Stay ConnectedBurnt Toast is your body liberation community. We’re working to dismantle diet culture and anti-fat bias, and we have a lot of strong opinions about comfy pants.
Co-hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (NYT-bestselling author of FAT TALK) and Corinne Fay (author of the popular plus size fashion newsletter Big Undies).
Copyright: © Virginia Sole-Smith
There’s a slew of “Look at this mama, she’s so beautiful inside and out.” And it’s always on the photos of women who are thin. We see this equating of “you are slaying motherhood,” with “you don’t have any physical reminders that you’ve created a human and birthed a human.” Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith.Today’s conversation is with Sara Petersen, a writer based in New Hampshire. Her first book Momfluenced, which examines the performance of motherhood through momfluencer culture, what this reveals about the texture of modern motherhood, and what we might learn from it, is coming next year from Beacon Press.If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And subscribe to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and more.Quick disclaimer: Sara and I are both white, straight, cisgender women who had our children biologically. We both have varying degrees of thin privilege. This conversation is inevitably focused on the experience of motherhood as this white, straight, cisgender phenomenon because that’s the reality of momfluencing. It’s not an inclusive world.If a conversation about pregnancy, childbirth and body changes does not sound safe for you, feel free to skip this one. Episode 27 TranscriptVirginiaHi, Sara, thank you for being here!SaraHi, I’m so psyched.VirginiaWhy don’t we start by defining some terms. What is a momfluencer? I loved the way you put it in your Harper’s Bazaar piece, that “they enrage us and yet we cannot look away.”SaraThe standard definition is an influencer who is also a mother who has monetized her social media platforms. I’m broadening it for my research and book to look at how we all perform motherhood on social media, whether or not we have a monetized following.VirginiaInteresting. That makes sense because it is true you get micro-influenced by mothers in your space, even if they’re not “capital M” momfluencers.SaraTotally, and it impacts how you think about posting your own motherhood content on your own page. It’s this self-conscious narratization of your own story. You start calling yourself a mama versus a mother or a mom. And there’s a romanticization of the basic facts of motherhood.VirginiaAs professional momfluencers have become a legitimate industry, we are seeing much more analysis and discourse around them, which I really cannot get enough of. And I’m so excited for your book. What made you want to dive so deep into this topic?SaraTaza, Naomi Davis, was one of my first obsessions. She made motherhood look so joyful. That was confounding for me because I’m someone—obviously I love my kids and I’m super grateful for them—but nine times out of ten, I don’t love the work of motherhood. It’s tedious, it’s monotonous, it’s boring a lot of the time, like playing store or whatever. So seeing someone constantly posting this beautiful, joyful picture of motherhood got in my psyche. Why wasn’t I so readily able to access that same joy? And then I went down the rabbit hole from there.VirginiaThere’s also the aesthetics of momfluencing. I’m recording in my four year old’s bedroom right now because my office is under construction. I’m sitting next to a giant sloth named Stella who is an important part of our family and she’s pretty hideous. SaraI really should have brought Kevin. I have a dolphin in my house. Oh, it’s narwhal named Kevin.VirginiaI find motherhood is a real drag on my aesthetic vibe. This room is filled with stuffed animals that I would never have chosen to surround myself with because they bring my children great joy. But in the momfluencer vision, your children perfectly fit into this beautifully curated life. Their children do not have giant sloths and narwhals. Or they have the cute Etsy versions. SaraThe detritus of children in a home is ugly, nine out of ten times. I just spoke to Bethanie Garcia about this—The Garcia Diaries. She’ll do the staged photoshoots with her kids in cute little shaker fishermen cardigans, but she’s transparent about the fact that she bribes her kids to wear those because as soon as the photoshoot is done, they want to wear their SpiderMan onesies. VirginiaWe should mention for folks who are as fascinated by momfluencers as we are, if you want more on these topics, we recommend Kathryn Jezer-Morton’s newsletter Mothers Under the Influence and the podcast Under the Influence with Jo Piazza. And Meg Conley wrote about the mommies of Instagram. But we are going to talk about momfluencer’s bodies and how the momfluencing sphere intersects with diet culture. It’s important to articulate that these women are both products of and creators of diet culture. They are both living under these rigid standards about what their bodies should look like and reinforcing those standards through all this content creation. There’s also a very specific vernacular to how much influencers do diet culture. SaraPregnancy and postpartum are the two biggest phases where you’re going to see it. Documenting of pregnancies and the barrage of comments. Like, “how do you look so good, pregnant with your fifth kid? I’m pregnant with my first.” Then there are the postpartum photos. It’s “How did you get your body back so quickly? How did you bounce back?”VirginiaYou have made humans and yet you look like you’ve never made humans, which means you’ve achieved what diet culture tells us is a woman’s primary goal in life: To be a mother and to look like that never happened to you. There’s often a lot of body positive talk woven in with the “bouncing back.” Which can get murky, because there’s a lot of “I’m doing this for me. This is #selfcare,” without acknowledging that you’re reinforcing fatphobia in that process. There’s also the reality that there are very few major name fat momfluencers. There’s often this rhetoric of like, “Oh, you’re so brave, because you’re showing us stretch marks.” But the only people who get to be brave are thin white women. SaraAnother one of the tropes is the conflating of moral goodness with how one’s body is presenting. There’s a slew of “Look at this mama, she’s so beautiful inside and out.” And it’s always, again, on the photos of women who are thin. We see this equating of “you are slaying motherhood” with “you don’t have any physical reminders that you’ve created human and birthed a human.” Which adds to the erasure of the labor of motherhood. It erases the need for things like postpartum leave and universal preschool, things that actually help mothers in systemic, meaningful ways, versus the hashtag #noexcuses. VirginiaYou’re right. If you manage to look like you never had a kid at six weeks postpartum, then why do you need maternity leaves? Because you got your body back. You’re done. Oh, that’s infuriating. So you have some case studies for us to analyze. SaraAlright, so the first one we’re going to look at is Hannah Neeleman. She’s @ballerinafarm. She’s a rancher in Utah. She’s Mormon. She’s married to one of the heirs to JetBlue. But that’s not a big part of her platform because that would go against the homesteading rancherwoman vibe.This is the birth announcement for her seventh child. The comments are praising her superwoman powers. Like, “How does she look like this pregnant with her seventh kid?” Then there’s another comment that says, “I think she’s just got amazing abs and was able to hide it this long!” So there’s this really pointed dissection of mothers’ bodies where commenters are saying, “I knew it!!!!!!! I thought I saw a little pooch last week!!! ❤️❤️❤️ congrats!!!” VirginiaThere’s a sense of ownership over this woman’s body. That’s a very uncomfortable dynamic.SaraYep. She posts a lot of cleaning videos where she’ll clean up the mess of six children and make it look like a lark, with lots of thumbs up. She does it all with a smile. There’s a comment under this pregnancy announcement post that says, “This is what true feminism looks like! Doing it all! So cool.”VirginiaSara, help me, how is this feminism?Sara Feminism here is being a mother, assuming motherhood as a gender essentialist, natural role that a mother should do easily and well and with a smile on her face. She’s adhering to all the patriarchal standards that there are. She is conventionally attractive. She’s retaining her heterosexual desirability, in spite of and despite motherhood. She’s in the home and she’s happy about it all. She’s not complaining.VirginiaI think about young women, especially coming from rural America, from a conservative background, aspiring to this. It feels like such an unfair bar. There’s so many things about this that are resting on all the different kinds of privilege she has. She’s only doing it all because she’s married to a gazillionaire. I mean, and she’s certainly not doing it all.SaraShe also homeschools her kids. And there’s never any acknowledgement of outside childcare help or housecleaning help. Another part of her “doing it all” narrative is the idealization of her marriage. When she went to the pageant, she made a big point of posting stories like “Daniel’s staying at home with the kids and he’s the best.”VirginiaThat’s interesting. It’s almost like a cosplay of equality and co-parenting, with that need to overly praise your husband for doing his part.Who do we have next? SaraAmber Fillerup Clark. She used to be known as Barefoot Blonde. I don’t know if I would call her ex-Mormon, but she’s written some really insightful posts disagreeing with the church, which is refreshing. But she, again, is a thin woman. This is how she announced her fourth pregnancy.I guess we could say she feels “empowered” to lean into her sexuality in a way that not all momfluencers do. There’s a comment that says "No wonder he keeps putting babies in you. LOOK AT YOU! 😍" So she gets a lot of the hypersexualized comments that make me feel feelings.VirginiaWell, again, it’s the sense of ownership over her body that her followers have. Because yes, she’s putting a semi-naked photo of herself out there for the world to discuss, but I still feel violated on her behalf. Does she not deserve some privacy? SaraTotally. This is the whole, “but they’re putting themselves out there so they deserve whatever intrusive behavior or commentary they get.” Which is obviously absurd logic. There’s a comment here that says, “She already looks hungry and then to think that she’s meant to be nurturing a baby as well in there 🥺”VirginiaI think a lot about the responsibility of influencers putting these images out for young girls. They do have a responsibility to not perpetuate these dangerous beauty ideals. And yet, we do not know this woman’s health. We cannot make assumptions based on her body that she has an eating disorder or she’s not eating enough to nourish her pregnancy. Healthy pregnancies look different on every person. There’s no evidence here that she’s doing anything dangerous for her pregnancy. I’m troubled by the standard this reinforces and I feel like it’s important to just emphasize that we don’t actually know what we’re seeing. We also don’t know how much of this is even real, right? Because the photos are heavily edited and styled.Alright, who’s next?SaraI just wanted to briefly touch on Rachel Hollis. I included her infamous tiger stripes bikini shots. Do you want to describe the image Virginia?VirginiaYes. She is standing on a beautiful beach and she is wearing a monogrammed bikini top. Her hair is very messy. She’s giving us a lot of beachy waves and big sunglasses. This does look like something that maybe her husband just snapped on his iPhone. It has a much more loose, casual, lower quality vibe to the photo. Her stomach, which is very flat because she is a thin person, has some bumpy skin. I wouldn’t even say it’s loose skin exactly. It’s like her skin is just not perfectly taught. There’s a little bit of texture to her stomach.SaraThis one exemplifies something that is characteristic of Rachel Hollis’ whole thing, which is, “Everything I have is a result of my individual hard work and not because of my various layers of privilege.” And she writes, “Those marks prove that I was blessed enough to carry my babies. And that flabby tummy means I worked hard to lose what weight I could.” So again, it’s this imperative. I have to work out. I have to change the way my body looks after birthing humans because that makes me morally superior to people who choose not to exercise or choose not to prioritize weight loss after pregnancy. She goes on to uphold her sexual desirability when she says, “I wear a bikini because the only man whose opinion matters knows what I went through to look this way. That same man says he’s never seen anything sexier than my body, marks and all.” VirginiaI feel frustrated that none of these women are even questioning the premise. There is never a sense of maybe I don’t have to lose the baby weight. Maybe my body is allowed to look like it changed. SaraKatie Crenshaw—she’s a great follow—writes a lot about body image stuff as it pertains to motherhood. She talks about the bullshit of calling images like these brave. She says, let’s stop qualifying perceived flaws. Imperfections aren’t more beautiful or acceptable because someone produced a child. There’s no moral hierarchy. That’s so important to underscore in this whole conversation, this assumption that if our bodies changed because we had children we are somehow given more grace than people who haven’t birthed children when their bodies change.VirginiaYes, lots of people’s stomachs who look like Rachel Hollis’ stomach, or significantly fatter, are actually just fat stomachs and they haven’t had kids. They don’t owe us an explanation or justification for that either. You don’t have to earn the right to have a flawed body.SaraIt goes back to the tiger stripes, like Rachel Hollis saying that somehow her body looks the way it does, because she’s gone through some sort of whatever. The warrior goddess mentality of motherhood.VirginiaWhich is also another way of fetishizing motherhood, instead of seeing motherhood. If you’re equating the experience of giving birth to running a triathlon—now you’re stronger than ever, and it’s made you a better person—then we don’t have to do anything for moms because they’re walking through this fire so willingly and bravely. If they can withstand that, then they don’t need paid leave or childcare. So this justification for her body is both harming moms and harming all the people who are not moms.SaraWhich goes back to @ballerinafarm and how she does it all with six kids and one on the way. That’s not good. We shouldn’t be worshiping this cult of burnout.VirginiaI will just quickly shout out of course Maintenance Phase did an excellent two part episode on Rachel Hollis. So, if you want way more Rachel Hollis analysis, Aubrey and Michael have you covered there. SaraDo you want to go into Hilaria?VirginiaOkay. She is another extremely thin woman. She’s in a profile, so you can really see the definition of her ab muscles, which I feel is important to the story. She’s wearing a black lacy bra and underwear. She is holding a cute little baby in a red onesie. They are near a bathtub, although they are both wearing clothes. Her hair is also in a nice half up style. So I feel like this is not post-bath. She is sniffing her baby in her underwear. SaraSo again, a lot of the same patterns that we’ve seen in our other case studies. The “Oh my goodness you look absolutely incredible!! 👏👏🙌🙌❤️❤️ After baby number 2 my body decided to give in to gravity. 🤦🏻♀️” That demonization of a body doing what a body does. VirginiaThat other comment you pulled is “Dam girl!!!!!!!🔥 I wish I'd looked like that. If I had, I too would have had more! But I didn't, so I stopped at 2.”SaraYeah, that one really stuck out for me. We’re in a place where we’re considering how many…
Full show notes at the publisher“I think in general, we all know too much about nutrition. I say that as a dietitian. Even the most intuitive eating of kids will be a picky eater. And that’s fine. We don’t need to nutrition them out of that. There isn’t of a nutrient in broccoli or kale that they can’t get from something else, I promise.”Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. I’m the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.Today’s guest is Amee Severson. Amee is co-author of How to Raise an Intuitive Eater with Sumner Brooks, RD. Amee is also a registered dietitian who specializes in eating disorder recovery, healing and preserving food/body relationships, and provides gender-inclusive and LGBTQ-affirming care.Amee joins us today to discuss their new book. We will be talking about feeding kids but also about doing your own work and why we need to forget everything we know about nutrition.If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And subscribe to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and more.Have a question or a topic you want us to tackle in a future episode? Post it as a comment on this episode of the newsletter or send it to virginiasolesmith@substack.com. Episode 26 TranscriptVirginiaI am so excited. I’ve interviewed you a few other times for articles and things, but it is always such a pleasure to chat with you.Today we are talking about your new book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. This is the book I’ve been dying to be able to hand to people. This is a resource we desperately need. I think a lot of people are expecting that they’re going to pick up this book and be told, “Step one to feed your child. Step two to feed your child.” Instead you spend the first 150 pages or so—really half the book—talking about parents. Why we as parents need to do our own work and how we can do that work. So, why start there? Especially because it is so hard, Amee. You’re making us do really hard work.AmeeI know. I wish I could make it easy and just have it be a complete step-by-step guide, but we would have been missing a lot.It’s not an uncommon question: Why make so much extra work in there? I remember when I was a kid, every woman in my family had super short hair. Over the age of like 35 or 40, everyone just cut their hair short. I had this assumption that you got old (because that was old to me when I was seven) and you cut your hair short. You didn’t have long hair when you were old. That’s ridiculous, you know? There’s just this assumption that this is what you do. And it was the same for dieting for my family. You reach teenage-hood and you joined Weight Watchers. You hated your body and you tried to lose weight. I just assumed that’s what you did as an adult. I know that I’m not alone because we see it everywhere. The way parents or caregivers talk about not just their body, but food in general. You don’t ever have to say anything explicitly to your child. You never have to say, “I think your body is wrong,” or “I think you’re eating wrong,” or “This is your fault.” If you are saying it to yourself, if you are living your life like that, your kids are tiny sponges who soak up all that and reflect it back in the world.VirginiaSomething I hear a lot from parents is, “My child is three or my child is thirteen and I’m now realizing I need to do this. And is it too late?” They’re wishing this was something they fixed about themselves before they became parents. Of course, we cannot go back to our pre-child selves and work on this. AmeeJust like with intuitive eating, it’s never too late to start working on it. I think at a certain point, it is probably more beneficial for your older teenage child to do their own work, as opposed to you having different rules or attitudes around food. It can feel so overwhelming to start, like, oh, I have to fix myself and master the first half of the book before I’m allowed to start trying to introduce these concepts to my kid. Especially when your kid is older, it can feel more urgent, too, like I need to do this now. I already screwed up so much. As a parent, I get that. You, as a parent or as a caregiver, are repairing your own relationship with food while continuing to foster your kids having a good relationship with food—those two things can happen concurrently. It can be very important, especially if your relationship with food isn’t what you want your kid to grow up with or if you get that sinking feeling that this is not what I want to see my kid doing in 20 years. Then doing it concurrently is important.VirginiaI think that’s reassuring, too, because it lets us know that we don’t have to fix it completely to do better for them. I hope people find that liberating. I know I do! I just think, okay, I don’t have to be getting an A+ on this, you know? I was trying to get dieting perfect for so long and now I have to get this perfect?AmeeYeah, there’s a lot of pressure to be the perfect parent all the time. Especially in this way I am so tired of, like “My kid eats kale, so they’re perfect.” My kid knows that kale goes to work with my husband. He puts it in a seafood case at work because it’s pretty, but we don’t eat it. And that’s totally fine! Because perfect parenting is a myth, I think. Sumner Brooks and I really emphasize throughout the book how faking it till you make it is totally okay. Having a lot of compassion for yourself for not having it all figured out and not being perfect is fine.VirginiaLet’s talk about your Three Keys concept. This is what you see as the building blocks of the feeding relationship. The first key is providing unconditional love and support for your child’s body. Am I right that this is often one of the hardest parts for folks?AmeeYeah, it definitely is. Partly because I think that it can be hard to recognize that we aren’t providing unconditional love and support for our kids. If someone is picking up this book, if someone’s listening to this podcast, if someone is looking up any sort of parenting advice online, they’re probably trying their damnedest to help their kid as much as possible. It’s not malicious, it’s none of that. They’re trying their best and hearing that we can be harming, for lack of a better word, our kids through setting expectations on their bodies or even praising bodies—any of that can be hard to hear. Like, oh crap I’m doing something wrong. We live in a society that has put conditional love and support on bodies and we want to change that, because one of the least important things about a person is what their body looks like or even what their body can do.VirginiaWhat is an example of when someone may think they’re providing that support, but they really aren’t? AmeeI think praise is a big one. Like, “You’re so pretty,” or “You’re so strong,” or “You’re so handsome.” It also can be subtle things. Something like, “are you sure you really want to wear that? You look really pretty. But are you sure you want to wear that?” It’s a lot of the buts, the “You’re doing really well at this thing, but your body is taking away from it.” And those are those unintentional jabs that build up over time.VirginiaI was just interviewing someone for my book and we were talking about athletics. Kids get told way, way, way too young that they don’t have “the body” for a particular sport, even if they love a sport. You might love running, but you don’t have a “runner’s body” or “You’re not tall enough to play basketball.” Even if you’re still putting your kid on the team or encouraging them to love that sport, you’re letting them know that they won’t be the best at it, and so that it’s somehow not worthwhile because of their body.Key number two is to implement a flexible and reliable feeding routine. This is something that you all articulated so well in the book that was really helpful for me. Often, we can either be very structured about meals or have zero structure and both can be really problematic. You said that what kids really need is to know they’re going to get enough food. The point of structure is to let them know that this is a need that will be met. I was like, oh, it’s not about trying to get the kid to eat on a certain schedule. It’s about reassuring that they are going to be fed. How did you come to that realization and why that is so important for parents to realize?AmeeOne of the reasons why it felt so important to talk about enough-ness is because of the central importance of enough-ness in all of nutrition. It’s not about what you’re eating or the timing of it, or anything. It’s just enough-ness, overall. It can feel really uncomfortable to say no, because that’s often how we’re told to do it as an adult for ourselves is if you want something, you eat it, regardless of when you want it, regardless of how you want it. That’s totally fine. Absolutely encourage that. Kids have very one track brains. They’re not quite as prefrontal cortex-developed as we are as adults. It can be harder for them to recognize, like truly recognize, that if I’m hungry and I don’t eat now, I will get enough food later. Especially if there has been a time where they were maybe presented with food, like a dinner for example, that they didn’t want to eat. It’s a lot of food, maybe on a plate, that they don’t enjoy. They’re going to probably leave the table hungry. And the same with snacks, the same with lunches, breakfast, all of it. If they’re not given enough and given the option to have enough, they develop the sense of okay, I need to get it when I can. And we want to make sure that they know that if you don’t eat all your lunch, that’s fine. And you can have more when you get home. I have an elementary school kid. And elementary school lunches are a whole thing where they only get like 10 minutes to eat food. My kid is a very slow eater. So I know she never finishes her whole meal. So she comes home hungry. We’ve fallen into the routine that she gets another lunch when she comes home from school. Because otherwise she’s hungry. We want her to know that like, okay, you don’t have to feel sad or upset that you didn’t finish your lunch. You don’t need to feel chaotic when you come home and just go for whatever food is available. You can make yourself some mac and cheese, or we can. She’s figured out the microwave and it’s beautiful. So she can do more.VirginiaWe love that. Yeah, my eight year old has the toaster and the microwave down now.AmeeSame! It’s beautiful. It’s a lovely day as a parent when that happens.One other thing that comes up in that space is if we’re about to have dinner and she’s hungry, I will say “No, we’re not gonna have a snack right now because I want you to eat dinner. It will come and it’s food that you like. There will always be one part of it that you will eat. So I want you to be hungry for that.” It’s normal to be hungry leading up to a meal and there will be enough food for you to eat. My seven year old does not understand that whole sentence, but her brain will conceptualize and understand if we do it again and again. And that’s the goal.VirginiaYes, that’s helpful. I think you’ve just articulated this thing that parents struggle with. There are times when kids want to eat a lot of food and it’s not, in our brains, a time to eat. We think you had lunch at school but now you’re coming home starving. But you’re compensating for a lack, where she’s not getting enough time to eat her lunch at school. Versus, it’s 20 minutes to dinner and I’m not creating a lack by saying no at this point. Your enough-ness will be achieved very shortly, I’m just helping you understand 20 minutes. When you’re saying no, are you saying no in a way that’s restrictive or supportive? AmeeThat phrase right there—restrictive or supportive—is a conversation Sumner and I had a lot as we wrote this book. How can we phrase this in a way that is supportive and not restrictive? VirginiaYes. That’s a helpful phrase for us all to keep in our hearts and come back to in those moments when there’s a request for food that’s catching you off guard. And then the third key is to develop and use your intuitive eating voice. What is my Intuitive Eating voice, Amee? AmeeIt’s the voice that tells us we are hungry, we want food, that we don’t really want to eat this food tonight, but we want to eat that one. It’s I want to move my body today because I feel like I’ve got energy. It’s I don’t have energy and I think I need to take a nap. We are all born with that voice, all of us are, and sometimes we shut it down. Sometimes we’re just raised and in this culture that is not allowing us to foster that, not allowing us to hold on to that and to trust it. So, by developing and using that intuitive eating voice, we get the chance to pull it out of hiding and keep it from being lost. By doing that as a caregiver, as a parent, we show how safe it is, how okay it is to do that. We get to be the home base forever, for these kids. Like, this is what my my family did and it was fine. This is what I learned is safe and okay. We can really allow that space to be held for ourselves. For our kids, it looks like not letting this thing that is really cool and really important fade away and be locked in a deep dark corner of our brain. Because it’s a really cool space where we get to trust our bodies.VirginiaI’m almost tearing up as you talk about that because it’s really such an honor to be able to do that for our kids. It’s a privilege that we can be that space for our kids. So, you take us through these three keys and then we start to talk about nutrition. I love how late in the book nutrition comes because all too often this is where the conversation starts and stops, right? Why do you think it’s so important to shift the focus off nutrition? When is there a place for nutrition in the conversation?AmeeI think in general, we all know too much about nutrition. I say that as a dietician. 90% of the work that I do is un-teaching nutrition to people because there’s so much that’s contradicting itself or so overblown. How the heck are you supposed to navigate all of that? The last thing Sumner and I want to do is throw on even more rules. The rules are not the point. We didn’t want to make it the main focus of the book because it’s not the main focus of intuitive eating. It’s not the main focus of raising kids. If you are shoving vegetables on your kid, they’re not gonna eat it. My kid ate a bite of a carrot last night. That was it. Her vegetable for the day was a single bite of a carrot. And that was fine. I was glad she ate a bite of the carrot because they were good. Because when we obsess about nutrition—did you eat enough vegetables, did you eat enough fruit, protein, fat—we take away from that intuitive eating voice. We take away from that instinct that it’s okay to eat food. It’s okay to to not like things. It’s normal to have a picky kid. It’s not a screw up on parents part. it’s not a broken thing within your kid. Even the most intuitive eating of kids will be a picky eater, and that’s fine. We don’t need to nutrition them out of that. There isn’t of a nutrient in broccoli or kale that they can’t get from something else, I promise. We can expose our kids to these things, expose them to us as parents, normally eating food andtaking the pressure off of ourselves and off of them to find the most important thing that we could possibly eat on our plate is the brussel sprout. It’s just a piece of food, same as this chicken, same as this french fry. I don’t need to fight with you about this one. I’m allowed to not like this and I’m allowed to try it. That comes up, too, how many exposures it takes for a kid to be willing to try a food, to be willing to accept a food. It’s a lot, like 18 to 20 exposures, which is just looking at the food existing.VirginiaRight, without pressure to eat it. I think so often people he…
Full show notes at the publisher“This is exactly what diet culture, and everyone who gives advice on Instagram doesn’t want you to know, because it’s not straightforward. And there’s no clear solution.”Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about why your kids should be eating more waffles and frozen burritos for dinner. We also talk about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and a bunch of other stuff. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. I’m the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.Today’s guest is Burnt Toast fan favorite and friend of the show, Amy Palanjian. Amy is the creator of the kid food blog Yummy Toddler Food. She’s also a mom of three, my lifelong work wife, and my former co-host on the Comfort Food Podcast. Amy joins us today to dissect the concept of the “back-up meal.” If your kids hate what’s for dinner, should you let them swap it out for something else? And more to the point: Since many of you have told us you are doing this, how do we let go of the guilt they can inspire?If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And make sure you’re subscribed to the Burnt Toast newsletter, for episode transcripts, reported essays and so much more. Have a question or a topic you want us to tackle in a future episode? Post it as a comment on this episode of the newsletter or send it to virginiasolesmith@substack.com. PS. Amy’s and my last conversation was about Halloween candy. If you are stressing about holiday food right now, this might be a good one to go back and listen to because all the strategies we talked about for Halloween candy definitely still apply. Episode 25 TranscriptVirginiaToday we are talking about backup meals. This first came up when I wrote an essay on Burnt Toast about how my grandmothers fed their families. My British grandmother did not cook a weeknight dinner, ever. In England, they have tea as an evening meal. In my grandmother’s house, tea meant literally a cup of tea and two pieces of toast, maybe some sponge cake. That is all you serve and it is possibly genius. I do love that this newsletter is called Burnt Toast. I didn’t know this story about her when I named it that, but it feels very appropriate. A lot of readers, after that essay, said, "We don’t do exactly that, but if our kids don’t like what we’re eating for dinner, we let them pick a backup meal like peanut butter and jelly or a bowl of cereal." And then you, Amy, messaged me and said, "Oh yeah, our backup meal is a frozen burrito." And my head exploded because you and I have been talking about how we feed our kids for the last eight-and-a-half years and I had no idea you did this! AmyWe did it with our first kid. She could have toast if she didn’t like the main meal. Then we had more children and I stopped doing it regularly because it seemed like too much work. Instead, I leaned in hard to making sure that there were easy sides on the table. But I’ve got a kid who’s nine, and she likes what she likes. Sometimes she’s willing to try new things and sometimes she’s not. I have discovered that I don’t actually need to make her eat food she doesn’t want to eat. So we have easy options that I don’t actually have to get up and cook. The only problem with our current backup meal is that it requires me to buy a lot of frozen burritos, which I should maybe just embrace. But there’s a particular one from Amy’s that all three of my kids really like. It’s just bean and cheese. I should just buy it by the case.So, maybe twice a month she really dislikes the meal. She will get up and make herself a frozen burrito. Right now I’m testing recipes for a cookbook, so my kids are seeing recipes that they’ve never seen before, or they’re seeing things in slightly different ways, because we tend to eat the same thing and I can’t make a cookbook with five recipes.VirginiaNo. You need, like, 75 recipes and that is a lot of new food to throw at your kids all the time. That’s like the cobbler’s kids have no shoes. Or in your case, many, many pairs of shoes that they don’t want to wear.So, an interesting thing to me about the whole backup meal conversation is that when people started telling me they were doing it, it was a little apologetic or ashamed. Like, “Yeah, we know we’re not supposed to, but this happens at our house.” And I just thought, where have we gone wrong here? Because to me, this does not sound like a failure. You have a nine-year-old who’s capable of making her own burrito for dinner! This feels like a triumph! So, let’s unpack this a little bit. Where do you think this sense of backup meals as a parenting failure comes from?AmyI think a lot of it is this pressure on family meals, that we’re all eating the same thing. The point of family meals is to expose kids to a range of foods over time so that they eat them. Which, as you and I know, is not really the way that humans work. Backup meals feel like a departure from what we’ve been taught. So I think it’s both the pressure on family meals to look a certain way and also the way that we talk about the Division of Responsibility. The way that we talk about how we feed our kids doesn’t really allow for the option of the kids just choosing something else. VirginiaDivision of Responsibility can reduce a lot of pressure. But what happens if the kid refuses every piece of food you put on the table? The backup meal is definitely not strict DOR because it’s what they’re trying to get you away from. But there’s also this reality.AmyYeah, I think there’s also something about if we let our kids eat the food that they want, we’re somehow not doing our job. It feels like we’re not succeeding in our parenting goals of raising kids who want to eat a bunch of different foods. VirginiaOften the foods they want to eat are not foods that we have been told we can feel good about them wanting to eatAmyEspecially not for dinner.VirginiaRight. This is where the diet culture piece of it comes in. You’ve made a delicious kale salad with a runny egg on top and some goat cheese and your kid is turning all of that down and would rather have Eggo waffles (not like that’s a story that’s happened in my own