073_Are_Fat_People_Heart_Attacks_Waiting_To_Happen

Vinny Welsby1h 3min

Speaker 1

00:00

You're listening to the face value podcast episode 73. I'm answering the question of fat people, heart attacks waiting to happen. Question Mark, let's do it.

Speaker 1

00:25

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 fifth party who loves every inch of this jelly does it teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money and energy on the pursuit of fitness, 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 a negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the first fatty podcast. Let's begin.

Speaker 1

01:21

Oh, hey, fatty. How's life? Feeling good. I'm pretty good. My sister just sent me a video. There's this thing going around on the TIC tock, which is that? Men, this is just so gender specific men have a different center of gravity than women. Let's just say some humans have a different center, point of center center of gravity. And there's this thing where you, you go on your hands and knees, and then you put your arms behind your back and some humans will fall forward. And some humans, most of the people who identify as a woman do not fall forward and she I saw this on Tik Tok and I sent it to her saying you try this with your your partner and they just sent me a video of him doing it and he fell on his face. So that was entertaining for me. Hey, listen, yo, what can you tell me that my haircut was fucking jacked? It was a long he as fuck. Well, to be fair, the podcast was delayed because of technical issues. And so those episodes haven't come out. So you didn't see my hair. And so when I got my haircut right, in, in Ireland, I would go to this place and it was great. It would cost me for my hair to be trimmed 12 euros and 12 or 15 and I'd round it up to 20. And so there are places in Ireland where you can pay a lot of money and you know, I went I went to a couple of those two, but generally speaking, you could go into you know, a nice salon and get your hair cut for an okay price. So 20 euros, that's probably let's see what it is in US dollars 20 euros to USD or 20 for toddlers. Wow. So anyway, in Canada, I don't know is in the states haircuts are so fucking expensive. It gets on my tits. And, of course, hairdressers are super skilled and they deserve all of the money. But I'm trying out a do a different thing where you know, because I've got short hair. And it's not like I've got a lot of hair. And so I'm trying to find places which are more reasonably reasonably priced. And so anyway, if there's any place so this hairdressers went in and got my hair bleached, and cut, and you know, everything seemed fine gray and wonderful cost $80. And then I did $20 tip. So it was like 20 100 and something whatever. And you know that you know when you come back from the hairdresser's I don't know if this is just me, but I never like what my hair looks like when I come straight back from the hairdresser's because they styled it in a different way. There's something about it that doesn't look right. It probably looks a lot better than what I normally do. But anyway, so I'm like, I never expect when I come home from the hairdresser's for me to be like, Hey, I'm amazing. I'm always just like, my hair looks weird for a week or two and then it will get back to being its normal Victoria self anyway. And so I kept being like, I'm not styling it right. What's wrong with one side just seems to be up here and this other side seems to be down here. And you no matter what, no matter what I do, it looks wonky. And I'm like, It's not that it's wonky. It's the way I'm styling it right. And then one day like two weeks For the haircut, I like to brush my hair back and look at it, like really look at it. And it is so fucking wonky. It is so Okay, so it's bleached. So you kind of like the top half of my head is bleached. And so she drew a line all the way around. And the line at the front of my head on one side is about an inch higher. And when when I say an inch, I've got very short hair, right. And so that's a big difference considering I've probably got five inches of hair, you know, five inches of, you know, my, my head, scalp and my hair is probably like two inches long, maybe. And so yeah, so the line on one side is like about two inches higher, which whatever. When my hair is down, it hides it, so you can't see it, but still, like this is contributing to wonkiness, but that's not the thing. The thing is, like, one side of my hair was touching my ear. And the other side was probably an inch or maybe maybe even an inch and a half, maybe even two inches higher. And it was only until I started comparing it and I was like what the

