Fatmisia: Exploring our Anti-Fat Bias, Body Justice, and Mental Health

1:06PM Oct 11, 2024

Speakers:

Megan Speciale, PhD

Keywords:

fat liberation

body justice

mental health

generational trauma

diet culture

fat phobia

body positivity

fat mizia

disability justice

fat liberation

body autonomy

fat acceptance

fat bodies

fat bias

fat representation

Music.

Hello and welcome to the thoughtful counselor, a podcast dedicated to bringing you innovative and evidence based counseling and mental health content designed to enhance your life, whether you're a clinician, supervisor, educator, or a person wanting to learn more about the counseling process. We are here to demystify mental health through conversations with a wide range of counseling professional powerhouses. In each episode, you'll learn about current issues in the field, new science and real life lessons learned from the therapy room. Thank you for joining us on our journey through the wide world of counseling. There's a lot to explore here, so sit back, take a deep breath, and let's get started.

Welcome to the thoughtful counselor. This is Margaret Lamar, and I am here today with Gianna Russo mitma. She is a counselor who does work with fat liberation, and we are going to dive into it today. Welcome, Gianna. I want to get started and ask you how, tell us how you came into the profession of counseling and what led you here. Tell us a little bit of your journey.

Awesome. I'm really excited to be here. Thanks. Margaret, so what led me into counseling, I think probably similar to a lot of folks, felt like the therapist of the friend group, and I just really felt like I wanted to be a safe place for people, hoping to continue to be a safe place for people. But I also really I loved hearing people's stories like, I think my family would probably call me nosy. But I really love hearing people's stories and being like, a non judgmental space. I think we all wished we had that a person growing up and young adulthood that we could have, like this safe place where we weren't going to get judged for literally anything we could say. So I think, I think this journey into being a therapist, being, you know, in count, in the counseling profession, has been really like a thing I've been in love with for such a long time. I changed my major a bunch of times in college, and then finally came back to this and thought, nope, I'm doing it. We're going, we're going all in. So yeah, and then the specialties, I'm sure we'll talk about, but it's, it's really been things. I was telling students in the class today that you end up sometimes specializing in the things that you hold near and dear, either to your heart, or things that you've been through. And so they just sort of happen sometimes. Yeah, so

tell us a little bit about the clinical work you're doing now, and who types of clients you see you're setting that kind of thing.

Yeah, so I work in private practice fully now. I'm also a counselor educator. I'm an adjunct at a couple of schools, and so in my private practice, I see a lot of folks. I see only adults now. I used to work with kids and teens for many years. I think pandemic switched that over quite a bit, but I'm in private practice. I work a lot with family dynamics, generational trauma. I work a lot with adult children, with parents or caregivers with some narcissistic tendencies, specifically with the adult children of those caretakers. And I work a lot with folks in fat bodies or bigger bodies, whatever language clients use. I use the term fat body. I'm in my fat body myself, so I use kind of whatever the language clients use is. But I work a lot with generational trauma through the narrative lens of like, what were some of the narratives taught to you as a child, about yourself, about who you are, and how can we change those narratives to maybe be a bit more meaningful for you and your life, and a bit more that match the narrative of you?

Yeah, I love all that. Okay, so let's dive into it, because you and I met, actually, well, I think we met multiple times, but we really connected on this at this was, which is a regional counselor education conference that we go to, and you and I met when we were talking about a counseling women X class, or women's class, women's emotional health and mental health issues, and you, we asked if you would come speak to our class, and you did about women and their bodies. And so I just loved this. I loved your your your talk. So so much, and I have thought about it a lot since then. And you know, we see so much around bodies, and we have for a really long time, this is not a new conversation, but it just feels like we're entering, you know, the next phase of it. So talk to me, talk to tell us about what led you to working with people. And I don't think it's just women, but people in their bodies. Right. Fa liberation, tell us how you got here.

