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
Hello, and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!This is the newsletter 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 and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia. I am doing another solo episode this week, but as we discussed last week, I’m open to feedback on how you feel about the balance of guests versus Q&A episodes. I’m recording this before people got a chance to comment on last week’s post, so if you already told me what you think—don’t worry, I saw it! I’m still figuring out the right schedule here. I have some really good questions this week and they all deal with a perennial Burnt Toast favorite topic: How do I have conversations about Health at Every Size and Intuitive Eating with people who are still buying into diet culture?What’s especially tricky is that these conversations either come up with people whom we are otherwise very close to, and suddenly this is a real tension point in the relationship, or, as one of these questions touches on, it comes up in a context where we don’t feel comfortable being controversial, like with school parents or work colleagues. It’s difficult to find the middle ground between staying true to your values, saying what you need to say, setting boundaries you need to set, and also not alienating people or creating a disruption. That’s the balance we’re going to try to find today with these questions. Q: I had a question about promoting intuitive eating and HAES (Health at Every Size) as a thin person. I believe pretty strongly in Intuitive Eating because it was instrumental in ending my years-long battle with anorexia. Many of my mom friends love to complain about their weight or discuss their current diet and weight loss goals. I often want to join the conversation and share about Intuitive Eating as an antidote to that, but I’m never sure if it’s appropriate because I’m usually the thinnest person in the conversation. My natural body type has always been very thin, even without anorexia. I could just envision my friends thinking, well, it’s easy for me to say that since I’m already thin. I’d love to share some of what I’ve learned, but I never want to be condescending. Is this one of those situations where I should just shut up?I’m going to link to the episode I did with Aubrey Gordon because we talked quite a lot about how to be a thin ally and what a thin person’s role in these conversations is. But if you don’t have time to listen again, Aubrey’s advice boiled down to: Ask your fat friends what they need, and then do that. If these friends are talking about living in significantly larger bodies than you, if they are on the receiving end of weight stigma and oppression around their body size, then it’s not your place to say, “Have you tried intuitive eating?” because you don't have their lived experience and you can’t really know what it’s like to deal with what they deal with—despite having absolutely had your own personal struggles. Figuring out how to support them is the most important goal. From there, there might come a time where they want to hear about your experience with intuitive eating, but they also might not ever want to hear about that from you. And that’s okay, you don’t have to be the person who brings them that message. If you’re talking about friends who are larger than you but still straight size, I think it’s a little bit different. I think it’s still worth acknowledging the privilege difference that you have, but you all have some degree of privilege. I still wouldn’t necessarily start with, “Hey guys, have you heard of intuitive eating?” because it may just not hit right if they are really struggling and wanting to diet or in the middle of a diet. I think once someone has already made the decision to diet, that’s not the moment to come in and say, “No, let’s try this another way.” Look for more neutral times in your friendship, where it might make sense to bring this up. Often people dip in and out of dieting, so if they’re coming off a diet that went badly, that may be a time when intuitive eating is something they’re open to learning more about. When they’re in a more neutral place with their body, they may be more interested in your experience.The other thing, too, especially if we’re talking about this with other straight-size friends, is that it’s okay for you to set boundaries. It may be not great for your recovery to hear friends talk about diet and weight loss. Even for folks who don't have an eating disorder history, it’s just not fun to hear about diet and weight loss. It can be stressful. So, it’s definitely okay to say, “I love you so much, but I really would love to not talk about dieting. It’s something that has been pretty harmful to me, and it would really help me if we could keep that off the table.” Are these people you need to set boundaries with to protect yourself? Go ahead and do that. Otherwise, start with what support they actually need. Ask how you can be supportive. With other straight size folks, feel free to look for opportunities when they might be receptive to this message. When someone is deep in complaining about their weight or feeling excited about a weight loss plan, it’s probably not the time. Q: I’d love to hear how you handle other adults’ diet culture-y, self deprecating comments, even if they are comments that don’t require a response. Like when you go to a kid birthday party, and another parent is like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just ate two pieces of pizza. I’m such a lard ass.” I usually either ignore the comments or smile and say something like, “I had two pieces of pizza, too.” Is there something more constructive, but also supportive and non-snarky, that we can say to get them to reframe their thinking a bit?This is in some ways trickier because these social moments often are not the right time to bring up a controversial topic or challenge somebody. But they are also the times where it can feel really important to do so, right? If someone makes a fat joke at a party, I do think anyone who feels safe doing so has a responsibility to call it out—just like I would hope we would all call out a racist joke or a sexist joke. The self-deprecating nature complicates that a little bit because you’re calling out someone for being mean to themselves, but they’re also being mean to other people. So there is some nuance there, but I do think it’s worth addressing. I often do what you do, just smile and try to say something positive like, “I love pizza. Pizza