Emily: 0:00

We just want to put a trigger warning at the beginning of this episode, because we do talk about sensitive topics like the pathologization and discrimination against folks in larger bodies. And if that's something that is sensitive to you, then just proceed ahead with cost. Heinous.

Vanessa: 0:21

Hey, Adam. So, before we get into today's topic, there was something I wanted to talk about and I think that's kind of loosely related, but I've been thinking about it a lot. This is something Emily and I talk about a lot and. It's about how healthcare practitioners or some healthcare practitioners, or people in the wellness space, blame, or kind of shame people, for getting sick or like blame them for how their body looks. And there's just a lot of shame in general that goes on. like if you get sick, it's your fault because you haven't built up your immune system kind of thing, you know? I mean, and. I just think that this is something that needs to be addressed because we see it on social media. For sure. Hopefully you're not seeing it a ton. If you are, you might need to clean out some of the people you're following.

Emily: 1:12

That's the kind of cleanse I want to support as a nice, good cleanse of all the toxic culture accounts you follow.

Vanessa: 1:19

I mean, these people will make you believe that everything is your fault and. I'm not, you know, here saying that there are no ways that we can optimize our health. Of course there is. but I also don't think you should subscribe to the idea of that. If you're falling ill or whatever it might be, that it's solely your fault. There's so, so many things that are in play.

Emily: 1:46

Yeah. And it's interesting that we kind of, I mean, health care providers and this like wellness, influencer culture, both sort of subscribed to that idea, that shame is somehow going to be a motivator, like, Oh, see, this happened to you because you weren't taking care of yourself. Like feel really bad about it. And then yeah. You know, I think their ultimate goal is to make people choose differently. And, we just know that that's not a motivator and we're going to talk a lot about that today, actually shame and how that kind of fits into the wellness sphere.

Vanessa: 2:18

Yeah. So, I mean, if you're the kind of person who doesn't understand why, for example, maybe that fast food exists and you think everyone who eats it is just, you know, dumb and they need to eat a healthier diet. Please feel free to unsubscribe to this podcast because. And tell him you can, you know, sit down and take a good hard look at. Research and genetics, racial disparities, socioeconomic disparities trauma-informed care and have a good understanding of hierarchy of needs. I just don't want to hear another peep. I mean, it's a really, really highly privileged position to be able to say, not only do I want to take care of my health, but I want to optimize my health. So I think it's really important. To recognize that. And I know that people are going to come back and say, there are so many things like going for a walk or going for a run is free. I understand that if you're not in a place where that is something that you can. Do you or not even have time for, but have the mental capacity for, with the other things going on in your life?

Emily: 3:29

Well, it's like, you're trying to say by telling people to do those kinds of simple things, you're assuming a lie. You're assuming that they have a safe neighborhood where they can go walk and that there is a space for them to even do that. You're assuming that they have the time in their day and for a lot of, well, that's not the case. Yes.

Vanessa: 3:47

And I guess I'm just thinking too, as far as like not even if you do technically have a space you could go to, or, you know, it's something that's not going to cost money. Beyond all of that, the space, the time some, if your other needs aren't being met, you're just mentally not going to be in a space where you're thinking about that. Like, you're just thinking about survival.

Emily: 4:15

Honestly, our conversation about fast food being a privilege issue, rather than like a choice of eating, like shitty food or something is one of the topics that inspired us to start this podcast, because it's just so hard to watch people, shame, things like that without fully understanding the big picture.

Vanessa: 4:34

Absolutely. I like to think about it in the way of, so I did a trauma informed care training this year. And when thinking of, where people are in their brain, I'm thinking of it like a car, like being in the front seat, the back seat, or the trunk of a car. And if you're in the trunk, I mean, you're literally just trying to survive. So what kind of food choices you make are that's not even like on the table of what it's going to be. It's just, what food am I going to be able to get?

Emily: 5:13

definitely. Definitely. And a lot of the times, those things that are easier to get or to prepare are convenience foods, and there's nothing wrong with that. Shaming people for eating processed foods is just a classist problem.

Vanessa: 5:30

Yeah. And if you're someone who can make the choice easily of eating a processed food versus a non-processed food, that's great. But recognize your privilege in that.

Emily: 5:42

Yeah, definitely. And it's just relates perfectly to BMI because there's a lot of disparity and judgment within the system that I think people are going to be really surprised to find out.

Vanessa: 6:00

Yeah, absolutely. So with that, let's get into it.

Emily: 6:04

do it.

Vanessa: 6:16

You know, it kind of makes me laugh every time I think of BMI. I think of, I literally cannot think of VMI without thinking about this. So we had a professor in college. He was actually like a substitute professor. I think he w we only had him for a little bit. It was for our either micro or macro nutrient class. And he was like an ex body builder. And okay. He was a nice guy, so I kind of feel bad saying this, but he was just like, very like, kind of meathead guy. So we did nickname him. Dr. Douchebag bag.

