August 7, 2019 • 25 mins
What exactly is body positivity, and does it have a negative side?
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie. Oh hey, this is Samantha, and
welcome to stuff. I've never told your protection of I
hear radio's how stuff works. I just waved at you.
Did you notice this? I always notice when you wave everything.
I was like, hey, minutes before this, I appreciated it. Know,
(00:30):
it's like I'm not seeing you today. Yeah, well, I
am really grateful for the wave. And uh, it's it's
a positive thing. Thank you, And it kind of relates
to body positivity. Yeah. Well the word with the word
thank you, um, which is what we're talking about today.
(00:52):
And before we get into it, trigger warning for eating disorders, right. Uh.
And this this episode is sort of a continuation of
our episode that we did around what is Normal, and
we're going to talk about the pros and cons of
the body positivity movement and how it has been largely
usurped by corporations. Yeah, and we wanted to come back
(01:12):
and talk a bit more because we definitely have had
conversations among ourselves as well as hearing from listeners about
the pros and cons of body positivity and the whole movement.
And we say this at the beginning, we're not here
to argue with people in their opinions of other people's bodies.
We're here to have a conversation of the bigger picture
of especially as the mentality that has always been an
underlying issue, and the ease of taking advantage of the
(01:34):
conversation for power or money. So with that definition definition
time body positivity our body pause essentially means accepting your
body and recognize that you're worth comes from somewhere else.
It doesn't mean you feel super positive about every part
of your body or super positive about your body all
the time. It doesn't mean you're not taking care of yourself.
(01:56):
Although ultimately a stranger's health isn't really your business. Yeah,
can we say that one more time, It is not
your old business. These days, because the body positivity waters
have gotten so muddied by corporations and the mainstream, some
prefer the term fat acceptance, our body acceptance, our body neutrality,
And we're going to get all into that um. But
(02:19):
first we wanted to look at why it matters. A
study of three eighteen students found that by the third
grade of American students reported wanting to be thinner, and
thirty seven percent had already tried to lose weight. So
third grade how old were you in third grade? Nine? Right?
Can we have that conversation? Have any hit puberty and
(02:40):
already talking about weight loss. I was trying to lose
weight in third grade, for sure. I was not eating.
I will say that was not me. But I think
that's partially because I'll still trying to learn English, so yes,
you know, and trying to fit in with white People's
another part of this and why it matters is not
being believed at the doctor had a whole episode on
(03:00):
that a while back. But your weight often is pointed
to as the culprit for any medical issue. It's you're
dismissed as it's this, right. I was considering that this
because you know, I love some web m D and between.
I had some issues I told you a while ago
and everyone else that I was dying as well as
there's been an amazing problem with my hip or something
(03:23):
where I can't walk straight. But all of that had
something about weight, every single bit of it. It made
me really self conscious. Am I that that overweight is?
This is what the problem is? And having to go
back and forth about my health and having just went
to my um doctor and getting a physical a few
months ago, and nothing being a problem. So but still
(03:43):
because it's right there, that's the first thing that pops
into your mind. Yeah, and I had to go to
i mean years of physical therapy for what I've done
to myself. But they it was something that came up
for me as well, like maybe it's your way right,
what's right? What why? I've been running every day for
(04:03):
like twenty years? So wait, it's not twenty years. That's
a satuation, but it was a lunch a long time.
It's like a lemon is over a decade. Okay, but yes,
so not being believed at the doctor, as we said
in our past episode, this it directly leads to negative
health outcomes, including wrongful death. And I believe um the
(04:24):
average for a woman who is overweight it's nine years
to get diagnosed. It might be longer than that. UM
studies have found that medical professionals are more likely to
label fat patients as noncompliant, weak willed, or over indulgent
in their patient histories. Well, like, I'm just not sure
why that would be coming up. But another study found
(04:45):
that after a celebrity is fat shamed, a spike of
about nine women voiced an increase in anti fat thoughts
and attitudes. And yet another study found that hiring managers
were extremely harsh when judging overweight female candidate. Of the
descriptors given, these women were the most likely to be
described as lazy and ranked second to last and higher ability.
(05:07):
And there are no federal protections in place for weight discrimination.
I wonder what that would look like if we did
have federal protection. What would be the title of it?