Cool. Oh, thanks. Oh, I loved, I think, yeah, we've met along the road a couple of times, but I really loved meeting at the conference. But yeah, coming into this Yes, you're right. I see folks of all genders, of all ages, you know, 18 on up now, obviously, and not one person doesn't bring up body. I know that's my specialty, but it comes up so often. I think what led me there give a little bit of my history. You know, I love my hometown. I'm originally from Las Vegas. I live in Oregon. I live in Portland, but Vegas, you know, if anybody's been there, it's a pretty visibly, you know, visible place where there's a lot of it's sort of the culture of how you look and perfection of bodies. And we'll get into some capitalism stuff, but a bit of that too, right? And I think growing up as a kid who, you know, activation warning for listeners like who absolutely did Weight Watchers as a teenager, and tried to, you know, calorie counting, all the things that diet culture tells us to do, because, you know, I was, you know, the negative word of fat, which I don't think is a negative word, like coming through this journey I understand, like, that's just a word. And, yeah, I am fat, but I'm also a million other things too. And so I think I really could have just used that as a teenager. I'm sure a lot of teens can, can use some of this growing up. And I'm so excited for the coming generations because the confidence and the lessons that I'm learning now as an adult they're getting to learn as teens. And I'm really excited for what the future holds for for them and for us and for future generations. But just really, like, I think I moved and I as I got older and got more confident in myself, became more confident in my body, and realizing, like, oh my gosh, like, my body can do so many amazing things, and being fat is not holding me back from a lot of things. Like, you know, and I think when I was young, it held me back from just enjoying myself, sometimes, not all the time, but I just thought, yeah, I need to change this. So I think, you know, I love my hometown, and growing up with, you know, showgirls on posters and perfect little bodies, and there's nothing wrong with small bodies. I think just me growing up as a fat kid that was really hard, and diet culture was very real and alive, and it's still real life everywhere. But that led me to this, and I realized it was just coming up so much for clients. And then, of course, pandemic came, and, you know, activation warning, but it's like, if you're not working out in your free time, then what are you doing? And you're like, Okay, first of all, capitalistic, please don't put productivity when we're all going through this like collective trauma. And two, if you were a therapist or counselor during the pandemic, I don't know what free time meant, right? So I just thought, really kind of boom in that sense. And it's exciting to be on this side of the journey of it now, and where would I get to, where and attend, what I want to attend and show up, how I want to show up. And, yeah, it's been liberating. And I really well, I would love that for everybody in their bodies.

Yeah, absolutely okay. So I feel around this topic, it's very overwhelming because, mostly because of the internet. So we explain all of our problems on the internet, but I think especially you know this, the you know, whatever algorithm is showing to me, I see a lot of different things, especially on social media, around body positivity and diet culture and anti fatness and fat limeration. And so can you break down these, some of these terms for us and talk about what they mean. You know, what do you prefer to use? Is there a wrong way to talk about this? You know, I know in counseling, we can get nervous about terms changing and whether we're using something that's outdated. So talk us through a little bit of the kinds of terms that we see in the in the in the general public around this topic,

