These are the folks who are going to a state capitol and deciding whether to expand Medicaid or deciding whether there’s one abortion clinic left in the state or deciding whether there’s LGBTQ protections for folks on the job. It’s wild that there aren’t more eyes on it, but it’s not the way we’re trained.

Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast where we talk about diet culture, fat phobia, parenting and health.

Today I am chatting with Melissa Walker, who is the head of Giving Circles at The States Project. This is a little bit of an unusual episode for Burnt Toast! I know you come here for the analysis of diet culture and anti-fat bias, but today we’re gonna save democracy. I am so excited to launch the Burnt Toast Giving Circle, which will raise money to flip state legislatures in battleground states.

If you have been in a rage about the state of our country and you want to do something about it, I am hoping this will be your thing! Because together we can have a huge impact. I’m setting a goal that our can raise $10,000 — which is 1,000 Burnt Toast listeners giving ten bucks each. There are a lot more than a thousand people who listen to this podcast and read this newsletter. So even if you’ve only got five dollars or two dollars to give, please join us. And if you want to give more, that is great, too. (And keep listening, we’ve got more ideas for how you can get even more involved.)

When I think about the political issues that are keeping me up at night, it’s stuff like: What’s going to happen when we lose Roe? Why did Build Back Better fail so spectacularly around paid family leave and child care? What is happening in Ukraine right now? Thinking nationally about politics is how I’ve been trained to think about politics. So, let’s start by helping people (me) understand why does state government matter so much?

Melissa

State governments have really been overlooked for a very long time. When I started looking into this work, which honestly was in late November 2016, I started to understand that most folks don’t really know who their state representatives are. When I looked up who my state senator was, I had never heard of him. I did not have eyes on the people going to Albany for me. I started to understand that everything that I was worried about, and everything that I cared about, in terms of our country was actually being controlled in state legislatures and not in Washington, DC. State legislatures are in charge of everything from environmental policy to education funding to gun safety to healthcare to civil rights.

They’re also in charge of the very core of our democracy: Voting rights are decided state by state. State legislatures decide whether to suppress or expand voting. They have the power to gerrymander. They are drawing the district lines that decide who goes to the state legislature, who goes to Congress, who goes to Washington DC.

So I started to see that there were all these kitchen table issues being decided in state legislatures and that they were also incredible tools of federal power. A lot of things started to make sense to me that hadn’t before. I started to think about things like my home state of North Carolina, where the bathroom bill passed, and I started to understand that lawmakers in Raleigh did that. Things like the Stand Your Ground gun law in Tallahassee that let Trayvon Martin’s murderer go free (and then passed in 25 other states)—that was lawmakers in Florida, and then in those other states. And in Flint, Michigan, I realized, oh, that’s a Lansing problem. That’s not a Washington DC problem. 

Virginia

This is blowing my mind. Why do you think we are so trained to focus on Washington? Why am I now having this epiphany? Why don’t we think about states?

Melissa

Well, it’s complicated. There are really 50 mini Congresses in this country and they’re deciding things state-by-state. These are local races. They do not get national attention. The truth is that there is someone who’s been paying attention to state legislatures and it’s the radical right. They’ve been organizing for state legislative power for a very long time. From 2010 to 2016, we lost nearly 1,000 state legislative seats. And in those states where Republican majorities took over, people’s lives got bad. They defunded education. They put in right to work laws. They gutted environmental protections.

And when people’s lives got bad, they didn’t say, oh, that must be my state senator, I’m gonna go down to Main Street and talk to them, because they have an office there (because they do). Most people don’t know who their state senators are, even maybe that they have one. So they blame what they could see on what they hear about on the news every day, which is Washington DC, often the president, sometimes something about Congress. The roots of Trumpism were being seeded in state legislatures. It’s a body that operates in darkness and it really has been overtaken by special interests.

Virginia

It makes me think a lot about the role of the media here. You and I both come from journalism and those headlines are always Washington-based. Local media is so decimated right now. Local newspapers are so underfunded, and non-existent in so many places, that they’re not able to play that crucial role. And I mean, how many times as a national magazine editor did you say, “That story is too local, that’s not going to be interesting to our national readers.?” It happens all the time. 

Melissa

When we hear “Oh, Texas just passed this law limiting abortion,” people say, “Well! That Ted Cruz is terrible.” And this law has nothing to do with Ted Cruz. This is lawmakers in Austin who are in the state legislature and they only officially have session every two years. Something that people don’t know about state legislators is that in 40 states, it’s a part time job. It pays very, very little. These are the folks who are going to a state capitol and deciding whether to expand Medicaid or deciding whether there’s one abortion clinic left in the state or deciding whether there’s LGBTQ protections for folks on the job. This is where this stuff has been decided. It’s wild that there aren’t more eyes on it, but it’s not the way we’re trained.

Virginia

For those of us who live in blue states, why should we care about the laws in other states? 

Melissa

Well, states are meant to be laboratories for democracy. Like marriage equality going from state to state to federal or healthcare going from Hawaii to Massachusetts to becoming the ACA. They really are meant to be incubators of good policy, ideally. Right now, a lot of states are incubators for voter suppression bills and bans on choice and bans on trans kids playing sports. Those laboratories for democracy should not be allowed to be laboratories for autocracy.

We should also care about state legislatures because they are immense tools of federal power. As I said, state legislatures in most states have the power to draw the district lines that decide who goes to Congress. So they are promoting their own party in many cases in the drawing of those lines and making it so that the folks in power at the federal level are coming from from the party of their choice. They also control voting laws. So if you care who wins the presidency, you should care whether votes are limited in certain states or not.

The last thing I’ll say is, if you care about the Supreme Court, you should care about state legislatures. Because the Supreme Court does not write laws, they rule on laws, many of which are written in state legislatures—sometimes explicitly written in state legislatures to rise up and challenge a Supreme Court ruling, like in the case of the Mississippi law that’s currently challenging Roe v. Wade.

Virginia

This feels like something we should have been covering in 10th grade social studies and we definitely didn’t.

Of course, some of my listeners are going to be like, “Why are we talking about state legislatures on a podcast about diet culture?” So we’re going to connect those dots for everyone right now. Yes, this is a podcast about anti-fat bias and diet culture, and there are a lot of reasons why people don’t realize how political those issues are. You know, we think in terms of body positivity and body image and we don’t think enough about ending weight discrimination, which is absolutely a legal and social justice issue. And a really great example of the potential of state legislature is Massachusetts, which right now as we’re recording this, has a bill pending that would prohibit size discrimination. That’s one of the first places in the country that would be formally legislating against fatphobia.

I’m curious if that’s at all on your radar. As you said, states are incubators. So is this the place where we could be getting this work done?

Melissa

Although we know that federal law does prohibit employers from firing employees on the basis of race, color, age, gender, religion, or national origin, those laws don’t provide any protection for weight discrimination, even though obviously, there’s plenty of evidence that it’s a real phenomenon. And that’s also true for LGBTQ+ discrimination—federal law does not protect against that, but certain state laws do. Many states have made progress on that front. But so far, the only state that I found that has an explicit law on the books that forbids discrimination and employment based on weight is Michigan. So Michigan has a law that passed in 1976. It also forbids discrimination on the basis of age and height, but that is the only state at this point that has that on the books. I believe Massachusetts would be the second.

Virginia

Well, way to go Michigan! There was some amazing fat activism happening in the 70s and I’m guessing a lot of those folks were in Michigan and got that done. And I guess the point we want to make here is that another reason to be focusing on state legislatures is that there’s real potential for this issue to get traction in states with your state senator down on Main Street, where you can go have a conversation about this, as opposed to ever getting this issue to have traction in Congress.

Melissa

Looking up who your state reps are, knowing them, and then making them people you that you talk to and really engage with and advocate with is a great thing. State reps will take your call. They will take your meeting. They are not as busy as your federal reps, and they are interested in having an engaged voting bloc—or they should be. You have a lot of influence there.

I’ll also say that this is a method that’s been used by really big movements. After Sandy Hook, when federal gun legislation just didn’t move, Moms Demand Action focused on state legislatures. That’s why you may have seen the Moms Demand folks out there in their red t-shirts, gathered in state capitals. Because they know the only way to move on this right now is state by state by state by state. They’ve been able to pass red flag laws in a lot of states and get things done. So it is definitely a way in.

I would also like to argue that it is a more foundational shift than changing federal law, because when you shore up something at a state by state by state level, you’re really shoring it up. A law like the Affordable Care Act, that is a federal health care law but twelve states still haven’t expanded Medicaid. You’ve got these majorities in states that are in charge of implementing federal law and if they don’t have that law as part of their state priority, it’s just not always a guarantee. So it’s really great to shore things up at the foundations.

Virginia

And the the legal and social justice issues that come up around size, things like parental rights, health care access—all of these really are local issues. These are issues where you need to see the change made in your school or in your local child welfare office, or in the doctor’s offices in your community.

Okay, let’s talk a little bit about what is happening this year. Talk to us about what states are you most worried about or focused on? Where do we have the chance to have some real impact?

Melissa

Absolutely. So, yes, the midterms are coming. There will be so much national media focused on Congress, on the US House, the US Senate—and, of course, those are important. This year, we have so far identified six states where we think we can be most impactful and those are Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania. And then Maine, where we want to protect a blue majority, and Nebraska where we’re trying to defend against a Republican supermajority.

In the first states I mentioned, we are trying to change the balance of power in the legislature to flip those states. What’s interesting about these races is, as I mentioned, they’re still local. They’re often won on the margins and we’re very, very close in states like Arizona, where just one seat in each State Chamber would tie the chamber and two seats in each State Chamber would flip the chamber. Michigan, it’s the same low numbers: three seats in each chamber would tie; four seats in each chamber would flip. After the 2020 census, we’re seeing in certain states that we have fairer maps. In Michigan it’s because of a ballot initiative that instituted the drawing of maps by an independent commission. 

Virginia

Wait, I just need to pause there. That’s new that they’re not always drawn by an independent commission?

Melissa

It’s true.

Virginia

Okay, taking a breath with that.

Melissa

I know. They’re drawn by the legislative majority who, of course, want to secure their own power. 

Virginia

That’s not at all screwed up. So yeah, good job, Michigan!

Melissa

So, we’re seeing better maps in a couple of states. These are places where we really see the potential to shift power. And, I will say this: It is often cheaper to change the balance of power in a State Chamber than it is to win a single competitive congressional seat. Because congressional races cost millions and millions of dollars and state legislative races don’t. It is absolutely a place where there is major bang for your buck, in terms of trying to affect the outcomes.

Virginia

We are distracted by those congressional campaigns and by the whole federal narrative when this is where real work is happening. 

Melissa

One moment to define it is that in 2020, we saw Sarah Gideon run against Susan Collins in Maine for the Senate seat. She finished her campaign with $15 million left over. Which was much bigger than The States Project’s entire budget in 2020 to work on twelve state legislatures. We know that these big races get a lot of attention and a lot of emotional giving, right? You’re angry at Susan Collins, you’re gonna give money to her opponent. You’re angry at Mitch McConnell. You’re angry at Lindsey Graham. And those races tend to kind of eat up people’s emotions and have them just doing that panic giving. And that’s not strategic political giving.

Virginia

It’s not. It’s just what I do at five in the morning when I’m angry. So, panic giving is not actually sound political strategy?

Melissa

Right. But it’s hard to know where to dig in. Those are the places that are in the spotlight. That’s why I think it’s really exciting to do something like a Giving Circle where folks are coming together and have this strategic focus on the specific district in a state that it’s going to take to change the balance of power.

Virginia

Yes. Let’s talk about how this works. What is a Giving Circle? And how is the Burnt Toast Giving Circle going to either help flip a state or shore up a majority? Walk us through the process.

Melissa

Giving Circles are groups of people who come together to raise resources to try to change the balance of power in a state. Every Giving Circle starts with one person who says, “Okay, I’m raising my hand, I want to start this, I want to do it,” and then engaging the other people in their orbit, whether it’s neighbors, friends, listeners, readers. And saying to them, “Will you do this with me?”

And what it really is, is a math problem. Because again, like I said, small dollars are hugely impactful in these races. When a Giving Circle comes together and raises $10,000—that’s 100 people giving $100—that kind of money can be incredibly impactful in a state legislative race. And that is what we’re seeing when we have giving circles come together. We have giving circles who choose Michigan and giving circles who choose Arizona, and some giving circles raise a lot more and some giving circles raise less. But everyone together walks with power. That’s one of the most incredible parts of being part of the giving circle. In my giving circle, I know that there are individual donors who give $10 and there are individual donors who give $10,000. But we all come together and walk into a state with a total that makes an impact. And that’s what we’re trying to do.

Virginia

That is very powerful. So for the Burnt Toast Giving Gircle, I am the person raising my hand saying I am doing this and I want Burnt Toast listeners and readers to all join in. There are way more than a hundred of you, like many times that, so we have the potential to raise some real money here. And Burnt Toast, the newsletter, is going to match the first $1000 that we raise. And at some point we are going to pick which state the money’s going to—right, Melissa? That’s phase two of this?

Melissa

Yes, absolutely. The second piece of this is which state from The States Project’s targets do we want to choose? And that’s a decision that giving circles often make together through a vote, or sometimes the leadership team comes up with a decision. Either way, it’s participatory and fun. Then you get to dig into the stories that are coming out of the states that you choose and you get to see the landscape and the stakes and the opportunity. What the balance of power is, which districts do we need? Which candidates are we with? That’ll happen after the primaries.

At some point, another Giving Circle leader said to me, “Oh, I get it, we’re a giving circle, we hit our goal, and then we become a learning circle. And we learn all this together.”

Virginia

Yes! I want it to be a participatory process. I want everyone who wants to join in to join in today and give money. Then in future podcast installments, we will talk about these different states. We will have some sort of poll. I think that’s really important. I want everyone to feel like we all are making this decision together and that we all have a stake in this.

Melissa

One more thing, just in terms of practical actions for the Giving Circle, if someone’s thinking like, Okay, I want to donate but maybe I also want to join in somehow in a deeper way. There are a couple of things.

If you feel moved, like “Oh my gosh, we’ve got to focus on state legislatures and I want to help Burnt Toast get over the top,” I would ask that folks think about: Can I give some and can I raise $1,000 for the Burnt Toast Giving Circle?

Raising $1,000 for the Burnt Toast giving circle means asking 25 people for $40 or asking 40 people for $25. It’s really a math problem. De-emotionalizing the money part of it and saying, “I have a mission. I really believe in trying to change the balance of power and state legislatures for all these reasons. And I’m going to talk to my friends about it” does two things: Hopefully it raises $1,000 for the circle. It also helps people understand that they should be looking in this direction and thinking about state legislatures because part of our goal is to just get more people reading the news in a different way. When they read about the Texas abortion ban, they’re not cursing Ted Cruz. They’re finding out the name of the Texas Republican legislators who passed that bill.

Virginia

If there’s anyone who wants to take it to that level, I can help with that. We’ll put some language in the transcript for this episode that you can forward around to your twenty-five to forty friends. Obviously, sharing this episode will be a great way to do that, but I’ll try to make it real easy with some bullet points to help with this. I’m really excited. [VSS note: Scroll down for a template you can copy and paste!]

Melissa

We are in this moment when there are so many kind of big doom and gloom articles about the death of democracy and what we’re really facing here. And I am glad those articles are being written because they’re absolutely true. We are on the precipice. We are on the brink of a really big moment. But we need to not get tired in that moment. And those articles can make you feel like you want to lie down on your couch or pull a blanket over your head. Let’s be honest, like, how could you possibly plug in and do anything about what’s happening? And how could one little person do something?

But here’s the thing, those articles don’t light a path to action, they just lay out a big plan by the radical right to steal the presidency in 2024. If you read them carefully, you’ll see that they’re laying out a plan to steal the presidency in 2024 through state legislatures. So the answer is: It’s one State House seat in Arizona and one state Senate seat. It’s three State House seats in Michigan and three state Senate seats. It’s 12 State House seats in Pennsylvania on better maps than we’ve had in a decade. I could go on and on. But there is a path to action here and it is not as big and scary as federal races.

It’s about getting involved at this level and understanding that when you get involved at this level, you are working on the foundations of democracy, the place that is starting to crumble and the place that we have to shore up. So I’m excited that the Burnt Toast Giving Circle is lighting that path to action.

Melissa

So at the risk of being a one trick pony here, I will say that the the book that I’m currently recommending is a book called Laboratories for Autocracy by David Pepper. He is an amazing former head of the Ohio state party. He has really laid out why state legislatures matter so much and what has been going on in them for a very long time. So I’m really loving that book and recommending it. He’s doing some amazing organizing around it as well.

And I’m also going to recommend a podcast called PoliticsGirl, because, yeah, she’s wonderful. She talks about politics in very tangible terms. And she always brings us so much hope. Her drumbeat is hope and action. I think we can all use a little bit of that right now.

Virginia

Oh, man, we really can. Those are great recommendations. My listeners are often much smarter than me, but I have definitely approached this whole conversation with an awareness of how much learning I have to do about these issues. I think that is a common experience for a lot of us who have been just doing the panic giving and the raging. So, if you’re listening and you’re new to this, we are all learning together, and I really appreciate these recommendations to help with the learning.

My recommendation is going to be totally off topic as they very often are. My recommendation is, if you have an injury, you should go to physical therapy and actually do your exercises. Because as loyal listeners know, in the last month I both threw out my back and sprained my ankle. It was a real good January. And I am now going to physical therapy twice a week. It’s kind of amazing how well it’s working. I was feeling very much like, well I’m over 40 now and this is my life. My body just hurts all the time. The thing about physical therapy exercises is they’re super boring and unglamorous. It’s not a workout where you’re like, “Wow, I crushed that. That was an amazing experience.”

Melissa

Oh my gosh, I feel like this is a metaphor for state legislature.

Virginia

It kind of is! Okay, we’re really in sync, even though I didn’t intend it. It’s very boring, like I’m gonna move my ankle 20 times to the left, and then 20 times to the right.

Melissa

But then what do you have? You have a working ankle! Amazing! Big changes!

Virginia

The foundation of my body’s democracy!

Obviously, physical therapy is not accessible to everyone due to all of the problems with our healthcare system. But I just want to say if you’re struggling with any kind of injury and not dealing with it, as I did not deal with my back pain for about three years, it turns out that actually dealing with these things is a good thing to do. So that’s my little tip for the week. 

Melissa, thank you so much for being here. This was a great conversation, and I’m really excited about where we’re going to go with this. Tell our listeners how they can learn more about The States Project and your work.

Melissa

Absolutely. So if you go to The States Project you’ll be able to read more about what we do, look at our target states, dig in and see the balance of power in each State Chamber and go as deep as you want. So we’ll be there.

Virginia

Awesome. And again, here is the link for the Burnt Toast Giving Circle. So click that right now and make your donation. 

Thank you so much for listening to Burnt Toast!

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.

Sample Email

Feel free to copy and paste this, or make it your own!

Hi friends!

Wow, so things are terrible right now. Texas is investigating the parents of trans kids. States are shutting down abortion access all around us. Voter’s rights are decimated in too many states. Ukraine. And, although this year is not a presidential election, it’s never too soon to start worrying about what will happen in 2024. Our democracy is on a precipice right now, in so many ways.

I’ve been trying to figure out what I can possibly do and one path to a better democracy, and a better world, has become clear: We need Blue majorities in as many state legislatures as possible. Abortion rights, trans rights, healthcare access, voters’ rights and so many other issues are decided by state governments—and in ways that then determine who makes decisions at the federal level.

I’ve decided to raise $1000 for the Burnt Toast Giving Circle, which will be working to flip a state legislature in November. Small dollars and early money make all the difference in these races, which are usually incredibly tight and won on the margins. But that also means we have a chance to make a huge impact. I just need 100 of you to give $10, or 40 of you to give $25, or 25 of you to give $40 and we’re there.

To learn more about the importance of state legislatures, and the power of giving circles, here’s a podcast episode from Burnt Toast creator Virginia Sole-Smith in conversation with Melissa Walker, head of Giving Circles for the States Project.

I hope you’ll join us!

PS. Any questions? I’m keeping comments open to everyone this week, so if you have questions or suggestions on how we can make our Giving Circle as successful as possible, post them here and Melissa or I will weigh in! (I do this with some trepidation and will be moderating closely for toxicity, so be cool! We’re all working towards the greater good here.)

I think any time you’re wondering, “is it a diet?” And they have a bridal program? The answer is obviously yes.

We’re doing something a little different with this month’s bonus episode! I polled folks on Twitter and Insta about the diet trends that are bugging you most right now, so I could spend this episode deconstructing their marketing. And also just, um, reacting to the nonsense? My algorithm is a mess now, but that’s how committed I am to helping you sort the bullshit from the… other kinds of bullshit. We’ve got mysterious green powders, we’ve got Internet doctor scams, we’ve even got a gizmo you can breath into every day for a little dose of oxygenated judgment!

So enjoy this preview. And if you’d like to listen to the whole thing, you’ll need to be a Burnt Toast subscriber. It’s just $5 per month or $50 for the year.

Producing a weekly podcast and newsletter requires a significant investment of time and resources from several talented people, and paid subscriptions make all of our work possible. Subscriber support also makes it possible for me to keep most Burnt Toast content free and accessible to all, and to offer comp subscriptions to those who need them. (If that’s you, just email and let me know, no questions asked!)

In addition to getting these fun monthly bonus episodes (with transcripts!), you’ll also become a part of the Burnt Toast community with commenting privileges and full access to my Ask Virginia columns, and our awesomely helpful Friday Threads. You can read more about my decision to add paid subscriptions to the newsletter here.

Thanks for supporting independent, anti-diet journalism!

I think any time you’re wondering, “is it a diet?” And they have a bridal program? The answer is obviously yes.

Hello and welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. It’s time for your February bonus episode!

We’re doing something a little different this month, because I’ve realized that bonus episodes are a great chance to play around with some different formats and workshop ideas that may become regular episodes. So please tell me if you like this and think it’s genius or if you don’t ever want me to do this again.

