Body and Chronic Illness

Martha Grover is an author, poet, artist and writing coach living in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of One More for the People (Perfect Day Publishing) and The End of My Career (Perfect Day Publishing). The End of My Career was a finalist for the Oregon Book Awards in creative nonfiction in 2017. Martha is currently at work on a book of prose poems and essays about Catastrophe, Myth, and being a sick person in the 21st century.  When she is not writing, Martha is making zines, coaching her writing clients, making art, and selling Real Estate.

Today we talk about her experience with Cushing’s syndrome and Addison’s disease and what it’s like to live in a body that is chronically ill. 

“Some people with disabilities use a spoon to hide, to pass as able-bodied,  that requires energy,  to hide your disability when you aren’t in a safe space. “

- Martha Grover

 

This Week on the Every Body Podcast:

• How Martha discovered her acute illness 
• The social and personal stories and pressures that resulted in her rapid weight gain and loss from her illness. 
• Her journey from Cushing Syndrome to Addison’s Disease
• Life with a chronic illness including work, medication, dating
• How Martha has healed and found peace with her body

• Info about Spoon Theory (spoonies)
• Subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/marthagrover
• Website: somnambulistzine.com
• Coaching: http://somnambulistzine.com/shop/creative-counsel

 

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Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes , subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website , follow us on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram , and share your story because this podcast is for every body.

Shilo George is Southern Cheyenne-Arapaho and Scottish international speaker, trainer, and owner of Łush Kumtux Tumtum Consulting, which means “a great awakening of the heart and spirit” in the Chinuk Wawa trade language. She has lived her life in a body that transgresses and violates Western standards of beauty, size, sexuality, and health. Shilo interweaves cultural traditions and spirituality with an anti-oppressive and decolonizing lenses to promote healing and empowerment in herself and others in the communities she is a part of. Her workshops and presentations explore the intersections of race, sexuality, body size, and trauma (both individual and inter-generational). Shilo trains others on systems of oppression, trauma informed care, and proactive ways that businesses and organizations can create policies and environments that that promote diversity, equity, and healing. 

Shilo received her Bachelor of Science in Art Practices in 2012 and a Masters of Science in Educational Leadership and Policy with a specialization in Postsecondary Adult and Continuing Education in 2017, both from Portland State University. She was named Higher Education Student of the Year by the Oregon Indian Education Association in 2013 and in 2015 was honored with the Queer Indigenous Scholar Activist & Alumni Award by the Indigenous Nations Studies Department at Portland State University. In addition to her consulting business, Shilo works as a Parent Advocate at the Native American Youth and Family Center and is an Affiliated Adjunct Instructor of the Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University. She can be contacted at [email protected]. 

 

Health and Wellness Philosophy Document

 

Aaron Flores is a registered dietitian nutritionist based out of Los Angeles, California. With nearly 10 years of experience, Aaron has worked with eating disorders in a variety of settings.

A large part of his career was spent working at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System where he helped develop and launch one of the first Binge Eating

Disorder programs to help Veterans struggling with this disorder. Since leaving the VA, Aaron has continued to work in the eating disorder community helping run groups and providing individual counseling to adolescents and adults. He currently works part-time at Center for Discovery and part-time in his private practice in Calabasas, CA. He is a Certified Body Trust® provider, and his main areas of focus are Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size®. In his work, Aaron helps individuals learn how to make peace with food and develop body-positive behaviors. His work has been featured during Weight Stigma Awareness Week, in blogs for the National Eating Disorder Information Centre and National Eating Disorder Association. Aaron is a frequent speaker and has presented at the 2016 and 2017 Binge Eating Disorder Awareness Annual Conference and the upcoming 2018 International Conference on Eating Disorders. Along with his work with eating disorders, he also is a co-host of the podcast, Dietitians Unplugged.

Aaron Flores’s private practice is in Calabasas, CA. He uses Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size® in his work to help individuals learn how to make peace with food and their bodies. He is a Certified Body Trust® provider and he also the co-host of the popular podcast, Dietitians Unplugged. 

Sarah Vance (@sarevance) began focusing on the body when she began walking in her parents' footsteps by competitively body-building. After spiraling with restriction, disordered eating and body dysmorphia, she decided she needed to realign her relationship with her body. She created #effyourfitspo and challenges ideas of "health" and "strength" that are simply diet culture with a new name. Now, as a health care professional, she keeps a vigilant eye out for fat-phobia in the health care industry. We covered a lot of ground, but there's always room to share more and ask more. Take a listen and join the conversation with us on instagram! 