yeah, such a good question, even as you're saying that, I want to preface this with I don't know everything you know, and it's quickly changing, especially the internet, right? Like word spreads quickly, but I think that we're changing so quickly, and this podcast, five years ago, we would have had something different. And even talking in your class once a year, I change my info a little bit each year, and that's just, you know, 365, days. And so as we sit here in like, late 2024, this podcast on this topic could be so different in five years or 10 years at least, you know. And so as of right now, it's, I think, I also think folks are maybe a little worried to be like, I'm not using the right terminology, so I shouldn't be talking about it. And I think it's really like, Let's encourage people to just talk about it. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to say the right thing or the wrong thing, whatever. And what I use for terms of my body, my. Be different from you, from every person who's listening, and so I think that's a big piece of it, right? Is like the verbiage is changing so quickly that it's okay to make a mistake. And that goes for a lot of things, anyways, but we've really moved away from, like, as a collective unit. I think we, a lot of us, have moved away from this sort of body positivity thing. I think that was where we started, right? It was like, This is what we needed. That's absolutely what I had on my website. And then as we learn new terms and new meanings, we change those things, right? So body positivity, you know, it's a good place to start if people aren't sure of the language, and it can come across and Sonia Renee Taylor talks about this in the body's not an apology about how it can be toxically positive to go that route. And we kind of know what that is, as counselors and therapists, and because your body is it is just you know your body to not maybe we don't want to encourage this sort of preoccupation with just like appearance. Only, you know, body positivity. Some days we don't like our bodies. You know, some days I'm like, Oh, my back hurts and I just slept wrong. You know, especially as we get older, like, some days we don't love our bodies. Sometimes, you know, cramps hurt worse for for people with periods, sometimes, you know, our joints hurt. Sometimes we're not, you know, oh, I could do that hike a year ago, but I can't do that hike today. I need to, like, work up muscle on it, or whatever it is, or not, everybody's body has the ability to do everything. So I think when we're focused on body positivity, you're like, it's positive, and it doesn't make us question the societal issue and oppression of, like, anti fatness, right? And that mizia, I learned, I forgot who it was, and I'm so sorry, and I want to cite this person. It was one of my first races conferences, but they had said, instead of like, fat phobia, that fear of is that mizia is the Latin for hatred of, so it's really, like fat mizia. So instead of like, transphobia, homophobia, it's queer mizia. And so I thought that was a really cool thing to learn that like, yeah, people are afraid of being fat for, you know, ridiculous reasons we can get into. But I think, like, we need to question those systems, and not just like, my body's great. Some days my body's not great. Some days she's great. I love her. But I think that preoccupation with individuality when really it's a system of, like, hating fat people that we need to work on, right? And then the terminology of fat liberation, I you know, it's not about like, people that the O word, which I'm not even going to say in here, right? That the O word that people don't use, it's tied to BMI. It's very much like, you know, well, we don't want to be that. And you're like, Okay, first of all, everybody's bodies are different, and there are so many worse things to be than like, what your body looks like, you know. So when we talk about fat liberation, we're not like, I don't think people should be encouraging anybody to be like in a certain body. Like, sometimes your body just is what your body is. And like, we also have genetics and like, you know, it is just like where our bodies are at sometimes. And trauma can change our body. And positive thing, like positive experiences can change our bodies. So fat liberation is really, like, allowing people to just, like, be in their bodies as they are as humans, so that we're not putting so much focus on, like, how you look, you know? Yeah. So I think, I think that's a big piece of it, but there is, yeah, diet culture goes into that as well. And I think the other word that you said was, like, that anti fatness, right? It's that. It's this, like, last thing that we can make fun of people about, which is terrible. You know, in media, we're like, goodness, if you, you know, make jokes about other identities, like, it's never been okay, but it's, it's that sort of, like, you can still make fat jokes, which is ridiculous. And so that's that kind of anti fatness that it you know, that we keep seeing in the media, and I think it is changing. I was talking with a friend about, I don't know if anybody's watching bridgerton, so spoiler, but just seeing folks of all different body sizes, and the season, it was, it was fun to say I know that the actress has talked about not wanting to focus on her body. And I love that. And it's nice to see like a tummy in, like a sex scene on bridgerton, and I watched it for the first time, and I sobbed because I was like, oh, in my mid 30s, I've never seen that in, like a lead actress of a show in a sex scene, and like her tummy looks like mine. Was great. So I think that's hopefully where we're moving to,

yeah. Oh, I love that. I It's interesting. There have been so many more points in the popular culture where we've seen larger bodies, fatter bodies. I think about shrimp. I think about now just, you know, just even on regular shows, not even shows that are specifically not maybe focused on that, but centering that. You know, we just see so many more different types of bodies and things going on. And so I love that, that we have changed, and we're continuing to see that change, and I'm curious about what your thoughts are, about how our field mental health, how is it moving along or not moving along with that change? In terms of how counselors are viewing fat folks and working with this folks, I'm just curious about what your I mean. We see a lot of criticism about the medical community, our counselors a little closer to that than we'd like to be, or where, I don't know, where do we where do you see us in space right now?

It's a great question, okay, I want to go into that, but I thank you for mentioning shrill. Actually, I think that's so important. I was gonna say I had that extra that that Beachbody scene where they're all at the pool and they're all so I got to be an extra in that show. And I tell you, it was amazing that day, though, like being in a space in a two piece bathing suit with people who looked like me. We're smaller than me, we're bigger than me, we're differently abled than me. Was like, just like, one of the best days ever, truly, because I look at that and it's like, oh, it's not, it's not that I'm uncomfortable in my body. It's that the comparison to other bodies is the hard piece of the system. So it was, a lot of breath of fresh air to like, yeah, be in a pool and be in a pool party kind of scene with a bunch of fat people in their bathing suits. And it was, it was really fantastic. So I wanted to Yeah. And I've heard anybody Yeah,

it's, oh, it's, so that's such an incredible scene. It sticks out so strong in my brain. And I have heard a lot of people who have said that was like a life changing experience for them, was watching a scene of so many bodies and in a space that was completely safe and inclusive and joyful. So