I don't know. Some good listeners out there, somebody, right, Yeah,
So when researching this, it was just fascinating just to
see the back and forth between how great this is
to how dangerous this is. There's a lot of opinion
(05:28):
and even revamping again as we said about instead of
by positivity, fat acceptance and the conversation and we'll talk
about you'll talk a little more about this later about
of privilege. What this looks like in having privileged in
your body shape? I guess is that Thord? Yeah? Yeah,
body shape? And I think it's so important to understand
health versus image expectations. We when we put it simply
(05:51):
the damage of the shame and control and not that
we need to reopen the conversation of mental health and
body dysmorphia. But there's this whole talk about going from
beyond just what you wanted to be, your expectations or
your overall seeing in the world, what you think is
a perfect body, or what you wish to look like,
or what you wish to have, or what you wish
(06:12):
you didn't have to be talking about the need for
self love and self care. And that's completely different than
just hey, I want to look better or I want
to accept better. And we wanted to share a brief
history of body positivity and the body positive movement. It
started out as a small radical sect part of the
(06:32):
fat acceptance movement in the nineteen sixties. The same decade
the National Association to Aid Fat Americans came together, and
the pioneers behind it were mostly black and queer. It
involved public protest against discrimination, capitalism, specifically against the diet
industry itself. It was about radical self love in the
face of all of this messaging trying to destroy it
(06:54):
when you had a body that was not traditionally beautiful,
that did not conform. Capitalism was telling you you are
a that you need to change how you look, and
you were saying no, screw you. Then skipping ahead to
and treatment for anorexia recovery. Uh, that's when we get
the phrase body positivity. A psychotherapist who had struggled with
(07:15):
an eating disorder herself founded the body positive dot org.
It's whole thing was shifting focus from disordered eating and
exercising um to achieve weight loss. To get it away
from that whole thing, Uh, take one of their core
competencies quote, uncover the messages that have influenced to your
relationships with your body, food and exercise and develop a
(07:36):
weight neutral, health centered approach to self care. To become
the authority of your own body by sorting out facts
from distorted to set. I'll miss about health, weight and identity.
But what happens when the mainstream and particular corporations get
ahold of an idea without the proper context. We'll get
(07:57):
into that after a quick break for word from our sponsor,
and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So what is the
(08:18):
problem here? Why is it that when you search body
positivity most of the results on the top two pages
are the problem with body positivity? Right? The problem is
corporateica Just kidding but not really. Oh yeah, no, not
a joke. Just as corporations have made so much money
on dieting culture, self health culture, beauty culture. They know
(08:40):
what is trending and whole tight. I mean, they're smart
ass all. They know how it works. And even beyond that,
they monetize individuals. And I find that fascinating in itself.
How we become so caught up with individual names to
push us to some kind of idea or influence us
to buy these things. And and it's the YouTubers. Is
the social media influencers, which by the way, I didn't
(09:00):
know it was a thing until like six months ago,
which when we had a little thing, we had a
beer get together essentially, and it was influencers. And I
had no idea what that meant. And it meant they
had to have a certain amount of followings on certain
types of things that I'm like, what, who are you?
Are you so important that you get these great things?
Is because you take a picture with an item and
people like it. I am I want to be one
(09:23):
of those. Recently I went through why I get to
bring it up again and when I was filling up
the like state media form, there was a section that
said what part of the media are you? And I
was fascinated because now there is an influencer section to
get funding to go visit a state. Through my mind,
(09:47):
I didn't know you can do that. We're can I
find up for that? I thought that really cool. They're
an influencer. In two thousand four, and Dove launched their
very successful campaign for Real Beauty and Core mess of
which was women, you shouldn't feel bad about yourselves and
how you look. One of the most well known pieces
of this campaign was that commercial I remember this so well,
(10:08):
depicting a time lapse of photo shopping a woman and
to an almost unrecognizable perfect version of herself. The marketing
campaign escalated from there. Then there was the one where
the woman had to choose between a door that read
average over the top or the door that read beautiful.
Then there was the one where a woman had to
describe her face to a sketch artist and it becomes
(10:30):
apparent that she thinks she's hideous and her how she
sees herself doesn't match with reality, and the general public
opinion was like, yes, finally, just having someone pointed out
point out this insidious cultural problem earned Dove all of
this praise, But who was to blame? They didn't name anybody.
(10:54):
They didn't point fingers to a bid bat a big
bad So women were, of course for thinking they were
ugly in the first place. Shame on you for feeling shame,
and Dove is here to save the day by our stuff,
please please, But it's not just of of course. Um.
Seeing the success, companies rushed into imitate it, um. And
(11:15):
the thing is, it's difficult, marketing wise to be in
the beauty industry without convincing people that they need something
to make themselves look a certain way. These companies helped
create that self hatred for our bodies and then picked
up on an opportunity to make more money from the
thing that they created, and they changed the conversation, all
(11:37):
the while washing their hands of any guilt. For instance,
some companies have plus size models in their campaigns but
offer no actual plus size clothing. They just know it's popular. Uh.
Fashion shows might do the same thing. It's the bare
minimum to look like they're changing when they are not.
It's still the same old blame game, but it's a
(11:58):
different bakeup. As say, it's a different lipstick you have
about the pig of the lipstick. Maybe I don't think so.
