. Let's start with
the inspiration for Wait for It? How did the show start?
Speaker 4 (02:43):
So like it's funny. I've recently had a breakthrough with
my therapist a couple of weeks ago where I said,
I think that I feel like I lived my entire
life as if this box is going to open, and
once the box opens, I'll then be happy. And she
said to me, what if the box is already opened,
which kind of like blew my mind and really started
(03:05):
to be like, well, if the box is already opened,
then I have a I guess I'm responsible for my
own happiness in a lot of ways. And what I
realized is that interaction that I had with my therapist
is really the origin story of Wait for It, because
it's a play on words obviously weight weight and weight
wait and the way our relationship with our body evolves
(03:27):
and also causes us to wait to start fully living
life until we lose the weight.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That whole idea of putting life on pause shows up
in the research too. Studies have found that many people
delay everything from dating to job applications until they've lost weight.
So everything you're saying rings true. You've talked about looking
in the mirror and seeing a version of yourself that
isn't quite real, so not thin and not fat, just
(03:55):
not now the gap between how we feel and what's
reflected back.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
How do you think that gap is shaped?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
I mean, I think it's a lot of what we
consume in media, like whether it's television, movies, magazines. Now
social media plays a huge role into it. I've been
making wait for it since twenty twenty three, but I've
been I've conceived weight for it, probably in like twenty
twenty one, but I've been you know, fat and or
(04:23):
overweight for some portion of my life, like I would
say the majority of my adult life. But even there
were times when I was much smaller than I am
now as a child and teenager, that I still wondered
if my body could be or look better. And that
was all based on messaging I was getting from outside
of myself. And I feel like now with what social
(04:45):
media is doing in the ways in which the body
positive movement has kind of like begin to get a
lot quieter, and with the onset of GLP one drugs,
it feels like that gap between reality and our self
actualized image just continues to get wider and wider in
a way that's like completely unhealthy.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
When I first listened to your podcast, I thought this
is very interesting for a man to be having this conversation. Now,
I am a TT probably knows what this is going.
I am from the South, okay, And the messages I've
always received is that men are supposed to be big,
Like that's just what you're supposed to be. But it's
a thought. I inherit it. I never stopped to consider it,
(05:30):
you know, And I'm curious about how you think gender
plays a role into our self image.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
The way that I always look at this is there's
this saying that came from the body positive movement that
was it's okay to be bigger than your partner. And
I remember I looked at that and I was like,
that is that's obviously talking to women, Like it doesn't
say anything about it, but like you can look at
that and say, yeah, it's okay to be bigger your partners,
Like yeah, they're talking about women, they're not talking about men.
Because I feel like the idea that is like kind
(05:58):
of crystallizing society is that men are supposed to be
in some form, larger than the women that they love
or like are in relationship with. Even if you think
about in terms of the type of men that women
will universally flock to or consider attractive, they're going to
be over six feet.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
It's short kings.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
We know that isn't right, but that's what society tells us.
You know, Yeah, I am partial to a short can.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
They're going to be like tall, broad shoulder. They always
say tall, dark, and handsome. And I feel like, as
a result, there is this kind of idea that this
idealized form of man is always going to be large
in some form, and that women are supposed to be
small in some form. But also there is grace given
(06:48):
to the ways in which your propotions work out if
they are air quote curvy, like if you have the
ideal shape, you know what I mean. And I feel
like it's more about what the shape is for women
than it is necessarily being fat or thin. Now, I
want to be clear, You're still marginalized in a very
specific way, and there's still like ways in which even
(07:10):
if you have the ideal shape, there's still going to
be ways in which you're not represented in media or
you're not going to be seen by the people that
you want to be seen by as anything other than
an object of desire or something extremely sexual or whatever.
You know. Like, I feel like there's all of this
like nonsense that gets fed into what we think we're
supposed to be with or supposed to look like. Very specifically,
(07:33):
that is one hundred percent related to gender, but it
doesn't really preclude kind of like those base levels of
the ways in which we are kind of all generally
fat phobic.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
This is so true, And all this stuff changes really quickly.
I can remember the Calvin Klient ads in the nineties
and early two thousands, rail thin people, and then Kirby
was in in the twenty tens, okay, and now we're
seeing less of the body positive movement and more of
that thin, thin, thin messaging, and it feels like it's
coming from every direction.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I think that's such a great point. And I remember
it was a few summers ago that I was talking
to my father in law and I was trying to
explain to him, like how social media can really impact
your the way you view yourself, and he just didn't
get it. You know, he grew up with you know,
the Telegraph. He's not really on social media, so he
doesn't really understand like how these things play a role
(08:26):
and why it works the way that it does, like
seeing someone look a certain way, how it can, you know,
impact how you view yourself. And it's really hard for
someone from his generation or generations who didn't have social
media to understand the impact of media and cultural norms
and the shame that comes from not fitting into these
(08:49):
boxes that are constantly being put in our face saying
this is the way you're supposed to look, this is
how you're suposed to act, this is how you're supposed
to sound. What messages did you grow up with around
the whole idea of health and how have those stayed
with you?
Speaker 4 (09:04):
First, I want to talk about your father in law.
He may not have grown up with social media, but
he did grow up with Jet magazine, Ebony magazine, and
black spotation films, And so if he doesn't see the
role that media plays in public image, especially as I'm sorry,
is your father in law black?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
He is not?
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Okay? All right? So my assumption was that they were black.
But my thing is, you can take any of the
things that I've said and apply them to whatever the
white culture was growing up in those times. So like,
if you look at any of the magazines, films, and
movies that were showing women back then, it's the same
role that media was playing in those days. This was
my bad for making that assumption. By the way, I
(09:45):
think for me growing up, you know, I grew up
I was born in the eighties, grew up in the nineties,
and so I grew up with music videos, MTV, beet
and not just music videos, but also television and films.
And there was always there's this idea that you in
television mostly there's always like some schlubby man generally that
(10:06):
was like married to a woman who was conventionally attractive.
Like there was always like, oh hot wife type thing.
That messaging always was incongruent to what I actually saw
in life, Like I rarely saw like I'm like, I
don't really see a bunch of like fat men out
here with like conventionally attractive wives in the way that
(10:27):
it's presented to me on television. Also, it felt like
in movies, I saw less fat men in movies unless
they were specifically being funny or had a lot of money,
Like if those two circumstances weren't there. I just saw
less of them generally. And I grew up straight sized
for the most part. Like I always thought I was fat,
but like, if you go back, I'll show you pictures,
(10:49):
you'll be like Ronald, you were not fat. You were
definitely a straight sized child and teenager. So but I
feel like I was always kind of fighting this constant
battle of the bulge in my head or thinking that
I needed to have a barrel chest and be like
very like like have abs. All of that. That was
the types of messaging I was growing up with, because
alongside not seeing fat men, I grew up with Morris
(11:10):
Chestnut and Tay Diggs and you know, Shamar Moore, like
all of these folks that if you go into, uh,
you know, the barbershop where I was reading Jet magazine magazine,
like I was just like, well, obviously, this is what
we're supposed to be going towards. And you mixed that
with music videos. It all gave this idea of like, ideally,
(11:34):
this is what women want and this is what a
man is supposed to be. So my relationship with media
was like based on the information. Again that was just
constantly being a fantom me.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Growing up, all the women around me were curvier women,
and that's like my grandma, her sisters, all of that.
But then I distinctively remember seeing Aliyah modeling and a
Tommy Hill figure tube top, and when I took my
tank top up, I said, one of these things is
not like the other. Okay, And Ronald, you said something
(12:19):
that was really interesting when you said how men show
up in movies that are overweight and having a lot
of money because there is a sthetic labor and that's
a thing where people are being hired to look apart,
and we use that to justify a lot of things.
So we use it to justify not hiring people who
are overweight or who are not the right weight, whatever
(12:40):
that means to somebody who are not the race you
are desiring, who don't speak the same as you. All
of this stuff shows up. A meta analysis looked at
studies from twenty ten to twenty twenty three, and they
found that higher body weight was associated with lower hiring
rates and lower pay, even when the qualifications were identical.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
And this was serving white women with a sess weight,
so not considering other factors that they might be discriminated against.