glad, yay. That makes me happy for the people who were in it and the people watching it, definitely it felt like that. So that's great. Okay, so yeah, on the question of where are we as a community, I wonder if there's a geographical thing to this also, right? Like, I'm in Portland, Oregon, where nobody, nobody cares what you what you're wearing, what you look like. There's like, really no judgment of fashion, of style, of size, of ability, and I'm sure not everybody, right? That's too much of a generalized statement. But from where I'm coming from originally, nobody really cares, you know? And so I think maybe in certain communities, it looks easier, and it is easier in different bodies. And I still am aware, you know, when I look at some listservs and stuff like, it's still, there's still really, like, you know, not everybody can do a walking session, right? When we talk about food and we talk about bodies and we talk about, there's still people who like not to call them people out. I'm definitely not going to name names. But like, you know, we can look on Psychology Today, and like, weight issues is still on there, and I don't think it means what I think it means. And so, you know, we see things that are touting, kind of like, CBT to lose weight, and you're like, don't put that on mental health. That's not fair, you know, because our job is not to help people lose weight, gain weight, any you know, unless you're working in, like, obviously, like an eating disorder clinic, and there's a whole mental health piece of that, right? Like, that's not, but that's not my job, um, and so even so, that's a whole other conversation, probably, but I would like to think that we're moving toward it, and I still kind of can see we as individuals, counselor therapists are not need to really investigate and assess where we are in our own fat mizia Fat phobia, right? Because we could be even having opinions that we don't even realize are not organic thoughts, right? Even questioning, I've been questioned about when I had an office in person. I'm all telehealth now, but I used to put candy out and somebody be like, that's really unhealthy to pick candy out. And I'd be like, well, first of all, I don't think there's an unhealthy, healthy like, it's candy. And sometimes I need a little treat during the day, by the way, but sometimes people want a little treat, you know, and it's, you know, if you know you can't have sugar because of a medical reason, don't eat the candy, right? But I remember just getting so much criticism from for that on like a on a listserv thing, and I think that, you know, we need to. Am in our own our own biases. We're humans. We're going to have biases, but it's just so ingrained that fat phobia is so ingrained in everything we do, of like, Oh, I was bad and had a piece of candy today. Like, Nope, you're not a bad Nope. That's not how that works. You're not bad because you had candy. Or even off the cuff things of saying, like, oh, had a big old lunch. Let's do a walking session. I gotta walk it off. It's like, that's fine if you want to walk and digest your food. Love that for you, and let's not put that on our clients, right? So if clients even say things that are accidentally or intentionally fat phobic, maybe let's explore that, right or correct it somehow in a call in, there's a lot of examples. None are coming to mind right now, of course, but I think, I think we just, like need to continually do our own work in all topics, right? But just examine what are some of the biases that we still have and can accidentally come out and potentially harm a client.

Yeah. So can you talk more about, I know you've from a conversations we've had. I know you talk a lot about how we can think about eliminating anti fat bias from our work, especially using maybe a disability justice lens. I'm not sure if that's still the lens you use when you're doing this work, but I'm just thinking about, you know, counselors looking, look doing this work, like, how can they really think about that anti fat bias and how that comes into the work they're doing with clients?