One quick note: I am not going to link to any of the programs we discuss today because these are not companies that need your clicks. Corinne and I debated and decided that we would screenshot things because it may be helpful (or just more entertaining) to see what I see while you listen/read the transcript. But if seeing lots of diet marketing is not safe for you, this is def one to skip!

Today’s episode experiment is called: “Is it a diet? The answer is always yes.” I wanted to do this because I got a press release a few weeks ago with the subject line, “Don’t be triggered. The word cleanse is in here, but it’s not what you think.”

This was clearly a publicist who followed me enough to know that I would immediately delete a straightforward diet pitch. (Which is not most publicists, to be honest with you. They still send so many!) But she thought that she could get me to pay attention to her brand this way. Of course, it worked in the sense that I opened her email. But it was exactly what I thought. You were not allowed to eat sugar-containing fruit or any other sugar. Monk fruit was okay. So that feels accessible and realistic! It doesn’t matter if you’re saying it’s not about weight loss. When your cleanse involves that many restrictions, it’s obviously about weight loss. 

I hear this from you guys all the time, too: “My mother or my sister or my friend is talking about this new plan. Please explain! Is it a diet? Or is it okay?” As I wrote in January, it’s always a fucking diet. 

So I asked you on Twitter and Instagram for the diets people are hearing about most right now. And because I am not someone who actively participates in diet culture, these brands are actually all new to me. So I’m going to go on each of these websites and give you my hot take.

One other note: I’m not doing the diets that claim to analyze your microbiome through your poop samples, or to analyze your blood to tell you what to eat. Number one, we know those are diets because they advertise much more clearly that they are diets. Number two, they just require a little more digging and research to explain why they are selling bad science. Which I can do another time. But what I really want to do here is show you how to spot the bullshit when these ads come at you. Because once you kind of learn what you’re looking for, it jumps out pretty fast. 

Athletic Greens

Okay, I’m on their website. It says, “Welcome to the essentialist nutrition movement.” So that is a sentence that means nothing and yet sounds very exciting, I guess? There’s a lot of video of beautiful people drinking green juice and sweating and pouring their green powder in the water. Riding a bike in some beautiful location, lots of yoga, powder spilling everywhere. This does not sell me because that just looks messy. But that’s the first impression.

“Made from the highest quality ingredients, obsessively improved based on science.” Obviously, obviously. Right away, I’m seeing a bunch of things that sort of look like official certifications but mean nothing. “NSF certified sport,” “52 iterations and counting.” That just means they went through 52 recipes before they found when they wanted to sell. But the font and the way they formatted it makes it look like it’s some kind of official seal. Once you have tried your recipe 52 times you get a sticker!

Here’s the part that gives it all away: Their tagline is, you’re going to need a smaller cabinet. Because you don’t need food now? Because you have Athletic Greens? I don’t know, I’m not really looking to evolve beyond food.

And holy shit, you guys, a one time purchase is $99? Don’t tell me that’s $3 per serving! Come on, that’s garbage. Okay, so this is clearly nonsense. It is overpriced, overproduced. You’re buying green powder in a very expensive bag. Clean, comprehensive, essential… there’s a long list of everything that’s not in it. They haven’t actually told me yet what 75 ingredients that are in it. Oh, and then of course Tim Ferriss loves it. So, there you go. We don’t really need to say anything more about it.

Some people who are really into working out do like these for recovery or while they’re working out. Look, if these drinks taste good to you… why? Are you drinking other things? There are other things that taste better, I promise. But if they legitimately taste good to you or make you feel good, fine, have at it. If you are someone who has $99 to spend on powder, your life sounds like it’s going pretty well for you. But nothing about this is going to wildly improve your health. Nothing about this is going to guarantee sustained weight loss, other than the fact that they told you to get a smaller cabinet because you don’t need food now. So yeah, if you stop eating food, you’ll lose weight. But I think I probably don’t need to explain to this audience why that’s not a great plan.

Sakara

Okay, this is another powder-y one. Sakara sounds like a nice made up word that’s supposed to invoke some sort of spirituality or indigenous culture, but is probably not those things. I’m feeling white women, possibly Gwyneth-Paltrow-investor-type vibes here. These seem to be functional foods supplements. Okay, let’s pause on functional foods. All food is functional, in that you can eat it. What other function is there, to a food? Is it supposed to also do your taxes? They’re gonna say it’s like stuff about gut health. I mean, you just know, with a brand like this, gut health is coming. But really, the function of food is to be eaten, so if you can eat it, it is a functional food. If it is impossible to chew or swallow, then I guess it would be lacking in function. 

Lots of pictures of beautiful produce, very clean labeling, very high-end packaging. “Nutritionally designed, plant rich…” Nutritionally designed? This is just word salad. They’re selling me salad with word salad.

“Organic meals delivered to your door ready to eat.” That sounds like it’s going to be budget friendly and accessible, but let’s click to learn more. “Clean eating designed for results.” So here they’re not even pretending it’s not a diet. It says right away “Reduce bloat, shed excess weight,” and then all the bullshit stuff like, “boost energy, increase focus, improve skin clarity.” How do you even measure those things? I’m seeing a quote from Vogue. Good job Vogue, always on the right side of history.

This just looks like fancy small food. Small meals with lots of greens. So again, I’m not surprised if they achieve temporary weight loss because there’s significant caloric restriction happening. And I’m not even seeing pricing. They’re really burying the pricing here. It’s going to be expensive because this whole website is expensive. “Our meal delivery includes up to three meals a day,” so no pressure guys, if you’re eating fewer meals than that. Like if you’ve also got Athletic Greens and you’ve thrown out half your kitchen. Also: Detox tea for daily use and our potent complete probiotic. You knew it was gonna be about gut health. There we go. We found it.

So this is just a meal service diet. There are many of these. This is not a new model. Meal delivery programs have been around for decades. They change their packaging. They look fancy. This one has Goop-y vibes, so that’s clearly a big part of it. This is like white lady Instagram all over the place… and OH, it’s an MLM! Okay. Okay, I got there. I got to the Ambassador Page and here we are applying to become an ambassador.

Grow your income by earning commissions on new client referrals. No cap on Commissions. Share an exclusive discount towards Sakara meal programs and products to help others live the Sakara life. Chance to earn monthly product bonuses. Align yourself with a brand rooted in cutting edge nutrition science and healing wisdom.

So, either it’s a full-on MLM or it’s recruiting Instagram influencers to advertise for them and just be paid in commission as opposed to actually being paid for the value of their audience. Either way, we’re screwing women out of money and getting them to market a diet. So that’s neat. Feel good about this one.

Also, please note that they definitely have a level two detox in case that first meal that we talked about didn’t sound sad enough for you. And of course, there’s a bridal program. I think anytime you’re wondering, “Is it a diet?” And they have a bridal program? The answer is obviously yes. Anything marketing to brides is always around how can we make you as thin and white and blonde as possible. So, that’s Sakara. Athletic Greens feels more gender neutral. I would say probably more guys are going to get into that one. Sakara is definitely playing into white lady femininity bullshit. So there’s an extra ick factor for me. But they’re one and the same, I’d say. 

Second Nature

This just looks like a Noom knockoff. It’s an app. There are recipes. I think it’s a meal delivery service? No, it’s a recipe service. Okay, you don’t get the food, but for $60 a month you get a “tailored 12 week program with digital support, full access to our app and platform, and hundreds of exclusive recipes.” So it’s like Noom with a lot of recipes, I think.  

And there is this:

We don’t believe in strict, rigid diets that demand unrealistic lifestyle changes. There’s a good reason why many have cycled through different diets with varying degrees of success. If a new regime demands too much, there’s a greater chance the wheels will come off, and you’ll be right back where you started.

This is right out of the Noom playbook. There is a belief in the diet industry right now that if they get out in front of the whole “dieting is icky ” thing and say, “It’s not a diet. We also hate diets,” that you will accept that. It’s really patronizing.

I can see the menu for the day they’ve suggested is peanut butter, jam, and oats for breakfast; courgette boats (that zucchini for Americans) for lunch—so a zucchini with some cheese in it; and then butter chicken for dinner. I’m seeing no snacks. I’m seeing no sides. I’m seeing not enough calories to keep a toddler fed. Yeah, I’m gonna say it’s a diet. I think this is just European Noom. Except it’s obviously here in the US, too. 

Sunbasket

Sunbasket really tries not to be a diet. It’s marketed in the vein of Blue Apron, and certainly you hear about it on a lot of podcasts, in the same way that those other meal delivery kits are advertised. They’re also known for being very big on eco stuff, like compostable trays. I’m seeing “zero mess, zero cleanup” because the meal “arrives on a heat safe tray.” So you can get pre-made meals or you can get meal kits where you cook from the ingredients they send.

But when you’re on Sunbasket’s website, you get really quickly to: “Meal delivery for any diet. Choose a home meal delivery plan for your taste or mix and match with our any of our weekly recipes.” They cover paleo, vegetarian, “lean and clean,” gluten-free, carb conscious, Mediterranean, diabetes-friendly, and pescatarian. So, this is a gray area. Sunbasket is not a diet in that they’re not going to tell you how many calories a day to eat. But, they are marketing themselves as compatible with those diets. So their recipes have presumably been checked for calorie counts. I don’t love this. Even though I could just choose the “Chef’s Choice” option and not go for any of those diet options, it’s a big bummer that so many of the recipes are falling into those diet categories. They’re assuming that people are on these diets and they’re not challenging that concept at all.

This is not to hate on meal delivery kits. I think they make a lot of sense for a lot of folks. But I don’t feel good about giving this much money to a brand that’s happily diet-promoting in this way. I mean, there is no perfect brand. How can you really do good as a consumer under late stage capitalism? You can’t. But I don’t love it. I don’t feel great about it. I also think about not only what my dollars are supporting, but also: What is it going to do to me mentally when I click on to their website every week to see their recipes and encounter all this diet talk? That feels like it’s just going to be a bummer and mess with my head every week in a way. This would be a hard pass for me. But I will say it’s not quite the same. It’s definitely not not a diet. 

Calibrate

This one is interesting because it seems to be Noom plus medication. They are putting you on GLP-1s (Glucagon-like peptide-1s) and it says, “Calibrate doctors prescribe these medications.” So they have a doctor who can prescribe you a medication. So… who is the doctor? Are they seeing you in person? An Internet doctor feels weird, but okay. They’re prescribing either semaglutide or liraglutide, and what we know about these drugs is that they have been shown to achieve a small amount of weight loss. Calibrate is guaranteeing 10 percent weight loss in one year or your money back. We also know, these drugs have side effects. I will link in the transcript to some really good reporting that Mikey Marquisele has done on this. Ragen Chastain has also been keeping tabs on Novo Nordisk, one of the biggest manufacturers of these drugs, here and here. (Also, read Ragen on the myth of that 5-10% weight loss claim.) Mikey and I also did a podcast episode where we dug into this a lot. You can read those and catch up on the safety profile and the really questionable science that was done in order to get these drugs FDA-approved.

But the other thing about this is: Weight loss drugs only “work” if you are on them, which means you have to be on them for the rest of your life. That’s the deal with weight loss drugs. I am not a fan, both because I think asking people to stay on a drug for the rest of their life without a clear medical reason is extremely dubious, and because obviously I’m against intentional weight loss for all the reasons we always talk about here.

Calibrate combines the drug with video coaching and lifestyle tweaks. That’s the other piece of it: If these drugs really worked you wouldn’t also have to do all these “lifestyle tweaks.” That’s a nice way of making sure that if it doesn’t work, they can blame you. You must not have done those “lifestyle tweaks” hard enough. There’s no mystery about whether it’s a diet because right there on the homepage, it says, “Sustainable weight loss based on biology.” That’s what they’re in the business of doing here at Calibrate. There’s no mystery here but there is lot of marketing designed to make you think that because there are doctors behind this, because there’s scientific research behind this, that all of this is safe and reasonable and responsible to do.

I’m seeing very little discussion about side effects or complications or efficacy and safety. They’re also trying to lean into the fact that they accept insurance, you can use your FSA dollars for it. So that adds to their branding as medical weight loss, if you can get your insurance to pay for it or use your FSA money for it. It helps offset how much it costs, which is a lot! A “one year metabolic reset” is $135 a month. I mean, I guess you’re getting pills and for $99 you only get green powder from athletic greens. But that’s not sounding like a bargain. Or you can pay $250 just once to have a video appointment with your Calibrate doctor and learn more about what the one year program would look like. Which sounds to me like you’re paying $250 to have someone advertise to you. That’s really gross. Okay, I’m grouchy about this one. This one just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

Lumen

The first thing I see here: “Lumen users share how they hacked their metabolisms. 1 million breaths around the world.” You do wonder if they listen to the words that they put on these websites. Does anyone read them out loud before they hit publish? Okay, so Lumen is a metabolism-monitoring device. Or an app? It must be a device because you have to breathe into something.

The next thing I’m seeing is a quote from “Bernadette” who “lost 15 pounds and broke through her plateau.” She says, “It’s crazy. I use it like I use a scale. I’ve come to rely on it every day. Lumen has transformed my life.” Bernadette, I want better for you. Even though I’m pretty sure you’re just an actress paid to be in this video. I don’t think anyone should be weighing themselves every day. I think adding another device to your life that you have to use every day to monitor your weight sounds really crazy-making.

“The accountability of having my Lumen coach has helped me stay focused. My performance at the gym keeps improving.” That’s from “Anthony.” This is another one that’s gender neutral—they have a lot of men talking about it. And they’re really focusing on athletic performance. And: Every person on this website is thin. I’m not seeing any fat people. They’re all already thin, and yet they’re talking about losing twelve pounds, fifteen pounds. So that’s a thing. The focus is on hacking your metabolism, losing body fat, breaking through plateaus, getting overall stronger and leaner, decreasing your running time. So, it’s a lot more about athletic performance, but it’s obviously still a diet.

It’s a diet only for skinny people, which is weird. If I were a fat person seeking weight loss, this brand wouldn’t even feel accessible to me. I mean, I don’t want people seeking weight loss, but it’s really leaning into this idea that you are super fit. There’s strong Peloton vibes here. You’re doing this to take it to the next level. Maybe we don’t have to go to all these levels, guys. Maybe you can just be a person in the world who doesn’t hack your metabolism and your performance is just fine. That is true no matter what body size you’re in.

I can guarantee you everyone using Lumen is also buying Athletic Greens. I feel like I just brought it full circle there with this little tour through what diet culture is doing right now.

Well, I think I need a shower. RIP my algorithm. My ads are gonna be bonkers after this. And I’m going to have to leave you with that.

Should we do this more? Shall we riff on more shitty diets? Send me ones you want me to look into! Post them in the comments and let me know and I’ll keep a list and we can do this again sometime. 

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Thank you so much for listening to Burnt Toast!

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.

Teens have the ability to know how much they need to eat. And when we interfere with that, as parents, we start to break down their natural ability. When we model that we trust our children to listen to their bodies, that they are in charge of their bodies, it also models consent.

Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast where we talk about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health.

Today I’m chatting with Signe Darpinian who is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, certified eating disorder specialist, and host of Therapy Rocks, a personal growth podcast. She is also the co-author of No Weigh!: A Teen's Guide to Positive Body Image, Food, and Emotional Wisdom and the new book Raising Body Positive Teens: A Parent’s Guide to Diet-free Living, Exercise, and Body Image. I’m really thrilled to have Signe on the podcast because she is someone who can answer all your questions about intuitive eating and anti-diet life with teenagers.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And subscribe to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and more.

ICYMI! I joined Signe on her podcast last week. We focused on how to talk about fatness and fatphobia with teenagers; listen here.

Virginia

I am such a fan of your work, and especially the new book. Can you tell our listeners a little more about yourself and your work?

Signe

I’ve been treating eating disorders now for over 20 years. And I actually had the good fortune of being exposed to non-diet and weight-inclusive approaches right in the beginning, when I was really green. It’s something that I was very lit up about right from the beginning. 

It’s been interesting in 20+ years to see the different trends. Like you talked about in your book, The Eating Instinct, to see the trends of diet culture, which were more straightforward in the beginning, like Jenny Craig, to today’s wellness culture.

A couple other things about me: I started a podcast right in the beginning of the pandemic. And I’m what some people call a single mother by circumstance, a little bit different than a single mom by choice. It was a happy accident! It can be interesting being a single parent and doing this food piece. My lived experience is more like, well, we’re going to do it this way. That’s not always a parallel to what other people experience — doing food when partners feel differently about diet culture can be tough.

I have a 12-year-old daughter and this book was a much bigger project. My daughter threatened to stab the book in the heart when it comes out.

Virginia

Is that because of the time it took or because she disagrees with the content?

Signe

She doesn’t really know the content. It’s a funny question because the teen book is actually just perfect for her. Age 12 would be a great starting age. She has it on her bookshelf and I asked her if she would consider reading it. She’s like, “Only if you pay me.” I’m like, “Are we talking about twenty bucks?” She’s like, “More like one hundred.” I’m like, “Forget it.” So no, it’s not the content because I don’t think she’ll ever know. She has no interest. It’s more like, you know how it is with writing. It took a lot of time. It was a much bigger project and those last few weeks are pretty daunting. It’s a lot of hard work—and really fun! But she was ready for it to be done, which I understand.

Virginia

My eight-year-old often asks, “Oh, are you still writing that book?” And there’s a little tone there! A little judgment. She’s like, “How many chapters are you trying to do?”

Signe

Virginia, what about your recent post about your eight-year-old never wanting to be a writer unless she had to for the money?

Virginia

I was like, “Oh, how do I explain to you that if you have to do things for the money, this is not the thing?”

Signe

I’ve definitely got a reluctant reader over here.

Virginia

Mine’s a reader, but she does not like writing. She feels sorry for me with this career choice.

Okay, so the big reason I wanted to have you on is because I get lots of questions from parents of teenagers. I really relate to the sense of panic I get in these emails where parents say, “I’m just now discovering concepts like intuitive eating or diet culture or fatphobia.” Maybe during their kids’ earlier childhood they were more controlling around food or they were on diets themselves. And they’re just feeling like, well, now, what do I do? My kid is 14 or 16 or 20, and this is a shift we want to make. But is it too late?

Signe

The short answer is: It’s never too late. We’re not modeling perfectionism, as parents. We’re modeling humanity. I don’t know about you, Virginia, but I try to do my best in modeling good mistake-making. I’m really taking ownership for my part in things more than I’m trying to model being perfect. Well, because I couldn’t anyway. I’ve tried that it doesn’t work. 

We are all immersed in diet culture and it’s really, really sneaky. There’s so much morality around food. Parents are in the same culture. Just thinking about their evolution, the evolution of their body image, and the messaging they received when they were young. What was going on at their table with food? What was happening with body image? And the conditioning that they come with. 

So on one hand, I think parents hold a lot of power. Our hope in writing the parent book is that we can give parents a point of reference for what a friendship with food might look like or a friendship with body might look like. Because we’ve really lost our way as a culture. We hope for them to become awake and aware about when did they become disembodied? When did they become disconnected from their own body? Thinking about ways that they might like to be different as it relates to food and body image, so that they can extend it outward. 

I have friends, for example, that by now know about body positivity and intuitive eating. They know the right things to say, but there’s an incongruency with what they’re saying and what they’re doing themselves. Our kids and our teens, they can sniff out those incongruencies. So we can think about the ways that we would like to be different and think of it in terms of a process, not a finished product. I think that’s a great starting place for parents.

Virginia

What you’re really modeling is recognizing mistakes and learning from mistakes. Because kids know we’re making mistakes all the time. They’re not fooled. For us to own that and say, “Yeah, I’ve been getting this wrong, and I’m trying to do it differently.” That feels so powerful. I would imagine kids would appreciate it, even if they don’t say, “Oh, thanks, Mom, I really appreciate that.”

What does this shift look like if you’re starting this with older kids? Concepts like Division of Responsibility can be so helpful when you’re developing this with younger kids but the guidance gets a little hazier as kids get older. They are more adept at preparing their own food, they’re out in the world more. They can take more responsibility in some senses. Parents often don’t know how and when to really hand over that responsibility.

Signe

The Division of Responsibility, the way that I understand it, is the parent is in charge of the when to eat and the what to eat. I like to put a lot of emphasis on being very mindful about the what to eat not being only “healthy” food. It can be problematic when somebody is in charge of the what to eat and they are immersed in their own diet culture. That could go really badly. Then of course, the child or the teen is in charge of the how much.

I want to make one disclaimer about Division of Responsibility. In my caseload, by the time people come to me, there is already a very serious problem. There is already a clinical eating disorder. The thing that I’m hearing most often from parents, when there’s already a clinical eating disorder, is “I just thought they were trying to eat healthier and exercise more.” That’s the way this looks right now. I’m on the frontlines in this work. If my daughter came to me and said she wanted to eat healthier, I would respond to it in the same way as if she told me she wanted to start smoking cigarettes.

Virginia

So it’s a big red flag.

Signe

“Eating healthier” is a big red flag. And just don’t want to do any false advertising around Division of Responsibility.

Virginia

It doesn’t work for people in the acute stages of an eating disorder. That’s not where you start when you’re in treatment. 

Signe

Exactly. Division of Responsibility is going to really look very different with my 12-year-old than it is with somebody else’s. At one end of the continuum, we have households that may have been modeling externally imposed restriction. Externally imposed restriction might look like a parent micromanaging a teen or a child’s food and feeding them in a way that really has to do with their concern about their weight. On the other end, you might have a household that almost looks too loose. That’s actually the the household that I had, up until my daughter was in kindergarten or first grade. I was so aware of attuned ways of eating and how important a more connected way of eating is that I actually wasn’t providing enough structure for my particular child. That doesn’t mean that other children couldn’t do just fine with a very loose household with food. In my own circumstance, my daughter was needing more structure and guidance around food the same way she needed a bedtime. 