It's difficult to when your company depends on ads to
be critical of those companies. For instance, BuzzFeed had to
take a piece that was critical of Dove off because
they had AD space with Dove. And I can't tell you,
(12:22):
I wish I could. I can't tell you all the
back and forth that we go through on this show
with our ads teams. Yeah. I think just coming in
and having to sit down and listen before I even
started was kind of like, oh damn, this is the
whole thing. And it's like constant, I think, the whole
and then we have to be really really vigilant and
research everything they send us. Yeah. Yeah, and our ads
(12:45):
team they are saints and they feel like we've gone
through a journey together. They know so much about us
um and you'll probably hear ads for exercise nutrition apps
on this very episode, which again I like exercising and
I'm all about building healthy habits, but I am aware
of all of these issues that go hand in hand
with being a feminist podcast and eating disorders and body
(13:07):
acceptance and the diet and fitness industry. I mean, like
that was even just beyond because it could be nothing
to do with fitness, but they represent something outside of
what we're talking about in fitness. I know we've had
a lot of that questions of doing um vitamin types
of things, and you know, all these that have really
nothing to do with necessarily fat and diet, but because
(13:28):
they may be a linkage to it, we're like, we can't,
we can't. Yeah, And that's back and forth, and it's
I feel like the big problem is a lot of
times I say, I don't want to talk anything about
weight loss. It's just that that's what the focus is.
That like, that's the only reason you could be wanting
to exercise or better habits, which if that is a
healthy side effect of being right, great, And I think
(13:51):
you and I have also talked about the vibe that
we hate having to have us back and forth. At
the same time, we can't be too hypocritical, because I
do you apps like that and I'm very conscious of
who I am. Of course, we talked previously about us
having a hard time with our own selves and having
our bodies and trying to maintain a balance for our
lives as being a part of this show as well
(14:13):
as being just women in general. And but the thing is,
like I do I think it's necessary. I wasn't healthy
for a very very long time, and that had a
lot to do with stress and stress eating and not
having the time to exercise, not having to having the
time to sleep, but having to sometimes learn control through assistance.
(14:34):
And that's the thing too, absolutely UM. And some companies
have sworn off photoshopping or headlines promising weight loss. UM.
Some celebrities post unretouched photos after a magazine just too
many touch ups. But it is still worth keeping in
mind that a lot of celebrities with or without makeup
are still professionally beautiful, meaning they get a nice chef
(14:57):
coming in and and fixing their food under the three
hundred calories. UM. And when we see movies with the
magical movie makeover implying out ugly this person is that
is a model um And until she wears better clothes,
gets her hair done and takes off her dang glasses,
that's damaging, right, especially when you're like that person was
(15:18):
never No. I remember that one of the first times
I saw one of those movies, when the Magical Movie
Makeover part happened, I was confused. I was like, what
I remember that too. I was like, all you did
was she was comb her hair. I see, all you
did was take her hair out of a ponytail. I
don't understand what's a specific example, So it's like, what, Yeah,
(15:43):
it didn't make sense to me. And if you start
comparing yourself to I guess this person was ugly who
I thought was beautiful the whole time, then that's very bad,
damaging um. And also apparently there are boatloads of tutorials
out there teaching folks how to apply makeup and make
it look like they haven't so they can still use
the hashtag no makeup. Right. Well, I remember seeing something. Well,
(16:07):
it's kind of like when you see people going to
bed and they wake up in the TV shows or
movies and you see they have lips that gone and
mask are and you're like, how the hell are you asleep?
Because if that wasn't me, my face would have been
covered in all kinds of pound stuff, right, and pimples
on top of that from wearing that makeup anyway. So
that's just the wise boy. Um. Along with this is
(16:31):
the whole phenomenon of society worshiping any woman in the
public sphere who dares claims she is in fact beautiful
or condemns them for it. I used to see this
all the time back when, like I don't know why,
but I was reading dating apps. It was for work,
but like comments on dating apps and when someone would
say you're so beautiful, like a man would say that
to a woman and she'd be like, I know, and
(16:51):
they'd be like right, um, so you can't wait again. No,
that's the thing is like why is it so hard
for people to accept other people liking themselves? Uh? And
then there's the whole trend of posting fat rolls um
but for it to sell. It all revolves around images,
and it all depends on beauty being essential for life
(17:14):
to have meeting. And then at the same time, the
idea of body positivity and healthy at any size can
create another pressure for fat people to live up to
when posting anything, having to always be body positive or
show pictures of healthy habits, which is just flat out
unrealistic for most of us to do that all of
the time, and especially marginalized folks, to to preempt people
(17:35):
on social media from trying to diagnose them or tear
them down right, because there is a lot of pressure
around all of this for all of us, but celebrities
as well, um, and there there is a concerned backlash
UM saying uh to body positivity, to posting those types
of pictures of fat rolls or whatever, that that it
will jump start in obesity epidemic. But the data we
(17:56):
have and there is data out there, does not support that.
In thoset one more time, it does not support that.
Because I've had so many conversations love, you're teaching bad
habits when you say it's okay to be fat, and
again that's not all we're saying. And also, who are
you to say who's fat? You're not a damn doctor.
Healthy looks different on everybody, so shut up. There has
(18:20):
been also, um, yeah, the reverse extreme ism of it
of criticizing people who lose weight for any reason. And yes,
absolutely some reasons are bad, and sometimes good reasons get
entangled with bad ones, but not all healthy weight loss
is bad. If you're trying to lose weight for a
physical aesthetic result, that's not body positive. It doesn't necessarily
have to be bad, but it's not body positive. Um.