Yeah, such a great question. I think there's things we can do, like mental health and psychologically wise and then, like our physical space, right? Like telehealth, I'm always about, you know, if people want to get into a space where they're comfortable at I allow people to eat in session. Same thing in class. I allow students to eat in class, I'm like, You nourish your body today. I was getting like, a little like it was, it was hot today, and I was like, I need a snack really quick while I'm teaching. So I encourage, like, if you need to nourish your body and feed your body, or if you need to get up and move around with me on your iPad or phone or laptop or whatever. Great. Please take care of your body, because I'm not in charge of your body. You're in charge of your body, which I think can go into, like the autonomy piece, right? The space, if you're in a physical space, you know, your your lobby, your office, making sure that your chairs and your couches are big enough, right, not to have arms on chairs. I'm literally sitting in a chair right now that doesn't have arms on it, and it's a pretty wide seat. It's great for me. And, yeah, making sure you don't need, you know, arms on your chairs, if they are, that they're pretty, you know, wide chairs. Then imagining if you have a couple or a family or a relationship in which there's 234, people in your office that they can all fit on your couch. And if you're you know office is a big enough a couch and a couple of chairs, right? But if two folks in a couple or three folks in a relationship, however many, let's just use like a small office couch of like two people, if two fat folks can't fit on your couch, let's think about it. And I know that's a financial thing for us as therapists and counselors, too. And also if that's going to be the folks that you're seeing, and even if you're not intending to see folks, everybody's in a different body, psychologically, I I like to, as does great associate Association for Size, diversity and health, and they talk about haze, which is Health at Every Size. And there's a historical thing around haze that folks can research on their own, but with haze Health at Every Size, I really come into those sessions, in any session, making sure that I am being inclusive about weight when I talk about, you know, because moving our bodies is good for our mental health, I make sure That not say like exercise or work out, because for folks, including myself, those words growing up were like, workout, so you don't so you're not bad, you know? And when I say it, I'm like, no, just like, get outside, get some fresh air, you know, like moving our bodies, because moving our bodies helps us process through things like grief, like anxiety, like depression, moving my body during a grief I had last year later really helped. Like, going on multiple walks a day. That's not even my norm, like one walk a day, right? If that my little short, little mental health walk, or, like walking your pets, right? It's just about moving. Move your body a bit, right? Get up and get out of the space that you've been in all day, especially if you've been in front of a computer screen. Maybe advocating with clients. I've done this a lot where, like you've mentioned the medical system, whether it works or not, for a couple of clients, I've gotten an ROI, a release of information to be able to talk with their physicians and say, you know, hey, every time you weigh them when they come in, it makes them not want to come in. Or maybe they have said that multiple times and and obviously asking client if this is what they would like. And, you know, it's maybe like, there's a chance of, like a professional to another professional, maybe someone will listen. Can't promise it, obviously, but. Saying, you know, like they're not going to come in if you keep doing this, if you you know, offering people, I'm not even going to name things, but weight loss, drugs, without even asking what their appetite is, what they're eating. So I'm happy to help clients practice those advocacy remarks to their doctors. Or if you want me to sign an ROI, I'm happy to talk with your doctors as well. I think the piece around movement and not saying if one thing is good or bad. So we don't want to automatically assume that if someone loses weight, it's a good thing, right? It might mean either an illness or mental health stuff we don't know. Same thing with gaining weight. Like, if you're not the person, you know, it's important, your doctors are going to ask those questions anyway. So know that going in. And also, like, maybe we just, like, if we're not their doctor, and also their doctor, maybe we start stop having opinions about everybody's body, you know. So if a client says, I'm trying to lose weight, I might just move it into, how are you trying to move your body? Like, how, you know, what? What foods do you like to eat? You know, what makes you feel better, instead of, like, what's healthy, right? I know for myself, like, I'm over 30, if I have dairy, it's not going to feel so great, so I'm going to have oat milk instead, right? And so I think it's in that, and that's not even in my job, but if clients bring it up, being open and not, yeah, not immediately judging to judgment, obviously, being curious, yeah,

I love that. So can you talk to us about what this looks like, sort of practically in your interventions and your work with clients?

Yeah, absolutely. So I went to school to become an LMFT, but I teach in counselor programs, so it's fun to see these theories, sort of like, you know, I've learned different ones in school, but I've also learned new ones from students, which has been fun. So I am a I come from a Bowen perspective and a narrative perspective. I use a little bit of ifs. I realized I've been using ifs as narrative for a very long time. So when I learned ifs like, Oh, this is great too. I like to say, if anybody knows about Bowen, it's a family systems theory. I like Sam Bowen 2.0 but I'm sure was lovely. And I just like to be a bit more inclusive about who's in a family. It's not always this, like little nuclear family. I worked with families of all structures and all kinds. So Bowen and narrative comes in I think because our messaging, yes, it comes from society, yes, it comes from media, it also comes from our family. It comes from our parents and maybe their parents above them, right? So like when we use Bowen and narrative in one and I realize we're on a podcast, and I'm using my hands to talk a lot, but when we look down generationally, from great grandparents to grandparents to parents to us to maybe, if people have, like our children's generation, right? Like, what are the what are the messaging, what are the narratives and the ideals that are coming down for any topic, you know you can do that for any topic, but specifically in bodies like, how have families treated eating? Have they treated as a reward? How have we talked about body differences? How have we talked about gender and body differences? Right? Who's allowed to eat? What if we've come from a very traditional upbringing, if has it been like, non gendered in our upbringing and non, you know, we don't talk about bodies and everything, and food was not kept in a in a cabinet where you had to, like, ask for permission. Could you have food? Could you have it in your room? Did you have to, like, hide it? Those sort of things like, what are the narratives, either spoken or unspoken, that came through? So we'll do a lot of, I'll do a genogram. It's basically like a family tree with patterns, if folks aren't sure what that is. I think in teaching counseling classes, it comes with one of the one of the systems classes, but as an LMFT, there was, we did Gina grams for every class in grad school. And so it's a, I do a genogram with every new client, probably in like, the second ish session, just to see, like, what some of those family patterns are in general. And then you can do what's called a focus genogram. You can do this on literally any topic, religion, we're in an election year, politics, right? Attachment style. And then, yeah, on diet culture and fat phobia, right? And so I'll look at that, and I'll color code it, and I'll, you know, we'll do it together, collaboratively, myself and the client, and look at like, Wow, I wonder if this is, you know, what mom learned, what passed on to you. I wonder what they learned from grandma and grandpa, right? And so we'll do that, and we'll look at the narrative and externalize. Those are the thoughts that parents had of you. Let's look at what their narrative is, and what do you want your narrative to be? There's a little, I guess, existentialism in there. But I think when you use these theories together in an integrated way, that you. Can figure out, Oh, these narratives come from a family. What are my actual organic thoughts about bodies and diet? And maybe I can start to do my own research. Those things get a little harder as we approach holiday time. There's holidays all the time, but especially in this, like fall, winter time, a lot of holidays in the next three months. And, you know, there's a lot of food around holidays. And so how do we then, you know, whether you like CBT or not, setting up some good tools is a good idea, right? So for you know, we, I just talked with a client about this yesterday, and are like, you know, I know that the food, another food holiday is, like, two months away, but I need to start preparing now. So we talk about, what are the boundaries you're going to have before and after some aftercare, a little bit right? What are the boundaries while you're there? Are you allowed to walk away from conversations about food and body? Are you allowed to change the subject? Are you allowed to call in and kind of like whatever feels safe and comfortable in your family? Because boundaries look different in every single family. Some exist in it. Some are non existent. But I think what is a safe boundary that you can have with your family, and if somebody questions your food choices, the amount of food, the types of food, can you change the subject? Can you walk away? Can you call in? You know what feels best? So a lot of those tools. And then definitely, like before care grounding yourself, prepping yourself, having a therapy session that week before you go into a holiday and then coming back and making sure, like, if it's a car ride home or a plane flight, you know, home, or literally a walk down the street home, making sure that you're processing all right, I spent how many hours with my family's narrative about food and bodies. I need to go back to my narrative before I walk into my house and into my own kitchen and into my own body and in my own world, right? So I think grounding again before you get back home is really important as well. So