house or anything.) You’re not supposed to live on Eggo waffles. But kids are not programmed to want confusing textures like kale and runny eggs all the time.AmyI mean, honestly, I don’t ever even want to eat kale. I also think, we serve more vegetables probably at dinner than most other meals, because it’s the meal that we cook more. So, I think if we know that our kids are just going to eat some crackers that we’ve doubly failed.VirginiaRight, you’ve missed this opportunity to get vegetables into them. We’ve equated dinner with vegetable consumption in a way that’s counterproductive, both to teaching kids to like vegetables and to enjoying dinner. AmyRight. Also, kids are the most tired at that time of the day. So giving them the more challenging foods in that context is just silly.VirginiaIf you’re approaching this from that Division of Responsibility mindset, there’s this equating of backup meals with short order cooking. I think we need to sort out the gray area between these things. A backup meal is not helpful if I sit down at the table and my kid immediately demands something different and I have to get up and go prepare another meal. That’s short order cooking. That does legitimately both make me cranky and create a not-great power dynamic between me and my kids and food. So a backup meal is not that. But what is it? What’s your line?AmyWell, I’m not getting up.VirginiaThat is the line. Amy’s not getting up.AmyI’m not getting up. The kids need to be able to get it on their own. So, we have done the frozen burrito, which my two girls can make on their own, and we have done cereal, which they can bring to the table. The five-year-old needs help because she can’t pour. And we’ve done toast. In my mind, this is a fairly rare occurrence. It is a way to make sure that the meal is still pleasurable for everyone and that we can have a good experience regardless of what the food is, so I want the food to be super straightforward.VirginiaI’ll also say, as someone for whom the backup meal is becoming a less rare occurrence—more like a twice a week occurrence—don’t feel bad, if it’s more frequent. For kids with more complicated histories around food, this might be where you are. If settling on a backup meal that they feel good eating an doesn’t create extra work for you enables you to share the meal, and have a fun conversation with your kid, that’s great. That’s going to do so much more for their confidence and comfort level around food than dying on the “But I put rolls on the table and that’s your safe food and why won’t you eat the rolls” mountain. They’re like, “Because these rolls have seeds on them and I hate rolls with seeds.” Now you’re in a whole hellscape. AmyMy kids can spot a seed from like seven miles away.VirginiaSeeds are such a problem, and yet my children love everything bagels which are covered in many kinds of seeds. Speaking of bagels, I want to list some of the options people said they use as backup foods because I think these all fall into that criteria you’re sketching out of very minimal prep, kids can access themselves, and you can quickly move on with the rest of the meal. So: yogurt, cereal, simple sandwiches, PB&J type things, bagel and cream cheese, sliced turkey, peanuts, cheese and crackers.I also appreciate the mom who said, “Whatever they can safely get out of the fridge by themselves” because that seems like a fair bar. Any other options that you would recommend or that I haven’t listed there?AmyFrozen foods, like burritos. You mentioned waffles.VirginiaWaffles are huge in my house.AmyWe don’t do mac and cheese as this option, but you could get those individual microwavable servings.VirginiaAnother piece we need to talk about is the timing. I have been experimenting with, rather than having it happen in that moment of everyone sitting down at the table, I have been talking to my kid ahead of time and saying, “Here’s what I’m making for dinner. Do you want that? Or would you like a bagel or a waffle?” And the reason I like that is because then we don’t have the super stressful panic attack moment at the table where she feels overwhelmed by stuff she doesn’t want to eat. It gives her more confidence going into the meal that she knows there’s going to be something there she likes. But I don’t know if that would work for everybody. AmyI would much rather bring everything to the table, including whatever easy sides I’ve decided to include, and see how that goes first. Because if I offered a frozen burrito every night, they would probably always take it. Usually the reactions that my kids have about food are worse when they don’t see it. Like if I was saying, “I’m making pasta,” they’d be like, “What shape? What color? Is there cheese?” I don’t have the bandwidth to have the pre-negotiation. So I would rather just wait, even though, it could create a hiccup.VirginiaI think you have to know your kid’s temperament. We were stuck in a bad pattern of kids sitting down to the table and screaming. That was super triggering for me, because I literally just finished putting effort into this meal. I want to sit down and enjoy my food and instead I’m having to sort out whether or not you’re going to eat it. So deciding ahead of time, even if it means she’s defaulting to the backup meal more often, is reducing our dinnertime conflict so much that it feels worth it. But I completely agree. I’m saying, “Do you want ramen noodles and kimchi or do you want a bagel?” It’s not shocking that she’s like, “Bagel, please.” She may be saying that more because I’m asking. So another work-around is to think about how you can still make the meal feel inclusive for them. I still serve the rest of the dishes family style, and every now and then if she sees something she does want a bite of, or there’s a new food, and I’ll say, “Do you want some of this on your plate?” I’m not ruling out the idea that she would eat the rest of the meal. I’m just like, “Okay, you want a bagel on your plate and then there’s this other stuff you can choose from.” This is why we have to get away from these hard and fast rules about how family dinner has to go, because this is what’s working in my house. But it needs to play out differently in your house.AmyI think we need to give ourselves plenty of room for this to change and adjust to whatever phase that you’re going through. This is exactly what diet culture and everyone who gives advice on Instagram doesn’t want you to know, because it’s not straightforward: there’s no clear solution. The key here is being responsive to your family in the context. I think as my kiddo is getting older, I’m trying to see where I can give her more independence and let her be more in charge. And that’s not every night, but we want them to be able to respectfully speak up when they want to add something else to their plate. Even if it’s a condiment, or if they want a different drink. These are subtle ways that they can advocate for themselves in those situations. So, practicing that a little bit more, especially as kids get into middle school, and they might start hearing stuff. I just want some of those tools to be practiced. VirginiaThat’s a useful way of reframing this. I think the reason people were embarrassed to admit they did the backup meal is because it felt like overly catering to their kid, and because the food that the backup meal is isn’t “good” food for family dinner. But when we think about our big picture goal, it’s not to have a kid who eats everything that we serve. It’s to have a kid who can navigate the strange waters of, “What am I hungry for? What do I need at this meal? Is that different from the messages I’m getting?” The family dinner is a place to practice that before they’re out in the world, and the messages they’re getting are diet culture messages. Having them be firm and able to stand their ground in knowing, “this is how my needs will be met at this meal.” That’s the whole goal. That’s what we’re doing.AmyI’ve been thinking about this more this past year, because it’s been very hard for me to feel excited about food through COVID and all the stress. I’m hungry physically, but not much is appealing. So I am very aware of what it feels like when someone else offers me food that I don’t want. It’s a horrible feeling when someone wants you to eat something and you don’t want it. It’s that pressure that comes with knowing someone wants you to do something that you just, in your body, don’t want to do. I’m not saying this is always going to happen at the dinner table. But It’s liberating to look at this as part of raising a competent eater.VirginiaA kid who can advocate for themselves and who knows that what feels safe in their body matters more than making other people happy. That’s important.AmyOn Instagram recently, I had posted this reel that gave ways to help kids engage with their food and to help them feel more in control of their food. There were a lot of comments from people saying things like “This generation of parents gives their kids too many choices.” It’s not like previous generations of adults had great relationships with food. Why would we not do something different?VirginiaWe’re actually trying to unlearn some stuff here.Okay, so back to nuts and bolts. Do you think it should always be the same option, no matter what? Or would you rotate? One idea I got from a follower was that the backup meal is always cereal, but the kids can pick which kind of cereal, which seems like a nice framework if you’re a family that stocks multiple kinds of cereal, which we are. AmyIt rotates based on what we have in the house. Some weeks, we might have frozen burritos. And then some weeks, we might just have a lot of bread. Or we might have muffins that I made.VirginiaYou could get caught in a real…
Full show notes at the publisherWe need our own place to critique diet culture and combat fatphobia, without the continual compromise required by corporate media. And, we need this podcast. Because you will never need to worry that the host is going to pause mid-episode and tell you how much I love Noom.Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast where we explore questions (and some answers) about fatphobia, diet culture, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. I’m a journalist who covers weight stigma and diet culture. I’m the author of The Eating Instinct, the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia and the newsletter Burnt Toast. This is technically Episode 24 of the Burnt Toast podcast, but also for a lot of you it’s going to be Episode 1. So we’ll start with some backstory on how I went from a writer of women’s magazine diet stories to a diet culture dismantler and why having a space to do independent, anti-diet journalism is so important, right now. I’ll also be answering your questions: How to help a 3-year-old who won’t stop grazing? How can we respond thoughtfully to casual fatphobia? What should I do if I’m a houseguest and my host is on a diet? And can my kid really eat ice cream every day? If you enjoy this episode please subscribe and rate and review Burnt Toast in your podcast player. And sign up for the Burnt Toast newsletter, to get episode transcripts, reported essays and more. [Editor’s Note: Regular newsletter readers will recognize the first half of this episode from this essay. Feel free to scroll down to the next line break to get to your questions!]So, I thought today we would start with some backstory. Eighteen years ago I graduated from college and started my first job the very next day as an editorial assistant at Seventeen Magazine. I was living in a shoebox studio apartment next to the Queens Midtown Tunnel. I walked to work in my Reef flip flops because I couldn’t actually stand up for more than ten minutes in the shoes we wore around the office. I made $27,000 a year. But for those first few months, I was in heaven at Seventeen. My bosses were these smart, feminist editors who thought that the intelligence of teenage girls was undervalued. We did features on things like hookup culture and youth marketing. And yes, I realized that last one now sounds a little ironic. One of my tasks as an assistant at the magazine was to track down statistics or expert quotes when the editors were working on a feature and realized that it needed some things like that, that the writers had failed to deliver. Seventeen is where I started to learn how to report.I was learning to report in a way that would pass muster with our research chief who was this completely terrifying person who would throw your reporting file out of her office if you tried to use a non-primary source or a newspaper, or couldn’t backup a controversial fact to her liking. Yes, this is the same Seventeen that published “I got my period in front of my crush,” the horror stories you remember from Trauma-Rama. And yes, this is the same Seventeen that first published Sylvia Plath. I learned really quickly that being a feminist in women’s media, but also all mainstream media, meant that you had to hold these strands together as lightly as you could. It meant successfully pitching a story on birth control, only to have your editor write in the margins, “But wait, isn’t Plan B the same thing as having an abortion?” No, it is not. And it meant every day reading letters from girls who hated their thighs, girls who tried to cut the fat off their stomachs, girls who skipped breakfast and made themselves throw up after lunch, girls who were trying to shrink their bodies in every conceivable way. And then going into a meeting where we would brainstorm five new ways to put the phrase “bikini body” on the cover.I didn’t last long at Seventeen. A few months after I was hired, a new editor came in with a new team and a new vision. Suddenly there was a lot less meticulous reporting about teenage health and a lot more of that “Bikini Body” stuff, glossed over, of course, with the kind of “Girl Power” talk that wooed so many of us into thinking weight loss could be a valuable self improvement project. So, I moved on. First to another junior editor job at another women’s magazine, and then, when that publication folded, to being a full-time freelance writer. That move freed me up to move out of the city, to wear shoes I could walk in, and to write stories I really cared about. But: I ran into the same tension everywhere I went, especially when I wrote about weight and health. So I spent most of the next decade still deep inside the diet culture beat, at first rationalizing it with the usual, “Well, this one’s not a diet, this one’s a lifestyle plan.” That same song and dance we talk about all the time. And then slowly, but determinedly trying to crack it apart. And that was uphill work. I found myself translating the principles of Health at Every Size into language that a women’s magazine could handle. And yet I was continuing to use terms like “ob#se” without any awareness of their toxic history. I made compromises. I added health warnings to stories so the editors would run them because I figured it was better to get a few seeds planted where I could, rather than see the story killed. And also, I had to get paid. For a while, I even backed away from critiquing the diet industry directly. Wellness culture was shifting things so fast, I wasn’t even always sure who I was mad at. Instead, I started to focus on the beauty industry. In a weird way, it was easier to report on how I learned to do Brazilian waxing so I could interrogate our obsession with it, or to expose the exploitation of nail salon workers than it was to reckon with my desire to diet and detox. But in other ways, it was harder. I couldn’t run either of those stories in women’s magazines where hair removal is gospel and nail polish brands pay the bills. It was and is a tough sell to persuade “real” media outlets (emphasis on the quotes around “real,”) to care about stories in which no men would appear. Then, a little over eight years ago, I had my first daughter Violet. And as many of you know, she stopped eating when she was just one month old. She needed me to make food feel safe again. That’s the experience that started to connect the dots for me that led to my first book, The Eating Instinct, and that pushed me all the way out of diet culture. I started to explore how we relate to food, and then realized how much fatphobia underpins everything we think we know about food. And health: I wrote about how weight stigma shows up in fertility treatment, in eating disorder treatment, and in science, full stop. Fatphobia is pervasive in parenting culture too, whether it’s as overt as a diet app for kids or more implicit in our anxiety about kids and sugar. In the past five years, telling these stories has gotten so much easier. We are now in a cultural moment where terms like “body positivity” and “intuitive eating” are embraced by popular culture; where magazines like Good Housekeeping and InStyleask me to write about pushing back against the pressure to lose your pandemic weight gain, and nobody tries to water down the rhetoric at all. Could these brands be doing a better job owning their own historical complicity in diet culture? Yes, absolutely. But they recognize the importance of the conversation now. I cannot underscore to you enough how much that was not the case, even as recently as when I sold The Eating Instinct.Still, any time I write for a major media outlet--and again, that has been the primary way I’ve made a living for almost two decades--I am aware that my story, my project is like this little boat tacking its way through a great, churning ocean of other priorities. It gets stuck in a holding pattern if the hook isn’t newsy enough, it gets chopped in half because the word count is too tight, it gets cut altogether because a new editor comes in with a different vision. Or it runs, but I’m asked to add caveats and softeners that make everyone more comfortable while making the story less accurate. Or it runs, and then the next week, the same outlet runs a pro-weight-loss story. And I hear from confused readers who feel betrayed by the switch in tone. I still see the value in publishing traditional journalism. I adore working with smart editors who tear my words apart and find something so much better buried beneath them. I love writing for outlets with copy editors and fact checkers and art departments, who are all so brilliant at their essential jobs. And I adore seeing how a story resonates across a broader platform, even when that means the comment section goes bananas or all of the angry men in America send me emails. We can’t only preach to the choir. I started Burnt Toast because I realized that after almost twenty years of doing it their way, we need our own place to critique diet culture and combat fatphobia. Without the continual compromise required by corporate media. Where I don’t have to worry that a sidebar for flat tummy tea will run alongside my explanation of why the “obesity epidemic” was overhyped.We need a place where we can publish stories that I can’t tell in other outlets because they