(18:44):
The phrase can be confusing because positive is in it, um.
But if you make healthy lifestyle changes and weight loss
as a result of that, then so be it and
one of the articles I've found with specific to people
feeling guilty for losing weight as well as people feeling
like talking about weight awesome is negative. I think I
can absolutely agree with the dynamic of unhealthy conversations that
(19:04):
revolve around any obsession, and that goes beyond just wait
any obsession, for whether it's UM, people who get obsessed
with CrossFit, people who I don't think there's anything wrong
with it, but there's just a whole level people who
get it obsessed with I don't know, watching too much TV,
too much D and D, hating women, any of those things.
I know I have stepped on toes and I UM,
(19:26):
but I also believe in the idea of not being
a judge of anyone's body. Once again, like it's this
whole you can't win, you can't lose. Someone's always going
to be unhappy about something. So if you're too much,
that's a that's gonna make someone you're too excessive, If
you're too little, that's not enough. Is this whole back
and forth and again, this is why I talk about
(19:48):
self care and self love. You need to be happy
with who you are and you're not always going to
be happy all the time. No, no, in general, and
so hearing this whole negative from either side, that's one
of the things that we have to meditate through. And
I say you meditate because you've got to kind of
just tune it out essentially. And I think that's part
(20:09):
of the conversation that I would like to have, is like,
is why do we feel the need to have an
opinion about others so often when we obviously that stuff
also bothers us? That makes sense? Oh yeah, I feel
like a lot of times it is. Ultimately it's about
you projection for sure, for sure, And I think that's
(20:30):
kind part of the things, like nothing's ever gonna be
okay until we figure out what's okay with us? Is
that very wise? I don't know. Is that a question?
It's time for another outbreak? Remember back? Thank you? Sponsored
(21:04):
So you can be kind of your body and love
your body and still want to change things about your body.
Change doesn't have to be bad. At the same time,
it honestly is hard not to feel self loathing for
our bodies um or at least uncomfortable with parts of
our body when that is the message women are getting
all the time, especially women who don't fit. The thin
(21:24):
cis white mold, and that's the trouble with thinner women
getting in on the body positive movement. It decenters fat
women who face more stigma and systemic discrimination. And don't
get as wrong. You can still be skinny and absolutely
feel bad about your body and still internalize all of
these messages and want to find something to feel positive
(21:45):
about it. Those feelings are completely valid, but then privileges
reality too. Um And this whole thing with body positivity
reminds me of what happened to Woke if you remember
that episode that I did with Miranda, Um, it just
kind of got you served by the mainstream. And we
are talking a lot of bad things about body positivity,
(22:07):
but it has done um some good things too, like
starting conversations like these, more people seeing themselves and others
in social media UM and and media at large and
feeling like, oh, I can do that too. I can
post pictures too, UM, I can I can go out
and and be I recently watched Shrill, which kind of
deals with a lot of things, and just like the
(22:29):
pool party episode is so lovely. Um. But body positivity
has gotten capitalized on and watered down and we're not
having a conversation about what structural change looks like when
it comes to accepting all body types trans non my, queer, fat, disabled,
UM companies have created and profited from maintaining the status quo.
(22:52):
We're putting the responsibility of people with bodies that don't
conform to that stas quo. We're putting that pressure to
change how they feel about their bodies on them, without
placing any responsibility on the outside forces that impact why
they might have that negative stealth And right, it's wonderful
and frankly amazing to feel positive even half the time
(23:12):
about a body that does not conform towards asco at
least in my opinion. But if that body is operating
in a system that does not respect it, does not
value it, does not view it as human, then right,
and you're absolutely correct, because again I think the same
conversations need to be had. Again, I know I never
divert a lot, but in general to women against women,
(23:35):
film against film, um, queer versus queer, like, there's this
whole persona that is outside of the actual movement that
come in to cause the scent in order for you
to hate your own essentially if that makes sense. And
and oftentimes there's this whole us versus them mentality that
was never should have been created, but it is profited
(23:55):
off of for sure, as we can see in politics today. Yep,
there are good things out there like uh if you're
looking for them, hashtag body positivity and color hashtag bad
picture Monday. The body is not an apology and this
is a hugely important conversation that impacts safety moving about
in the world, risk of abuse, crimes, and death. And
(24:18):
there is no one size fits all solution, just like
there is no one size but it's all body. So
that's the negative side of body positivity. UM. And that
brings us to the end of our episode. We would
love to hear from listeners their thoughts around to this UM,
things that they do to to stay positive about their
(24:41):
their body. UM. You can email us at Stuff Media,
mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You can find
us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts and on Instagram
at stuff I've Never Told to you. Thanks as always
to our superproducer Andrew Howard. Happy belated birthday, Andrew, Happy
volated birthday, and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never Told.