so many great ideas, and actually circle to circle back just for a second, because I'm thinking about how important it is, then for counselors to be aware of, again, their own bias, to be able to make these suggestions or to help think through like a genogram with a client. And so I'm curious about your thoughts, about what are some sort of specific are there practical or resources, or there practical ways that counselors can begin to understand these biases that are so often deeply rooted and just such a part of our subconscious? Really? How can we reflect on and be aware of those things. What are some ideas? Or again, resources, suggestions you have

great question. Love that. Yeah. So, like, I encourage folks, like, anytime there is, and I know I'm like, a shout out to Oasis, but like, anytime there is a CE, or free, or paid, or whatever it is on bodies or fat bodies, like, go to it, right? I think this with any topic, with any identity topic, like, listen to people who have lived experience, you know, just like I would listen to someone who has a very different lived experience of race or gender or religion or something, for me, you know, like, listen to the folks that have the lived experience in those bodies. And sit with the discomfort again, like, literally with any topic, sit with the discomfort that you don't know everything. I don't know everything, right? And I'm in this lived experience and in this body, and I don't know everything. So like, sit with the discomfort of not knowing and of being challenged in those moments that, like, maybe we are fat phobic. There are absolutely, have been times where I have been fat phobic and been like, oh my gosh, what are you doing? This is not okay. Because, like you said, it's so ingrained in us. Obviously, that happens less and less as you go through this journey. But I think, like, sit there. Be uncomfortable, fantastic. There are books I like I mentioned, Sonia Renee Taylor, the body's not an apology is fantastic. Fearing the black body is fantastic. You know, I sit here, I'm a white woman, and so I think there's, if you read fear in the back black body, like there's so much racism in the dislike of fat bodies, right? Like being small and demure, and not like the Tiktok demure, but like being small and demure and quiet and in your place, right? Especially as a gendered space and a gendered space, right? And so I think really like sitting with the discomfort of that being aware of like, the some of the privileges that folks might have they think about the sort of scale of fatness and like, do you have the privilege of, like, when you go shopping, you can find your size easily. You know, can you fit in, like, a bathroom stall and not have to go into the the larger handicap stall? Do you can you fly on a plane without even thinking about a seat belt extender, right? Or you may not need an extender, but it's going to be really tight for the flight, you know, like, not even having to. Think about those things is a really big deal. And I think, like, yeah, like I said, go to every CE you can read the books. Do do the work, right? Like we would do the work for every other topic of clients that we would see journaling. There are so many great journal prompts, right? And you can like Google some journals. But I also really love making my own journal prompts, listening to podcasts by fat authors, by fat podcasters, by anybody who, again, is in that lived experience. I there's a, you know, like yoga classes on either like Apple fitness or on YouTube, and I watch folks in fat bodies, because I'm like, right? My body is not going to do the same thing as someone who's in a much smaller body than me can do like I can do it, but it looks very different, and my thighs are bigger, so it's going to look different for me in certain like, poses, right? So I think I love, yeah, I love

