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♪
A day in the life would be...
It would be very lonely.
Thoughts were very powerful,
they would kind of control everything I could do from...
It was more than just the food,
it was who you spoke to,
it was whether you walked somewhere
or whether you got the bus.
♪
I would wake up thinking about food
and thinking about my body.
I would look at myself in the mirror
and be insanely critical over how I looked.
I was so horrible to myself every single day.
♪
And here in the UK,
I just couldn't see someone organically loving their body,
and I was a bit disappointed.
♪
What started out as, you know,
let's just take better care of ourselves
really, really quickly turned into something
horribly destructive.
♪
Two more.
Ah!
♪
Every waking moment of my life
was simply thought around food... When I was gonna eat,
how much of it I was going to eat,
when I was going to exercise,
how hard I was going to exercise.
That was just the running conversation in my...
It was almost like there was someone else,
like a demon living in my head
just being horrible to me 24/7.
Come on.
Push!
I bought into a pro bodybuilder's diet
and training plan,
and I was probably training seven days a week.
I reckon I was eating 1,500, 1,600 calories a day
spread out over seven meals,
so every meal was like the portion size
for a rabbit or a small child.
I then add some MyProtein maple syrup flavor drops,
'cause these make everything taste super duper nice.
My gym sessions tended to consist of two sessions a day
over six or seven days a week.
Each session, I probably had to do
an hour and a half of cardio every morning,
and then an hour to an hour and a half
of weights every day.
I started to lose my mind, quite literally.
♪
I remember standing in front of chillers in supermarkets
for what felt like forever in utter panic.
"What am I going to eat?
How many calories has that got in it?
How many grams of fat?"
Just absolute panic.
And the more malnourished I was,
the more that panic was unmanageable.
Genuinely, it was like my head was on fire,
like the whole time.
Imagine a fire alarm going off constantly.
And you know, like, the beeps that are right in your ear
and you can hear the ringing and it's really...
It's obnoxious and it's just constant
and you can't really think straight?
♪
One extreme was this religious calorie-tracking obsession
behind what I was doing
to the point then of overwhelm,
where I'd think, "Oh, stuff this,
I can't do it anymore," and then I would binge eat.
And so on my binges, I would probably consume
somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 calories
in one sitting,
and I would always look forward to that.
It's celebrated, almost, in today's day and age
as a cheat meal.
Now, my cheat meal, I would order in
an extra large Domino's pizza.
I would eat all of that
alongside four slices of garlic bread,
four cookies, one or two tubs of Häagen-Dazs
or Ben and Jerry's ice cream,
and then one or two bars of family sized chocolate,
you know?
♪
I had reached way beyond my goal weight.
I was underweight, and I was really small.
I just... I remember flying home from my friend's house,
I'd been to see her in Newcastle,
and I bought an entire packet,
like a family sized packet of biscuits,
and I tipped them all into my hand luggage
so that I could secretly eat them on the way home,
because I knew that when I went home,
I would have to get back on it.
You know, I'd have to start it again.
So this was my last supper, they call it.
"Oh, well, I've eaten three biscuits now.
Last supper, I'll eat everything in the entire house,
and then I'll start again tomorrow,
I'll get back on it, I'll be good again tomorrow."
♪
You can imagine how horrific I would feel after doing that,
but I was punishing and purging myself
because I thought, well, I've broken my diet rules,
so I might as well keep breaking them
and then I'll start again Monday.
And that's the cycle that I found myself in.
Then it got a little bit darker, so I would overeat,
and then try and make myself sick.
♪
And those "last supper" moments
were becoming more and more uncontrollable.
And I remember standing in the queue
having landed back home
and having destroyed all the evidence
of everything I've eaten and just bursting into tears
and thinking, "There is something horribly wrong.
This isn't okay."
And initially, I was so confused
because I felt like I had everything
that I thought I wanted,
and I couldn't understand
why I couldn't control myself enough
to keep this gift that I had gifted myself,
you know, this end result that was meant to be utopia.
♪
I looked stereotypically perfect in terms of society's terms,
you know, what we perceive to be a perfect body,
I guess I had obtained it.
♪
I developed an eating disorder in my teens,
when I was about 15 years old at school.
It kind of began as just casual dieting,
eating a little bit less.
I lost a little bit of weight,
and then it became more and more extreme,
to the point where I was diagnosed
with anorexia nervosa.
Certain foods I felt I shouldn't eat
'cause I wanted to lose weight
or other people were kind of demonizing them.
So at school, we had a canteen,
and at break time, everyone would buy a snack.
And some people would just have an apple or have nothing,
and slowly I became more aware
of foods that were kind of weight loss foods
and foods that weren't.
♪
Growing up, I definitely turned to food as an escape.
So my mom and dad divorced when I was eight.
It was very, very, very messy,
and food was an outlet for me.
I was taught the good and bad of food
but as a child I never quite saw food as that,
I just saw it as like... Almost like a friend
that I could turn to and it would make me happy.
And when I was about 10, I believe it was,
my dad took me to a dietician,
and I just remember it just being
a very, very serious conversation
of like my weight and the size I was.
♪
As I developed more and more into the illness,
it did become about weight, and it was a very rigid control
of the number on the scales,
and that became the focus.
And my view of exercise also changed.
I used to just love being an outdoors person,
and then over the years at school,
it became more of a routine that I must do,
another way of controlling, kind of, my behavior.
♪
So my dad has always been very fitness conscious.
He's very into the good and bad food idea.
It would simply be like my dad would monitor,
so if we'd gone out the night before,
we'd had some food,
like it would be a mixture of burger and chips one night
and then maybe something like a pasta dish the next.
Like whereas my mom, it would be what we wanted.
So we had a bit of a free-for-all.
♪
And I kept getting progressively more unwell,
and so eventually, I was admitted
to an inpatient unit.
I've been in twice, once when I was at school,
so I missed my final year of school,
and I received treatment for quite a long time,
about nine months, but I was still mentally
in a very bad place.
And so unfortunately, I relapsed,
and this time quite badly.
I got to a very, very low BMI,
and a very poor physical and mental state
and was admitted to hospital again.
And I think that's when I felt like I hit rock bottom.
I... I didn't leave the unit for a very long time.
♪
Oh, man.
Long nails are the enemy
of progress
when it comes to doing eyelashes.
But I have to be cute.
My biological mom was really verbally abusive
towards me and my body,
and I think that's when I started hating who I was.
She'd always say to me that my face was beautiful
and I was really pretty,
but it was just a shame that my body didn't match.
And hearing that when you're seven, eight, nine,
10, 11, 12, 16, 18,
your mom's voice becomes your inner voice.
That's just life, that's...
You're the product of your environment.
♪
There we go, there's the fringe.
This is who I recognize.
Oh.
I'm so used to having lashes,
but I'm au naturale today.
Come on.
When I was a child, I was molested
by a biological... Not foster family...
Biological family member.
That was never dealt with,
and I was just told that it was my fault.
When I was 13, I got raped again,
but I couldn't talk to anyone about it.
I didn't really understand what sex was,
let alone rape.
I couldn't even fight valiantly, you know?
When people go into battle,
even if they know they're gonna die,
they still just, "Ahhh! For Sparta!"
Or whatever, but I didn't have that at all.
I felt like everyone had some kind of armor
or weaponry on,
and I was just a young girl there
in rag clothes, like sackcloth,
and I just got shot, killed, assaulted, murdered,
and I didn't have any control or any choice over it.
And because I didn't fight, because I couldn't fight,
I hated myself for it,
and I detached myself from my body
for a very, very, very long time.
I binge-ate and over...
I just never heard
about being intuitive with my own body,
and I didn't really like my body,
so the prospect of having to listen to it
or be in it in order to respond to it
in a way that was beneficial to me
was wildly alien.
And being a disabled person
just made that an awful lot harder.
Being in the medical system
and actually not always being physically capable of eating
and getting my nutrition orally.
♪
- That's all right. - Yeah, probably fine.
No, I didn't notice immediately.
And I think she... Hannah had slimmed down,
but actually I remember thinking she looked...
I mean, she was still... She wasn't skinny,
but she'd definitely slimmed down,
and she was always quite a keen cyclist.
And I remember we went cycling
just before it all sort of got really bad,
and I just remember thinking that she looked lovely,
and I didn't think for one minute
that it was the problem it was.
And I started to realize that she was losing more weight,
and then I got worried.
And then I think the school asked us to talk to them.
♪
Certainly, when Hannah was an adolescent,
the therapy was based on the parents taking control
and actually having a meal plan
and making them stick to the meal plan
so they ate everything on the table,
and we could be there at two in the morning
trying to get a yogurt in,
and that caused a huge conflict.
