Episode 159 - Complete

Vinny Welsby1h 1min

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You're listening to the face value podcast episode 159 Anti fat bias in the workplace. I'm your host, Vinny Welsby. Let's do it.

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Know Welcome to this episode fierce, fatty or fierce, fatty ally, or welcome, so glad that you're here. Thanks for all your cofee donations, you are awesome. I'll let you know where we're at. So goal for every month is $680. To sustain the show at free, each show cost me around $170, at least to create. And that's not factoring in my time or labor. And so far, one off donations I've had $310 and subscriptions. $55. Amazing. So $55 a month in subscriptions. And so what we want to get to is $680.40 $5, just $5 a month, you can give more if you want you can give 1015 I don't know if you can give more than that. I don't think we would want to give more than that. If you want to just give $5 a month you will get the size diversity Resource Guide, which is incredible, has tons of people to follow shows to listen to lalalala like, where to shop, all that type of stuff. You'll get that as a thank you. I'm also actually I'm going to poll my Instagram audience and see what else you want. So what are the free shit you're wanting? Do you want the podcast early? Is that as of interest to you, like a week early or something or a few days early? We can do that for subscribers. And if you just want to do a one off donation, absolutely wonderful. Thank you for that. And for everyone who has already donated one person donated $100 on my shit my pants when I saw that I was amazing. So today's episode is oh, by the way to go to Kofi show notes. Or you can go to Kofi forward slash face fatty and you'll find my page. But you can just go to show notes. And then there'll be to get to the tear thing. It's first party forward slash tears. But anyway, in the show notes, blah, blah, blah. It's episode 159. So for the show notes for everything that we're gonna be talking about today, links to all the science and all that jazz. First factly.com forward slash 159. Okay, so today, what we're going to be talking about is anti bias in the workplace. Do you have a job? Have you ever had a job? Do you ever? Are you ever going to have a job? Leaving a fat body? Wow, have I got something for you? We're going to be talking about two parts a day. First part are the studies on anti fat bias in the workplace. And the second part is my favorite is hearing from you your stories of fatphobia in the workplace and oh, oh, yeah, get ready to be annoyed. So if that isn't feeling good for you today, then skip this episode. If you'd like I don't want to hear about anti fat bias in the workplace. I've got it everywhere around me already. But if you want to know then then Stay Stay tuned. If you work somewhere and you have any type of HR person or any type of manager, or if you are interested in bringing this to your team, I do training for companies called detangling anti fat bias from the workplace. And so you can help me come in or you can ask someone to bring me in. A few weeks ago, I did a large health authority in Ontario. So a lot of health care providers, doctors, etc. And I just got the feedback and it was incredible. I was just like shut up oh my gosh, all these people saying oh my goodness, I never knew that this about the BMI or I never knew that people can't lose weight or I never knew about the language. And now I'm going to do different and and actually they have created an affinity group. So they've created a group of people in the organization to action, the suggestions that I made it's so exciting. So if you know of anyone feel free to email them and say hey, can we have some anti fat bias training? I know someone Vinnie they are incredibly sexually attractive. And that is the only criteria we need to know about a presenter coming into the company. Or if he's an idea if you're like you don't want to because you know If you're not friends with the person or you don't feel comfortable, you can always email me and tell me who I should contact and their email. And I can email them and be like, Hey, do you need anti fat bias training? Or like if you're if your manager is a raging fat phobe, and I can email them saying, just out of the blue, I do that anyways, is, you know, I'll email people saying, Hey, do you want this? So that's not a strange thing for me to do. So if you want to do that, email me fatty at first mattie.com or send them my consulting website, which is first fatty consulting.com But it's more professional. There's not too much swearing on it and stuff compared to my normal stuff. Yeah, so let's talk about study studies. By the way, I was I was away for a week because the last few episodes were were big. That one with my mum had like three hours of audio that my, the podcast team had to go through. So I gave him a week off, because it was a lot that they did. So that was that was why I was away for a week, someone messaged me and said, I missed you. And I say, Oh, thank you. So one note is that I was not there. Okay, so let's talk about the study. So I'm gonna give you a soundbite and then go into what the actual study actually says. So stats for your stats ready for a stat stat stat stat stat, stats, overall, participants reported negative implicit and explicit attitudes towards Oh Word, and the belief that Oh, word is controllable. So this is a study. Again, everything is going to be linked in the show notes. This is a study called Oh word discrimination in the recruitment process, you're not hired. So I'm going to read the abstract here, from what what they've, what they've, what they've done, what they're saying what they're talking about. Okay? A pre previous literature reports that fat persons, they say the O word throughout. So trigger warning, if you are going to go to the links. They're going to be using our words, but I'm going to say fat instead of a word. Previous literature reports that oh, that fat people persons are discriminated in the workplace. Evidence suggests that fat people are perceived as having less leadership potential, and in comparison to straight sized peers are expected to be less successful. This study examined whether fat people are discriminated against when applying for employment. three hypotheses were offered in line with previous