Like their race, or their abilities, their physical abilities.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yes, but the interesting thing is that for men, there
was no effect on excess weight overall over time. You know,
doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but the trend was that
there was no effect on excess weight on employment outcomes,
or the magnitude of the effect is smaller, and in
some cases it's positive. And Ronald, for you, I'm curious
(13:31):
of if you've ever felt like your body disqualified you
before you got the chance to get in the room
or speak.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Yes. I mean. There was a job I had at
an IT company. It was a management consulting firm, and
I remember I got the job and I was very excited,
and I was working there at the support desk, and
I remember looking around me and seeing all the people
that working in the support desk. They were kind of diverse.
Most people had college educations there. I would look at them,
(14:00):
and I would look at the people who are high
up in the company. I rarely ever saw an overweight
person in any of those ranks. I would see then
sporadically spread out across the company doing other jobs, but
I rarely saw them being in positions of authority over
everyone else, which I always was like, I wonder what
that says about me and my abilities to rise up
(14:23):
the rankings. Another example I'll give is one of my
managers had a beard, and I remember he was talking
to his mentor, who was one of the higher ups
at the company, and he relayed this conversation back to me,
who also has a beard, and he said he looked
at me and says, hey, do you know any managing
directors at this company that have a beard? And he
said no, and he goes, do you think you're going
to be the first? And I remember at that time
(14:44):
being like, wow, okay, so like you are already talking
about image and basically disqualifying someone for what they look like. Well,
what you're never going to say out loud is do
you see any managing directors here who are fat? Do
you think you're going to be the first? You would
never say that out loud, But what you what do
is find ways to marginalize them in other ways. So
for me one, being like one of the few black
(15:06):
people it felt like on this particular project, also finding
out later that I was underpaid, and then also being
fatter than everyone else, it often felt like I just
didn't fit in in that space. So when I left
there and started going full time audio production, the thing
that echoes in my mind over and over again is
looking around the room and saying, am I the fattest
(15:28):
one here? And is that going to prohibit me from
going where I want to go and whatever this career is?
Which I wish I could be like, yeah, nah, I
don't let that stop me. And it doesn't, you know,
get side of my head all that, But really I
think about it all the time, like it's always like, man,
I hope me being fat doesn't overshadow the other ways
in which I am talented and qualified for whatever this
(15:48):
is position that I'm in. But that's something that's constantly
running in my head all the time.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
That is exhausting.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
You know, I'm tired.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
It's like.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
All of the marginalized groups a layered on top of
one another. You feel the weight of that, yeah, constantly.
And that's a way that I feel like a lot
of people. You talked about the body positivity movement, which
I want to talk about a little bit more about now,
Like folks are trying to shift the way that our
(16:20):
culture views size where it's like wherever you are, we're
just glad that you're here.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
That's what I always try and tell folks. I'm like,
whatever you are, I'm happy that you're here with me
right now in this moment. You're perfect because you're alive,
and we've kind of like lost the plot a little bit.
On the body positivity movement, you talked about the GLP
ones and things like that.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Can you just talk about the efforts that people that.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Aren't in the overweight community, or or that don't identify
themselves as overweight, what they can do in their day
to day to help get us back on the right track.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
I think part of it is being aware of the
ways you, as a straight sized person, are able to
navigate places that a fat person may have trouble navigating.
I think one time I had a friend who asked
me to dinner, and he looked up the restaurant and
then also looked up the chairs and just been like,
(17:24):
look a little bit, the chairs are Now. I'm not
a super fat person. I'm fat. I'm not a super
fat or infinitive fat, which is like much much fatter
than I am. And a lot of those folks have
even bigger struggles when it comes to just sitting down
in a restaurant to eat. But for me, I'm thinking
about what it takes to sit on a plane. What
are these chairs that you ordered at your wedding, you know,
(17:46):
like you know those little flipsy real nice in the
picture chairs where you sit on one of those and
you hear that little crack, Yes, like the clear ones
and the wooden ones where you hear that crack and
you immediately stand up be like nah, nah na, I'm
not welcome here. I feel like what we could be
doing is like looking at like why are we not
making chairs that like fit the largest of us, because
(18:07):
if they do, then they're also going to fit the
smallest of us, you know what I mean. There's lots
of ways in which we're thinking about design and disability
advocates will say this, like, if we design for disability,
everybody that who is not disabled can still use whatever
like we're using. Like if you put ramps on everything
instead of stairs, everyone can use a ramp. There's no
one out there who's it's easier for me to use
(18:29):
the stairs, that is for me to use this ramp,
And like it's really not like it's an equalizer for
all of us so I think for straight sized folks,
I think it's a matter of saying, like, what ways
can I make the world a better place for everyone?
If you're thinking with an equity mindset, then it won't
just be about weight, It'll be about everything. And I
(18:50):
think that's kind of like what like most fat advocates
and people within fat community are trying to say, which
is like, if you're thinking about the most disabled of us,
then everyone else is going to be fine. There's not
one person that's going to suffer if we're trying to
look out for the most disabled among us.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I think this is something It feels like a conversation
that even in my friendship with T T that I
am sometimes talking to t T about especially I'll say,
when people want you to show up, it's like they
haven't considered any of these things. Or when you have
to be on video, or when you have to sit
on the stage, nobody, I'm like, first of all, doesn't
(19:29):
everybody need some back support? I don't know who designed
those little chairs with the two inch little lip on
the back.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
I'm like, I'm busy.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I can't even focus on what I'm saying. I'm squinching
my butt cheeks, Yes, trying to stay up right, you know,
So there's that. I think there is so much hidden
load that you have to kind of experience to know.
And I'm also curious, you know. T T touched on this.
She talked about body positivity. I want to t T,
did you have anything else you wanted to do before
(19:57):
I move us.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I feel like if I start talking, I'm going to
start crying because the kid is always like, you're making
shit weird. But with what she just said, I feel
awful because there's a lot of stuff that I don't
think about. Like I'm always just like, yeah, my friend
she's here, look at her. She's so beautiful, she's so smart,
and I'm not considering those things. And like you said,
(20:19):
we have to start thinking more inclusive. And I mean
it starts with your bestie, like it starts with the
people closest to you, because we just move and you
think you're moving with love, but you have this huge
blind spot that you really have to pay attention to
because there's real hurt in those instances.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
I went to dinner with a friend recently, and she
doesn't move around so well because she has like and
joint issues, and I remember we walked up to the
restaurant and it was a place that we wanted to
get ram in specifically. So we walked up to the
restaurant and I opened the doors, and as soon as
I opened the door, there's a straight stairways up before
we can get in, and I remember this is i'll
(21:00):
be one of the first times and I was like,
oh no, because I'm like, I knew that she was
going to struggle to make it up those stairs, and
so I'd like, first of all, look to the side
to see if there was Oh, maybe this isn't a restaurant,
because you know, you walk into those like fancy like
New York at DC places where it's like yep, and
the split level and we're upstairs all of a sudden,
and you're like immediately confronted with the staircase. And I
(21:21):
think that moment t T was when I was like, oh,
I should have been thinking about this, Like this is
something that I did not even consider. What level is
the restaurant on and is there an elevator? You know
what I mean? And there wasn't. So I helped her
up the stairs and she was perfectly fine, But it
was something that I knew that I'm like in the
future if we do this again, I need to be
(21:42):
thinking about about this. So it's really not about looking
in the past with regret. It's really about looking forward
to the future and saying, what are the opportunities that
I have to like make it easier or more equitable
for everyone. So don't beat yourself up.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Thank you, Ronald heal me, please, thank you. I like
this idea of looking to the future. And you've talked
(22:17):
about the idea of a future self right, and I
think even if it's stuffed down, I think there are
so many people that live there waiting for this version
of them that deserves a thing. I'm wondering for you,
what does it mean to accept yourself like now, the
now self, even if you still know there's work ahead,
Because I think the work ahead always exists, And so
(22:40):
what does it mean to you to accept Ronald?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Now?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
I think for me and I'll just tell you what
it's been happening because of therapy is I've been looking
at the circumstances of my life right now and saying,
which of these are ingredients to happiness today? Like I'm
sure all of us have opened our refrigerators in our
pantry and been like what can I make right now?