are too niche or aren’t newsy enough but still matter deeply to people’s lives. We need this podcast because you will never need to worry that the host is going to pause mid-episode and tell you how much I love Noom. I absolutely do not love Noom. So, most weeks Burnt Toast will be a conversation between me and a guest. So far we’ve had really amazing fat activists like Aubrey Gordon and Marquisele Mercedes on. We’ve had authors like Crystal Maldonado, Alyson Gerber, and Tyler Feder, and a bunch of other folks who I would call thought leaders on fashion, culture, health, and parenting. Once a month, I’ll also release a solo episode, like this one, for paid subscribers, where I’ll answer your questions directly. So now, let’s get into those! Q: My three year old is recovering from a minor illness which came on the heels of a long vacation. So we’ve been out of our usual routine for a few weeks and eating, which had been mostly non-stressful, has become a hot mess. Through traveling and then trying to nourish a feverish child, we were in survival mode, and our snack game was strong. Now, my kid demands only snack foods, is obsessing over sweets, and wants to graze all day. I want to get back on our meal/snack routine for both our sakes. I cannot dispense food all day long and my high energy kid needs the structure of sitting down to eat in order to focus and notice hunger and fullness. But it seems like there must be a feeling of restriction around snacks and sweets and I’m worried about exacerbating that. So, normally when we talk about this issue, you guys hear me say over and over again that if your child is fixating on a particular food, it’s probably because they think they don’t have enough access to it and the answer is to lean in and give them more freedom. But I do think there’s a slight exception for that in the situation that this mom is outlining, where you’ve been traveling or you’ve been sick, so you haven’t been on your normal schedule. When we go through seasons like that, it’s very normal for everything that kids understand about food to go out the window. I don’t think that your child is feeling restricted about snacks and sweets, I think they’re just feeling generally uncertain because of the lack of structure. When we feel uncertain, we can fixate more on our comfort foods, right? Because food is feeling a little unpredictable. In a way, your child asking for that favorite food all the time is their way of saying, “I need more routine, I need more predictability, please.”So, what I would do is not mess with the particular foods your kid wants. I would work on getting back on the schedule first, even if it means your child is eating Oreos at every meal and snack for a few more days. Serve the favorite snack foods, but just work on breaking the grazing pattern and getting to eating at a more regular schedule. Sometimes what is happening with grazing is kids are feeling like they need to be in charge of making food happen. Which is not to say you haven’t been feeding your child, you obviously have been. And I know when you’re in that snack mode, you’re like, all I do is give you food. But they somehow feel like it’s their responsibility to make sure they get enough because there’s no schedule and it’s not predictable. So, if we work on making it predictable, but you serve the foods that they’re most anxious about having access to, you can ease the scarcity mindset. You can give them that comfort of structure. Once it feels like you’re back in a routine around eating, then I would start to bring in other foods, have more variety, maybe start to say things like, “Oh my gosh, I love Oreos so much, too. We’re going to have them for a morning snack, but not for breakfast.” (I’m always using Oreos, as the example, but whatever your child’s comfort food is, of course, insert here.) Work on structure, then you can work on food variety. Don’t try to tackle it all at once. That will be too big of a change. And good luck. Q: How can we respond to casual fatphobia and weight stigma?This is the challenge with holiday gatherings, right? Because this is when people make those side comments like, “Oh, I need my stretchy pants for this meal” or, “diet starts Monday!” Even if it’s not directed at you, it can feel really awkward to tackle it because you look like the buzzkill. You’re the one who’s suddenly taking it really seriously and oh, we were all just joking. But I think we do need to start to build our muscles for how we push back in these moments.Someone I follow on Instagram, who posts a lot of memes, recently posted a meme that was super fatphobic. [TW: I’m going to describe it.] It was one of those dogs that has very thin legs and very round bellies, and for some reason, this photo of the dog was standing on two legs and wearing jeans. The caption was something like “how men over thirty look in jeans.” I am sure she posted it thinking, “I’m laughing at men and we are allowed to laugh at men.” Which, you know, is sort of true. I think that was her intention on one level. But it’s not okay to make fun of the bodies of fat men or fat women or fat people of any gender. It’s not okay to equate fat people with animals. And the meme did both those things. So I sent her a message and said, “I know your intention was to be humorous, but this meme equates fat people’s bodies to animals. That is very harmful.” She was immediately defensive. She said, “You know my account is a humor account, try to take it in that spirit. I’m really sensitive about body image issues. That’s not what I was doing here. I’m just making fun of men over thirty!” Of course, it’s also not okay to be posting ageist memes, so that wasn’t a super helpful argument. But I didn’t get into a long explanation of why the meme was wrong. Instead I said, “I am saying, as someone in a bigger body than you, with a body that looks quite similar to this animal, that I find this harmful. And I’m also saying this to you as someone with a fair amount of privilege as a small fat person. There are people in bigger bodies who will find this meme even more harmful, who won’t feel safe speaking up. And so I hope you’ll reconsider this in the future.” I stayed really polite, I didn’t get super inflammatory. I felt annoyed, to be honest, that I had to be that thoughtful and careful about it because this is part of the labor of engaging on these issues, right? Someone else has said the offensive thing but somehow it’s our job to keep it light and friendly, as we are calling them out on their offensiveness. I want to hold space for that piece of it. But I also think the reality is, you’re not going to get anywhere with someone if you come in and sa…
Full show notes at the publisherHello, and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!Today, I am so so thrilled to be chatting with Ragen Chastain, who is a professional speaker and writer, trained researcher, and co-author of The HAES Health Sheets. Ragen is also a multi-certified health and fitness professional, and a queer fat woman. Ragen, thank you so much for being here!RagenThanks for having me. I love your work so much. I’m giddy as a school girl! VirginiaRagen and I have been in each other’s orbits for a very long time. We were talking about something that we worked on where the website doesn’t even exist anymore. RagenVirginia gave me my very first paid freelance work in this space. She was leaving a platform and recommended me, so she’s been supporting my work, and just be an awesome leader in her own right, for a long time.VirginiaThat’s very lovely of you to say. When I first found your work in the mid-2000s you were extremely patient with my learning curve. For folks who don’t know, Ragen created the beloved fat activism blog Dances With Fat. She is now writing a Substack called Weight and Healthcare. So let’s start with that, Ragen. You have this amazing blog, you’ve been doing it forever, you have, I don’t even know, 1000 posts there. What inspired you to also say I need a newsletter?RagenI started Dances With Fat in 2009. There are a little over 1800 posts on there now. In the same year, I started doing talks for healthcare professionals around working with higher weight patients: Best practices, weight, stigma, weight science, health care. I wrote about that on Dances With Fat, but recently I’ve started to do more of that work and to do it at a higher level, and when I’m talking with a VP of a major healthcare group, sending them to Dances with Fat is not ideal, even though I’m very proud of that blog. It’s not quite the the thing that they’re looking for. I knew about Substack and I knew about Burnt Toast, so I reached out to Virginia, who helped give me a sense of how Substack worked. It seemed like a really good platform for this type of work. I got a little logo made from Toni Tails, a little researcher Ragen icon, and then put together some of the posts from Dances With Fat that were classics. Now I’m going to be writing new stuff, as well. VirginiaI sort of love the idea of healthcare CEOs going to Dances With Fat. It gives me a lot of joy. But it’s a smart activism strategy to have it all in one place. We’re recording this, I should say, right after your first launch week. So you’ve been putting up a lot of pieces that I will be linking to forever. You are covering these really fundamental questions that can be kind of exasperating, like, “This question is coming up again?” But for people who are new to challenging this huge paradigm, you do have to start with these fundamental questions and grapple with stuff. One question people often ask is, “Isn’t obesity a disease?” So, walk us through it, Ragen.RagenThis is something that has been coming up more and more, this idea that just existing in a fat body is a chronic lifelong health condition for which people should get treatment. This has been pushed for a while now by people who sell dangerous and expensive “treatments” for weight loss. I first started seeing it happening in the most insidious way, with organizations that claim to be advocacy organizations—like the Obesity Action Coalition—but that are actually well-funded by diet drug manufacturers and weight loss surgery purveyors. For the diet drugs, for example, their product doesn’t work long term. People gain the weight back as soon as they go off the drugs. So the drug companies say, “Oh, well, it’s a chronic and lifelong condition, then we can just keep them on the drugs forever,” which is exactly what Novo Nordisk is doing, and why they’re pushing this so hard right now. It also expands their market to every fat person alive. That helps them with what is their golden goose, which is insurance coverage. They can’t get insurance to cover these things because they’re expensive and because they don’t work. So by saying, “Oh, well, it’s because you haven’t let us do it long enough,” they are expanding their market. But that it doesn’t make any sense, and here’s why: Thin people get all the same health issues that fat people do. So, being thin can neither be a sure preventative nor a sure cure. That’s just not how that works. This idea that if fat people experience a health problem more often than thin people, then obviously their body size is the problem and making them thinner is the solution is not a science-based conclusion. We have to look at what are the confounding variables that could be causing this? And in this case, weight cycling, weight stigma, and healthcare inequalities are well researched for their negative impacts on fat people’s health. And this idea of fat being a chronic condition increases those three things. I want to be super clear, there is no shame in having a health condition. There is no shame in seeking treatment. The shame here is trying to make simply existinga pathologized condition for which people can sell dangerous treatments that risk people’s lives for an outcome that isn’t shown to be positive. It’s actually shown to be harmful a lot of the time. So, the AMA studied this. They had their Committee on Science of Public Health study whether or not being fat should be a disease and the committee came back and said no. And the AMA said, “Okay, well, thanks for your time, but we’re gonna go ahead and declare it a disease anyway.” VirginiaI just want people to really take that in. The American Medical Association’s committee that was asked to study that question, should we medicalize weight higher body weights, said no, the evidence does not support that. And the AMA said, Okay, so we’re gonna do it. RagenYeah, it’s a “let me just take a minute to bang my head on the desk and then I’ll complete this post that I’m writing” sort of situation.It’s important because this seems so science-y and medical-y, right? BMI is an equation and that’s math and math is science. We have these words like “obesity” that pathologize body size, and that can sound really legitimate, right? But then you start digging and learn that Body Mass Index is just a complicated ratio of weight and height that is racist in its origins. Sabrina String’s Fearing the Black Body and Da'Shaun Harrison’s Belly of the Beast are books I recommend to everyone to read about this and other racism and body size intersections. The term obesity comes from a Latin word meaning “to eat until fat.” This is not science. It’s a term that was created to pathologize bodies. It was invented for that purpose. The AMA saying, “Oh, yes, this is this constitutes a chronic health condition or disease,” sounds very science-y until you find out that the actual science had to be ignored to make that happen.VirginiaYes and this “chronic lifelong condition” we’re talking about, the treatments that they are pushing actually exacerbate the condition, because the condition is living with weight stigma, living with social inequities around health care, all of these other issues that these treatments further. Fat is not a chronic lifelong health condition.RagenIt really isn’t. It’s gotten out that intentional weight loss interventions fail the vast majority of the time. The majority of the time weight loss has the opposite of the intended effect, right? People gain back all of their weight and up to 66% of people gain back more than they lost. But the response wasn’t, “Hey, there’s a mountain of evidence that shows that there are better ways to support the health of fat people than trying to make them lose weight.” The suggestion was, “Well, then let’s do it harder, and more and more dangerously.” And that’s what we’re seeing with the pharmaceuticals. That’s what we’re seeing with the surgery. We’re getting healthcare for fat people based on the premise that it is acceptable to kill fat people in an effort to make them thin.VirginiaAnd yet they’re saying we need to get insurance coverage for these things, even though they don’t work. They frame that as an example of the stigma. They’re like, “Look, it’s so misunderstood that the insurance companies won’t even pay for these treatments that these people desperately need.” They don’t see the inherent disconnect there. RagenI’m going to say they aggressively don’t see the disconnect, possibly negligently, purposefully don’t see it. They’re saying, “We don’t want to stigmatize fat people, we just want to eradicate them from the earth and make sure no more ever exist.” That’s not an anti-stigma message. It’s a profitable one. One of the things that frustrates me is the way that they are co-opting the rhetoric of anti-weight stigma, which the fat liberation community has spent so long trying to get out there, and then using that to sell even more dangerous intentional weight loss methods. It is super gross.They are creating weight stigma and then selling their dangerous product as a “solution.” It’s this idea that if you don’t want to be oppressed, you should change yourself to suit your oppressors.VirginiaThat’s what I want my kids to learn: Make the bully like you better.RagenGive them your lunch money, and maybe they’ll stop beating you up! It’s not a perfect comparison, obviously, but as someone who is both queer and fat and who came out in the mid-90s in Texas, I see parallels between that and this idea of just doing whatever dangerous thing you need to do to make yourself straight, so that you don’t experience homophobia; this idea of changing yourself to move yourself out of the oppressed category, rather than fighting oppression. I spent years fighting my body on behalf of weight stigma. Weight stigma is real and weight stigma does real harm, including to me, but now I fight weight stigma on behalf of my body.VirginiaThat’s a really helpful framing. You took one for the team by taking on one of the most common and irritating troll comments around fat activism: That all these fat people are a drain on the system because they’re costing us so much money in terms of tax dollars in health care. This is an argument that hits me really personally, not around weight, but I have a daughter with a chronic heart condition. I wrote a piece for Slate about the fact that we had $3 million in medical bills before she turned three years old. That’s why universal health care is essential, to help families avoid destroying themselves financially to save their children. The number one troll response I got was: “She’s a drain on the system. Some kids aren’t meant to live.”RagenIn the piece I tackle that from two aspects: The reality and then if it were true that fat people are this drain on the system. The first thing I always do when somebody comes at me with this “my tax dollars” argument is I say, “Well, I want to see your yes/no tax list.” They say, “What yes/no tax list?” And I say, “Oh, the one that shows all the things your taxes pay for broken down into what you do and don’t want to pay for, and the interventions you’re involved in for everything you don’t want to pay for.” This isn’t about their tax dollars. This is about trying to find a justification for their fat bigotry. This is what they’ve arrived at that people sort of find acceptable. Like, “Oh, well, I’m paying for their health care.” But that’s what civilized societies do, right? I am paying for the health care of people who jumped out of helicopters wearing skis and people whose attempts to climb mountains are dramatically unsuccessful. I want to do that. Anytime you say, “Okay, this group of people who we can identify by sight is a drain on society and we should eradicate them to make things cheaper for everyone,” you have gone down a bad bad road. This is a straight up eugenics argument. We have to really recognize that. I find that people who want to say this about me don’t want other people to be doing it to them. Whether they are a raw foods vegan or a keto or paleo person, they believe that they’re right, and they are not interested in other points of view. This is where it really starts to break down. Who gets to decide for all of us? If somebody finds that, for example, a raw food vegan diet is the most healthy, do we all have to do that? VirginiaAnd do we all have to do that in order to access healthcare? What