You're listening to the first fatty podcast episode 53. We're talking about the fat phobia quiz today I am your host, Victoria Welsby. Let's do it.
I'm Victoria Welsby TEDx speaker, Best Selling Author and fat activist. I have transformed my life from hating my body with desperately low self esteem to being a courageous and confident fierce fatty, who loves every inch of this jelly. society teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop and negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the first fatty podcast Let's begin.
Hello, hello fatti have a devil. Oh, yeah. How's life? It's Friday here. I'm doing good. I took Dougal to the vet this morning. Morning. duple. My dog on gold just got one Delk he's a little black kind of easing her it looks like a miniature Border Collie with a PAP yawns tail. And pappy on ears. He's really fucking cute. I want to kill him with my love. He went to the good doctors to get his shots, the vet to get shots. And next week, he's getting a teeth cleaning because he's got a wobbly tooth at the front. So we need to get a 2000 or do go I've never I've never had him go under on surgery. Well, before my time he had his his balls cut off. So, you know, whatever it is when they when they chop the knobs off, or whatever it is they do to the dogs. And I know they don't chop their knobs off. But you know, you know, I'm saying so he's had surgery before and he's been fine. But you know, I'm just like, Oh my God, he's gonna be so frightened. Because, you know, he's, um, he's got anxiety, right? And he's, he's scared of other people. He doesn't like other people touching him. And so when you know, he's at the vets today, you have to have a little muzzle on him. And he's like, being like, Aw, I don't like it. And he was fine until they put the phone up, thermometer up his bum and he went, Oh, I don't like it. I said don't worry double. It's fine. He didn't mind when they gave him an injection though. So that was good. Yeah, so next week, he's gonna go and have his little one of his front tooth, teeth pulled out and his teeth cleaned. And so he's gonna lose his Hollywood smile. I'll just take some pictures with him before he goes in. Not that you see his teeth in pitches. Maybe I'll get to what are they called? When people get those things on their teeth? A flipper? You know when they you know, dance kids get those? Yeah. For pictures. I'll put a flipper in his mouth. Yeah, so I'm very concerned about Google's teeth. That sarcasm by the way. Hey, thanks for all the reviews that you've left me. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna read a few out Stephanie says five stars. Amazing podcast. When I first heard of this wonderful woman I was shocked as I was not used to hearing women my size be so comfortable in their skin. She shares her experience and knowledge like that girlfriend you can't wait to meet up with. She has helped me to slowly own my fatty without shame, but with a lot of compassion. Thank you, Stephanie. Next, Bev says five stars. So glad I found you. I recently started listening to your podcast and I am loving them and hoping to be fears myself one day. And Bianca says five stars lifesaving. Oh my God. What a revelation, this podcast. I listen to it with my mouth wide open in amazement. Only now do I understand that diets don't work and that it only makes you fatter in the end. I'm so happy that I joined this podcast via Instagram. Awesome. I'm going to listen to them all again and again, really recommend for exclamation points. Greetings from Bianca from Holland. Thank you, Bianca. Appreciate it. Do you know what's really annoying about Apple podcasts is that if you do a review on like Holland, Apple podcasts, then it will show like one review for Holland. But then if you go to Sweden, then it will like one review for Sweden. And so Apple doesn't consolidate reviews and around the world which is really annoying because there's like, a million countries. And most of my lessons are from us of a Canada and UK. But still there are listeners from many, many countries like I look at the stats on my podcast website thing, and I might what? There's some people listening from here and there. Wow, that's pretty cool. Hello that person who's listening from different countries around the world. I appreciate you. Yeah. So it's really helpful if you leave me a review because it spreads the word in your country. And even if you are in one of those boring countries like England, I still leave a review because you know, the more the merrier and apple and Stitcher and all that jazz more push it out. And hey, now my podcast is on Google music. Very fast. Hey. Yeah, so song Google music. So if that's your preferred way to listen, go do that. I've got oh my god.
YouTube premium. My life is so improved. YouTube, I watch loads of YouTube. Someone told me about YouTube premium a year ago. And I was like, that's such a great idea. But then I was like, I'm not spending like 10 pounds to get YouTube premium, even though I watch about 75 hours a day of YouTube, and hate ads. And so I don't know why my brain didn't be like, pay for fucking YouTube premium. You banana. Anyway, so I did and my life has increased in happiness percentage about 5,000%. Anyway, why I'm saying that is you can watch my podcast on YouTube and download it because if you have YouTube premium, you can download it. Listen to it on the go. If that's your preferred method of consuming podcasts and, and you can see the video there as well. Hey, I realized, you know, I realized I'm talking shit about my hair a lot. This bullshit is gonna stop. I'm not gonna I'm not going to tell you that. Oh, my hair looks a bit shit today. I wouldn't say things like that to people in real life. Like, I would be like, I don't fucking care about my hair. So I don't know why I'm telling you lat who you can't even see my hair anyway. Unless you want you to YouTube, so it doesn't matter. So I if you've noticed me talking shit about my hair being like my hands a bit lanky today, then I'm not gonna do that anymore. Because that ain't that ain't what I am about. Okay, so if you've been talking shit about your head, stop it. I do not approve of it any longer. Okay, so I created a fat phobia quiz. The first fatty fat phobia quiz so that people can understand how fat positive or how fat phobic they are. And now in this episode, trigger warning, the quiz. A lot of the statements are fat phobic statements, and then you say how much you agree and how much you disagree with it. And so there are fat phobic statements coming up. So if you don't want to even hear those fat phobic statements, which is totally understandable, then skip this episode, skip to like, the end of the episode. I don't know how many minutes this is going to be probably over an hour, skip to an hour, probably would have stopped talking about it. Or you just get the episode whatever. Yeah, so if that is is something that's triggering, you don't listen, but I'm going to share the results. And if you want to go and take the quiz, then go to the link in the show notes. Whatever you're listening on, there'll be a link there. And if you just want to go straight to the show notes, its face value.com forward slash 053. Or you can go to facebook.com forward slash fat phobia quiz to do get straight to the quiz if that's what you want, giving you everything you want gone.