With teenagers, I think parents can still incorporate a lot of the Division of Responsibility paradigm. Making sure that the foods are there. One of the guidelines that we use in our book is making foods equal. Not only equal in morality, but equal in availability. Equal in availability might look like if the refrigerator was full of foods that sort of matched an “all foods fit” paradigm, not just the ones deemed “healthy.” Foods are there and equally easy to grab. Maybe there’s cubed up fruit and there’s cheese sticks and there’s fun size candy. They’re equally easy to grab. We can then grab the food that our bodies are actually calling for versus what’s easiest. I also want to make the disclaimer that we don’t always have the time to do the preliminary work to make foods equally easy to grab, equal in availability. So I just want to name that sometimes we will, sometimes we won’t. No big. 

One of the things that really resonates with me is not micromanaging what they’re up to with their food during the day. They’re clearly going to have a lot more autonomy with food. Some of them are driving now. They have their own money. They’re going to friends’ houses. So you would never assess or take an inventory of what was eaten that day and base your dinner decision or dessert decision on what they had during the day.

Virginia

That’s their opportunity to be practicing these skills. It’s not on you to say that if they had ice cream after school, then they can’t have cookies with dinner.

Signe

Exactly. If I asked my daughter, “What did you guys have for snack today?” Like, if I know somebody brought something in. If my intention is to see if she had sweets and that will determine if we have dessert tonight, then I’m not going to say anything. But if my intention is just genuinely, I’m curious, then I might ask.

With teenagers there’s another component that comes in and this piece would really come more from my co-author Wendy Sterling, the dietitian. She says the teenage years are also a really nice time to start introducing some basic food prep skills. Maybe they’re in charge of one recipe for dinner or maybe they’re putting together their own lunch. You’re making the food available and accessible, but they’re in charge of some of those chores that are related to food prep or cleanup as it relates to a meal.

One other thing I want to bring in around that, and this comes from a podcast I did with somebody who’s an expert on adulting, Julie Lythcott-Haims. She was talking about how when we grew up we didn’t experience a culture of busy-ness in quite the same way that we’re seeing today. Sometimes, these meal prep chores, we’re not having our kids do them, because they’re too busy. Everybody is too busy. I can empty the dishwasher quicker than they can, I can set the table quicker than they can, so I might as well just do it for them. So I just wanted to bring in how the culture of busyness may show up in what we’re talking about, as well.

Virginia

I think that applies for parents of all ages. I even think about that now with my eight-year-old, she could be clearing the table more. We do have them clear their own plates, but we were just having a conversation about starting to build in small opportunities for these skills. Because I want a 16-year-old who can make her own lunch! I don’t want to be packing lunches when they’re 16.

Signe

Before before I did that interview, I don’t know that I was as aware of it, you know? My 12-year-old is like, “Can you get me some water?” I’m like, “Hey, you’re as tall as I am. Go get it yourself!” Right now I’m noticing how often I’m like there’s no time for her to empty the dishwasher. I’m just going to do it.

Julie Lythcott-Haims, who was a Stanford Dean for several years, noticed a trend that a lot of these kids that are entering school nowadays, it looks like somebody has been cutting their meat for too long. Way too long.

One other skill, as far as parents thinking about first steps that they might take in getting more attuned and connected to their body’s wisdom, is the hunger meter. We have a pretty basic hunger meter, which is one to ten. At the higher end is fullness. So, say six to ten, those are the fullness gradations of the hunger meter. At the lower end, the one would be famished, starving. A three would be the first sign of appetite, whatever that feels like for a particular person. When somebody is going from eating with a diet mentality or eating “from the chin up,” which means reducing their food choices to nutrients only and what I “should” and “shouldn’t” eat. When you go from years of eating from the chin up in a very disconnected, disembodied way and you’re going to start trying to eat from your body’s cues, the hunger meter can be a nice tool. Some people aren’t calibrated enough to start eating intuitively and so they might need to do mechanical eating. A simplified definition of mechanical eating might be eating by the clock on the wall. It may require some calibration first.

Virginia

That’s for folks who maybe in the past have been skipping meals or eating really erratically, so this is to make sure you are eating during the day and not skipping and ending up over-hungry.

Signe

Thinking about getting recalibrated, doing some mechanical eating, ultimately that might give you some access to your body’s cues. And then the hunger meter as a tool may come in handy. 

We get told a lot that that’s probably one of the most helpful tools, and we have a chapter on the different gradations. Here’s what it would look like once you’re recalibrated. Maybe you just ate lunch at noon and it’s two o’clock and you’re feeling a pull toward food. Okay, so just trying to identify where you might be on, on the hunger meter. Maybe you’re at a five and you’re neutral. You’re not hungry and you’re not full, but you’re feeling that pull toward food. The hunger meter is meant to really just be used as a tool that you’re checking in and deciding from the inside. Becoming awake and aware about where you are. It’s all about choice. The target behavior here is really about creating a little bit of space between you and the food and just assessing where you are. oh, I’m at a five, I’m neutral. I’m not hungry, I’m not full. Just to be awake and aware of what’s going on for you—and then what you do after that is up to you. That’s your choice. The intervention or the target isn’t so much what you end up doing with the food—maybe you eat it, maybe you don’t, who cares? The intervention is just becoming awake and aware so you have more choice around your food.

Virginia

That’s a helpful distinction, because I do think there’s a risk of using hunger meters and feeling like, Well, I’m not hungry enough. There’s definitely a way to turn it into a diet,

Signe

You can turn it into a diet in a nanosecond. It’s just creating that space between you and the food. 

Virginia

Another thing you have in the book that I really love is the chapter on boundaries. I loved one you just highlighted, setting a boundary of not policing what your kid eats out of the house. What else do parents of teenagers need to understand about boundaries? What kind of boundaries should we be trying to respect when kids set them around food and body?

Signe

One of my favorite excerpts around boundaries and food is from the chapter co-written with Anna Lutz, RD. [You can also hear Anna on Burnt Toast here!]

Anna says: “Teens have the ability to know how much they need to eat. And when we interfere with that, as parents, we start to break down their natural ability. When we model that we trust our children to listen to their bodies, that they are in charge of their bodies, it also models consent.” So I think this really illuminates the importance of not interfering with children’s or teen’s stopping place. You are really helping them strengthen the muscle of listening to their instinct and honoring it. We might be talking about food right now, but in allowing them to do that with their food and not saying like, “you’re not going to get up from the table until you eat your broccoli,” or “you can’t have your dessert until you do this,” or “you’re not going to have another piece of pizza,” or whatever it is.

Virginia

That’s such a powerful moment, for parents to realize that the concepts that we’re working out around the dinner table is going to translate into how your kids trust their bodies in so many different settings. And that’s all we want, right? We want our kids to listen to their bodies first and foremost, in dating, all of a that.

Signe

That’s my favorite boundary as it relates to food. In the body boundaries chapter, we did this effective communication model, we call it ad libs for effective communication. It’s an effective communication model that I see in a lot of places, it’s pretty well documented. 

When you have a body boundary to not let other people comment on your body, whether it’s positive or negative, letting them know where you stand. Like, “Hey, it’s not okay when you comment on my body without my consent.” So you stick with the facts, then you grab in one or two feeling words: “I feel angry.” And then the because. Because is what it is about them commenting on your body that makes you feel this way. “Because it gives me the impression that you’re scrutinizing my body.” So it’s a really simple formula and of course, you want to make it yours. You don’t want to sound like a therapy session. 

The person may come in and say, “Well, gosh, I just thought you looked great and I thought I would just tell you. It looks like you’ve lost weight.” The best way to win the game is to not play. So you just say, “That maybe be your perspective, but I wanted to let you know how those comments affect me.” Sometimes it helps to practice in your journal or with a therapist or to a friend that you’ve really felt safe with. Sometimes it’s helpful to just write out what you would have liked to have said that you didn’t feel comfortable saying, as you’re practicing and getting ready to do boundaries.

Something I think we leave out when we talk about boundaries is they’re really hard. Especially if somebody has been taught to not make waves in their family of origin or if somebody’s temperament is conflict avoidant, it’s not very comfortable. I think it’s important, when we’re talking about boundaries, instead of just saying, “Oh, be sure to have a boundary and don’t let anybody comment on your body,” to also bring in this preparation. We need to tell people: When you do have these boundaries for the first time, it may feel really bad. I mean, really, really bad. In the chapter, I talked about my own experience, where I would feel so awful in practicing boundaries for the first time, like I robbed a bank or something. It might feels bad in that situation, not because your boundary is wrong, but because you’re breaking a pattern. 

Virginia

I appreciate the script you’ve given us because I think the other person’s reaction is often what makes it feel so dangerous. You can’t control whether or not the boundary will be respected or how they’ll respond. So that follow up of, “That may be your perspective, but I wanted you to know how these comments affect me,” is so helpful, because that gives you a way to get out of that.

Signe

You’re right, you’re right. Because it of course it depends on who you’re giving the boundary to. If it’s a person that feels really safe and you have an egalitarian relationship with, then then they’re going to hear it and be very receptive. That’s going to be different from delivering a boundary from somebody who is out of balance. When you give a boundary to some people, they’re not going to be happy and that’s okay. It’s important for us to really get comfortable with tolerating somebody not being okay with us.

Virginia

And not feeling like it’s our job to fix them not being happy about the boundary we needed to set. 

Signe

Yeah, you can say it in the most eloquent way, and some people may still not be happy and that’s alright.

Virginia

The last thing I wanted to talk to you about was your social media chapter. This is a major route that teenagers are being exposed to diet culture. Talk a little bit about how you advise parents to engage with kids on this. How do we talk about the negative food and body messages that kids are encountering online while holding that kids want to be on social media and that there’s a real need for it. 

Signe

One thing that I learned while writing this book comes from dialoguing with Sara Pipher Gilliam about social media. In preparing for the 25th Anniversary of Reviving Ophelia, they did 18 months of focus groups with adolescent girls and their parents. What was interesting is that every single one of those teenagers were told up front when they first got their devices, “We are going to be checking in on your social media on a regular basis. Whatever you put out there in a text or group chat, it’s for the whole world to see. I am going to be looking at it regularly.” And almost every single one of the parents never did follow up on that.

This is something I’m dealing with regularly with with my particular caseload, but also with my 12-year-old. We have really good intentions and we know that the technology genie is out of the bottle and not going back in. We want to check their social media on a regular basis. But it’s mind numbing. It’s not fun. We want to be sitting down every few days or weekly and scrolling through and having them give us a tour of their TikTok or what they’re seeing and talk to them about it. But it’s just not very fun and we don’t want to do it. There’s a little bit of avoidance.

Virginia

I already feel that way hearing my eight-year-old talk about Animal Crossing, so I can’t even imagine how I’ll feel when it’s TikTok.

Signe

Yeah, it’s super boring. So let’s just say that out loud. In that chapter, we did use one of Sara’s interventions that she calls peer-to-peer peer agreements. I think we need to have parent-to-parent agreements, where we’re checking in with each other. Did you check your kid’s TikTok this week?

The peer-to-peer agreements are really powerful, more so than what they might hear from a teacher or from a parent. It’s not uncommon for me to have a teenager in my caseload totally distraught because her friend was mad at her for not being on call at 2AM because she had a breakup. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes with social media, a lot of expectations. So maybe one of the agreement is we’re putting our phones away at 10PM, depending on the age. So that people know ahead of time and they don’t have unrealistic expectations for accessibility to each other. The other thing is, I’ve seen parents who are checking social media too often. It feels a little like dimming the kid’s light. It’s really different for everybody, but we need to be finding something that’s that sort of in the middle of being too strict or too loose with social media.

Virginia

You’ve talked about needing to respect to what kids are getting out of it, too. There’s the social piece and the creative expression that comes with social media.

Signe

I did an interview with a colleague and good friend of mine who is a registered Art Therapist. She talks a lot about how we really see our kids trying to express themselves creatively through social media, through music and dance. They’re looking for art, as well as creating it themselves. On one hand, that can be okay. On the other hand, we know that not all the images that they’re seeing are positive. What she says so eloquently is that social media is not meant to take to take the place of going to see art in real time or doing our own art.

Over this last holiday, my mom was in town and she really had to push us out the door to go to the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. I didn’t really want to go, like the parking, you know. We ended up getting there and I’m so glad. We brought my daughter and one of the times we brought her friends, too. They didn’t love everything, but it’s good for them to get exposed to art in different ways than on an online platform.

Virginia

In a museum, there is still an audience for the art, but it’s a much different audience than when you’re only putting things on social media and thinking of art as something you make for the whole internet. It’s really powerful for kids to realize that art is something they can do just for themselves.

I think that’s really helpful for parents who are trying to appreciate what kids are getting out of it. But also figuring out the self regulation piece and kind of helping them learn those tools. It’s a messy thing we have to keep muddling through.

Signe

And making sure that there’s plenty of time where we allow our kids to be bored, and not sort of swoop in and rescue them from the boredom. Having art supplies available and accessible would be great. I do want to mention, the ability to have art supplies, and to go see art, depending on where you are, can be a privilege. Nowadays, places like the dollar store have a lot better art supplies than they did 10 years ago. So there are ways to get it cheaper than you used to be able to, so that’s cool. I like the idea of making sure they have a fair amount of time just hanging out in their boredom and learning to tolerate it and giving them an opportunity to come up with their own creative and imaginative expression through their own art.

Signe

Something that I’ve been up to lately that I used to do in my 20s and 30s and I rediscovered it recently is collaging. What’s really cool about collaging is that I don’t have art skills. I don’t know how to draw, I don’t necessarily know how to paint. So collaging can be one of the least daunting forms of creative expression. What I like about it, too, is that you can use the catalogs that come in the mail to just kind of spend time cutting out images that inspire you, which can be really meditative. My colleague calls it visual journaling. It’s kind of cool because it can give your journaling a three dimensional quality.

For teens that maybe don’t want to be writing in their journal because they’re afraid a parent might see it, journaling through art or visuals can be a way to express and get your dark thoughts out on paper so that they’re not staying private. Only you really know what the symbols and the metaphors mean in the art. So it’s something that I’ve been doing myself and I’ve also been doing with clients. It’s been really helpful. I have a couple of clients that I’m doing that with right now that struggle with unhealthy perfectionism. So just spending time cutting out images and doing collage in a way that you can’t really get it wrong teaches is a nice mindfulness practice. It helps them pace themselves.

And lately, I’ve been making collage cards. Cards are pretty expensive, at least the ones that I really like. You can personalize a collage card for a birthday card and make it uniquely for somebody that you’re close to. It’s just a fun way to share your art.

Virginia

I mean, I’m obsessed. I want to start collaging immediately. It sounds like a great thing to do with teenagers with younger kids. It’s something I also did for a while and sort of dropped. And now as you’re talking about it, I’m like, where did that go? I need to bring collaging back. That’s a wonderful idea.

Signe

It’s a really fun thing to just get totally lost in.

Virginia

Well, my Butter this week is a movie recommendation. It’s not a new movie, so probably most people have seen it. I think it came out one of the years I had a baby because the year you have a child, you’re kind of culturally illiterate. It’s Inside Out and I had a feeling you would be a fan, Signe. We just watched it with our kids a few weeks ago. It was so funny because our four-year-old was really resistant. She had a lot of feelings before we started, but then she was just mesmerized. I think she has watched eight times since then. I mean, we were all stuck in the house with COVID for two weeks. It’s been so cool because she is really using the tools from it.

So for people who don’t know, the premise of inside out is that it’s this 11-year-old girl Riley, who’s going through some big life stuff. And the movie is narrated by the emotions in her head. So you see the sadness and joy and anger, and disgust and fear constantly narrating what’s happening to Riley and what’s happening within her head. Now when my four-year-old gets mad, she goes, “Oh, angry guy, you’re being so loud in my head right now.” It’s amazing because she’s labeling the emotions and it takes her down a notch. She’ll scream and be frustrated and then we can talk about what the angry guy is so angry about. So yeah, if you’re looking for a way to talk about feelings with kids in a super accessible way, it’s such a beautiful movie.

Signe

It is so well done. My co-author, Shelley Aggarwal, MD, she’s an adolescent medicine doctor. We were just talking about Inside Out because in our friendship with body image chapter, we have this section on how it’s really normal for adolescents to over-identify with their peer groups. She was talking about how perfect the movie is to explain and show over-identification with a peer group. Diversifying our interests is a really great way to protect ourselves from body image dissatisfaction or eating issues. I’ve been talking about watching it with my daughter again.

Virginia

I can see it being something we come back to throughout the years. You’ll get different things out of it. Right now the four-year-old loves angry guy,- and she loves the imaginary friend Bing Bong, because she has many imaginary friends. My eight-year-old is a little more close to the vest with feelings and she, I think, felt very seen by the movie. Like, oh, other people have all these big feelings inside them. That was so wonderful to see.

Signe

It’s just a brilliant movie. That’s going to be our movie this week.

Virginia

Good to hear. Well, Signe, tell listeners where they can find more of you.

Signe

So the pre-order link for Raising Body Positive Teens: A Parent’s Guide to Diet-free Living, Exercise, and Body Image is now available. My website has a books tab and both books are there.

Virginia

Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it,

Thanks so much for listening to Burnt Toast. Once again. If you’d like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and tell a friend about this episode and consider a paid subscription to Burnt Toast. You get a ton of cool perks including next week’s bonus episode and you will keep this an ad- and sponsor-free space.

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The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.

I have only recently put my foot down and said, “No, I deserve to be here and I will be here and I’m staying here,” and I’ve been in the industry almost 10 years. It’s taken a really long time to not only convince people that I have the talent and the staying power, but also convince myself.

Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast where we talk about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. Today I am chatting with Kyeshia Jaume, a senior apparel designer for Forever21. She’s also one of the only working designers at a major corporate fashion label, who both makes plus size clothes and lives in a larger body. Regular newsletter readers will know Kyeshia from Jeans Science. She’s working hard to change things in fashion from the inside. Her story is really important and I’m so excited to share this conversation with you.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And subscribe to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and more.

Also! I had a great chat with Signe Darpinian, host of the Therapy Rocks! Podcast on Monday. We focused on how to talk about fatness and fatphobia with teenagers; listen here.

Virginia

Hi, Kyeshia. Thank you for being here. 

Kyeshia

Hi, Virginia. I’m so excited to be joining you.

Virginia

Tell us how you got into fashion design. What called you to this work?

Kyeshia

Up until maybe 11th grade, I wanted to go to music school to pursue music. I just wanted to be a singer and I loved music. But I took a fashion merchandising class my senior year of high school and just fell in love with it. And I was like, I could do this. I could be in the fashion industry. I feel like I could really influence and impact it in some way. My fashion merchandising teacher was amazing, really encouraging, really excited about hearing that I wanted to be in the industry. And I remember she said something specific to me: “We need more people like you in the industry.” 

Virginia

Were you interested in clothes as a kid? Like always playing dress-up, that kind of thing?

Kyeshia

Yeah, I was. My mom is a very fashionable person. She always made sure that we had really fashionable things to wear. And she was always very strong about individuality and really making sure that we stay true to ourselves and not follow trends that other people were doing. It’s so interesting, too, being a child who loves fashion, but also a child who couldn’t wear the fashion. Because I remember only being able to shop at like, Dillards and JC Penney. I couldn’t go into Limited Too. We would get Delia’s catalogs and I remember just flipping through and circling things I wished that I could wear. Back then that’s how you shopped.

Virginia

The Delia’s catalog was formative to my existence. Remember the belts with the seatbelt buckles? Which, now that I think about it, is many layers of problems. We know airplanes are not a size inclusive space, but I didn’t really think about it as an eighth grader. I just wanted that belt so badly. 

Kyeshia

I wanted to be a Delia’s girl! I wanted to wear the denim. I wanted to wear the fun prints. Even like the house section, the bedding. I was all about it. Also I was a Nylon girl. I remember just dreaming and wishing that could be me. I wished I could have that stuff for myself and just being really sad that I couldn’t.

Virginia

Especially back then, those were not brands that were remotely size inclusive—or really any kind of inclusive. You were seeing the same skinny white girl over and over again in that Delia’s catalog. The low rise jeans and all that visible torso really, really did a number on our generation. And fashion, historically and currently, is a very thin, white industry. So how has that been for you, as a plus size woman and a woman of color getting into those rooms?

Kyeshia

I was born and raised in Utah. Utah’s like a bubble. You don’t understand anything outside of what your world is inside this very cookie cutter picture. Not only that, but I was a biracial brown girl who was not Mormon being raised in the middle of Utah. Religion is a very big part of the community in Utah, especially where I was living. The county that we lived in everybody calls “Happy Valley.”

Virginia

It’s an evocative name.

Kyeshia

So I don’t think that I was fully aware of my diversity and how different I was from other people. I lived in my own little world. I moved to LA after university, to pursue fashion. I went to FIDM. I was aware of how different the world is outside of Utah, but not fully aware of how I would be treated differently, not only for the color of my skin, but also being a fat, brown woman in the industry.

Going through fashion school, I think a lot of my peers underestimated me. I didn’t understand how hard it was going to be to get in the industry. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to advocate for myself and to really say, “I deserve a seat at this table.” I have only recently put my foot down and said, “No, I deserve to be here and I will be here and I’m staying here,” and I’ve been in the industry almost 10 years. It’s taken a really long time to not only convince people that I have the talent and the staying power, but also convince myself. 

The fashion industry is such a girls club and a popularity contest. No matter what company I’ve been at, that has been consistent. There’s always the cool girls. There’s always the people who have each other’s backs. Even if they’re not very good at their jobs, because they look the part and they play the part, they’ll keep the part.

Virginia

Do you feel like people have a preconceived notion of what the fashion girl needs to look like?

Kyeshia

Absolutely. Not only that, but my name is Kyeshia. Straight out of the gate, you’ve already got an idea about who I am, without even meeting me. You’re probably already overlooking my resume because my name is too hard to say and you’re probably assuming what race I am, without even diving deeper to see what kind of skill set I have. It was hard, for a long time, to constantly feel like every single day I was going to work I don’t belong here. But this is what I love to do. 

