Kim Kardashian: Stop Hawking Appetite Suppressants to Young Women!

Glamorizing food issues isn't cute.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Bridget and this is Annie, and you're
listening to stuff Mom never told you. Now today, we
just want to start with a trigger warning content warning. UM.
This episode will deal with conversations around disordered eating. So

(00:26):
if that is something that is difficult for you to
listen to, just know that's what we're talking about today.
Some of you probably know I am infinitely fascinated by
the Kardashians. Really, what are your thoughts on the Kardashians.
I honestly do not know much about them outside of
what I've learned through this show, through me specifically pretty much,

(00:50):
that is my whole world. Minored in and Kardashian in college,
I get a minor in it, getting that it could
have been that could be really interesting. I remember reading
about the science of the Kardashians why so many people
are interested in them, And it's sort of almost like
you feel that you know these people because you've seen
them grow up and you see them post on social
media and you kind of grow to care about them

(01:11):
in a way like the science is interesting, it is interesting,
and you know, I'll be the first person to say
they are hella problematic um, And so I'm not saying
they're heroes or they're so great. But I feel the
same way. I feel sort of infinitely interested in them.
I'm probably the only person in the world other than
Kim Kardashian who owns Selfie, which is a book that

(01:35):
Kim Kardashian releases, as the name implies, full of her selfies.
That's it. Um. I think it's brilliant. I think it's
a piece of art. Um. You know who agrees with me? Hey?
You called? The New York Times put it on his
collection of the best art books of that year. Um.
I think if her last name was Warhol and not

(01:55):
not Kardashian, it would be hailed as a as an
art masterpiece. But well, you're gonna have to let me
borrow this, bridget. There is an art to a good selfie,
there is, and she's mastered it. And also they've mastered
the sort of artifice of kind of Hollywood California life
that they've kind of turned that into an art. Yeah,

(02:17):
which is interesting because aren't they in New Jersey? Am
I wrong? I'm telling you, I only know what agree you.
They're in Calabasas, California. I'm so sorry. Times they're in
Miami when they take Miami Annie, Annie, Annie. This is
like the reverse Star Wars that's happening right now. I

(02:38):
feel like you would have tossed me out the studio
if you could have. If y'all can see the look
I gave her when she said there was flame from
New Jersey. I think it's a Jersey shore. I don't
know what Jersey shore is either. Oh my god. And
here's how I know that, because again, I'm probably one
of the only people in the world who played the

(02:59):
Kim Kardashian cell phone game, which was a plus, by
the way. And it's like a role playing game where
you I mean, a role playing game isn't right, but
it's a game where you pretend you're trying to get famous,
and so you're going all over California and when you
meet Kim, Kim lives in Calabasas, and so it's like, oh,
go back. Do you wanna go work a shift at

(03:20):
the clothing store or go back to Calabasas and hang
out with Kim. It's like a chooser roun adventure kind
of situation. I see, I see. So I'll be the
first person to say that the Kardashians are hella problematic
And Kim did something this past week that was pretty inexcusable.
You might have seen she posted this picture on Instagram
was pretty classic spawn con and it's her eating a lollipop.

(03:44):
The caption read, you guys at Flat Tummingco just dropped
a new product, their appetite suppressant lollipops, and they're literally unreal.
They're giving the first five people on their website off
blah blah blah blah blah. She ends with, you need
to do it quick hashtag suck it. Oh, I see
because it's a yeah, Jared got there. Yeah, and Annie,

(04:06):
I gotta tell you, people were not having it. Yeah,
they really didn't appreciate this and they clapped back because
she also did the Waste Trainer and Revenge Body that
was Chloe. Yeah, she turned that into a whole show,
Revenge Body. You know, I'm not proud of it, but

(04:28):
I did it too. Once upon a time turned Revenge
Body into a show on E. Yeah, one lost episode.
Please don't try to find it. It's just a lot
of crying. This whole time. Annie has been an E
celebrity and didn't even know. Yeah, I'm just I'm actually
friends with Kim kay I didn't want to say anything.

(04:49):
Oh um, so what what was the clap back? Why
were people people who were clapping back far and wide? Um?
The good place? Actress Jamie La Jamil She tweeted in
response to Kardashian's post, maybe don't take appetite suppressors and
eat enough to fuel your brain and work hard and
be successful and play with your kids and have fun

(05:09):
with your friends and to have something to say about
your life other than I had a flat stomach. So
basically she was calling her out pretty hardcore for this post.
Yeah that that's some that's some burn right there. Yeah. Um,
but Cam isn't alone and chilling flat tummy products, Mini
Leaks and Porsche Williams have also hawked them on Instagram,

(05:30):
while Hillary Duff and Nicki Minaj promoted other weight loss teas. Yeah. So,
if you are all familiar with Instagram, you know that
the the land of spaan Con is pretty vast and
so um. Weight loss products specifically is one that a
lot of these sort of influencers celebrities will chill on
social media. Waste trainers, detax ts, um, flat tummy gummies,

(05:55):
all that kind of stuff. It's all sort of in
this kind of nebulous, weird ooh a wellness world where
you know, on the one hand, it's like, oh, detox
with this all natural tea, but actually it's kind of
crappy for you. Yeah. Um. And from the research I
have done on detoxing, there's no actual science behind it,

(06:18):
so it's it's troublesome in that way. I always it
really upsets me when I see products that purport to
be healthy, healthy for you, and people spend money on
them thinking that they're good for you and trying to
attain this body that you're seeing and that you want
to attain, and it's not going to help you, and

(06:38):
you're just going to spend money and possibly hurt yourself
do harm to your body. Well, you know who agrees
with you. That would be the Advertising Standards Authority otherwise
known as the a s A in Europe. They actually
upheld a complaint against Flat Tummy and they deemed that
one of their ads had to be removed. Back in March,
Geordy Shure star Sofia Cassi should an Instagram add espousing