research. One fact people are less likely to be assessed positively on personnel suitability suit suitability than straight size people to fat people in active employment are more likely to be discriminated against than people in non active employment, and three fat women are more likely to just be discriminated against than fat men. 181 participants were sampled from sedentary sedentary standing and manual and heavy manual occupations. So participants these are the people who are our rating people for if they're going to hire them or not. And they work in sedentary standing or manual, heavy manual jobs. Employees also completed measures of implicit and explicit attitudes towards fatness MANOVA was conducted to examine effect candidates were discriminated against during the recruitment procedure. Results just demonstrated that participants rated fat candidates as less suitable compared with straight size candidates. And when the weight status of the candidate was not revealed for work across the four work across the four workplace groups, participant gender and weight status also impacted perceptions of candidates suitability for work, and discrimination towards fat candidates was higher in participants from more physically demanding occupations. The study findings contributes to evidence that fat people are discriminated against in the hiring process and support calls for policy development. Yes, I don't know if you know but Nafa with the help of flair flair is the fat legal advocacy resource, something with IE a scarce resource, a explosion. Basically, it's Sondra soul of a lawyer leading a group of legal professionals to fight for fat rights love it. And in New York, they've had a hearing in the last couple of days to ban height and weight discrimination. Fingers crossed it will be a huge win. tigers ospel Chair of, of NASA and other New York, New York activists. I think even people came in who weren't from New York. I know tigress is not from New York to testify, and

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they're going to decide in the next month. Why do they take so long to decide something home? I just hear people say, Hey, there's this problem with this thing. And then everyone just go Yeah, that sounds like a problem. Let's fix it. Instead of taking like a month to decide, I don't understand what's going on in that month. Anyway, whatever there could be a law against that. I'm gonna talk about what other laws we have shortly. Okay, the next thing we are looking at, which is this, I don't know if you've ever heard of this website, Fairy God boss seems to be quite popular. I've never heard of it. But they did a survey they asked 500 hiring professionals to view images of women and describe their professional appearance. These women had distinctly different hair styles outfits, skin tones, facial expressions, and body types. And what they found was that only 15.6% of respondents said that they will consider hiring a fat person. And then they show the image of the fat person. It's someone who's a small fat person. Sad face so quote from them. 20% of the hiring professionals we serve survey chose to describe the photo of the heaviest looking woman as quote, lazy, while this adjective was selected less frequently for every other woman pictured. Additionally, 21% described her as unprofessional and only 18% said she had a leadership potential and then only 15% said that they would hire her fun times fun times. And this is this is a woman who is white. So there's a big flaw with a lot of this research and I don't know if you spot it, what the floor is, is we do not have any gender variation we have man or woman we don't have gender nonconforming folks, trans people, non binary people, etc. And I would guess hazard suggests that if that person is also trans, non binary, gender non conforming in some way or the other, and if they are also black or disabled, and those stats I bet you they will go Googly loom tumbling down even lower. We don't have that information. There probably is somewhere but I don't I don't know if there is studies done on that intersection of trans identities and body size. There's there'll be studies around the you know, other marginalized identities but the combining of the trends and fat I'm not aware of, but I bet you some very smart fat scholars will be doing that type of work. Okay, so when it comes to pay, do the thin win. This is from the American Psychological Association. What a snappy title, then they have to always name these things super boring sciency titles. Anyway, quote from here cultivation theory suggests that society holds a very different body standards for men versus women. And research indicates that the consequences of defying the social norms may not be linear linear. To test these notions in the employment context, we examined the relationship between weight and income to the degree to which the relationship varies by gender. For women, we theorized a negative weight income relationship that is steepest at the thin end of the distribution. For men, we predicted a positive weight income relationship until Oh word so until they were actually fat, where it then becomes negative. To test these hypotheses, we utilize two longitudinal studies one German and one American. In study one weight was measured over two time periods and earnings were averaged over the subsequent five years. Study two was a multi level study in which weight and earnings work within individual varies variables observed over time, and gender was between individual variable results from the two studies generally support the hypothesis even when examining within individual visual changes in weight over time. So the result of the two studies a genuinely support the hypothesis so where it doesn't support the hypothesis is that when it comes to men getting to be fat, that their income goes down. What they found was, Well, I'll tell you what they found. Let me let me continue. What may be more surprising is the degree to which employee yours also seem to have internalized the notion that employees Wait, wait matters, okay. So they're talking about how people don't like fat ease, and they're saying what they're saying is, what may be surprising is that employers also have internalized that weight matters. Well, those same employers are the same people who were out in the public who think that fat