Ultimately, when the disorder's so much about control,
if someone's trying to force you to do something,
they're taking everything out of your control.
And I think the times when you tried to force me
were the times when the eating disorder
fought back harder than ever.
So it's meant to be early intervention...
Eating disorders are not about food.
They're never about food.
When something goes wrong with eating,
then we know that there's something
really fundamental going wrong.
And that's why treatments for eating disorders
are long and complex and intense.
There's a kind of wish sometimes
for it to be about the food
because that would just be much easier.
- And she said Sydenham Hill. - Yeah.
I've never, ever, ever spoken to my dad,
but I know, growing up, my dad...
I believe it was protecting me from being fat,
because, in that day and age,
and I mean, it's still here now,
but being fat was bad,
and I think he thought me being bigger
would limit my chances of having a good life
and succeeding and doing well.
I actually ended up with an eating disorder,
which lasted for about six years,
so I suffered terribly from binge-eating disorder,
and that was closely linked with body dysmorphia,
so I had in my mind that I needed to look a certain way.
I was kind of placing my happiness
in something external,
and it just led to very extreme food style behaviors,
so having come from a good relationship
with food growing up,
it soon went south very, very quickly.
Think of bigorexia like reverse anorexia.
Instead of people who really want to be thin
and desperately want to lose weight,
you have predominantly young men
who want to be more muscular,
and the sort of diet and training
that they involve themselves with
are geared toward becoming more muscular.
Muscle dysmorphia is not dangerous, per se,
but it is debilitating, and that's different.
People who have really high levels of anxiety
are debilitated by it.
Like, it can ruin their life.
And we see a similar thing with muscle dysmorphia.
Are you an idiot?
What is this?
You'd better do your dancing again.
I think it is celebrating a disordered behavior
in relationship with food,
and it's an attempt to legitimize that behavior
by giving it another name.
But I think if we take the cheat meal concept out of it
and we look at it for what it is,
I think it's fairly obvious that it's a disordered behavior
to engage with with food.
I didn't treat my body with any amount of love,
I was so detached from it.
Be it the small things, like... sounds silly,
but as a Black woman, just cleaning my skin.
I hated it.
I hated the skin.
I hated the skin that didn't do anything for me.
Or eating unhealthily,
not necessarily binge-eating,
but not eating throughout the whole day
and then eating at 11 o'clock at night.
Worst thing you can do,
it's so bad for your digestive system.
Sexually, no boundaries, no walls,
no "Hey, stop here,
I actually don't really want this to happen."
I didn't really care, so if it does then it does,
if it doesn't, it doesn't.
I... I place no value on this body,
so do with it what you like.
And it's dangerous.
It's very, very, very reckless.
So I hate what's been done to this body,
but there's nowhere else to direct it,
so I'll do what everyone else does
and direct it at my body, too.
♪
It affected things massively.
You know, I was causing so much upset
and distress to my mom and dad,
because they were just seeing like a boy who was in pain,
and that's the only way I can describe it.
I was in a lot of pain.
I was with a girlfriend at the time
and caused her a lot of angst and upset along the way.
♪
People would be like,
"Do you fancy meeting for a coffee?"
And I'd break out into a cold sweat.
Family would be like, "Oh, let's have
a Christmas dinner together,"
and I'd be absolutely terrified.
Like, what are they gonna make me?
Am I going to be able to eat anything?
Oh, it was just...
♪
I became a secret eater,
because my mom often shamed me quite openly
when it came to food.
There would be a comment about the amount of rice
that I've eaten,
or the fact that there's not enough salad on the plate,
and it's just like, "Okay.
I will eat air."
Put some sauce on it.
Mm, tasty.
So people might say, "Yeah, I didn't really see...
Jo didn't really eat that much.
I haven't really seen Mojo eat."
Yeah, because I don't want you to,
because in my brain, I have to eat in silence
or in secret.
When everyone goes to bed in my mom's house,
I'd try and like... I'd go in the kitchen,
I'm so good at sneaking around.
Two o'clock at night would be when I have my dinner.
I'll have a fake dinner at eight
so that everyone can see that I'm eating
and not ask me any problems,
but I was so afraid to eat, I'd just do it in secret.
♪
I didn't want to get better,
so I was fighting the system
when I was receiving outpatient treatment.
And although the outpatient treatment
was trying to do its best, it just didn't...
It didn't get to the crux of what was really going on.
♪
It has been the hardest thing ever to deal with,
not just for me, but for everybody, for Hannah.
And I try to put myself in her shoes
and think, you know, when we're struggling,
how does it feel for her in her head?
And you can never really do that,
but you can empathize
when you couldn't understand.
♪
I was so under-rested, unrecovered,
my stress levels were through the roof,
and it just perpetuated the binge cycle,
because I would get to the end of the week,
my body would be like, "What the hell are you doing?
Put some fuel in!"
And so, for me, that fuel would be
my big Domino blowout binges.
I had in my mind that, "I'll just keep going,
'cause once I get through this bit of unhappiness,
then I'll be happy."
And guess what? I never did.
♪
In the long run, dieting may actually be
doing the opposite effect of what it's intended to.
You know, if you have a beach ball
that's floating on the surface of the water,
and you go to push it under, what's gonna happen?
You're gonna be able to push it down a certain amount,
and then it's gonna bounce back up.
And each time you do it,
it's gonna fly back up in the air.
And that's exactly what happens
with our metabolism when we diet.
We double our efforts every single time
that the diet fails us.
♪
Diets are really popular simply because society tells us
that we need to look a certain way,
that we need to behave a certain way,
and because that pressure from society is on all of us,
that naturally makes diets very popular,
because we see someone who's thin
and think they're a good person.
Obviously, therefore, people want to be thin
and will go on diets.
So no, just because dieting is popular
doesn't mean that it's risk-free either.
♪
I was quite unaware of what I was doing.
♪
I had a lot going on at home.
My dad, a couple of years beforehand,
had been diagnosed with throat cancer
and had been going through treatment,
and that had been really challenging as a family.
I was... I had braces at the time,
I still have ginger hair, but at the time,
I was very conscious of it.
I was teased quite a lot at school
for kind of being a little bit overweight,
so I think my control over my food
became the thing I could control in my life.
♪
So for me, I was controlling something else in my life,
which was food and training,
because I wasn't actually in control
of some emotional things that I wasn't dealing with.
I was a very poor communicator,
didn't like confrontation,
and I think the initial feelings
stemmed from me not feeling okay about myself.
I was made to feel like I wasn't good enough
by certain people growing up in my life
that made me feel like that,
and that's where I then took the control of,
"when I look like this, then I'll be happy."
♪
♪ Small clan, we're just a small clan ♪
♪ We don't touch the small clans ♪
♪ Swindle the small clans ♪
♪ We don't run the small clans ♪
♪ We're just a small clan ♪
I've always been bullied because of my weight
and because of my height.
So I've always been the biggest,
I've always been the tallest,
all the way throughout school.
They were always picking on me just because I was different.
I went into, like, a stage of being emo,
so it was... you know, colored hair,
black hair, big swoop in front,
listening to rock music.
I don't know whether it was my defense barrier
of not really digesting it, so to speak,
and just letting them carry on.
♪
That's me at, like, junior school.
That's Sports Day.
My not favorite day of the year, you can imagine.
By the time I left secondary school,
I very much was a fat person.
I was very obviously different to my peers,
but I guess that feeling of otherness,
that sense of just feeling different to other people
I think sometimes, in naivety,
it's easy to just attribute that to your body,
"Oh, well, I was fat.
I was always different because I was fat,
I was always other because I was fat,"
and actually I just felt different.
And I had just met my then partner, now wife,
and I think I just... I wanted to transform.
I wanted to be entirely different
to who I'd been previously.
Can I have a kiss?
Yeah, that'll be nice.
I got my lipstick on your chin, I'm sorry.
Quite often, eating disorders and eating issues
provide a kind of framework of routine
or certainty for us to hang our anxieties on.
Instead of addressing what's happening in our lives,
in our worlds, we try to then go for a quick fix,
which is, "Well, if I can fix my body,
then maybe that will trigger all of these other things
to improve in the rest of my life,"
but it never really happens that way.
♪
I always told everyone I was fine, you know?
People would say, "How are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm fine."
It was an immediate sort of bat-off remark.
I started to ask myself a lot more questions
and to really reflect on what I was doing,
because ultimately what I was doing
was making me very unhappy.
♪
I went through a really dark depression
and stopped eating, which to me was a huge sign
that my emotions had changed as a comfort eater.
But the fact that I didn't eat at all,
secret or in public, like, that's when I said,
"Okay, there's clearly an issue with me
and my eating habits and my food,"
but I didn't feel like my partner
was supportive of that at all.