(07:01):
the wonders of flat Tummy t and it is your
standard Instagram spawn kan influencer ad where it's a picture
of her before on a picture of her after now.
According to The New Statesman, the A s A had
two real issues with this post. The first complaint challenged
the claim that the t could help with water weight,
and they found that the company in charge of Flat
Tummy T just like you said, had no scientific evidence

(07:24):
for this claim that they made in this ad. Now,
on Flat Tummy t s own website, their claims they
are a little more carefully crafted, and so they don't
actually flat out say weight loss or promise any kind
of results. They're a little bit nebulous on purpose, so
they probably don't get sued on their website. An asterisk
then notes that these claims have quote not been evaluated
by the FDA. But Instagram celebrity spawn composts don't really

(07:49):
say that. They don't say the FDA hasn't you know,
signed off on this or whatever. They just say the
thing that The second complaint with this add that they
had challenged the very name of the product, which is
not compliant the e USE Register of Nutrition and Health Claims.
So in order to call themselves Flat Tummy T, the
name has to be accompanied by a health claim as
authorized by your registrate, something that Nomad Choice, which is

(08:11):
the parent company of Flat Tummy t just never got
since they can't actually prove that drinking their product will
give you a flat tummy. The a s A found
that they actually breached this code and that ad had
to be removed. So you can sort of get a
sense of how kind of wonky and legally easy this is.
That you have to be able to provide specific evidence
of a specific claim if you're saying that your products

(08:32):
will help you with that claim, but oftentimes in a
celebrity's Instagram post, they're not going to put that information
in there. Sure. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of
um activity. It's Damie Lee Curtis is the activity activity.
It's the younger that helps with your poops, but it doesn't.
It doesn't help with your poops. No, And I think

(08:52):
it's Yo Dannon. Dannon whoever owns them, uh was fined
big time by for basically saying that yes, it was
going to and they used all of this kind of
vague language like you're saying, but I mean, the implication
is there. We all knew that that's what it was saying,
but Jamie Lee Curtis said the yogurt was going to

(09:12):
help my poops. I'm sorry, Bridget, sorry to let you down.
Have you've just been eating a well Jamie Lee curtisism
is a brand that I trust. You know, I thought
I thought I could. She was in true lies. I
thought I could trust her true lies. Bridget. Think about that. Okay,
so let's take a closer look at what's actually going

(09:34):
on with these lollipops. After a kickbreak and we're back,
Thank you sponsor. So, according to the Flat Tummy website,
these lollipops are made from sugar and a quote clinically
proven safe active ingredient extracted from natural plants called material,

(09:57):
which is supposedly going to make you feel full and
suppress your app type for hours. Uh. Any do you
think this actually works? My guess would be no. Well,
it's a little hard to say. There actually doesn't seem
like there's that much evidence that clinically demonstrates that this
ingredient will actually helps suppress your appetite. Yeah. Every time
I've seen a study like this, there's not enough evidence,

(10:19):
and then when they finally do collect the evidence, it
shows that you need way more than you're ever going
to get from like one lollipop, Like you would have
to eat one hundred lollipops in a day to get
the effect that you want. However, I don't know about
this specific product. I'm just saying anecdotally from research I've
done on other things. That's almost always the case. A

(10:43):
little skeptical bridget, Oh, you're a You're a appetite suppressed
lollipop skeptic. Yes, I am skeptical that appetite lollipop suppressed.
I mean I think I'm right to be a little skeptical. Well,
I think these doctors agree with you. According to Rebecca Kumar,

(11:03):
an indo chronologist at the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at
the New York Presbyterian Well Cornell Medical Center, basically, just
because this ingredient could maybe help suppress your appetite doesn't
mean that it's safe. Now. She points out that there
is some evidence that the compounds in material might have
beneficial metabolic effects on blood sugar and cholesterol that could
potentially impact weight, But that doesn't mean that putting in

(11:25):
a lollipop and telling people to eat it is a
healthy approach to weight loss. Body image or nutrition. So
basically the science is still sort of out. There has
not been a comprehensive study that's that's detailed enough to say, yes,
this product will in equivocally help suppress your appetite. But
that sort of not even the right question. The question
really is, even if it did work, telling people to

(11:47):
put it in a lollipop would not be a health
a healthy way of dealing with weight loss our body image.
Like she says, I agree on all points there um,
And it's always always useful to look at who is
paying for funding research too. I'm just going to note
that because there is one study that showed maybe it

(12:09):
could work, right, but it hasn't been studied enough to
say for sure. So that there was this trial which
included sixty women, and it showed that those who took
a daily satial supplement snacked less and lost more weight
in the group who didn't. And studies have shown that
satiel suppresses the appetites of rats, but there haven't been
studies big enough to really prove its effectiveness in humans,

(12:33):
and humans are complicated, our bodies are complicated, so many
things interacting there. I probably don't have to tell you,
but I'm gonna say it, it's worth repeating. Um. Claiming
that a lollipop will lead to appetite suppression or weight
loss is probably a little extreme, says Dr Kumar. And
I would agree. Yeah. So basically, it sounds like this

(12:55):
company found some sketchy, loose evidence that may be this
product would suppress appetite, and they made this pretty huge
jump and putting in a lollipop and marketing it as
a miracle appetite suppressant, you know, cure all, which is
a mistake. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, And it seems that a

(13:19):
lot of people are experiencing the mistake of of this
that they were. People who take it, who use these
lollipops report a lot of issues with with them totally.
People who use kind of sketchy Instagram purchased weight loss
products in general seem to be having some issues. There's
a whole spate of online reviews for similar weight loss

(13:40):
products that use the ingredients SENA, and they're often hawked
on influencer Instagram. One review said all it does is
give you gas and make you go to the bathroom.
Users are likely to experience cramps, stomach discomfort, and diarrhea.
The U s National Library of Medicine actually claims that
these are the expected side effects of setup, but they
also state quote, don't use set up for more than
two weeks. Longer use can cause bound movements, stop functioning normally,

(14:03):
and might cause dependent on laxatives. Long term use can
change the amount of balance of some chemicals in the blood.
Because heart function disorders, muscle weakness, liver damage, and other
harmful effects to basically use products don't seem very safe,
and it's important to point out that because these products
are classified as supplements, they're not really evgulated by the FDA. Yeah. Absolutely, Um.