do we owe in order to access healthcare?RagenExactly. This is a really dangerous argument that’s being made by people flippantly, in many cases, just to justify discriminating against fat people, just to justify their weight bigotry. They don’t follow it to the end of where that goes. So that’s really dangerous. And also, fat people pay taxes, too. My taxes go to fund a government war on “obesity” that makes my life terrible and has negative impacts on my health. In general, this argument, when you scratch the surface even a little bit, just becomes a thin veil for fat bigotry that is unsupportable by any kind of evidence.VirginiaAnd ableism! It’s saying that the only people worthy of health care are people who are making virtuous choices that we approve of or who won the genetic lottery and don’t really need health care. What strikes me when it’s levied against fat folks is that it’s often because people are blaming people for their body size and assuming that it’s your lifestyle that led to this, as opposed to the fact that people just come in different body sizes. With something like my daughter, you can’t say, “The baby’s responsible for her heart condition, but we still don’t want to pay for it.” Either way, it becomes this ableist thing to say some lives are more valuable because they have this genetic luck. RagenThere are a lot of places where the intersections of ableism and healthism and fatphobia come together, and this is certainly one. One of the things that is also frustrating is that the idea of body size as a choice is obviously really problematic, but even if we believed that that was true, also a choice is playing sports, which cost billions of dollars in sports injuries every year that are completely unnecessary. Research shows that moderate walking gives us the health benefits that can come out of movement, so nobody needs to be playing sports.VirginiaI love this so much as someone who just hates sports.RagenI’m someone who loves sports and who does ridiculous fitness-y things. Just to be super clear, health and fitness, by any definition, is not an obligation, not a barometer of worthiness, not entirely within our control. There is this good fatty / bad fatty thing, so I always want to be clear that completing a marathon or having a Netflix marathon are morally equivalent activities. I’ve done both, so I can tell you for sure. So, it’s not about that, but I enjoy fitness. I’m also aware that when you go to a triathlon or when you watch the CrossFit Games and people have an exoskeleton of physio tape, that’s a lot of injuries that people don’t need to have in their lives, but they’re choosing that lifestyle. Shaq got knee surgery even though he for sure caused his knee problem and was going right back to the lifestyle that caused it. The NFL was created to risk people’s short and long term mental and physical health in the hopes that one day their team will score enough points to get a shiny piece of jewelry. You’re allowed to do that, but let’s not act like it prioritizes health because it doesn’t. This is a whole group of people purposefully not prioritizing their health and the average player is broke by two years out of the league. VirginiaAnother piece I love is where you break down why diets fail. A line that really jumped out to me, in your piece, is “the entire basis of prescribing weight loss for greater health is built on the decidedly unscientific premise that if we make fat people look like thin people, they will have the same health outcomes.” RagenWhen I did my original lit…
Full show notes at the publisherHello, and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!Today, I'm delighted to be chatting with Corinne Fay, who is my awesome newsletter assistant and the founder of @SellTradePlus, an amazing Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.VirginiaWelcome! Thanks for being here.CorinneThanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be a tiny crumb of Burnt Toast.VirginiaIf we're going to use this metaphor, you would be the butter or some other very important component. The crust? You are a really crucial part of Burnt Toast, behind the scenes. For folks who don't know, Corinne edits the newsletters every week. She catches my many typos and word repetitions and things like that. She also, even more crucially, edits the transcripts (that you may well be reading right now) and makes them legible. She takes out all the times I say “you know,” and “um,” which is really a gift. You also do many other amazing things. So, tell us a little bit about yourself—where you live, what else you do professionally, and anything else you want to share.CorinneI live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My main full-time gig is doing social media—mostly Instagram, actually—for a local design and manufacturing studio. Our main product is very high-end commercial wall covering. It's the kind of thing that you would see in the Bank of America corporate offices or a tech company office. It's made out of merino wool felt and has very geometric designs. It’s sound absorbing. It’s a very nice product! I have no children, but I do have a very rambunctious dog named Bunny. Hopefully we will not hear her barking in the background. If you follow me on Instagram, I post many photos of her. VirginiaShe's so freaking cute. She's gray and adorable. And you're in New Mexico, home to the most amazing burritos, which we're going to talk about later. I am regularly jealous of your burrito content. More importantly, you do @SellTradePlus! Tell us about that. Tell us the origin story of what inspired you to to launch this because it is a very crucial service in the plus size community.CorinneI started @SellTradePlus in 2018. At the time, I was following two other sell/trade accounts on Instagram. I was following them because they were reselling clothes that I was interested in buying, but also could not afford. I had post notifications on, so I'd get a little ding on my phone every time something posted. But every time something posted, I'd get incredibly sad and frustrated because it was never my size. Maybe like one piece out of hundreds might fit me. So, I started thinking about how if I were shopping in real life—at a thrift or secondhand store—I would just go to the section that was my size. That made so much more sense to me, as a way to shop. I decided that I would start an account that focused on size, first and foremost.When I started @SellTradePlus in 2018, it felt like there were no slow fashion brands or independent designers doing plus sizes. I was also interested in meeting other people who were interested in the same kind of clothes and who wanted to chat about which brands we could squeeze into or make work.The way @SellTradePlus works is, if you have something you want to sell, you send in an email. In the body of the email is the text of the post—we have a format we use with the item, size, condition price, etc—and then you attach photos of the garment. Then it goes into a queue and eventually, I post it on Instagram. People who are interested will leave their zip codes in the comments. Twenty-four hours after the post goes up, the seller randomly selects a person to sell the piece to. This is a little different than some other sell/trade accounts. We do it that way just so people have more of a window to think, “Do I want this? Is this something I need?”VirginiaThat's nice. It takes away the pressure of first come first serve, and maybe you don't actually need the thing but you’re afraid you'll miss your chance. CorinneExactly. So it's not always just the first person commenting who wins. And then, if and when the garment sells, I take a small fee. That’s how I keep things running.VirginiaAs well, you should, because this is a lot of work you’re doing. It's such a smart model. I really hear you about that experience of just wanting to be able to go to my size range and cut out all that other noise. It is so difficult to do, both because in person shopping has become increasingly not a thing for many of us for reasons, and then even when you're shopping online, it's exhausting. Then if you add in that you are wanting more ethically produced fashion, there are so few brands doing that in the plus size space. There have been some improvements, but not enough. So buying buying secondhand is a nice workaround for that. It's very genius. I think you're doing a real service. In addition to solving all these practical problems for people, you've been building this really lovely Instagram community. You have these great, awesome open thread posts that you do on Fridays where people talk about all kinds of different things. I got advice recently on plus size underwear brands, which was useful to me. All different topics come up. I'm curious, was that also part of your original goal? Was it something you cultivated? Or did it just kind of happen that way?CorinneIt was definitely part of my original goal. I was really looking for a place where I could connect with other people who were a similar size, who were interested in similar types of clothes, so that we could share info about what brands fit us or what things we could make work. The community aspect has definitely become a huge part of it for me. Even sharing stuff like fast fashion pieces that are better than you think they would be. If there's a really good Target jumpsuit that fits plus size bodies and is made out of a nice material, it's just a good place to share info like that. [Corinne Edit: The jumpsuit linked there is good, but it isn’t as good as last year’s version!]And I actually have a few people that I've met through @SellTradePlus who live in Albuquerque that I've met in real life. Someone just did an in-person plus size clothing swap in Philadelphia. The community is definitely a big part of it for me and when I think about what might be next for @SellTradePlus, I don't want to lose that element.VirginiaI agree. I think it's really special. It's interesting, too, because I'm noticing a lot of tension over which brands do we want to support, which brands do we not want to support. We don't have to get into specifics, especially because by the time this airs the whole conversation will change. That tension comes from a very real place, right? This is a marginalized group who hasn't had enough options and emotions, understandably, run very high. But I appreciate that you have created a space that's positive and supportive. There is space for people to have those feelings, of course, but is more focused on solutions and helping each other, rather than some of the tear-each-other-down stuff I’m seeing in other spaces.CorinneWe definitely have drama sometimes—but who doesn’t? We're realizing now that is the very nature of social media: Drama makes it work.VirginiaOnce you start to get a little bit bigger, it's inevitable because you're not talking to only 300 people anymore—it’s thousands of people. Overall, I feel like you keep a very positive tone and I appreciate it.CorinneThank you. I feel lucky that—maybe because it's clothes—we're not on the troll radar. I fear that as we get bigger, that might change. VirginiaIt's good that you don't talk about parenting or health, because I can say from experience those are troll-heavy subjects, especially where they intersect with weight. A lot of my life choices I have to question.CorinneOh God, I'm so sorry!VirginiaIt's fine. It's all part of the gig. It's a fraction of what I deal with, honestly. I mostly have really positive interactions with people, but it is a part of the job. I'm just glad you can protect yourself from that to some extent. Let's talk a little bit more about fat fashion. I've seen really beautiful pieces go up on @SellTradePlus. There are great clothes, but you're also seeing things that haven't worked for people, right? That's why they're passing them on. I'm curious if you've identified any themes. Are there certain brands where the sizing is really inconsistent so they don't work out for people? Are there certain types of garments? Other things that are real problem areas in fat fashion?CorinneThis is something I could talk about for hours. The number one biggest thing that comes up over and over again is sizing. When brands decide they're going to start making plus sizes, a lot of times it seems like they just go for it without doing any research. Sometimes there's a whole different sizing scale where you think you're ordering a 3X but it's actually the equivalent of like a standard plus size 18.Often there are huge issues with pattern grading. Pattern grading is really complicated, but basically when an item of clothing is designed, they design one base size, and then grade that up and grade it down from there. The problem is that when you grade up or down, eventually the pattern becomes distorted. If a brand offers sizes 0-12 and wants to expand to a size 26, they have to create a whole new base pattern. If they don't do that, the typical problems you see are things like the sleeve on the upper arm is too tight or the ankle is like weirdly big and not in line with the original look of the pants. It turns out ankles don't get fat at the same rate as butts! It's a problem of trying to linearly make a piece of clothing bigger and that's not how fatness and bodies work. That's probably the number one problem. There are some brands where it's just so obvious that they haven't done the grading right.There are also certain fabrics that are just really hard to get right, like linen pants where you're going to wear out the thighs really fast if your thighs rub together or wear out the seams if they're a little bit tight. Also non-stretch stuff, like 100% cotton denim or canvas. It can just be uncomfortable sometimes. There's so much variance in like how large bodies carry weight so it's just so hard to get the fit right sometimes.VirginiaWhen I was doing my jeans research people kept saying—because I kept complaining that the jeans were stretching out so fast—that I need non-stretch denim. Maybe? But, in plus sizes, that is very hard to find. And if it doesn't work that's going to feel miserable on my body, like wearing a suit of armor. CorinneExactly. With the 100% cotton denim, you either have to stretch it out—so you're wearing it while it’s incredibly uncomfortable, which can be really triggering for some people—or they don’t stretch at all. I also had a non-stretch pair that I just ripped bending over because… they don't stretch.VirginiaThey don’t move with your body. That's a good point about it being triggering for folks.When clothes don’t fit, it’s a really emotional thing.CorinneFor people that already struggle with feeling comfortable in their bodies, it just doesn't feel good.Another thing is that now that we live in this post-/ongoing pandemic, there are a lot of styles that just are not selling right now. Like business casual stuff. Like Ann Taylor, LOFT, blazers, blouse-y stuff. This may change when people go back to the office, but who knows? Maybe the world has changed forever. And the other thing that is consistently a hard sell is shoes. I think they're just really hard to buy online, especially if you can't return them.VirginiaThat's fair. If the shoe doesn’t fit, there’s no faking it. CorinneNo. No one's going to tell you to stretch out the shoe. Or maybe they are, I don't know.VirginiaIt's not going to work.The business casual stuff totally makes sense, that you would be seeing more of that right now. The sizing thing is so, so tricky. That's why I think this is such a smart resource. I had an experience recently where I ordered two jumpsuits from Big Bud Press. And I’ll call them out: The sizing was atrocious! I measured myself, I used the chart, and I couldn't get them up over my hips. And then to return them, I had to send an email within 14 days of purchase and get blessed to return them, which is a lot of hassle. I did manage to get them in under the wire and get my money back, but the whole time I was thinking, well maybe I could post them on @SellTradePlus because this is so stressful. CorinneTheir sizing is just whack.VirginiaIt makes no sense and it's very frustrating. So I like having this alternative option if you get screwed on returns, which unfortunately happens a lot.You're seeing what trends people are really responding to and getting excited about. What kinds of items are gold on @SellTradePlus? Things you know will go fast. CorinneThe most popular posts, the ones that have just dozens and dozens of people interested in them, are often the most colorful stuff: a pair of like Lucy & Yak overalls with a bright floral pattern, or the NorBlack NorWhite dress with the rainbow-y plaid, or even a sweater from Target that's just like a really good shade. Those items are just the most consistently popular, across brands and across sizes. Fat people have been told, “Wear a black sweater.” And either because everyone already has twenty-five black sweaters and they are not as hard to find, or maybe because a black sweater doesn't stand out in the grid as much, sometimes that more generic stuff is a little bit harder to sell, even when it's a popular brand. The colorful stuff really gets people, I think.VirginiaThat makes sense. I think it is speaking to a craving a lot of people have. You're working within the Instagram model, too, like what stands out when people are scrolling.CorinneI'm always really excited to see larger sizes just because they are less common—like size 24 and up. We just don't get as much of that and also that's my size range. I'm way less picky with the larger size stuff and way more picky with the smaller sizes.VirginiaThat totally makes sense. The smaller sizes have more options, period. Well, I have a couple of things I think I have to send you soon. I have a very sad story about a Tanya Taylor dress I bought it for my sister's wedding. I ended up with a different dress for the wedding, but I missed the return window and Tanya Taylor dresses are an investment. It's a really cool dress. I think it will be fabulous for somebody. So I will get some pictures. CorinneGreat, I will keep an eye out. If you need Big Bud Press sizing advice, I may be able to help you.VirginiaI was left with such a bad taste in my mouth. I have to have some distance before I'm ready to try again. CorinneI understand that. That's definitely one brand that shows up a lot.VirginiaIt's frustrating because there's a lot to love about what they're doing. If you want to support a small brand, they check all those boxes. But I don't feel like they're doing the best job with their size chart. So maybe they'll improve.CorinneYeah, they have been improving. I don't know when you ordered or which item, but they're improving sizing garment by garment. It’s hard to keep track of whether you're in the new sizing or the old sizing.VirginiaOkay, that's encouraging. I'll try them again down the road, I guess. It’s too cold for jumpsuits…
Full show notes at the publisherHello, and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!