Speaker 1

06:05

fuck? What? What, who? How is this possible? I you know, I've never like checked my hair before to see if it's even you know, you can basically see this even. And anyway, I put I put pictures on Facebook, it's on Instagram or that it's wild like one. Okay, so one side of my hair was down where my eyebrow is. The other side was, like all the way up. You know, you have your widow's peak. I do anyway, it was like all the way up the other side, like a clear. I don't know what angles it is, let's say 45 degree angle. I don't know what that is. But it's like Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd say it was a 45 degree angle, thinking about what that would look like. Yeah. Yeah. So this is one thing I like is I like getting into these types of situations where I can think what would Victoria in the past do versus what would Victoria now do? Victoria, who is now confident bit during the past will be like, Oh, don't worry about it. It's fine. I mean, you know, who needs straight? out no way go back to the hairdresser's I might try and cut it myself. And then cut on myself. Fuck it up, go to a totally different hairdresser have to pay for a brand new haircut and be like, you know, if I ever saw the headdress on the street, I'd be like, Oh, that was a great haircut. You know, people pleasing. Victoria. Now I went back to the hairdresser and said, Oh, hey, my hair's wonky. Can you fix it? And they fixed it was weird though. I went in, I was like, Oh, my hair's wonky. And they're just like, Oh, you're so beautiful. And I was just like, uh, you tell him I was like, Are you telling me I'm beautiful? Because, you know, you've fucked up and they were just your hair looks so good. Like, okay, well, can you fix it though? It's wonky. And so she started looking at my hair. And she's like, Oh, to the back of my hair. Because she didn't line up bleach right. She's like, Oh, I'm gonna die in the back of your hair here. Some bits Brown. I'm thinking she's probably fucked up the BT bleach at the black back, but I haven't noticed it. And so she she dyed the bat some backs of my hair brown. And I Okay, whatever, you do your thing. And, and then they washed, they wash my hair out. Unbeknownst to me the whole time. They put just like a tiny towel around my neck. The whole back of my my back was totally soaked. And so I when I set up, I was like, yep, that back, my back is wet, completely wet. And so they had to get a hairdryer and dry my clothes. And then the original hairdresser came back and was like, styled my didn't start my hair. Like, put the blow dryer through a little bit. But it was still like wet. And she was like, Okay, thanks. You know, like you're done. I was like, Oh, okay. So it was so funny. I was like, What is this? And you know, I only lived a couple blocks away. So I didn't really mind that my hair was a bit wet. But it was just funny. So yeah, so I won't go back there again. A lot of people on Instagram was like, Don't let that and first stylers do your hair again. And whatever, you know, people I think, you know, give it give them give them the chance to fix you know if they fuck up. You know, if I fuck up? I'd like it if someone gave me a chance to fix it versus you know, being like, You fucked up once. See you later loser. Yeah, and anyway, when during the haircuts, she was like, comparing sides she's like, look at straight now and I was I was thinking it's, it's, it's still not straight, but whatever. I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not going to cut hairs. It's not the phrase split hairs it split hairs about you know, it'd be was about, it's about a centimeter off on each side, which is probably, you know, a lot of hairdressers probably like that is not that's not good enough. But anyway, I'm living with it until I need to get my next haircut where I'm going to try somewhere around. Yeah. So if you notice in that last few podcasts, see if you can spot a wonky hair, you might just think it's the styling of it, probably because that is what I thought when I looked at myself in the mirror. So today in this episode, we are talking about health. So trigger warning content warning, if you are not feeling up to to hearing stuff about health and weight, and death due to weight stigma at the doctor's, then skip this episode, I'll warn you when the when the weight stuff, the death stuff is coming. So if you want to get into that bit before I start talking about the people dying at the doctors, because the doctors, then I warn you again so

Speaker 1

11:06

yeah, so trigger warning, they're also trigger warning, if you don't want to hear ways you can be held healthy. They might be triggering for you. So just a word of warning there. If you don't want to hear ways, things that are health promoting, then skip this episode. The reason why I'm talking about this is because I've got a immersive edge. I got a a question. A question from Louise. If you want to submit a question to the show, go to the show notes. facebook.com forward slash 073. Or if you can't remember the episode number or whatever, it's always@facebook.com forward slash podcast. Okay, so let's read this from Louise. Hi, Victoria, just caught up on the podcast. And as usual, thanks so much for providing useful, relevant, helpful and hilarious content. Your podcast is one of my top tools for doing this work. Thank you, Louise, continuing, I would really love to hear you at some point, do a deep dive into the actual experience of living in a larger body. It's one thing I feel quite isolated about. I'm making good progress on living my body. I'm not really thinking so much of how it looks or what other people think. I'm thinking of practical worries like Will I fit into chairs at the theater, restaurants, etc. Plus this feeling that I'm walking time bomb. It's so hard, especially as I get older, to fight against the constant messages that fat people are basically just heart attacks, waiting to happen, that I could have a stroke any minute that I'm almost certain to get cancer because I am fat, etc. The evidence is so confusing and it's easy to go into panic mode. Even though we know dieting isn't going to work anyway. I would love to hear your take on this. Thank you so much for reading Kiss Kiss Kiss. Yeah, that's one thing about Miss about British British. I'm guessing Louise is British because she's put Kiss Kiss Kiss. As a matter of matter of course, when sending messages to anyone putting kisses on it. Even in the workplace. I remember emailing people all the time putting kisses on the messages, you know, oh, hey, Steve, did you get that report and kiss kiss? Now I seem so rare to me, you know, when you are in a professional setting, but when it's like to someone you know, like this, then I you know, it makes sense. But I like it, I like it, right. And it'd be a really good code for how much someone likes you. So whenever you're like you're dating a guy in the UK, if you like you know you're playing it cool. You've probably given one kiss at the end of a text message. If you were like mad notices and got and you know, everyone be doing this is just wouldn't just be a woman thing ever guys would be doing this. If you're like really excited or you know really horny, or you're you're in love with them, then it'd be like seven cases, you know, shit like that. And then you know, maybe they're capital cases versus lower case cases. And then certain people who all have like a certain kiss signature that they always do, you know, and that's how you solve their murder because, you know, they didn't send that message because they didn't do a upper case. Lower case case, smiley face. Anyway, we're not talking about the cases at the end of the message in this thing. I like the cases, but that's not we're talking about so I'm going to really go into the second part of this, which is the Are we a ticking time bomb bomb? Are we gonna die within the next 10 minutes because we're fat. And, yeah, that's what we're talking about. So as Louis said in this, this message, and what we've done a lot in this podcast is talking about how it's well established that there's very little chance that we can become thin, and so can't become thin. We know that that's very well established even some diet companies. Oh, it is getting on my to its diet companies being like dying, so Wow, so do our new eating plan, because it's not.