I feel like my experience of it was keep me fat,
keep me depressed, keep me down,
and I would never have stepped on her toes.
That was how I felt in that relationship.
However, I did go to carnival,
I did Notting Hill Carnival 2016 and '17.
For me, that was a safe space.
I mean, it's out in public,
but it was a safe space to explore my body
and be free in it because of the culture,
because of the environment.
It's the only place where you can be naked
one day of the year
and have no one say a thing about it.
So the first year,
I was actually really disappointed
that I wore so much clothes.
I had a black leotard on and very thin black tights.
I still feel ashamed that I wore that much.
I think it was way too much clothing,
I was too covered up.
♪
Okay, guys, what is going on?
Don't be angry, girl, it's carnival!
What's going on?
Don't be angry, okay?
Listen!
I wasn't born in Britain.
I lived in the Caribbean from birth to about 17,
and where I'm from, the thicker you are,
the more celebrated you are.
Men don't have a problem with your size.
♪
It was very difficult to transition
from the love I had for myself as a 17-year-old
coming to the UK.
It was a bit shocking for me
to see that women here that I met,
most of them, instead of complimenting themself,
they would always really talk negatively
about their bodies and dress in a way
that really cover up their body,
and they don't want to show their curves,
and they don't want to show their bodies at all.
♪
Everybody feels a little bit uncomfortable
with how they look,
but with bigger women,
we're not allowed to feel bad.
We first must feel ashamed,
and every feeling that we feel about our bodies
grows out of that.
They are setting the tone
for our relationships with our bodies,
and that alone is unhealthy,
but what else can we do but be caught up
in the opinion of others
when there are so many negative opinions?
Like with the trolling I get.
It's like, "How dare you go travel the world
and be in these amazing places?
Like, how dare you go and enjoy yourself?
How dare you be in a job and be more successful than me?
How dare you do these videos for the BBC?"
How dare you be fat
and be succeeding in doing these things?
Like, believe me, I have had to work three times as hard
to work in the fashion industry
and put myself in very, very uncomfortable situations.
Like, I haven't got it easy.
Hello, kitten!
What's really hard to get across to people
is that for 10 years, I lived in a fat body
and I was a wheelchair user,
and it's the microaggressions that you don't even realize
that are taking place around you.
It's things like not being able to access seating
when you're in clinic,
because the seats are so small you can't sit on them.
It's the really, really little things
like, "Oh, we haven't got gowns that are gonna fit you.
We'll get you three and just, you know, put them around you,"
or, "You'll have to wear men's pajamas,
because we haven't got anything big enough for you otherwise."
It's those little things, and they add up.
That's how microaggressions work.
Just that drip constantly that you're not good enough,
that your body is irrelevant,
that you're harming yourself.
That, you know, this is your fault.
♪
Probably the most traumatic experience
was the time that I was in intensive care.
I was in respiratory arrest, so my lungs had failed,
I wasn't able to breathe for myself.
I was in heart failure.
I had sepsis, which is an infection of your blood,
and I remember the nurse looking at me
and saying, "You're doing this to yourself."
She started talking at me,
because obviously, I couldn't respond to her,
about how I really needed to do something about my weight
and that if I wasn't so fat
then my lungs wouldn't have struggled so much.
♪
We have research that actually shows
that weight is not necessarily
an accurate indicator of health,
and we can't actually tell anything
about somebody's health based on what they look like.
It's really upsetting to go to the doctor, for example,
with a general head cold, let's say,
and leave after being bombarded for 10 minutes
about how they need to lose weight
and how they need to go on a diet,
and, you know, it's extremely stressful,
and that's what's known as weight stigma.
♪
The stigma that's attached to weight, my weight,
is so real, it feels unreal.
I can't be... I'm not allowed to be sexy because I'm fat.
Even though I'm fat and you want me
to go to the gym, when I go to the gym,
you look at me weird.
That's crazy.
I can't be happy and fat at the same time.
I should wear curtains all the time,
I should cover myself up.
That's kind of the stigma that I feel every day.
I need to pee, I'm desperate,
so I might go into a McDonald's.
But I would rather hold my pee
and cause myself internal pain
than face some kind of ridicule in McDonald's
just 'cause I need to pee.
I'm not here to eat a Big Mac, burgers, chicken wings,
Filet-O-Fish, I don't want any of that.
I just want to pee, but I get really scared
to go inside, and it's so damaging.
Individuals who experience weight stigma
and have higher rates of internalized weight stigma,
they experience more anxiety and depression,
disordered eating, body dissatisfaction.
And it's such a problem that the World Health Organization
has called it a serious health concern.
Shoreditch High Street Station.
I would argue that diet culture wouldn't exist
without fat phobia.
If we weren't fearful of being fat,
the diet industry doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Why would you want to lose weight
if there wasn't a problem
with being fat in the first place?
Or it wouldn't be as profitable
if we didn't subscribe to that idea
that being fat is bad
and if we had that fear around it,
and I think it's important to say that
the diet industry is fueled by that fear,
and yet it doesn't work.
We know diets don't work long-term.
I had a really genuine,
"No, no, no, I don't ever want
to have to experience that ever again,"
and it was a fuel,
it was a fuel to want to stay small
and keep the privilege that I was suddenly granted.
I could move around in medicine
without being questioned in the same way.
♪
What I would say is it took a very long time
for the GP to take it seriously.
It took the best part of nine,
10 months, something like that,
but I remember shouting at the GP
saying, you know, "You've just got to do something."
And she said, "Your daughter needs to come in on her own."
Well, I thought, come on...
- And that's the problem. - Completely illogical.
She can't come in on her own.
That's the problem with the way the system works
is that I may have lost weight,
but I wasn't at a critical BMI
for the GP to take it seriously enough.
We've had BMI become the dominant indicator
through which someone's health is assessed.
BMI was originally designed as a tool
to broadly be applied at the population level.
It was never intended that it would be used
to diagnose an individual.
It really did...
So the longer it took to get treatment,
the worse the eating disorder got
and the further down the slope I fell,
and I think... I obviously didn't see it at the time.
At the time, I was quite happy to not go to the GP
and didn't want any help.
♪
♪ All I want is nothing more ♪
♪
♪ To see you knocking on my door ♪
♪
But when I came from Berlin,
one of the main differences is
there's fast food everywhere,
much more emphasized than it is in Berlin,
lots of little places, pizza places.
That's one thing we don't have in Germany,
or not a lot, is the traditional pizza,
the thick one that gets you addicted really quickly.
And also, there's a couple of restaurants
that are basically takeout only, which is interesting.
So what I think it is
is that people enjoy having the food
in the comfort of their own home,
but they don't want to cook.
But it is certainly something that struck me as odd.
Here in the UK, I work in the night shift,
so I come home around 6:30 in the morning
and I will have had lunch at midnight,
so usually I'm very hungry,
but I'm also very tired.
So when I have a big meal,
which other people consider breakfast
for me is dinner,
that will then be right before I go to bed.
From what I've read and what we think,
that then goes straight onto your hips
and is very, very unhealthy.
I have people being like,
"Oh, you need to stop eating junk food,"
and it was like a couple of remarks
on videos I've made prior.
Like, you're not paying for me.
Like, if you're taking me out and you're paying
and I'm ordering a bit too much
and the bill's getting a bit much,
yeah, say something,
but if it's my hard-earned cash that I'm spending,
it's got nothing to do with you.
I mean, it's got nothing to do with you anyway.
When I see an overweight person
eating cake or a burger
or something considered unhealthy,
immediately the judgmental part kicks in.
You say, "Oh, they shouldn't be eating this."
Or, you know, "Oh, where this is going,
it's going to be in good company."
But then you also think,
"Is this one burger, is this one cake
going to make a difference?"
Where they are now, where they're going,
had they maybe had a diet behind them,
now they're rewarding themself with this.
♪
I remember being in a coffee shop once,
and it was the first time I knew
that I was receiving thin privilege.
And I was nowhere near as small as I am now,
but I was just heading into that really restrictive phase,
and the man behind the till
said, "Do you want any cakes with your coffee?"
And I was like, "Oh, no, I don't think we do, thank you."
And he just said, "You'd be amazed
how many people have these really sugary drinks
and then massive slices of cake,"
and I was like, "Oh, um, yeah,
I mean, I guess if they want cake..."
"Oh, yeah, but you should see these people.
I mean, I'm not talking about people like you,
you obviously look after yourself,
but you should see these..."
And I just thought, "Oh, my goodness,
probably less than six months previous,
he would've had me down as one of those people."
Regardless of whether I'd eaten the cake or not,
he would've been making those judgments about me.