And it's free of course. And yeah, so it'll tell you where you're at in your journey. So have you got rid of all our phobia you? Or is there still some stuff lurking in there? Or maybe you're just new on this journey and like how, you know, how ingrained is this stuff? Or maybe you think, hey, fat phobic, I've never been fat phobic. Go to take it, see what see it see what the outcome is? The results that I've got back from the quiz, I wanted to share with you all because it's really fun and interesting. And the reason why I wanted to do this quiz was because I see it really often that people say or people believe that they no longer have fat phobic beliefs. And a lot of the time they kind of do because Burt's because they're thinking about themselves, or others. If they think good of others, they think, Okay, well, I'm not fat phobic. But if they think bad about their own fat butt body, then they're like my nurses, I just hate myself. It's not nothing to do with it. Anyway. And so the there's four different outcomes for this quiz. Now, the first one is your fat positive. So that's one of the outcomes. The next one is, you're getting there. So you're not quite that positive, but you're not a fat phobe. So you're getting there. The third one is, you've got some work to do. So you've got more fat phobic beliefs, versus fat positive beliefs. And the fourth one is that oh, looks looks like you're pretty biased. And so that's basically you've got a lot of fat phobic beliefs. And by the way, if you do have fat phobic beliefs, it doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a human being that has been brought up in a fat phobic society, and you have internalized those fat phobic beliefs. So yeah, and it doesn't mean that you're a good person. If you're fat positive, it means that you have done some juicy work to try and change the way that your brain has been programmed by our fat phobic society. Or perhaps you were never fat phobic, which would be really strange. I have never come across someone who is doesn't have to unlearn their their fat phobia. If that is you tell me Oh, my God, I want to meet you. Because it'd be magical. So let me share the results. Okay, so we've got the four different outcomes. The first one, you're fat positive. So 27.3% of people who did this, this fat phobia quiz come it came out that they are fat positive. And by the way, 258 people have done the quiz so far released the quiz two days ago. So in two days ago, 258 people have done it. And this is what's what the data that we've got so far. So 27.3% of fat positive. Now that is going to be a lot higher than the general population. Now, it's my audience, it's taken a quit. So my audience, we're going to have a lot of fat positive people in my audience. And a lot of people are working to dismantle their own fat phobic beliefs. And so the data is skewed for my audience. So just remember, so I wouldn't say like 27.3% of the general population are fat positive. I wouldn't even want to hazard a guess. Because it would make me sad. But this is what we've got so far. Okay, so next, you're getting there. So this is kind of like the one below your fat positive, you're getting there. So more fat positive beliefs and fat negative is 19.2%. Okay, the one underneath that you've got some work to do. So you've got some work to do is you've got more fat phobic beliefs, and you have fat positive beliefs. And this is the biggest percentage of people. So that is 47.5% of people who took this quiz, who were in my audience are more fat phobic than they are fat positive, which is really interesting. But also really exciting that almost 50% of the people who took this quiz, have these beliefs that, you know, we're going to discuss in a minute what the questions are. But they're still in my audience. And they're hanging around listening to have fears batty. Like, that's pretty cool, right?