(14:26):
None of those side effects sound good to me. And
something even more troubling, the bad effects from these products
might actually be good for business. While prolonged use of
sene can weaken the colon and lead to dependence on
the drug, it doesn't hurt detox T companies. It turns
out dependence is great for business. If detox T users
find they can't properly function without the T, they are

(14:48):
more likely to turn into repeat customers. It's kind of
a vicious cycle that is so gross. And also when
you look at the fact that you know medical professionals
say don't use this product longer than two weeks at
a time, no long term use. But you actually can
buy them in bulk. So it seems like these companies
don't really give a crap about whether or not they're

(15:09):
encouraging somebody to put something healthy in their body. They
actually only care about their sales. And if having someone
be dependent on a product that's going to mess up
their insides it's good for business, well then he write
for them, right, And the entire diet industry pretty much
depends on their products not working because you're going to

(15:29):
have to keep trying other things. They don't want you to.
They don't want their product to succeed because then that's
it for you. Right. But if it if it never
completely works, and you always feel like this pressure and
I understand that desperation so much to bid a certain
body type and you want to and someone's telling you
this thing will work, and you're kind of desperate and

(15:52):
you'll try it and it doesn't work, and you get
stuck in this like I'm going to spend my money
on this, I'll try this, I'll try this, and that
is only beneficial for the diet industry. And if we're
talking about the influence that social media sites like Instagram had,
you are probably also scrolling through Instagram and seeing people
like Kim Kardashian looking perfect all the time, and it's

(16:15):
just sort of fueling that idea that I need to
I need to be perfect, and I need to be
on this never ending quest to find that thing that's
going to make me look perfect. And then if you're
consuming this all the time, these people who are seemingly
effortlessly perfect all the time, it's just I know, I
come back to this a lot, but I just think
that that really probably has a very negative impact in

(16:38):
that kind of vicious cycle that you mentioned. Oh, I
totally agree. I can still remember being in third grade
and I used to watch Entertainment Tonight, that show. I
love the theme song. Um, I'm I still am. As
it's probably obvious, I'm really big into movies, so I
used to watch it as a kid to like get
little sneak peaks of movies I wanted to see. But

(17:00):
I remember they had this model on there, and I
have no idea what her name was, but she was
eating a bag of cheetos and drinking a coke and
the interviewers like how do you eat these things and
stay so thin? And she said, I can eat whatever
I want and I never gain weight. And I remember
as a kid being like, oh, I can eat whatever
I want and I'll never gain weight. And it was

(17:22):
totally not true, and it sent me on this really
horrible journey to be honest, that maybe I'll go into
in a future episode. But it gets in your head
that you need to look this way. And you hear
and see famous people and you want to be like them,
and you hear what they say and you think, well,
if that's what they do when it works for them,
then I will try that too, and it will work

(17:43):
for me. But there's no way of knowing what they're
actually doing. One. Two bodies are different, there's genetics involved,
and three it's their job to look that way. They
have a tea. That's the one thing that I mean,
I'm I'm a broken record on this, But if there's
one thing I wish that people understood about like famous

(18:05):
people on Instagram is that they have a team and
that they have people who their job is to make
them look as perfect as possible. And so she's no,
of course she's not looking her of course Kim Kardashian
is not look this way naturally, Like she has a
team of people. I've seen pictures behind the scene pictures
of someone when she was taking your picture at the beach,

(18:26):
who she was asking to like put sand on her butt.
Sheeks in a specific way, so autograph a specific way.
Like she has a team. You cannot recreate this. If
you had a team, you would probably be you know,
banging on Instagram too. But who has a team, right?
And also, again, it's her job, so she's not trying
to do anything else, Like she isn't trying to raise

(18:47):
children alone and go to a job, and like, this
is her job, that's what she's paid to do. So
I had to struggle with that too, Like I got
to work out and do all this stuff, and how
am I going to fit it in with my job.
There's only so much you can do as a human
that that's not your your profession that you're getting paid for. Yeah,
I this is probably a tangent, But when I see

(19:09):
people say things like, oh, we have the same amount
of hours in a day that Beyonce has, and I'm like, well,
Beyonce probably has a lot of help, probably has live
in nanny's and assistants and stuff. If you're a single
mom who is a preschool teacher and you also work
on the side, I don't compare your day to Beyonce's day.
Like Beyonce probably has a team of people working for her,

(19:31):
her vibe is probably going to be different. Yeah. I
hate this idea that that we need to look to
celebrities to help us figure this stuff out when their
lives are so different than ours, whether it's weight loss
or quote unquote having it all or whatever. Like they're
living different lives absolutely, And I mean my mom used
to say, um, money doesn't buy happiness, but it share

(19:55):
makes it easier. And I think about that a lot too,
Like they can afford to have this team. And for me,
when I exercise, I like, I exercise every day, and
I think about that is the privilege that I have
because I don't have to worry about kids. I don't
have to like work two jobs, get up at four
am to go get to my first job, and then

(20:16):
I'm out until who knows to get to my second job.
I this is I'm lucky that I can do that.
So I do think it's important to keep in mind that, yes,
there's a there's a lot that goes into looking this
way and a lollipop. It's probably not I'm gonna help
you get there. But that's the thing. As someone who

(20:39):
was for a long time, it's very caught up in
this whole perfection Instagram blah blah blah booh, it's not.
I can tell you that it's not the idea that
the lollipop is going to like make you magically thin.
It's that the lollipop will turn everything around, right, that
if you could just get that that right weight, or
that right style, or that right hair, or that right this.
But there's a a secret something that all these other

(21:02):
girls who seem perfect have figured out and that you
haven't figured out yet, and that maybe it's just lollipop.
So if you buy this lollipop, maybe everything will turn around,
that you will be magically transformed into one of these
perfect people. And I think I think we've we've deluded
ourselves into thinking that the answer lies in in something
that you can buy and not within yourself. And I

(21:23):
think social media people that I am like a like
a social media consultant. I love social media. I just
I just see how badly it can warp our sense
of what's important. And yeah, I mean we should not

(21:43):
be glamorizing the idea that suppressing your appetite is cool
and sexy and looks cool on Instagram, because it's not cool.
If bodies need food, if you need to eat, you
should eat the The healthy thing to do should not
be to suppress your appetite. And we certainly shouldn't be
making a choice seem cool and sexy for Instagram. Yeah. Absolutely.