I'm hungry right now? What do I have? And it's
(23:05):
basically looking at what you have and saying do I
have something to do with today? And if I needed
to get something, what do I need to get that
I can get immediately? So I feel like the ways
in which I try to accept myself now was say like, well,
what is making me happy right now in this moment?
Not what will make me happy, not what I imagine
will make me happy, not the goals that are on
(23:26):
my checklist that I know i'll be happy once I
achieve them, but like, what's making me happy now? And
how can I insert more of that into my life
right now? And I feel like if more of us
operated like that, we find ourselves happier in the moment
than just feeling like we're waiting to get there. And
I feel like we're trained in that way too, because
you finish the first grade, you go to the second grade,
(23:47):
you finished sixth grade, you to go to middle school,
so on and so forth, and we like spend the
rest of our lives just like operating on the If
I just get a little bit further then I'll actually
be happy.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I feel like that is everyone. Everyone. We are all
just saying, you know, once this happens, oh my.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Gosh, and once I get on and I'm gonna be happy,
or oh the trend on TikTok was once I like
attain this thing.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah, fill in the blank.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
You're like, oh, if I'm a millionaire, you won't know,
but there will be signs like okay, like oh it's
gonna change and all this stuff like that. And I'm
just like what you're saying is so true. Like we're
always delaying our happiness. It's like such a big part
of our culture where it's just like suffer now, enjoy later,
(24:36):
and it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And sometimes you look back and what you thought was
suffering was when you should have been enjoying, because the
real suffering is upon us.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
And did Bernard said it on the office He's like,
I wish somebody had told me that the good old
days were actually the days that we were living in essentially,
you know what I mean, because we always look back
and say, oh man, that was so great, but we
don't even really to enjoy it the way we could
if we knew that what was happening right now would
be one of the best things that was happening to us,
and then we spend the rest of our time trying
(25:08):
to be in the future to be like, well, that
was good, and I'm going to make it happen again
in the future, instead of saying what could I be
doing right now in the moment to make that happy.
So that's the mindset them living in. And I want
to be clear, I know it sounds like man Ronald's
got this down, Pat I'm still figuring this out, Like
I know the elements, but I'm still trying to figure
out how to do that in my own life. So
it is a work in progress, is the shorter answer
(25:30):
to my very long winded response.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
No, I love that because I feel like that's part
of the dangling carrot that we're constantly chasing. It's like,
I will be happy when this happens and I will
have it all figured out.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Going back to my.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Father in law who's eighty, yeah, yeah, I was talking
to him once and I was like, when did you
have it all figured out? Like he was a very
successful lawyer, he has two great kids, he did really
well for himself and he's retired.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Now, chilling.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I was like, when did you feel like you had
it figured out? He was like, I'll let you know.
And I was like wow, he was like, yeah, I'll
let you know. There was literally no point where I
felt like I had it figured out. He's like, I'm
still trying to figure out how to be, you know,
like a better father, a better partner, a better uncle.
And so then that like cued me to be like, wow,
(26:23):
maybe that's what life is about, is just about not
being the best, but just trying to be better, yes,
and just trying to figure it out. And that's the
beauty of it. It's really it really is hard. It's
easier said than done, because I mean I could think
of a million things about myself that I'm like, man,
if this was different, you wouldn't be able to tell me.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well, we can't tell you right now, so that's interesting.
I'm like, man, you would tell me if I had
and that it really discredits where I'm at right now
and what it took to get here and the miracle
that is this life and being able to be here
(27:06):
to be like, oh, if I had this, it would
be better. It's not fair to me it's not fair
to pass me, present me, or future me. So I
mean everything that you're saying really just rings true for
me and gives me a lot to think about. I
think because we're all struggling. I think everybody is struggling.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
And being able to just love yourself now is just
so important.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I'm thinking about so many things based on what the
two of you just said. And it felt like Ronald,
when you were saying, like when you talked about the
great thing, I was like, yes, you just keep trying
to graduate. So really, what you're saying is treat every
day like graduation, And so I think every night should
be a graduation party if you're doing it right, a
(27:54):
celebration of the day and what has happened, and meeting
tomorrow with excitement. I want to know a little bit
more about like what's coming up on wait for it,
because I think you have done such a beautiful job
talking about weight at all these intersections. I love. I
never remember how to say his name from Very Smart
Brothers Damon and the piece he had done this piece
(28:18):
on teeth and we had just done an episode on teeth.
Teeth with a teeth is a thing.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Teeth are.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
I don't know, I'm using that too, And you know,
I feel like society has fixated on weight, and weight
has had different meanings at different times. But similar to weight,
we've also seen this kind of pressure attached to the
(28:45):
aesthetics of teeth, like having really straight teeth, and we
see it in movie stars, but now we're seeing any
common people on the street. I mean I'm seeing people.
I'm like, oh, that's Hollywood teeth, like very straight, ultra violet,
very white. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I feel like when it comes to teeth women, it
is never okay for a woman to have crooked teeth
like men will have gaps. We see famous men that
have gaps or spaces in their teeth, their crooked teeth,
and they're like, ooh, how that gives them so much
character or whatever. Michael Strahan, I feel like if that
was a woman with that gap, that woman would not
(29:19):
be front and center. In the most recent season of
White Lotus, I love that show. There is this actress
named Amy lou Wood and she has a very distinct smile.
I actually really loved her smile. I thought it made
her so beautiful, and I was like, I love seeing
this on television. SNL did a spoof of White Lotus
(29:42):
and they really portrayed her teeth really negatively and made
fun of the way that her teeth look and she
posted about it and was like, you know, that's really
hurtful and it just wasn't funny. And these are the
things that I see where it's like, okay, now she
was on SNL being made fun of for her teeth,
(30:03):
and these are things that reinforce, you know, my negative
like feelings about having slightly crooked teeth or teeth that
are like different and not that Hollywood white, Hollywood straight.
I grew up with a I pulled up a picture
just for proof with a very big gap in my teeth,
(30:24):
and I went through hell.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Hell, hell, hell, that's what you learned how to fight?
Speaker 4 (30:30):
You were very cute child t teeth.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I went through hell.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
They I felt like the ugliest girl in the world
for a very very long time, and I was like,
as soon as my teeth are straight, I'm gonna be happy.
And even to this day, I've had braces three times
three because of losing retainers and teeth shifting and just
not feeling comfortable with the teeth that I have in
my mouth. People be like, you have a great smile,
(30:55):
and I'd be like, no, I don't. I have a
little space here, a little space there. And so like
three times, it's kind of a lot. And when I
think about it, when I say it out loud, it
sounds crazy, But there was a lot of shame tied
up in these teeth and they're still not perfect. I
still have like a little space here, and it really
(31:17):
can shift, just like how you're moving in this world.
And it's like you're like, oh, why wouldn't it be
about women, And I'm like, oh, because it's never And
maybe that's something that's in my mind that I put there,
like I'm like, oh, no, no one will ever accept
a woman with a gap in her teeth. But that's
because that's what I told myself.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That's such a good point and similar to social media
and society telling us things, I feel like for me
when it comes to straight teeth, I inherited that from
my parents and what they said to me about getting braces.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
And my parents were the opposite where that when I
wanted to get braces, they were like, why I really
love your.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Gap and I was like, clothes it please.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
And now my son, it looks like he's going to
have a gap, and I'm like trying, I'm like trying
not to let it. Let whatever I was dealing with,
still dealing with, trickle down to him. And he's self
conscious about it. My parents like, it's don't let him
close his gap. I'm like, if he wants to, he can't.