people are bad. Just because they get into the job. Job place doesn't mean they suddenly lose biases. Those biases will follow us in at work and out of work. What may be surprising, it's not surprising. What may be not surprising is the degree to which employers also seem to have internalized the notion that employees weight matters. Rowling's 1999 comprehensive review says suggest that fat people are rated as being less desirable as subordinates, co workers and bosses and they are viewed as less conscientious. Conscientious, conscientious. What the fuck constitute conscientious. There we go conscientiously. No, it's conscientiousness. That's not right, you should be conscientious. They put a nurse on the end, anyway, viewed as less conscientiousness, less agreeable, less emotionally stable and less extroverted than the straight size counterparts. Even though the stereotype stereotypes are inaccurate, thank you. It appears that in the United States fat employees are viewed by their employers as lazy and lacking in self discipline. poll and brown owl and Rowling's reviews also revealed that fat women are consistently judged more harshly in the workplace and fat men reported that 60% of fat women, and 40% of fat men describe themselves as having been discriminated against in the course of employment. Again, we don't have stats for fat, G and C people. Study one, so they looked at two studies, one in Germany, one in the US, and it was interesting to see the differences between Germany and the US. So we've got a table here. I'm gonna make a social media post with this, these tables and stuff, right? Okay, so Germany In Germany, so I want you to imagine, we have men and women on a on different points in this graph. So on one side, we have people who are they measured everyone's weight, the average weight, they've put a zero. And then people who were five pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds, etc, less than that average weight. And their average weight was I'm not gonna say the weight, but it was a weight of a straight size person. So the average weight and then we have from zero we go plus five plus 10 plus 15 plus 25. So someone had a woman who weighs 25 pounds less than the average and the most. So at the time, that was 2100 euros a month. And then we have the line just curves down. It slopes down to people who are 25 pounds heavier than the people who were at the average weight. Their earnings. Were we don't see it exactly, but it looks like it's about 1750 it's less than 1800. So maybe 1760 Yeah, so yeah, let's just say it's 1717 75 There we go. 7775. So we got over 2100 For someone who is the smallest. And for the biggest in this we have 17 cameras what I just said after I made that big fuss of 17 something 1700 euros a month. So the issues with this is is we've we've stopped at 25 pounds over a straight size person, as we know 25 pounds is not that much. But we can see a very clear line downwards and it looks like it will continue moving down down down the higher but we don't have that information. Now what is interesting for the men the men are right up on this graph. And so the the women were getting paid the thinness women were getting paid 2100 The thinness men were getting paid 2600 plus. So already there's a difference in gender there. But the it was the thinnest men, the wet men who were 25 pounds smaller than the average man, the thinnest men who are getting paid the least. And then it it arcs, it's kind of like a small arc, it's not a it's not a spell it like an upside down you but it's more like a, I'm hand drawing with my finger, then you cannot see my finger, but it's kind of like a little little curve up, and then kind of stabilizes and goes a little bit down. And where it stabilizes is about 10 pounds heavier than the average. And then it goes down. So it doesn't go down as low as the thinner people. It similar to is similar to the 10 pounds overweight, there's not a big difference. So it's the difference between

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you know, 50 bucks a month type of thing. But you know, the, it looks like if we carried on with that trajectory trajectory, it looks like the fattest men, the actual fat men because these these men that are describing aren't really fat, the actual fat men, you know, fat, fat people fat, medium, fat, supersize, Infini, fat, etc, that it looks like that line would then curve down. That's what it looks like it's going to happen. We don't have that data. Okay, so that was Germany. So Germany it was own trusting. So what they say the results were study, one revealed that for men with heavier than average and thinner than average, men learn s less. Men who are two standard deviations below average weight earn $4,057 less, and men who are two standard deviations above average, and $146, less than average than the average man, man. However, these statistics also show that the penalty for being very thin is nearly 28 times for that for being very heavy. The results also show that very thin women the most $3,981 more per year than their average white counterparts. So that's average white counterparts with the fat counterparts there's a lot more conversely, whereas relatively heavy women earn the least $1,848 per year, less than average weight women, a woman loses more than twice as much from going to very thin to average than going from average to relatively heavy. Yeah, so those very thin women, they are the people making the bucks in the in women in the men. Someone who is slightly lid has a little bit of weighed 10 pounds over the average. So I mean, that's nothing right. They're the ones getting paid the most. The interesting to see this looked at as well with other intersections, that if we think about race and disability and all that type of stuff, that'd be interesting to see too. Okay, so the American one is soy is totally, it's wild. It is wild, it looks totally different from the other one. So it is a so we've got the two lines on the graph, one for men, one for women. We've got wait at the bottom money on the side, just like the other one. But instead of the woman kind of just going down down down slowly. The woman's goes from, it's like frickin freefall. It goes from a woman who is 70 pounds. smaller, smaller, is earning 63,000 looks like to someone who is 70 pounds bigger, earning 22 or 21,000. It looks like so 63,000 