that idea, even for like, somebody who is in a smaller body to expand. You know, like I want my kids, regardless of their gender, I want them to read stories of with female protagonists. I want them to, you know, I want my son to read books about girls, because I want him to know that it's not just his experience that matters. I want my social media page to not just be tiny, tiny people, tiny, tall, leggy people. I want them to be different sizes. I want the like when I I love retailers who show clothes in lots of different body sizes. Because, you know, even the quote, unquote plus size models, but it's actually like somebody who's a size six like that doesn't help me know that outfit is going to look like on my body. And I think just about how, when we can expose ourselves, regardless of our body size or our identity type, to people with different identities, how much that can actually change our brains to see that as normal? Yes, and so I don't, I feel like I've been trying to do that in some of my own practice, but it is really fun when you realize, like, Oh, I remember when Rihanna's clothing line came out and came out, and I was like, wow. Not only is like, every skin color in this on this cattle, it just was, like, blowing my mind. It looked so different to me, because I'm so used to seeing white, thin bodies in those kinds of places. And so anyway, I don't know that's been a really interesting journey to notice, like, how much less, I don't know, stressful it is to just always see the same kind of body, but to see right diversity inside.

Yeah, it I think it changed a lot too. I think for like, internet doesn't help a lot of things, but it does help in the sense that, like, who we follow on our social media also has a lot to it. Like, as soon as I started following more people that looked like me, because I really like fashion. I like clothes. I think they're fun. I love thrifting. I love changing things up. I have never, I never got to see, like, you know, what were influencers when I was young? And they, you know, but we didn't get to see fat bodies. And so it's so fun to follow fat bodies. And now I've got a whole list of people that like, if clients are like, I would like to diversify my my my Instagram to see more people that look like me. Because if you're only seeing like the same people over and over and they look nothing like you, even if you know like intellectually in your head, I know that I'm great, and I don't need to be in a certain body. It just feels different. So when you see folks like you said, in different bodies, and, yeah, it's important for everybody to see somebody than their different experience, which I think is really great. So talk to people. You know, obviously, like, with any other identity, don't expect people to be the expert and do the unpaid labor thing. But, like, don't expect your friends to do I mean, talk with your friends if you're comfortable to do that. And also you're like, you're fat. Tell me all about being fat. And you're like, that's no, don't do that, not with any with any identity, any identity. Do your research, right? But I think, like every comment, if you even make a comment, don't judge yourself on the comment, like, Yep, we're gonna have we're gonna have fat phobic comments. We're gonna have biased comments. And be like, Nope. That was, that was not okay. Where does that come from? And really start to question, like, who said this to me? And that can be their narrative. Because we have to think like, yes, even if our parents said these things to us, I'm trying to think back to when they were young teenagers, what they had to see, and then what our grandparents had to see, right? And like, the medication that that folks were on just to be thin, and, you know how long people have been on, like, Weight Watchers, stuff? And, you know, I would, I hope that it stops at some point, one day, pros and cons to it, right? The diet industry makes, I mean, literal, literal billions. You can look at literal billions on on diet culture. So for me, there's a little bit of that rebel in me that's like, no. No of that. I'm not going to give them any more money for me disliking myself absolutely not. Yeah. And

you mentioned that piece about capitalism, and I don't think we got back to it, but I would love to hear just that you talked about racism and capitalism and so how those are connected to anti fatness? Yeah.