So the final 100 Looks like you're pretty biased, is 6.1%. So I would love to I would love to do this survey on just a general population. But I've done like a Google survey before, where you pay for people to you know, just random people to take a survey. And so I've done that before. But the questions you can ask when you're paying people for the results when he when it's been advertised, a very, very, very mild. And so this quiz has fat phobic statements, and you have to say whether you agree with them or you don't agree and so on a on a quiz that I couldn't get out to the general public. I couldn't say like the world would be a better place without fat people in it. Because, you know, I've tried it before and Google has said, now you can't ask it like that. Would you? is good is good, right? Because you'd get all sorts of wild questions being asked. Now we have How many questions did I ask? I think there's about 50 to a day what I could go on forever, you know, so if you do, I could go on forever. I had, like, so many questions, I had to keep taking them out, because I thought, you know, people are not going to want to do a quiz, it's going to take them 50 years. I'm just like, oh, this is a really important question. This is a really important question. And, yeah, so I had to really cut myself down. So 50 do like, that's pretty good. It easily could have been 100. And I'm sure a lot of people would want to do 100 questions, anyway. Because, you know, nerds like me that want to look at the data. And as well, the more questions you ask, because a lot of times you ask questions, the same question in different ways to really try and weed out the real answer. So when you're doing a quiz like this, you kind of want to make yourself look a little bit better than you probably aren't. Right? And so then if you ask the same question in different ways, eventually you might get, you know, kind of an average of where someone is, but I have said to people, be honest, you know, I'm not gonna be like, Oh, Mary from Massachusetts, or she's a real fat phobe, hey, here's our email address, go getter. Like it's anonymous, obviously, I'm looking at the statistics as a whole. But this is for you. It's not for me, your individual result. And so if you want to do the quiz, go and get that link, and do it. And be honest, because it's, it's, if you know where you stand currently, then you're able to work on it. And even if he does come out that you're fat positive, that doesn't mean that you don't have fat phobic beliefs, it just means in the 52 questions that I've asked you, I haven't uncovered a fat phobic belief, but they are still there. And they will still come up because we live in a fat phobic society. And you because you're a human being you're gonna be influenced. Same way, as you know me, you see me talking about how, you know, something came up, oh, my god, do you know, someone called my dog fat? And I was like, Oh, my God, he's not fat in my life. So it comes up, you know, and it doesn't mean that you're a good or bad person. Okay, so the questions, question one, I make a statement, and you have to decide either agree or disagree, disagree or strongly agree, agree. So how much do you agree with these statements, basically, and it's all the same. So same format all the way through? So the first question is, if I lost weight, that would make me healthy. And so this is pretty cool, because I thought a lot of people would say losing weight would make me healthy. 28% said agree. 7% said strongly agree, whereas
19% said strongly disagree, and 24% said, disagree. So it was really kind of like half and half there. On word losing weight, make me healthy. So that's cool to think that people are getting a more rounded view of what health is and how to get there and how weight and health are not necessarily absolutely linked. Again, next question, the fatter I am the left I am. So do you think that you're less attractive if you're fatter? And 41% said agree and 22% said strongly agree. And so this is a big one where people are like, Yes, I am less attractive when I am fatter. Only 9% said strongly disagree and 15% said disagree. So people believe that they are more attractive if they're smaller. Next question. It is quite possible to lose weight and keep it off long term. Now, again, this was cool, because a lot of people it's kind of like evenly dispersed. So 22% said strongly disagree. And 26% said strongly agree. And so it's kind of half and half of it is possible to lose weight and keep it off long term. By the way, it's not you know, you probably already know that, but just FYI. Okay, next question. I would be happier if I had a small body. Now this was a big percentage on agree which is 40% and strongly agree, which is 19%. So 59% of people said yes, they would be happier if they had a smaller body. Question five smaller bodies are genuinely generally more attractive than larger bodies. Especially to my body. And again, we've got 40% on agree and 21% on strongly agree. So that is 61% said fatter bodies are more attractive than smaller bodies. Six 7.46% said strongly disagree. Okay, next question. Having a body in the quote unquote normal weight category on the BMI means that you're probably healthy. And this is really cool because most people either strongly disagreed or disagreed that having a normal weight category on the BMI means that you're probably healthy. So 27.86 strongly disagree and 27.86 disagree, and only 5.97% strongly agree. So that's cool. Next, fat people tend to exercise less. Now this is kind of half and half. So 30% said disagree. And 29% said agree, fat people tend to exercise less. So it's kind of half and half on what people think about fat people exercising. Question Eight, I can see the beauty in fat bodies, but not my own. So this is a big one people say this to me all the time is that I think other fat people are beautiful. They're gorgeous, even people who have exactly the same bodies as me, but my fat body. No, it's no good. It's horrible. It's disgusting. I should lose weight. And so for this question that kind of echoed what, you know, my anecdotal experience has seen that 53% of people said agree or strongly agree. And only and 13% said strongly disagree. Next, being fat shows a lack of willpower. Now, this is cool, because 63% of people said that they either disagree or strongly disagree or strongly disagree that being fat shows a lack of willpower. Now seeing information like this really