for the smallest women to 22,000. For the smallest woman for the biggest women, I mean, gobsmacked like Germany, it's like, but the US is like wow. Like room down. And the same goes for the men but the opposite direction this the smallest men are earning 35,000 The heaviest man 70 pounds higher than the average earning 68,000. So more than the women, which is it's showing the same things but even more dramatically, and it could be that it's showing more dramatic dramatically because we have a higher range. So we have 70 pounds either way, whereas the German one is 25 pounds either way, but it's it's still in no it's still even if you zoom in it's still way more dramatic, which goes to show maybe the difference between German opinions and American and opinions at that time on Wait, I don't know, you know, this is assumptions about culture. But yeah, it's not good. Okay, so what they say about it is at the as the table shows a decrease in weight of two standard deviations results in a predicted earnings decree, decree moment decrement decrement. of 17,535 for men, and eight appreciated earnings increment of 22,283 for women. Conversely, an increased weight of two standard deviations result in a predicted earnings increment of 14,889 for men, and a predicted earnings decrement of 18,902 for women. So that's only two standard deviations. So basically, leave America at once. Just for that reason, I'm joking, am I, but I mean, Canada and the UK will probably look just the same. Okay, so next study, here's a little snippet starting of it. If a woman was a stone heavier for no other reason than her genetics, this would lead to her having an income of 1500 pounds less per year than a comparable woman of the same height who was a stone lighter. Okay, so this is height body mass index and socio economic status. Mendelian randomization study in UK Biobank so there isn't this is a British study, they looked at 119,669 men and women across all of British at British ancestry aged between 37 and 73 years old. And the results were in the UK Biobank study shorter stature, so shorter height, and higher BMI were observationally associated with several measures of slower socio economic status, the associations between shorter stature and lower socio economic status tended to be stronger in men, and the association between higher BMI and a lower socio economic economic status tended to be stronger in women. So what they're saying is that short men have worse, worse outcomes, less money, get less money get less of that money than short women, fat women get less money than fat men. And the average quote, average size people are getting the most money actually actually actually pausing that statement. Let's see exactly, for example, a one standard deviation higher BMI was associated with 210 pounds, that's 276 euros or $300. Lower annual household income in men and a 18 1890 pounds, lower annual household household income in women. So that's now that didn't give the conversion rate for the other currencies there. I don't know why they didn't that okay. Genetic analysis provided evidence that these associations were partly causal, or genetically determined one standard deviation taller stature, but one standard deviation is 6.3 centimeters caused a naught point naught six year older age of completing full time education a one 1.7 to 1.18 times higher odds of working in skilled profession, higher annual household income. So if you're taller, you get better outcomes. associations were stronger in men are genetically determined one standard deviation, higher BMI so one standard deviation is 4.6 kilograms caused a 2940 pound lower annual household income and a naught point one zero standard deviation higher level of deprivation and women only. Fun times fun times. So naturally formed woman was a stone heavier is the lead to having an income of 1500 pounds. It's more than that less than 1500 pounds or they're saying this is one standard deviation. That's 4.6 kilos what's 4.6 kilos and pounds and stone? One point 4.6 kilos in stone naught point seven stone in pounds lbs 10 pounds? Yeah, okay, so not even so less than the stone 10 pounds would create a 2940 Lower annual household income. Oh, I know I think no, no, that's not why is it? Why is it anyway whatever. Whatever blah, blah. Low fat when we get paid less shocking. According to research over 40% of people with higher body weight report that they have experienced weight bias from employers and supervisors. So this is a

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a paper from Rudd center. thing go check that out. higher weight folks are less likely to be promoted be company CEOs and MB in client facing positions. So Sue, quote from this, this is a work this is a weight bias in the workplace a literature review. Qualitative reviews have concluded that individuals who are fat face weight bias and discrimination at every stage of the employment cycle, every stage of the employment cycle, these reviews have identified evidence for weight bias across a variety of evaluative outcomes, including selection, placement, compensation, assignments, promotions, assessments, discipline, and termination. So they've looked at all of these different studies, and they've pulled out what those studies have said. So there's a number of studies there. One of them, if we look at just I'm just looking at one of them here. It's called stigmatization of fat individuals by human resources, professionals, and experimental study. So what they did is they took 127 HR professionals, and 42% of HR, HR professionals disqualified fat females wait produced largest inequality in selection when choosing an individual for a supervisory experience, supervisory position, so the worst outcomes as when they were being selected for a managerial job. HR people said, No, thanks. We don't want the fatties. Okay. And so then it was talked about talked about this in New York about the discrimination laws. So we're out with laws to protect fat people. How many countries in the world have national laws to protect against weight stigma? Have a guess? Is it A, zero, B? One to five, or C? Six to 10? Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo? What's your answer? If you said A, you'd be correct, zero countries in the world have any size discrimination laws. So if that person can be terminated just because of their size, and there is no anti discrimination laws to protect them in Canada or any country in the entire world. But we do if you're in the US, good old US pulling through on this, us, Michigan and Washington, there is a law protecting fat folks from being fired due to size. And there's a few other places with protections. So there's no national laws. We've got a few, you know, cities, jurisdictions that have protections. Michigan and Washington have laws. If you live in Michigan and Washington and you're fat, yay, if you get fired for being fat, you sue them motherfuckers if you're fired for being fat, this is the way to go about it. Which I really don't like is to claim that fatness is a disability, and I know we're the last episode. You know, I mean, I could never do it. I could never do it because there's so much evidence of me saying fatness is not a disease. Imagine if I went to a court of law and was like, I'm fired because I'm fat and fat as as a disease and the opposing counsel would be like, Bitch, thanks, I look at your 50,000 7000 podcasts and posts about how it's not. I can't do it. But if that happens to you fatness as a fitness as a disability, but it won't always work in a lot of times it won't work, but that's the only recourse that that you have. And you have to prove that the employer for you and your body sizes as a disability like that you ask for accommodations due to your body size. So say for example, if you were you were like, No, you're working in Amazon factory. And you said, Hey, supervisor due to my weight, I would like to sit down for a portion of the day. And then the supervisor said I know that your fatness is a disability, but I have a disease but I'm not going to give I'm not going to allow you any accommodations. In fact, I'm going to fire you. And here I put it in writing for you. Then you can be like okay, no sounds like I can sue you for that. So just a heads up on that. I mean, I hate that we don't have things protecting us on body size. And the one in New York was is size and height, which I think is really important too. As we can see from the studies, short kings, short men paid less. Okay, it's good. Okay, so a random of the stats because I said a lot of stuff there, fat people are less likely to be hired in the first place. A 2017 survey found that when 500 hiring professionals were shown a picture of a larger bodied woman, only 15.6% of them said that would hire her fat people are paid less fat people are paid between 9020 $2,000 less a year than their smaller counterparts. They are also given pay increases less frequently and then smaller colleagues. Fat people experience greater amounts of bias in the workplace. According to research, over 40% of people with high body weight report that they have experienced weight bias from employers and supervisors. Lack of visibility and promotion, higher weight folks are less likely to be promoted, be company leaders and be in client facing positions. I'm gonna make a post with all those stats in them. So you don't have to frantically write them down or anything. And by the way, I haven't mentioned this in a while just a heads up, we have a transcript for every episode of the podcast ever. And we're up to up to 159 now so if you ever want a transcript, go to the shownotes. And there you have it, we've we've done that. Okay, so that's the stats. Let's hear your stories. I want to hear your stories. All right, so I asked in my Instagram stories. What what's it like being fat work? What have you experienced in the way of discrimination? So we've got some like short little answers, and then we've got longer messages. First one, making us do quote, health screening, including BMI measurement for our insurance. Yeah, that's fucked up. And obviously this is not every country in the world because not every country has insurance tied to employment. But a lot a lot of places a lot of people do that is their reality that insurance companies will will deny people insurance work so insurance you get from your workplace and will be denied insurance because of their weights and will get discounts etc for having a lower weight. Next, weight loss challenges at work disguises health a boss who openly made fat jokes. This is the one that really gets on my flaps is weight loss challenges like I'm like, why has no one got a fucking clue? This could be harmful even if they were like, well, we want fat people to get thin even if they hate it or fat people. Can they not even consider that there are people who have a previous history of disordered eating disorders that you know if they can only extend compassion to thin people that there are thin people who might have that history. So like fucking get a clue like Jesus. It's so embarrassing. So 2002 chairs not made for that people lunch room tables and chairs that were in a fixed position. Weight Watchers at work oh, clients developing fat phobic wellbeing programs. I don't even bring food to work anymore because someone will comment. It's fucked up. Can you imagine what you eaten? Did you know Lola has got so many calories? Oh, you shouldn't eat call jets anymore. They've got toxins called yet what do you call it in North America? Zucchini Hmm I think I prefer the name cause yet because it really lines with what a closure is it's like a phone calls yet. core core sounds foamy? That's what kosher is. It should be put in the fucking trash can because they're fucking disgusting calls Yes. hate that shit. Anyway, I work in a female dominated workplace it's constant diet talk. It's so hard. Promoting diets and weight loss endlessly work life balance equals discounts at gyms. Yeah, I remember when I was like, I can't believe they don't give us give us free membership to Weight Watchers and discounts the gym when I was in my dieting fat phobic stage. I was like it's outrageous. If I had had any power at any company, it would be the most fat phobic fucking place ever. When I was in my dieting. I'd be like making motherfuckers like, do all sorts of shit. Thank God I never had any power. I just ruined the lives of the people around me. Continuing they took away full fat milk. There are signs everywhere about how to lose weight. Women's uniforms don't come large enough men's quote will do. No they won't do it. Give me a fucking uniform so I can do my job. Women saying at least I lost weight as a benefit of getting seriously ill.