He's protection of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
(25:02):
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie. Oh hey, this is Samantha, and
welcome to stuff. I've never told your protection of I
hear radio's how stuff works. I just waved at you.
Did you notice this? I always notice when you wave everything.
I was like, hey, minutes before this, I appreciated it. Know,
(00:30):
it's like I'm not seeing you today. Yeah, well, I
am really grateful for the wave. And uh, it's it's
a positive thing. Thank you, And it kind of relates
to body positivity. Yeah. Well the word with the word
thank you, um, which is what we're talking about today.
(00:52):
And before we get into it, trigger warning for eating disorders, right. Uh.
And this this episode is sort of a continuation of
our episode that we did around what is Normal, and
we're going to talk about the pros and cons of
the body positivity movement and how it has been largely
usurped by corporations. Yeah, and we wanted to come back
(01:12):
and talk a bit more because we definitely have had
conversations among ourselves as well as hearing from listeners about
the pros and cons of body positivity and the whole movement.
And we say this at the beginning, we're not here
to argue with people in their opinions of other people's bodies.
We're here to have a conversation of the bigger picture
of especially as the mentality that has always been an
underlying issue, and the ease of taking advantage of the
(01:34):
conversation for power or money. So with that definition definition
time body positivity our body pause essentially means accepting your
body and recognize that you're worth comes from somewhere else.
It doesn't mean you feel super positive about every part
of your body or super positive about your body all
the time. It doesn't mean you're not taking care of yourself.
(01:56):
Although ultimately a stranger's health isn't really your business. Yeah,
can we say that one more time, It is not
your old business. These days, because the body positivity waters
have gotten so muddied by corporations and the mainstream, some
prefer the term fat acceptance, our body acceptance, our body neutrality,
And we're going to get all into that um. But
(02:19):
first we wanted to look at why it matters. A
study of three eighteen students found that by the third
grade of American students reported wanting to be thinner, and
thirty seven percent had already tried to lose weight. So
third grade how old were you in third grade? Nine? Right?
Can we have that conversation? Have any hit puberty and
(02:40):
already talking about weight loss. I was trying to lose
weight in third grade, for sure. I was not eating.
I will say that was not me. But I think
that's partially because I'll still trying to learn English, so yes,
you know, and trying to fit in with white People's
another part of this and why it matters is not
being believed at the doctor had a whole episode on
(03:00):
that a while back. But your weight often is pointed
to as the culprit for any medical issue. It's you're
dismissed as it's this, right. I was considering that this
because you know, I love some web m D and between.
I had some issues I told you a while ago
and everyone else that I was dying as well as
there's been an amazing problem with my hip or something
(03:23):
where I can't walk straight. But all of that had
something about weight, every single bit of it. It made
me really self conscious. Am I that that overweight is?
This is what the problem is? And having to go
back and forth about my health and having just went
to my um doctor and getting a physical a few
months ago, and nothing being a problem. So but still
(03:43):
because it's right there, that's the first thing that pops
into your mind. Yeah, and I had to go to
i mean years of physical therapy for what I've done
to myself. But they it was something that came up
for me as well, like maybe it's your way right,
what's right? What why? I've been running every day for
(04:03):
like twenty years? So wait, it's not twenty years. That's
a satuation, but it was a lunch a long time.
It's like a lemon is over a decade. Okay, but yes,
so not being believed at the doctor, as we said
in our past episode, this it directly leads to negative
health outcomes, including wrongful death. And I believe um the
(04:24):
average for a woman who is overweight it's nine years
to get diagnosed. It might be longer than that. UM
studies have found that medical professionals are more likely to
label fat patients as noncompliant, weak willed, or over indulgent
in their patient histories. Well, like, I'm just not sure
why that would be coming up. But another study found
(04:45):
that after a celebrity is fat shamed, a spike of
about nine women voiced an increase in anti fat thoughts
and attitudes. And yet another study found that hiring managers
were extremely harsh when judging overweight female candidate. Of the
descriptors given, these women were the most likely to be
described as lazy and ranked second to last and higher ability.
(05:07):
And there are no federal protections in place for weight discrimination.
I wonder what that would look like if we did
have federal protection. What would be the title of it?