is so delicious.” This is the lowest stakes way to engage, but I think it does have value by adding a layer of positivity to the way food is being talked about. And that’s really useful for the kids who might overhear these comments. If kids are busy trying to enjoy their birthday party food, and the parents are all being weird about pizza, it’s great for someone to say, “I also love pizza.” Then the kids know that even if their mom or dad is worried about pizza, someone out there isn’t. So, thinking about adding positivity so that it’s not all just food shaming is step number one. The other thing I like to do with the self-deprecating comments is help the person take the blame off themselves and put the blame onto diet culture. You might say something like, “Isn’t it such a bummer that we feel like we have to apologize for eating delicious food?” You’re not calling them out or saying, “I can’t believe you just said that!” You’re saying, “Isn’t it a bummer that we live in a culture that makes us feel this way?” This is a way to reframe it and to stop being self-deprecating and apologetic about eating in that way that so many people—and especially women— are conditioned to be.Instead you’re saying, “Hey, I get that instinct. I have that instinct, too. I’m really mad that our culture has taught us that we need to atone for eating, because that is not something we were born with. That is something we have learned from diet culture.” Sometimes that can open up a really different conversation.Obviously, you can’t always have a script ready. These comments are random and it’s hard to know when or how they’re going to come up. But if you can say, even just in your own head, when people food shame, I’m going to try to turn it back on diet culture, that might help you to be more ready when these things do come up. That way you don’t feel like you’re commiserating with them or denying their experience, you’re just saying, “Yeah, it sucks to feel this way. I’m so mad that the culture makes us feel this way.” If it’s a straight up fatphobic comment, and you feel able to do it, I hope you will say, “That is a really harmful thing to say.” I hope you will say that you are not comfortable with that kind of comment about people’s bodies or that you don’t think it’s okay to talk about people’s bodies or people’s eating habits.I have found I feel best doing that in contexts where I am the host. I will say something like, “We don’t food shame at my house. Sorry, guys!” to set the boundary.Even if I’m out in the world somewhere and fatphobia comes up, I am going to try to call it out most of the time because I have the privilege to be able to do so safely, which is not true for folks in bigger bodies. I also want my kids to see that I think those types of comments are not okay and that other adults recognize that those comments are not okay. If your child overhears you letting it go, then I would follow up with them later and say, “I was really bummed that that dad kept telling his daughter not to eat more cookies. You know that’s not how we handle food at our house.” Follow up directly with them so that your child has some context for what they heard. Where I will end on this: None of us are going to get every one of these right. You’re not going to hit every pitch. There are going to be times when a comment comes up, it catches you off guard, and you don’t have a response. You just have to let it go in the moment and be frustrated.Q: My husband wants to go on a diet. I don’t know how to navigate. He thinks intuitive eating is bullshit. This is a bummer. Especially because I’m guessing that if you’re writing this, you do not think intuitive eating is bullshit. His being dismissive of something that you have found helpful or liberating is probably very, very hurtful. It’s frustrating to feel like you’re not being heard or seen by him or that your struggle is not being recognized. That is most likely because he is deep in his own struggle with this stuff and he just can’t see it yet. But it still just sucks. So, I just want to hold space for this being really hard. I’m really sorry. It’s hard to not be on the same page with your partner. I get this question from straight women with straight cis male partners a lot. I think it’s because men are so conditioned to engage with food in a very black and white way. The term “intuitive eating” strikes them as woo-woo or emotional. That’s something that they’ve been kind of conditioned to reject, right? They’re conditioned to count their macros, eat their burgers, and engage with food in this very straightforward way. This is why “calories in, calories out” dieting makes sense to them. It feels straightforward and understandable. Instead you want him to have an emotional process with food and that feels hard because he doesn't have language for that. I’m speaking very generally here and I also realize I’m not making space for non-heteronormative relationships. I’m sure this plays out in similar ways in different types of relationships and different gender pairings. A benefit of that black and white thinking is that sometimes these people do respond well to data. I will link to my favorite evidence review, demonstrating that diets do not work, and, in fact, are bullshit. This might be something you share with him. I’ll also link to a piece I wrote a few months ago called The Thing Your Husband Really Needs to Read. This piece is more about how not to talk about food around kids, but I think there are probably some useful nuggets in there. Those are both pieces that you could suggest he read if he is asking for your advice or if he is asking if he should go on a diet.What I will also say is: This is your husband’s problem to solve. We’re conditioned, as women in heteronormative relationships, to be our husband’s emotional support. We’re conditioned to help them navigate and solve problems. And that’s not always fair. Of course, in relationships, we want to support our partners, but there can be such an imbalance. If he is saying, “I’m gonna do this diet. I’m psyched about it. Intuitive eating is bullshit,” and he’s not actually asking for your input, I don’t think it serves you to put in the emotional labor to try to change his mind or coach him through this or try to get him to open up about his feelings about food. That’s work for a therapist to do. That’s not work for a wife to do. I think you can say, “Okay, that’s where you are. I’m in a really different place. I need to protect my own relationship with food.” If you have kids, you need to