And but it's all these things.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Okay. So we talked about weight, We talked about teeth. Ronald,
do you have a thing in your family that is
like a no no, or a thing that you inherited
that there's some shame around.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
No, I feel like, yes, well no, okay. I mean
it's weight, but it's not like it's still like my parents,
both my dad and mom have both on different occasions,
made comments about me gaining weight as an adult, right, so,
(32:55):
and it's always from the place of like, oh, well,
you know, you got to get in that gym and
walk in a little bit. And it's never made me
feel good, right But they've never held on to it,
and I think that's the good thing about us. But
my mom also struggled with her body image for a
long time until she died. You know, like she started
(33:15):
rapidly losing weight because she had cancer and she got
real small and that was like an indication of fear.
And we talk about that on Waight for it just
being like all of a sudden, This is when the
fluctuation of weight also has like real stakes attached to it,
you know what I mean, as opposed to like when
we think about it in this more aesthetic way, as
to say, like, you, losing weight is a good thing
because like look about before and after pictures and all.
(33:38):
That's all of that. So that really kind of changed
my relationship about how I feel when I see people
have lost a great amount of weight, because now my
new question is I wonder if they're okay.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
You know, it's so interesting because we tie weight in
health together and behavior in a way that doesn't really
line up. I just read an article that came out
in Science a few weeks ago where this group was
studying this phenomenon they see in mice, and you know,
we use mice as a proxy to understand health in humans.
But they were seeing middle aged mice gain a lot
of weight no matter what they fed them, even if
(34:09):
they were on a strict diet, and reduce the amount
of food that they gave them. They're gaining weight every time.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Wow, yeah, that is crazy.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
And so this team actually discovered that in mice, particularly
in male mice, and so they were saying, is this
like the dad bod phenomenon, but in mail mice that
they are having a subset of cells. Usually the way
you can expand fat tissue is to make the cells bigger.
So adipocites fat cells get bigger. They're very big compared
(34:38):
to other cells in our body. Or you can make
new fat cells, and there's this subpopulation. They're basically like
fat stem cells. So and they are the precursor. All
these stem cells activate at a certain time and in
visceral fatness, like in the fat around our organs, which
is tied to different types of metabolic health, no matter
what your diet is, no matter how much exercise you do.
(34:58):
And so I think so often we use wait as
a proxy for discipline or for all these things that
scientifically we know is not the case. And I just
think it's so interesting how we know these things, which
is like a lot of stuff. We know these things,
but we have these generalizations that we make that are
completely opposite. And I'm hopeful and curious if that's just
(35:21):
being naive to think that one day will resolve those
two and our opinions will catch up with what the
science is telling us.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
I mean, I don't think so, like I don't like,
actually you're wrong. No, I just I'm not. I'm not
optimistic towards the future. Like look at the look at
where we are right now, Like in terms of politics,
we are we're being dragged back to pre civil rights
(35:51):
type of policy in this country, and we all thought
we knew better, Like we were all tricked in the nineties,
two thousands of teens about where we we're going in
terms of progress, and you know, the arc of the
future bids towards progress. This is the first time I've
been fearful about what it does it actually been towards progress,
doctor King, because I don't know if it does based
(36:13):
on what I'm seeing and what they're undoing. And I'm
saying all that to say is like I would hope
that we would be moving towards a more progressive future,
especially when it comes to body size and body image,
but we would have to reconcile with the ways in
which we've been terrible right now, And I don't think
we're ready to do that as a society yet, based
(36:35):
on the existence of GLP one drugs and the ways
in which they're being rampantly applied to everyone, despite the
very the lack of studies that talk about the long
term benefits and or risks of using said drugs. And
this isn't to go against anyone who's choosing to use them.
I understand, like I have friends who have used the
(36:56):
drugs that have buryactic surgery. Your choice is your choice.
But it's really the ways in which, all of a sudden,
I'm watching television and now I'm seeing commercials about it
in a way that just feels icky to me, especially
about the ways in which we're talking about what does
this look like for us in the future. I just
my instinct is to say it's going to look like
(37:16):
more of this in the future, because there's always going
to be some hip way to lose weight that just
always exists. It always has existed, and it feels like
it just always will. All I can hope for is
that we all individually heal ourselves and try to do
the best we can moving forward. And because I just
don't think we're going to get a societal solution.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Okay, that's fair. So you basically say, yes, naive.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
I don't think you're naive. I just I'm concerned, Like,
if you're right, I'd rather you be right. I'd rather
you be right. I don't want to be right.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
It's getting spooky ooky out here. I don't know because
even I mean the way that celebrities whatever you want
to call them, are using GLP ones, celebrities that are
on like not overweight by anyone's.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Metric, using it.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, We're like, it's getting dangerous out here, and I'm
not really sure like how we right the ship at
this point, because I mean, when I think back to
when I was a kid, when Ali McBeal came out,
and it was like everybody was like, oh my gosh,
she's so thin, she's so thin. But then you had
(38:35):
the birth of the Almond Mom, and it just became
a thing where, you know, everybody wanted to be super
super thin. And then you see this this slight shift
when you have the Kardashians and their body enhancements that
they've done via surgery, and so then everybody was like, Okay,
now I want a little bit of curve. But then
now they're reducing their curves, getting you know, their their butts, reduce,
(39:02):
their breast reduced to get a more slimmer size. And
so now people are trying to course correct.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
To fit that too. I'm like, this is too much.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Ronald, thank you for being here and sharing all of this. Yes,
and we have touched on so many things. We see,
all the long tentacles of weight and body image and acceptance,
you know, just touching all.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
These other areas things.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
And just like you know in any science or critical thinking,
even though we answered some questions for ourselves and we're
able to move through some of these things and come
to a resolution, it does bring up more questions like
will things change?
Speaker 3 (39:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Maybe I think it starts with each of us and
on learning a lot of things, on learning tying our
self acceptance, our self worth to our weight and the
way that we look. And you know, it's easier said
than done. I'm not saying that like, Okay today I
no longer care about these things. No, but we have
(40:10):
to be willing to put in the work, not just
for ourselves but for everyone around us, because when we
start to change our way of thinking and unlearned some
of these things that our society has placed on us
and carry a weight of that. It reverberates. People feel
that and then they are more likely to start accepting themselves.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
So so true. If you like this lab, I think
you will also enjoy our lab that's called Jiggly that
talks about shapewear and how society told women what they
should be shaped and looked like. Yes, and I think
you also enjoy our lab with Doctor Montioid Hairs called
Edges Snatched, where we talk about the kind of same
(40:52):
thing but with hair and all the procedures people are
doing because of the value society has placed on hair. Huh.
I don't know. I want to be hopeful. But also
today's graduation day TT is graduation day for us, so
we will celebrate and we will not look ahead and
think the better times are coming, but we will accept
(41:13):
that the better times are right here, are here, right
now with us.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
I love you, friend, I.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Love you too.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Labs podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
TT is on X and Instagram at d R Underscore
t Sho.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
And you can find Takiya at Z said.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
So Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate
producer is Issara Sives.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Dope Labs is sound design, edited and mixed by James Farber.
Lamanada Media is Vice President of Partnerships and Production is
Jackie dan Siger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina.
Marketing lead is Alison Kanter. Original music composed and produced
by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex sudi Ura, with additional music
(42:09):
by Elijah Harvey. Dope Lab is executive produced by us
T T Show Dia and Kia Wattley.
I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs.
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Today we're having a conversation that hits close to home
(00:25):
for a lot of people. We're talking about weight, body image, identity,
and self acceptance. Our guest is Ronald Young Junior, who's
the host of Wait for It, which is a podcast
that unpacks the complicated feelings we carry around in our bodies.
And it's not just weight, but waiting, the idea that
we're constantly postponing life until we hit a goal weight
(00:47):
or fit a certain look.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
This conversation is going to be a little different from
what you're used to here on Dope Labs. It's a
lot more intimate, it's more personal, and then we'll jump
into the science because there's a lot of that too
with this topic.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's right, So let's go ahead and get into the recitation.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Okay, So what do we know? While we know that people,
especially in the US, are constantly bombarded with messages about weight,
from TV to TikTok to the doctor's offices.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yes, and we also know that those messages tend to
kind of frame body size as a moral issue, right,
Like thenness gets tied to discipline, and then fatness is
anchored to laziness. And that's just not what the science
tells us. So let's talk about what we want to
know in this lab. Well, for one, outside of how
(01:36):
we physically our bodies are built, what are the forces
that shape how we feel about our bodies?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And I have an inkling, But I also want to
talk more about how gender plays a role in all
of this.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, and not just gender tt but where you live
and what do people in your family look like? How
all of that plays a role. So that makes me
think more about the science. And I want to know
what the science actually say about health, metabolism, and weight.