 

"[Body positivity is] becoming more problematic because now fitspo culture and diet companies and diet culture are now co-opting body positivity... then you have a system in a culture that has now utilized something that was in the first place-- body positivity-- that was actually trying to dismantle the system that is now using it."

- Sarah Vance

 

This Week on the Every Body Podcast:

• Sarah's first exposure to body consciousness with her body-building family. 
• The internalization of body dysmorphia as our bodies naturally change with age and experience.
• How ideas of health are tainted with fat-phobia.
• Sarah's experience with restriction and dieting beginning with her decision to hire a "fitness coach" for competitive  body building. 
• A look at diet culture in "healthism" and fitspo culture.
• The ways increased exposure to social media amplifies fitspo culture.
• How "fitspo" started as a reaction to "thinspo," but still propels diet culture.
• Sarah's #effyourfitspo passion and realigning our priorities toward respecting our bodies.
• How Sarah began identifying as a "health nut" and the challenges with letting that go and rediscovering her relationship with her body.
• The sneaky layers behind diet culture that Sarah had to work through to overcome her disordered eating.
• How Sarah became and advocate for body positivity. 
• The steps Sarah took to step away from her superficial body obsession.
• What it's like being in the health care industry as an advocate for HAES.
• The merits of asking "why" to challenge peoples' biases and stigmas. 
• Our westernized relationship with death and how that feeds into the flawed health and wellness industry.

 

Additional Resources:

• Sarah's website: www.sarahvance.com
• Sarah's podcast "Reclaiming You": www.sarahvance.com/category/reclaiming-you-podcast-sarah-vance
• Sarah's instagram: @SareVance 
• Facebook
• Patreon

 

 

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Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes , subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website , follow us on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram so you never miss an episode!  

Kai was first cast into the spotlight through her participation in, and subsequent denunciation of the weight loss game show The Biggest Loser. Going through the program, she realized the negative impact the show had, not only on her own life, but on society in general. Vowing to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, Kai has fought, often as the lone voice, against unrealistic and damaging message in the media regarding our bodies in general. Over time that struggle has been featured in countless magazines and newscasts, both domestically and internationally, ranging from The Huffington Post, Time Magazine, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, E!, Star Magazine, US Weekly, People, TMZ, The NY Times, The NY Post, Inside Edition, Redbook, Access Hollywood, FoxNews,The Globe, Jezebel, Huffington Post Live and Upworthy, where Kai’s honest, straight forward approach to her own story never fails to shine through.

Most of Kai’s time is spent juggling family and professional life. When not writing for publications like xoJane, working on her books, speaking, chiming in on body shaming as a contributor for CNN, being interviewed for various outlets or keeping people encouraged on social media, she is reading studies, finishing on her MSW at UNE, preparing new presentations, starting a new podcast, planning the opening of her private psychotherapy practice with telecounseling services, and plotting ways to keep her kiddo in bed at bedtime.

In addition she is adjusting to life with chronic illnesses, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. She is also very tired.

https://kaihibbard.com/about/

Studies Mentioned:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/27136388/

http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss3/2/

 

Rate & Share

Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes , subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website , follow us on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram so you never miss an episode!  

 

Dr. Natalie Boero is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at San Jose State University. She joins Every Body this week to discuss the ways our society pigeon holes obesity as a personal problem for the individual rather than examining the wider socioeconomic scope (access to good health care, food deserts, safe places to play and be active)  and its effects on public health. Dr. Boero discusses how she began in the field with her first book, Killer Fat: Media, Medicine and Morals in the American Obesity Epidemic. She explains the problem with medicalizing non-medical instances such as weight or violence with words like "epidemic" which cause panic and risky preventative measures. It was such a pleasure to hear Dr. Boero's thoughts and research on everything from obesity myths to the privilege of "the good fatty." Take a listen and join us in the conversation with us!

 

"My being the 'good fatty' probably has a lot to do with my class and race privilege in the sense that I have the resources to do certain things or I have the absence of other privileges that sort of blunt some of the other stigmas that I have experienced... we shouldn't judge moral worth based on health."

- Dr. Natalie Boero

 

This Week on the Every Body Podcast:

• How Dr. Boero began her study into the "obesity epidemic" with her dissertation. 
• How the term "obesity epidemic" was coined.
• The ways that weight bias has become a scapegoat in blaming minority groups for their own disadvantages.
• The effects of socioeconomics on weight and health. 
• The correlation between chronic dieting and food restriction in the last 70 years with the general increase in the weight of Americans. 
• The problematic ways we produce and distribute food globally. 
• How focusing on fatness distracts from the larger public interest (i.e. psychological effects of fat stigma, access to safe places to play/be active, etc).