So I learned a lot about the disability justice principles from Dr Rana yagmayan. She's at Portland State University, and so she and I originally presented on this at Oasis conference. So shout out to Dr Rana. So anti capitalism comes into play in a Disability Justice sense. And it's not to say that fat people are also disabled, but fat folks can be disabled also. So it's not a obviously perfect Venn diagram, but the capitalism part. What? First of all, yes, how much like weight loss medications, Weight Watchers like Jenny Craig, even things like Noom, and you're like, Nope, still, still, weight loss, right? Like all of these are, they're making literal billions of dollars just based on people disliking their bodies. And so there's a part it's like, Okay, number one that makes so much money when you could be spending that on something that brings you joy, right? And also, the Disability Justice principle of anti capitalism is not everyone has access to the same foods, the same health care, the same privilege of movement as others. I remember having a conversation with someone years ago that were like, well, people should have make time to like, you know, work out and blah, blah, blah. And at that time, I was in grad school and I had two jobs at the same time. Not a great idea. Don't recommend it. But I was like, What time are you talking about? I have time to grab a bag of chips from the corner store and go to class from my job or vice versa, right? I don't even have time to work out my work, my quote, unquote workout is the 10 minute walk from my car in the parking lot to class, right? And so I think it's such a privilege to say I have access to healthy foods because high inflation. Have you seen how much things cost these days? Right? So, like, healthy food is healthy food, quote, unquote, healthy food. Let's go with vegetables and fruits, right? Produce is so much more expensive than the dollar menu at McDonald's, right? I survived on that dollar menu for McDonald's in grad school and in college, you know, like, I worked full time, went to school full time. In college, the dollar menu, right? And so, yeah, is it important that I probably eat some, like, vegetables, so that I, you know, for my body, yeah? And also, I didn't have time and I didn't have the money. And so I think it's important to say not everybody has the same access to the same foods, the same movement, the same health care. We don't need to get on that topic, but we live in America where we do not all have the same access to health care, right? The other piece of capitalism is that thing I mentioned in the early pandemic, like, Oh, you're not moving. You must be lazy. That word lazy, right? Like, Nope, we don't know why people are resting, maybe they're resting because everybody deserves rest, by the way. Maybe they're resting because of trauma. Maybe they're resting because they literally did just move their body and so just an immediate reaction that, like, oh, how lazy. Don't move your body. Like, nope, everybody's got a reason also, even if it is whatever, even if they're calling it laziness, that's their decision. That is bodily autonomy, right? Like, let's let people have that autonomy and that consent to do what they want with their bodies. But it's recognizing like, the wholeness that like that, that notion of productivity is like our worth, right? And so it's tied into productivity and doing things and making your body perfect and making your life perfect, and it's like goodness, that's a lot of late stage capitalism and anti fatness. This is like too much to take in. You know? Yeah,

that's so great. So tell us about just where do you see? Where do you want to see this going in the future in the mental health profession. Where do you see our next steps, next next work to do?

Yeah, love that. Okay, so a few things I've been thinking about ideas. I think that, like you know, when we talk about, when we talk about our physical spaces, I think it's really important to include that not just for body size, but also for ability. When we talk about case studies, right, it should be case studies of all races, all genders, all bodies, all abilities, all ages, all religions, like it should be. We should be seeing people that are like us and are not like us. So even just something as tiny as changing some of the case studies in your class. I personally love making up my own case studies. I feel like I get to be in a creative writing process and making up my own case studies. And so for case studies, I will create multiple different identities for like, you know, for all of our case studies as that some people might have a lot of privilege. Some might have some, some might have not a lot of religious at all. And so I think that's like one little way we can change it up where we're moving. I would hope this would be lovely if this was not an issue anymore, but as is with isms, it might be. But I think just the growing knowledge, I'm a big fan of education and like, if we just continue to learn and grow and evolve and keep up with the times, because this, again, like I said, this could be different language in 10 years. I just hope we continue to evolve and grow and learn and, yeah, we're going to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to make those mistakes. Be afraid to not grow. You know, I think that in allowing supervisors, Counselor Educators, the folks like really in charge of of the career field, the folks doing CE, the running CES, the conference organizers, if you've got someone who is speaking on topics that aren't talked about, choose them for your CES. Choose them as guest speakers. Thank you, by the way, you know, choose them for these topics, right? And not just for bodies, but of all identities that are not privileged identities, you know. And I think a lot of a lot of places are starting to do that, which is really fantastic. But we, you know, as a supervisor and a council educator like yourself, we have so much power and ability to make change that I think we should take that ability like we should take that opportunity to change things, and it is hard and it is scary and it's really important, and we should do it so a few of those little things, but it also ends up falling on the individual, Like, read a bunch of books for this. So I'm happy to give you a list also at the end of this perfect Yeah. Well, thank

you so much, Gianna, I have so loved this conversation, and look forward to continuing to see your work out in the field. Thanks. So

why in the world? You music. Thanks again for tuning into the thoughtful counselor. Today, we hope you enjoyed the show. This podcast is made possible through our partnership with concept Palo Alto University's Division of Continuing and Professional Studies. Learn more about the thoughtful counselor and some of the other amazing continuing education offerings provided by concept at Palo Alto u.edu forward slash concept, as always, if you are a fan of the show, we would love to hear your feedback and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you subscribe. You.