protect your kids’ relationships with food, too. So, “Good luck with that diet, but I don’t want diet talk at the family table. We’re gonna all keep eating the way we always do. This is something you’re doing for yourself. We get it, but we don’t have to be on this journey with you.”That might sound a little harsh, but I think it’s important to recognize that you cannot fix other people. You can’t change them, especially on something this complicated. This is something he’s going to have to muddle through for himself. It’s really hard to watch someone caught in a long-term dieting cycle. Maybe this is a new thing he’s trying, and he’ll quickly realize that it doesn’t work and he’ll come back around. If he’s coming to you saying, “Intuitive eating is bullshit and I want to do this diet,” then he’s not looking for the kind of support you can give. If he’s asking for information, we’ve got the information for him. If he’s just informing you of this, then you’ve been informed. Set the boundaries you need to set. I hope this is helpful, especially with holidays on the horizon in whatever COVID state they’re going to be. We might be seeing friends we haven’t seen for a long time or reconnecting with folks. So these conversations will likely keep coming up because we didn’t have these conversations for a year and a half. We’re back in the space of trying to figure this out. I hope this gives you some helpful strategies to play around with. As always, I love updates! If you try this, if you have these conversations, report back let me know how it goes. If you’ve got other strategies you like to use, drop them in the comments!Thank you so much for listening to Burnt Toast. If you liked this episode and you aren’t yet a subscriber, please subscribe! If you are a subscriber, thank you so much. Please consider sharing Burnt Toast on social media or forwarding this to a friend. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy & sell plus size clothing. And I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. You can find more of my work at virginiasolesmith.com or come say hi on Instagram or Twitter. I’m @v_solesmith. Thanks for listening! Talk to you soon!Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.EPISODE CREDITSCo-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Producer: Kim Baldwin. Logo design: Deanna Lowe.Theme Song: Farideh.Video Editor: Elizabeth AyikuAudio Engineer: Tommy HarronFollow us on social! 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 Pat…
Full show notes at the publisherHello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!This is a newsletter where we explore questions (and some answers) around fatphobia, diet culture, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, a journalist who covers weight stigma and diet culture, and the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia. Today, we’re going to do another solo episode where I answer your questions.But first! I’m curious to know what folks think about the guest episodes versus the solo episodes. Right now I’m doing like one solo a month, and then three guest ones. Maybe you would like a different balance of guests to solo? I’m also always curious to know how many folks download and listen or how many listen to the audio versus read the transcript. I’m happy to keep doing both—I think they’re both really useful—but you know, I’m just interested. So if you have any thoughts about that, please comment on this post. That is a long way of saying any feedback is always very welcome.Let’s dive into questions! Sometimes I manage to group these with a theme and this week, I don’t think there is a theme. It’s just kind of a grab bag. I mean, there’s the obvious themes of diet culture and fat phobia, but I don’t think I have a narrower theme than that. But that’s okay! There’s a lot of really interesting stuff in your questions this week.Q: I loved your book and I’m just starting to try to disentangle myself from my own diet and body image hang-ups, most of which were absorbed through my loving, amazing, subtle fat-shaming family. Occasionally we engage in discussions over weight and health and while I can bust out all the stats and research I can about health and weight they inevitably bring up their ace in the hole to win the argument every time: Namely, there aren’t many obese/fat old people. And I can’t counter it because I’ve seen it myself every time I visit a relative in a long-term care home; everyone there is very old, and very thin. Any thoughts/research on this? If weight doesn’t automatically equal unhealthy outcomes, where are all the old fat people at?A: This is such an interesting question: Where have all the old fat people gone?What I think is happening here, is confirmation bias. I think we are confusing what we see in our own lives and our own bubbles with, this must be true for everyone. And this happens all the time in conversations around weight and health. Think of every Thin Man in your life who, even if they do gain weight, sort of effortlessly loses it just by starting to run once a week or something. And then they think everybody could lose weight so easily if they just did this. That’s confirmation bias. That’s thinking that your own lived experience is representative of everybody’s lived experience. And we know it’s not. But this comes up a lot.But this is definitely a new twist on it, this idea that just because fat old people are invisible to you, they must not exist.I will link to Katherine Flegal’s research on this. We know that folks in the “overweight” and “low ob*se” BMI ranges have the longest mortality. So we know that those folks are living longer than people in the “normal weight” or “underweight” ranges. At the extreme ends of the spectrum, the data is a little less clear. Folks in the very highest-weight bodies may have more complicated health issues, just like the folks at the most underweight level. And in both cases, this may impact longevity. But in the sort of skinny to small fat/medium fat space, we’re seeing that bigger bodies live longer.So why aren’t you seeing them in the nursing home that you visit? Maybe because the nursing home you visit caters to a demographic that doesn’t have higher rates of larger body sizes. If you’re in an affluent, mostly white community, you may not see bigger body sizes as often in general, and certainly not in the nursing home setting.Also: If Flegal’s research suggests that higher body weight is protective in aging, then those folks might not be in long term care facilities. Fat old folks might be