Speaker 1

15:30

It's a fucking diet. If you see a company saying this is not a diet, this is a lifestyle change. It's a fucking diet. Anyway, so we know that dieting doesn't work with this, there's very little chance that we can be we can become thin and if we can become thin at what cost? So what do we do? Do we just accept what sucks? what society tells us that we're about to spontaneously combust from fatness at any second? Should we just go ahead and die now and stop being such a burden to society? What do we do here? Do we just sit and worry and be like, Oh my God, you know what is going to happen with my health? I'm fat. I can't I can't not be fat. And you know, and what everyone knows that fat people are unhealthy. So first things first. First things first, I want you to get into your head a sentence. Correlation does not equal causation. Okay? This is what I'm talking about. Being in a fat body can be correlated with certain unwanted health outcomes. No note that word correlated. Correlation is not causation. So something that has a Reagan chest and uses this great example, I'm going to link to a blog post where she goes in depth on this example of what this means. An example that Regan Chastain talks about is that bald men have a higher chance of having a heart attack and it's very well established the correlation between bald men and incidences of heart attack, okay, there's a strong correlation there. So if we assume that correlation is causation the lack of hair on men's heads or humans heads is what is causing cancer? Well then the solution would be wear a wig grow your hair, get some plugs, you know the those things where they they take care out of one place and put it on your heads gonna get into your head done hey presto noggin cancer anymore. But that's not how it works because it is correlated and it is not the cause sometimes it can be the cause. But in this example, it's not so what scientists did is they looked okay, right. So we know that you know, telling telling bald men to just work really hard and grow their hair is probably not going to help them to not get cancer. And they found that there was something else that was causing the baldness and the cancer and now we can treat that and work around that versus not that this is ever happened telling men telling bald people just where to pay is going to stop you getting cancer because how silly right we can see that slowly and something here as well while it's on my mind is that we also have good data to show that fat people who are in I'm going to use some Oh words here because this is what the science is using that fat people who are in the overweight category live the longest followed by people who are in the quote unquote normal weight then by those in the quote unquote obese weight range. And so we say okay, we've got some health outcomes that are correlated with fatness but then some evidence to show show that fat people live longer evidence to show that if you're fat, there's an older person than you are way more robust and able to deal with illnesses etc will live longer. So anyway. So we need to be you need to be thinking about this bald thing when correlation causation that thing we don't really know why some fat people have a higher risk of certain disease. Isn't illnesses, there