And once you enter corporate fashion, you’re also up against people who have such thin bodies. Their whole lives are about diet culture and being thin and fitting into clothes and fitting a certain beauty standard. Lunches are always talking about who’s dieting and the next diet you’re on. I was very concerned about why we always had to talk at the lunch table about what we’re eating and why we’re eating it.

Virginia

So exhausting. And it’s so boring.

Kyeshia

It’s so boring! Like, “Oh, Kyeshia. What did you bring for lunch today? Your food always looks so good. Oh, I just have a salad today. I’m so bummed about it.” When I’m eating leftover pasta for lunch. Like, it doesn’t matter. I’m feeding my body. The whole thing is uncomfortable. You start thinking well, I should just eat at my desk because I can’t handle another day of this diet talk and listening to people hating their bodies. Because if they hate their bodies, I can’t imagine what they think about mine.

Virginia

That narrative is so toxic. I remember when I worked in women’s magazines, my nightmare was office birthdays. Magnolia Bakery cupcakes were very big back then—they were the Sex and the City cupcakes. So someone would always order this tray of amazing cupcakes and then it was like cupcake chicken. Nobody could eat the cupcake. All these women would just stand around being like, “Oh, no, no! I couldn’t! Oh, I’ll just have like a little lick of the frosting.”

Kyeshia

The funniest thing is when you bring donuts into a design room. Everybody wants the donuts. You know everybody wants the donuts. But you know what we will do? We’ll take a knife and we’ll cut it into fourths and we’ll just eat little pieces. Everybody is going back and forth to the table to get a little bite of donut and it’s just like, take the freakin’ donut. Just eat the donut and be okay with it! But it’s weird, every company I’ve been to is like that.

Virginia

The irony, too, of food on photoshoots for fashion. These elaborate spreads for lunch?

Kyeshia

It’s such a waste.

There is also this feeling of, I have to constantly look like I’m busy because of the stigma of I’m fat, so I must be lazy. I’ve always heard I have no sense of urgency. I don’t know what that looks like. What does a sense of urgency look like? Running from place to place? For what? 

Virginia

You’re not putting out fires, you’re designing clothes.

Kyeshia

I’m answering the emails. I’m hitting my deadlines. I’m doing my job. So I don’t know what you mean by, “there’s no sense of urgency.” If I’ve completed my task, isn’t that urgency enough? 

Virginia

It sounds like a lot of very coded language.

Kyeshia

It feels that way. Because you don’t say that to other people who have been scrolling on their computer for days now, but the second you see me pick up my phone to answer a text message, I have a lack of urgency for my job.

Virginia

That’s a really toxic double standard.

Kyeshia

Yeah. And a super big microaggression. What do you mean when you say I have no sense of urgency?

Virginia

I would be interested to hear them try to explain it, even though it would not go well. They would only dig themselves deeper.

Kyeshia

I started out in handbag design, straight out of fashion school, because that was the only assistant designer job I could find. My second job was at an activewear company. So it was my first experience with women’s apparel and I had a lot to learn. I was maybe two weeks in and we were sprawled out on the floor, going over line sheets. I remember her saying to me, “Can I give you a little bit of feedback?” And I’m like, “sure, yeah, I welcome it.” Like, anything I can do to improve. She said, “I need you to hustle a little bit more.” And it completely spun me around. Because I was like, I’m trying. I just don’t know the processes yet. It was my first experience dealing with a sample room, with sample makers, and I wasn’t used to the process. So two weeks in, I’m brand new, and you’re telling me I need to hustle? Like, Okay. Loud and clear. And by the time I was three months, she still wasn’t satisfied with my performance and she handed me off to a different brand, which was fine. I think that there’s just a little bit of a disconnect in leadership if you’re not willing to teach.

Virginia

And also, not willing to, sort of understand that people’s contexts are different and results can be achieved in different ways. This isn’t assembly line work where everyone needs to do the same job in the exact same way.

Kyeshia

Yeah, and in order to get the results that you want, you have to be willing to teach. I think that that’s a huge part of a disconnect in the industry, nobody is willing to teach.

Virginia

Not willing to teach and also not willing to learn! Another way of saying you don’t hustle is to say you are careful and methodical. And isn’t that a useful skill? There’s a way there’s a way of reframing these concepts to understand that someone might be bringing real strength to the table. Not to get away from the fact that probably you were hustling just fine and that was just a coded way of talking about your body.

Well, it sounds like now you’re in a place where it’s not perfect, but you are able to accomplish more of what you set out to do, which is exciting to hear about. 

Kyeshia

Yes. So my career goal this whole time I’ve been in the fashion industry is to be a part of inclusive design. I would not be living my truth if I wasn’t able to produce things that I could actually wear. I work at Forever21 now. I am a senior designer on the plus team. We’re on this path to make an impact in the plus business. As you know, the plus business is a billion dollar industry and there are only a handful of companies who serve plus women. And we make up about 67% of the population, which is bananas. We’re underserving this community that makes up more than half the population.

So, I’m really excited about the future work of what we’re doing at Forever21. I think in order to prove ourselves and gain the trust of the community, we have a lot to work on. We have a lot of work to do for the Plus Forever21 customer. I think we have really disappointed her in the past. I think in the beginning, she was so excited that we were available to her at an affordable price point. But I think over time, we’ve just really disappointed her—and I can understand that because I was her. I still am her! I’m really, really excited about the direction that we’re heading in serving the Forever21 Plus girl. It’s going to take a little bit to get to where we’d like to be, but there are a lot of things happening about maybe mid year that I’m really really excited about. And a new denim launch is one of them.

Virginia

You and I touched on this in our last interview: There are not a lot of folks in bigger bodies working in fashion design. Is there some kind of secret network of fat designers we can all be showing up for? How do we get more of you?

Kyeshia

I want in, if there is. How do I put out a mating call for my fellow plus size designers?

Virginia

A bat signal? 

Kyeshia

Where do I find them?

Yeah, within my career, I’ve only run into probably three other plus size designers working in the plus size industry. I’m sure there are more out there, but I don’t know where they’re hiding.

Virginia

That’s staggering. Because it’s such a loss of talent and a loss of knowledge. It explains so much. If you want to understand why plus customers are so often disappointed, why the clothes haven’t worked for so long, this is why.

Kyeshia

If I were not in the industry, I don’t think that I would be encouraged to be in the industry. Because beauty and fashion standards are so white, so thin. I would be intimidated by that. I would be like, there’s no way that a person like me could get a job in an industry like that.

Virginia

And your early experiences show it was not easy. 

Kyeshia

It’s not easy. It’s so interesting, because when I leave companies or when I talk to different managers and leadership, they’re always very encouraging. They’re always like, “We need people like you!” and I’m like, “Well, why don’t you hire people like me?”

Virginia

Yeah, that says a lot.

Kyeshia

I want to know that there’s more people who look like me who are out there in corporate fashion who are doing the work and making the change within. Because we’re the ones that really get it. I so often sit in rooms where people who don’t look like me say, “Oh, the girl’s not gonna like that.” And then I look and I immediately think, why not?

Virginia

Oh, interesting. Like what? Give us an example of that.

Kyeshia

Oh, right now cutouts are a trend. And sometimes people are very apprehensive about how a plus girl would feel about cutouts. People are like, “Oh she’s not gonna wear that, that’s gonna show too much.” Well, maybe one girl might not wear it. But what about the other girl who is like, “I love this trend. I wish it was my size?”

Virginia

That’s interesting. I often hear from folks saying stop with the cutouts! I just need to finda basic tee shirt. I’m just looking for solid, functional clothes. Like, L.L.Bean doesn’t make plus sizes. So what if you want to go hiking? But you’re absolutely right, there are also lots of us craving design and not getting that. Especially when you’re getting fewer SKU numbers, how do you meet all those needs?

Kyeshia

It’s difficult. Because especially with core things like tee shirts and jeans, you have to project your numbers for how much you can buy in these categories. Then you have a small SKU count for what you actually want, as far as fashion. What makes it even smaller is bringing in the juniors designs and what you’re going to tag on for those. Then you have like, this much of a pool for exclusive designs, designed by women who actually understand a plus body. So it’s hard to decipher what you lean into and when you say, “this isn’t going to be a thing.” The other designer and I sit together, and we look at the assortment that the buyers have chosen for the month and we give our feedback. If we see something in fittings, and we’re like, “I love the direction that you’re going here with this, but I don’t think that it’s going to execute the way that you want it to,” we have to flag it. We have to say, “Hey, I don’t know about this. It’s not gonna work for a plus girl. How can we change it? How can we enhance it to make it fit our girl?”

For example, last week, I had a jumpsuit come in. Really, really cute for a skinny girl. Like, super deep V cut and the V ended at the waistline, and it was tie up halter at the neck. Then there was another piece that tied in the back as a tie panel. And I was like, “Okay, this isn’t going to work. The leg shape is nice, but it’s too open on the sides.” So I reached out to the buyers and I was like, “Hey, listen, I have some reservations about this.” And they were like, “Yeah, it doesn’t look great on the model. How can we fix it?” So I sent over the sketch and I was like, “Here’s something that I think that we could change to, that she would resonate with, but it’s more wearable.” If there’s something that we think is absolutely like unsalvageable, we have to say this is not going to work. We have to make it wearable because the plus girl is going to look at that and be like, “Ain’t no way.”

Virginia

Yeah, where are my boobs going?

Kyeshia

First question: “What bra can you wear with that?”

Virginia

That was my first thought when you described the jumpsuit.

Kyeshia

Because not every girl is gonna be okay with doing boob tape, right? It just doesn’t work. So you have to think about what bra is she gonna wear with this, because I’m gonna tell you right now, she’s not going to go braless in this with no support.

Virginia

Of course, for listeners who go braless, you do you. We’re not shaming anyone for not wearing bras!

Kyeshia

No, no no. I love to free the nip. But there was nothing holding you at all. 

Virginia

So a big part of your job is taking these juniors designs and enhancing them—I love that you’re using the word enhance—for the plus girl. But what would you be doing differently from the get-go to design better clothes for bigger bodies? Or what problems do you see as fixable but no one is really tackling them right now?

Kyeshia

The number one thing is fit. We could be putting more investment into fit, it just takes too long. Way too long to adjust, way too long to put on different bodies. We fit twice a week, and the other designer and I, we dedicate a lot of time to it. Probably like, each day we’re fitting up to four hours, sometimes five. It’s a lot of work. If I were to start from scratch, I know it would be putting a lot of investment into fit because that is the number one thing that people and brands get wrong about plus clothing.

Virginia

Yeah, it feels like a very under-resourced area. For a longer discussion with Kyeshia and other designers on the problems with plus size fit, see Jeans Science Part 2.

Kyeshia

It’s interesting because the industry is changing. Not only for plus, but for straight-size bodies, too, as far as like different measurements and different body shapes that they take into consideration. But there’s still designers out there that don’t take into consideration different body shapes, even for straight size women.

Virginia

The legacy of Karl Lagerfeld is very rich, I think. The “bodies should be clothes hangers for our vision” kind of ethos.

Kyeshia

But what if the hangers are like a little curvier? 

Virginia

What if I don’t want to be a clothes hanger? What if I want to be a person wearing clothes? It’s a really an insulting proposition, frankly.

Kyeshia

I’m not just here to just be perceived. 

So yeah, I think my number one thing would be to focus on fit. Number two is fabric. I think sometimes even if something fits good, if it doesn’t feel right on your body, you’re uncomfortable. So I think comfort and fit and comfort and feel are two heavy hitters for me.

Virginia

That makes so much sense. You just articulated why some clothes I’ve bought that I’ve sort of liked—even when I see them on my body, I like them—but I don’t reach for them. It’s often a comfort issue. Even if it works, it doesn’t work because it doesn’t feel good to wear.

So the last thing I wanted to talk about is: What can consumers be doing? How much does our feedback matter? On Instagram, there are always lots of different campaigns trying to attract the attention of brands to take the plus consumer more seriously. But I don’t know how effective those are. And if they’re not effective, what’s a better way? I’m just curious to hear your thoughts as someone who’s inside the industry.

Kyeshia

I think if you’re straight size, and you don’t know what it’s like to struggle to find clothes as a plus size body, start learning and advocate for that. Tell brands: Do you know how cool it is, for everybody be able to wear your clothes? That is an amazing thing. I think to advocate for that, as a straight size person, you are doing your brothers and sisters justice. Because I don’t know what it is about fashion companies, when they hear feedback from skinny white women, they actually listen. 

Virginia

Hmm, take note, thin and small fat listeners. We have work to do.

I’m glad to know that you think that is feedback brands will listen to you. I mean, obviously, it’s ridiculous that they will hear it best from thin, white women and not from plus customers. But it is good to know that it’s useful to do that because I think sometimes people worry that it’s just hashtag activism or sort of performative.

Kyeshia

At Forever21 we have a newsletter that goes out pretty much every week, that highlights top comments and not-so-great comments. Consistently, across the board, there’s always a comment that’s like, “Why isn’t the plus in more stores? Why is the plus section so small? Why is your Online Plus section not great?”

Virginia

You’re like, “I’m on it, I’m on it!”

Kyeshia

I’m like, literally ask me the questions, and I’ll tell you exactly what people are feeling. Because I live it. I live it every single day, right? Even coming to work, I’m seeing it like, “Damn, I wish I could wear that.”

Virginia

Yes, I just want to have a moment for the rage I feel that you often can’t wear the clothes you design.

Kyeshia

It’s hard. When I was doing private label for Target, it was such a cool feeling walking into a Target store and being like, “That’s what I did. That’s a part of me, I put in the work for that.” That was really, really cool. This goes back to having more plus bodies in the design room—I feel like people would be more supportive if they knew who was actually designing their things.

Virginia

Oh, I agree with that. I would love to be putting my dollars behind brands that were hiring plus designers. Brands who were really doing it and not just doing the Madewell version of inclusivity that’s not particularly inclusive and that is clearly something a marketing focus group told you to do.

Kyeshia

Yeah, and I think a good example of sort of a brand that has really put in the effort is Anthropologie. Of course, they have room to do better and improve, but I think as far as being inclusive and also being, really on-brand with their plus style.

Virginia

Yes, I see what you’re saying. They definitely deliver the same level of fashion to the plus sizes and the straight sizes. There’s still often that thing of like, I wanted it in blue and only the straight size has it. Which is the whole economics piece that you and I talked about. 

Kyeshia

It’s hard. Within the community of plus size people, if we can start supporting the brands who actually run those extended size ranges, you put the data behind actually pushing forth that movement. Because I’ve talked to people. It’s such a nuanced conversation, because yes, it should be happening. We should have up to size 40. But it’s just the lack of dollars that the consumers put into supporting it. It’s hard to keep it alive.

Virginia

It’s such a catch-22. The products are not what people want, so they don’t buy them. But then the companies don’t have the sales, and around and around we go.

Kyeshia

So in supporting the plus size fashion conversation, straight size women can advocate for their favorite brands to extend. But also, plus women can advocate for their dollars being put into really supporting these companies who do actually go up to size 40 or 32, because then they’ll see the momentum that people want this. Of course people out there need clothes and want fashionable clothes to fit their bodies, but if we don’t see the data and the dollars behind it, it’s hard to keep it going.

Virginia

Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great reminder for small fat folks like me that, just because we’re excited we can shop in Anthropologie now, there are other brands that need our support. We have work we can do. 

Kyeshia

I’ve been reading Brene Brown’s new book. It’s phenomenal. It’s so good. And it’s helping me with a lot of healing. I just love the way that she writes. And I recommend that you journal and drink your water every day.

Virginia

I love both of those recommendations. Because I am in the northeast and it is four degrees outside and we all are questioning our life choices, my recommendation is to get yourself a winter-blooming house plant. It is snow and ice outside, but my African violets are blooming this week and it’s bringing me so much joy to see some little spark of green and life.

Kyeshia

See, I can’t keep plants alive. That’s the one thing that I can’t do.

Virginia

African violets are pretty easy. You just need a bright windowsill and they do like to stay moist but they don’t really require a lot of special care or anything. They’re also pretty inexpensive. Mine are $3 from the grocery store so you can just enjoy them while they bloom and then let them go with love. It’s all good. 

Well, Kyeshia, thank you so much for joining us. Let folks know how they can follow more of your work!

Kyeshia

I am @KLV on Instagram. I don’t share much of my work on there. It’s kind of like a blog / personal / influencer, but you can find me there.

Virginia

Thank you so much for being here!

---

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.

In a perfect world, the specter of that perfect, white, thin, cishet mom wouldn’t be there at all. We wouldn’t be tasked with defining ourselves against that ideal because she wouldn’t be the biggest thing in the room. 

You’re listening to Burnt Toast. This is the podcast where we talk about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. Today I’m bringing back Sara Louise Petersen for another installment of momfluencer talk.

Sara is a writer based in New Hampshire, and currently working on a book called Momfluenced. She came on a few weeks ago and you folks had a ton to say about that episode! Hearing your thoughts and questions made us realize there is a lot more to discuss here. This might become a new subgenre of the Burnt Toast podcast.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And subscribe to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and more.

Also!

I’ll write more about this in a newsletter soon, but I’m very thrilled to announce that I’ve started a Burnt Toast Giving Circle with The States Project. We will be raising money to help flip a state legislature Democratic this November because radical right wing state governments are dismantling free and fair elections in swing states, suppressing the right to vote, denying people quality, affordable healthcare and eradicating our right to choose. But we can take those states back! And early money matters. I’d love if you could make a donation of any size; Burnt Toast will match the first $1000 we raise. We’ll talk soon about which state to support and the issues on the table. Stay tuned!

And: The brilliant folks behind the Sunny Side Up Podcast spent this episode talking about Instagram and how we feed kids, inspired by this essay of mine. Great companion listen to today’s Instagram deep dive!

Virginia

So today we want to talk about whether it is possible for momfluencer culture to diversify, and to represent different types of moms. And w e’re also asking: Should that even be the goal? 

Sara

There totally is room to follow moms that do not subscribe to cishet, white, normative, nuclear family ideal. So many moms have disrupted that narrative and have used their platforms in really cool, energizing ways to form really needed communities online. They have a different vibe than the stereotypical beachy waves, white momfluencer, the the type that we were talking about in our last episode. It feels like a totally different world.

Virginia

I want to read this really great email I got from a listener after your episode because she is articulating the problem in a way that I hadn’t quite thought about before. So this is from Tori, and she writes:

 I noticed that at the beginning of this missive you mentioned that you and Sara are both cis, straight moms with varying levels of thin privilege, who gave birth, and at the end, you say that the next “phase” is seeing non-thin, non-white, non-straight, non-cisgender moms shifting the narrative. That struck a nerve with me. I’m a white, cis, lesbian with a non-binary partner (she gave birth to our child.) Our kid is four and does not call either of her parents mom, in my partner’s case, because that word is feminine, and my partner is transmasculine. And in my case, mostly because even as a femme lesbian, I didn’t want to embody the culture of motherhood that has been pretty toxic in my life and it didn’t feel right for me. I read today’s newsletter with some distance, because I have found that even engaging with these momfluencers by critiquing them gives them too much space in my brain. I feel lucky that I do not generally feel mom guilt. I do not buy into most of the cultural pressures that straight, white moms often struggle with. And I think that’s because I had a way out from the beginning.

The queer parents I know just don’t even talk about it and we don’t compare ourselves. We talk about the absurd things our kids do, and arguments with our partners, and we share gossip about queer celebrities, but we do not really participate in this aspirational stuff. I am grateful to queer people for offering that pathway out of straight, white mom culture, and also from the fatphobia of that culture. Many lesbians are fat and I’m grateful to my people for showing me how to love other women’s interesting bodies as I learn to love my own.

I guess I just want to gently suggest that all of this is optional. White moms—because I do think this is a whiteness problem—can stop putting their eyeballs on the momfluencers. I know that as a cultural critic, they’re available for you to talk about since Instagram is a visual medium, etc. And there’s comments and captions to analyze. But even the critique feels like adding fuel to the fire. I just want to offer up that focusing on people who do things differently (the ones you spoke about at the end of your conversation) is an even more powerful way of shifting around the way we talk about bodies. As a journalist, I’m sure you’ve engaged with the concept of de-platforming. And this is sort of a mini version of that. You have influence yourself and lifting up the alternatives rather than continuing to reinforce white dominant culture, even by picking it apart, is especially effective. We’re out here doing it differently and a whole other parent culture is possible.

Tori, thank you. Reading this, I had a moment of feeling like, oh, right, it is optional. It is easy to get just sucked into feeling like this is the paradigm we’re in.

Sara

I also loved that email. It reminded me of a conversation I had with Rebekah Taussig, who wrote a book called Sitting Pretty. We were talking about this “ideal mother” that we’re all defining ourselves against or aligning ourselves with or comparing ourselves to. She said, in a perfect world, the specter of that perfect, white, cishet mom wouldn’t be there at all. We wouldn’t be tasked with defining ourselves against or in opposition to that ideal because she wouldn’t be the biggest thing in the room. There would be freedom to define our own parenting journeys, separate from the fetters of that looming ideal. That whole notion feels so radical to me because the ideal, white, cishet mom does loom so large in our culture.

For me, I think it is still valuable to dissect where this ideal is coming from and to look at who has the power in this narrative. Where is the power coming from? You can’t look at any of this without examining whiteness, first and foremost. I think we have to keep asking ourselves how are we approaching this cultural criticism? Which voices are we centering? 

Virginia

For those of us who are white moms and who do check more of those boxes, this is also our work to do, to hold the other privileged white moms accountable. We can’t completely eradicate whiteness from motherhood—or maybe that is what we should be doing, but that feels very difficult. So as we consider the process of doing that, can we ask more of our fellow white moms? Can we ask each other to reckon with these biases and to name these problems? That’s not work I want to ask parents with marginalization to do. It’s not their job to come in and fix the white moms. And Sara and I are the white moms, so we have to be doing this work. But also, I’m really here for the idea of how do we make space for these other voices? 