I don't know. Some good listeners out there, somebody, right, Yeah,
So when researching this, it was just fascinating just to
see the back and forth between how great this is
to how dangerous this is. There's a lot of opinion
(05:28):
and even revamping again as we said about instead of
by positivity, fat acceptance and the conversation and we'll talk
about you'll talk a little more about this later about
of privilege. What this looks like in having privileged in
your body shape? I guess is that Thord? Yeah? Yeah,
body shape? And I think it's so important to understand
health versus image expectations. We when we put it simply
(05:51):
the damage of the shame and control and not that
we need to reopen the conversation of mental health and
body dysmorphia. But there's this whole talk about going from
beyond just what you wanted to be, your expectations or
your overall seeing in the world, what you think is
a perfect body, or what you wish to look like,
or what you wish to have, or what you wish
(06:12):
you didn't have to be talking about the need for
self love and self care. And that's completely different than
just hey, I want to look better or I want
to accept better. And we wanted to share a brief
history of body positivity and the body positive movement. It
started out as a small radical sect part of the
(06:32):
fat acceptance movement in the nineteen sixties. The same decade
the National Association to Aid Fat Americans came together, and
the pioneers behind it were mostly black and queer. It
involved public protest against discrimination, capitalism, specifically against the diet
industry itself. It was about radical self love in the
face of all of this messaging trying to destroy it
(06:54):
when you had a body that was not traditionally beautiful,
that did not conform. Capitalism was telling you you are
a that you need to change how you look, and
you were saying no, screw you. Then skipping ahead to
and treatment for anorexia recovery. Uh, that's when we get
the phrase body positivity. A psychotherapist who had struggled with
(07:15):
an eating disorder herself founded the body positive dot org.
It's whole thing was shifting focus from disordered eating and
exercising um to achieve weight loss. To get it away
from that whole thing, Uh, take one of their core
competencies quote, uncover the messages that have influenced to your
relationships with your body, food and exercise and develop a
(07:36):
weight neutral, health centered approach to self care. To become
the authority of your own body by sorting out facts
from distorted to set. I'll miss about health, weight and identity.
But what happens when the mainstream and particular corporations get
ahold of an idea without the proper context. We'll get
(07:57):
into that after a quick break for word from our sponsor,
and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So what is the
(08:18):
problem here? Why is it that when you search body
positivity most of the results on the top two pages
are the problem with body positivity? Right? The problem is
corporateica Just kidding but not really. Oh yeah, no, not
a joke. Just as corporations have made so much money
on dieting culture, self health culture, beauty culture. They know
(08:40):
what is trending and whole tight. I mean, they're smart
ass all. They know how it works. And even beyond that,
they monetize individuals. And I find that fascinating in itself.
How we become so caught up with individual names to
push us to some kind of idea or influence us
to buy these things. And and it's the YouTubers. Is
the social media influencers, which by the way, I didn't
(09:00):
know it was a thing until like six months ago,
which when we had a little thing, we had a
beer get together essentially, and it was influencers. And I
had no idea what that meant. And it meant they
had to have a certain amount of followings on certain
types of things that I'm like, what, who are you?
Are you so important that you get these great things?
Is because you take a picture with an item and
people like it. I am I want to be one
(09:23):
of those. Recently I went through why I get to
bring it up again and when I was filling up
the like state media form, there was a section that
said what part of the media are you? And I
was fascinated because now there is an influencer section to
get funding to go visit a state. Through my mind,
(09:47):
I didn't know you can do that. We're can I
find up for that? I thought that really cool. They're
an influencer. In two thousand four, and Dove launched their
very successful campaign for Real Beauty and Core mess of
which was women, you shouldn't feel bad about yourselves and
how you look. One of the most well known pieces
of this campaign was that commercial I remember this so well,
(10:08):
depicting a time lapse of photo shopping a woman and
to an almost unrecognizable perfect version of herself. The marketing
campaign escalated from there. Then there was the one where
the woman had to choose between a door that read
average over the top or the door that read beautiful.
Then there was the one where a woman had to
describe her face to a sketch artist and it becomes
(10:30):
apparent that she thinks she's hideous and her how she
sees herself doesn't match with reality, and the general public
opinion was like, yes, finally, just having someone pointed out
point out this insidious cultural problem earned Dove all of
this praise, But who was to blame? They didn't name anybody.
(10:54):
They didn't point fingers to a bid bat a big
bad So women were, of course for thinking they were
ugly in the first place. Shame on you for feeling shame,
and Dove is here to save the day by our stuff,
please please, But it's not just of of course. Um.
Seeing the success, companies rushed into imitate it, um. And
(11:15):
the thing is, it's difficult, marketing wise to be in
the beauty industry without convincing people that they need something
to make themselves look a certain way. These companies helped
create that self hatred for our bodies and then picked
up on an opportunity to make more money from the
thing that they created, and they changed the conversation, all
(11:37):
the while washing their hands of any guilt. For instance,
some companies have plus size models in their campaigns but
offer no actual plus size clothing. They just know it's popular. Uh.
Fashion shows might do the same thing. It's the bare
minimum to look like they're changing when they are not.
It's still the same old blame game, but it's a
(11:58):
different bakeup. As say, it's a different lipstick you have
about the pig of the lipstick. Maybe I don't think so.