able to live independently at home longer. And so you don’t see them in the nursing homes that you’re going to, you’re seeing there the frailest and sickest people, perhaps, and those might not be the people in the larger bodies. So this is just playing with this assumption that you’re having—I’m not saying this is definitively what’s happening in the nursing home that you visit. Of course, as much as we know that larger body size is linked with longer mortality, we don’t know that that’s a causal relationship. It’s a correlation. So we don’t know that body weight really has much of anything to do with how long you live. You may be seeing smaller bodies in this nursing home, but that is not reflective of the general aging experience. Or these people may have been in bigger bodies earlier in their lives that enabled them to live longer. As we reach our later years, the elderly and the geriatric population does tend to lose both body fat and muscle mass with aging. So people are again frailer and also thinner once they are very old. That doesn’t mean they were that thin their entire life, that just means that’s the body you’re seeing them in right now.So yes, you’re seeing this. But you’re not seeing the entire experience. One nursing home is not representative of even your entire community, let alone your state, your region, your country. There could be good reasons that you’re not seeing bigger bodies there. There could be bad reasons. It could be that folks in bigger bodies receive worse health care. So even if we’re seeing some protective benefits of larger bodies, we may also see that folks receive worse health care, have less access to health care, and maybe they are less likely to access the type of long term care facility you’re talking about. So there is a lot of nuance there. But I do think that “I don’t see old fat people” is not proof that they don’t exist. They are out there. Hopefully that gives you some nuggets to take back to your family conversations.Q:Do you think intentional weight loss (and/or intentional weight change, including gaining weight) is always bad? Do you think there is any room for folks to intentionally change this aspect of their bodies just like we might change any number of other physical and aesthetic characteristics? Is there any way of decoupling intentional weight change from diet culture? (That last part is my biggest concern, of course.)I think what this person is asking—well, they may not be asking it, but what I am often asked under the guise of this question is: Can I be anti-diet and still be dieting?You can absolutely fight weight stigma, you can think that fatphobia is wrong, you can call it out, you can parent in ways that are weight-inclusive, you can support weight-inclusive health care, you can do all of that… and still not love the body you’re in. Our individual body struggles are quite separate from this as a sort of political social justice movement, so I think that is worth acknowledging and saying pretty explicitly. I think most people who do this work have our own stories of dieting and body acceptance struggles, and so relate very much to the idea that personally, you may not be where you want to be politically or publicly.But do I think that personal struggle can happen separately from diet culture? At this stage? I do not.Anytime we pursue intentional weight loss and try to change ourselves in an aesthetic way, we are driven, at least in part, by the central diet culture message that we should take up less space. It’s just the water we’re swimming in. It’s the social conditioning we have received since we were children. It is incredibly hard to turn off that noise and say, no, I definitely would want this in a void, I would want to be thinner for X, Y, and Z reasons, even if diet culture didn’t exist, and thinness gave me no social currency, and didn’t make it easier to buy clothes, and didn’t make my body feel more acceptable to society. I don’t think you can even really run that thought experiment because we cannot silence that noise. So, do I think intentional weight loss is always bad? I’m not going to shame behaviors because hey, who does that—diet culture, right? If you are dieting or intentionally losing weight, because that is something you feel you need, I am not here to judge your personal struggle. I think this is especially important to say when we’re talking about folks who live in fat bodies and decide to pursue bariatric weight loss surgery. If you have not lived in a larger body, and faced that pressure and faced the daily onslaught of weight stigma and the difficulties in accessing health care, and the reasons why that surgery might feel necessary, you are not in any position to judge that person’s decision to pursue intentional weight loss.At the same time, I think I always feel a little bit sad, because it’s a reminder that our world could be so much better. And it’s not. We are not making the world a safe place for fat people. We’re really not making the world a safe place for anyone with a body, but particularly not for fat people. So anytime I hear about someone intentionally pursuing weight loss, I’m just reminded of how much work we have to do. Because yes, if we could get to a point where weight loss was something you could manipulate as easily as, say, dying your hair, then maybe you could say that this is a temporary aesthetic change, and you’re making it for fun and self expression. [Virginia’s post-recording note: Something I forgot to add here is that even if it was truly harmless to the individual, weight loss would still be a way of reinforcing the idea that thin bodies are more valuable than fat ones—which they aren’t. The anti-fat bias is impossible to escape.]But even hair dying is not a great example of that, right, because often women dye our hair to cover our grays, to look younger, because we live in an ageist society. So pretty much any aesthetic change we make has some component of cultural pressure and cultural conditioning attached to it. And it doesn’t mean you should completely stop making any of these changes. I dye my hair, you know, and we all wear clothes, and people wear contact lenses, etc, etc. And it can certainly be a part of personal expression, and feeling good about your body and also be a response to these cultural messages.But the reason to put weight loss, intentional weight loss, in a separate category from say, hair dye, is because intentional weight loss can be really dangerous physically. It can lead to a disordered relationship with food and your