Thin privilege is something I've enjoyed for a long time.
Being tall and slim gives me immediate authority,
because people have to physically look up to me,
which lessens the effect that I need to explain myself.
People don't question what I do.
People trust me, for some reason.
And people immediately assume authority
coming from me,
because I literally speak down to them.
Not because of the way I speak,
just because they're a head smaller than me.
The thing that I find really frustrating now
is that people say to me all the time,
"You look really well."
When I've got my clothes on, I look like a nondisabled,
cisgendered white woman who is thin,
and I receive a lot of privilege,
but actually my body is very different
to a lot of people's, and I'm like,
you should physically have to live in my body,
because I feel ill all the time,
and my blood results are terrible,
and I'm horribly anemic,
and there's absolutely nothing I can do about any of it.
And you think I look well because I've put some makeup on
and because I'm thin?
It's become something
that has become a bit of an identity.
And so our weight has become our identity,
and so we're less good of a person
if we're not thin.
We deserve less, we have less self-esteem.
All these things are well-documented
as to the thought processes that occur
because of this thin ideal.
The next train to arrive at Platform 2
in two minutes will be service to all stations...
And again, I'm like, I'm so scared to go into KFC,
because in my head, they must be thinking,
"Oh, fatty's here again.
All the chicken wings are gone, lads."
That's what I feel.
I am now believing that my body is ugly
and abusing it with food,
so that's where health should be spoken about.
Not, "Oh, you're fat,
you're gonna die of a heart attack."
How did we get here?
I think a lot of people think that
anti-fat bias just has to do with thinking
that fat people aren't pretty or something like that.
And sure, I mean,
the attractiveness standard is real,
but anti-fat bias extends to so many sectors of life:
education, college admissions,
the amount of scholarship funds that students are given.
In the justice system, there's research that shows
that jurors are far more likely to convict somebody
who is of a larger body than a thin person,
and they're also subject to harsher sentences
and longer prison times,
which is really wild when you think about it.
It's much more than just,
"I don't like the way that person looks."
It really affects all areas of life.
Growing up, I...
It was always made very clear to me
that I stood out,
and my weight could potentially be a problem
getting a boyfriend.
My mom made it very clear that being overweight,
I was never gonna get a boyfriend.
I've been crushing on guys for a long time,
and I never experienced, like,
my boyfriends that I had in Dominican.
Weight what?
Weight wasn't an issue.
♪
But here... oh, my God,
they do come into the relationship
like, "Yeah, I love all of you,"
and I'm like, "Yeah, and that's how it should be,"
but some people genuinely they can't help it,
that's just their personality.
They've been conditioned by society,
and they do have subaggressions,
you know, towards fat bodies and have fat phobia
without actually saying that they have fat phobia.
And if you get into a little argument,
guess what, if the argument probably is about your car,
guess what, it might come into your weight.
Why? Tell me why.
Tell me why.
I think dating in 2019,
it's shit for everyone.
Like, I'm not even gonna put it on my weight,
'cause the thing is, it's not that I don't
get a lot of attention, I do...
I mean, I live in London
where nobody speaks to one another,
so it's all on the internet.
And the thing is, you do get guys who are there,
and they wouldn't want to take you out,
but they wanna come over for Netflix and chill,
and always come to mine, and just like,
I watch too many true crime documentaries
to know that this is not gonna happen.
We fetishize this whole snap-back thing
after having a kid,
but most women don't, and it really, really bugs me.
Again, it's another thing that I've sort of attached
to having a child.
I'm scared to have a child,
because I'm scared that...
There's not... I don't know exactly what
I'm gonna snap back to!
Nothing snaps that much anyway,
so how, if I have a child...
Will I still be pretty?
Will I be ugly? I don't know!
I think every time I look in the mirror,
I'm glad someone else puts more effort
into looking good than I do.
Coming from the male perspective,
we consider women to be the more beautiful gender.
So we appreciate that.
But I would never force a woman
to dress a certain way, to eat a certain way
to make her look different.
It is something that is ingrained into our culture
is that women need to look good.
They need to wear makeup, they need to do their hair.
Do they need to do that?
No, they do not need to do that.
But it is much appreciated.
The woman out there that's been rated
the ugliest person in the world,
who the fuck told the people doing the judging and assessing
that they were beautiful in the first place?
Media!
That's why we... We need to defriend
some of these Caucasian British men.
British, to be exact,
because they started all the problems.
Diet culture does disproportionately affect women
more than men, and there is an element
to diet culture coming from a patriarchal society
where women are told what they should look like.
And a lot of the time, that has been from men.
And so I think it's very appropriate
that feminism in general touches on diet culture
and definitely has a role to play in combating it.
♪
Evidence shows that we can go back 30 years
and women experiencing body image concern
is quite common,
so much so that in the research,
we talk about it as normative
and we say "normative discontent,"
but I think just because something is normal or common,
it doesn't mean it's okay.
It doesn't mean it's benign and without consequence.
And we live in a society where beauty standards
are so narrow, and for most people,
completely unattainable.
♪
Isn't it interesting, though, how it's always women
talking about feeling bloated and not men?
My top tips to reduce bloating...
To help reduce bloating and reduce your belly bloating,
it almost immediately causes bloating...
Seven tips on how to debloat.
Bloat's still there!
- It's poking out. - Adding our flat tummy teas...
Hasta la vista, bloating!
Good luck.
Men have a different way of seeing it.
If men are bloated, they make fun of it.
It becomes a party game for them.
Whereas, when women are bloated, they feel embarrassed.
But, since I cannot think like a woman,
that's a very difficult question to answer.
Everything that is marketed towards women
which is anti-bloating,
it's really just telling women
that they should be eating less,
that they need to be hungry,
that they need to be starving
in order to embody this aesthetic ideal.
♪
From a marketing perspective,
of course they go with what works,
what has worked in the past, what is still working.
So if you have that market
and you tap that market and it works,
why should you stop?
♪
Where does this idea come from that it's a male conspiracy,
that it's a male idea to keep women in their place,
have them take up less space?
♪
Like, really genuinely,
I think it started with capitalism.
I think people recognized
that there was a way to make money
out of people who didn't feel great
about themselves.
It started with middle class white men
who recognized that there was a market
and a profoundly successful one,
the diet industry makes billions every year
on women feeling insignificant
and like they need to do something
in order to make themselves better.
♪
It's easy to blame some unknown entity
and put the face of a white man on it.
Everyone loves targeting us.
But there is no actual proof of that.
There is no board of white men sitting on top of the world
saying, "Oh, we need to have these things."
I'm certainly not a part of it, and I'm not aware of it,
so I don't know if that is true.
The issue is that it runs deeper than that,
and it's not just something about specific words,
it's actions as well.
And so, when you have a society that values women's looks
based on a certain ideal,
men then start valuing those looks as well,
and so women who look that way get more attention from men.
I'm not here to say that it's current men's fault
that that's going on, but I think that as men,
we need to recognize where it's come from.
And I don't think that we have to disregard it
to kind of protect ourselves,
and I do see a lot of men, unfortunately, using the phrase,
"Well, it's not me,
so therefore why do I need to be worried about that?"
Or, "It's not all men," and that's...
I don't think that's helpful.
I remember that situation
where, in that particular relationship,
they were now concerned about my health
after we were dating for a while,
because they did something that I didn't like.
And one time we were driving from seeing their stepfather,
parked outside my house,
and they commented on the meal that I had
throughout the days like they were supervising me.
They were my weight watchers.
And they said, "Oh, this you had,
the plantain da-da-da that you had.
It was quite sweet,
and I think you should really think about what you eat
because you know, I'm just concerned about your health."
I'm like, "You're concerned about my health?
Get lost."
And then I realized that, obviously,
someone who's always concerned about my health
is not really concerned about my health.
♪
If you had to ask the general public,
um, "obesity" or "anorexia,"
guarantee that most of them would choose anorexia,
majority, which is sad.
It's very heartbreaking because that is how...
That's how heavy, ha, excuse the pun,
um, the stigma is.
That is how heavy...
I make myself laugh.
That's how... that's how intense the stigma is,
and that is a shame because it should be 50/50,
because to some degree both are unhealthy,
both have health risks.
I think diet culture is so present in our society,
though, that it's hard to realize,
like, the fact that we have calorie labels
on every single snack bar.
That in a way is... it's kind of hindering to diet culture
because it's telling you you can have this snack
because it's a low-calorie snack,
or the fact that shops are selling clothes size
that are all really quite small
and don't really cater for larger bodies.
That, again, I feel, is kind of part of diet culture.