Sara

The popular narrative about how we talked about momfluencer culture is “Oh, I’m just sick of comparing myself to the perfect mom in her perfect house.” That is a really small concern in the grand scheme of things. A lot of marginalized moms, like, they don’t give a shit. Their biggest concern is not having a kitchen that matches up to momfluencer standards. 

So, there is a way that white moms do perpetuate the ideal of whiteness, in holding ourselves to those standards and prioritizing those standards as worthy of our emotional and mental energy.

Virginia

Even in prioritizing our ability to separate from those standards. There’s a strong parallel here with what we see in the fat community versus the “body positive” community. “Body positivity” has become reduced to this project of loving your body. Aubrey Gordon writes about this so well: loving your body doesn’t do shit for fat rights. It doesn’t do shit for narrowing the pay gap or making clothing more accessible or stopping discrimination on airplanes. Body positivity doesn’t actually address these larger systemic ways that fatphobia is baked into our culture. This is a perpetual problem of whiteness and of white women, that we take what is really this larger systemic  issue and we make it all about like ourselves and our feelings. How does her clean kitchen make me feel? I feel like a bad mom. That’s not what it’s about at all.

Sara

Totally. That’s a classic tenet of specifically white feminism. When you’re looking at intersectional feminism, you’re looking at the the the community that is suffering the most and the most marginalized and working up to concerns about the clean countertops. Like, that’s not where we start.

Virginia

We’ll do a quick shout out here for Angela Garbes’ new book Essential Labor. She articulates the problems with white motherhood so well, and I think it’s a must read for all white moms. I had a lot of moments reading that of looking in a mirror in an uncomfortable but necessary way.

Sara 

I also love her first book Like A Mother. Best book on pregnancy I’ve ever read. She looks at pregnancy from all different angles and it’s a beautiful, beautiful book.

I’m also going to plug Koa Beck’s White Feminism. It was absolutely earth-shattering for me in terms of dismantling everything I thought I knew about feminism.

Virginia

Okay, so we are going to talk about some case studies like we did last time, and this time, we really are focusing on momfluencers who are not in that traditional skinny-white-mom box at all.

Sara

So should we start with Nabela Noor?

Virginia

She’s not technically a full momfluencer yet because she’s pregnant with her first child. She comes from the world of YouTube beauty influencers. I did not know about her until she wrote a children’s book this year called Beautifully Me, which I love. I actually interviewed Nabela on the @Parents Instagram a few months ago. And my younger daughter is obsessed with Beautifully Me. It’s a great kid’s book. (I also talked about it here.)

And yet, there is also this continual emphasis on the importance of beauty, both in the book and in Nabela’s work. Her aesthetic on Instagram is all neutrals. Everything in her house is white and brass handles and beautiful flower arrangements. There’s a lot of emphasis on her look and her makeup. There’s this tension between the way she is challenging norms—but then there is some upholding.

Sara

I’m looking at her feed, and just the aesthetic tropes—she’s checking all the boxes. The all white everything, interior design-wise. The caressing her pregnant stomach, with a beautiful dress. Hyper-feminine imagery. The ultrasound photos, the very joyful, domestic Goddess Mother-vibe.

But I wonder how fair or even productive it is to critique someone for adhering to those norms when she didn’t create them. It feels like critiquing a fish for swimming in the wrong water or something. Do you know what I mean? It’s tricky. What do you think?

Virginia

I see that. The belly caressing in particular really moved me because she started caressing her belly like that when she was, like, nine weeks pregnant. To see this woman, who has a belly, caressing her belly without apology with so much joy and reverence for it, at a time when there’s often still a lot of negativity about the belly. We’re conditioned not to really celebrate the bump until it’s like the perfect basketball bump on your tiny body. And she’s never gonna have that perfect basketball bump on a tiny body. That’s not how she’s built. There was something very radical and moving to me to see her being so proud of that. That does feel powerful for me in terms of representation of pregnancy that doesn’t look like the way we’re told pregnancy needs to look. And yet, it does unsettle me to then see her grasping at holding up every other possible standard of perfect pregnancy. It’s like she’s only allowed one out or something.

Sara

Yeah, that’s so interesting. Mia O’Malley went viral for sharing her own pregnancy photos and she wrote an essay accompanying them. This was, I think, three-ish years ago, and she still gets comments and emails from other moms saying they never even considered taking pregnancy photos because they had so internalized that this was a thin person thing to do. Like the basketball bump—if you don’t have that, your pregnancy is not worth celebrating or beautiful or whatever. The mere fact of representation is really powerful.

Virginia

And for someone who reaches such a wide audience who haven’t reconsidered their feelings on fatness or beauty, she is asking them to do that.

Sara

Yeah. If a mom disrupts any part of the stereotypical ideal—like in this case she’s disrupting thinness and whiteness—that’s a net positive.

Virginia

Yes, I agree. But I do think of what Tori was talking about in her email. Nabela is not opting out. She’s opting all the way in and saying, “I belong in this room.”

Sara

Well, and I think back to what you were saying before. The responsibility and the onus should be on white moms, with the most privilege, for them to opt out.

Virginia

I agree with you. I think if anyone’s going to be making the big momfluencer bucks off the endorsement deals, I’m glad it’s Nabela.

What else do we want to say about Mia?

Sara

In addition to her main feed, she has a baby wearing feed. She became a babywearing consultant because when she was pregnant and when she had her newborn, every time she was shopping for a baby swing or a baby wrap, it was modeled on a thin model. Did you ever baby wear?

Virginia

I was really uncomfortable babywearing and size was definitely a factor in that. 

Sara

Right. I didn’t babywear until my third baby because I was just generally overwhelmed. Those wraps are like a mile long. They’re hard no matter what kind of body you have. But to have a body that’s never represented or to not have tutorials that speak to your particular shape is a real barrier to entry. It’s like, is this even going to work? Is it even going to be safe?

Virginia

Yeah, and I do have one fat friend who like came over with her Moby Wrap and helped me figure it out. That was very helpful, but I remember envying mothers for whom it felt effortless. It did not feel effortless for me, ever.  We’re making babywearing into something that you’re supposed to innately know and understand at a time when your body is a complete stranger to you.

Sara

And the baby’s a complete stranger!

Virginia

They’re very small and squishy. It’s very disorienting.

Sara

There are a ton of fat moms and plus size moms who are creating networks of healthcare providers who don’t have anti-fat bias. This world of momfluencing is worlds away from the one we talked about last week.

Virginia

That is the real potential and promise of mom influencers, to help break down barriers and create communities that can share information. PlusMommy is another one who’s awesome in this space. She does really great advocacy, helping moms know what questions to ask at prenatal appointments. She also talks a lot about being a fat mom going to Disney World or being a fat mom at the playground. Our physical spaces are not built for larger bodies very often, and particularly our parenting spaces. 

Sara

I want to bring up Andrea Landry, who runs the account Indigenous motherhood. She points out that indigenous mothers have always created their own communities, calling each other and saying, “don’t go to this doctor, you’re gonna face discrimination and racism at this practice.” But since Instagram, that community-building has a way broader-reaching impact.

And in terms of looking at issues that maybe white moms should be focusing our attention on more than clean countertops, Andrea and I were talking about the huge amount of Indigenous children that are placed in foster care. They are removed from Indigenous communities, which is further colonizing these communities and preventing them from learning their traditions and languages. She was saying that even up until the early 2000s, Indigenous women were still experiencing forced sterilization. In Saskatchewan, they would wake up from C-sections having had hysterectomies without their consent. These things are still happening. It’s not helping us to stay in our bubble and it’s certainly not helping the greater motherhood cause.

Virginia

Should we talk about disabled motherhood? 

Sara

I mentioned Rebekah Taussig. She has really educated me on the structural issues impacting disabled moms that non-disabled moms are probably not aware of. In 30 states there are still discriminatory laws that mandate that custody can be removed from a disabled Mom on the basis of their disability. Like, not having the burden of proving that there was neglect or child endangerment or abuse. Just on the basis of the disability.

Virginia

Wow, this is a great country. I’m really proud.

Sara

It’s so fucking bad! It’s bad for all moms, but it is so much fucking worse for marginalized moms.

Okay, Daniizzie. So, she has twins. And yeah, a movie is being made, a documentary about her experience. She’s really cool. She posts a lot about access, in terms of specifically parent-related activities. Yeah, like inclusive playgrounds.

Virginia

She uses a wheelchair and she’s parenting twins. And yeah, of course, how would you play on most playgrounds with your kids? The ground is gravel. There are so many instant barriers.

Sara

Real safety issues. You have to follow your toddler up the huge curly slide or whatever.

Virginia

I mean, sidebar: I hate playgrounds. Until my children became old enough to play independently on them, I just viewed them as parent punishment. But I will also fully acknowledge the privilege in that. I didn’t want to get up on the slide, but I could do it.

Sara

Oh, I just discovered KC Davis. She has a book called How to Keep House While Drowning. She has a post about laundry where she has a bunch of photos of beautiful laundry rooms, and all she says is, “This is a hobby.”

Virginia

This is blowing my mind a little bit right now.

Sara

It is an actual task that we must do to keep our family in clean clothes. But we’ve also internalized that it should look good and be pretty.

Virginia

And is that actually going to make the task of laundry more enjoyable? Is it more delightful to stain treat skid marks in a room with shiplap? No, it would still be gross.

And there’s then the added labor of trying to make the room continually look like that photo. Because it will not. The whole point of a laundry room is to be filled with dirty laundry. So it’s never going to look good unless you’re not doing laundry in it.

Sara

I think so much about this. I’m really into pretty houses and shit, but I am constantly thinking about how it’s only pretty if it’s clean. The biggest battle is the actual domestic labor.

Virginia

Her account is strugglecare. And before people who have beautiful laundry rooms all DM us, she says: There’s nothing wrong with being someone who likes this. Just call it what it is. This is a hobby. It’s a fine hobby to have. 

There’s a great parallel here with diet culture because I often think about fitness in the same terms. Fitness is a great hobby! But somebody loving to train for triathlons and having the “triathlon body” doesn’t make them better than people who don’t like to train for triathlons. It’s the same weird infusion of hobbies with moral value because they relate to thinness and whiteness. This kind of laundry room personifies a certain kind of mom, that’s why we’re making it “better” than other laundry rooms.

Sara

I really want to talk about Cia. They identify as queer and non-binary. They have a lovely, illuminating post about gender dysphoria in regards to breastfeeding. They talk about how breastfeeding in our culture is so wrapped up in the image of a beautiful white mother luxuriating in her femininity. Cia talks about feeling really good about feeding their child and bonding with their child, but also feeling like they don’t fit into this prescribed norm of what breastfeeding should look like.

Virginia

Yeah, this is a really important conversation. I think about, for non-binary folks going through pregnancy, the importance of communities around that. Because the body changes could be so dysmorphia-inducing. But also, you deserve to be just as proud of what your body’s doing as anyone else. It’s ridiculous that they aren’t included in the conversation.

Sara

Well, and the reason it feels disorienting and not great is because, again, of the ideal.

Virginia

Right, right. It’s the thin white mom taking up way too much space in this conversation.

I’m also loving all the normalizing the body changes in this feed, like there’s a lot of photos of their belly, and their postpartum belly. Yeah, this is very cool.

When we were talking earlier about disabled mothers losing custody rights, it also reminded me we were going to talk a little bit about The School for Good Mothers and process our feelings about that book. We’re going to try to do it without plot spoilers, because people may want to read it. Although, it’s very important to know that you don’t have to read it. Sara read it and wrote a piece about it. And I was like, “Oh, I’m reading it right now!” And she texted me to say, are you? Do you want to stop? And then I was texting her at 6am when I finished it, in tears. But! We wanted to bring it into this conversation because it articulates the ways that the standards of white motherhood creates these huge disparities and very real trauma.

Sara

Right now, I can only watch basically like tea and crumpets television. So, if you’re in a space like that, maybe wait a hot second on this book and read it when you’re feeling a little less tea and crumpet-y?

Virginia

I would say when the world is better, but I don’t know when that will be. 

Sara

Maybe when there’s more sun?

It just hits close to home, which is why it’s such a harrowing read. Just the very arbitrary ways we define good mothering—mothering, specifically, because I think it’s important to note that mothers are held to a different standard than fathers.

There is one character who isn’t harrowing—I find her hilarious. So, she has basically a momfluencer character in the book named Susanna. She’s not a momfluencer, but she follows all the like, you know, “essential oil will heal all things.”

Virginia

She is the new girlfriend of the ex-husband of the main character. So the main character’s daughter is now being raised by this new girlfriend and the father. So, she’s watching her child be parented by a momfluencer, basically, and it’s kind of your worst nightmare.

Sara

At one point this wellness-y, culty momfluencer removes carbs from the toddler’s diet.

Virginia

Yes, it’s like, who’s the child abuser? Obviously, it’s not good for a two-year-old to not eat carbs. That’s science. Meanwhile, this woman of color whose parental rights have been terminated over a very minor issue, is watching this happen. Jessamine Chan does such a good job of articulating how the system continually rewards and reinforces Susanna’s style of parenting, even when it is patently bad, like with the decision around the carbs. But there’s a totally different set of standards used to measure mothers of color.

Sara

The standards are funny in that they are so over the top. Like the teachers at the school test them on their hugs. This is the hug you give when your toddler is having a meltdown about sharing and is the hug seven seconds too long? Are you doing the bedtime hug? Are you communicating the right kind of maternal warmth through this embrace?

Virginia

So much in there comes out of parenting influencers and the parenting advice that we see on social media. You might have to come back and we’ll do a whole episode about parenting influencers because the way that positive parenting is pushed on social…

Sara

So I have a tortilla recommendation. Do you know the podcast Home Cooking with Samin Nosrat?

Virginia

Yes! It was everyone’s coping strategy during lockdown.

Sara

She recommended these tortillas and I immediately bought them. You put them on a super hot pan for 15 seconds and they balloon up into this crispy, delightful, salty... It’s so good. They’re so good.

Virginia

They have pork fat tortillas, duck fat tortillas, and avocado oil. This sounds amazing. I will be getting them immediately.

Sara

Yeah, I got the duck fat and avocado oil. They were both good.

Virginia

We do a lot of tacos because it’s one of the few meals my family can agree on eating. So I would really like to up our tortilla game. Thank you! 

I am also going to recommend a food. So, as people know, I had COVID. By the time this airs, I’m hopefully over it. But as we are recording this, I am on day seven and I’m still testing positive. For the first few days I couldn’t even move. But as the fog began to lift, I was like okay, now I need comfort food so I have to bake something. We had a bunch of bananas going brown on the kitchen counter, so I made this banana bread recipe.

I did not think I had strong opinions about banana bread. I thought that it was a food that you could just Google any banana bread recipe and it would all turn out the same. Yep, no, no, this is the best banana bread. It is smitten kitchen’s the ultimate banana bread recipe and she is correct. It has this amazing, thick crust and then the inside is still really squishy and gooey. Just make it. Thank me later. It’s very easy to make, too. There’s not a lot of ingredients. I mean, I made it while still having COVID and not being able to stand for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I ate it all week and no one else in my family wanted it and I was so happy.

Well, Sara, thank you so much for doing this again. Remind us where we can follow you. 

Sara

Okay, so I’m on Twitter and Instagram.

Virginia

Thank you for being here.

Sara

Thank you, Virginia!

---

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti-diet journalism.

When your providers are emphasizing weight to you, I think this is something you can feel free to push back on and say, “Look, if I am at higher risk, we don’t know that the problem is really my weight—or the care you’re going to give me because of my weight.” 

Hello and welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. I’m the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.

This is the monthly subscriber-only episode where I answer your questions. So thank you to all my paid Burnt Toast subscribers. I love you. Let’s get right to it.

Q: I’m 20 weeks pregnant and trying to navigate mainstream healthcare’s view that my body is too big to have a healthy pregnancy. I can’t believe how stuck my providers have been on my weight. Do you have any advice for dealing with this experience? 

The first resource I’m going to point you to is Plus Mommy. The blog, the Instagram, the podcast, all created by Jen McLellan, who is a mom in a larger body, a really tremendous advocate, and super knowledgeable about these issues. Plus Mommy is your first stop when you are educating yourself as a pregnant person in a bigger body, who, because of our very fatphobic medical system, is going to have to do some extra labor of self-advocacy during this experience.

Also, I forgot to say congratulations. Congratulations! This is wonderful news. So sorry for skipping over that and getting right to the resources. 

Next, I wanted to just own that I don’t have personal experience with this because I was still straight-sized during both of my pregnancies. I was sort of on the line with the second pregnancy, but my providers did not really focus too much on weight. (It was a high-risk pregnancy for other reasons. So, they were distracted, I guess.) I have a fair amount of thin privilege when it comes to this conversation. I haven’t had to advocate for myself in a pregnancy setting around weight and health care.

But even though I don’t have lived experience for you on this, I did spend a long time reporting on the research on weight and pregnancy outcomes for a feature I wrote for The New York Times Magazine. (TW for anyone dealing with infertility because it is about weight stigma in the infertility industry specifically. Although ultimately a hopeful story for the moms I interviewed in the piece, it definitely sketches out a lot of problems in that industry, like using BMI cut-offs to deny services, which is horrible and fatphobic.)

In the process of reporting that piece I went through all the research on weight and pregnancy outcomes, because that’s the main thing that comes up when you ask infertility doctors why they are denying care to women in larger bodies. There’s a lot of paternalistic language about is this person fit to be a mother? And who do we consider fit to be a mother?

Okay, so what does the research really say about weight and pregnancy outcomes? The first thing to know is so much of this comes down to provider bias. Larger pregnant people receive less careful prenatal care. That is because doctors and other health care providers have high levels of anti-fat bias. One study published in 2017 in the Journal of Patient Education and Counseling found that when researchers analyzed audio recordings of prenatal appointments between 22 providers and 117 pregnant people, they found that providers treating patients with higher BMIs asked those patients fewer questions about their lifestyle habits and shared less information. So, right off the bat, the conversations are shorter. They’re not getting as much information on these people. That’s going to impact the quality of care. That’s going to impact the pregnant person’s experience of being in that healthcare setting. It’s going to impact a whole bunch of stuff. 

An Australian study on prenatal health care found that doctors express less sympathy and less approval for their larger pregnant patients. I don’t see how you offer good health care to someone you feel no empathy or approval for. That’s a toxic dynamic to be in. I interviewed Sharon Bernecki DeJoy, an associate professor of health at Westchester University, who studies maternity care in the United States, for this piece. She told me that many providers see a larger woman and say things like, “‘Don’t eat cheeseburgers,’ even though she’s a vegetarian. There’s a lack of recognition of the evidence that shows you can be healthy and still have an ‘unhealthy’ BMI.”

I think that’s a really nice way of summing up how provider bias is informing the experience you’re having in your healthcare right now and is, across the board, informing the way that pregnant people in larger bodies are treated when they seek prenatal care. 

The data about whether weight itself does impact pregnancy is really murky. And that’s in large part because no one is controlling for that provider bias when they do these studies. When they start to try to pin down whether it’s the weight itself that causes some of the outcomes we see, they’re not factoring in the stigma question and how that’s impacting things. They’re also generally not proving causal relationships. This is a classic case of correlation is not causation. 

Another expert I interviewed for the piece is Chloe Zera, MD who is a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Dr. Zera told me, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say we understand why maternal weight is associated with negative outcomes. Obesity can require special care, but a majority of women with BMI over 30 don’t have a complicated pregnancy and do have healthy babies.” This is someone whose job it is to care for high risk pregnancies and she is saying this is not something the data has nailed down. The reason she’s saying that is when we look—on a population level, which is what most of these studies do—we can find correlations between higher body weight and certain birth outcomes, but we’re still talking about really rare events. Even if the risk increases as body size goes up, we’re still talking about only a handful of occurrences. When Stanford University researchers analyzed more than 1.1 million birth records in California, they found the overall prevalence of stillbirths was five per 1000 deliveries. And among women with a BMI above 30, the rate ranged from seven to ten stillbirths per 1000 deliveries. So, that’s as much as a twofold increase, but still a rare event: Ten or fewer stillbirths per 1000 babies born.

I just want to underscore that Stanford study did not establish a causal relationship between BMI and stillbirths. It may be that the medical care that fat pregnant people are getting is increasing their risk for stillbirth, not their bodies. Some experts I talked to for this piece talked about how it can be harder for doctors to detect fetal complications in bigger bodies as a result of technological limitations. Mostly what they’re talking about is doing those early ultrasounds in larger bodies there can be limitations with what the wand picks up. This is technology’s fault! We need better ultrasound equipment for fat people. Once again, stigma compromises care. It’s not your body. 

When your providers are emphasizing weight to you, this is something you can push back on and say, “Look, if I am at higher risk, we don’t know that the problem is really my weight or the care you’re going to give me because of my weight.” If they say, “Yeah, we don’t feel like we can safely do your ultrasounds or perform your routine prenatal care,” then I want you to be with a doctor who can. I don’t want you to stay in a practice that doesn’t feel like they are equipped to deal with your body. You deserve better than that!

And I know that’s easy to say and not easy to do, because switching doctors, especially mid-pregnancy, is really stressful. Sometimes you’re limited by insurance and with travel logistics. But to whatever extent that is possible, or if there’s an option to bring in a doula or a support person who can help you advocate in these appointments, I think that’s worth doing. It’s certainly more worth doing than pursuing weight loss, which is suggested far too often for pregnant people in larger bodies. We know that won’t work. And we also know that weight loss during pregnancy can be dangerous.

Bottom line, Richard Legro, MD who is a professor of public health services and Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Penn State University, told me, “There is no BMI cut point above which it is absolutely unsafe to have a pregnancy.” And I just want to add to that all of the doctors that I interviewed for this piece were super mainstream. They were not Health at Every Size advocates. They were not ready to throw out BMI. They were not radicalized on these issues at all and they were still saying, “No, we are taking this conversation too far.” So, whatever your providers are telling you, it is not evidence based, and it is not the final word on this conversation. I wish you luck in engaging in these conversations with your providers or, if you have to, seeking help from a different provider.