I think we're ready. Let's jump into the dissection. Today.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
We're talking to someone who has brought the conversation about
weight front and center. He's done it in a beautiful way,
and his work has earned multiple awards.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
My name is Ronald Young Junior. I'm an audio producer, storyteller,
and host of the podcast Wait for It Spelled Weight.
I also cover pop culture and television and film on
some of my other work, including Leaving the Theater.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Podcast Yes thank you for being here. Let's start with
the inspiration for Wait for It? How did the show start?
Speaker 4 (02:43):
So like it's funny. I've recently had a breakthrough with
my therapist a couple of weeks ago where I said,
I think that I feel like I lived my entire
life as if this box is going to open, and
once the box opens, I'll then be happy. And she
said to me, what if the box is already opened,
which kind of like blew my mind and really started
(03:05):
to be like, well, if the box is already opened,
then I have a I guess I'm responsible for my
own happiness in a lot of ways. And what I
realized is that interaction that I had with my therapist
is really the origin story of Wait for It, because
it's a play on words obviously weight weight and weight
wait and the way our relationship with our body evolves
(03:27):
and also causes us to wait to start fully living
life until we lose the weight.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That whole idea of putting life on pause shows up
in the research too. Studies have found that many people
delay everything from dating to job applications until they've lost weight.
So everything you're saying rings true. You've talked about looking
in the mirror and seeing a version of yourself that
isn't quite real, so not thin and not fat, just
(03:55):
not now the gap between how we feel and what's
reflected back.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
How do you think that gap is shaped?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
I mean, I think it's a lot of what we
consume in media, like whether it's television, movies, magazines. Now
social media plays a huge role into it. I've been
making wait for it since twenty twenty three, but I've
been I've conceived weight for it, probably in like twenty
twenty one, but I've been you know, fat and or
(04:23):
overweight for some portion of my life, like I would
say the majority of my adult life. But even there
were times when I was much smaller than I am
now as a child and teenager, that I still wondered
if my body could be or look better. And that
was all based on messaging I was getting from outside
of myself. And I feel like now with what social
(04:45):
media is doing in the ways in which the body
positive movement has kind of like begin to get a
lot quieter, and with the onset of GLP one drugs,
it feels like that gap between reality and our self
actualized image just continues to get wider and wider in
a way that's like completely unhealthy.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
When I first listened to your podcast, I thought this
is very interesting for a man to be having this conversation. Now,
I am a TT probably knows what this is going.
I am from the South, okay, And the messages I've
always received is that men are supposed to be big,
Like that's just what you're supposed to be. But it's
a thought. I inherit it. I never stopped to consider it,
(05:30):
you know, And I'm curious about how you think gender
plays a role into our self image.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
The way that I always look at this is there's
this saying that came from the body positive movement that
was it's okay to be bigger than your partner. And
I remember I looked at that and I was like,
that is that's obviously talking to women, Like it doesn't
say anything about it, but like you can look at
that and say, yeah, it's okay to be bigger your partners,
Like yeah, they're talking about women, they're not talking about men.
Because I feel like the idea that is like kind
(05:58):
of crystallizing society is that men are supposed to be
in some form, larger than the women that they love
or like are in relationship with. Even if you think
about in terms of the type of men that women
will universally flock to or consider attractive, they're going to
be over six feet.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
It's short kings.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
We know that isn't right, but that's what society tells us.
You know, Yeah, I am partial to a short can.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
They're going to be like tall, broad shoulder. They always
say tall, dark, and handsome. And I feel like, as
a result, there is this kind of idea that this
idealized form of man is always going to be large
in some form, and that women are supposed to be
small in some form. But also there is grace given
(06:48):
to the ways in which your propotions work out if
they are air quote curvy, like if you have the
ideal shape, you know what I mean. And I feel
like it's more about what the shape is for women
than it is necessarily being fat or thin. Now, I
want to be clear, You're still marginalized in a very
specific way, and there's still like ways in which even
(07:10):
if you have the ideal shape, there's still going to
be ways in which you're not represented in media or
you're not going to be seen by the people that
you want to be seen by as anything other than
an object of desire or something extremely sexual or whatever.
You know. Like, I feel like there's all of this
like nonsense that gets fed into what we think we're
supposed to be with or supposed to look like. Very specifically,
(07:33):
that is one hundred percent related to gender, but it
doesn't really preclude kind of like those base levels of
the ways in which we are kind of all generally
fat phobic.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
This is so true, And all this stuff changes really quickly.
I can remember the Calvin Klient ads in the nineties
and early two thousands, rail thin people, and then Kirby
was in in the twenty tens, okay, and now we're
seeing less of the body positive movement and more of
that thin, thin, thin messaging, and it feels like it's
coming from every direction.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I think that's such a great point. And I remember
it was a few summers ago that I was talking
to my father in law and I was trying to
explain to him, like how social media can really impact
your the way you view yourself, and he just didn't
get it. You know, he grew up with you know,
the Telegraph. He's not really on social media, so he
doesn't really understand like how these things play a role
(08:26):
and why it works the way that it does, like
seeing someone look a certain way, how it can, you know,
impact how you view yourself. And it's really hard for
someone from his generation or generations who didn't have social
media to understand the impact of media and cultural norms
and the shame that comes from not fitting into these
(08:49):
boxes that are constantly being put in our face saying
this is the way you're supposed to look, this is
how you're suposed to act, this is how you're supposed
to sound. What messages did you grow up with around
the whole idea of health and how have those stayed
with you?
Speaker 4 (09:04):
First, I want to talk about your father in law.
He may not have grown up with social media, but
he did grow up with Jet magazine, Ebony magazine, and
black spotation films, And so if he doesn't see the
role that media plays in public image, especially as I'm sorry,
is your father in law black?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
He is not?
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Okay? All right? So my assumption was that they were black.
But my thing is, you can take any of the
things that I've said and apply them to whatever the
white culture was growing up in those times. So like,
if you look at any of the magazines, films, and
movies that were showing women back then, it's the same
role that media was playing in those days. This was
my bad for making that assumption. By the way, I
(09:45):
think for me growing up, you know, I grew up
I was born in the eighties, grew up in the nineties,
and so I grew up with music videos, MTV, beet
and not just music videos, but also television and films.
And there was always there's this idea that you in
television mostly there's always like some schlubby man generally that
(10:06):
was like married to a woman who was conventionally attractive.
Like there was always like, oh hot wife type thing.
That messaging always was incongruent to what I actually saw
in life, Like I rarely saw like I'm like, I
don't really see a bunch of like fat men out
here with like conventionally attractive wives in the way that
(10:27):
it's presented to me on television. Also, it felt like
in movies, I saw less fat men in movies unless
they were specifically being funny or had a lot of money,
Like if those two circumstances weren't there. I just saw
less of them generally. And I grew up straight sized
for the most part. Like I always thought I was fat,
but like, if you go back, I'll show you pictures,
(10:49):
you'll be like Ronald, you were not fat. You were
definitely a straight sized child and teenager. So but I
feel like I was always kind of fighting this constant
battle of the bulge in my head or thinking that
I needed to have a barrel chest and be like
very like like have abs. All of that. That was
the types of messaging I was growing up with, because
alongside not seeing fat men, I grew up with Morris
(11:10):
Chestnut and Tay Diggs and you know, Shamar Moore, like
all of these folks that if you go into, uh,
you know, the barbershop where I was reading Jet magazine magazine,
like I was just like, well, obviously, this is what
we're supposed to be going towards. And you mixed that
with music videos. It all gave this idea of like, ideally,
(11:34):
this is what women want and this is what a
man is supposed to be. So my relationship with media
was like based on the information. Again that was just
constantly being a fantom me.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Growing up, all the women around me were curvier women,
and that's like my grandma, her sisters, all of that.