For this episode, I thought it would be fun to both answer some of your questions and just talk a little bit about a recent piece I did on Division of Responsibility and Instagram.
The response to this piece was very interesting. I heard from so many dietitians and other kinds of kid food influencers on Instagram saying, “Thank you for articulating this. This is a conversation I’ve been afraid to have on here. I’ve been afraid to talk about this.” I’m even seeing a few folks changing the way they talk about Division of Responsibility and admitting more openly when it’s not working for their own families. I’m excited about that. And I want to be clear: That’s not because I think Division of Responsibility is evil. I will be forever grateful to the role DOR has played in my own family and I think has a lot of potential to help families. But I do think there are some problematic elements baked into it that we need to reckon with.
As I explained in that piece: The way we talk about DOR on social media both distorts it and focuses on some of those problematic elements. And so I think people are starting to rethink when they are being rigid for rigidity’s sake. When am I refusing to question my family’s mealtime structure? Is this a plan that I jumped on, is it something that I have decided on, or am I considering how my kid is responding to it and is this really working for them?
EPISODE CREDITS
Co-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay.
Producer: Kim Baldwin.
Logo design: Deanna Lowe.
Theme Song: Farideh.
Video Editor: Elizabeth Ayiku
Audio Engineer: Tommy Harron
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Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.
Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.
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Hello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!Today I’m delighted to be chatting with Crystal Maldonado who is the author of Fat Chance, Charlie Vega, one of my favorite YA books—maybe one of my favorite books, period. Crystal also has a new book coming out in February called No Filter and Other Lies.CrystalThank you so much for having me. I can’t believe you said it’s maybe one of your favorite books. I’m gonna go cry.VirginiaI cried when I read it. I love it very deeply. So I’m excited to talk about it. I’ve been fangirling you on social media since the book came out. CrystalI fangirl you! When you reached out, I was like, “Oh my god, my dreams are coming true!”VirginiaWell, get ready for a mutual fangirl episode because that’s what we’re doing. Why don’t you start by telling us a little more about yourself?CrystalAs you mentioned, I am the author of Fat Chance, Charlie Vega, which was my first book ever. I have a day job where I do social media marketing for higher education. I live in Western Massachusetts. I have a great husband, who was the inspiration behind the love story in Fat Chance, Charlie Vega. Together we have this adorable dog, Toby, and we have a two-year-old named Maya. I love things like glitter. I love Beyoncé. I love having a lot of feelings and I love trying to dismantle things like fatphobia and capitalism.VirginiaI am so here for dismantling fatphobia and capitalism with glitter.CrystalWe all bring something, and I bring glitter.VirginiaGlitter is a controversial topic in my house because my husband hates cleaning it up. He can’t even talk about it without becoming enraged. My daughters and I are like, “But, GLITTER!”CrystalIt sparkles! What more do you need?VirginiaI’m always like, “Okay, let’s do the glitter project outside,” because I want to hold space for his mess intolerance. It’s fair. But glitter nail polish isn’t messy, so… CrystalGlitter nail polish, that’s a good one! I’m going to keep that in my back pocket because my husband wants me to feel like I can do whatever I want with glitter, but then sometimes he finds a rogue glitter on his head.VirginiaIt is true that once glitter enters your home, it will never not be in your home. I don’t think we’ve purchased glitter for an art project in five years and I still find it places. It is problematic in that way, but it is also very joy-inducing. CrystalIt’s just sprinkling joy that you find later. VirginiaSome joy on your bathroom floor!Okay, let’s talk about Fat Chance, Charlie Vega. When I read it last year, it was such a bright spot in pandemic life. I love so much about Charlie and how you’ve subverted a lot of expectations and stereotypes about her. What is Charlie’s origin story for you?CrystalI really went into this book wanting to write a fat romcom. As someone who just loved reading love stories and romances, especially within the young adult genre, I felt like I spent my whole life wondering if there was room for fat folks to fall in love. It seemed like I never saw that. I was lucky if fat people existed at all in young adult books. If they did exist, they had to fit into these weird boxes that didn’t make sense and certainly weren’t anything like me. I was a total dreamer, like Charlie, and I wanted to be kissed and I wanted someone to love me. I wanted to make Charlie into this person who is soft. She is dreamy, and wants what she wants. She embraces that yearning, in ways that I think fat people don’t always get to do.I have always felt that if I, as a fat person, yearn for something, it’s considered pathetic. I’m not supposed to want anything, you know? That’s weird! I am a human. I’m allowed to want.I wanted this fluffy book that had all of these typical romance tropes, but for a fat girl to be the main character. She gets to be desired. She doesn’t lose weight. And she gets to fall in love with herself, too. I wrote the book during the 2016 election, as well. I was really going through it at that time, feeling like I was living in a society that was telling me I didn’t belong in any realm. This book was my response. Like, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m going to write a book that celebrates all the things you don’t like about me.” VirginiaYearning is such a big part of that life stage! But we don’t have representation of kids yearning and getting what they yearn for when they are in marginalized bodies. I love that she has desires. Those are some of the most fun parts to read. It’s really sweet and sexy. I can imagine so many girls in all body types, but particularly bigger girls, appreciating that.CrystalWe deserve that, too.VirginiaLet’s talk a little bit about what you were writing against. Obviously there was Trump, but also the way fat kids are portrayed in YA literature. Charlie does talk about her weight. She is aware of her size and how her mom is dealing with it, but it is not a book about her needing to change. She just has to own the fact that she does accept herself. Can you talk about what you were trying not to do?CrystalIt’s really important for fat folks to have both stories that talk a lot about being fat and that don’t acknowledge fatness at all. With this book, I was trying to immerse the reader in being fat and how it invades everything you think about because it is what society sees. That’s the world Charlie’s living in. She knows she would probably love herself a whole lot more if the rest of the world didn’t have big opinions about her body and her eating habits and exercise habits.But I wanted to push back on the idea that all fat people hate themselves inherently. Charlie doesn’t hate herself. Is she down on herself? Yeah, of course. Does she experience insecurities? Yes, she’s a teenager. She’s a human. We all feel that. I wanted to show that it’s way more complicated than that. So she’s not this fat girl who wants to hide herself. She wants to wear cute clothes and she wants to have all of these great experiences. I wanted her to have all of that without ever dieting or losing weight. I’ve read a lot of books where there’s a fat person and then they lose weight, or they get thin, and then they live happily ever after.VirginiaI love Jennifer Weiner’s books so much, but I still remember in Good in Bedwhen Cannie starts riding her bike a lot. She doesn’t lose weight, but it says she “shifts it around.” I just remember thinking, why was that necessary? We love Cannie! We’ve been rooting for Cannie this whole book. Why does weight have to be part of it? [VA Note: It’s possible I’m thinking of Rose in In Her Shoes here. It’s also possible they both have this plot line!]CrystalIt feels so demoralizing when you’re the fat girl reading these stories. It’s like, “Well, I guess I inevitably have to lose weight if I want happiness or love.” There’s also this idea that the fat people in stories are the sidekick-bestie-asexual-funny person. They don’t get to desire or be desired. I didn’t want that for Charlie. I wanted her to come out first thing and say, “I dream about being kissed.” I think that’s way more accurate. She is this person who wants to go buy a cute bra and also be super funny and sarcastic. Why not both?VirginiaSpeaking of sidekicks, you populate her world with such an amazing friend group. They are not one-dimensional sidekicks at all. All of her friends are very fully formed characters, dealing with their own stuff in different ways. You layer in many intersections of race and gender identity along with body diversity. And also, Charlie lives in this mostly white town and struggles with that experience. How did you think about what other stories you wanted to tell through her friends?CrystalIn my experience growing up in a mostly white town, anyone with any semblance of a marginalized identity is drawn together and finds community with one another because, for whatever reason, you don’t fit in with the majority. That is how I viewed Charlie and her friends, as this tight group of people who come together because they feel othered in some way. I wanted her friends to have beautifully robust and nuanced lives with their own things going on. I spent a lot of time on Tumblr when I was growing up. We would complain about how there’s a wonderful black best friend, but they never get to do anything. They clearly exist only to help this white main character achieve something. I wanted to think of every one of Charlie’s friends as characters who I would want to read a book about. That’s what it’s like in real life! People have their own lives, they have their own experiences. At the same time, I am a fat Puerto Rican girl and I’m cisgender. I didn’t feel, with some of those identities, that I could tackle them in that first person, intimate way that I can with Charlie. Amelia is black, pansexual, and very sporty. I don’t know about any of those identities (I identify as bi, not pan) but I have friends who have had these experiences. I wanted to talk about these experiences but not in a first person way because I didn’t feel like I could do them justice. At the same time, I wanted to shed light on some of these different identities to make you think about things in ways that you might not have. Especially if you’re from a very white town, or a town that doesn’t have these other identities, you can meet these people through Charlie.VirginiaWhen Amelia comes out to her parents, it’s so moving. I love how you followed those journeys and wove them in.What are you hearing from readers? What kind of responses have you gotten, especially from fat kids reading the book?CrystalIt has been so incredible. People have reached out and shared an appreciation and a sense of validation in reading Charlie’s story. It’s not just people who are her age and it’s not just people who are fat, it’s different age ranges and it’s different body types. Some people who reach out are fat, but they're not brown, or they're brown, but they're not fat. To hear from people who have a similar identity to me, to hear them say they get to look at this book and see a character that looks like them, is meaningful. That’s exactly what I wanted and yearned for when I was fourteen or fifteen. It’s been really humbling to hear from people who are like, “Oh, I consider myself a Charlie” and “I have an Amelia.” That is the best. I’ve even had a couple of people who have recreated the cover. I’m like, “Oh my God, can I just be besties with all of you? Because you’re incredible.”VirginiaWhat I often hear from parents of kids in bigger bodies is that they want a book where the fat kid is just the hero or the heroine, where it’s not about their body acceptance journey. As much as Charlie is reckoning with her weight in this book, your book is one of the best examples of that. She has her own journey. So, for parents who are looking for that, this is the book that you’re looking for. There is no weight loss. This is a really good one to have in family libraries for that reason. My older daughter is eight and she’s probably a couple years out from reading it, but not that far. I think it works for a wide variety of age ranges. CrystalEspecially as you’re getting into those awkward middle school years, Charlie’s your girl because she has not been kissed at the start of the book. She’s sixteen and she feels like her peers have surpassed her. She’s dealing with a complicated mom and grief in her household. There’s a lot that younger folks might relate to. Some YA is more mature, and we need that, too, but when we meet Charlie, she still feels like she is just at the beginning. VirginiaAnother thing that you navigate in the book is the online communities that Charlie is a part of. She finds fat influencers and she’s in that body positive space online. That’s something I really struggle with, with our kids, especially right now with everything we’re hearing about Instagram and how great it is at teaching kids to have eating disorders. I am definitely wrestling with thr desire to never let my children online. Your book is a reminder to me that kids in marginalized bodies need to find community and if they’re not finding community at school, which not everyone is going to in middle school in high school, online can be that portal. Do you see online communities as a force for good? Or a force that needs to be tempered? How are you thinking about it?CrystalI think it can be good and it can have very toxic sides as well. I see this a lot as someone who manages social media for a brand. I use social media as myself, of course, but I also see the flip side where there’s a lot of hate and a lot of anger. I wanted to show that social media has the power to be toxic, but at the same time it can bring you together with people who are like you, that you might otherwise struggle to meet. When I was growing up, I was very much the girl on Tumblr and—I’m dating myself—I was also on LiveJournal a lot. There was this amazing community there called the Fatshionista community. It was just fat people posting pictures of themselves wearing clothes. It was before the super posed, beautiful Instagram photos. It was truly just fat people being like “Here’s what I’m wearing today. What do you think?” At that time, the internet was very ugly and toxic, and especially for fat folks. Let’s be real, it still is, but this was a little safe haven. It was a nice place where I could go and see bodies that looked like mine for the first time in my life. So I think social media can be super, super powerful. But when you’re part of a marginalized community, you have to curate your feed. Sometimes that means not following mainstream media, even well-meaning ones. You’re following hashtags or you’re finding people through those hashtags. You can find influencers or people who are thinking about this stuff and talking about it.For Charlie, the most powerful thing is just being able to see girls like her who are out there rocking cute outfits, and getting style inspiration. That helps her build her confidence because she’s like, “Hey, this person has a body like mine, and they look amazing. So could I look amazing.” I would say unfollow literally anybody who makes you feel even a tiny bit bad about yourself.VirginiaAs parents, we’re figuring out how to teach our kids media literacy skills, which we all need to learn, too. We are 100 percent learning with our kids. If your kid is begging to get on Instagram and you’re on the verge of losing that battle, how can you experience it with them and help them seek out these little pockets of goodness, as opposed to just mindlessly following every influencer?CrystalIgnore who Instagram suggests you should follow and you make the list.VirginiaThis is the type of stuff I wish they were teaching in middle school and high school. I think teaching kids how to navigate these spaces would be really powerful. You are a writer and you have a day job and you’re a mom, so you’re juggling all of the things. I love to ask fellow writers a little bit about their writing process, like where do you write? When do you write? What do you like about your process? What do you hate about it? It sounds like you’re probably fitting it in around a lot of things, so tell us what that’s like.CrystalBefore I had my kid, my writing routine was more about the vibe and curating this feeling and going to coffee shops. Now I’ve gotten pretty good at writing anywhere. I just need my laptop and my headphones and a good playlist on Spotify and my toddler not to be ripping my laptop out of my hands.I have a desk set up in my bedroom, in this small alcove, and it feels really cozy. I hung up little twinkle lights and it’s got some natural light. I’m very much a feelings and mood person, so that combo helps me get out of my head and move into a different space so that I can think about characters and dialogue. As long as I can put my headphones in and turn the world off, that’s where I’m at.The thing I hate the most about my current writing process…