(22:05):
I know. I've seen in recent years those um like
thin tests people do and they get they kind of
go viral on social media, like the bridge tests and
the thigh gap thigh gap test, And I can tell
you if I had been in middle school when those
were happening, I am so glad I didn't know about
the thigh gap. Oh god, I can only imagine. I

(22:27):
can only imagine. Yeah, it's bad. And I think you
see that in those those thin tests, and you also
see it just ind we I think that we are
so uncomfortable with bodies, particularly women's bodies, and we want
bodies like we we have this almost a fetishization of
thin bodies and quote unquote healthy bodies, and you know,

(22:50):
we it's it's really it's I don't know, I don't
know how we've got here, but we've turned kind of
body obsession and body betterish as a sin into a
kind of contest on social media. And I am, it's
just it's horrifying, it really is. It's really it's really
frightening because it does, um, especially for UM, teenagers and younger,

(23:16):
younger women, it can be dangerous. UM. I have a
friend who she took a supplement repeatedly to lose weight,
and she was not that it matters, but she was
already really thin. UM, and she I think she had
kidney failure. She lost her kidney m hm. Yeah. And

(23:37):
it breaks my heart because she was doing it almost
just to achieve this thing that is really out of reach.
And she I mean, she shouldn't have been trying to
lose weight anyway, but she thought she had to reach this,
this image that she saw in her head. Why do
you think she felt that way? I think because we

(23:59):
see it all the time. UM. And I think too,
if we again, if we value women on their looks
and their body, and we're saying that this is the
this is the standard, this is what you want, it
looks like to be worth more, to be valued more. UM.
And there's also I UM I read and I can't

(24:21):
wait to talk about this in an episode. UM. But
I read that women are more likely to be obsessive
about numbers, and I relate to that so much. I
can't wait to talk about that. UM. But they talked
about in the article I was reading. It's a really long,
in depth article and it was great and hopefully I
can find it link to it. UM. They were talking

(24:43):
about how for women sometimes that translates into weight, the
number on the scale, and you become obsessed with it,
and it's just like every day, you're checking it multiple times.
And it could have it could have been that too,
and it it's upsetting on a whole other level because
she was so good at hiding it. I didn't know

(25:04):
until it happened. I didn't know if she was taking
those supplements, so she hit it really well. UM. And
that's I mean. I feel like her story is more
common than then we think. Yeah, I mean one of
the hallmarks of disordered eating or food issues is being
able to hide it really well. You know. I I've
never struggled with that myself, but I have had friends

(25:25):
that did, and once I kind of learned certain kind
of tells, you know, you cut your food up a lot,
or you you know, things like that, like they like
small things that you wouldn't that wouldn't give it away. Um,
you sort of realized, Wow, this person has developed an
entire way of being to not to avoid this thing

(25:48):
coming out, and it really is probably very exhausting and
very like on top of already having an issue around food,
feeling like you have to hide it all the time,
and that if you could, if you can go to
dinner with a friend, you need to have little tricks
so that they don't get wise. That's also probably very
isolating and also probably just makes it that much harder

(26:09):
to open up about it. If you if you feel
like you've already developed these habits and these little quirks
that will help you be able to do this without
anyone finding out, those kinds of behaviors, I would imagine
just make you feel that much more isolated. Yeah. I
struggled with eating disorders when I was in middle school.

(26:32):
In high school, Um, one of my nicknames was any Uxia. Yeah. Um,
but I thought kind of similar to what you were
saying earlier, I thought everyone did it and just hit it.
It's kind of similar to me too in sexual harassment,
Like I thought we were all doing it and that's
the reason why people looked a certain way, and so
you had to hide it, like nobody talked about it,

(26:52):
but we all did it um, which is just awful
and it's it's wild to me looking back now that
I just assumed that's what everyone must be doing one
in one way or the other. You're you're doing something well.
I also think that food issues are probably more common

(27:13):
than we think because it's because of that that need
to not talk about them and feeling like you need
to hide it like I like, it wouldn't surprise me
if if you're in your junior high of a hundred girls,
if ninety of them maybe they don't have eating disorders
but have some sort of issue around food, because I

(27:34):
would I would not say I had an eating disorder,
but I would say I've had issues with food. And
I think that's very common. Oh me too. I I
think that especially women, but not just women. I think
a lot of us have very troubled relationships with food.
Are are complicated or something, and this is not Unfortunately,
it's not as easy as I am hungry and this

(27:56):
is delicious, and food is a wonderful social experience, and
I am such proponent of that, but I think for
a lot of us that is not the case. And
even if like it is a smaller, maybe a smaller
issue that you have, I do think a lot more
people struggle with it. Well, this actually reminds me so
much of the episode we did around women and drinking,

(28:18):
where not that many women meet the you know, CDCs
definition of being an a quote unquote alcoholic, but when
you so that's so, that's one thing, that's one bucket,
but then so many more or what you might call
problem drinkers, where you're not maybe you're not a full
on alcoholic, but you have an issue and so maybe

(28:39):
you have too much or maybe you don't know when
to stop. And so I think it's that same kind
of thing, Like there are probably a lot of women
out there and a lot of girls out there who
are have eating disorders, but there are also probably I
would say probably everybody at some point has an issue
around food because we we it's just the nature of
of society. D I think right as women, we are