But then I distinctively remember seeing Aliyah modeling and a
Tommy Hill figure tube top, and when I took my
tank top up, I said, one of these things is
not like the other. Okay, And Ronald, you said something
(12:19):
that was really interesting when you said how men show
up in movies that are overweight and having a lot
of money because there is a sthetic labor and that's
a thing where people are being hired to look apart,
and we use that to justify a lot of things.
So we use it to justify not hiring people who
are overweight or who are not the right weight, whatever
(12:40):
that means to somebody who are not the race you
are desiring, who don't speak the same as you. All
of this stuff shows up. A meta analysis looked at
studies from twenty ten to twenty twenty three, and they
found that higher body weight was associated with lower hiring
rates and lower pay, even when the qualifications were identical.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
And this was serving white women with a sess weight,
so not considering other factors that they might be discriminated against.
Like their race, or their abilities, their physical abilities.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yes, but the interesting thing is that for men, there
was no effect on excess weight overall over time. You know,
doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but the trend was that
there was no effect on excess weight on employment outcomes,
or the magnitude of the effect is smaller, and in
some cases it's positive. And Ronald, for you, I'm curious
(13:31):
of if you've ever felt like your body disqualified you
before you got the chance to get in the room
or speak.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Yes. I mean. There was a job I had at
an IT company. It was a management consulting firm, and
I remember I got the job and I was very excited,
and I was working there at the support desk, and
I remember looking around me and seeing all the people
that working in the support desk. They were kind of diverse.
Most people had college educations there. I would look at them,
(14:00):
and I would look at the people who are high
up in the company. I rarely ever saw an overweight
person in any of those ranks. I would see then
sporadically spread out across the company doing other jobs, but
I rarely saw them being in positions of authority over
everyone else, which I always was like, I wonder what
that says about me and my abilities to rise up
(14:23):
the rankings. Another example I'll give is one of my
managers had a beard, and I remember he was talking
to his mentor, who was one of the higher ups
at the company, and he relayed this conversation back to me,
who also has a beard, and he said he looked
at me and says, hey, do you know any managing
directors at this company that have a beard? And he
said no, and he goes, do you think you're going
to be the first? And I remember at that time
(14:44):
being like, wow, okay, so like you are already talking
about image and basically disqualifying someone for what they look like. Well,
what you're never going to say out loud is do
you see any managing directors here who are fat? Do
you think you're going to be the first? You would
never say that out loud, But what you what do
is find ways to marginalize them in other ways. So
for me one, being like one of the few black
(15:06):
people it felt like on this particular project, also finding
out later that I was underpaid, and then also being
fatter than everyone else, it often felt like I just
didn't fit in in that space. So when I left
there and started going full time audio production, the thing
that echoes in my mind over and over again is
looking around the room and saying, am I the fattest
(15:28):
one here? And is that going to prohibit me from
going where I want to go and whatever this career is?
Which I wish I could be like, yeah, nah, I
don't let that stop me. And it doesn't, you know,
get side of my head all that, But really I
think about it all the time, like it's always like, man,
I hope me being fat doesn't overshadow the other ways
in which I am talented and qualified for whatever this
(15:48):
is position that I'm in. But that's something that's constantly
running in my head all the time.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
That is exhausting.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
You know, I'm tired.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
It's like.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
All of the marginalized groups a layered on top of
one another. You feel the weight of that, yeah, constantly.
And that's a way that I feel like a lot
of people. You talked about the body positivity movement, which
I want to talk about a little bit more about now,
Like folks are trying to shift the way that our
(16:20):
culture views size where it's like wherever you are, we're
just glad that you're here.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
That's what I always try and tell folks. I'm like,
whatever you are, I'm happy that you're here with me
right now in this moment. You're perfect because you're alive,
and we've kind of like lost the plot a little bit.
On the body positivity movement, you talked about the GLP
ones and things like that.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Can you just talk about the efforts that people that.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Aren't in the overweight community, or or that don't identify
themselves as overweight, what they can do in their day
to day to help get us back on the right track.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
I think part of it is being aware of the
ways you, as a straight sized person, are able to
navigate places that a fat person may have trouble navigating.
I think one time I had a friend who asked
me to dinner, and he looked up the restaurant and
then also looked up the chairs and just been like,
(17:24):
look a little bit, the chairs are Now. I'm not
a super fat person. I'm fat. I'm not a super
fat or infinitive fat, which is like much much fatter
than I am. And a lot of those folks have
even bigger struggles when it comes to just sitting down
in a restaurant to eat. But for me, I'm thinking
about what it takes to sit on a plane. What
are these chairs that you ordered at your wedding, you know,
(17:46):
like you know those little flipsy real nice in the
picture chairs where you sit on one of those and
you hear that little crack, Yes, like the clear ones
and the wooden ones where you hear that crack and
you immediately stand up be like nah, nah na, I'm
not welcome here. I feel like what we could be
doing is like looking at like why are we not
making chairs that like fit the largest of us, because
(18:07):
if they do, then they're also going to fit the
smallest of us, you know what I mean. There's lots
of ways in which we're thinking about design and disability
advocates will say this, like, if we design for disability,
everybody that who is not disabled can still use whatever
like we're using. Like if you put ramps on everything
instead of stairs, everyone can use a ramp. There's no
one out there who's it's easier for me to use
(18:29):
the stairs, that is for me to use this ramp,
And like it's really not like it's an equalizer for
all of us so I think for straight sized folks,
I think it's a matter of saying, like, what ways
can I make the world a better place for everyone?
If you're thinking with an equity mindset, then it won't
just be about weight, It'll be about everything. And I
(18:50):
think that's kind of like what like most fat advocates
and people within fat community are trying to say, which
is like, if you're thinking about the most disabled of us,
then everyone else is going to be fine. There's not
one person that's going to suffer if we're trying to
look out for the most disabled among us.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I think this is something It feels like a conversation
that even in my friendship with T T that I
am sometimes talking to t T about especially I'll say,
when people want you to show up, it's like they
haven't considered any of these things. Or when you have
to be on video, or when you have to sit
on the stage, nobody, I'm like, first of all, doesn't
(19:29):
everybody need some back support? I don't know who designed
those little chairs with the two inch little lip on
the back.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
I'm like, I'm busy.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I can't even focus on what I'm saying. I'm squinching
my butt cheeks, Yes, trying to stay up right, you know,
So there's that. I think there is so much hidden
load that you have to kind of experience to know.
And I'm also curious, you know. T T touched on this.
She talked about body positivity. I want to t T,
did you have anything else you wanted to do before
(19:57):
I move us.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I feel like if I start talking, I'm going to
start crying because the kid is always like, you're making
shit weird. But with what she just said, I feel
awful because there's a lot of stuff that I don't
think about. Like I'm always just like, yeah, my friend
she's here, look at her. She's so beautiful, she's so smart,
and I'm not considering those things. And like you said,
(20:19):
we have to start thinking more inclusive. And I mean
it starts with your bestie, like it starts with the
people closest to you, because we just move and you
think you're moving with love, but you have this huge
blind spot that you really have to pay attention to
because there's real hurt in those instances.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
I went to dinner with a friend recently, and she
doesn't move around so well because she has like and
joint issues, and I remember we walked up to the
restaurant and it was a place that we wanted to
get ram in specifically. So we walked up to the
restaurant and I opened the doors, and as soon as
I opened the door, there's a straight stairways up before
we can get in, and I remember this is i'll
(21:00):
be one of the first times and I was like,
oh no, because I'm like, I knew that she was
going to struggle to make it up those stairs, and
so I'd like, first of all, look to the side
to see if there was Oh, maybe this isn't a restaurant,
because you know, you walk into those like fancy like
New York at DC places where it's like yep, and
the split level and we're upstairs all of a sudden,
and you're like immediately confronted with the staircase. And I
(21:21):
think that moment t T was when I was like, oh,
I should have been thinking about this, Like this is
something that I did not even consider. What level is
the restaurant on and is there an elevator? You know
what I mean? And there wasn't. So I helped her
up the stairs and she was perfectly fine, But it
was something that I knew that I'm like in the
future if we do this again, I need to be
(21:42):
thinking about about this. So it's really not about looking
in the past with regret. It's really about looking forward
to the future and saying, what are the opportunities that
I have to like make it easier or more equitable
for everyone. So don't beat yourself up.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Thank you, Ronald heal me, please, thank you. I like
this idea of looking to the future. And you've talked
(22:17):
about the idea of a future self right, and I
think even if it's stuffed down, I think there are
so many people that live there waiting for this version
of them that deserves a thing. I'm wondering for you,
what does it mean to accept yourself like now, the
now self, even if you still know there's work ahead,
Because I think the work ahead always exists, And so
(22:40):
what does it mean to you to accept Ronald?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Now?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
I think for me and I'll just tell you what
it's been happening because of therapy is I've been looking
at the circumstances of my life right now and saying,
which of these are ingredients to happiness today? Like I'm
sure all of us have opened our refrigerators in our
pantry and been like what can I make right now?