body. It can cause spiraling and anxiety and ruminating and compulsive thoughts and compulsive behaviors in a way that making choices about shoes or hair doesn’t because these other more easily changeable choices don’t have quite the same impact on our physical health, or our mental health. And again, I’m speaking broadly here—there’s going to be someone who comments and says, no, actually dyeing my hair is like this hugely complicated, dramatic journey for me, and I want to hold space for you in that journey. But we don’t have an epidemic of hair disorders, and we do have an epidemic of eating disorders. I resist saying it’s always bad, because that sounds like I’m saying the person pursuing the weight loss is bad, and I’m not. But I do think intentional weight loss is never simple. I think it’s never just about health, or just about, oh, I don’t like how my pants fit, but I’m fine with other people being in bigger bodies. I think we find lots of ways to rationalize the desire for intentional weight loss to ourselves. And I did this for years. I wanted to support Health at Every Size, and I was dieting myself. So I really relate to this place that this questioner is in, wanting to say, I’m doing this for me, but that’s separate from the larger struggle. The truth is, we’re always intertwined with our personal and our political. With something like intentional weight loss, where the side effects can be so serious and so severe, I think it is especially important to approach that with caution.If weight loss is something you’re pursuing because you’ve been told it’s necessary for your health, I would encourage you to check out the HAES Health Sheets that were created by Louise Metz and Ragen Chastain. They are a phenomenal resource for thinking about weight-linked conditions, from a weight-inclusive perspective. That might give you some other options to think about, do I really need to pursue weight loss for my health? Or is there another way to treat my high blood pressure? Or my acid reflux?And if it’s about aesthetics, well, then I think you already know the answer that that’s a diet culture-driven thing. The thin ideal is driven by diet culture, it’s driven by white supremacy, it’s driven by patriarchy. It is uncomfortable to acknowledge that we are all complicit in it, but there it is. So yeah, I think we’re a long way from being able to decouple this and I’m also not sure that that should be the goal, because if we say we’ve decoupled unintentional weight loss from all of these toxic narratives, and it’s totally fine to pursue it, you’re still saying fundamentally, that smaller bodies are better, you’re still saying that this whole group of people who live in larger bodies, for whom intentional weight loss is not an option or would never achieve a thinner, a truly thinner body, that their bodies are somehow less than. So yeah, I don’t see it untangling anytime soon.Okay, next question. The TL/DR version of this question is: My daughter “binges” on food and I don’t know how much I should control this.Q:My 10-year-old daughter hit puberty young and has a larger body. She has not displayed any body dissatisfaction, or said anything negative about her body in front of me. She is very active and she loves food. Food is what motivates her. Food is what she turns to in boredom. She gets a lot of pleasure from food. I don’t see any of that as a problem. My concern (and my husband’s concern, who doesn’t handle it the way I would like) is that with being home all the time the last 1.5 years and counting, she is eating all day. She eats 3 “meals” in a row, each time saying she is still hungry. I try to advise her to wait a little while between meals so her body has time to realize she already ate, but she won’t do that. She’s also cooking and preparing her own food, which I love and think it is wonderful that she is independent in this area. I’m just not sure if she is ready to have all limits off on quantity of food. This might look like a tortilla with eggs and bacon, followed by frozen tamales, followed by melted cheese and crackers. She never chooses fruits or veg. If there is any sort of candy, ice cream, or baked good, she will eat it all right away and not choose any other food until that is gone. Part of the reason this is triggering for me is that I am a binge eater and it looks like she is binging when she loads up on food like this and when she is hyper-focused on the sweet foods.A: I think there’s a lot going on here. I want to be clear that I am not a therapist or a dietician or a healthcare provider trained to diagnose or treat eating disorders, and also a podcast would not be the setting to do that even if I was. So I encourage you to reach out to a therapist who approaches weight and family feeding dynamics from a weight inclusive Health at Every Size perspective. I like Christy Harrison’s list of providers so linking that here. And I’m saying that, not because I think your daughter is showing so many red flags of a huge eating disorder, but because you are really struggling with her eating, and I think you deserve support and help to navigate what this is bringing up for you so that you can best support your daughter.Now, as a lay person who reports on this a lot and who hears a lot of people’s eating stories, a lot of what you’re describing sou…
Full show notes at the publisherHello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!
This is a newsletter where we explore questions (and some answers) around fatphobia, diet culture, parenting, and health. I am Virginia Sole-Smith. I’m a journalist who covers weight stigma and diet culture, and I’m the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.
Today, I’m pleased to be chatting with Dr. Rachel Millner, a psychologist based in Newtown, Pennsylvania who specializes in eating disorders. Welcome, Rachel! I’m so excited to talk to you. Before we dive into our big topic, why don’t you tell our listeners a little more about yourself and your work?
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
Follow us on social!
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.
Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.
Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
Hello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!
This is a newsletter where we explore questions and some answers around fatphobia, diet culture, parenting, and health. I am Virginia Sole-Smith. I’m a journalist who covers weight stigma and diet culture, and I’m the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.