makes me feel like, you know, the people who are you know, most of my audience are a step above being really fat phobic. So they have a lot of fat phobic beliefs, but also, they have some fat positive beliefs. Now this is what I'm understanding from this data is that a lot of people are able to see that fat people as a whole are not a monolith. And they're not, you know, lazy ingredient lacking willpower and never move their body on top of things. But the way that they view their own fat body doesn't align with those beliefs as much. Next question, 10. It would be better for society if there were less fat people. Now 37% said strongly disagree. 21% said disagree. 18% said agree and 10% said strongly agree. And so there was 28% of people that said that society would be better if there were less fat people. And to me that's horrifying. Like no. And oh is this It wouldn't be better if there were less fat people. So but still 58% said they disagreed with that statement. Now, I am more attractive when I have a small body. This is heavily on the agree. So 44% agree that they would be more attractive if they had a smaller body. And then 24% strongly agree, only 5.97% said strongly disagree. So when you 5% of my audience don't think that they would be more attractive with a smaller body, which I find really, really interesting. It kind of feels like maybe a lot of people who are fat positive, are are accepting of their body versus liking or even loving their body. And accepting is great, like because most people don't get to body acceptance. And so if that's you That's That's wonderful. And if that's your goal, that's wonderful if that's where you want to be. That's great. This data shows me that most people aren't at that place where they like, or even love their body or think that their body would be more attractive if it was smaller. Yeah, so interesting. Number 12. People with smaller bodies enjoy exercise more than fat people, people with smaller bodies enjoy exercise more than fat people. So most people said, disagree. 33%. And then the rest of the options were kind of all equal, apart from only 5% said strongly agree that fat people that smaller bodies, people enjoy exercise more than fat people. Okay, I am a burden on society society by being fat, or if I were to become fat. And so 60% of people said no, you're not a burden on society. If you're fat 8% said, strongly agree 18% said agree. So most people think that fat people are not a burden on society. Yeah, we're not okay, fat people only have themselves to blame for their weight. So this is another nice outcome that 64% of people said strongly disagree or disagree when it came to fat people only have themselves to blame for their weight. And 17% said, either agree or strongly agree. Number 15 smaller bodies tend to be healthier than bigger bodies. So this was similar. Most people kind of the results spread across across the number one result here was 28% said disagree. Smaller bodies tend to be healthier than bigger bodies. Being fat means that you're probably unhappy. Now, the most common result here was disagree. 32% said they disagree with the statement that being fat means that you're probably unhappy. That was my big thing is I always thought that there was something wrong with with that people, you know, like it, there was something wrong with our brains because I thought well, I'm like this around my brain.
Yeah, I had like, trauma and, and low self esteem and all sorts of stuff. And I was like, well, that's why I'm fat. No, no, no, no. So that's cool to see. Next one, I only tend to date people who are straight size slash smaller, or big and muscular to make me look smaller. And so most people disagreed with that, and 30% of people that will see biggest one disagreed. Question 18 It is not appropriate to comment on someone's size, but it's important to educate on the dangers of being fat. Now this is kind of results are mixed on here. But 34% said strongly disagree. 26% said disagree. 14% said strongly agree and 11 said agree. By the way, if you're doing the maths, and you're like, hang on, these aren't adding up to 100%. I'm not I'm not saying that neither agree or disagree stat because it kind of just whatever doesn't give us necessarily any information. So to make it up to 100 you do that's how you'd work out what the neither agree or disagree percentage, what's next one is understandable and reasonable that I would be treated badly, because I am fat or if I were to become fat, and 51% said strongly disagree, hurrah. And 29% said disagree. So most people said hey, it's not cool to treat fat fat people badly. Question 20 Generally speaking, being fat means that you have a mental or mental health issue that is manifesting in having a fat body this one gets on my tits so much. I used to believe this one so badly because I was all in like self development and really tried to like improve my life and all that type of stuff. And, and a big thing in like the self help arena is saying that if you're fat, it's because there's something wrong in your brain. And the fat is a manifestation of that malady something that's going on in your brain. And I totally believe that and so and because I believe that I just I felt even more embarrassed about my body because it was kind of like I was I the way I saw it was I'm a walking advertisement that there's something wrong with me. which is so fucked up. It's not true. It's not true at all, obviously. And whenever I'm cuz I still like self help stuff, and I like, you know, trying to make myself a better person and all that type of stuff. And it's so frustrating anytime you're like, oh, this person seems cool. And then when you read a book or something, and then you be like, Oh, if you're carrying weight, then you should really lose it. Because it's, it's just, you know, bad stuff manifesting on your body, and I'm just like, shut up. I'm gonna stab you in the face. Because it's bullshit. So does my audience believe it? Jen, generally speaking, being fat means that you have a mental health issue that is manifesting and having a fat body 35% strongly disagree. 28% disagree. 4.55% strongly agree. And 14% said agree, so 20% of people agree with that statement. And for God, I'd love to do maths here. Three to 50 like C 660 60. Something percent, like I cannot. I'm really not good at maths. As you can see.