Q: What is your advice for a kid who has gotten extremely concerned about wasting food? My seven year old has a lot of anxiety about wasting things in general: scraps of paper, toys with missing pieces. A lot of that is a whole separate bag of issues, but when it intersects with food, it’s creating a dynamic I’m not really sure how to respond to. I want him to try new things and to eat as much as he wants and to listen to his own hunger cues. I have never, ever put an emphasis on clearing your plate or shamed the throwing away of food. To my mind, whether you eat it or toss it, it’s gone, but he’s gotten extremely obsessive about it. Anyway, if he gets full before all his food is gone, he sits there begging someone else to finish it so it doesn’t get wasted. And if no one will, he will often sit there, crying and stuffing bites into his mouth. It’s extremely frustrating and upsetting. I serve him small portions but some things come pre-portioned, like the Pillsbury biscuits at Thanksgiving dinner for example; bagels which I already serve cut into quarters to try to minimize anxiety over wanting more but not so much more, etc. I am struggling with neutral language to use when it comes to this. When he begs me to eat his food, I have gone as far to say, with mild frustration, that my body is not a trash can, that it isn’t a place to just throw food we don’t want and that I don’t want to eat food I’m not hungry for any more than he does, and that that’s okay. It’s okay to thank the food for being there and also decide we don’t want it. We’ve also talked about going back for seconds versus taking huge servings the first time around as a way to make food more, quote, save-able. But I don’t know. There’s so many feelings mixed into this issue: his, mine, and our culture’s. And in the moment, I always find myself casting about for neutral words and phrases to use to stop him from sobbing and cramming more food than he wants into his body, or begging and pleading with someone else to eat his scraps. 

A: Oh, this is really tough. I love that you said your body is not a trash can. I think that is a great answer and a great point to underscore with kids. I think, kids in general, in this age and younger, and probably older, too, have a tendency to view their parents as not quite human. Like, we should just be available to take their gross tissue or lick something off their face. Children do not expect us to have boundaries around this and I think it’s good to set some boundaries and say, I don’t have to put food in my body just because you don’t want it. This is a mutual body respect thing that I think it’s good to start cultivating.

You are also modeling intuitive eating to him, which is great. You are modeling trusting your body and respecting your body. I think you’re doing everything really right there and I’m sorry it’s not immediately fixing the problem. Like so many things with kids and eating, and with parenting in general, you can be doing the right thing and it doesn’t mean that the problem magically disappears. Progress is often slow. 

You mentioned that this is part of a constellation of anxiety issues, so of course my other advice would be to work with a therapist to help with some reframing and strategies. It sounds like you’re already on that, but a responsive feeding therapist could be a useful touchpoint or conversation to bring into this. I will link to a resource for that, if that’s something you want to explore. 

In terms of other more practical stuff to throw at you, I like that you said you’re already serving small portions. I would also involve him in seeing how you store leftovers, Maybe that can even be his job, to put the leftovers away in containers. Maybe you get creative together in how you’re going to repurpose the leftovers. Like if it’s fruit, stuff like a banana that he’s taken one bite out of—that’s how every banana is eaten in my house, one bite taken out of them and then the child is done with that. Those go in the freezer and we use them for smoothies. Amy Palanjian of Yummy Toddler Food has a good blog post about food waste that might give you some more ideas.

I think you want to engage him in being part of the problem-solving on all of this and not just say “Don’t worry, this is what’s happening to it.” Because it sounds like he’s wanting to control the food experience by wanting you to finish the food, so instead you can say “I’m not the solution, but here is the solution you can seek out.”

The other thing I’m going to suggest, if you’re not doing it already, is composting. You might even just try getting some books about composting. We have this funny board game my brother-in-law found called Rush to Recycle, where the whole point of the board game is to sort your recycling and your compost. My four year old loves it. Who doesn’t love a board game about recycling? So you could just start by talking about the whole process if you don’t want to actually do it, but I think it could be a good project to consider. You can compost most if not all of your food scraps and then the food is not wasted. It’s going to turn into dirt which is food for plants! This is something kids can grasp really easily and clearly and I think it’s super reassuring if they’ve got anxiety around this.

I do hate suggesting a project that does come with a little bit of work and mental load. There’s definitely a learning curve to composting and the equipment is a bit of an investment. You need a bin to keep in your freezer or under your counter where you collect all the kitchen scraps, like at meals and when you’re cooking. Here is the bin we use for under-counter collection and then the composting tumbler that we keep in our garden. That’s where, when the bin is full, you empty it into the tumbler and you spin it every once in a while. It’s amazing how much the tumblers can hold and you eventually get compost to use in your garden, if you care about that. Your kid will just feel reassured that it’s going to a “purpose,” whether or not you end up using the compost.

There are definitely cheaper ways to do it. If you don’t want to buy a lot of stuff, you could just have a gallon Ziploc bag you keep in your freezer where you’re adding food scraps and then eventually that goes out to a compost pile in some corner of your yard, if that’s an option. And there are also smaller scale composters, there are worm composters, which I bet a seven year old would be obsessed with. I don’t want my kids to know that’s a thing because I don’t really want to take on worms, but you can go to town with this. Corinne Fay, who works on this newsletter with me, endorses composting in a cardboard box, which looks so cool.

As much as possible, if you decide to compost to help manage his anxiety around this, make the composting his project. This is something he can learn about. He is, at seven, definitely old enough to be in charge of collecting everybody’s scraps and taking them out to the compost heap. I think that’s a great chore for a kid to be in charge of, and may help ease a lot of the anxiety around this issue. Because he will then be seeing the entire process from A-to-Z. From eating the food, to composting the food, to doing whatever you want to do with the compost later. You could find a community garden to donate it to or give it to a friend who gardens, that kind of thing, if you don’t have a personal use for it.

If composting is totally unappealing, my last suggestion is, if you don’t have one, maybe get a dog because dogs are also great at eating your leftovers! But also, again, you’re doing everything right, this may just need to be a storm you ride out. 

Q: Thanks so much for your newsletter. I originally subscribed because I was working as a nanny and trying to understand what the heck was going on with the kids at lunchtime and I’ve since been exposed to so much helpful anti-diet stuff through your work, which I’m very grateful for. I’m now in grad school and no longer a nanny. And I’m here to ask you a question about feeding yourself on a budget, especially while a single person.

I’ve been buying a lot of cheap TV-dinners lately, which I find much easier than taking on the mental load of meal planning. And honestly, I get more vegetables that way. Many of them are advertised as being for “two people,” clearly something intended for couples to share instead of cooking themselves. I often find myself taking that to heart and trying to make myself only eat one half of whatever it is and saving the other half for the next meal. I told myself I was doing it for many reasons, but that’s not true. It’s because I feel guilty eating two people’s worth of a meal in one sitting, even though I’m usually hungry enough for it. Can you offer any advice or guidance for thinking my way out of this food-limiting mindset? 

A: First, I think it’s great, you’re recognizing this for what it is. Yes, this is a food limiting mindset. You are limiting yourself and not honoring your hunger when you try to follow this very arbitrary rule. The next thing I want to say is, TV dinners are great! They are a super practical, easy way to feed yourself on the cheap. And I’m here for that. But a lot of these brands are marketed with a fair amount of diet culture rhetoric, or what I consider oppositional diet culture rhetoric. Like playing into the idea of “indulgence” and “being bad” and whatever. So either way, whether it’s like an “indulgent” TV dinner or a “responsible” TV dinner, they often play into this mindset. And that doesn’t make the food bad or the meals bad but it does mean you have to deliberately decide when you buy the meal to be tune out the noise.

So after you go grocery shopping, as soon as you get the TV dinners home, take them out of their packaging. If you need to, cut out the cooking time instructions or take a picture of just that part of the label on your phone. Do that, and then throw out the packaging, and especially throw out the nutrition facts and the portion size because you don’t need it. If you don’t want to completely throw it out, you could use a black Sharpie to scribble out all the calorie counts and all the other information that’s just going to mess with your head. And again, do that right when you get home. So then when you go to eat them later, it’s not a conscious decision you have to make during the process of feeding yourself. You’ve dispensed with that information. It’s not relevant to you. It’s not something you’re going to be looking at when you’re preparing the meal. So, hopefully just doing that will help you then eat the meal the same way you would eat the meal if someone had put down a bowl of pasta for the whole table and there were more people there. You would take a serving, but you would eat as much as you were hungry for. You wouldn’t be thinking I am only entitled to exactly one half or one quarter of this. 

If that doesn’t quite do it, some other thoughts on how to reframe this. Since you used to nanny, consider whether you would have policed a kid in the same way? A lot of kids’ snacks are sold in single serving pouches. But the person who decided the size of the granola bar or the yogurt tube, does not know your child and does not know their hunger. And they cannot say that this is not a two- or three-granola-bar-day versus a one-granola-bar-day. You deserve that same permission. Your hunger is valid. You eat these at a time of day when you’re really hungry. It completely makes sense to be as hungry as you are because that’s what your body is telling you. And you deserve to eat as much food as you’re hungry for. The food delivery framework should not change that. And no one else knows your hunger the way you do. Certainly not a faceless corporation that never met you before they wrote up their serving size information. So I hope that helps and I hope you enjoy your TV dinner tonight.

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The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti diet journalism!

Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith.

Today’s conversation is with Gregory Dodell, MD, a weight-inclusive endocrinologist in New York City, better known as @everything_endocrine or “that one good diabetes doctor!” on Instagram. I know so many of you have questions about weight and diabetes, and a newsletter essay on these issues is forthcoming! But in the meantime, I’m delighted to bring you this conversation with Dr. Dodell, which challenges so many of our assumptions about carbs, weight and diabetes risk.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And subscribe to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and more.

Virginia

I am delighted today to be chatting with Dr. Gregory Dodell, who is an endocrinologist in New York City. Welcome!

Greg

Thanks for having me on.

Virginia

I’m really excited to have you here. I think I get a question about diabetes about once a week. It comes up in a lot of different ways, from parents, from people worried about their own health or a parent’s health. It also comes up a lot from trolls, right? It’s the argument that they think you can’t fight back on. We’ll be having this very nuanced conversation about the relationship between weight and health and why it’s so important to separate weight from health, and someone will throw in, “But what about diabetes?” It feels like this third rail. Like, okay, people can be healthy at any size, but maybe not with diabetes. So, why don’t we start there? Why is diabetes so inextricably linked to weight and our collective understanding of this condition?

Greg

Yeah, it’s tough to tease out. It’s tough to answer, just because of what we hear in the media and what a lot of doctors probably say in the office. The first thing is, it’s really important to realize that correlation and causation are not the same things. There’s 40 some-odd things that impact blood sugar, just like there are many, many, many things that determine body weight. You can’t just say one causes the other when you look at weight and diabetes. There’s people across the size spectrum that have diabetes. I see people in my office across the BMI spectrum—of course, BMI is not a useful indicator of health—but just to put it in context. Not everyone who has a higher BMI has diabetes and there are many people with a “normal” BMI that have diabetes.

A lot of the research doesn’t control for things like weight stigma, access to healthy food, stress levels, sleep—real behaviors that impact these things. So that’s really what I would say: Let’s focus on the behaviors. Let’s really look at the research critically, like a lot of people in the field are thankfully starting to do, to tease out the relationship and see. There may not be anything there and there may be something there. Even if there is, we need to treat people and focus on behaviors and things that we can do to improve health. Focusing on weight as a main marker of health just isn’t working.

Virginia

Right, because we don’t have effective and safe ways for most people to lose weight. So prescribing that and zeroing in on that as the entire treatment plan is underserving people. And I’m glad you highlighted the stigma piece, too, because I think that’s difficult to tease out for folks. It’s not like researchers are acknowledging this bias as they’re doing the studies. Because this has been so baked into our culture for so long, a lot of researchers who are studying these questions are starting from the premise that there’s a causal relationship without the data to support that.

Greg

Right. When you start with a research study and a protocol, you have to look at all the factors that impact all the different variables. I think, if you come into a study with a preconceived notion that weight is what’s gonna cause this, and you’re not controlling for other variables, it’s not a good study. Every research paper, or a lot of them, start outs by acknowledging we’re in this epidemic of people gaining weight. It’s an assumed thing, leading into this conclusion without really looking at all the other variables.

Virginia

It also means that if they are able to document any weight loss in the study, and they see that people’s numbers got better, they’ll say, well, the weight loss caused that improvement, without asking what else changed for people? Did they change behaviors? And what if it’s the behaviors that cause the improvement?

Greg

Totally. And there is that great review paper that just came out that was like 250 reference articles documenting very clearly that independent of weight loss, increases in activity improve health and diabetes and cardiovascular function, all those things. So that has to be taken into account.

Virginia

So, obviously, you are somewhat unusual in your field, because you are taking a weight-inclusive approach to diabetes management and prevention. That is not the typical encounter that people have in an endocrinologist’s office. What does that look like for your patients? What are you doing differently from your colleagues?

Greg

Yeah, I’m not sure that I’m doing anything differently with regard to how I treat diabetes. I’m using blood sugar and other data points to treat overall health. I just take weight out of the equation. People may lose weight with behavior changes and with medications. They also may gain weight. If someone has uncontrolled diabetes and their blood sugar is really high and we work together with behaviors and medication to help control the blood sugar, they may start retaining muscle and gaining muscle and holding on to calories. Because what happens is if the blood sugar is really high, your body starts burning muscle and fat to create energy. So the weight may change in either direction. I think that’s why focusing on weight is not really that helpful. We should focus on the behaviors and we should focus on blood sugar and cholesterol and blood pressure, things like that. 

Virginia

Are patients surprised when you don’t focus on weight?

Greg

Totally. I do get referrals from people that just know that that’s my approach. But I have a lot of patients that come in not knowing that. And when I say, “Well, I’m not going to focus on your weight, I’m going to focus on these other variables, and these behaviors and use the medication accordingly,” I think people are pleasantly surprised. Some of them just don’t say anything. They’re just surprised and maybe speechless. A lot of people come in saying, “I know, I need to lose weight. I’m working on it,” just because that’s what they’re expecting me to say.

Virginia

They’re used to doctors starting there. 

Greg

The patients that are speechless when I say that—I wonder if they walk out shaking their head, like, “Who is this guy? He’s not gonna tell me to lose weight?” Like, in a bad way? Or if they’re like, “Wow, that was kind of interesting.” I don’t know.

Virginia

Yeah, I bet for a lot of them it’s pretty refreshing if they’re used to going to the doctor and having weight be this problem to solve. I mean, speaking from personal experience, whenever I find a doctor who doesn’t do that it’s a real ray of sunshine in my life. Of course, it does run so counter to people’s expectations, it can also be a little unsettling

Greg

Yeah. Because obviously a lot of people want to lose weight. Statistics are out there, like 70% of women and 50% of men. They may be looking to the doctor to help them accomplish that objective. So it may be counter to their expectations and also desires.

Virginia

Was this something you gradually started doing over the course of your years in practice? Talk a little bit about your evolution on this because I’m assuming this wasn’t how you learned it in medical school? 

Greg

No. You know my wife, Alexis Conason at the Anti-Diet Plan. We had very similar trainings, we actually trained in the same hospital right out of our doctoral programs. She was in the bariatric surgery world and then went into private practice and started hearing from her clients all the stigma, avoiding doctors, and all this stuff. And thankfully  she came across this HAES movement and started learning about and slowly  telling me about it. It took me a while just because, I’ll admit, I’m just so entrenched in my training and what I’m reading from the medical community, it was really hard to break free from that. Like she would joke years ago and be like, “I think you’re almost there, but you’re not 100% HAES. I’m not sure I can send people to you.” But then I read her book, one of the first drafts, and I was like, “Whoa.” Like, I got it. I had that epiphany. I read it and the research studies, and I was like, “Okay, I can do this.”

Virginia

That’s awesome. So now we just need you to get all the other doctors to be on the same page with us.

Greg

Yeah, maybe I’m overly optimistic, but across the communities of medical professionals everyone is acknowledging that weight stigma is very problematic. There’s a big conference going on this week and stigma is a huge part of it. You know, people first language, all this kind of stuff. The problem is they are still thinking in terms of needing to help these people with their disease, versus not focusing on that. Let’s focus on behaviors because people are and can be possibly healthy across the size spectrum. So using different language is nice. And yes, trying not to stigmatize people is obviously a good goal, but let’s just take it out of the equation and then you definitely won’t stigmatize any.

Virginia

Right. You need to recognize that you can say you don’t want to stigmatize people, but if you are still saying that their body size is wrong and needs to change, then you are inherently perpetuating stigma. There’s a tension there. I’ve seen that shift as well. Ten years ago, when I was interviewing doctors, they had never even heard of weight stigma. And that’s definitely shifted. But yeah, there’s still there’s still a little a little more pushing we have to do.

The other stuff that comes up for folks around diabetes that I’m sure you hear all the time is the food anxieties, the feeling that diabetes means you can’t ever eat carbohydrates. Or even if you’re at risk for diabetes, that you shouldn’t eat carbohydrates. So can you drill into that relationship a little bit for us between carbs and blood sugar? How do you think about this?

Greg

I think it’s very problematic to tell people you can’t eat a major food group. I have a couple patients out of thousands who can just not eat carbs but it’s unlikely and it’s not sustainable. I think the yo-yo dieting, the weight cycling, all those things are more problematic in the long term. The way I approach it is by saying what a lot of very good dietitians say, which is: Have the carbs but paired with proteins and fats, and that will help the absorption. And also, from an intuitive eating standpoint, check in with yourself after you have those things, a couple hours later, how do you feel? How’s your blood sugar? How do you feel when your sugar is high? And really key in and if you’re not feeling well, or you’re tired, or you’re more thirsty when your blood sugar is high, then that’s something to kind of take notice of and really have that conversation with yourself. So that’s my approach. Certainly people that are on insulin for type one diabetes, or even type two diabetes, can use medications to fit into your nutritional eating pattern and activity. We’re fortunate enough to have medications that we can use, so that you don’t have to change your life in order to manage diabetes, and you don’t have to sacrifice quality of life to do so and to be healthy.

Virginia

That’s an interesting shift. There’s often a mindset of, you have to be doing everything you can to avoid or minimize medication use, even if that means restricting your life in major ways, right? Because somehow it’s a failure, if you just can’t eat quote perfectly enough and avoid the need for medication. So, I like that you’re clearly taking a lot of the shame out of it and prioritizing people’s lifestyles along with their health.

Greg,

It goes hand in hand, right? So if someone’s really stressed because they’re at a party, and everyone else is having cupcakes, or pizza, and they’re like, “Oh, I can’t eat this, because my blood sugar is gonna go high” or, “The doctor said I can’t do that.” That creates stress, which, will probably also increase blood sugar. And then later on most likely this restrictive thing is going to be like, go and have the cupcake or pizza and maybe more. So, I would say, if it’s in front of you, try it, see if you’re enjoying it. And we can adjust the medication. I don’t want you to feel the stress around living your life and feeling that you can’t have or do something.

Virginia

That’s a very important mindset shift for us to make around this. I think one of the really tough things with type two diabetes in particular, is that people feel this sense of failure, that the sense of like, “I did this,” particularly folks in larger bodies. I did this because I couldn’t lose the weight. And there’s that whole cultural narrative of blaming people for this condition. So yeah, I don’t know if you want to speak to that a little bit because I think that’s a lot of what needs to get undone here.

Greg

Totally, yes.  So much of type two diabetes, or a big proportion of it, is genetic. Then there are other variables that cause blood sugar to go up, whether it’s stress, not getting enough sleep, certain medications raise blood sugar, so there’s a lot of different variables. It’s clearly not just what someone’s eating, or how much they’re moving, or how little they’re moving. There are a lot of things in life and with regard to health that we can’t control. And if it does happen, let’s figure out how to work together to control it and make sure that the quality of life is good, and that the health is as good as it possibly can be.

Virginia

We need to take it out of this sense of personal failure, which just speaks to this idea that we have to earn the right to health care. That only good people deserve these things is such a problematic concept, and really goes against what health care is supposed to do.

Greg

Right, and there’s a huge overlap between diabetes and depression and anxiety. I think taking the shame out of it is a good first step. Acknowledge that a lot of this may have nothing to do with what you did or should have done. Okay, we’re in the present moment, let’s treat it the best we can. What happened in the past, whatever it is, It’s not your fault. It’s genetic. Blame whoever, doesn’t really matter. Like, let’s just take care of it.

Virginia

As you’re talking about behavior changes, which can be a really important tool for managing diabetes and health in general, I think we should talk about the fact that there’s a risk there of that becoming shame-based as well. Doctors prescribing very unrealistic goals for people in terms of the behavior changes they want made. Like, if you’re depressed, it’s hard to exercise regularly. Even if it would be helpful, there’s just these different barriers in people’s lives to achieving the kind of behaviors that doctors might be looking for. So I’m curious how you approach that with your patients to get over the shame.

Greg

So much about exercise has been linked with negative feelings, doing it just to lose weight—like “no pain, no gain.” With regard to movement, just saying, “What do you like to do?” Do you like to dance? Do you think you could try a yoga class or a spin class? Or, hey, could you just walk for five minutes? Let’s come up with something a little bit above and beyond what you’re doing now, something that you’re gonna enjoy and that’s gonna feel good. So that’s one thing I try to talk about.

And then, being realistic and talking about what the access to food is. If someone’s working two jobs, you know they work all day, and they don’t have time for lunch. Just trying to figure out their life is as an individual. Because making population based recommendations, when we all live very different lives, it’s just not realistic. Saying, Oh, you need to diet and exercise, that just means nothing.