On Tuesday we talked about why parents need to question our own biases around school food. Today we are getting into all of your concerns about the diet culture your kids encounter at school. I am very excited to be chatting with Gwen Kostal, a Canadian registered dietitian and the co-founder of Dietitians4Teachers. Welcome, Gwen!
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
Follow us on social!
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.
Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.
Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
Hello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!
This is a newsletter where we explore questions and some answers around fatphobia, diet culture, parenting, and health. I am Virginia Sole-Smith. I'm a journalist who covers weight stigma and diet culture, and I'm the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.
Today, I am delighted to be chatting with Alyson Gerber, author of the critically acclaimed novels Focused, Braced, and, most recently, Taking Up Space. Alyson, welcome!
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
Follow us on social!
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.
Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.
Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
Hi Burnt Toast subscribers! I’m back from vacation and I’ve missed you all! Today we’ve got an audio newsletter (recorded before my break). Tomorrow I’ll have a Friday Thread for you. (Do we need to talk about Sarah Paulson’s fat suit? Or any other burning questions on your mind? Comment below and let me know what you want to chat about!) And the big Tuesday essays will resume next week. Now on to today’s episode…Hello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast! This is a newsletter where we explore questions (and sometimes answers) on fatphobia, diet culture, parenting and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith, a journalist who covers weight stigma and diet culture and the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.Today is another solo episode. I’m going to answer a bunch of your questions that all relate to each other, because they’re all on the theme of “How do I talk to other people about this?” I see this a lot. So often, we are in a place where we’re starting to work through our own stuff around food, our own stuff around bodies, or we’re really committed to doing things in a different way for our kids than how we were raised. But explaining this to a partner or explaining this to your parent or explaining this to your child can be so difficult. This is something I talked about with some podcast guests recently: In my conversation with Janet and Nyemade we were saying how this is an issue that we all feel sort of nervous to own, in a way that we don’t feel as nervous to stand up for ourselves around other controversial topics: Facism, homophobia, etc. Even with COVID, I think people who are firmly pro-vaccines are comfortable being firmly pro-vaccines. There are certain topics where we kind of know where we stand and feel good about standing up for ourselves. But this is one where we have internalized so much doubt and so much anxiety that advocating for ourselves or advocating for our kids can just feel super complicated.So I just want to say up top: It’s okay if you don’t have the right thing to say in every moment, in every interaction. None of us do. This is hard work. If this is someone you have a good relationship with, someone who’s in your life in an ongoing way, like your partner, or your child, it’s okay to get it wrong in one conversation and come back and have a follow up conversation. It’s okay to say, “I wish I hadn’t approached it like that, and I want another try.” That’s such good modeling for our kids, it’s good for our relationships when we can do that. I think we can give ourselves all some grace as we try to navigate this, because we probably are going to mess it up a couple of times, many times, and we can try again.The other thing I wanted to say: It’s not your job to convert everybody you meet to intuitive eating, or to make everybody in your life aware of the dangers of fatphobia. You know, it even is my job, and it’s also not my job. I don’t fight these fights in every conversation I have with a friend or every party I go to, every family gathering. I’m not navigating this all the time. There are lots of times when I just let something go, because it’s more important to me, in my relationship with that person, that we have a nice time and that it doesn’t become tense. And that is okay.It is also true that those of us with a lot of privilege always have the option not to stand up and fight the fight. And people in marginalized bodies don’t.So, if you’re a person with thin privilege, I do encourage you to push yourself out of your comfort zone when you can to take this on. For sure, it is worth calling out fatphobia when it happens around us, especially with our kids. This is very important. But there is some nuance here to how successful we’re going to be at doing it every time and if it even makes sense, if it even feels safe, to do it every time.Enough big picture and talk, let’s dive into your questions.Q: My teenage son is going for his first solo visit to Atkins Crazy Grandma. Do I tell her to back off before he goes?A: First of all, I really love “Atkins Crazy Grandma,” I’m picturing that on a mug or something.I’m going to link to my piece, The Grandparents Are Not OK. If you haven’t read it, definitely start here. It will give you a good overview as to why grandparents struggle with this issue so much and why so many Boomers are steeped in diet culture to the extent that they are. It is not entirely their fault. It is the water they have been swimming in for a very long time. They are navigating concerns around gender expectations, body expectations, aging expectations. And all of that is intersecting in a way that Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, none of us are dealing with it in quite the same way that boomers have had to deal with it. So try to hold some space in your heart for that.Remember that the goal of this trip is for your teenage son to have a strong relationship with this grandparent. I mean, I’m assuming this is the goal of the trip. And that’s why you’re sending him there, on his own, to have time with his grandmother. If that’s the goal, it is not that helpful for you to get in and interfere and set ground rules about what they can talk about, and try to moderate their relationship in that way. This is something I didn’t state as clearly as I could have in that grandparents piece. It is not our job to control the relationship that develops between our children and their grandparents. That is its own independent relationship, quite separate from us. And if you want your kids to know your parents, as people, they’re going to know them as people, which