(29:02):
told that we have to look a certain way, act
a certain way, eating a certain way in public is
not okay. But then you have to also be the like,
hot girl who wants to eat like or whatever. All
of those things can't be sure at once. So what
do you do? Exactly? What do you do? And that's
another thing I can't wait to talk about is that
cool girl stereotype. And it kind of reminds me the

(29:23):
teer leading thing too. This it connects to a lot
of things because in the teer leading episode we talked
about all their rules about how much bread you could
eat in public. Is it goes to show how much
of a problematic relationship that we have with food and
how it impacts our body. And it's weird because it's
the thing that we need. You need it and I

(29:43):
would hope that we could enjoy it, but yeah, we
need it to live, and yet we have turned it
into such a fraught, complex issue we have, Yeah, which
I guess is is the point. It's it's why Kim
Kardashian picks selfies, get gets money to take selfies, telling

(30:03):
her very young audience that that it's cool that suppress
your appetite when you're hungry, right, that that if you
want to look this way, then that is something that
you probably would have to do. Um, didn't she post
her her meal like a menu of what she eats
in today? Probably? I think so it wasn't. I mean,

(30:26):
it was like you're dieting food. But hopefully that is
what she was eating, because I think it was at
least like it wasn't just I have nine appetites of
lollipops and some tap water for lunch. I have more
lollipops for a long time. If you typed in woman

(30:48):
on Google, I don't know if this is true anymore.
If you did an image search, um, it was a woman,
a really thin woman, eating a salad and smiling like
it was the best day of her life. Yes, salads
rarely make me that happy. No, I mean every now
and then, but generally, Like, I like a salad, but
I'm not like having the time of my life eating now.
I've never eaten a salad where I wasn't under durest

(31:11):
like someone making me although I did. Oh, this is so,
this is what I'm saying, Like I'm not immune to this.
I was once on a date and the date he
I was at a restaurant and texted and they were like, oh,
I'm gonna be late. And I ordered the entire plate
of pasta and then ate it. And then when the
date came, I acted like I hadn't eaten it, and

(31:32):
then I were salad bridget I would do that too.
Waiter was like, I just saw this. I just saw
this woman eat an entire plate of pasta and I
didn't say anything. Well, he didn't die me out. It
was like, Oh, she's pretending like she didn't. She did.
That's awesome. I would do that too. I would do
that too. UM. But getting back to social media, UM,

(31:58):
we have an Instagram horror story about the Talks t
for you UM from teen Vogues. Sarah Lawrence, an eighteen
year old student from Calabasas, California, also tried a Tea
Talks program. After seeing positive results on Instagram. UM, Sarah
chose to go with Booty and couldn't wait to see results. Quote.

(32:20):
I had just come back from my first semester of
college and really wanted to reset my body after having
gained a few pounds during my first semester away. I
ordered the twenty eight day Booty Cleans. It was really
excited about it. But the first night, after taking the
nighttime tea, I got the splitting pain in my stomach
at three am. It was one of the most horrible
things I've ever felt. We're talking about a gut wrenching pain.

(32:43):
It was kind of scary because I didn't know what
was happening. All I knew was that I had drink
the tea. After ordering nearly a month worth of tea,
Sarah decided to try sticking to the program for a
little longer, and the quote continues, I couldn't change the
fact that I had already paid for all this tea.
Plus the nighttime cramps had eased off, and by about
two weeks I had already lost five pounds. It was
around that point I was supposed to get my period,

(33:04):
but it didn't come. My period is pretty regular, so
I started to worry when another week had gone by
and it still hadn't shown up. Sarah took a pregnancy test,
which came back negative. After noticing she had begun to
feel sluggish and dizzy on a regular basis, she decided
to stop drinking booty tea. I hope that's how you
pronounced it, booty. Before detox was up quote. I gained

(33:25):
all the weight I had lost back basically as soon
as I stopped drinking the tea. But I started to
feel normal again, and I got my period soon after that. Damn,
that is pretty scary stuff. If you're drinking something that
can impact your body in that way, that's pretty serious. Yeah,
that's that's really frightening. And again it goes back to

(33:47):
she gained the weight almost point of her she got
it back. So again the they this company wants you
to be dependent on the tea to keep buying it,
because otherwise they're not going to make money off of
you anymore. Well, Sarah actually isn't alone. Women on online

(34:08):
forms have been complaining that weight loss teas impact their periods.
Dr Karen Kritina, who was a nationally recognized nutrition therapist,
told teen Vogue this is actually kind of possible. She
says the reasons behind period disruption from detox t s
are not super clear, but she did say that stimulants
found in detox t s can affect stress hormones and
that stress hormones are actually known to impact your periods.

(34:30):
And again, I mean something that is messing with your bodies,
you know, normal way of functioning. It's probably not something
you want to be, you know, messing with, particularly if
you bought it. Because Porsha Williams on Real House Spies
of Atlanta, I told you too on Instagram. Yeah she's
not a medical professional. No, Porshne william said, not go

(34:52):
to medical school. That I am very sort Okay, cool, Um,
that's kind of why. Yeah, going back to the lollipops,
that is so problematic. Um, but there's also a deeper
issue going on, which is that we shouldn't be glamorizing
food issues. We'll get more into that after a quick
break forward from our sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsored. So,

(35:22):
the data analytics from Mojo looked at the demographics of
Kim's social reach and unsurprisingly, she has a big pool
with young women. I just said, that's so Southern, and
I'm not normally southern. Assented said, she has a large
pool with young women. That's pretty good accent awesome, I'm

(35:44):
gonna biggest demo. Her biggest demo market online is women
aged eighteen to twenty four to five and women aged
thirteen to seventeen, which is about eighteen point two. Now,
let's look at the data around disordered eating well. Intorexia