60s something around 60 to 78% of people said strongly disagree, disagree. So 35 plus 28%. Okay, that people who accept their body as it is, as it is often ignorance, of the negative consequences of being fat, most people said, so 69% of people said that they strongly disagree or disagree with that statement, which is pretty cool. So that was the main, the biggest vote there. Now, this is an interesting question. It's okay to be fat, as long as you're healthy. Now, this is this is a statement that I see from people who think they are fat positive. And they like yeah, of course, be any size you want to be, you know, kind of like the bow poll people on Instagram who have no clue what body positivity is, and they're like, as long as you're healthy girl, you can be any size as you want, as long as you're healthy. And I'm like, shut the fuck up. You can be fat and unhealthy. It's okay. Like, there's no kind of, you know, requirement that it's only okay to be fat. If you are healthy. Like, that's a bullshit. So 33.33% said, agree. Hang on my dog. Google is deciding to block he says sorry for the interruption. So then if we went through 3% said, agree, it's okay to be fat, as long as you're healthy. And 8% said strongly agree. Now strongly disagree is 12 point 12%. And disagree is 20%. Now, this is kind of a tricky question. So some people might got have got kind of stuck on this question and said, It's okay to be fat. And they're like, Well, yeah, it is. And so then said, agree. And an awful Well, you know, it's important to say it's okay to be fat at any time. And so I agree with that statement. But then a fat folk might say, It's okay to be fat, as long as you're healthy. And they'd be like, No, it's not okay to be fat, as long as you're healthy, because it's never okay to be fat. So it's kind of a tricky question here. And we can't really take a lot from the results there. Because people could interpret that question. A lot of different ways. I might word it differently. So that it's clear that it means that the healthy fat people are okay. unhealthy fat people are bad. Yeah, that's how I'm gonna reword that one. Okay, loving your fat body means that you probably care about your health. And 37.8% said, agree, we have a big kind of neither disagree neither agree or disagree. 26% neither agree or disagree. And that's interesting, because honestly, we can't tell if you love your fat body, if you care about your health is reality but also being fat and loving your body. If you love your body, you probably care for it. And caring for it would mean doing health promoting things. Like I don't know reducing your stress or getting sleep or going to the doctor or whatever it is, that could be a health promoting activity, got writing on your roller skates, whatever it is. So for me, I would say you know, we can't tell if someone is into caring about their health by their body size, but also, if you do love your body, you're probably probably more likely to care about your health versus if you hate to your body. Because if you hate your body, you're probably doing things like dieting, which is very bad for your health. Which is not what diet companies tell us.
Yes, so next question, fat people are just as happy as those in smaller bodies, and mixed results there's neither agree or disagree was 31 Agree 30 and disagree. 21. So kind of people are like, I'm not sure about that fat people are just as happy. And then those in smaller bodies 2.99% said, strongly disagree. 12.94% said strongly agree. Now 25 I find people of all body sizes attractive. And I'm not attracted to people who will make my body look better, because they are big or small. And so 36% of people said they agree. Now, this is a big one. This is I think, the highest result that we've got here. Fat people deserve equal rights and access as all body sizes. And 91% said, Agree or strongly agree. And actually, it's 70.59% so strongly agree, which is really cool. That, you know, we've got this basic kind of fat people are, are humans and they deserve respect. We've almost got it down not perfectly, there's still 8% of people who are like, I don't know, I don't think fat people deserve equal access and all that type of jazz. Aren't you just asking for too much. This is click this is clear when I can't remember who the guy was. But it was like interviewing Trump supporters. And there's one from surface of what it was like, Well, what gay people they're asking for too much. They just want too much and ease and the report was like, when you say too much do you mean equal? And she's like, Yeah, that they're asking for equal and that is too much. Sales funny. Equal is too much the same as me. It's too much. Yeah, so 8% of people think having equal fat people having equal access and rights is too much, but 91% Sorry, 9% and 91%. Think we should be equal, okay, if I had a smaller body, I may be treated better by society, but I wouldn't be more happy. So I want to recognize that, you know, if you if you do have a smaller body, then life in certain ways would be easier. And if life is easier, therefore you could be happier. But if we take that out, and that that truth that life is easier if you have a smaller body, this is what people have to say. So 30% said, agree, I wouldn't be happier if I had a smaller body. 24% said strongly agree. 22% said disagree and 6% strongly disagree. So most people think you know what, actually I wouldn't be happier if I had a smaller body. Next question. Some people are naturally fat, and some people are naturally smaller. So we have a big agree, which is 40% that is the biggest one and only 10% on disagree. Next, I am lovable no matter what my body size is. 41% said agree. And 11% said disagree.