I'm hungry right now? What do I have? And it's
(23:05):
basically looking at what you have and saying do I
have something to do with today? And if I needed
to get something, what do I need to get that
I can get immediately? So I feel like the ways
in which I try to accept myself now was say like, well,
what is making me happy right now in this moment?
Not what will make me happy, not what I imagine
will make me happy, not the goals that are on
(23:26):
my checklist that I know i'll be happy once I
achieve them, but like, what's making me happy now? And
how can I insert more of that into my life
right now? And I feel like if more of us
operated like that, we find ourselves happier in the moment
than just feeling like we're waiting to get there. And
I feel like we're trained in that way too, because
you finish the first grade, you go to the second grade,
(23:47):
you finished sixth grade, you to go to middle school,
so on and so forth, and we like spend the
rest of our lives just like operating on the If
I just get a little bit further then I'll actually
be happy.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I feel like that is everyone. Everyone. We are all
just saying, you know, once this happens, oh my.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Gosh, and once I get on and I'm gonna be happy,
or oh the trend on TikTok was once I like
attain this thing.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah, fill in the blank.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
You're like, oh, if I'm a millionaire, you won't know,
but there will be signs like okay, like oh it's
gonna change and all this stuff like that. And I'm
just like what you're saying is so true. Like we're
always delaying our happiness. It's like such a big part
of our culture where it's just like suffer now, enjoy later,
(24:36):
and it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And sometimes you look back and what you thought was
suffering was when you should have been enjoying, because the
real suffering is upon us.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
And did Bernard said it on the office He's like,
I wish somebody had told me that the good old
days were actually the days that we were living in essentially,
you know what I mean, because we always look back
and say, oh man, that was so great, but we
don't even really to enjoy it the way we could
if we knew that what was happening right now would
be one of the best things that was happening to us,
and then we spend the rest of our time trying
(25:08):
to be in the future to be like, well, that
was good, and I'm going to make it happen again
in the future, instead of saying what could I be
doing right now in the moment to make that happy.
So that's the mindset them living in. And I want
to be clear, I know it sounds like man Ronald's
got this down, Pat I'm still figuring this out, Like
I know the elements, but I'm still trying to figure
out how to do that in my own life. So
it is a work in progress, is the shorter answer
(25:30):
to my very long winded response.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
No, I love that because I feel like that's part
of the dangling carrot that we're constantly chasing. It's like,
I will be happy when this happens and I will
have it all figured out.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Going back to my.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Father in law who's eighty, yeah, yeah, I was talking
to him once and I was like, when did you
have it all figured out? Like he was a very
successful lawyer, he has two great kids, he did really
well for himself and he's retired.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Now, chilling.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I was like, when did you feel like you had
it figured out? He was like, I'll let you know.
And I was like wow, he was like, yeah, I'll
let you know. There was literally no point where I
felt like I had it figured out. He's like, I'm
still trying to figure out how to be, you know,
like a better father, a better partner, a better uncle.
And so then that like cued me to be like, wow,
(26:23):
maybe that's what life is about, is just about not
being the best, but just trying to be better, yes,
and just trying to figure it out. And that's the
beauty of it. It's really it really is hard. It's
easier said than done, because I mean I could think
of a million things about myself that I'm like, man,
if this was different, you wouldn't be able to tell me.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well, we can't tell you right now, so that's interesting.
I'm like, man, you would tell me if I had
and that it really discredits where I'm at right now
and what it took to get here and the miracle
that is this life and being able to be here
(27:06):
to be like, oh, if I had this, it would
be better. It's not fair to me it's not fair
to pass me, present me, or future me. So I
mean everything that you're saying really just rings true for
me and gives me a lot to think about. I
think because we're all struggling. I think everybody is struggling.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
And being able to just love yourself now is just
so important.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I'm thinking about so many things based on what the
two of you just said. And it felt like Ronald,
when you were saying, like when you talked about the
great thing, I was like, yes, you just keep trying
to graduate. So really, what you're saying is treat every
day like graduation, And so I think every night should
be a graduation party if you're doing it right, a
(27:54):
celebration of the day and what has happened, and meeting
tomorrow with excitement. I want to know a little bit
more about like what's coming up on wait for it,
because I think you have done such a beautiful job
talking about weight at all these intersections. I love. I
never remember how to say his name from Very Smart
Brothers Damon and the piece he had done this piece
(28:18):
on teeth and we had just done an episode on teeth.
Teeth with a teeth is a thing.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Teeth are.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
I don't know, I'm using that too, And you know,
I feel like society has fixated on weight, and weight
has had different meanings at different times. But similar to weight,
we've also seen this kind of pressure attached to the
(28:45):
aesthetics of teeth, like having really straight teeth, and we
see it in movie stars, but now we're seeing any
common people on the street. I mean I'm seeing people.
I'm like, oh, that's Hollywood teeth, like very straight, ultra violet,
very white. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I feel like when it comes to teeth women, it
is never okay for a woman to have crooked teeth
like men will have gaps. We see famous men that
have gaps or spaces in their teeth, their crooked teeth,
and they're like, ooh, how that gives them so much
character or whatever. Michael Strahan, I feel like if that
was a woman with that gap, that woman would not
(29:19):
be front and center. In the most recent season of
White Lotus, I love that show. There is this actress
named Amy lou Wood and she has a very distinct smile.
I actually really loved her smile. I thought it made
her so beautiful, and I was like, I love seeing
this on television. SNL did a spoof of White Lotus
(29:42):
and they really portrayed her teeth really negatively and made
fun of the way that her teeth look and she
posted about it and was like, you know, that's really
hurtful and it just wasn't funny. And these are the
things that I see where it's like, okay, now she
was on SNL being made fun of for her teeth,
(30:03):
and these are things that reinforce, you know, my negative
like feelings about having slightly crooked teeth or teeth that
are like different and not that Hollywood white, Hollywood straight.
I grew up with a I pulled up a picture
just for proof with a very big gap in my teeth,
(30:24):
and I went through hell.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Hell, hell, hell, that's what you learned how to fight?
Speaker 4 (30:30):
You were very cute child t teeth.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I went through hell.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
They I felt like the ugliest girl in the world
for a very very long time, and I was like,
as soon as my teeth are straight, I'm gonna be happy.
And even to this day, I've had braces three times
three because of losing retainers and teeth shifting and just
not feeling comfortable with the teeth that I have in
my mouth. People be like, you have a great smile,
(30:55):
and I'd be like, no, I don't. I have a
little space here, a little space there. And so like
three times, it's kind of a lot. And when I
think about it, when I say it out loud, it
sounds crazy, But there was a lot of shame tied
up in these teeth and they're still not perfect. I
still have like a little space here, and it really
(31:17):
can shift, just like how you're moving in this world.