(36:06):
is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents. Of
those with eating disorders are between ages twelve and twenty five.
Half of girls between age eleven and thirteen see themselves
as overweight, which is heartbreaking. Thirteen year olds have attempted
to lose weight. So basically, the numbers of people who

(36:27):
are consuming Kardashian content on social media and the numbers
of people who are dealing with or at risk of
dealing with disordered eating are the same. So basically, she
is her consumer base online. Her audience is the exact
same audience of young women who are either dealing with

(36:48):
or are at risk for dealing with disordered eating. So really,
that just really makes you wonder why is Kim Kardashian
telling this group of young women who are already at
risk for such a serious, serious situation. Why is she
telling them that it's cool to suppress your appetite. They're

(37:08):
clearly already at risk for this kind of thinking being
a problem for them, And it makes you wonder. I
love Kimpkardashian, but does she not understand the reach that
she has? Does she not understand her audience and does
she not understand the implications of doing something like that.
I'm kind of prone to say, going back to to

(37:31):
my thing earlier, where I thought, that's just what you did,
you had a neating disorder. I wonder if it's sort
of like, I don't know this is I've I've had
to suppress my appetite to achieve this, like like the
seriousness of it is lost, like it's, oh, girls, we
just do that, you know what I mean? If if

(37:54):
it's seem less as eating disorder and more of like
I want to look this and I want this body
type and to do that, I'm just not gonna eat,
you know, like kind of brushed off of how damaging
it is. I do think that some people I've I've
heard people mentioned in passing to me like I'm just
gonna not eat supper anymore until I get to this way,

(38:16):
and they say it in a way that's very um
like they don't they're not taking into account. How to me,
that sounds like a really bad attitude towards food, a
really troubled way, and then troubled a bad way to
go about achieving a certain weight, an unhealthy way to
get there. Um But it's just sort of seem like,

(38:38):
this is what you do to get to this weight
that I want to do, and I'm going to suffer
through it, and I'd rather look this way than be healthy.
I think you're right. I think that there is a
disconnect between the seriousness of eating disorders and that sort
of quote unquote casual every day, I'm gonna not have dinner,

(39:01):
I'm gonna suppress my appetite, I'm gonna eat this lollipop,
I'm gonna get this waste train or whatever. I think
that it's easy to see those things as very different,
but they're in fact connected. And let's be real, eating
disorders are serious. According to the National Association of r
XI and Nerrosia and associated Disorders, every sixty two minutes,
at least one person dies as a direct result of

(39:21):
an eating disorder, and eating disorders have the highest mortality
rate of any mental illness. And yeah, I mean it's
a very very serious thing, and I think you're right.
I think that people like Kim Kardashian perhaps are not
connecting that notion to ration your food or suppress your appetite,

(39:41):
or to think about your your body's responses in a
way like that they're not connecting that with the person
who dies every sixty two minutes, but they are connected. Yeah,
and again I am reminded of sexual harassment, where the
women from Path generations were sort of socialized and trained

(40:03):
to like, this is just how it is and if
if you want to make it in this world, you're
gonna have to put up with this. And for eating disorders,
I think it's the same, like if it's just this
message that we're sort of sending young women, almost like
the revenge body. Again, we're telling people, this is your worth.

(40:25):
You're going to make people jealous. They're going to value
you more. They're gonna want to look like you. You're
gonna have more power. But to do that, you have
to do this. You have to take this lollipop. We
all do it. Just just get on board. It's yeah.
It breaks my heart because when you're younger, you don't

(40:45):
have the tools to realize the damage of that message.
And I think there is almost like like you were
saying a glorification of um of eating disorders, Like it's
this tragic thing that you're dealing with. But people are
gonna they're gonna be like, oh, look at her, she

(41:06):
looks so good. I think that's exactly part of it.
I think that there is a I hate to say
this and it sounds really tough, but this is what
I think. I think that for women, the way that
we deal with eating disorders in the media, it's associated
with attitudes like, oh, so and so is so disciplined
or so regimented, and like we we almost maybe glamorizing

(41:30):
isn't the right word, but we almost kind of praise
people for being able to have the quote unquote will
power to do this, and it's like, oh, they must
really care about looking good, they must really care about
being their best selves or whatever. And it's just it's
I think that we. Yeah, I think that we the

(41:51):
way that the way that bodies exists in our society,
the way that the fact that you would have a
bad break up with someone and that response would be
to develop ever end body to get back at them.
Like that's when you break down that concept. It's pretty odd. Yeah,
it's it's upsetting. It's very upsetting, and I totally get it,
and I've done it. You want to be like see,
I'm I'm yeah, I'm my best self, I'm looking good. Yeah,

(42:14):
I mean, who among us doesn't want to after a
breakup post a good looking selfie with you know, nice
for what as the caption looking good? You know, I
get it, I totally get it. I completely get it.
But again, I think that it takes us away like
our bodies are ours. Your body belongs to you and

(42:34):
what you do with it and how you use it
and how it makes you feel that should be that
is a very personal relationship. And I don't like that
things like revenge body and things like dealing with their
weight in public and all that, Like, I think that
removes us from the idea that your body is yours
and that you know, you should love it and take

(42:55):
care of it and and feel good about it. And
sometimes it's going to fail. Sometimes it's going to be
an unhealthy body or a thin body or overweight body
or whatever. Like your body is going to change and
that's okay, and that you know, all bodies are are
ours and that we are are are Your relationship with
your body is your own. And I don't like anything

(43:16):
that suggests that your body should be a tool to
accomplish something for somebody else or some societal standard. And
I think that I think that that I think that
this sounds a little bit like esoteric. But that's the
the nugget that I think bothers me so much. I
I mentioned in the past episode about how women used
to catch tuberculosis to look thin, to look a certain way,

(43:38):
and how they would do it knowing they were going
to die, but they wanted to look that way for
a little bit. And it this is almost more dangerous
because you don't realize when you do it, like you
you justify it in your head, like you start out small, Okay,
I'm going to skip dinner today. But it's the same