It's something that, as a society,
we really need to think about
because if we're not careful,
we are just going to end up promoting disordered eating
or body dissatisfaction
because people are gonna feel more and more unhappy
if society is making them feel that way.
♪
As soon as I saw the mannequin,
I just thought it was like a breakthrough.
Maybe I was a bit naive in thinking
if a brand like Nike, with the reputation
and the name they have globally,
if they invested and put in a bigger model
that actually looks like a fat body,
to sort of be proud and say,
"We do plus-size athletic wear."
But a small part of me was like, "Right,
let's just wait, let's just wait
because someone is gonna have something to say about this."
- Nike slammed for... - Obese mannequins...
- are selling women... - a dangerous lie.
- Weighty issue. - Nike snapped.
- Normalizing obesity... - with plus-size mannequins...
in their London store.
The new mannequin is obese.
And she is not readying herself...
for a run in her shiny Nike gear.
She cannot run, she is more likely...
prediabetic and on her way to a hip replacement.
What terrible cynicism is this...
on the part of Nike.
Everyone's just like, "Well, I work hard to stay thin,
and I go to the gym, and I have self-control,"
and it's just like,
one, what makes you think I don't have self-control,
and I don't go to the gym, and I don't work out?
You think that I sit on my ass and I eat what I want,
I don't go to the gym,
and I don't work as hard as you
because my body apparently told you that.
♪
The most common theme in the fitness industry,
in general, is weight loss.
We're obsessed by it, it's literally the only thing
that people work on.
So many guys who hypermasculize themselves
and all these girls hypersexualize themselves.
Everything is about how we look seemingly
in today's day and age.
We've lose the art of how we feel.
That seems so far removed in today's day and age,
which is a really sad thing.
♪
I go to the gym and I exercise and I enjoy it,
you know, and I still have a fat body.
And until we achieve this goal of thinness,
we're not gonna be treated with respect,
and we're not gonna be treated human,
and we're not gonna be treated nicely,
and we're gonna be shamed,
and we're gonna be told we're gonna die
unless we lose weight.
But you can't put a fat mannequin.
You can't simply show a fat body and promote that
because then you're promoting staying fat, and it...
It is literally the wildest conversation
I've ever, ever had and read up on,
'cause it was just the most hypocritical thing.
♪
We need to start asking ourselves
some really important questions.
And, so, how do we view people who are larger in size?
What are our beliefs around their lifestyle?
For example, what are our beliefs
about how they are as people and their character?
I think, at the moment, it's still
a topic of contention for people
that they're unwilling to talk about
because they're afraid
that when they start talking about it,
it's gonna challenge some of the ideals
and the beliefs that they have.
And we don't like our ideals
and our beliefs being challenged.
It's not something we like.
It's hard.
It goes back to that willingness to be wrong.
We don't like being wrong.
And that's okay, that's kind of normal psychology.
We like to be right about stuff.
♪
Please, can I get the cupcake with the strawberry,
- the strawberry one? - Yes.
I'm able to analyze my relationship with food
and say, "Oh, okay, well, it's okay
if you want to eat this, but why are you eating?
Why are you being so excessive?"
I caught myself.
I think I'd been stressing about something on the train.
I called my friend to speak to her about the stress,
and I went to Tesco
and all I wanted to buy was snacks.
So I said, "Oh, okay, so this is where we just sort of...
Hmm, what's really happening here?
Why do you associate food with comfort?"
And that's simply just because of all the neglect
I experienced in my childhood.
So, therefore, Mr. NHS,
you don't need to talk to fat people about being fat.
You need to talk to people
about their childhood and their trauma.
That is the health that you should focus on.
♪
I feel pressure to go to the gym
just to bulk up, to eat cleaner,
to shun those evil carbs and get more protein in.
It's something... it's being repeated so often,
it becomes part of your way of thinking,
and you really need to invest some energy
to get out of this.
Someone will come to me and say,
"Oh, I want to look like this,"
and they'll show me a picture of a guy in a magazine
or someone that they've seen on Instagram,
and I'll say, "Why? Why is that?"
Because that's a big thing, it's a very powerful question
to ask a client is the "why."
Now, for a lot of people it is just an external source
of, "Oh, I just want to look like that."
Well, then you've really got to do some more digging
to find out why that is, and nine times out of ten,
it'll be because they have suffered self-esteem issues
or body image issues
or they've grown up feeling insecure
compared to X, Y, and Z.
So, suddenly, they're the things
you've got to be working on.
You've got to be helping them up here.
No diet will ever fix that problem.
Basically, everyone strives to be in the shape
of the stage bodybuilder, which is unrealistic.
Not even bodybuilders are in that shape
all of the time.
But this is what we strive to have.
Make some noise!
Being a pro bodybuilder is tough,
you know, it's not easy.
Now, that's it, flex it.
How much chicken fillet do you eat in a day?
Uh, about 1.5 kilos.
- 1.5 kilos? - Yeah.
Not having another gram more of almonds,
not having another half a bowl of oatmeal
when you're hungry, you know?
Not doing it, and not doing it,
not doing it for a period of time.
We're talking about 10, 11, 12, 13 weeks.
♪
Nobody thought about bod...
They wouldn't even talk to us.
But after Pumping Iron,
it really changed the face of bodybuilding.
All the world was pumping iron.
It was great to say pumping iron.
I mean, gyms were popping up all over the United States.
♪
We're looking at physique sports
that, once upon a time, were confined to
a fairly small subset of people that were interested in it.
And we've seen this mainstreaming of practices
involving very restrictive meal plans,
counting calories and macronutrients,
but more particularly,
it's the emphasis on looking
the way that bodybuilders might look on stage
at a very low level of body fat.
For both men and women,
that has become a cultural norm,
that has become something that people portray
through their social media every day,
and it fails to,
I think, represent that most people
get into that type of condition
once or twice a year for a show.
What they tend to do, then, is have two to three days
of photo shoots and then simply drip-feed
those photographs out onto social media
for the next year.
That gives the impression to ordinary people
that this particular person looks like this
day in and day out.
♪
There are a lot of people in the fitness industry
who are abusing steroids, which will give you
unsustainable results unless you participate
in taking them yourself.
So many people promote something
that your average Joe and Jane
will never ever be able to obtain,
and that's my biggest problem.
♪
I don't think people always truly appreciate
the psychological restrictions
that a lot of us still place on our lives,
things like, "Oh, I must go for a run
because I've eaten this today,"
or, "Oh, I've had this for breakfast,
so I'm not gonna have this with my dinner," or...
There's still a lot of residual internalized dialogue
that we've lived with our entire lives,
that we heard our mom say,
that we heard our grandparents say,
that our friends still talk about,
that's happening in the office when we're at work.
So those kinds of mental restrictions,
they're an awful lot harder to get away from.
♪
I was really forced to face what was going on,
and I think that's when I realized
something had to change
because I couldn't do this again.
I'd been in hospital twice,
and it's a very intense environment.
♪
The start of my recovery journey
was recognizing that what I was doing
wasn't serving me and was making me so unhappy.
So, to be in your early twenties
and to be in a position where you're considering
taking your own life
is a powerful enough reason to think,
"Hmm, something is not quite right.
I need to do something about it."
So that's when I went and sought help.
Things like cognitive behavioral therapy
worked wonders for me.
I came across the power of the mind.
And, so, going forward now in my coaching,
that's how I help people, because there is no quick fix,
and there is certainly no one-fix solution for people.
♪
I posted a picture on Instagram.
I'd been using my account to document my dieting,
and when I posted the picture about bingeing,
one of my local friends said,
"Oh, I've been following this woman
who talks about anti-diet.
Maybe you should check her out."
And that was it.
And very quickly, I realized
that actually my radical disability rights politics
are essentially the same thing.
They translate so easily into anti-beauty standards
and anti-diet that I almost felt
that I can't... a bit embarrassed
that I'd never sort of cottoned on
that it was essentially the same thing
and, yet, I was so extreme
in my radical disability politics
but so extremely involved in diet culture.
It was almost laughable.
When my relationship with my body
was picking up momentum,
I started to see what health meant.
And this diet culture thing, I was like,
"Oh, the two are actually separate,
but they've just been married together
by people that don't get it.
Oh, so I really have to be on this...
Explore this by myself?
Huh. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
So everyone's calling me 'fat' and calling me 'ugly, '
but my body is still faithful to me.
I've been raped, it's been beaten,
I've been spat on, I've been abused,
but my body hasn't failed me.
Ah."
Mm.
Really, it's... there's never a problem inside.
As far as I'm aware,
the problem is always external,
it's always society.
And that's the same in terms of all intersection.
So racism and transphobia, fatphobia, ableism,
the problem is always the outside.
It's never the person.