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Diet taught people literally saying fat people are disgusting Hellfest attitudes, general treatment fatties tend to be overlooked and not taken seriously. Yes. Okay, so here's your your longer comments. I worked at a youth center and had to deal with a lot of anti fat comments from staff. People refusing food because they quote didn't want to be a fatty or talking about their latest diet had to address at a staff meeting, I was crying, recounting how de human dehumanizing people were being. Also my clothing was covered, covertly policed by someone in leadership for being unprofessional. It was fully because I was fat, and she didn't like that I wore close fitting clothes. I'm very open with my colleagues about fat phobia and my commitment to fat acceptance. One time my boss asked me if a chair in her office was comfortable for me. And it wasn't so I told her, and we got me another chair. So another chair, she's in a thin body. So for her to even think to ask me meant so much. On the flip side, they're indifferent. Right? There is a word conference in Europe this summer. And I probably can't go because it will be too complicated as I need two seats. So that sucks. Two seats on the flight. Yeah, so actually, that one I should have read last I asked people have you had fat positive experiences at work? And this was the only one out of all of the messages I got. That was the only one that then you know, ends with a side of fat phobia of not being able to go to a work conference. Someone says, Does it count as discrimination if you can't consistently get scrubs in an appropriate size? If so, then yes, yes, it is discrimination if you cannot have the equipment that you need, aka combs to work. Blaming fatness for a health outcome, blaming lack of control or laziness on weight, being unwilling my perception or unable due to staffing levels, to provide the same basic care as you could would for a straight sized or thin person. So that person works in health care. This person says like it's a fucking disgrace. Like no matter how amazing people can be to patients and families, there's still a judgmental undertone. And I worry if that transpires into care, caring for a fat body has different challenges. I work in ICU. So issues around movement and skinfold care both come to mind. It's disappointing to be able to think of multiple examples of break room or handover chat between professionals, which is so degrading. I remember when I had my I had my organ do it because I haven't removed gallbladder when I had my gallbladder out, waking up from recovery, and the nurse had like, ripped back the covers. And I was completely naked. Because she was looking at my wounds in a room full of people who, and there was people, like a bunch of healthcare providers over there nurses or whatever, send around laughing and stuff, and they weren't laughing at me. But they were like to having a conversation. And it was it was just like, that was just so that's how I woke up. And it felt so uncaring. And and that's because she thought that I was asleep, right that she was like It felt aggressively pulled the pulled my cover up and pulled my gown off or whatever. I don't know how if the gown was already up or something I don't know. Anyway. No, that's no, no, that's not I don't think that was fatphobia. And I remember it was who knows? Yeah, so. So hi, Vinny and team regarding our story. I working in a nursing home for intensive care patients. I've been working there for more than five years now. And to this day, I have to work in my personal clothes because they won't provide fitting work clothes for me and two other fat colleagues. When the COVID testing centers opened here in Germany and staff were desperately needed. I wanted to help and work there, but I couldn't because they didn't provide perfect protective overalls. For fat people. They told me to wear a gown made of permeable fabric in which not all of my body would have been protected. While the straight size people got the overalls. So I declined because I didn't want to risk my health. Other than that, there's loads of diet talk at my workplace, which is annoying as fuck. Also, there's a lot of fat phobia regarding our patients. For example, there was one patient who gained weight and was then put on a diet. She was fed via gastric tube which is common for a lot of our patients. So the doctor just reduced the amount Have tube feedings she received for months, she only received 500 to 1000 calories a day. That is such little that that is such little calories. She of course lost a lot of weight and everyone was happy when she lost enough weight. She then received more tube feeding again and regained some weight which made a lot of colleagues want to restrict her input again, I advocated for her and then that didn't didn't happen. But no one understands that you can't just starve people for as long as you want. It's quite difficult to determine whether patients feel hungry or not, respectively. They often fight times don't feel hunger at all. But still 500 or 1000 calories per day is just not enough for an adult. No, not even close. Thank God that this person was there to advocate for that. That patient. By the way, I didn't ask specifically for health care stories I said any jobs but it's interesting to show how health care is where a lot of this stuff is happening. Okay, so high topic fatphobia at work, my boss is demand after an addiction prevention talk down in their office that I bring a kind of certificates from my GP saying I don't have a food addiction. This kind of talk is for addictions where your senses are impaired. So you can't take proper care of the people with disabilities that live in that home. Let me just re state what this person is saying. They work an environment where they look after people with disabilities that live in their home. There was a addiction prevention talk at their office then their bosses demanded that the employee bring a certificate from their doctor to say that they are not addicted to food because they have