Full show notes at the publisherHello, and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!Today I am chatting with Dacy Gillespie, a personal stylist and creator of Mindful Closet. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed I have been posting a little more fashion content. If you think anything I’ve been wearing is cute, it is because of Dacy. She is brilliant at fashion. She is even more brilliant at helping us release the patriarchal rules that we have felt like we had to follow about getting dressed. Dacy does it all from a weight-inclusive, Health at Every Size perspective. She is an amazing unicorn in the fashion universe.DacyThank you, Virginia, for the really kind words.VirginiaAll extremely true. For folks who don’t know you, let’s start by having you give us a little of your story. You are a classical musician-turned-stylist. You are also very much not what people think of when they think of a stylist! I would love to hear a little more of how you got into this work.DacyI appreciate that you say I’m not what you would think of when you hear “stylist.” For me, that is a good sign that someone connects with what I feel like I’m doing, in a weird way. I truly feel that way myself, so it’s nice to be recognized. I’ll try and give the short version of the story. I know we’re going to talk later about the messages that people get around clothing and fashion. My story started with a message I got from my parents, which was: If you care or think about clothes or fashion, you’re superficial and silly, and not a serious, caring person. I know a lot of people can relate to that. Fashion was something I always, always loved. If it weren’t for that message, I probably would have gotten into something in the fashion field much earlier on. Instead, I went into classical music which was an approved field of study. It was an interesting career for a while, but ultimately a really high stress one. When I decided to change careers in my mid-thirties, style and fashion was what I went back to. I did some research on fields within the industry and realized that something I’d been informally doing for people my whole life actually was a job: Personal styling. I was always that person who would come over and help you clean out your closet or help you decide what you were going to wear to an event. It never felt validated as something that I could actually do, partially because of that message from my parents, and partially because I just never felt cool enough to be in fashion. Thanks to a really supportive husband and a lot of privilege, I started this business about nine years ago.VirginiaI went into fashion magazines, but worked in the health departments. I was like, “I’m not cool enough for the fashion people.” Which was both true and not true. The fashion industry is very insular and puts up barriers, but it’s ridiculous that these barriers exist and that we internalize them. We’ve been working together in your one-on-one coaching program. It’s been low-key life-changing. And it’s a lot more like therapy than I expected, in a good way. I was like, “Oh, I want to work with Dacy because I need to figure out what styles work on my body,” and like, “maybe she’ll just tell me what to wear and that’ll be so great.” And instead, you were like, “What messages have you absorbed about your body? Let’s unpack this! Where did this come from?” I started realizing I had all these ideas, like that I should only wear flowy tops or I should only wear dark colors. You helped me sort through that and figure out where it comes from. So, I’m curious to hear why you think it’s so important to start with those stories that we tell ourselves about clothes.DacyWell, I think awareness is always the first step towards growth and change. You have to be aware of those stories that you’ve been told before you can let them go. You have to hold them and look at them and say, “Is this true for me? Or is this just someone else’s idea of what I should be doing?”As women, we’re so used to taking in others’ opinions and changing our actions around those opinions. I see this as an entry point to getting in touch with what your true needs are. Fashion is just a way to practice that. You talk about intuitive eating and Health at Every Size, and there are so many similarities and parallels in this work. It’s about listening to your body and what it needs. I always ask, “Is it external influence or is it an internal motivation?”The whole first session when I work with someone is called “Style Stories.” It’s about asking, “What has your relationship with clothes been over the course of your life? Who dressed you? Who took you to buy clothes? Who influenced what you thought you should be wearing? Who gave you messages?” It can be anyone, from our mothers to fashion magazines and of course, social media. It’s so important to acknowledge those messages and decide whether you want to accept them or let them go.VirginiaYes, yes, absolutely. We talked a lot about middle school for me. It was all about Cool Girls, and because I moved schools around that time, wondering if I had the right thing to wear. I realized that here I am, a 40-year-old adult, still worrying about having the right thing to wear. One of my big takeaways was how much joy I had gotten out of clothes as a kid, and even as a teenager and young adult. That joy had been really sucked out of fashion for me, and a lot of that was because of my body changing. I grew up as a thin kid. I’m a small fat adult. That was a big transition because clothes just aren’t accessible to me in the same way. There were also feelings of wanting to fit in and play it safe and wear black all the time. When we started digging deeper into it, you asked me to show you what I love. I showed you people like Emma Straub and Nora Pelizzari who are wearing tons of color and mixed prints and bright patterns. They’re like walking rays of sunshine! It was so interesting to realize that’s actually what I’m really drawn to. We realized that wanting to play it safe is really a fear of taking up space. It’s really a fear being noticed. Is this is a common fear you encounter? Does this fear of being noticeable come up a lot, especially for people in bigger bodies?DacyYeah, for sure. This is what I hear especially people who have lived in a larger body for most of their life. They felt excluded, that clothing and fashion were not things that they could participate in—in some cases, literally! Like, “When I went to the store with my mom and my sister, my sister could buy the clothes in this store and I couldn’t.”People have this experience of feeling excluded and getting messages that if you are not in a socially acceptable body, you should hide yourself. You don’t deserve to be noticed. Something is shameful about your body and it should be hidden. You should just be grateful if you can find anything that fits your body. Of course, we have a long way to go, but steps are being taken, thankfully. There are options if you love and enjoy fashion, so that you don’t have to wear shapeless, black sacks. I, however, am someone who loves a shapeless black sack.Something I was thinking about talking to you, Virginia, is that—and I think this is common for a lot of mothers—the period of time when you lost your spark of joy about fashion was the period of time when you became a parent. That was a somewhat traumatic experience for you. People get to the point where they just have to get through the day, just have to get by, and fashion is not something that they have the luxury to think about. You are somewhat through that, and finally able to feel more of the things that bring you pleasure. It was really lovely to be able to help you connect to that.VirginiaWhen we were going through our more traumatic years with my daughter’s medical condition, I did a lot of stress shopping. I remember sitting attached to the breast pump in the ICU, and buying boots on my phone in this compulsive way. I just needed something good. I’ll never shame anyone’s coping strategies, but for me, it wasn’t super satisfying. Shopping is hard to do in a spontaneous, joyful way. The whole structure of online shopping, in particular, is difficult to navigate. Recognizing that I needed joy and deserved joy and didn’t have to do it in a furtive, stressful way was helpful.The other realization I had as we were doing this work, was how much I had lowered my standards. I think of myself as someone with high standards, so that was surprising. As shopping got harder, I ended up keeping stuff I didn’t really like because returns seemed like a hassle. Maybe I really loved it but it didn’t fit quite right. Or I didn’t love it, but it fit okay, so I would convince myself it was fine. There was a lot of accepting stuff that wasn’t great. There was some inertia and some fear that it would be hard to find something better. I want to hold space for the fact that for folks on tight budgets, for folks in larger bodies, it often does feel somewhat impossible to find better options. I think you’ve mentioned that you’ve encountered that belief a lot, too. But why is this important to challenge? And how do we challenge it?DacyPeople who are in larger bodies or people whose bodies change, as yours did and as mine is right now, have been given this message that we don’t matter, that we’re not worth the effort. If we have something that that fits, we should just shut up and be thankful. It’s a real expression of self-value to say, “No, this is not quite right.” Maybe you need this item right now, because there’s not always a perfect solution, but just knowing that this isn’t what expresses yourself in the most pure way can be helpful. It may not be what makes you the most happy, and you can continue to look for that.As mothers, we would never say to our kids, “Make do with the rain boots with the hole in them.” or “You grew out of those but I’m not going to buy you new clothes.” But we often let our needs fall to the bottom of the priority list. VirginiaHow do you advise people to start to shift that? Is it finding more time to spend on shopping? Is it thinking differently about what you’re buying? What’s the starting point? DacyThe starting point is awareness. Allow yourself to feel what you feel about your clothes. When you get dressed in the morning, if you are putting on two or three things and taking them off because you don’t want to wear them that day, just try and sit with and understand what is going on there. Is it because it doesn’t fit well? Is it because it makes you feel squeezed? Is it because it’s a very bright color that you feel uncomfortable in? Is it because it’s black and you feel drab? It’s going to be so different for every single person, but start allowing those things to come up. We’re not supposed to complain about these things; we should be grateful we have clothes. Allowing yourself to start to think, “Okay, this is the reason why I don't want to wear this today. I'm gonna put it on because I don't have any other options, but this is going to start a process of thinking about what I want my clothes to be for me.”A huge part of it is also finding visual inspiration and really not censoring yourself when you’re doing that. People will create Pinterest boards and they’ll put things on where they love that print but have been told that doesn’t work for someone in a larger body. Or they may say, “I love that fitted shape, but God forbid someone see my stomach!” So, if you can reach out for visual inspiration that truly resonates on a gut level without filtering in that way, you’ll just start to see things a little bit differently and see what you’re wearing a little bit differently. It comes down to this awareness of rejecting what you’ve been told. You can decide what it is that you like the look of, and then later on you can figure out a way to translate it into your life. VirginiaI went in thinking I knew what clothes I liked. If you’d asked me previous to this, “What is your style?” I think I would have said, “Whatever the Anthropologie plus size collection has, that’s probably what I want to wear.” It turns out, it’s actually not at all what I want to wear! We didn’t end up buying anything from them. It’s not a style that really speaks to me. I realized how much I was just accepting, like, aren't we so lucky that Anthropologie makes plus sizes now, I must want to wear that. There are lots of ways this plays out. Then there was this process of refining and realizing I love when Emma Straub wears a giant, multicolored muumuu. But I don’t actually want to wear a muumuu, I want something with that feel, but with smaller pops of color. That still feels very bold to me, as someone who came from black t-shirt land.DacyYou start with that visual inspiration, then at some point you have to put it into practice and see how it feels. There’s a little bit of a swing to the extreme sometimes, too. I think maybe you did this a little bit. This thing of, I need to wear all the prints and all the colors, because now it’s available and it has never been available before. And yet, you still have to do what feels good for you. I think you experienced some of that. Some of those more colorful things made you uncomfortable and didn’t get worn and therefore weren’t really useful for you.VirginiaYeah, absolutely. We also did a much bigger closet purge than I was expecting. That was cathartic. It was exciting to realize how much stuff I had hanging in there that I wasn’t wearing. What are some other common beliefs that come up with clients, especially folks in bigger bodies, that you help them break through?DacyThese ideas that that style is not for you, that you can’t take up space, that you can’t just be the physical person that you are, and that you should strive for an optical illusion that makes you appear smaller, which we then call '“flattering.” And that “flattering” should be the priority above all else. I like to start by reversing that and saying, “What do you like, without considering what is socially appropriate or conventionally appropriate for your body?” Let’s start with what you actually like the look of and let’s prioritize that. That way you get some say in it, you get some control. Otherwise, you’re just saying, “Well Tim Gunn or Elle Magazine or whoever says, ‘you have to wear fitted waist and full skirts,’ all for the sake of appearing as small as possible.” What if you just don’t like how that looks? People in larger bodies have been pressured to do this as much as they possibly can. God forbid you show up in your full size, that would be so offensive. Let’s use all the tricks in the book that we can come up with to try and make you appear smaller than you actually are.VirginiaIt’s so exhausting and the tricks don’t work either. People will still see your body.DacyYou’re a three dimensional object. You’re showing up in the world, and nobody is fooled. It just makes you feel uncomfortable and you’re trying so hard to achieve something that is impossible.VirginiaIt also triggers so much comparing and that’s not helpful, as opposed to focusing on what makes you happy and what makes you feel good in clothes. I remember reading an interview with Lindy West where—thinking of your comment about black shapeless sacks—she said something like, “I would love if someone put me in that for a photoshoot, but they always put me in the like 1950’s hourglass silhouette with a bold red lip.” That’s the way that fat girls are allowed to feel pretty, to really lean into the retro vibes. What if you don’t— and I don’t—particularly love a retro vibe? What if you don’t want to be Marilyn Monroe? What if you don’t love a puff sleeve, at the moment? Or certain silky flower prints that we get over and over? It probably sounds very hard to start with what you love, but I think you’re right that it’s a very pivotal step to take.DacyYou and I, and probably a lot of people listenin…