♪
So, for me, to take a leap into an industry
that was notoriously known for not accepting fat bodies
and didn't want to be associated with them
in any way or form...
it was, yeah, it was sort of
proving my parents wrong, but I'm proving society wrong,
that, actually, I could work within that industry.
♪
We need to put those efforts into looking outwards
and altering the things that we see
that are problematic in society
rather than trying to fix something in ourselves
that isn't even broken.
You are worthy, you are worthy of better than this.
♪
Oh, hello, London.
Anyone over there with a pair of binoculars?
I'm fat, yes, but I'm not inactive.
I love to run around and be silly and joke and laugh,
and I love to dance!
Don't... say it to my face...
Why am I insecure because of your, your, and your opinions?
I can't do that.
♪
I love soca music, Caribbean music.
The bigger the bum, the better.
Like, I'm not bashing anybody with small bums,
but if you, like, you have a small bum,
it's a little bit difficult, you know, to dance.
Everybody's accepted in the Caribbean.
Like body size, nobody's bashed.
You'd probably be bashed maybe on your personality
before someone will talk about your size.
I eventually decided to face up to the fear
of eating a croissant.
So it was about seven or eight years
since I'd eaten a croissant,
and it was something I thought about a lot,
like I'd see people eat them and I'd think,
"Oh, I really want one of them, but, oh, I can't one.
They're something I just don't eat."
And, then, eventually, I did, and when I did eat it,
I have to admit that it was tough.
It wasn't just, "Oh, I ate it,"
and I thought, "That was easy."
It was actually still quite challenging
because it was a fear food,
and it brought up feelings of guilt and anxiety and shame
because I thought I'd let myself down
by having something I'd said was off-limits.
♪
It makes people anxious often
to think about the shame and the guilt
that's underneath dieting.
And, so, when we think about letting go
of our food roles, we're also, on an unconscious level,
letting go of our sense of control.
And, you know, diet culture tells us, of course,
we can and we should be able to control our bodies.
♪
Even when she went to university,
she wasn't well, really,
but she just showed enormous courage.
And we didn't want her to go,
but I could sort of see that she was starting
to take the control back herself
and to deal with it.
And just learning to step back and let her do that
was... was what we did.
I think it's 'cause...
I don't know when, but at some point I realized,
I realized I wanted to live and not just survive.
I'd been just surviving for so long
but feeling so awful
that I actually wanted to get to a place
where I was living and enjoying things
rather than going through the motions
day in and day out.
♪
When it comes to diets... And what's the new one, keto?
Keto, I think that's the new one
and people are going crazy over that.
I thought I was gonna jump on it, Googled it,
I said, "No, that's way too much effort to me."
Why can't we just have a healthy, balanced lifestyle?
We can't have a healthy, balanced lifestyle
because... well, we can, but it's very difficult
and it's going to be very difficult
because of money.
Money makes everything a problem for somebody.
The rich eat well, the poor eat shit.
And as someone who considers myself as working class...
I've not yet really reached celebrity status.
When I get there, things might change,
but until then, I am definitely living
below the breadline and, um, it's hard.
I feel that I am this way because of lots of factors,
but one of the main things
is that all we ever had enough money to eat
was what we could afford which is Iceland food,
cheap and cheerful, ASDA,
microwave meals because everyone's parents,
family, guardians, whatever, are working so hard
to put money on the table that they can't cook us
venison and, uh, shrimp for dinner.
♪
From day one, when we go
into our nutrition and public health degrees,
we are taught that socioeconomic disparities
drive health inequality,
and it's like a given, it's a fact,
and then it never gets touched on ever again
and we barely talk about it.
♪
We have quite a strong body of research now that shows
that the primary determinants of all of these conditions
is socioeconomic status,
and it goes simply beyond baseline income level,
but, actually, is more pronounced in societies
where the wealth gap between the very rich
and poorest in society is the largest.
And that's why for health statistics,
the countries with the leading issues
in chronic lifestyle disease
are the UK, the United States, and Australia
because they typically have the biggest wealth disparity.
♪
And so the big rhetoric either from government
or from food industry is that, you know,
everyone just needs to eat better.
But then we look at the urban environments
and food deserts, and we see
that, actually, all of the fast food chains
and the quick convenience foods,
which are kind of lower in minerals and nutrients
than kind of whole foods,
are disproportionately in areas
of low economic advantage.
When you add other barriers in,
like increasing consumption of energy away from the home,
lack of food preparation skills,
time is a huge barrier for low socioeconomic families
because, often, there could be single-parent households,
two jobs, and we have
all of these social and economic barriers
that we're not talking about,
and unless we start talking about those issues,
we're not going to make progress.
Be it jerk chicken and rice and peas,
or an Iceland microwave tin
which was something Mom had to "psh, psh, psh" together,
as you're eating that, you're drooling
over McDonald's and Burger King adverts
and KFC adverts
and, um, "buy this" and "just on offer today,
Birds Eye Chicken Dippers."
"Get two for 12 pound Iceland today."
You want us to be healthy.
Where's the whole foods advertisements on TV at 7:00?
I've not seen any of those.
You want us to be healthy.
Why isn't everything just organic then?
You... you know?
Not only is that evidentially unsustainable,
I think it's morally unsustainable now
to put personal responsibility on people
without modifying the environment in their favor
that allows them to take any personal responsibility.
If we're really serious about reversing
or reducing the burden of chronic lifestyle disease,
we need to start viewing this as a political issue,
and we need to start viewing it
as the socioeconomic issue that it is,
and we need to start looking
at that very high level for solutions
because it's really the only place
where hard answers are going to come to hard questions.
And the real question within that is,
do we have political parties that are brave enough
to take that step?
And that's a question that I would not be
particularly confident on
in certainly the countries that have embraced
the neoliberal economic model.
♪
What strikes me is the lack of urgency about this,
that assimilation and eradication.
This is what we're talking about
when we talk about... When people are suggesting
weight correction as the way forward.
Health at Every Size is a concept
that was coined by Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor,
and the best way to describe it
is that it's a social justice movement
that's designed to creating and delivering
inclusive and accessible care for everybody.
So, I focus on body respect and health gain,
where health gain resides in justice.
If we want health, we need a fair society,
we need to talk about trauma,
we need to be compassion-centered.
And so how that translates to working
as a Health at Every Size practitioner, for example,
is I position my clients as the experts
because they're the ones that know what feels right
in their body, they're the ones that know
what fits with their lives in terms of healthcare.
But at the same time, I'm also teaching them
that critical awareness by bringing in research
and helping them to really unpack
those internalized messages from diet culture.
Vicious cycle.
Hundred percent vicious cycle.
I'm actually really quite inspired
by the idea of intuitive eating.
I think it's something that you have to be very careful
to kind of embark on because it's very easy to say,
"Well, I'll eat intuitively,"
but if you're still ruled by assorted eating thoughts,
you may just not eat enough or you may completely cut back
because you'll think your body is saying one thing
when, really, your thoughts
have control over you, actually.
The thoughts are saying something
and it's not your hunger you're listening to.
So, intuitive eating is a framework
that is designed to get you to reconnect with your body,
and it was developed by Evelyn Tribole
and Elyse Resch in the mid-1990s.
And the reason why it's so important right now
is because it's a really radical concept
and a really radical framework in diet culture,
where we're constantly being bombarded with messages
about what to eat and how to eat.
Intuitively eating teaches us how to strip those back
and how to regain trust in our bodies.
Jubilee Line, the next train to Wembley Park
will depart from Platform 14 in one minute.
I'm just a secret... I'm a secret eater
because I was so ashamed to do it in public.
I reached a level of confidence
where I didn't really mind,
but it seems to have disappeared again
and, now, even if I am really hungry
and I do just want some chips from McDonald's,
I just... I can't, I won't do it.
I don't want to do it, I feel bad,
even though everyone has chips from, um,
has chips from McDonald's.
People always ask,
"Well, if I improve my relationship with food,"
and one of those things to do that
is giving yourself unconditional permission
to eat all foods,
where nothing is officially off the table,
they go, "well, I'm just gonna put weight on.
I'm just gonna keep gaining weight.
I did that once, I tried to give myself permission
and I just gained weight."
The difficulty is that
if you're giving yourself permission,
but you still have an end goal of weight loss,
then you don't really have unconditional permission.
Everything that you do is still conditional
on not gaining weight,
and it brings fear back into the equation
because we're afraid of gaining weight.
And when we're afraid, we then restrict
because restriction comes from fear.
We're diverse individuals, we're complex creatures,
so we need a wide range of things to help us cope.
However, some of the foods that we use to cope
with our emotions are vilified in diet culture.