Speaker 1

20:04

are correlations for some people. So what Reagan says I'm going to quote him link to this article. In the show notes. This is this, this episode is going to have about 50, not 50. There's about 15. Still a lot of studies and things linked. So it's first party.com forward slash 073 for the show notes, first party.com forward slash 073 for the show notes. Okay, so Reagan, Chesterton, quote, fat causes insert health issue here. We hear this every day. The problem is, it's not true. The research about weight and health isn't about causation. It's about correlation. And that's an important distinction. Correlation means two things happen at the same time. Causation means that one thing is the result of the occurrence of the other thing. Okay, so I want to give you a quote from lindo bacon, Dr. Lindo, bacon, author of health every size body respect. Dr. Lindo, bacon's piece from scientific Scientific American. Now, Linda Bacon, this is their work, they study this. They're well regarded. Okay, so obese, I'm gonna say the words, quote unquote, obesity is the biggest threat to the health of our nation proclaims the chief of Epidemiology at a major medical school school on the Scientific American observation blogs. So Lindos not saying that, some other fellow rizona. So this all too common suggestion does far greater damage to public health than fat tissue itself. When the focus is on weight and body size, it's not quote unquote, obesity that damages people. It's fear mongering about their bodies, that puts them at risk for diabetes, heart disease, discrimination, bullying, eating disorders, so didn't treat us. Okay, not moving, not moving, lifelong discomfort in their bodies, and even early death. Okay, so where I'm going with this is that we don't know why some fat bodies have a higher risk of certain things. What we do know is that we have a lot of evidence to suggest why that could be. And a big part of it is weight stigma, aka fat phobia, amongst other things, and so let's go into those right now. Okay, so we have, we have evidence to show that weight cycling is a risk factor. So weight cycling, is yo yo dieting. It is. And it doesn't mean you know, when you think about yo yo dieting, you think about, you know, I'm going to, you know, put saturate my bum, lose 1000 pounds, and then stop 10 minutes later, and then the next week, I'm going to put dust in my ear canals lose 5000 pounds next week, put it back on, it doesn't have to be that extreme. It can be like you diet over the course of your diet, you know, have a diet, if you say in the right way, you lose weight, slowly, big quotation marks all around all of us tough, because there's no right way to lose weight, losing weight fast or slow, makes no difference. The same outcome is going to happen. Two or three people are going to put on more weight than they started with 95 to 98% of people are going to be

Speaker 1

24:31

the same way as they were, you know, it's gonna fail. And so you you can be on a diet over the course of a year and then not diet for a couple of years. And then maybe do a diet for a couple of months. And then at diet for six months, and then do another diet that takes a year and then not diet for five years. And so it doesn't have to be this when I think about yo yo dieting I think about all you know really, I think when I would hear that, I would think Oh, extreme like, but I'm not a yo yo dieting because you know, I did a diet a couple of years ago and now I'm doing another diet now. That's yo yo dieting, and it's not your fault. You know, if you engage in that behavior, like why the fuck would you not engage in that behavior because we lie to saying diets work and that if diets don't work, then it's your fault. Just keep trying blah, blah, blah. So it's a normal thing for people to be weight cycling. So yo yo dieting aka weight cycling is is not good for us. To the to the extent where someone who is fat and who is never dieted has better health outcomes than someone who was smaller and has yo yo dieted. So Dr. Linda Bacon and Lucy Dr. Lucy after more in their study around Health at Every Size, again, link in the show notes says, quote, weight cycling results in increased inflammation, which in turn is known to increase risk for many quote unquote, obesity Associated Diseases. So weight cycling, it can also cause all the things that higher bodies, all of the negative health outcomes that higher bodies are associated with, like cardiovascular events, and higher mortality. And so it could be that fat people are dieting and as a reason why. One of the reasons which are many that fat people are fat is because they dieted because the Surefire thing you're going to get from dieting is weight gain, which is fine. If that happens, absolutely not your fault. Not bad to be fatter, but that's just what dieting gives us one of it one of the other wonderful things alongside feeling like a piece of shit. So we also know that shame and stigma is a big factor in health outcomes. So oppressed groups generally have poorer health outcomes. You know, any type of oppression, stigma is really bad for the physical and mental health of that population. Really bad. So, I'm going to talk about that a little bit more. Johnson second. I'm thinking about that, that stigma where that happens is a lot of times, but it happens everywhere, every fucking way. But a big one because sometimes, you know, if some someone says something to you, in passing, you can kind of brush it off and be like, well, they don't know what they're talking about. But a big place where this happens and has incredible impacts on our on our health is at the doctor's office when you're seeing a health care protection practitioner. So fat people go to the doctor less fat people go to the doctor less, because we know what we're going to be told. You stubbed your toe, have you thought about losing weight, broken arm? Well, that wouldn't have happened if you want so far. I'm going to share the stories about doctors fucking up and people dying as a result here, so if you don't want to hear them, then skip ahead. I'd say 10 minutes. So the stories of fat people are dying on numerous because they're sent away with a prescription of weight loss when they're actually dying. So I'm going to share some stories. I'm going to link to this is a Reddit Reddit feed. So big caution when you go to the links in the bio the Reddit feed. Reddit is a bit of a shit show sometimes, but a lot of times and here there's a lot of people talking about whey and