(43:59):
people are dying to look a certain way to achieve
a certain body type, and we're kind of just dismissing
it as like well that that that was that was
for them, that was a problem that they had. But
you know, women, a lot of us can do this

(44:19):
and we're fine. I don't think it's true. Um, I'll
say for me, like, there's just so much brain space
that you use because you think about it all the time.
You could use that for so many other things. And
it's not I'm not saying it's easy at all, it
is not, but just there's so much other stuff you

(44:40):
could be thinking about But instead I think we're telling
women to think about how can you look this way?
And when you're hungry all the time, you don't wanna,
you don't have the energy to think about anything. Really,
it's just it's really it's upsetting. Yeah, it's a tough one.
It is upsetting, and it's I think it's I think

(45:03):
I hear this sort of exasperation in your voice because
it only is an upsetting I don't think it has
an easy answer. I don't know. I just I wanted
to end this episode on like a positive what can
you do? I don't know that this has an easy answer.
I don't think that we're I mean, I don't think
that we I think this is just our culture. I

(45:26):
agree it's going to take dramatic culture and societal shifts,
which I do think we're slowly working towards, but it's
so slow, like glacially glacially slow, and it starts so soon.
That's what I tried to stress to people when I'm

(45:47):
talking about this, talking about things like this, is you
don't realize the messages that kids are taking in and
how early, and they don't realize it either. It's all
it's subconscious. But if you're seeing this all the time,
this one type of body, and you know that they're this,
this woman is really powerful and she's famous and everyone
sees her is beautiful, you can't help but want to
be like that. So if you're not like that, you

(46:10):
will go to you will try these methods, and it
it can just become this thing that you do hide
from everyone in your life because you're embarrassed that you
have to go to those methods and you know that
they're not right, but you would rather look that way. There. Yeah,
there's no there's no easy, easy answer, but just try

(46:36):
to know, take care of yourself and recognize, recognize media
for what it is like dissect your media. Um. Yeah,
and until then, I guess you can just try to
do what we can to move away from this. And

(46:56):
I don't know, I wish, like when I was younger,
I wish someone had told me that your value is
not and how you look. If someone out there needs
to hear that your value is not how you look. Yeah,
it's it's true. I mean, it's it's I mean easy,

(47:17):
easy for us to say and because like, yeah, I
mean we are adult women who struggle. I mean I
don't speak, I don't see for you, but I struggle
with that concept and it's just so stupid, like what
are we all doing? You know, It's like like why
do we have to live with this? You know? If

(47:37):
you if I I talked to my young cousins who
are so young, and they're like ten, and they're talking
about their weight and how they look and their their hair.
My one cousin has very kind of like myself had
like very short, curly hair. She wants so badly to
have like hair that hangs. How she how she describes it,
And I think, you're so young, you're such a baby, right,

(47:59):
you know, all the things to to get to rent
your brain space out to like this, and I do
it too, so so like how could I even tell her?
Like part of me feels like a fraud, right, because
it's it's just I don't know if we'll like, yeah,
maybe this is just our culture. But I'll tell you this,

(48:19):
people like Kim Kardashian, who have a giant reach and
have a giant platform and are hugely influential, especially for
young women, I think they do have a responsibility and
I'm not I mean, on the one hand, it sucks
that I'm I'm saying that people like Kim Kardashian should
take a special responsibility to help do what small part

(48:40):
they can to combat these kind of toxic ideas. But
that's exactly what I think, you know. I think with
power comes reponsibility, and I think that I think that
that Instagram post is irresponsible and inexcusable. And I think
someone out there, some little girl saw that and thought, oh,
that's an idea. Yeah, I agree. I think we have

(49:03):
to be mindful that people are watching. And it does.
On the one hand, it sucks because celebrities are people too,
and who knew we were going to get so deep
talking about I was like, oh, this will be it easy,
Like now I'm about to cry. It's it's inescapable, and

(49:27):
it's on the one hand, I do feel almost like
it's unfair, But on the other hand, I'm like, well,
too bad, Like we can't have just it's dangerous not
to think about how you're impacting people who are consuming
your media. In case, yeah, I mean, if Kim Kardashian

(49:52):
has to go without a two dollar check or whatever
from flat tummy t to have a group of girls
not feel bad about themse else I'm kind of okay
with it. I honestly think, you know, she has a responsive,
not not just her. People with a platform have a
responsibility to not contribute to stuff that's really toxic. And

(50:16):
even part part of me thinks that she knows this
because that Instagram post but seriously vanished and then she
put it back up and said, oh, it was deleted accidentally,
which deleting an Instagram post is very difficult. Ever, somebody
who uses the Grahams as much as she does, I
don't buy that for a second. And so I think,
and also she's someone one of the reasons why I
like her is that because she does seem to understand

(50:39):
that she is a proponent for planned parenthood right like
she does seem to understand that she has this this
big reach, And I think I want to see more
people with influence just doing what they can. Absolutely, And
I'm always a big proponent of education, you know, should

(51:01):
I think we wait too long to have these conversations,
I really do, because it starts so young. So educate
people about about eating disorders and what you can do
how to recognize signs in yourself and and others. That's
one step as well. UM, but if this is something
if you've made it this far and this is something

(51:22):
that you struggle with, congrats to you. I know it
must have been tough. But we do have UM Eating
Disorder Hotline info. Yeah, if you are someone for whom
this is an issue that you want to get a
handle on, you should do that. Or if if you
have a friend that or a loved one for whom
you think they could benefit from talking to someone, you

(51:42):
should definitely definitely take those steps. You can reach out
to the National Eating Disorder Hotline. The number is one
eight hundred nine three one two two three seven. That's
one hundred nine three one two to three seven. And
if you're having a crisis situation, you can text n
e d A to seven four one seven four one

(52:04):
to be connected with They trained a volunteer at the
crisis text hatline. Again, if you I think that this
is an issue that we don't talk enough about, and
I hope that someone listens and says I'm I no
longer want to feel this way and I want to
talk to somebody about it. Yeah, I hope so as well.