I mean, when we're feeling sad or upset,
we're not gonna go for a plate of kale.
We want to go for a piece of cake,
or we want to go for some pasta,
or we want to go for something that, generally speaking,
gets vilified by diet culture
because it has sugar or carbohydrates.
And there's so much fearmongering
around those kind of foods,
that when we then go to reach for them,
when we're feeling emotional, we experience shame and guilt.
♪
Also, food is deeply emotional all by itself.
You know, our first relationships
are mediated through food.
And so that means that, quite often,
food can help us to process
or go back to certain comfortable,
more pleasant points in time.
So that's not a cause for condemnation.
That should be quite a strong cause for compassion
and either seeking or offering support to someone.
♪
I think also realizing
that the experts might be able to help,
'cause I lost faith in them along the way.
And I think Hannah's had support
from one particularly good person in recent years
who was actually a family therapist
who I also did some work with.
Do you remember, we used to do all these albums?
I think she always saw me as a person,
not as an illness, and I think sometimes along the way
professionals would only see you as an illness,
and especially as I got older
and I was no longer a teenager.
When I was... I was an adult or I am an adult,
it was really hard when you get treated like a child
because I could acknowledge that I was unwell,
but actually I was still me.
Your hair.
Then, we went to Istanbul afterwards.
I think that's what we did.
I wonder if had things been addressed earlier on
in the right way, then the outcome may have been
quite drastically different and it wouldn't have taken
two years of my life in an inpatient unit
and a lot, a lot of challenges, yeah.
Yeah, I do question that, and in fact,
you sort of beat yourself up slightly and think,
"Why didn't I spot it earlier,"
and all this sort of stuff.
And, um,
you kind of have to learn to live with that
because you did what you did.
Okay, great.
So, tonight, I'm gonna cook that cake.
No, actually, I think I'm gonna do the cookies,
I'm gonna do the chocolate chip.
♪
So, yesterday, I was invited down to Sunday Morning Live
with the BBC to talk about body positive yoga.
I'm with a group of women who refuse to let the opinions
of others shame them into worrying about their health.
And that was wonderful, we had the yoga class,
a few stretches, sun salutations,
all that good stuff, breathe, breathe, breathe.
Now, most people might say, "What's more important,
body confidence or good health?"
What would you say to that?
I think the two have to coincide.
You have to be... in order to be confident,
you need to be healthy.
In order to be healthy, you have to have
some level of confidence to go and pursue that.
So, then, they interviewed a white guy
about the age of 40, maybe even hitting 50.
Now, one man who knows more about losing weight
is Chris Zaremba.
Now, Chris, lovely to meet you.
At one point, you weighed 18 stone, is that right?
That's right, when I was 50, I was 18 stone.
Right, and we've got some before and after photos
that we can have a look at.
It's pretty amazing how much weight you've lost.
He started to speak on his journey
of losing weight himself, um, once being 18 stone,
which they said like it was, like,
"Oh, you used to be a murderer.
Oh, you used to be 18 stone."
It was the exact same tone.
And I'm like, "Bitch, last time I checked the scale,
I think I was hitting 20, so what you trying to say?"
Being 18 stone, I was technically obese.
I had very high blood pressure,
I had high levels of lousy cholesterol,
the LDL cholesterol, and I was borderline diabetic.
- Oh, goodness. - And the GP told me
that if I didn't change my ways
and got a little more into fitness
and a little away from fatness,
then it's possible I might not see my 60th birthday.
Then he went on to speak about weight loss
which he then corrected and said,
"Well, actually, fat loss.
It was losing the fat that I had to do."
And, again, I'm there stretching,
downward facing dog or whatever, thinking,
"If I could just get up and punch this fool
in the face, I would."
But of course, again, it's the BBC
and I don't want to embarrass myself,
so I had to hold it down.
But then when I spoke to the women afterwards,
it turns out that we all felt the exact same way,
we all felt just as disappointed
in that moment as we all did, but what can we do?
We're filming at 8:00 a.m.
for something to be broadcast at 11:00.
What exactly are we gonna do?
So it's kind of like, how can we go against this?
And then I sort of realized,
"I don't know if we can."
Here we go.
♪
This is The Real Catwalk,
and you're here to witness true journeys of self-love,
the love for others, acceptance, compassion
of whoever we are
in all of our bodies, shapes, colors, sizes, abilities,
lived differences, mental health,
we're celebrating all of it.
So, support them.
Give your applause, scream, do whatever.
They'll do a little dance.
Our positions are here.
Enjoy the show.
♪
Ready?
Go.
♪
We're here for The Real Catwalk in Trafalgar Square.
It's all about body positivity.
It doesn't matter who you are, what shape you are,
what size you are, what disability
or ability you have, you are beautiful,
and I just think it needs to be out there more.
♪
There's just...
Do you know how many bodies look like mine?
I'm really...
You know, I mean, I am unique, but not really,
because there's many women who are apple-shaped,
pear-shaped, hourglass-shaped,
but there's just rolls and jiggly bits everywhere.
The Real Catwalk is a flash mob
guerilla-style fashion show in the middle of the public
and where people come to celebrate themselves
and each other in our differences.
♪
So it's amazing just to see
so many different varieties of body types,
whether you've got an illness, a disability,
whether you're apparently "not perfect"
like the media shows.
It's just amazing to see everybody happy with themselves
and supporting each other as well.
When I heard there was a bikini underwear shoot
in Trafalgar Square, what better way is there
to get my point across
that all these beautiful people,
every body is different, and yet they're all gorgeous.
It doesn't matter your color, your shape,
the shape of your body, your size.
It doesn't matter if you have birthmarks,
if you have scars or not.
It doesn't matter, you know, who you are.
♪
With me being in a wheelchair just to prove...
To show people that it doesn't matter
how you look or what difference
you think you are.
We're all people.
♪
To get everyone out, everyone set out
to show off their stuff, strut their stuff,
get out there, be loud, be bold.
♪
Take your time.
♪
Everyone making judgments, so the best thing you can do
is deal with it, get over it,
and break that boundary anyway.
These days, I wear crop tops and I don't feel no way.
When people look at me on the train,
I don't get offended.
To me, it's like, "Look more."
I'd rather just... I'd just do a catwalk for everyone,
"Look at me, look at me."
I walk with my head held high.
And if my thighs, my arms, my back fat is hanging out,
I don't give a fuck.
Well, I do, so I try to... I might just tuck it back in.
But apart from that, I couldn't care less
because you need to see me and you need to see more of me
and, preferably, you need to see
as much of me as possible
so that you recognize and acknowledge
every other woman on this planet
that looks like me.
♪
The anti-diet movement is getting a lot of traction,
it's growing, especially in London and the UK.
♪
The Anti Diet Riot Club is a community and platform
that tries to bring people together
who have experienced diet cycling, bad body image.
Maybe they have been in recovery
for eating disorders
or they experienced fat shaming.
And we create a space for them to come together
and we learn from each other, educate each other,
and inspire each other to fight back
against diet culture.
Five, six, seven, go.
One, two, three, four...
♪
Over the course of a year,
what you've eaten over two weeks of Christmas
really doesn't matter.
How many of you heard maybe body positive community today?
Raise your hand.
Right, you've heard that over and over again,
but how do we create community
if we don't ever talk to each other?
It's not for other people to make opinions
on your body.
You know, if you want to touch yourself,
touch yourself.
Go do it, explore yourself.
Don't wait for a man to come up
and give you an orgasm.
Give yourself an orgasm first.
And years and years and years of waiting
to be the right size, waiting to be thin,
and then my life could begin,
then I could do all these fabulous things,
then I could do all the things I've ever dreamt of.
And I remember getting into my thirties,
and I was like, "God, is this it?
Have I got to keep waiting?
Because it's boring!"
So if you heard the phrase, which was the entire room,
"act like a lady," what did that mean
when someone said that or maybe you said it?
What did it mean when someone said it?
Yes.
- Be quiet. - Be quiet, good.
What else? Yeah, shout out.
- Inhibit yourself. - Inhibit yourself, good.
- Sit nicely. - Sit nicely.
Can you show me what "sit nicely" looks like?
Yes.
And how would you describe the body size of someone
that is a lady?
Small!
Skinny, small, thin.
- Slight. - Slight. Is that British?
Slight.
So where does it come from?
Patriarchy. Where else?
- Colonialism. - Okay, I'm coming back to that.
Yeah, white supremacy.
Y'all are too smart. What?
Toxic masculinity.
Toxic masculinity, good, yeah, what else?
White supremacy, capitalism, yeah.
People telling us things that we all need to hear
and start talking about...