Virginia

Right. And it can just make people feel very defeated. I remember when I was pretty newly postpartum, maybe six months after my second daughter was born, the doctor I was seeing at the time was pretty weight-focused. She was like, “Well, when my kids were that little, I would walk for an hour a day with them strapped in the stroller.” And I just remember this sense of failure because I knew I couldn’t achieve that. I was like, “Well, my older child has school, and I’m working, and my baby’s not sleeping through the night, and I’m really too tired to walk.” There was such a different way that we could have approached that conversation. If she had started with, “Well, what do you like? What is your time like?” As opposed to, “Why aren’t you doing this thing that worked for me?” Which was frustrating.

Greg

Yeah, and I don’t know if that’s training—like if we should be better at motivational interviewing—or if it’s just the structure of the system, that we’re so short on time, It’s easy to be like, “Oh you should diet and exercise.” We’re just clicking away on our little box of the electronic medical record. There’s so many assumptions that are made about people’s lives and not taking the time or having the time to dissect what’s going on in someone’s day-to-day life that’s impacting their health, or could be impacting their health.

Virginia

Absolutely. So the last thing I wanted to talk about is kids. I know you treat adults, but diabetes concerns come up so much for parents. If they have a family history of diabetes or if they have a kid in a bigger body, it’s often one of the first things the pediatrician starts talking to them about. It’s very tied to all this rhetoric about the “childhood obesity epidemic.” What’s your advice for parents? How should they be thinking about this issue if it’s a concern in their family?

Greg

Focusing on making sure the child is getting good sources of nutrition, whatever that may mean, fruits and vegetables, things like that. Coming from a standpoint of not a restrictive eating pattern, but trying to add in certain foods that we know are healthy. Not having things that are off limits or limiting things because in the long run that can be detrimental. Just trying to find ways, the same way with adults, to move, sleep, stress management, all those kinds of things. Focusing on weight specifically with kids is very, very problematic. I’ve had people message me on on Instagram who have diabetes, and they tell me stories of when they went to the pediatrician that they held up like a regular soda on a diet soda and said, “Regular soda? You’re never gonna drink this again.” And threw it in the trash. Seven years old and then goes on to like a 20 year eating disorder. So I think it’s very, very important to not focus on body weight with kids. Just getting kids to find behaviors that we know will serve them long term is important. Body shaming them is probably the worst thing that you could do for a kid.

Virginia

I mean, it’s striking me that the advice you’re giving is what I would hope that any parents would be doing: Encouraging exposure to vegetables and finding movement you love. The problem really comes when we only talk about these things because we’re worried about your body size or because we’re worried about your disease risk. That’s underserving all kids. And it’s likely to make the child who is getting that message feel really stigmatized and shamed, as opposed to this just being a part of life for them.

Greg

Whatever their body size is, everyone could benefit from these healthy behaviors. And that should be the same approach with kids.

Virginia

Alright, so we wrap up the episode by giving some recommendations of things we are loving. This can be a book, product you’re loving, an experience you’ve had recently,  any recommendation you’ve got for us.

Greg

I’ll shamelessly just say I love Alexis Conason’s book, Diet Free Revolution. I can’t say without blushing because I feel ridiculous, but whatever.

Virginia

That’s a great recommendation! And of course, you’re always allowed to promote your wife’s book.

My recommendation is a podcast my four year old is obsessed with called Julie’s Library, which is Julie Andrews reading kids books. It’s quite magical, if you grew up as a Mary Poppins fan, as I did. They apparently made 20 episodes in 2020, but I completely missed it then. But we’ve just found it and my four year old is in love with it. Julie brings on really wonderful children’s authors like Jacqueline Woodsonq to read their books and chat. It’s a very Mr. Rogers vibe. It’s very low key, very soothing. And I’m finding it’s helping us a lot when she gets home from school because, I don’t know about you, but my kids come home from school in horrible moods, and everybody’s grouchy and screaming. It’s my least favorite part of the day, to be honest. That transition out of schoolwork mode into family mode is very fraught. We put on this podcast and she eats her snack and listens. She’s like, “I need Julie, don’t I?” It just kind of chills her out and I want to recommend it. 

Anywhere you get your podcasts, there’s 21 episodes. I hope they make more. When you look at the reviews, there’s all these parents being like, “Please, Julie make more episodes.” It’s kind of like preschool or hypnosis. It’s really great.

Greg

So awesome. Perfect. We all need it.

Virginia

Well, Dr. Dodell, tell listeners where they can find more of your work. I will link to your Instagram because people need to see you dancing on Fridays.

Greg

Oh my goodness, yeah. So I’m @everything_endocrine on Instagram. Twitter, I don’t use that much, but I am on there at @DodellMD. And my practice website is Central Park Endocrinology.

Virginia

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. This was a great conversation.

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The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti diet journalism!

There’s a slew of “Look at this mama, she’s so beautiful inside and out.” And it’s always on the photos of women who are thin. We see this equating of “you are slaying motherhood,” with “you don’t have any physical reminders that you’ve created a human and birthed a human.”

Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith.

Today’s conversation is with Sara Petersen, a writer based in New Hampshire. Her first book Momfluenced, which examines the performance of motherhood through momfluencer culture, what this reveals about the texture of modern motherhood, and what we might learn from it, is coming next year from Beacon Press.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And subscribe to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and more.

Quick disclaimer: Sara and I are both white, straight, cisgender women who had our children biologically. We both have varying degrees of thin privilege. This conversation is inevitably focused on the experience of motherhood as this white, straight, cisgender phenomenon because that’s the reality of momfluencing. It’s not an inclusive world.

If a conversation about pregnancy, childbirth and body changes does not sound safe for you, feel free to skip this one.

Virginia

Hi, Sara, thank you for being here!

Sara

Hi, I’m so psyched.

Virginia

Why don’t we start by defining some terms.  What is a momfluencer? I loved the way you put it in your Harper’s Bazaar piece, that “they enrage us and yet we cannot look away.”

Sara

The standard definition is an influencer who is also a mother who has monetized her social media platforms. I’m broadening it for my research and book to look at how we all perform motherhood on social media, whether or not we have a monetized following.

Virginia

Interesting. That makes sense because it is true you get micro-influenced by mothers in your space, even if they’re not “capital M” momfluencers.

Sara

Totally, and it impacts how you think about posting your own motherhood content on your own page. It’s this self-conscious narratization of your own story. You start calling yourself a mama versus a mother or a mom. And there’s a romanticization of the basic facts of motherhood.

Virginia

As professional momfluencers have become a legitimate industry, we are seeing much more analysis and discourse around them, which I really cannot get enough of. And I’m so excited for your book. What made you want to dive so deep into this topic?

Sara

Taza, Naomi Davis, was one of my first obsessions. She made motherhood look so joyful. That was confounding for me because I’m someone—obviously I love my kids and I’m super grateful for them—but nine times out of ten, I don’t love the work of motherhood. It’s tedious, it’s monotonous, it’s boring a lot of the time, like playing store or whatever. So seeing someone constantly posting this beautiful, joyful picture of motherhood got in my psyche. Why wasn’t I so readily able to access that same joy? And then I went down the rabbit hole from there.

Virginia

There’s also the aesthetics of momfluencing. I’m recording in my four year old’s bedroom right now because my office is under construction. I’m sitting next to a giant sloth named Stella who is an important part of our family and she’s pretty hideous.

Sara

I really should have brought Kevin. I have a dolphin in my house. Oh, it’s narwhal named Kevin.

Virginia

I find motherhood is a real drag on my aesthetic vibe. This room is filled with stuffed animals that I would never have chosen to surround myself with because they bring my children great joy. But in the momfluencer vision, your children perfectly fit into this beautifully curated life. Their children do not have giant sloths and narwhals. Or they have the cute Etsy versions.

Sara

The detritus of children in a home is ugly, nine out of ten times. I just spoke to Bethanie Garcia about this—The Garcia Diaries. She’ll do the staged photoshoots with her kids in cute little shaker fishermen cardigans, but she’s transparent about the fact that she bribes her kids to wear those because  as soon as the photoshoot is done, they want to wear their SpiderMan onesies.

Virginia

We should mention for folks who are as fascinated by momfluencers as we are, if you want more on these topics, we recommend Kathryn Jezer-Morton’s newsletter Mothers Under the Influence and the podcast Under the Influence with Jo Piazza. And Meg Conley wrote about the mommies of Instagram.

But we are going to talk about momfluencer’s bodies and how the momfluencing sphere intersects with diet culture. It’s important to articulate that these women are both products of and creators of diet culture. They are both living under these rigid standards about what their bodies should look like and reinforcing those standards through all this content creation. There’s also a very specific vernacular to how much influencers do diet culture.

Sara

Pregnancy and postpartum are the two biggest phases where you’re going to see it. Documenting of pregnancies and the barrage of comments. Like, “how do you look so good, pregnant with your fifth kid? I’m pregnant with my first.” Then there are the postpartum photos. It’s “How did you get your body back so quickly? How did you bounce back?”

Virginia

You have made humans and yet you look like you’ve never made humans, which means you’ve achieved what diet culture tells us is a woman’s primary goal in life: To be a mother and to look like that never happened to you.

There’s often a lot of body positive talk woven in with the “bouncing back.” Which can get murky, because there’s a lot of “I’m doing this for me. This is #selfcare,” without acknowledging that you’re reinforcing fatphobia in that process. There’s also the reality that there are very few major name fat momfluencers. There’s often this rhetoric of like, “Oh, you’re so brave, because you’re showing us stretch marks.” But the only people who get to be brave are thin white women. 

Sara

Another one of the tropes is the conflating of moral goodness with how one’s body is presenting. There’s a slew of “Look at this mama, she’s so beautiful inside and out.” And it’s always, again, on the photos of women who are thin. We see this equating of “you are slaying motherhood” with “you don’t have any physical reminders that you’ve created human and birthed a human.” Which adds to the erasure of the labor of motherhood. It erases the need for things like postpartum leave and universal preschool, things that actually help mothers in systemic, meaningful ways, versus the hashtag #noexcuses.

Virginia

You’re right. If you manage to look like you never had a kid at six weeks postpartum, then why do you need maternity leaves? Because you got your body back. You’re done. Oh, that’s infuriating. 

So you have some case studies for us to analyze.

Sara

Alright, so the first one we’re going to look at is Hannah Neeleman. She’s @ballerinafarm. She’s a rancher in Utah. She’s Mormon. She’s married to one of the heirs to JetBlue. But that’s not a big part of her platform because that would go against the homesteading rancherwoman vibe.

This is the birth announcement for her seventh child. The comments are praising her superwoman powers. Like, “How does she look like this pregnant with her seventh kid?” Then there’s another comment that says, “I think she’s just got amazing abs and was able to hide it this long!” So there’s this really pointed dissection of mothers’ bodies where commenters are saying, “I knew it!!!!!!! I thought I saw a little pooch last week!!! ❤️❤️❤️ congrats!!!”

Virginia

There’s a sense of ownership over this woman’s body. That’s a very uncomfortable dynamic.

Sara

Yep. She posts a lot of cleaning videos where she’ll clean up the mess of six children and make it look like a lark, with lots of thumbs up. She does it all with a smile. There’s a comment under this pregnancy announcement post that says, “This is what true feminism looks like! Doing it all! So cool.”

Virginia

Sara, help me, how is this feminism?

Sara 

Feminism here is being a mother, assuming motherhood as a gender essentialist, natural role that a mother should do easily and well and with a smile on her face. She’s adhering to all the patriarchal standards that there are. She is conventionally attractive. She’s retaining her heterosexual desirability, in spite of and despite motherhood. She’s in the home and she’s happy about it all. She’s not complaining.

Virginia

I think about young women, especially coming from rural America, from a conservative background, aspiring to this. It feels like such an unfair bar. There’s so many things about this that are resting on all the different kinds of privilege she has. She’s only doing it all because she’s married to a gazillionaire. I mean, and she’s certainly not doing it all.

Sara

She also homeschools her kids. And there’s never any acknowledgement of outside childcare help or housecleaning help. Another part of her “doing it all” narrative is the idealization of her marriage. When she went to the pageant, she made a big point of posting stories like “Daniel’s staying at home with the kids and he’s the best.”

Virginia

That’s interesting. It’s almost like a cosplay of equality and co-parenting, with that need to overly praise your husband for doing his part.

Who do we have next?

Sara

Amber Fillerup Clark. She used to be known as Barefoot Blonde. I don’t know if I would call her ex-Mormon, but she’s written some really insightful posts disagreeing with the church, which is refreshing. But she, again, is a thin woman. This is how she announced her fourth pregnancy.

I guess we could say she feels “empowered” to lean into her sexuality in a way that not all momfluencers do. There’s a comment that says "No wonder he keeps putting babies in you. LOOK AT YOU! 😍" So she gets a lot of the hypersexualized comments that make me feel feelings.

Virginia

Well, again, it’s the sense of ownership over her body that her followers have. Because yes, she’s putting a semi-naked photo of herself out there for the world to discuss, but I still feel violated on her behalf. Does she not deserve some privacy?

Sara

Totally. This is the whole, “but they’re putting themselves out there so they deserve whatever intrusive behavior or commentary they get.” Which is obviously absurd logic. There’s a comment here that says, “She already looks hungry and then to think that she’s meant to be nurturing a baby as well in there 🥺”

Virginia

I think a lot about the responsibility of influencers putting these images out for young girls. They do have a responsibility to not perpetuate these  dangerous beauty ideals. And yet, we do not know this woman’s health. We cannot make assumptions based on her body that she has an eating disorder or she’s not eating enough to nourish her pregnancy. Healthy pregnancies look different on every person. There’s no evidence here that she’s doing anything dangerous for her pregnancy. I’m troubled by the standard this reinforces and I feel like it’s important to just emphasize that we don’t actually know what we’re seeing. We also don’t know how much of this is even real, right? Because the photos are heavily edited and styled.

Alright, who’s next?

Sara

I just wanted to briefly touch on Rachel Hollis. I included her infamous tiger stripes bikini shots. Do you want to describe the image Virginia?

Virginia

Yes. She is standing on a beautiful beach and she is wearing a monogrammed bikini top. Her hair is very messy. She’s giving us a lot of beachy waves and big sunglasses. This does look like something that maybe her husband just snapped on his iPhone. It has a much more loose, casual, lower quality vibe to the photo. Her stomach, which is very flat because she is a thin person, has some bumpy skin. I wouldn’t even say it’s loose skin exactly. It’s like her skin is just not perfectly taught. There’s a little bit of texture to her stomach.

Sara

This one exemplifies something that is characteristic of Rachel Hollis’ whole thing, which is, “Everything I have is a result of my individual hard work and not because of my various layers of privilege.” And she writes, “Those marks prove that I was blessed enough to carry my babies. And that flabby tummy means I worked hard to lose what weight I could.” So again, it’s this imperative. I have to work out. I have to change the way my body looks after birthing humans because that makes me morally superior to people who choose not to exercise or choose not to prioritize weight loss after pregnancy. She goes on to uphold her sexual desirability when she says, “I wear a bikini because the only man whose opinion matters knows what I went through to look this way. That same man says he’s never seen anything sexier than my body, marks and all.” 

Virginia

I feel frustrated that none of these women are even questioning the premise. There is never a sense of maybe I don’t have to lose the baby weight. Maybe my body is allowed to look like it changed.

Sara

Katie Crenshaw—she’s a great follow—writes a lot about body image stuff as it pertains to motherhood. She talks about the bullshit of calling images like these brave. She says, let’s stop qualifying perceived flaws. Imperfections aren’t more beautiful or acceptable because someone produced a child. There’s no moral hierarchy. That’s so important to underscore in this whole conversation, this assumption that if our bodies changed because we had children we are somehow given more grace than people who haven’t birthed children when their bodies change.

Virginia

Yes, lots of people’s stomachs who look like Rachel Hollis’ stomach, or significantly fatter, are actually just fat stomachs and they haven’t had kids. They don’t owe us an explanation or justification for that either. You don’t have to earn the right to have a flawed body.

Sara

It goes back to the tiger stripes, like Rachel Hollis saying that somehow her body looks the way it does, because she’s gone through some sort of whatever. The warrior goddess mentality of motherhood.

Virginia

Which is also another way of fetishizing motherhood, instead of seeing motherhood. If  you’re equating the experience of giving birth to running a triathlon—now you’re stronger than ever, and it’s made you a better person—then we don’t have to do anything for moms because they’re walking through this fire so willingly and bravely. If they can withstand that, then they don’t need paid leave or childcare. So this justification for her body is both harming moms and harming all the people who are not moms.

Sara

Which goes back to @ballerinafarm and how she does it all with six kids and one on the way. That’s not good. We shouldn’t be worshiping this cult of burnout.

Virginia

I will just quickly shout out of course Maintenance Phase did an excellent two part episode on Rachel Hollis. So, if you want way more Rachel Hollis analysis, Aubrey and Michael have you covered there.

Sara

Do you want to go into Hilaria?

Virginia

Okay. She is another extremely thin woman. She’s in a profile, so you can really see the definition of her ab muscles, which I feel is important to the story. She’s wearing a black lacy bra and underwear. She is holding a cute little baby in a red onesie. They are near a bathtub, although they are both wearing clothes. Her hair is also in a nice half up style. So I feel like this is not post-bath. She is sniffing her baby in her underwear.

Sara

So again, a lot of the same patterns that we’ve seen in our other case studies. The “Oh my goodness you look absolutely incredible!! 👏👏🙌🙌❤️❤️ After baby number 2 my body decided to give in to gravity. 🤦🏻‍♀️” That demonization of a body doing what a body does. 

Virginia

That other comment you pulled is “Dam girl!!!!!!!🔥 I wish I'd looked like that. If I had, I too would have had more! But I didn't, so I stopped at 2.”

Sara

Yeah, that one really stuck out for me. We’re in a place where we’re considering how many children to have, how many human beings to add to our family based on how our body responds to pregnancy?

Virginia

I think she’s saying the silent part out loud. The postpartum experience can be so brutal and put you through the wringer in so many ways. For me, personally, it was more about like, I want my body back. I don’t want my body to belong to this other creature anymore. But I can understand what they’re saying, even though it makes me also die inside.

Sara

What I hate about that is the emphasis on the visuals of the body. I had a heinous time, especially postpartum with my first kid. It had nothing to do with how my body felt or looked, but it had everything to do with postpartum depression and the huge mental and emotional shifts that I went through. We’re putting so much emphasis on the appearance of the body versus what the person in the body is experiencing.

Virginia

Yes, like if this person had only managed to look a certain way—even if two was the right number to stop at, or the postpartum experience was brutal due to mental health—it would be like, well, I can have more because my body bounces back. 

Sara

This perceived notion of success runs rampant in all things motherhood. I successfully breastfed, I successfully potty trained. 

Virginia

Wasn’t there some controversy about her and surrogacy or secret surrogacy?

Sara

Yeah, her next kid was born via surrogacy. There was some discourse about, “Oh, she just didn’t want to be pregnant and put her body through that again. So she had someone else do it.” The assumption that we all should be and can be judging mothers and their behaviors.

Virginia

We’re assuming it’s a choice. I mean, it may have been a choice for her. I have no idea. But obviously, using a surrogate is often not a choice. We’re also then feeding into this hierarchy of the best mothers are the ones who can have them biologically and look like it never happened. Second to that would be you—I apologize, I may be using the wrong terms—gestated them yourself, even if you look like that happened. You can be a brave thin mom who gestated your own children. Moving down the hierarchy is people who need IVF or need assistance or go the adoption route. We’re playing into this terrible hierarchy of who’s the the “real” or “true” mom. We’re also belittling the experience that every mom has with their body. Only if you went through some hideous natural birth experience is your story worth telling, is that a true motherhood war story. Other ways that motherhood intersects with our bodies isn’t worth talking about isn’t worth holding space for. I know moms who adopted their kids whose bodies also changed dramatically. It’s still a very physical experience of being a mom.

Also, if your body was your job in the way this woman’s body is, maybe it is a reasonable business decision to say I can’t be pregnant because I have to maintain my body looking like this. 

Sara

There are lots of burgeoning conversations happening in the momfluencer space about how we need to be focusing less, obviously, on mother’s bodies and more on the experience of motherhood, which is work and which is often rendered invisible.

Virginia

I’m so here for that shift in conversation. And I hope some of these influencers feel like they can participate. There’s definitely some opportunity to change some narratives here.

Sara

Yeah, it’s almost always met with overwhelming fan support. 

Virginia

I think the next phase of this is we need to see non-thin moms able to do the same thing, and non-white moms, and non-straight moms, and non-cisgender moms. We need to blow apart this definition of motherhood in so many ways, right? And I am grateful you are doing it.

Sara

Okay, so my favorite thing to do these days is to knit while listening to a podcast. 

It’s so heavenly. Because you feel like you’re doing something. Not that you need to be productive at all times, but there’s this virtuous sense of here I am using my hands while also feeding my brain that just feels very good to me. It’s just basically relaxing.

Some of the podcasts I’ve been really into are: Once Upon a Time at Bennington College, and The Plot Thickens.

Virginia

And what are you knitting while you’re listening to all these things?

Sara

The patterns I mostly use are from a knitting momfluencer. Her knitting patterns are beautiful. It’s a cosmos-pink, funnel neck, chunky sweater that I made for my daughter.

Virginia

My recommendation is ignoring your children to read books. Because unlike when you stare at your phone while you’re with your kids—I do that as well, to be clear, but you have to feel guilty because you’re not “present”—when you’re reading, you’re modeling “good behavior.” I’ll pick up my book, become invisible in plain sight, and just read. I do recommend starting out with some light fiction, something you can dip in and out of, because you will get interrupted. 

The thing I’m reading right now, which I’ll admit is so beautifully written it’s not ideal for this, is Matrix by Lauren Groff. I can tell I’m already going to be mad when it’s over. I’m actually going more slowly with it because I don’t want this to end and I want this to be a 500 page book and it’s not.

Sara

That’s the highest praise.

Virginia

So Sara, tell listeners where they can follow your work.

Sara

So, I’m on Twitter and Instagram at @SLouisePetersen. Louise is my middle name. And then I have a website Sara-Petersen.com.

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The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti diet journalism!