a fat body because apparently one food addiction is real it's not and two fatness is called caused by having a food addiction. Which three, that even if fatness was caused by a food addiction and food addiction was a thing that it would mean that you are impaired and you cannot look after a patient or client so I message back saying What the actual fuck question exclamation times 100 This is horrifying. food addiction isn't real and they presumably target you because they presumed that you're addicted to food due to your size. What in the fuck is wrong with these people? Did you have to get quote proof that you're not a food addict? Or did they come to their fat phobic senses? This person responded I got a certificate from my GP that I am perfectly psychologically and physically conditioned to fulfill all my duties and she was appalled that they demanded such a paper. But then she went on to tell me that I really should do something about my size. Yay. Yeah, when Samuel looser my boss's least never tried to walk that road again. I want to go around this person's fucking workplace and just roundhouse kick. All those bosses in their fat phobic fucking faces. German is egregious. I just and then the doctor just say that's fucked. But you are fat. Oh, wow. Have you tried not being fat? Wow. Like picking sand in your face when you're down? Shit, that's fucked. Okay, I hear so many conversations about diet and weight at work. Some of this is relevant and productive as I work with elite athletes and we have registered dieticians on staff. But I have many colleagues who are not certified or trained to work with food and nutrition who talk about wanting to lose weight going on diets, quote, cheat days or being quite bad for eating, drinking certain things, etc. It's never been negatively directed at me. But I will tell you it makes me very uncomfortable to exist here being fat. I often feel out of place or that somebody's view some people view me as lesser because of my size. They are also noticeably noticeable gender differences in attitudes about size and weight. And so I asked them about this like what does she mean about the gender differences and and this person said that the male athletes they are more letting them eat more and less hard than they are on women athletes. So next story I just started working in a primary care clinic. Of course our health care system is rooted in fat phobia. However, I didn't expect the water cooler talk to be so heavy on the weight loss dieting Hating Your Body Talk. One tall thin women woman was complaining about the accuracy of our Fitbit in terms of calories burned. And I said, doesn't really matter. What's important is that you moved your body and did something good for it. Her response was,

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actually it does matter because I'm counting calories. The next day, she was showing herself showing off herself in a bikini from last year. And from this year, see last year, I mean, I was thin, but still a little Pudge. Look at me now. And everyone says, Great work. I'm so proud of you. And I sit there in my wonderfully fat body, enjoying what I eat, and how I move and not feeling I need validation from others in the shape of before and after photos. For my worth. Beautiful. Beautiful last sentence. I sit there in my wonderfully fat body. Yeah, I'd love it. If someone I'd love it if a tall thin woman showed me a before and after bikini picture. She would not get any. Anything from me. I'd be like, I'm sorry, I don't stand. What do you mean? Oh, you think you look better? Because you have a smaller body? Why is that? I don't understand. Do you not like fatness? Is there something wrong with being fat? Is there something wrong with my buddy? Like, he would she would be regret showing that shit to me. And I get like, I get it. I'm not at your job, right? I'm not the one who has to sit there and try and not get fired. I would be coming in as an imagination fantasy character. Someone who doesn't get it give a shit who is not going to get fired by the boss who can just magically come in and be like, poof, fuck you. And off I go in real life. You know, if you're in an office, you can't be like, shut the fuck up. Karen or, you know, shut up, Tracy with your fucking bullshit. Because you know, Tracy's gonna be like, That fat person's bullying me, because they're jealous that I'm thinking, you know, or something like that. So yeah, just take it, take it take a deep breath. Because you know, all them stories is know that stats is a lot, adds a lot of discrimination. So again, if you're if you're in a workplace, and you know that they might be open to this stuff, or even if that not feel free to pass on my details. One of the presentations I do is detangling anti fat bias in the workplace. I talk about language, I talk about making the location accessible to people. I talk about, you know, all of those stats, I talk about how well if, if that bias is so bad, why don't just fat people just become thin. So I talk about how that's not possible. And I talk about how to make a place welcoming for fat people. And honestly, I'm surprised by how positive like in the last I think I mentioned this before in the last while how previously, you know, maybe four years ago it felt very people are like fuck you Vinny for being here talking to us about fat stuff. Whereas now it feels more. Oh, tell me more. What is weird? Is Strange. Lights. So you know, maybe times are changing and shit. That's not everywhere, right? That is not everywhere. There's lots of places where I mean, there's all these stories. I would love to go to these workplaces and blow these people's minds. Even if it the only person who benefits is the the one fat person who is fat positive who's like Yeah, fuck you all your fucking beggars. Now there's someone in here telling you what giant assholes you are. That would be good when it wouldn't be satisfying. Oh, I'd be so satisfied if I if I didn't do this. And I just worked on worked in like, I didn't have a job that was related to factory ism. And then someone came in and spoke about their stuff. I'd be like, so smug. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So in one of those, all of those resources, almost every single one of those studies, I spoke about how fat phobic language, one of the most frustrating ones was the the one where it was about the 500 hiring managers and only 15.6% of them would hire a fat person. They had a section of how to mitigate the bias. And they said you have to tell people how you're not lazy and that you are a hard worker and that you have to kind of tell them that you're the you're the opposite of what their biases are. And I was like Barkoff really? Because the answer is don't be a beggar. The answer is don't discriminate. And yeah, I mean, I get it like we want to get the job. But I don't think the advice to the general public public about anti fat bias is make yourself a more a more appealing fatty, be a good, fatty. I did an episode on the good fatty bad fatty dichotomy. Good fatty is a fat person who performs a role that society finds them more palatable in. And there's nothing wrong if you happen to be a quote, good, Fatty, it's not a thing. Really. It's just the way society views fat people, a good fatty as a fat person who was trying to lose weight, who is self depreciating, who says I'm so sorry for being fat. I'm a lazy piece of shit. You're right. Please help me be thin. I'm trying to be thin. A band fatty is someone who says, I'm not interested in weight loss, and I'm happy the way that I am. And everything that goes along with that. So a good fatty could be an athlete. And so a fat athlete could have nothing to do with being a good, Fatty, they could be like, Fuck you, I never want a diet. But the fact that they're an athlete means that they are given a quote, pass. Because they are seen as an Elisa trying to be thin. I mean, they could just be like, I'm not trying to be thin. I'm just trying to be a fucking Worldstar athlete. Go on, I listened some, you know, I read like I watched you like watching heavy, strongest men shows the strongest, strongest, heaviest weight lifted by a woman, this beautiful fat black woman whose flat 40 Ah go watch the video, just Google strongest heaviest weight lifted by a woman and just go see that fucking app root lifting. I don't know how many pounds a lot, like at least 20 shopping bags, bags filled with groceries. And the groceries are like pints of milk. So heavy, heavy weights. Yeah, and seeing that far out. And she and she's not like about I think she didn't and whatever. And so people might view her as well Elise, she's contributing because she's trying to lift weights or whatever, or someone who happens to like running, or someone who happens to eat a salad one time, but then if that same fat person, then you know, is it in something which is not seen as healthy, then then there'll be a bad day. So you can swing from bad and good, fatty or you know, within 10 minutes. It's a way that that society views fat people. So it's not roles that that fat people take, although we can perform in those roles for ourselves, or for our safety example, being hyper feminine. Fat folks are seen as you know, sloppy and lazy and so, to protect ourselves sometimes fat femmes will play with with gender so that they are less targeted. And not because they necessarily want to and of course, a lot of people want to because it's fun or whatever, but some people don't want to but they do it because they they feel like they need to to be seen as a little bit more put together than they would if they were just thin they could they'll just thin they could walk around with covered in fucking human feces and people be like fashion. Oh my God said. She said beautiful. You know, a fat person can be walking around, like covered in fucking diamonds. And, you know, and people be like, she looks a bit scrubby, you know. And it's just because of body size. Anyway, how why did I go onto this fucking tangent to know? Do you know? Do you remember why go on this tangent. Listener? That remember? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. About the thing. Like, this advice was to be a good fatty in job interviews. And I mean, yeah, if you want to do that, whatever, but I don't. But you know, I'm saying that with a lot of privilege. I work for myself, so I don't have to deal with that fucking bullshit. Well, thanks for hanging out with me today. Don't forget if you're thinking about going to Kofi to donate to subscribe. I would be delighted delighted. It would be delicious. If you did a five month subscription so that we can keep the podcast advert free. You don't want to be listening to no shit. The adverts halfway through at the beginning at the end. No. You just want the sultry sounds of me talking. Right? Right. Right. Do you maybe like fuck off? I don't I'm never going to listen to this podcast again. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's Okay, next podcast. Let's have a go next podcast. So we've got nine subscriptions. Okay. $55 a month subscription value. Let's see if we can get it to. Okay, here's a goal for next time. 15 Will you help me get there to 50 In the next episode?

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Oh my goodness 15x update active subscriptions Okay, let's see how much would that then be? My math skills is so bad that would be $85 a month if you did $5 I kind of sounded like a zebra that didn't I you know, the sound of zebra as a that's pretty good, isn't it? I can have a career in impersonating zebras. I don't want to stop fucking talking about shit. Thanks for hanging out with me today show notes space for a.com forward slash 159 It's always the episode number. Or you could always just go to podcast and you'll find that shit for all the links to everything and then check out social media in the next little bit for a roundup of all of these studies in case you want to share it and be like fuck you pay me. Yeah, so thanks for hanging out. See you next time. See you in a while alligator stay face batty. Good boy.

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