It's difficult to when your company depends on ads to
be critical of those companies. For instance, BuzzFeed had to
take a piece that was critical of Dove off because
they had AD space with Dove. And I can't tell you,
(12:22):
I wish I could. I can't tell you all the
back and forth that we go through on this show
with our ads teams. Yeah. I think just coming in
and having to sit down and listen before I even
started was kind of like, oh damn, this is the
whole thing. And it's like constant, I think, the whole
and then we have to be really really vigilant and
research everything they send us. Yeah. Yeah, and our ads
(12:45):
team they are saints and they feel like we've gone
through a journey together. They know so much about us
um and you'll probably hear ads for exercise nutrition apps
on this very episode, which again I like exercising and
I'm all about building healthy habits, but I am aware
of all of these issues that go hand in hand
with being a feminist podcast and eating disorders and body
(13:07):
acceptance and the diet and fitness industry. I mean, like
that was even just beyond because it could be nothing
to do with fitness, but they represent something outside of
what we're talking about in fitness. I know we've had
a lot of that questions of doing um vitamin types
of things, and you know, all these that have really
nothing to do with necessarily fat and diet, but because
(13:28):
they may be a linkage to it, we're like, we can't,
we can't. Yeah, And that's back and forth, and it's
I feel like the big problem is a lot of
times I say, I don't want to talk anything about
weight loss. It's just that that's what the focus is.
That like, that's the only reason you could be wanting
to exercise or better habits, which if that is a
healthy side effect of being right, great, And I think
(13:51):
you and I have also talked about the vibe that
we hate having to have us back and forth. At
the same time, we can't be too hypocritical, because I
do you apps like that and I'm very conscious of
who I am. Of course, we talked previously about us
having a hard time with our own selves and having
our bodies and trying to maintain a balance for our
lives as being a part of this show as well
(14:13):
as being just women in general. And but the thing is,
like I do I think it's necessary. I wasn't healthy
for a very very long time, and that had a
lot to do with stress and stress eating and not
having the time to exercise, not having to having the
time to sleep, but having to sometimes learn control through assistance.
(14:34):
And that's the thing too, absolutely UM. And some companies
have sworn off photoshopping or headlines promising weight loss. UM.
Some celebrities post unretouched photos after a magazine just too
many touch ups. But it is still worth keeping in
mind that a lot of celebrities with or without makeup
are still professionally beautiful, meaning they get a nice chef
(14:57):
coming in and and fixing their food under the three
hundred calories. UM. And when we see movies with the
magical movie makeover implying out ugly this person is that
is a model um And until she wears better clothes,
gets her hair done and takes off her dang glasses,
that's damaging, right, especially when you're like that person was
(15:18):
never No. I remember that one of the first times
I saw one of those movies, when the Magical Movie
Makeover part happened, I was confused. I was like, what
I remember that too. I was like, all you did
was she was comb her hair. I see, all you
did was take her hair out of a ponytail. I
don't understand what's a specific example, So it's like, what, Yeah,
(15:43):
it didn't make sense to me. And if you start
comparing yourself to I guess this person was ugly who
I thought was beautiful the whole time, then that's very bad,
damaging um. And also apparently there are boatloads of tutorials
out there teaching folks how to apply makeup and make
it look like they haven't so they can still use
the hashtag no makeup. Right. Well, I remember seeing something. Well,
(16:07):
it's kind of like when you see people going to
bed and they wake up in the TV shows or
movies and you see they have lips that gone and
mask are and you're like, how the hell are you asleep?
Because if that wasn't me, my face would have been
covered in all kinds of pound stuff, right, and pimples
on top of that from wearing that makeup anyway. So
that's just the wise boy. Um. Along with this is
(16:31):
the whole phenomenon of society worshiping any woman in the
public sphere who dares claims she is in fact beautiful
or condemns them for it. I used to see this
all the time back when, like I don't know why,
but I was reading dating apps. It was for work,
but like comments on dating apps and when someone would
say you're so beautiful, like a man would say that
to a woman and she'd be like, I know, and
(16:51):
they'd be like right, um, so you can't wait again. No,
that's the thing is like why is it so hard
for people to accept other people liking themselves? Uh? And
then there's the whole trend of posting fat rolls um
but for it to sell. It all revolves around images,
and it all depends on beauty being essential for life
(17:14):
to have meeting. And then at the same time, the
idea of body positivity and healthy at any size can
create another pressure for fat people to live up to
when posting anything, having to always be body positive or
show pictures of healthy habits, which is just flat out
unrealistic for most of us to do that all of
the time, and especially marginalized folks, to to preempt people
(17:35):
on social media from trying to diagnose them or tear
them down right, because there is a lot of pressure
around all of this for all of us, but celebrities
as well, um, and there there is a concerned backlash
UM saying uh to body positivity, to posting those types
of pictures of fat rolls or whatever, that that it
will jump start in obesity epidemic. But the data we
(17:56):
have and there is data out there, does not support that.
In thoset one more time, it does not support that.
Because I've had so many conversations love, you're teaching bad
habits when you say it's okay to be fat, and
again that's not all we're saying. And also, who are
you to say who's fat? You're not a damn doctor.
Healthy looks different on everybody, so shut up. There has
(18:20):
been also, um, yeah, the reverse extreme ism of it
of criticizing people who lose weight for any reason. And yes,
absolutely some reasons are bad, and sometimes good reasons get
entangled with bad ones, but not all healthy weight loss
is bad. If you're trying to lose weight for a
physical aesthetic result, that's not body positive. It doesn't necessarily
have to be bad, but it's not body positive. Um.