Speaker 1

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they're made. They're mentioning whey and so if that doesn't feel good for you don't go on it. I'm going to blank out the weights here so you're not going to hear me say them. Okay, so the first one is like the title post is I lost xx pounds so doctors would stop blaming me blaming everything on my weight. This person continues I'm five foot six and I was xx pounds before and now I am xx pounds. It took me a year to lose it. But what finally pushed me to lose the weight was because every single thing I went to the doctor for I got blamed on my weight, severe cramps, weight, feeling sleepy during the day weight numbness in my fingers headaches, memory problems, balance problems, weight. I recently went back from the doctors who of course applauded the weight loss and wrongly assumed all of my problems were gone. When I said no they hadn't. They immediately ordered an MRI sleep study and Lepreau which they hadn't done before the weight loss, the MRI file found, Chiari, GRE malformation, probably butchering that pronunciation. The sleep study physical found that I have an oversized villa. Villa is the that dangly thing that sits at the back of your throat that people think is the tonsils, oversized overload as well as narcolepsy. And then that profound that found so much endo that I lost lost both of my ovaries and a portion of my colon and lower intestines. If I had been taken seriously a year ago, I might not have lost them. So yeah, fuck adopters. Next story, my foster mum was about xx pounds. So when she went to the doctor saying she felt exhausted out of breath, and was getting weird allergic reactions to nothing, the doctor said, You're just fat. She had always been that weight and the feelings and reactions were new. She went back a second time months later, same result. Finally about a year later, she stormed into the doctor's office and refused to leave until she got some sort of scan and blog bloodwork set up. Got all the tests done. And stage four lung and brain cancer. You can be fat and sick. Next story. This killed my mother's best friend. He felt extremely tired and lethargic. When the doctor told him he was Oh word and went to and to quit drinking and smoking. He quit drinking and smoking and started losing weight surprisingly well. He was so tired, he had to quit work. Doctors told him that it was still his weight Keep up the good work of losing it. One day he didn't answer the phone when my mom called same day. Same next day. She called his neighbors who called the police. He was lying in lying dead in his bed. He died from leukemia. All the clues were there. Even the rapid weight loss but because he was fat, the doctors didn't even look further. Fuck bad doctors. So Whew, that shit is Hirsch's heavy, excuse the pun. And if you're fat, you know, I've done I've done polls on Instagram. Have you experienced weight stigma at the doctors? And it's always you know, 90% of people say yes. And I look at the people who said no, and it's unlike these a bot accounts. Anyway, chances are you've experienced a doctor telling you to lose weight or blaming something on your weight. And here I want to quote from a an article that says is fatphobia in medicine, harming doctors and patients. And quote, evidence suggests that doctors have negative opinions of quote unquote, obese patients. And then it's quoting a study that finds this is there's a few studies here that that they do on healthcare providers opinions, and so this is doctors, nurses, medical students, all that type of stuff. So they have negative opinions of fat people continuing holding stereotypes that they are lazy and disciplined and motivated, unhealthy and weak willed. Another quote from the study and respecting them less than patients with a quote unquote normal BMI. People with larger, larger bodies are the most common target of derogatory medical student humor. Okay, here's a quote from another from a another.

Speaker 1

33:54

Another article that quotes the same studies. Due to these negative beliefs, providers may spend less time with patients with quote unquote, obesity, engaging less, quote, patient centered communication, eg less rapport building, and are more reluctant to perform certain screenings or discuss health with patients. Just yeah, so and also a note here that medical bias doesn't just hurt fat people there's lots of stories of straight size people going to the doctors and being ignored because they're straight size and so therefore they must be healthy. Obviously, it hurts fat people way more, but it just it doesn't work for anyone like this is not good for anyone. Okay, so another thing to consider is that fat people tend to be poor or fat people are poor. Therefore they have less chance to go to the doctor because you know, if they're if they're working, they're looking after the kids, they might not have the time to go to the doctor. And in some fucked up countries like the United States of America, people can't afford health care, because they have to pay for it. Like, what the fuck is this going on? 2021 people have to pay for health care. Oh my gosh. And so if you're poor, you can't afford health care. You can't go You can't, you just die. And there's so many stories of people just dying because they can't afford health care. And even things like dental. And how many poor people never go to the dentist, I know as a as a poor person. Luckily, because in the UK, in the UK, so we have the NHS, right. But that doesn't cover dental stuff. But because we were very poor, we happened to get free dental, and maybe is free dental for everyone up until the age of 18. Anyway, I got free dental up until the age of 18. I didn't go to the doctor, because I didn't happen to be rich enough. And so for 10 years, from the age of 18. So I got got that final, you know, my braces off all that type of stuff. And then that was it, until I became rich enough to go to the doctors, anything are whatever teeth but teeth. If you have issues with your teeth, it can cause very lots of different things with your health, it can have a lot of stuff to do with your heart health to if you have issues with your teeth. And so teeth are a big thing. Dental Care. And so if people can't even afford basic going to the doctor, do you think they're going to go to the dentist, because a lot of times dentist is seen as cosmetic. But it's not actually, of course, there are cosmetic things within dentistry. But having good oral hygiene and all that type of stuff is really important for your your physical health. And as well as that people are poor, because they're less likely to get hired, they're less likely to get promotions. And also we are being paid less. And anecdotally, I was in recruitment for eight, nine years, however long. And I remember I remember one time a someone who was a no super fat came into the office. And afterwards, the offers coming out being like, oh my god, did you see how fat she was? She's not getting a job. And at the time, I was like, Oh, hey, that's not very nice. And you know, I wasn't like Fuck you guys, because I was still in, you know, deep in fatphobia. And I thought that was really unfair. It's really, it's really sad thinking about it. And those best candidates, when we were thinking about who would clients pay for? They were straight size people. And I don't I would I don't think I was consciously doing it. But a fat person would have to be exceptional, you know? And that's fucked up. That isn't okay, that is not okay. And thinking about that thinking about that, you know, the the generational wealth that if you have fat parents, and they were paid less, and what does that do to your income and your, your childhood and your, your ability to get higher education and all that type of stuff. Nothing to do with their abilities, everything to do with systemic fatphobia so so these are reasons why fat people could have poor health outcomes. They're poorer