Fat people have the same amount of willpower as those in smaller bodies. This is another big for agree and strongly agree so agree and strongly agree here is 59%. So most people think that fat people have the same amount of willpower as a straight size people, fat people can and do enjoy exercise. So this was the biggest word total agree and strongly agree is 90% So 90% of people think that fat people can and do enjoy exercise. And 3% Say strongly disagree. nought point 5% Say disagree. So that's cool. People realize that fat people do move their bodies you know, this is fat people never maybe what their bodies ever and that's why they're fat. Next question, fat bodies are beautiful. The highest result here is 33.84% and they say agree. So most people agree or strongly agree. Question 33 Even the fattest people deserve the same treatment in society as those with smaller bodies. Now most people said strongly agree 65% And the next top result was agree at 24% Question 34 shaming my body size is not helpful. II Fun in a kind, slash gentle way. So most people fought strongly agree that shaming their body size is not helpful, strongly agree is 57%. The next result down is agree it is possible for me to be fat and have a wonderful life. And the top result here is agree at 37%. This is this is heartwarming weight is a complex issue. And 62.63% of people said, Yes, weight is a complex issue. And only 5% said they strongly disagree to that statement, which is cool, because you know, a lot of people are just eat less and exercise more. It's easy. But I think as a society, even with the fat phobes we're moving away from that, because that's kind of it feels very 1990s. You know, so old gold is a that people recognize that it's not easy, and it is complex. And I wouldn't go as far to say is that most of society recognize that diets don't work, but a much larger percentage than 10 years ago. And in 10 years time, I think that we'll have that kind of 5% of people will say diets work. And then diet culture will have been like, really double down on. But this die isn't a diet. Do you know how they're doing that now this diet isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle change. And people were saying, of course, diets don't work. But I think that will become more and more kind of standard. Of course, diets don't work. Now saying that. It's so interesting, saying that such a large percentage of people say it's a complex issue. The next question is losing weight is not possible for the vast majority of people. And for this one, we really have an equal spread of of the answers. So 23% said strongly disagree. And 22% said agree. And 20% said strongly agree 19% said disagree. So about 20% for each of the answers of losing weight is not possible for the vast majority of people. So people are saying yeah, it's complex, but there's kind of a mixed range on but it's possible for most people, number 38 You can be fat and healthy. Most people said agree. So 38.81% said agree the next top answer was strongly agree.
39 I know it's not appropriate to judge others, including myself on body size, but I do it. Anyway. Top answer is agree 44.78. And next top answer is strongly agree with 20%. So 64% of people judge themselves and others, even though they know it's not appropriate. I'm gonna be talking about that and what these findings mean, once we've we've finished with the questions, this one I found really interesting, it's just not a good idea to be fat. And most people agreed with that statement. So 26% of people agreed 23% said strongly agree. 14 strongly disagree 18 disagree. So most people say it's just not a good idea to be fat. And that one is kind of like there's no reason there's no kind of because of this or whatever or it's just they just don't think it's good to be fat, which I think that really gets to the core of it right? It's just not good to be fat. Why? Why? Because society says that fat bodies are yucky and gross. That'd be fat. Okay 41 I can be fat and healthy 35% which the highest of agree next highest strongly agree. Next, if I put on weight, it wouldn't be that big a deal. The highest one here is disagree 45 percents a disagree it would be a big deal. 43 the thought of becoming fat or fatter? fills me with anxiety. 43% said agree 27% said strongly agree question 44. I judged myself negatively if I put on weight It's 45% said agree. And 25% said strongly agree, I judged myself negatively if I put on weight. And isn't that interesting, because we've established that people think that weight is a complex issue. But they still judge themselves if they put on weight. It doesn't make sense, right? engage in activities that could potentially lead to weight gain, makes me anxious. So 43% said, agree. But the second, the second top answer is disagree with 23%.
Still kind of half the amount there, but you know, most people agree. And that's really interesting, because so when I, when I thought about activities, it's kind of like, well, what activities could potentially lead to weight gain. I'm thinking about people fixing their relationship with with food. And so that's what I was thinking about when I asked that question, but people can interpret that any way that they want, and it's not will lead to weight gain, could potentially lead to weight gain. And so people, people were anxious about that. So next, the thought of being able to magically become smaller, makes me excited, slash happy most people said, Yes. This bit the thought of being magically able to become smaller. 32% said, agree, 28% said, strongly agree, only 4% said strongly disagree. Number 47. So we've got three questions left. I just feel better in my body when it is smaller slash not fat. So 42% said, agree, 34% said strongly agree, and only 3% said strongly disagree. 7% said disagree. People say this a lot. I just feel better when my body is smaller. And I'm really interested in what, what is behind that? Is it because they can feel different parts of their body if they're fatter? Or because clothes fit differently, or having a bigger body doesn't feel good? Like I'm always curious about why why is that? Question 48 I want to lose weight top answer. Agree 41%. Number two is strongly agree with 31% 6% so strongly disagree. I only want to lose weight, because I have a health condition. Most people said disagree. 46% the number to answer is neither agree or disagree at 21%. A lot of what this information is telling me is that it's not necessarily about health at all. It is probably about appearance, which is one of the you know, although your parents questions, it's like, yeah, appearance is appearance. Number 50 putting on weight doesn't change my body confidence levels. Most people disagree 46% number to answer is strongly disagree. 30% 3.78% said strongly agree. Number 50 word I rarely judge my body if it is fat, or if I put on weight. Most people 45% said disagree the top the second top answer is 34%. Strongly disagree. And final question is I really should just lose weight. Top answer here is 37%. Agree. Next Top answer is strongly agree 18.23%. So just a reminder on what the outcomes were. First outcome is your fat positive. Second outcome is you're getting there so fat positive is you have mostly fat positive beliefs you're getting there is you have more fat positive beliefs than you do fat phobic beliefs, you've got some work to do is the next outcome. You've got some work to do is you've got more fat phobic beliefs and you do have fat positive. And the last outcome is Uh oh, looks like you're pretty biased. That means you have mostly fat phobic beliefs. And so the highest percentage the biggest score was you've got some work to do which is more fat phobic beliefs and fat positive and that was 47.5% of people. Your fat positive is 27.3 You're getting there which is more fat positive than fat negative is 19.2 Who? And oh, looks like you pretty biased is 6.1. So they were the outcomes. Now what I am taking from that, is that number one, the number one takeaway is that we judge ourselves more harshly than others by a longshot.