means they’re going to learn that they are flawed, and they’re going to have things they disagree on and part of their relationship is going to be figuring that out together.Now, I do think you can set some boundaries. If you’re worried that your mom is not going to feed your son adequately because her dieting is so restrictive, I think that would be a place to intervene. And certainly, if you think she’s going to talk negatively about how your son eats or his body, that’s a different thing. Because then she is directly causing harm. And as parents, we want to obviously step in and mitigate that. But if it’s more like, she’ll make lots of food, but she won’t let herself eat the bread, or she’ll make comments about how she’s eating with him—if it’s more self-directed, as this diet talked often is because people criticize themselves before they direct it to others. In that situation, I think you can talk with your son ahead of time about how this is something she struggles with. And say: “Yeah, it’s a drag that grandma doesn’t eat bread, but there’s no reason you need to stop eating bread.” Let him know where you stand on this, certainly, and give him some tools to navigate this. But don’t feel like you have to make your mom or your mother-in-law act differently around your son than she would otherwise. This is something they can figure out themselves. Your son’s a teenager, he’s old enough to start to really understand his grandmother as a complicated person. I wouldn’t feel like I needed to mitigate unless it was going to be directly harmful to my child.If you are worried about her saying things directly to your child that might be harmful to him, there is a line that I absolutely love from Amee Severson and Sumner Brooks, from their forthcoming book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: “My body is none of your business.” I love that. I actually taught that line to my own kids the other day, and it was hilarious to watch my three year old stomp around saying it unprompted and in response to absolutely nothing: Do you want Cheerios for breakfast? “My body is none of your business.”So I think you can start to think about ways that your child can advocate for themselves in those situations. If you have a younger child, or if the relationship is, you know, really toxic, you are going to be at the front line of that advocacy work. Otherwise, give your son some tools, talk about it ahead of time, support him in navigating this issue with his grandmother, but don’t feel like you have to block the relationship with this person. Q: My daughter is 12 and your work tends to address younger kids. Any resources for supporting parents of teens in intuitive eating and helping me break through my judgment of her body size?A: My work does tend to address younger kids, partly because that’s the stage of parenting that I’m in. But also because I think that dealing with these issues when kids are young is really important. As I talk about all the time, we know that kids between three and five are starting to understand fatphobia and internalize it. So I do think the work starts there. But of course, your 12-year-old is not a lost cause! There’s a lot of really important work that has to happen in the tween and teen years on these issues. So I’m really glad you are trying to do it. And I’m really glad that you are recognizing that this is your work to do, that you want to break through your judgement about her body size, rather than seeing her body size as the problem and that she somehow needs to fix it. So, just want to give you a big high five for that, because that’s a really important first step.Something I think is useful to sort of hold in your heart as you navigate this is: I’m guessing your feelings about your daughter’s body are tied to your feelings about your own body. This is really, really common. 12 is puberty and big body changes. And this is often an age that we experienced a lot of negative feelings about our bodies, or internalized lots of negative messages. So a lot of what might be coming up for you is your own stuff. And if she looks similar to how you looked at her age (or how you look now!) that may be kind of bringing it all together for you. So as much as possible: Recognize that this really isn’t anything to do with her, that this is you working through your own seventh grade bullshit, because Lord knows, we all have that. A therapist who works from a weight inclusive Health at Every Size perspective could be helpful. The HAES Community site has a searchable database of providers.I’m also linking to this piece and this one, both of which I wrote for the New York Times about parents navigating body image issues with their kids. I think the parents quoted in those articles do have younger kids, but the advice is applicable to all ages. And the experts quoted in those pieces might be folks that you want to look up on Instagram or online other places and follow their work. A couple of folks I really love, who do a great job about talking about teens and eating: Katja Rowell MD is on Instagram. She is a responsive feeding expert, and a parent of a teenager. And she talks quite a lot about intuitive eating and teens in a really great way. Also, as I just mentioned, Amee Severson and Sumner Brooks, their book will be geared towards parents of teens as well as younger kids. I’m going to throw a few other links in the transcript: @teenhealthdoc on Instagram is a great resource for all things teen health but definitely comes from a body positive perspective. I also like The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teensby Elyse Resch and You Are Enough by Jen Petro-Roy; they are meant to be read by your kid but you will get a lot out of them too! But I think, as much as possible, focus on the fact that this is bringing up stuff for you. And what you really need is support for you. It’s less about their age, and more about how you’re navigating this.Q: My teenage daughter has postural issues. I am afraid to point them out to her because I don’t want to say anything about her body. But she is unaware her posture is problematic and therefore can’t work on it herself. Or should she? Is that just more dieting culture nonsense?A: This is interesting. I think, if there is something about your child’s body that does not conform to societal beauty standards, and you are worried that it will sort of create a “problem” for them, the last thing your child needs is to hear that information from you. What your child needs from you is radical acceptance of their body. They need to know that you do not see their body as the enemy, you do not see their body as the problem. And that is related to whatever size their body is, certainly their posture, if they have acne, if they have anything about their body that is atypical —scars, disabilities—they need to know that you as their parent view their body as a miracle and something really special and unique