Speaker 1

38:55

stigma not going to the doctors because the doctors don't do shit. Doctors not doing shit. And weight cycling. Yo Yo dieting. Okay, so. So, yeah, they're all things you can totally control. Not Not, not not not. So. Okay. So what are we gonna do? Are we just gonna be like, Oh my God, this sucks. And it does suck. It fucking sucks. There's nothing to do. I'm just, I'm just gonna die because that's what happens. And remember, there are there's lots of information and studies out there that show that being fat has health benefits, and that being fat is protective, and that fat people are less likely to fat people are more likely to survive cardiac events have People are more likely to survive COVID That, you know, fatness leads to a certain robustness when it comes to dealing with things. And, you know, studies showing that fat people live longer. So, you know, shoulder shrug, so we don't even know we'd and we don't know, it's not that having more fat on your body is causing these things. We can't say that because the science is all about that correlation, not the causation. But we have science on the causation. And what we know is is a whole lot of stigma and shame. And weight cycling, yo yo dieting. So surprise, fucking surprise. So there are ways to mitigate the risk. And, you know, I'm going to share these things. But you know, it's not your job to change the world, by the way. I mean, if you want to be a good citizen, we can try and be the best versions of ourselves. But this is fucked up. And this is happening to fat people. It's not our responsibilities in our job to tell straight sized people and other fat people to stop being bigots, right. So just a disclaimer there. So first is educate yourself and learn fatphobia and health ism. If you know more about fatphobia and health ism, then you're going to be more armed to, to when you see the big headlines of you know, fat people are in the streets eating babies, then you can like is that a sensationalized headline? Do you think that that's based in science? Or is that attention grabbing? Instead of internalizing it and being like, oh, yeah, maybe I should, you know, I don't want to eat babies, maybe I should stop being so fat. If I wasn't so fat, then I wouldn't want to eat babies, even though I don't currently want to eat babies. Oh, my God. And health ism as well. Like all these, this moralizing of you know, fat people are unhealthy. Therefore, they're a drain on society. They are, they are a bad person. I remember having that health ism that that disgust of people who didn't want to what I perceived didn't want to pursue health, aka, get thin. Because one time I got thin and it was so easy, even though I then put on loads away and understand that health is super complicated. And it's a social construct, like what is health. We don't know why we don't know a lot about why certain things happen. But we can take guesses, you know, your own house, you can take guesses like from your family history, that might be helpful. You know, your genetics, if you know about that stuff that might be helpful might not be. And so then you can see what you can do to help your health in regards to the information that you do have outside of losing weight. So for example, ovarian and breast cancer run in my family. And so my mom had a hysterectomy when she was about 65. And, and for me like so I got a lump in my breast about six months ago, immediately went and got a mammogram, you know, where they squeeze your tits, it's fine, don't worry, but if you need to go, and everything was fine. But that was something that I was doing. To mitigate the risk, I know that my health could be impacted by my genes might not be