Full show notes at the publisherHello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!Today is a very exciting crossover episode with my best friend Amy Palanjian, who is the creator of Yummy Toddler Food; parts of this conversation will also run next week on Amy’s newsletter. Longtime listeners will remember Amy from our podcast Comfort Food (RIP) and from her previous Burnt Toast. And! Just a reminder that guest episodes of the audio newsletter are now free for all listeners! That means you can go back and listen to Rachel Millner, Gwen Kostal, Alyson Gerber, the founders of the National Plus Guide, Tyler Feder, Christy Harrison, Anna Sweeney, Marquisele Mercedes, and Aubrey Gordon, all for free.I’m able to make this content accessible with the help of paid subscribers. If you’d like to support what I’m doing, click here and get cool perks.VirginiaI’m so happy we’re together again! I mean, we’re sort of always spiritually together.AmyIt’s funny, someone the other day someone was like, “When is the podcast coming back?” and I was like, “What are you talking about? Virginia and I talk all the time.”VirginiaWe do miss doing the podcast. It stopped making sense for a variety of reasons related to childcare. Also, it’s very expensive to run a podcast that doesn’t make money. It wasn’t our best business decision, but we both loved doing it. Now Amy can join us on Burnt Toast and we can still have some of that magic.So this crossover episode was Amy’s idea because we are both getting questions about Halloween candy—something that causes stress for parents every year. We do have an old Comfort Food podcast episode I will link, for people who want even more on this.AmyI would like everyone to know that I actually found a bag of our Halloween candy from last year as I was looking for some candy to photograph. Apparently, lollipops are not super popular in my house!VirginiaMeanwhile, the other day, Violet said, “We haven’t had lollipops in a very long time,” as if I had greatly wronged her. I said, “Okay, tell Daddy to put them on the grocery list.” But I was thinking the same thing, that the last time I bought lollipops, we had a box sitting in the pantry for months. They pick out the three red ones and then they don’t want the rest of the bag. Do people like other colors of lollipop? There’s a very strong red bias when it comes to lollipops. And popsicles, too.AmyTrue. It’s logical. They taste better.VirginiaWho likes a yellow lollipop? Anyway, we’re not here to shame your lollipop preferences. Everyone knows Amy and I strongly believe that there are no bad foods—though possibly there are some bad lollipops. The question that comes up over and over is parents wanting to know how to limit or regulate candy consumption for sugar obsessed kids on Halloween. We got several versions of this question: What are the best low sugar options for toddlers? How do I prevent the sugar tantrums? Guys, sugar is not heroin. It's okay. Take a deep breath.AmyThere’s also the question, “What’s the best time to eat candy?” As if eating candy at 2pm might be somehow better. We put all this pressure on the food. We forget that Halloween is super exciting! It only happens once a year and you’re wearing a costume and you get to run down the street ringing doorbells! It’s novel for kids. If you took the candy out of the equation, they still might have a tantrum just because it’s new and their routine is upset. We want to control what we can, so we immediately go to the candy. It’s sort of an easy scapegoat, but it makes us forget the bigger picture.VirginiaIt’s the birthday phenomenon! People think the cupcakes at the birthday party make kids crazy. But no, it’s the fact that the birthday party was at a trampoline place for two hours! They are overstimulated from being around screaming children bouncing on things. Lots of research has debunked the sugar high phenomenon. I will link to things that I have written for anyone still saying, “But wait, really? I think it makes me kid super hyper.” It doesn’t. It’s circumstantial. Step one is recognizing that candy is going to be a big part of Halloween. Candy is, along with the costumes, the entire point of the day. The more you can relax and lean into the joy of that, instead of trying to limit, the less stressed you’re going to be. Trying to control sugar is going to end up with you in a power struggle with your kid about what this day can be for them. That’s not a fun way to experience a holiday!AmyYeah, it would be like trying to limit the amount of presents that your kids get on Christmas. I guess you could ignore the candy part of Halloween if you just didn’t leave your house. But this is a temporary situation. Whatever happens on this day is not an indicator of the health or well-being or emotional state of your child for the rest of their life. It can sometimes feel like we’re bad parents for giving our kids these foods that are culturally shamed, especially with the emphasis on no added sugars for kids under two. There is a lot of pressure.VirginiaYes, especially for parents who have a lot of fears around processed foods! Candy is the ultimate processed food. This is one day of the year when a lot of foods that you may not normally buy are suddenly on your child’s radar. It’s important to keep in mind that kids may seem especially fixated or obsessed with these foods because this is the first time they’re experiencing a Mars Bar or a Butterfinger. One way to think about lessening the obsession on Halloween is to be a little more relaxed throughout the year. If it’s more normal for your child to encounter a Snickers, then they might not need to eat 100 in one sitting. If you have candy around, kids will become more discerning. They will be quicker to say, “I don’t need to take a bite out of every single piece because I already know which ones I like and don’t like. I can I can focus and enjoy my favorites.”It’s so sad and confusing that this should be a joyful day and instead kids are having to navigate these complicated feelings about wanting things that a parent doesn’t want them to have. We’re layering this whole emotional experience about food being something you have to feel really complicated about.Amy“We went out as a family! We had so much fun! I got this bag of stuff with my parents and now they’re taking it away from me. And I don’t quite understand why.”VirginiaSo, I think we’ve established why being really controlling around Halloween candy is not the way to go. Let’s talk a little bit about what we each do and what our approaches are to managing this. We can also touch on the ever-controversial Switch Witch. AmyUp until 2020, we had always gone trick or treating in the dorms at the college where my husband works. We would go through the dorm, which was full of kids giving out candy. They dress up and decorate the hallways and it was really fun. Then, we bring all of our candy home and we sort through anything that is too crunchy, like a round hard candy, or anything that’s too chewy for the younger kids, and put it off to the side. We talk about safety. I’m not trying to do it on the sly. I’m very open about it. I’ll say, “We're just gonna put this over here and maybe one of us parents will eat it.” Then we talk about the candies my kids haven’t seen. I tell them the names, we talk about what they taste like, we do a taste test. The kids try a bunch of stuff! They spit a lot of stuff out that they don’t want. In that process, if there’s a thing that they don’t like, they'll just push all those off to the side. If they know they don’t like the thing, they don’t want it in their bowl. We usually have water or milk and we sit at the table and we do it together. It’s a later night than usual. They eat a lot of candy. I try to eat all of this Snickers. It’s fun! I didn’t do this when my oldest was little, because I was intensely fearful of sugar. As I learned more, I understood that my fear was not helping. So, I embrace it. Each kid then has a bowl with whatever candy is left. After that first night and we put it in the pantry. We don’t hide it or take it away. And then we let them pick out a few pieces every day and they can decide if they want it with breakfast or with dinner, but I do try to have the kids all have it at the same time so that there’s not fighting.VirginiaOh, that’s smart.AmyYeah, like they might say, “She’s having her thing and it’s not fair!” So we try to line them up so that they’re happening at the same time. Then if we do go trick or treating on actual Halloween we do the whole thing again.VirginiaWe take a very similar approach, maybe with a little less reverence than your tasting process. On Halloween night we dump all the candy out of the coffee table and say, “Go nuts! Have as much as you want!”Candy is not an off limits food in our house, so the kids already know things they really love. They throw out the ones they don’t like. Then it goes into a bowl in our pantry. The kids do try some new candies, too. Keep in mind, for picky eaters, trying a new candy is still trying a new food. Candies have weird textures and flavors, so it can be a great thing if your cautious eater is willing to try some strange looking candy. The advice that gets circulated a lot is to do a free-for-all on Halloween. We do a free-for-all on the second day, as well. Amy doesn’t need to do that because she’s got the double trick-or-treating thing, so there is going to be another opportunity. But I do think for a lot of kids just the one night is not enough. Once we’re getting back into our routine, I’ll say, “When do you want to have your candy?” Other traditional advice is to limit candy thereafter to one piece a day which feels like not enough to me. I feel sad with only one mini Snickers! So we do two or three pieces. I don’t get hung up on the number because you’re very quickly going to find yourself doing a lot of weird negotiations. Why make yourself crazy? I’ve also found, as my oldest daughter gets older—she’s eight now—she manages the candy very effortlessly. We are transitioning to her having more authority over her food experience. She manages the candy easily on her own because we’ve always done it this way. I notice there are a few days where she wants some candy with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then she’s lost interest by the end of the week. With a younger kid, where you’re opening wrappers and you’re the delivery vehicle, I think it makes sense to pick a time for candy. Don't get too hung up on your role for managing the candy. Instead, ask yourself, did I give them enough access, and enough time to really enjoy this experience? If you’ve done that, they will gradually lose interest in the candy stash over the next couple of weeks. They won’t be fixated on it because they don’t have a scarcity mindset about it.AmyIf you’re noticing that your your kid is throwing tantrums when you say, “Just one piece,” the counterintuitive answer is to relax the rules. Your kid is responding to those rules in a way that is showing you that they don’t feel like they have access to that food. That can be a hard thing for parents to do, especially with little kids, because it often feels like we’re giving in or that it’s a slippery slope and now they're only going to eat candy. My two-year-old will have the candy with dinner, and he’ll eat some of the dinner and he’ll eat some of his candy. He’ll go back and forth. Candy is a food that we sometimes have more of at this particular time of the year.VirginiaSome kids are going to be the kids who are want to savor every little piece and they’re going to make it last till March and that’s totally fine.AmyThe goal of this is not to have kids who lose interest! The goal is to have kids who do not lose their minds over candy.VirginiaRight, kids who can enjoy and revel in Halloween and enjoy candy. It’s part of their life, not an obsession or something to feel anxious about. Are there any treats you wouldn’t let your kid eat?AmyAnything they’re allergic to. Anything that would be too hard for a younger kiddo to chew. That’s it.VirginiaThis isn’t something you get trick-or-treating, but maybe something like fancy chocolates with coffee in them. I might be concerned about the caffeine. Even then, it's one tiny chocolate. I’d probably say, “Let’s have a bite and see what happens tonight.” There’s definitely no good that can come from saying, “We let you have this kind of candy, but not that kind of candy” or “Nothing with artificial dyes!” AmyYeah, someone asked, “Where can I buy honey sticks?” I was like, “Please don’t give out honey sticks.”VirginiaDon’t be that house giving out honey sticks. I mean, if your kid loves them, great.AmyThere was a question about what to do when little kids want what the older kids have? I have a two-year-old and a nine-year-old. Having them eat the things at the same time, even if the things are different, can be helpful. Then the younger kid is not feeling left out. Make sure that whatever the younger kid has feels very fun to them. This issue of who has what and is it fair and is it the same is currently the biggest source of me wanting to run for the hills. “Hers is bigger,” or “She has more milk” or “She has a blue cup.” There may not be a magic solution to this, depending on your children. If this is my house, I am sure that this is going to be an issue. Even if it’s just like, “She has the red lollipop, but I got stuck with the green one.” VirginiaYeah, the lengths I go to ensure parity in lunch components! The other day, I cut a sandwich perfectly in half. And one child immediately said, “She has the better half!” And I was like, I give up. It’s literally the same.I'm wondering with this question if there’s an element of trying to limit the toddlers’ candy exposure. Unless it’s a choking hazard—which of course with ages three and under you do have to be careful about certain candies—let them have what the older kids are having. There is no reason they can’t enjoy the same stuff.“What age is appropriate to offer candy for the first time?”I forgot how fraught that feeling is when you have a one-year-old and you’re like, “Do we do it?” Especially if it’s your first child. This is definitely a question that goes out the window when you have multiple kids. If it’s your first child, and Halloween will be happening around them, like at daycare, do you bring them into the fold on the candy? Or do you wait and why? AmyIf you’re going to encounter it in the course of whatever you’re doing, then yes. If you’re not, like if your kid doesn’t go to daycare and you’re not going to go trick-or-treating and trick-or-treaters come to your house after the baby goes to bed, I wouldn’t stress about it. I don’t think you need to make a big deal about introducing chocolate. You will encounter it in the normal course of life. If the urge is to keep them away from this thing because it makes me wildly uncomfortable or because I’m scared that they won’t eat any other food, I just would maybe sit with that a little bit and think about whether it’s true. I think we waited until my oldest was two. She had a really early bedtime when she was one so we just skipped it. We didn’t go to any Halloween parties. But I think it’s a personal choice.VirginiaMy older daughter was not an oral eater when she was one, so I probably would have done backflips if she had wanted to eat candy. That was not where we were in her feeding disorder. So I didn’t have to navigate this in quite the same way as most parents. If you have a favorite Halloween candy and it would give you joy to share that with your child, do not feel bad about introducing your young toddler to that candy. Let’s be honest, Halloween for one- and two-year-olds is for the parents anyway. Kids don’t really care. You’re dressing them up in a cute costume for your own amusement or because Grandma wants to see them in the costume. It could be fun for you to say, l…
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