(52:26):
I know a lot of people, I personally know a
lot of people and myself included. I would have loved
to have heard this at a younger age. Who knows
how much grief it could. It saved me, So hopefully
we've we've reached someone. Um, maybe Kim Kardashian is gonna
think twice about the next time. I'd like to think

(52:49):
we have that power and she doesn't even need the money.
Come on him, she's rich, Come on, come on. Yeah.
I think that's what we had to say about that,
all right, but we have a lot more homework to do,
for sure. I wish I'd been keeping talking about any
times we said we should do an episode on this,
it's probably like ten times. But um, it brings us

(53:11):
to a segment we're bringing back listener mail. I know,
that's that's quite the turn. I know. Well, we'd like
to end on something a little up beats. Bridget recently
gave me the keys of the email, and I like
spent over twenty four hours reading every Yeah, I should add,

(53:31):
first of all, y'all know I hate email, But second
of all, we get so much email and our mom's
stuff email and we try to go through it, but
it's so it's I'm not lying, right, it's so much,
so much it's too much for one person to reasonably
sit through unless that person is any rees email fiend.
I had such an emotional roller coaster because I think

(53:53):
a lot of it started because the inbox changed from
Christen Caroline to bridget Family, So it started around the
time of the election, and so I was just like
reliving it's the eyes the low of what's been going
on in the past years, and so many of you
had so many amazing things to say, so really happy

(54:14):
to bring it back, and we could probably do a
couple episodes that are entirely listener mail. UM. And to
start off, I wanted to read this thing that Caitlin wrote. UM.
She wrote about are female Action Figures episode and a
lot of you did. Can't wait to read some more
of those on air. But she Caitlyn wrote, thank you

(54:35):
for the wonderful show about the lack of female action figures.
I remember hearing about a group getting together who actually
took other types of dolls, repainted them, made new outfits,
and made the ray dolls everyone wanted. That's awesome. UM.
I'm also emailing to show off this weird site where
people take comic and game illustrations and revamped them mostly
with Hawkeye, but other heroes and villains are included as well,
hoping you can all get a laugh from these. It's

(54:56):
called the Hawkeye Initiative dot com. It's amazed seeing I
loved it. Thank you so much. Kit. It is super amazing. Yes,
it's like I got this spidy pool. Yeah, you guys
can't see what you have to go to it. It's
I can't even describe it. It's um it's retaking usually

(55:20):
comic book covers that have really overly sexualized women on
the front and then putting men in those same overly
sexualized positions. And it's excellent and hilarious and I love it,
so definitely check it out if that's something you're interested in.
I love it too. Thank you for sharing that, Annie.
I've got one for you. Van wrote about our poor

(55:41):
twenty episode. I currently live in San Antonio, Texas, where
I came for college and I'm working now, but I
am born and raised from Mexico. To Annie's point of
knowing and being conscious of where things you consume come
from and it's impact they have on society, well, a
lot of drugs do go through or come from Mexico
to get to the US, and a lot of people
in these board town cities have suffered due to drug
trafficking due to cartels that are in the business of

(56:04):
getting drugs to the United States and making a lot
of lives miserable. My hometown is rain Nosa, Temolipas, and
for years the people living there have been victims of
random shootings in the street of cartels fighting with each
other overpower. People have gone missing, clandestine graves have been found,
and people have been chased away from their hometowns. So
not only minorities in the US have been arrested due

(56:24):
to that illegal joint that ex teenager is smoking, people
might have died in several countries depending on where that
joint came from. If we were legal in the US, though,
you can grow it in your own country, and maybe
demand for outside drugs would decrease, and not only the
States would have a better place, but other countries as well.
Isn't that a wonderful dream? I just really agree with you,
and you said that we should look at where the
things we consume come from, especially when it's uncomfortable to

(56:46):
talk about anyway. I should tell you that I of
course hold Mexico's government accountable for fixing these issues. But
it's been seven years and that hasn't happened. Yeah, yeah,
I think this. I think Evon gets to the heart
of if you recall that episode, I was pretty uncomfortable
with poor twenty and sort of weed hold her in general,
even though I obviously am in poor legalization. But I
think that this letter really gets to the heart of

(57:09):
why I have a lot of tension around that. Yeah. Yeah,
and that's something we didn't touch on a lot in
that episode. And I'm glad that Von wrote in from
Mexico having this experience. In this point of view, it's
the Yeah, it's not only in the United States where
this is causing problems, it's also impacting Mexico. So I

(57:32):
again just yeah, keep in mind where what you consume
comes from and the complete cost of it. Yeah. Not,
I don't want to well, I don't want to open
a whole kind of worms. But yes, I mean Van
points us out masterfully, But we don't care about the
brown bodies, whether they're Mexicans trying to live their life

(57:56):
and and you know, cartels, we can have it on
their on their ability to do that. Or black and
brown folks in the United States being thrown in jail.
We don't care about the black and brown bodies that
are fueling are really anything I was gonna say drugs, ray,
but really anything, whether it's food production or whatever that
we don't care. And I think that her letter demonstrates that.

(58:17):
I agree, And I think that's one of the reasons
why I have such a problem with it, because it's
so fun in games to be Rara smoke weed every day,
blah blah blah. So fun. Yeah, but it's not fun
to think about the like the family that can't live
a normal life because of this. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um.
So thanks to both of them for writing in and

(58:40):
thinks as always too our producers Dylan Fagan and Kathleen Cillian. Um,
you can write us as well. We have an email.
It's a mom Stuff and how Stuff works dot com.
Don't encourage people to fill that box. Kids, Please write in,
Please write in. Oh so many people sent pictures of
their kids and like superhero causs. Please keep that up. Um.

(59:02):
You can also find us on social media that's right
or on Instagram at stuff on Never Told You, and
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.