Speaker 1

43:55

the that if anything's going on with my, with my floppy tips, I'm going to get it checked out versus waiting. Whereas, you know, if I didn't know that, then I might just be like, whatever. And if I wasn't what like whatever, it might be fine too. But, and then when I get to a certain age, I'll have a hysterectomy as well, you know, and so that stuff that you can do to look after your way. Say if you have you know, whatever is going on in your, in your family, you could choose to try and reduce the risks in whatever way which is outside weight loss because weight loss doesn't work and is harmful to our physical and mental health. Or you could not you could just be like what will be will be if I happen to have those genes and that's it. Okay, so understand that social justice issues play a big part in the health of certain populations. So, you know, want better health, start fighting injustice. And I'm going to quote from this study that I'm going to link in the show notes quote, the study found that those who reported two or more major discriminant discrimination experiences had a 34% increased risk of diabetes quote over nine years. brackets over nine years rather than those with no reported experiences of major discrimination, this is actually from down to the fat Reagan's or Regan Justine's blog about a study that showed that those were type two diabetes were well, well, they experienced they had a 34% increased risk of diabetes if they experienced two or more major discrimination. Events. Well, well, well, well, I bet you there's gonna be loads more of these studies coming out saying that, Oh, turns out that this is because we are, we are pieces of shit treating people fat people badly. And that's why fat people have certain health outcomes, I bet. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, we'll see. Anyway, another thing you can do is to stop dieting. Now, if you have been a yo yo diet, listen, that's in the past, you can't change that, you know, it sucks that that's, that's your experience. And yes, that could cause it sucks that you've had that experience. There's nothing we can do about it now. But what we can do now is to stop that, that cycle, that yo yo dieting, and know that dieting is probably not going to make you thin and has a chance of making you unwell in the future, or even at the time. Next, engage in health promoting activities. So and that's if you want to study show that there are only tiny differences in health and death rates between body size, if you engage in movement, there's gonna be a link to that study in the show notes. And so the difference between someone who is quote unquote, obese and someone who has quote unquote, normal weight, and both engage in, in physical activity, it's so tiny, there's hardly any difference at all. Another study shows that if you engage in healthy lifestyle habits, and here what they what they have said is healthy lifestyle habits is eating five or more fruits and vegetables a day exercising regularly, consuming alcohol in moderation and not smoking, then quote from the study, healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality, regardless of baseline body mass index. So it doesn't matter what weight you are, if you are engaging in healthy lifestyle habits, then it's going to be the same as if you're straight size almost because also we have other things we have to deal with as fat people like stigma and shame and all that type of stuff. A big thing I want to say here is that if the thought of doing these activities, if the thought of having five fruits and vegetables a day is triggering in any way, please disregard that.

Speaker 1

48:35

If you are recovering from diet culture, if you are learning to be an intuitive eater, if you're recovering from disordered eating, or a full blown eating disorder, that advice may not be helpful, and may actually be harmful. Because it could be you know, leading you to not eat in a certain way or eating in a certain way or feeling like you have to eat five fruits and vegetables a day. What if you don't you bad? Ignore that until you have a healed relationship with food. And then if you want to incorporate that into your life, go wild. If not, go wild. But please, that information. I don't want you to use that as a stick to beat yourself with if you are learning how to eat. And by the way, most people in our society have some level of of disordered eating. And so it can just add on to the shame so if you're feeling that if you're hearing that and you're feeling shame, if you're feeling guilt, if the next time you eat you think I don't have a vegetable or I don't have a fruit or whatever. Please disregard it, it's not helpful for you right now, it might be helpful in the future, when your relationship with food is in a better place, or healed. Okay, big caveat there. Next look after your mental health, sleep, don't work so much be kind to yourself. If you're fat, go to the doctor, and don't accept a prescription of weight loss, tell them to make a note in your chart that they are refusing to run tests or treat you. Because if you tell them that to make a note in their in your chart, that you are that they are refusing to treat you because of your waves, then they are held liable if it comes out that, oh, turns out you had cancer or turns out you were dying, and they don't want to be held liable. So tell them to make a note of it in your chart, they're probably going to run those tests, if they don't go to another doctor, I know this, that we shouldn't have to do this, this is outrageous that we have to do this just to get medical care. But they're prescribing you something if they prescribe a diet, they're prescribing you something, which has an almost 100% failure rate, and two out of three, you know, 66% chance that it's going to make you fatter. I roll like would they prescribe a drug, you know, or anything else? Now, if they say, Hey, have you considered movement or how you considered increasing the range of foods you might eat, that might be the the right thing. But prescribing weight loss is, you know, it's not evidence based, okay. So because this is a social justice issue, recognize that you may not have much influence over this. But if you can get more money, ask for a pay rise. If you are a boss, pay fat people, higher fat people. Now, how much influence you have over there, you know, if you have a if you if you're able to do that to get more money, get more money, more money, more money you have, chances are, you are going to be able to afford to go to the doctor, if you live in a fucked up country like the United States. Also, you don't owe health to anyone. So if health is not a focus for you, that is fine. It doesn't mean so if you don't focus on your health, it doesn't mean that you are unhealthy, it doesn't mean that you're going to spontaneously combust from fatness. Just because you don't focus on your health could mean that you live to be 1000 years old. Now, we still a very long way from being 1000 years old, but it could be that not focus on your health is the most healthy thing that you could do, because focusing on your health is is very disordered for you. You know, so.