I feel like it's being stretched right now,
because anybody is using the term "body positivity"
to describe how they look nowadays,
and it's not fair for the women
who are still being marginalized
because we're still fighting to be seen
in mainstream media.
♪
Body positivity is a political movement
that tries to celebrate people with marginalized bodies
and gives them the space to express themselves
and to feel beautiful and to have their voice heard.
So, for fat and people of color and disabled folks,
that's a really important origin of body positivity,
and it's kind of become a little bit watered down
in the way that brands talk about themselves
as being body positive, when they still
only really celebrate or represent
quite restrictive type of body.
One, two, three.
Yeah!
In many ways, diet culture is rebranding itself
and it's trying to appear like it is for women,
such as Weight Watchers becoming
a new wellness initiative
or Special K trying to bolster women
to energize them with food,
and it's that sneaky side of it,
where people think that they are rebelling
against diet culture all the while
reinforcing that their value is based on the way they look.
Businesses can do a lot to reduce
some of the toxicity that they're putting out
because, obviously, they have huge influence
in how people view themselves.
I miss you guys so much!
Um, if you want to make a change in your life,
you have to be determined to make that change.
You can't wait for, like, New Year's to come around
because it doesn't work.
If you want to make a change, you just got to make it.
Like a cake!
Like a cake, like a bloody cake!
What are you gonna do about it,
You know what I mean?
To be body positive is to be inclusive
of every... every single body
because we all struggle with insecurities. Why?
Because we're all governed and controlled
and taught what to like by the media,
which is not our friend.
Through social media, we are changing things
and making it so much more powerful.
♪
Another here!
I think the whole non-diet movement
is really, really growing.
I think it's going to grow in popularity
over the next couple of years.
I do think there will be a backlash to that
by the diet industry
because it's such a huge industry
and because people are still very attached to this idea
that being thin is better,
and there's gonna be a backlash
in the sense that people will be so reluctant
to let that go that they will double down on that.
Personally, dream life
is that bodies are completely irrelevant,
that we can just acknowledge that we all have this thing
that we're somehow blind to it, that we just...
I mean, who we are as people is all that's relevant.
That's how it feels to me
is that who I am as a person and my actions
and my authenticity,
that's what's valuable about me.
My body is entirely irrelevant.
Hi!
- Oh, it's so good to meet you. - So good to meet you too.
- Are you excited today? - I'm so excited.
I can't wait to get shooting.
Oh, I'm feeling exposed.
Nice to meet you completely naked.
Yes, you too, great, great body.
Thanks, babe, and to you.
Girl, thank you.
I've been working out, you know,
eating a couple less muffins.
It's really important to think about things
like race, class, social status
when we're thinking about bodies
and understanding bodies
because we can't get away from the fact
that bodies are political,
how we view bodies in society are political,
are socially informed.
I'm already a bottle deep, just to be clear.
I'm only having so much fun exploring my body
because I'm doing it on my own terms.
I can't listen to my mom anymore.
I don't speak to her, but I can't listen
to that voice that is the voice of my mother.
I can't listen to friends and other people
because they have had different experiences.
The only person who I can listen to is me.
♪
I have... I'll have weeks
where I just eat takeout
and I'm just... I've just got a hectic week
and I've just got to grab something quick.
But, like, you know, like we're all "burning calories,"
like food is fuel, and if you're moving,
whatever you're doing,
you need that fuel to keep you going.
Just eat, like...
♪
If I feel good, I eat.
If I don't feel good, I eat.
Like, it varies, sometimes I have a very balanced diet,
sometimes I don't like everybody else.
So it all depends on my mood, how I'm feeling,
if I'm going hard in the gym,
if I'm not going hard in the gym.
I think in terms of like emotions I will eat,
but I do always try to make a conscious effort
to mind what I eat, but I do like a cake.
I do like cake.
It's my favorite thing.
We can find our baseline or a set point weight
which, by the way, fluctuates.
It's not actually a number, it's a range.
And we can find that by re-engaging
with our body signals, and there's no way of knowing
what your set point weight is until you're there.
Oi! Oi!
♪
One thing I love to measure as success in my clients
is how do they feel mentally and physically?
What are their energy levels like
on a day-to-day basis?
How well are they sleeping?
How's their relationship to their family?
How's their relationship with food?
Those, to me, seem far more powerful indicators
of what health is than ever just being,
"Oh, look how lean I am," or, "Look how, you know,
you can see my six-pack,
or, "Look how big my arms are."
Those things are all very superficial.
- In the morning. - Are you?
Woo-hoo-hoo!
♪
So I would say now my diet is incredibly varied.
I have no food rules.
There are no good foods, there are no bad foods,
there are no foods I can or cannot eat.
That has been utterly liberating for me.
And based on how I feel now,
that's how I educate my clients
and educate my followers on social media platforms
to apply those same principles.
Okay.
♪
So, some people, they'll come into treatment
and they will say, "Maybe, maybe, you know,
I just didn't try hard enough,
and actually, if I put everything I know together
and do it one more time, then it will just be easier,"
but that, again, is part of that fear
of giving up this promise that we clung to for so long
about a quick fix or an easier way out
than going into the deep,
messy, painful, emotional stuff.
And, sometimes, you know, sometimes people just need
to be disappointed, you know,
they need to try that one last diet
and see that it still hasn't worked
and it still doesn't change anything
for them to come back and say, "Okay, I'm done.
I'm divorcing diets,
and I'm ready to start my new life
and my new relationship with myself."
♪
I think it's also really important
to keep your own family dynamics going,
because it's very damaging to family relationships.
And I've taken up every course in town
and I learned a lot.
Sometimes you have to learn the hard way.
But it's been a very long journey.
♪
But... but now it does feel so much better, and...
♪
I'm incredibly proud of...
of what Hannah does every day.
And I kind of know that she'll get there on her own now.
♪
For me, more than anti-diet, more than anything else,
the key to finding some sense of healing
has been through compassion,
non-judgmental compassion and kindness.
I mean it's pretty incredible the extremes
that my body's been through and, yet, here it is,
I'm still surviving.
So, you know, I just have to take
what I can be grateful for,
acknowledge the days that are really difficult
and just, you know, keep moving on.
♪
I think that the fact that my family
never gave up hope that things could be different
is the reason why I'm here today
because had they not, had they not believed in me,
I wouldn't... I didn't believe in myself,
so I needed my family,
and I had some really great friends as well
who always told me that things could be different
and that it didn't have to be that way,
and I think because of that...
♪
I am here now.
♪
I started to realize that even though
I have been through a lot and the trauma is deep,
I don't like pity parties.
Then, I tried to see, well,
everyone's been through some stuff.
Everyone's got trauma,
everyone's family lives haven't been perfect,
everyone struggles with their eating habits,
everyone struggles with their insecurities
and their appearance, okay.
So if I'm getting this healing
and I feel like I've been at the bottom of the heap,
there's no way that everyone can't get it themselves
because we have all been underestimated
in some way, shape, or form.
And to be underestimated
is one of the greatest vantage points,
because no one is looking at you,
so you take your time, you observe, and like me,
you ride in on a chariot of fire.
If I can put this body out there
that has been violated publicly and in private,
that I have violated myself sometimes
and my self-harm and the issues that I have,
if this can reach any amount of love,
if this can get on stage at Glastonbury...
♪
If I can, then, yeah, I will wave this flag,
scream on the top of rooftops and shout
and be that champion for everyone else,
because I can't keep this happiness to myself.
Nah, that'd be too selfish.
You get a bag! You get a bag!
You get... you know, everyone gets a piece of it.
♪
So I'm hoping that we get to a point
where this topic is talked about so frequently
that it becomes normal to talk about it and it's okay
and it becomes normal to say, "Yeah, I have a problem
with my relationship with food.
I would like it to improve."
♪
It becomes normal to say,
"Yeah, I'm afraid of being fat,
and I'd like to work out whether that fear
is coming from a real place."
We don't all need to change overnight,
but we need to be willing to talk about it.
♪
Unsubscribe from...
From the thin ideal.
Other people's expectations of you.
Unsubscribe from social media.
♪
From women's magazines.
Food guilt.
Unsubscribe from...
From the idea that fat equals unhealthy.
Conformity.
Unsubscribe from...
♪
Hang on, I'm gonna think about that for a second.
Unsubscribe from accounts on social media
that you make you feel bad about yourself.
Punishing your body.
Society's standard of beauty.
From white supremacy and fatphobia.
Unsubscribe from the voice in your head
that wasn't yours in the first place.
How about just unsubscribe from self-loathing?
Instagram accounts that don't back up claims
with evidence like the Medical Medium,
anything that promotes celery juice,
and anything that makes you feel bad in your person
or body or health status.
Being pressured by diet culture.
♪