• The extremes that our culture falls into ("epidemic," "cleanse," "addict," etc) in the name of "health."

• "The good fatty" and myths about "human value being predicated on health."

 

Additional Resources:

• College of Social Sciences
• Department of Sociology
• The New Yorker, "Why Are Americans Fat?"
• More information about "Killer Fat" just published by Rutgers University Press in August 2012!!
• "Killer Fat" on Amazon.com

 
Studies Mentioned:

• The Care Plus Study
• Race, socioeconomic status and health. The added effects of racism and discrimination. 
• Socioeconomic factor, health behaviors, and mortality: results from a nationally representative prospective study of US adults.
• Busting the Sugar-Hyperactivity Myth

 

Rate & Share

Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes , subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website , follow us on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram so you never miss an episode!  

Dr. Natalie Boero is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at San Jose State University. She joins Every Body this week to discuss the ways our society pigeon holes obesity as a personal problem for the individual rather than examining the wider socioeconomic scope (access to good health care, food deserts, safe places to play and be active)  and its effects on public health. Dr. Boero discusses how she began in the field with her first book, Killer Fat: Media, Medicine and Morals in the American Obesity Epidemic. She explains the problem with medicalizing non-medical instances such as weight or violence with words like "epidemic" which cause panic and risky preventative measures. It was such a pleasure to hear Dr. Boero's thoughts and research on everything from obesity myths to the privilege of "the good fatty." Take a listen and join us in the conversation with us!

 

"My being the 'good fatty' probably has a lot to do with my class and race privilege in the sense that I have the resources to do certain things or I have the absence of other privileges that sort of blunt some of the other stigmas that I have experienced... we shouldn't judge moral worth based on health."

- Dr. Natalie Boero

 

This Week on the Every Body Podcast:

• How Dr. Boero began her study into the "obesity epidemic" with her dissertation. 
• How the term "obesity epidemic" was coined.
• The ways that weight bias has become a scapegoat in blaming minority groups for their own disadvantages.
• The effects of socioeconomics on weight and health. 
• The correlation between chronic dieting and food restriction in the last 70 years with the general increase in the weight of Americans. 
• The problematic ways we produce and distribute food globally. 
• How focusing on fatness distracts from the larger public interest (i.e. psychological effects of fat stigma, access to safe places to play/be active, etc).

• The extremes that our culture falls into ("epidemic," "cleanse," "addict," etc) in the name of "health."

• "The good fatty" and myths about "human value being predicated on health."

 

Additional Resources:

• College of Social Sciences
• Department of Sociology
• The New Yorker, "Why Are Americans Fat?"
• More information about "Killer Fat" just published by Rutgers University Press in August 2012!!
• "Killer Fat" on Amazon.com

 
Studies Mentioned:

• The Care Plus Study
• Race, socioeconomic status and health. The added effects of racism and discrimination. 
• Socioeconomic factor, health behaviors, and mortality: results from a nationally representative prospective study of US adults.
• Busting the Sugar-Hyperactivity Myth

 

Rate & Share

Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes , subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website , follow us on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram so you never miss an episode!  

Jes Baker (@themilitantbaker) has been a major figure in the fat-positive community for years beginning with her "Attractive and Fat" photo campaign as backlash against Abercrombie and Fitch's anti-fat advertising. Since then, her refreshingly authentic voice has garnered over 77 thousand followers on instagram as well as a wildly popular personal blog. Jes has built her foundation on the idea that #fatgirlsCAN and she continues to shatter society's expectations for fat people with equal parts outspoken advocacy and brazen visibility. I loved getting a chance to sit down with this inspirational woman to talk about complicated topics from "Lisa Frank bopo" to her relationship with movement. Take a listen and join the conversation with us on instagram!    "Every single person right now is being targeted, when it comes to self-esteem and body image, women have historically been the targets of marketing and advertising selling these beauty and weight loss products."