We think it's okay for others to be fat, generally speaking, but for ourselves, Oh, hell no, no, it's not okay for me to be fat. And that's why fat phobia is so sneaky because you think that fat people are cool. And you think yeah, no, you know, freedom to everyone just to be fat, whatever, no big deal. I think fat people are beautiful. But for you know, and that's still fat phobic. If you're thinking about you know, I don't want to be fat. That's fat phobia.
You are playing the game. The game being diet, culture, fatphobia racism, sexism, colonialism, you know, all of those oppressive forces that say, These people are better than these people, these people are at the top of the hierarchy. White men, able bodied, cisgendered, straight sized, straight, all of that type of stuff. So you're, you're in that game like you don't think it's right for other people to play the game. So imagine if you have like a chessboard. And you see this chessboard is a fucked up game. Like it is bad for everyone involved apart from the one person who's at the top. So anyone else who plays a game? They fail, and so used for other people, you're like, that's not okay. That game is not okay. I'm not buying into that game. That's fucked up. That game is bad. Stay away from it everyone else. But then you're in there playing the game. Like you're like, Oh, yeah. But it's okay. For me. I hold myself to these standards, I hold myself to the standards that are fat phobic, and racist and sexist and problematic in so many different ways. But you don't realize it, the house always wins, you know that the house always wins. Like if you're again, if you if you're in gambling, like for me, I just gambling, I just think if you do it, if you just you're doing it, you're doing it not not to win, but for the experience, because chances are you're not going to win, right? And so like when I went to Vegas, Vegas was totally lost on me because I spent, I did one bet for for like a couple of bucks. One $20. And I was like done. That's it. I'm done. Taking my money, not betting again, because I knew if I bet again, because I was like, Oh, I won. I just lose the money. And so I thought Fuck it, I'm not going to do it again. And it's like this, like this game that we are playing. It's like we might win to begin with. But at the end, we're going to lose money because the house always wins. And maybe we get into debt to try and win the money back and all that type of stuff. And it's like it's dieting, right? It's like dieting, you might get that first initial win. I think yeah, I'm, I'm gonna win. I'm going to, I'm going to get to the top of the ladder, the ladder in society that says thin bodies are better, but then you lose, because it's built that way for you to lose because the house always wins. And if you think about you know who the Quizmaster is, the Quizmaster is someone like Donald Trump. And so Donald Trump's like, Hey, I've got this game you want to come play? You like oh, no, he's clearly gonna be a cheater. And he's a piece of shit anyway. But, you know, no, because I know the game is rigged in his favor. And I don't want to play with his rules, because his rules are fucked up. So, you know, we're saying when we judge ourselves, we're in the game, and saying that the game is legitimate and good, because we're playing it. But when we think about it, we're like, oh, no, no, actually, is not. Because we can see it's not good for other people. So we have this rigid, rigid expectation of ourselves, that is not based in reality. It's like, we think that we we the way we perceive ourselves, it's, it's like, we're the worst boss ever. We don't think about what's going on with our feelings, our past history, our hopes and dreams. What's important for us, the way that we judge ourselves, we're just like, under give a shit about all that you better get thin, it's not okay that you're fat. Your body looks like shit. Whereas when you look at other people, you think, Well, you know, I don't know, like, what's going on with them? You know? Who knows? I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt. You're just more generous. Right, you're just more of a normal human being with other people, when it comes to yourself, you just a complete trap to yourself, right? We all do it. And the way that I see it in regards to self development, the way that I see it in regards to self development and the evolution of your own levels of judgment is the to begin with people, if they have lower self esteem, they do a lot of judging of others, aggressive don't judging of others, they may even go out of their way to tell people that they are bad for whatever reason, like and my trolls. And this is something that I've done, when I was younger, I was so fucking judgmental, and so self righteous, I would look down my nose upon lots of different people and be like, Oh, they're so this and that, and I would always feel so superior. But really, of course, what we know is underneath that unless you're a sociopath, or psychopath, or whatever, is that really, there's a deep lack of self esteem underneath that. And so that's kind of the next level is you stop, you say, okay, me judging other people, you know, me being such a fucking dick is not good. And then you realize what's underneath that is massive judgment for yourself. And then you start working on that, and you let go of, so you let go of judging others, and then you try and let go of judging yourself. And so that's like a three stage evolution that I see is like, judging others, judging others and judging yourself, let go of judging others, just judge yourself, and then eventually let go of judging yourself. And it's not going to be perfect, right? Because you're always going to judge yourself like, yeah, and you're also always going to judge other people. Like,