Speaker 1

53:24

So So let's summarize this whole thing. Our fat people heart attack heart attacks waiting to happen. So what we know is one, if you're fat, there is no reliable way to become thin or thinner. To. So if we want to, we can engage in certain things to reduce any risks that might be correlated, correlated with being fat. Three, we must also understand that a lot of what makes up quote unquote health because health is a social construct is not in our control. This includes genetics, social justice issues, where you're born, your socio economic status, the color of your skin, your income, your support system, your level of education. And for the correlation that some fat people are, are all going to have poorer health outcomes because their fat can be attributed to stigma. So stigma and oppression from society It the lack of health care that fat people get. And that yo yo dieting, weight cycling is a massive risk factor for all of the things that fatness is associated with. Okay, so remember those four things, so no fat people are not, quote unquote, heart attacks waiting to happen. Yes, of course there will be fat people who have heart attacks. Yes, there will be certain people that have heart attacks. Remember when this is anecdotal, but remember when that trainer from The Biggest Loser had a heart attack? And everyone, you know, everyone in the community was like, Well, why? Well? So, yeah, as you know, of course, we know that everyone, we know we're all gonna die and fat and thin people can be unhealthy and all that type of stuff. But it is not as it's not as clear cut as everyone knows fat people are unhealthy. Everyone knows fat people are all gonna die. In the next 10 minutes. Everyone, no, we don't have evidence. The evidence we have is correlation, not causation. And we have evidence to show the causation, our social issues, yo yo dieting, shame and stigma, Fat people not being able to go to the doctor because of the shame and not being able to afford to access our health care because we are paid less. Yes. Okay. So how are you feeling? Are you feeling better? You're feeling you're feeling better? I'm finna. Mom and and better. But you mean, but also feeling pissed off. So you know, if you want to be healthy, you can go and pursue those things. If you don't, and you don't. And if you want to do things like something like, you know, stop smoking, then, you know, in that study, something that I that I didn't mention, isn't that study for everyone you know about the Healthy Habits of five healthy things like stopping drinking, reducing, drinking, stopping smoking, moving your body having fruits and vegetables. And there was another thing? What was it? Yeah, it was just it was just of all things, eating five fruits and vegetables, exercising less alcohol and not smoking. What was I saying about this? Oh, yeah. What I was saying about this is, if you just did one of those things, it shows that there is an increase, increase, a decrease in in

Speaker 1

58:10

mortality and death. So if you just said, Okay, well, I'm not going to smoke, then there's like an uptick. If you say, I'm not going to smoke and I'm gonna drink less, then there's an uptick. If you say, I'm not going to do those things. And I'm also going to go for a walk once a week for 20 minutes, then there's an uptick, okay? So it's not like black and white if you don't do these things, and that's it. And if you do, you're going to live forever. And, and as well, not everyone has the ability to do those things. And I think about like smoking as well. Like, I used to be so judgmental of smokers, I remember even shouting at one person who was smoking in like a bus station. Well, I was actually homeless at the time. And I was like shouting at them being that you can't smoke in here and being like, You're disgusting. And really just disdain for smokers because, you know, I want you to feel more morally superior to someone else, because I didn't feel good about myself. And I saw it as like a choice and all that type of stuff and and the way I see it now is we're smoking is smoking gives that person something enjoyable, right? And that might be the only thing that they have in their life that is good, that can regulate their emotions, that brings them peace that brings them comfort, and think about smoking. You know, like that you're breathing in. And that breathing in not obviously of the of the smoke, but breathing in really helps relax you right and so it makes sense that smoking feel Good. And obviously there's you know, causes death and all that type of stuff. But if in that moment your life is not great, and smoking is one of the things that is helping you. And you know long term your goal is to find something which has is better for your mental health for your physical health. But smoking is what's keeping you going, like, Who the fuck am I to judge that might be the only thing in that person's day that has any little bit of happiness, you know, what's the alternative for that person? So people are just trying to get by here people are just trying to get by and survive another day. And so let's not judge them and you know, we're all trying to do the best for ourselves. And whatever that looks like. So yeah, so stop judging yourself and as a society let's stop judging other people for what they do in their lives because it's not good for it's not good for anyone is it's not good for anyone. All right, well, I hope you have enjoyed this episode. Remember, there are a list of all sorts of things in the show notes. Let's have a look 123456 1011 12 1314 1415 links to different studies of all this stuff. So go and have another lucky Oh, and the shownotes thingamajig is fast money.com forward slash 073 for episode 7073 If you forget that number, Ford slash podcast and yeah. Thanks for hanging out with me today. And I'll see you in the next episode. Stay fierce, fatty in a while alligator. Goodbye 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 fears fattier Academy which is my signature program, where I teach all about how to overcome your fat phobic beliefs and learn to love your fat body, then go to first party.com forward slash waitlist again, that is phase fatty.com. Forward slash waitlist to get your name on the waitlist. For when first Mattie Academy my signature program opens

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