And it's like you're like, oh, why wouldn't it be
about women, And I'm like, oh, because it's never And
maybe that's something that's in my mind that I put there,
like I'm like, oh, no, no one will ever accept
a woman with a gap in her teeth. But that's
because that's what I told myself.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That's such a good point and similar to social media
and society telling us things, I feel like for me
when it comes to straight teeth, I inherited that from
my parents and what they said to me about getting braces.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
And my parents were the opposite where that when I
wanted to get braces, they were like, why I really
love your.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Gap and I was like, clothes it please.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
And now my son, it looks like he's going to
have a gap, and I'm like trying, I'm like trying
not to let it. Let whatever I was dealing with,
still dealing with, trickle down to him. And he's self
conscious about it. My parents like, it's don't let him
close his gap. I'm like, if he wants to, he can't.
And but it's all these things.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Okay. So we talked about weight, We talked about teeth. Ronald,
do you have a thing in your family that is
like a no no, or a thing that you inherited
that there's some shame around.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
No, I feel like, yes, well no, okay. I mean
it's weight, but it's not like it's still like my parents,
both my dad and mom have both on different occasions,
made comments about me gaining weight as an adult, right, so,
(32:55):
and it's always from the place of like, oh, well,
you know, you got to get in that gym and
walk in a little bit. And it's never made me
feel good, right But they've never held on to it,
and I think that's the good thing about us. But
my mom also struggled with her body image for a
long time until she died. You know, like she started
(33:15):
rapidly losing weight because she had cancer and she got
real small and that was like an indication of fear.
And we talk about that on Waight for it just
being like all of a sudden, This is when the
fluctuation of weight also has like real stakes attached to it,
you know what I mean, as opposed to like when
we think about it in this more aesthetic way, as
to say, like, you, losing weight is a good thing
because like look about before and after pictures and all.
(33:38):
That's all of that. So that really kind of changed
my relationship about how I feel when I see people
have lost a great amount of weight, because now my
new question is I wonder if they're okay.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
You know, it's so interesting because we tie weight in
health together and behavior in a way that doesn't really
line up. I just read an article that came out
in Science a few weeks ago where this group was
studying this phenomenon they see in mice, and you know,
we use mice as a proxy to understand health in humans.
But they were seeing middle aged mice gain a lot
of weight no matter what they fed them, even if
(34:09):
they were on a strict diet, and reduce the amount
of food that they gave them. They're gaining weight every time.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Wow, yeah, that is crazy.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
And so this team actually discovered that in mice, particularly
in male mice, and so they were saying, is this
like the dad bod phenomenon, but in mail mice that
they are having a subset of cells. Usually the way
you can expand fat tissue is to make the cells bigger.
So adipocites fat cells get bigger. They're very big compared
(34:38):
to other cells in our body. Or you can make
new fat cells, and there's this subpopulation. They're basically like
fat stem cells. So and they are the precursor. All
these stem cells activate at a certain time and in
visceral fatness, like in the fat around our organs, which
is tied to different types of metabolic health, no matter
what your diet is, no matter how much exercise you do.
(34:58):
And so I think so often we use wait as
a proxy for discipline or for all these things that
scientifically we know is not the case. And I just
think it's so interesting how we know these things, which
is like a lot of stuff. We know these things,
but we have these generalizations that we make that are
completely opposite. And I'm hopeful and curious if that's just
(35:21):
being naive to think that one day will resolve those
two and our opinions will catch up with what the
science is telling us.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
I mean, I don't think so, like I don't like,
actually you're wrong. No, I just I'm not. I'm not
optimistic towards the future. Like look at the look at
where we are right now, Like in terms of politics,
we are we're being dragged back to pre civil rights
(35:51):
type of policy in this country, and we all thought
we knew better, Like we were all tricked in the nineties,
two thousands of teens about where we we're going in
terms of progress, and you know, the arc of the
future bids towards progress. This is the first time I've
been fearful about what it does it actually been towards progress,
doctor King, because I don't know if it does based
(36:13):
on what I'm seeing and what they're undoing. And I'm
saying all that to say is like I would hope
that we would be moving towards a more progressive future,
especially when it comes to body size and body image,
but we would have to reconcile with the ways in
which we've been terrible right now, And I don't think
we're ready to do that as a society yet, based
(36:35):
on the existence of GLP one drugs and the ways
in which they're being rampantly applied to everyone, despite the
very the lack of studies that talk about the long
term benefits and or risks of using said drugs. And
this isn't to go against anyone who's choosing to use them.
I understand, like I have friends who have used the
(36:56):
drugs that have buryactic surgery. Your choice is your choice.
But it's really the ways in which, all of a sudden,
I'm watching television and now I'm seeing commercials about it
in a way that just feels icky to me, especially
about the ways in which we're talking about what does
this look like for us in the future. I just
my instinct is to say it's going to look like
(37:16):
more of this in the future, because there's always going
to be some hip way to lose weight that just
always exists. It always has existed, and it feels like
it just always will. All I can hope for is
that we all individually heal ourselves and try to do
the best we can moving forward. And because I just
don't think we're going to get a societal solution.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Okay, that's fair. So you basically say, yes, naive.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
I don't think you're naive. I just I'm concerned, Like,
if you're right, I'd rather you be right. I'd rather
you be right. I don't want to be right.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
It's getting spooky ooky out here. I don't know because
even I mean the way that celebrities whatever you want
to call them, are using GLP ones, celebrities that are
on like not overweight by anyone's.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Metric, using it.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, We're like, it's getting dangerous out here, and I'm
not really sure like how we right the ship at
this point, because I mean, when I think back to
when I was a kid, when Ali McBeal came out,
and it was like everybody was like, oh my gosh,
she's so thin, she's so thin. But then you had
(38:35):
the birth of the Almond Mom, and it just became
a thing where, you know, everybody wanted to be super
super thin. And then you see this this slight shift
when you have the Kardashians and their body enhancements that
they've done via surgery, and so then everybody was like, Okay,
now I want a little bit of curve. But then
now they're reducing their curves, getting you know, their their butts, reduce,
(39:02):
their breast reduced to get a more slimmer size. And
so now people are trying to course correct.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
To fit that too. I'm like, this is too much.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Ronald, thank you for being here and sharing all of this. Yes,
and we have touched on so many things. We see,
all the long tentacles of weight and body image and acceptance,
you know, just touching all.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
These other areas things.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
And just like you know in any science or critical thinking,
even though we answered some questions for ourselves and we're
able to move through some of these things and come
to a resolution, it does bring up more questions like
will things change?
Speaker 3 (39:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Maybe I think it starts with each of us and
on learning a lot of things, on learning tying our
self acceptance, our self worth to our weight and the
way that we look. And you know, it's easier said
than done. I'm not saying that like, Okay today I
no longer care about these things. No, but we have
(40:10):
to be willing to put in the work, not just
for ourselves but for everyone around us, because when we
start to change our way of thinking and unlearned some
of these things that our society has placed on us
and carry a weight of that. It reverberates. People feel
that and then they are more likely to start accepting themselves.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
So so true. If you like this lab, I think
you will also enjoy our lab that's called Jiggly that
talks about shapewear and how society told women what they
should be shaped and looked like. Yes, and I think
you also enjoy our lab with Doctor Montioid Hairs called
Edges Snatched, where we talk about the kind of same
(40:52):
thing but with hair and all the procedures people are
doing because of the value society has placed on hair. Huh.
I don't know. I want to be hopeful. But also
today's graduation day TT is graduation day for us, so
we will celebrate and we will not look ahead and
think the better times are coming, but we will accept
(41:13):
that the better times are right here, are here, right
now with us.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
I love you, friend, I.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Love you too.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Labs podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
TT is on X and Instagram at d R Underscore
t Sho.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
And you can find Takiya at Z said.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
So Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate
producer is Issara Sives.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Dope Labs is sound design, edited and mixed by James Farber.
Lamanada Media is Vice President of Partnerships and Production is
Jackie dan Siger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina.
Marketing lead is Alison Kanter. Original music composed and produced
by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex sudi Ura, with additional music
(42:09):
by Elijah Harvey. Dope Lab is executive produced by us
T T Show Dia and Kia Wattley.
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