- Jes Baker

This Week on the Every Body Podcast:

• How Jes Baker's online presence took off with her "Attractive and Fat" campaign against Abercrombie & Fitch.
• Discussions on class as it relates to farm culture and how that relates to current gender roles.
• How the new "health is the new skinny" trend plays into diet culture. 
• The ways wellness culture is exclusive and damaging to the vast majority of people.
• Jes's personal recovery process as it relates to her childhood experience with poverty.
• Jes talks about her complicated relationship with movement and intuitive eating. 
• The ways Jes connects with her body and finds happiness and fulfillment. 
• How writing her upcoming memoir, "Landwhale" (May 2018), has played a role in the connection between her mental and physical journey.
• The ways the "Lisa Frank bopo" movement can fall short for many people.

 

Additional Resources:

• Jes Baker's blog: www.themilitantbaker.com 
• Jes's first book, "Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: a Handbook for Unapologetic Living": https://www.amazon.com/Things-One-Will-Tell-Girls/dp/1580055826
• Jes's open letter to Abercrombie & Fitch CEO: http://www.themilitantbaker.com/2013/05/to-mike-jeffries-co-abercrombie-fitch.html?m=1

 

Rate & Share

Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes , subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website , follow us on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram so you never miss an episode!  

Body in Culture

Kimberly Dark is a writer, sociologist, and raconteur, working to reveal the hidden architecture of everyday life one clever essay, poem, and story at a time. She uses humor, surprise and intimacy to help audiences discover their influences, and reclaim their power as social creators. She teaches in the graduate program in Sociological Practice at Cal State San Marcos.

Kimberly Dark has written award-winning plays, facilitated and performed for a wide range of audiences in various countries over the past two decades. Her essays appear in popular online publications such as Everyday Feminism and Ravishly.  Her poetry and prose are available in various literary and academic publications. The storytelling performances and interactive lectures make big, complex ideas relatable at campuses, conferences, companies and anywhere people seek startling revelations and positive change.  Beloved by diverse audiences, Kimberly crosses boundaries to show how we must engage all the wisdom and verve we have to create the most compassionate, fair and inclusive world we can. You will feel her passion through the mic and this episode incorporates her storytelling and my interview with her. She is currently touring with her show, “Thing I learned from fat people on the plane”. 

 

 

“We need more fat yoga teachers. And old yoga teachers, and disabled yoga teachers and anyone with a different body than you think you want. “

- Kimberly Dark

 

This Week on the Every Body Podcast:

• • Why she uses spoken word and storytelling to communicate her sociology perspective. 
• • A performance about  fat children and the many ways the “starve”
• • Healthism
• • Her experience of fat stigma being yoga teacher for 20 years. 

Additional Resources:

• • Link to Kimberly Dark’s website
• • Here’s Looking At You: Yoga, Fat & Fitness
• • Another Way to Starve
• • Kalani Yoga Retreat 
• • Kiese Laymon’s website

Rate & Share

Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes , subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website , follow us on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram , and share your story because this podcast is for every body.

 

 

Big Gal Yoga with Valerie Sagun 

Valeria Sagun took her first crack at yoga in a college course back in 2011 and now challenges over 152,000 instagram followers to start looking at their bodies through a more positive lens. Valerie (@biggalyoga) joins us this week with friend and co-bopo pal Anna Chapman (@iamannachapman) to talk about how their vastly different backgrounds led them both to a place where they could celebrate their size and encourage others to do the same. Valerie's new book, Big Gal Yoga, dives deeper into her life's story as well as her her yoga tips and practices. The endearing dynamic between these two has got to be some of my favorite #relationshipgoals to date. Take a listen and join the discussion with us!

 

"Finding that calmness within yoga that I hadn't had before; the simple movement, or just moving your body, can change your mental outlook on things."

- Valerie Sagun

 

This Week on the Every Body Podcast:

• A look at how Valerie Sagun (@BigGalYoga) and Anna Chapman (@iamannachapman) met and hit it off. 
• Valerie's background as a "big gal" of color in a family that that differed from tradition western ideas of beauty.
• How Anna dealt with fat phobia within her own family. 
• Valerie and Anna discuss changing bodies in the fat-positive community and being supportive through it all, not just the bigger end of the spectrum. 
• Advice for those struggling with getting into a physical practice with yoga. 
• Lots of love between these two beautiful friends and body positive warriors. 

 

Additional Resources:

• Link to Big Gal Yoga book on Amazon
• Valerie Sagun website: http://www.biggalyoga.com/
• Anna Chapman website: iamannachapman.com 

 

 

Rate & Share

Thank you for joining me this week on the Every Body podcast. If you enjoyed this week’s episode, head over to iTunes , subscribe to the show and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website , follow us on Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram so you never miss an episode.