over me, I try. And of course, I judge people all the time. It's part of being human brain, you being you make judgments every single second to make sure you know, is this person safe? Is this person, a friend, you know, whatever. But when I see myself judging people who have no right for me to judge them, for example, like there's other people who do something similar to me on the internet, I won't name names, but when I see them, I'm like, unfollow them, because I'm just like, I don't like them. And then I, it will bother me, and then I'll think, why am I why am I bothered by this person? And my brain was like, I hate her. She's a rival. She's better than you, whatever. And I'm like, Okay, what's going on, you know, and then and then underneath that, I'll be like, I'm jealous of her. I'm jealous of her. I think that, that she's more successful. And she's got more recognition that I than I have, and, and it's because she's better than me, or she's smarter than me. And she's got, she's got like, a degree in this stuff. And I don't or, or she's got more followers than me, or they have more followers than me. And then I make it mean something about me, which is really what's at the root of this, right? Is having low self esteem around a certain area, and then I'll be like, Okay, does this one person success mean that I am less worthy? No. Does that one person success mean that what you're doing is a great thing, and lots of people want to hear it? Yes. It's a good thing, right? And then I'm just like, okay, you know, come on Victoria. Don't be silly sort of thing. But you know, it comes up from time to time and, and you kind of have to catch catch it. And when you're judging yourself, catch it, and work out what's really going on? I guess. So the other things I took from this survey is, we don't think that people are a burden. We don't think that weight loss is simple. And long term weight loss is possible. But we have mixed reviews on if losing weight at all, is possible, which it is. So I'm going to reword that question because losing weight is possible. It's whether you can keep it off long term. We don't think that weight loss will make us help it healthy and the BMI is not an indicator of health. So that's cool. We think our own fat bodies are unattractive. Or we think that if we're fatter, we are unattractive. We are 5050 on whether we think fat people exercise less than thin people but acknowledge that fat people do exercise. A big one. Being fat does not show lack of willpower. This is what the mind interpretations of the results. We don't think fat people are inherently unhappy. A big one is that fat people should not be treated badly in society. And fat people should have have equal rights and so that was the biggest answer. 92% say that fat people should have equal rights, but health ism is still a problem. So being fat as long as your health The 56% say agree, or strongly, strongly agree. But the biggest thing from here is understanding that we're just so hard on ourselves. Or we know we think that we are fat positive, but then when we look at it, we are so fat phobic against ourselves, it's quite staggering. And to recognize that just because you think it's okay for other people to be fat, but you think that your body is not good, when it's fat, that still fat phobia. And if you're fat is internalized fat phobia. And we need to work on that because it's not okay. And it's not fun to, to walk around the world and be able to celebrate other people and be like, vulnerable. I'm disgusting. That's not fun. It'd be cool. If you can be like, look at that person over there. They're great. And look at me, I'm pretty cool, too. You know? And of course, for the people who were, you know, fat phobic to everyone. That's a big thing that you need to overcome. Because do you want to be biased? You might want to be biased. I personally don't want to be biased or be a bigot. And this is a great way to work out where you're at. So that you can then go I'll shit okay, okay, okay. I'm not doing as well as I thought, or Oh, actually, I've done I've done a lot of work on my thoughts and, and whatnot. Now.
I've shared all the questions in this. In this episode, I might change them. Like I said, I'm gonna change a couple of ones because, you know, we've kind of smoothing out the edges, because the way that we interpret questions can be different. So I want to, you know, some questions will be different, but now you know, the answers, don't go and try and do some pretend responses. If you go and do this quiz, Toby like, actually, I'm fat positive. I love all fat people, including myself, and I never think bad thoughts about fatties. And if your reality is like, I fucking hate fat people, it's not helpful for you, right? Because this is for you to work out where you're at, in your dismantling, fatphobia journey. So if you want to do the quiz and see where you fall into where you are at, then go to the show notes. Or you can go to facebook.com forward slash fat phobia quiz. And it's free, but we take about five minutes, depending on if you're doing other shit at the same time, then it'll probably take longer. Yeah, and feel free to share your results with me. If you're if you're happy with them, or you're not or whatever, then yeah, go. Tell me what's what's what, and it's kind of interesting to find out all this stuff, isn't it? Stopping? So hiding us now? Okay. I'll stop being hard on myself. You stop being hard on yourself. We'll all stop being hard on ourselves. Everyone will be happy walking around saying I'm amazing. Life is good. And that's what we want. Okay. Well, thanks for hanging out with me this episode. I so appreciate it. And I will see you next time on the podcast. I'm going to say, Hey, this is what something that I say tatty by. That's something that my mum says to us tatty by TA TT. Why? Don't know what it means. But in our family, we say tatty bye to each other. Is it? Does anyone else say that? Maybe if you're Scottish or Irish? You might say chatty boy. So anyway, chatty by to you. Thanks for hanging out with me and stay fierce fatty
thanks for listening to the episode and if you feel ready to get serious about this work and want to know when the doors open to fierce fatty Academy which is my signature program, where I teach all about how to overcome your fat phobic believes and learn to love your fat body, then go to first fatty.com forward slash waitlist again that is fierce fatty.com forward slash waitlist to get your name on the waitlist. For when first fatty Academy my signature program opens