and wonderful and worthy of taking care of. They need to know that you trust their body so they can trust what their body is communicating to them.On this question of posture, I think it’s very normal for teenagers to have awkward posture because their bodies are growing really fast in lots of different directions. It’s normal for a kid to not be fully aware of how she’s holding herself through space. That’s part of being a teenager and figuring out your adult body. And I really would not think that it’s your job as her parent to speak up about it and point it out in some way because you’re only going to make her super self-conscious about it. I think your instincts are right on.If you want to support her from a more body-positive, empowered place, I think you could look into something like taking yoga classes together, ideally with a weight-inclusive, body-positive teacher. You know, strength training can be really positive and powerful. Maybe you follow someone like Meg Boggs on Instagram who talks about strength training in a weight-neutral, weight-inclusive, body-positive way. Tally Rye is another body-positive fitness trainer and I also love fitragamuffin. So maybe you start exploring the world of joyful movement with her. But I don’t want you exploring this, because you’re thinking, “if we do yoga, it will fix her posture.” That’s not the goal, just like it’s not the goal to be like, “if we start running together, she’ll lose weight.” That’s not the goal. We’re not motivated by this perceived flaw about her body. We’re motivated by wanting to help this kid find ways to move her body that she loves, to find ways to feel strong in her body, to feel joyful in her body. So you’re giving her tools to take care of her body in different ways. If that addresses her posture, great, if it doesn’t adjust her posture, great, that’s not really the issue. It’s really about helping her feel what it’s like to be in her body and really be embodied in her body in a positive way.Q: Any thoughts about eating in front of the TV? It seems unsupportive of intuitive eating—but it’s one of my kid’s favorite things. And I don’t want to nag him around this other than an occasional ask, “Are you listening to your body when you’re eating in front of the TV?”A: First of all, it kind of is nagging to say to your kid, “Are you listening to your body when you’re eating in front of the TV?” I know you’re really trying hard not to nag. But kids are smart. And I think they know that obviously, the implied answer is “No, I’m not. And you want me to stop doing this.” I think maybe back off direct questions. It is true that eating every meal in front of a television or in front of any screen—whether that’s eating every meal while you’re playing video games, or while you’re on your computer, while you’re Virginia and you’re writing your book so you’re eating lunch at your desk while reading chapter drafts—these are all ways that we are disconnecting from the experience of eating and distracting ourselves. We’re not eating in a very “mindful” way. We’re getting fuel or we’re snacking because it feels good while we’re doing this other thing. So no, this is not, “mindful eating.”But is this intuitive eating? It can be. Because it can be realistic to say, I’m so busy today that I’m going to eat lunch at my desk, because I know it’s really important that I eat, I know I’ll feel like garbage if I ski…
Full show notes at the publisherHello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!
Audio newsletters are like podcasts in your email. You can listen to the episode right here and now by pressing play, or you can add it to the podcast player of your choice and listen whenever, by clicking that “listen in podcast app” link, above. And just in case you don’t like listening (or that’s not accessible to you), I’m including a full transcript (edited lightly for clarity) below.
Today, I’m really thrilled to be chatting with Nyemade Boiwu and Janet Conroy-Quirk, who are the creators of the National Plus Guide. Welcome.
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
Follow us on social!
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.
Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.
Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
Hello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!
Audio newsletters are like podcasts in your email. You can listen to the episode right here and now by pressing play, or you can add it to the podcast player of your choice and listen whenever, by clicking that “listen in podcast app” link, above. And just in case you don’t like listening (or that’s not accessible to you), I’m including a full transcript (edited lightly for clarity) below.
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
Follow us on social!
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.
Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.
Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
Hello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!
This is a newsletter where we explore questions and sometimes answers around 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 and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.
My voice is a little raspy because I was at my sister’s wedding all weekend screaming at the top of my lungs. Not like in an angry way, in a joyful way. You know. Dancing Queen came on. Anyway! Today I am, raspily, but very excited-ly, chatting with Tyler Feder, an artist whose work explores big feelings, feminism, and pop culture, all of which are things I’m obsessed with.
Tyler is the author of the young adult graphic memoir Dancing at the Pity Party. She also illustrated Together We March and Unladylike: A Field Guide to Smashing the Patriarchy and Claiming Your Space. She runs the very awesome Etsy shop Roaring Softly. And her newest project, which we’re going to talk about today is a body positive picture book for preschoolers called Bodies Are Cool.
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
Follow us on social!
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.
Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.
Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
Hello and welcome to another audio version of Burnt Toast!
This is a newsletter where we explore questions and sometimes answers around 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 and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.
Today I am chatting with Christy Harrison, a dietitian, host of the beloved Food Psych podcast and author of Anti-Diet, one of my favorite books, and the forthcoming Rethinking Wellness. Welcome, Christy!
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
Follow us on social!
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.
Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.
Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
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