(18:44):
The phrase can be confusing because positive is in it, um.
But if you make healthy lifestyle changes and weight loss
as a result of that, then so be it and
one of the articles I've found with specific to people
feeling guilty for losing weight as well as people feeling
like talking about weight awesome is negative. I think I
can absolutely agree with the dynamic of unhealthy conversations that
(19:04):
revolve around any obsession, and that goes beyond just wait
any obsession, for whether it's UM, people who get obsessed
with CrossFit, people who I don't think there's anything wrong
with it, but there's just a whole level people who
get it obsessed with I don't know, watching too much TV,
too much D and D, hating women, any of those things.
I know I have stepped on toes and I UM,
(19:26):
but I also believe in the idea of not being
a judge of anyone's body. Once again, like it's this
whole you can't win, you can't lose. Someone's always going
to be unhappy about something. So if you're too much,
that's a that's gonna make someone you're too excessive, If
you're too little, that's not enough. Is this whole back
and forth and again, this is why I talk about
(19:48):
self care and self love. You need to be happy
with who you are and you're not always going to
be happy all the time. No, no, in general, and
so hearing this whole negative from either side, that's one
of the things that we have to meditate through. And
I say you meditate because you've got to kind of
just tune it out essentially. And I think that's part
(20:09):
of the conversation that I would like to have, is like,
is why do we feel the need to have an
opinion about others so often when we obviously that stuff
also bothers us? That makes sense? Oh yeah, I feel
like a lot of times it is. Ultimately it's about
you projection for sure, for sure, And I think that's
(20:30):
kind part of the things, like nothing's ever gonna be
okay until we figure out what's okay with us? Is
that very wise? I don't know. Is that a question?
It's time for another outbreak? Remember back? Thank you? Sponsored
(21:04):
So you can be kind of your body and love
your body and still want to change things about your body.
Change doesn't have to be bad. At the same time,
it honestly is hard not to feel self loathing for
our bodies um or at least uncomfortable with parts of
our body when that is the message women are getting
all the time, especially women who don't fit. The thin
(21:24):
cis white mold, and that's the trouble with thinner women
getting in on the body positive movement. It decenters fat
women who face more stigma and systemic discrimination. And don't
get as wrong. You can still be skinny and absolutely
feel bad about your body and still internalize all of
these messages and want to find something to feel positive
(21:45):
about it. Those feelings are completely valid, but then privileges
reality too. Um And this whole thing with body positivity
reminds me of what happened to Woke if you remember
that episode that I did with Miranda, Um, it just
kind of got you served by the mainstream. And we
are talking a lot of bad things about body positivity,
(22:07):
but it has done um some good things too, like
starting conversations like these, more people seeing themselves and others
in social media UM and and media at large and
feeling like, oh, I can do that too. I can
post pictures too, UM, I can I can go out
and and be I recently watched Shrill, which kind of
deals with a lot of things, and just like the
(22:29):
pool party episode is so lovely. Um. But body positivity
has gotten capitalized on and watered down and we're not
having a conversation about what structural change looks like when
it comes to accepting all body types trans non my, queer, fat, disabled,
UM companies have created and profited from maintaining the status quo.
(22:52):
We're putting the responsibility of people with bodies that don't
conform to that stas quo. We're putting that pressure to
change how they feel about their bodies on them, without
placing any responsibility on the outside forces that impact why
they might have that negative stealth And right, it's wonderful
and frankly amazing to feel positive even half the time
(23:12):
about a body that does not conform towards asco at
least in my opinion. But if that body is operating
in a system that does not respect it, does not
value it, does not view it as human, then right,
and you're absolutely correct, because again I think the same
conversations need to be had. Again, I know I never
divert a lot, but in general to women against women,
(23:35):
film against film, um, queer versus queer, like, there's this
whole persona that is outside of the actual movement that
come in to cause the scent in order for you
to hate your own essentially if that makes sense. And
and oftentimes there's this whole us versus them mentality that
was never should have been created, but it is profited
(23:55):
off of for sure, as we can see in politics today. Yep,
there are good things out there like uh if you're
looking for them, hashtag body positivity and color hashtag bad
picture Monday. The body is not an apology and this
is a hugely important conversation that impacts safety moving about
in the world, risk of abuse, crimes, and death. And
(24:18):
there is no one size fits all solution, just like
there is no one size but it's all body. So
that's the negative side of body positivity. UM. And that
brings us to the end of our episode. We would
love to hear from listeners their thoughts around to this UM,
things that they do to to stay positive about their
(24:41):
their body. UM. You can email us at Stuff Media,
mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You can find
us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts and on Instagram
at stuff I've Never Told to you. Thanks as always
to our superproducer Andrew Howard. Happy belated birthday, Andrew, Happy
volated birthday, and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never Told.
He's protection of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
(25:02):
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.