“I think in general, we all know too much about nutrition. I say that as a dietitian. Even the most intuitive eating of kids will be a picky eater. And that’s fine. We don’t need to nutrition them out of that. There isn’t of a nutrient in broccoli or kale that they can’t get from something else, I promise.”

Welcome to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about about diet culture, fatphobia, parenting, and health. I’m Virginia Sole-Smith. I’m the author of The Eating Instinct and the forthcoming Fat Kid Phobia.

Today’s guest is Amee Severson. Amee is co-author of How to Raise an Intuitive Eater with Sumner Brooks, RD. Amee is also a registered dietitian who specializes in eating disorder recovery, healing and preserving food/body relationships, and provides gender-inclusive and LGBTQ-affirming care.

Amee joins us today to discuss their new book. We will be talking about feeding kids but also about doing your own work and why we need to forget everything we know about nutrition.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us in your podcast player! And subscribe to the Burnt Toast newsletter for episode transcripts, reported essays, and more.

Have a question or a topic you want us to tackle in a future episode? Post it as a comment on this episode of the newsletter or send it to [email protected]. 

Virginia

I am so excited. I’ve interviewed you a few other times for articles and things, but it is always such a pleasure to chat with you.

Today we are talking about your new book, How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. This is the book I’ve been dying to be able to hand to people. This is a resource we desperately need. I think a lot of people are expecting that they’re going to pick up this book and be told, “Step one to feed your child. Step two to feed your child.” Instead you spend the first 150 pages or so—really half the book—talking about parents. Why we as parents need to do our own work and how we can do that work. So, why start there? Especially because it is so hard, Amee. You’re making us do really hard work.

Amee

I know. I wish I could make it easy and just have it be a complete step-by-step guide, but we would have been missing a lot.

It’s not an uncommon question: Why make so much extra work in there?

I remember when I was a kid, every woman in my family had super short hair. Over the age of like 35 or 40, everyone just cut their hair short. I had this assumption that you got old (because that was old to me when I was seven) and you cut your hair short. You didn’t have long hair when you were old. That’s ridiculous, you know? There’s just this assumption that this is what you do.

And it was the same for dieting for my family. You reach teenage-hood and you joined Weight Watchers. You hated your body and you tried to lose weight. I just assumed that’s what you did as an adult. I know that I’m not alone because we see it everywhere. The way parents or caregivers talk about not just their body, but food in general. You don’t ever have to say anything explicitly to your child. You never have to say, “I think your body is wrong,” or “I think you’re eating wrong,” or “This is your fault.” If you are saying it to yourself, if you are living your life like that, your kids are tiny sponges who soak up all that and reflect it back in the world.

Virginia

Something I hear a lot from parents is, “My child is three or my child is thirteen and I’m now realizing I need to do this. And is it too late?” They’re wishing this was something they fixed about themselves before they became parents. Of course, we cannot go back to our pre-child selves and work on this.

Amee

Just like with intuitive eating, it’s never too late to start working on it. I think at a certain point, it is probably more beneficial for your older teenage child to do their own work, as opposed to you having different rules or attitudes around food. It can feel so overwhelming to start, like, oh, I have to fix myself and master the first half of the book before I’m allowed to start trying to introduce these concepts to my kid. Especially when your kid is older, it can feel more urgent, too, like I need to do this now. I already screwed up so much. As a parent, I get that. You, as a parent or as a caregiver, are repairing your own relationship with food while continuing to foster your kids having a good relationship with food—those two things can happen concurrently. It can be very important, especially if your relationship with food isn’t what you want your kid to grow up with or if you get that sinking feeling that this is not what I want to see my kid doing in 20 years. Then doing it concurrently is important.

Virginia

I think that’s reassuring, too, because it lets us know that we don’t have to fix it completely to do better for them. I hope people find that liberating. I know I do! I just think, okay, I don’t have to be getting an A+ on this, you know? I was trying to get dieting perfect for so long and now I have to get this perfect?

Amee

Yeah, there’s a lot of pressure to be the perfect parent all the time. Especially in this way I am so tired of, like “My kid eats kale, so they’re perfect.” My kid knows that kale goes to work with my husband. He puts it in a seafood case at work because it’s pretty, but we don’t eat it. And that’s totally fine! Because perfect parenting is a myth, I think. Sumner Brooks and I really emphasize throughout the book how faking it till you make it is totally okay. Having a lot of compassion for yourself for not having it all figured out and not being perfect is fine.

Virginia

Let’s talk about your Three Keys concept. This is what you see as the building blocks of the feeding relationship. The first key is providing unconditional love and support for your child’s body. Am I right that this is often one of the hardest parts for folks?

Amee

Yeah, it definitely is. Partly because I think that it can be hard to recognize that we aren’t providing unconditional love and support for our kids. If someone is picking up this book, if someone’s listening to this podcast, if someone is looking up any sort of parenting advice online, they’re probably trying their damnedest to help their kid as much as possible. It’s not malicious, it’s none of that. They’re trying their best and hearing that we can be harming, for lack of a better word, our kids through setting expectations on their bodies or even praising bodies—any of that can be hard to hear. Like, oh crap I’m doing something wrong. We live in a society that has put conditional love and support on bodies and we want to change that, because one of the least important things about a person is what their body looks like or even what their body can do.

Virginia

What is an example of when someone may think they’re providing that support, but they really aren’t? 

Amee

I think praise is a big one. Like, “You’re so pretty,” or “You’re so strong,” or “You’re so handsome.” It also can be subtle things. Something like, “are you sure you really want to wear that? You look really pretty. But are you sure you want to wear that?” It’s a lot of the buts, the “You’re doing really well at this thing, but your body is taking away from it.” And those are those unintentional jabs that build up over time.

Virginia

I was just interviewing someone for my book and we were talking about athletics. Kids get told way, way, way too young that they don’t have “the body” for a particular sport, even if they love a sport. You might love running, but you don’t have a “runner’s body” or “You’re not tall enough to play basketball.” Even if you’re still putting your kid on the team or encouraging them to love that sport, you’re letting them know that they won’t be the best at it, and so that it’s somehow not worthwhile because of their body.

Key number two is to implement a flexible and reliable feeding routine. This is something that you all articulated so well in the book that was really helpful for me. Often, we can either be very structured about meals or have zero structure and both can be really problematic. You said that what kids really need is to know they’re going to get enough food. The point of structure is to let them know that this is a need that will be met. I was like, oh, it’s not about trying to get the kid to eat on a certain schedule. It’s about reassuring that they are going to be fed. How did you come to that realization and why that is so important for parents to realize?

Amee

One of the reasons why it felt so important to talk about enough-ness is because of the central importance of enough-ness in all of nutrition. It’s not about what you’re eating or the timing of it, or anything. It’s just enough-ness, overall. It can feel really uncomfortable to say no, because that’s often how we’re told to do it as an adult for ourselves is if you want something, you eat it, regardless of when you want it, regardless of how you want it. That’s totally fine. Absolutely encourage that. Kids have very one track brains. They’re not quite as prefrontal cortex-developed as we are as adults. It can be harder for them to recognize, like truly recognize, that if I’m hungry and I don’t eat now, I will get enough food later. Especially if there has been a time where they were maybe presented with food, like a dinner for example, that they didn’t want to eat. It’s a lot of food, maybe on a plate, that they don’t enjoy. They’re going to probably leave the table hungry. And the same with snacks, the same with lunches, breakfast, all of it. If they’re not given enough and given the option to have enough, they develop the sense of okay, I need to get it when I can. And we want to make sure that they know that if you don’t eat all your lunch, that’s fine. And you can have more when you get home.

I have an elementary school kid. And elementary school lunches are a whole thing where they only get like 10 minutes to eat food. My kid is a very slow eater. So I know she never finishes her whole meal. So she comes home hungry. We’ve fallen into the routine that she gets  another lunch when she comes home from school. Because otherwise she’s hungry. We want her to know that like, okay, you don’t have to feel sad or upset that you didn’t finish your lunch. You don’t need to feel chaotic when you come home and just go for whatever food is available. You can make yourself some mac and cheese, or we can. She’s figured out the microwave and it’s beautiful. So she can do more.

Virginia

We love that. Yeah, my eight year old has the toaster and the microwave down now.

Amee

Same! It’s beautiful. It’s a lovely day as a parent when that happens.

One other thing that comes up in that space is if we’re about to have dinner and she’s hungry, I will say “No, we’re not gonna have a snack right now because I want you to eat dinner. It will come and it’s food that you like. There will always be one part of it that you will eat. So I want you to be hungry for that.” It’s normal to be hungry leading up to a meal and there will be enough food for you to eat. My seven year old does not understand that whole sentence, but her brain will conceptualize and understand if we do it again and again. And that’s the goal.

Virginia

Yes, that’s helpful. I think you’ve just articulated this thing that parents struggle with. There are times when kids want to eat a lot of food and it’s not, in our brains, a time to eat. We think you had lunch at school but now you’re coming home starving. But you’re compensating for a lack, where she’s not getting enough time to eat her lunch at school. Versus, it’s 20 minutes to dinner and I’m not creating a lack by saying no at this point. Your enough-ness will be achieved very shortly, I’m just helping you understand 20 minutes. When you’re saying no, are you saying no in a way that’s restrictive or supportive?

Amee

That phrase right there—restrictive or supportive—is a conversation Sumner and I had a lot as we wrote this book. How can we phrase this in a way that is supportive and not restrictive?

Virginia

Yes. That’s a helpful phrase for us all to keep in our hearts and come back to in those moments when there’s a request for food that’s catching you off guard.

And then the third key is to develop and use your intuitive eating voice. What is my Intuitive Eating voice, Amee?

Amee

It’s the voice that tells us we are hungry, we want food, that we don’t really want to eat this food tonight, but we want to eat that one. It’s I want to move my body today because I feel like I’ve got energy. It’s I don’t have energy and I think I need to take a nap. We are all born with that voice, all of us are, and sometimes we shut it down. Sometimes we’re just raised and in this culture that is not allowing us to foster that, not allowing us to hold on to that and to trust it. So, by developing and using that intuitive eating voice, we get the chance to pull it out of hiding and keep it from being lost. By doing that as a caregiver, as a parent, we show how safe it is, how okay it is to do that. We get to be the home base forever, for these kids. Like, this is what my my family did and it was fine. This is what I learned is safe and okay. We can really allow that space to be held for ourselves. For our kids, it looks like not letting this thing that is really cool and really important fade away and be locked in a deep dark corner of our brain. Because it’s a really cool space where we get to trust our bodies.

Virginia

I’m almost tearing up as you talk about that because it’s really such an honor to be able to do that for our kids. It’s a privilege that we can be that space for our kids.

So, you take us through these three keys and then we start to talk about nutrition. I love how late in the book nutrition comes because all too often this is where the conversation starts and stops, right? Why do you think it’s so important to shift the focus off nutrition? When is there a place for nutrition in the conversation?

Amee

I think in general, we all know too much about nutrition. I say that as a dietician. 90% of the work that I do is un-teaching nutrition to people because there’s so much that’s contradicting itself or so overblown. How the heck are you supposed to navigate all of that? The last thing Sumner and I want to do is throw on even more rules. The rules are not the point. We didn’t want to make it the main focus of the book because it’s not the main focus of intuitive eating. It’s not the main focus of raising kids.

If you are shoving vegetables on your kid, they’re not gonna eat it. My kid ate a bite of a carrot last night. That was it. Her vegetable for the day was a single bite of a carrot. And that was fine. I was glad she ate a bite of the carrot because they were good. Because when we obsess about nutrition—did you eat enough vegetables, did you eat enough fruit, protein, fat—we take away from that intuitive eating voice. We take away from that instinct that it’s okay to eat food. It’s okay to to not like things. It’s normal to have a picky kid. It’s not a screw up on parents part. it’s not a broken thing within your kid. Even the most intuitive eating of kids will be a picky eater, and that’s fine. We don’t need to nutrition them out of that. There isn’t of a nutrient in broccoli or kale that they can’t get from something else, I promise. We can expose our kids to these things, expose them to us as parents, normally eating food andtaking the pressure off of ourselves and off of them to find the most important thing that we could possibly eat on our plate is the brussel sprout. It’s just a piece of food, same as this chicken, same as this french fry. I don’t need to fight with you about this one. I’m allowed to not like this and I’m allowed to try it. That comes up, too, how many exposures it takes for a kid to be willing to try a food, to be willing to accept a food. It’s a lot, like 18 to 20 exposures, which is just looking at the food existing.

Virginia

Right, without pressure to eat it. I think so often people hear that exposure number and think that means they have to push it on their kid 18 to 20 times. They just need to be in a room with it.

Amee

Yeah, It’s like sparkling water, like if the essence of it exists in a room with you.

Virginia

It’s the Lacroix of vegetables. Just a waft. Check, we got another exposure down.

The hyper focus on nutrition and the anxiety parents have about nutrition so often gets in the way of the meal being relaxed, fun, maybe you have a conversation you enjoy with your child. All of that gets lost, right? We’re not getting that opportunity for food as connection and food as comfort. 

Amee

Yeah, when it turns into a food fight at the table, like just eat this food, it takes takes the focus away from a time where we can hang out or just be together. 

My daughter, she’s almost eight and she goes in and out of more picky periods, but she’s also a kid and her tastes do not line up with that of mine and my husband’s. I like really spicy curry. She does not, to my great disappointment, like really spicy curry. So if I’m going to make curry, I don’t expect her to eat it. I don’t even really expect to present it to her because she knows what it is. She isn’t gonna touch it. But I know she’ll eat some of the dino nuggets I keep in the freezer. So she can have that and some white rice and she’ll eat one of those things.

The other night we had fish tacos, again spicy and fish, two big no-no’s. So, we made her a quesadilla because we figured she would eat a quesadilla. It did not land that night. I don’t know why, could not figure it out. But it was not the ticket. And she was visibly really sad. She ate a couple bites and was like, “I’m full.” And we were like, “No, you’re not, like, we know you’re not full. What’s wrong?” Just very quietly, she was like, “I just don’t like this tonight.” And we’re like, “Oh, just go get something else then. You can make yourself a sandwich or have some mac and cheese.” Like, “Eat food, please.” She got up and made herself an easy mac. It was beautiful.

Virginia

Yes, that’s awesome. It does get easier when they can use the microwave themselves so you’re not the one having to get up and make the whole second meal. That’s the tension, right? Is all the labor that goes into that.

Amee

The food she can make herself, she can switch out a dinner for. That’s the rule.

Virginia

That’s a great rule. That’s a great way to put it.

Amee

And we always, always have some foods that–well, there’s a really weird Uncrustables shortage right now. It’s very sad, actually, because it makes lunches a lot harder to pack. But, even before she could use a microwave, we would have Uncrustables in the freezer, and she would just pull those out and eat those. Or a bowl of cereal, which is totally fine, too.

Virginia

I think folks are gonna find this deeply reassuring.

I want to talk a little more about the nutrition piece. I liked how you said that you do a lot of un-teaching in your work because I think a big problem is we’ve absorbed so much of this nutrition knowledge and accumulated it so intensively over the years. Is there a way to incorporate nutrition in a more useful way into your life? Or is it a matter of just letting a lot of that information go? 

Amee

Yeah. I think there is a little bit of case-by-case for that because there is some nutrition information out there that is really valuable for some people, given their circumstances in life or what’s happening for them. And some of that same information is really not useful for anyone else. For example, my partner is diabetic. He needs to count carbs because he needs to dose insulin. If he doesn’t, It could be bad. I however, don’t need to count carbs. Neither does my kid. The only reason my kid is learning any carb ratios at all is for “Daddy has low blood sugar. Can you please go get him a soda?” She did absolutely bring him a Diet Coke one time.

Virginia

Love the effort but…

Amee

So, we’re learning this one has carbs so we need you to bring this one to Daddy. But so many of those little specific nutrition like tidbits can be really important for one person but really unimportant for another. We are in such like a black and white society that if this thing is important for one, we assume it’s important for all. If this thing is unhealthy for one person, we assume it’s unhealthy for all, but that’s not true. We can pick and choose what is important and for the most part, we also get to pick and choose that forever. For example, I like to use my husband’s example. He doesn’t drink sugar sodas, for example, because he didn’t drink them growing up and he doesn’t think it’s worth his insulin. But Fritos and queso, like Fritos scoops and the crappy Fritos queso, is his jam. He will eat an entire bag in 30 minutes. That’s one of his Christmas presents every year. That’s worth his insulin.

There are a few exceptions to that, like allergies is one. But for the most part, we get to pick and choose when it’s important and when it’s not. We don’t have to cut anything out ever. If it will kill you, then maybe. But for the most part, we don’t have to. If we are interested in or willing to do the work to unpack our own internal diet culture beliefs, internal fatphobia, and the way we externalize that as well, then we really get to pick it apart, which is a lot of work and sometimes not the most fun work. But that’s what leads to having a better relationship with all of this. I find most of the work we do around nutrition is unpacking what’s not important.

Virginia

That’s a really empowering way to frame it. I think people think they don’t get to choose. Nutrition is given to them as the set of cardinal rules they have to follow instead of something you can filter through your own life and your own context.

I really love that you call the last chapter of the book “what to do when this feels harder than you thought.” I do not want to give away the ending of the book. There’s so much more in this book than Amee and I have talked about—you need to read the whole thing. But I do think when people are working on divesting from diet culture and fatphobia it just feels so hard some days. You hit these brick walls and you don’t know where to go. Then you end up worrying that what you did caused more harm because you’re trying to reduce harm. So what do we do when we hit those brick walls? 

Amee

I think accepting, believing, expecting that we will hit a wall at some point. There’s always a wall, whether it’s exhaustion or just confusion or frustration because we all have limits. We don’t have to be ready for every circumstance that’s gonna come our way. And we can have a lot of compassion for ourself in that space. I expect it to be hard. I haven’t met a single person that’s like, “Oh, my God, that was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

Most people come to me, as a clinician, and are like, this is so much harder than I thought it would be. It is challenging. And it is for our kids, too. The longer we’ve been stuck in our own diet culture mindset, the harder it can be to encourage our kids to re-trust this space. It can feel really frustrating and hard and that’s okay. I think self compassion is probably the most important thing we can hold.

In our house we have a lot of conversations about how we’re not going to have any more candy right now. We’re gonna save this candy for later and you can have more tomorrow. Or no, you don’t get to eat more Halloween candy before bed because you just brushed your teeth and I’m tired. You’re going to bed and you can have more tomorrow.

Virginia

I had a cool moment with my four year old recently. We had popcorn and we hadn’t had popcorn in the house for a while because my kids are really messy with popcorn so I stopped buying it for a few months. Then I was like, Oh, they love popcorn, I should get popcorn again. And the first day we had it, my four year old wanted only popcorn. At dinner she was having a plate of popcorn. And then she wanted another plate of popcorn and another plate of popcorn and I could see Dan, my husband, getting a little tense. Like, are we gonna watch her eat a whole bag of popcorn? Is that okay? I knew that it was just because it was new and we hadn’t had popcorn for a while and she loves it and she was really happy to have it. I said to her, “Just so you know, I want you to have as much as you want with dinner. We can also, if you’re getting full, save your plate and have this popcorn with breakfast tomorrow.” Immediately her posture changed and she was like, “Oh, oh yeah, I’m full.” and gave me the plate and we put it aside for breakfast and she ate it for breakfast the next morning. And it was clearly that she was just like, “I better eat all the popcorn right now because I don’t know when I’ll have it again.” As soon as I explained that it’s here in the house now and we’ll have it again, she was like, “Oh, Okay, got it.” That was very cool to watch happen  in real time with her.

Amee

Yeah, once you see your kids start to do it, it’s really cool. We had a similar experience with a chocolate orange, those ones you whack on the table and they break apart. That fun, interactive food is really exciting for my kid right now. We found one at Trader Joe’s and she was so excited about it, and we bought it. She ate that first one within a few days. Then we went back to Trader Joe’s a couple days later and there was another one. So we got it. It’s been like a week and a half and it’s still sitting in the cupboard and she keeps forgetting it exists because it’s just not exciting anymore.

Amee

We are currently watching—we’re late to the game—Succession. That is what we spend our nights doing. I’m very invested in all these people that I really hate so if you want to hate watch something…

Virginia

If you have not read it yet, the New Yorker profile of Jeremy Strong is a fascinating and hilarious read. Definitely check it out.

It turns out he is just as horrible as Kendall Roy is. He’s not actually acting at all. At times I even found it a little triggering because I find all the men on Succession a little triggering. I was like, “Oh, God, he’s like so many like, boys I had crushes on in high school who turned out to be these theater jerks.”

Amee

That’s the whole reason we stopped watching House of Cards after one season. We’re like, this is too close to home. We have to stop.

Virginia

Exactly. Okay, my recommendation is also something to watch. It is a movie I watched recently. As folks know, I do a monthly movie club with my siblings. My siblings are significantly younger and cooler than me, so we each take turns picking movies and my movie is always a terrible pick and then they all pick these amazing things. This was my brother-in-law’s pick, actually, it’s called The Sound of Metal. It is a really moving film about a musician. He’s a drummer in a heavy metal band and he loses his hearing overnight. He goes completely deaf and you never really find out why he loses it. But you watch him coming to terms with being deaf. It’s also a powerful story about addiction. He’s in recovery and you see his quest to get his hearing back almost as like a form of relapsing. It’s just a beautiful movie, it takes you into the deaf community. It’s very thought-provoking about addiction, mental health, and disability and it’s beautifully shot and acted.

So Amy, thank you so much for joining us. This was such a great conversation. The book is How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. Tell folks where they can find more of your work.

Amee

My website for my professional work is Prosper Nutrition Wellness. I’m based in Washington State. You can find me on Instagram or Twitter at Amee Severson.

Thanks so much for listening to Burnt Toast! If you’d like to support the show, please subscribe for free in your podcast player and tell a friend about this episode. Or consider a paid subscription to the Burnt Toast Newsletter. You get a ton of cool perks and you keep this an ad- and sponsor-free space.

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The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting independent anti diet journalism!