Emily: 6:53

God. I had no, I was like, did I skip class these days? Cause I had no idea like what you were talking about. And then once you said that, I was like, Oh yeah, that's that was him. Yeah.

Vanessa: 7:06

So this guy was like super fit, super into bodybuilding and used to compete and would always, brag about how his BMI was obese.

Emily: 7:19

Yep. I do remember that

Vanessa: 7:22

So I literally cannot think about BMI without thinking about Dr. Douchebag. And I'm so sorry, Dr. Douchebag. I can't remember your actual real name.

Emily: 7:30

That's a good thing. I don't, I don't think he definitely is not listening to our podcast. He's listening to

Vanessa: 7:36

Oh man.

Emily: 7:37

know, weightlifting one-on-one anyways.

Vanessa: 7:41

Yeah. And I mean, he was a nice guy. Like, I mean, he was a professor, he was smart, but

Emily: 7:48

a little, so, okay. So for, I think everybody's kind of familiar with BMI, but we'll do a quick one rundown just in case, So BMI is calculated by a person's weight in kilograms, divided by the square of their height in meters and so if you're basically there's different ranges. And so if your BMI is a certain number, it's falls in an underweight range, then there's a normal quote unquote range. There's an overweight range and there's an obesity range. and they usually classify obesity in three different, categories, just like higher and higher weights. And it's really interesting. The origin of BMI is probably not what you think it is. It was initially developed by a Belgian astronomer. And he was also a mathematician and a sociologist. And he basically took data from white European men only. And it was initially used to categorize a population and it wasn't really an indicator of health. It was just so they could get a picture of the body size of people in this white European population. But then somehow. Some message got really twisted. And in the late 20th century, health and life insurance companies and doctors kind of adopted this index to replace their own heightened wait tables, which led to us kind of pathologizing higher weight individuals. So I think they kind of were all like, okay, this is an easy way that we can just quickly categorize people and kind of box them out of healthcare based on their body.

Vanessa: 9:33

and I think it's important to know that, you know, in these cases, we're using BMI to measure fatness and BMI does not calculate

Emily: 9:47

Nope. So it doesn't even work even for, I feel like we kind of say this all the time, but it's like, even in it's intended. Pathologized shitty purpose. It doesn't work to even do that. Like it doesn't account for muscle, which is why Dr. Douchebag was like, you know, bragging about his high BMI just constantly, because he was like, see, look at me, I'm so fit. And you know, it doesn't, it doesn't work. The system just doesn't make any sense.

Vanessa: 10:16

And you'll see that a lot in the bodybuilding world, like bragging about BMI because it is something I most, I wouldn't even go out on a limb and say everybody builder is going to have, if not a really high in obese BMI.

Emily: 10:32

And I mean, it's also too, very like slanted towards being more, forgiving with taller individuals and less forgiving with shorter individuals. So that's kind of like a huge piece of it as well. So it really, I mean, we know that weight doesn't signify health in any way, but, and we'll definitely be getting into that, but it's yeah, it is important to say that it doesn't even work for its intended purpose because the equation is flawed.

Vanessa: 11:01

It's not calculating what it says. It is at the end of the

Emily: 11:05

Right.

Vanessa: 11:06

Right. And I mean, we also have to, you know, if we're actually trying to measure fatness, we would have to be measuring. I mean, really your height and weight have nothing to do with it. Like, absolutely not like that is irrelevant. Your stature, like how big. Your bone structure is, has something to do with it. I guess if you're going to calculate, what else? Oh, your muscle, obviously height and weight. Nope.

Emily: 11:47

And it's like, you wonder why we still use this. And like, there's really no clear answer for that, except for the fact that like, that's just what. They do. And it's like, like we kind of explained earlier, they just replaced their own height and weight tables and moved with that. But it's like, yeah, it's problematic that we use this, but what's even more problematic is that we're putting all of this emphasis on weight and healthcare. And so. We know that everyone's body is different and everyone is healthy at various sizes. I've had so many clients in the past who are like, you know, I'm in this larger body. And my physician is telling me you got to lose weight. This is so unhealthy, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, all my labs are great. I feel good. I'm active. Like, what am I supposed to do? And then it's like, this kind of feeling of failure comes on because we've used this VMI system to pathologize normal human bodies. And that's a big problem,

Vanessa: 12:43

For sure. And I think it's important to mention too, we're using the same calculation for men and women, and we know that, you know, difference in sexes is going to be a difference in weight. Women naturally are going to carry more fat for a reason, which is your reproductive psych. Like you need more fat on your body

Emily: 13:07

and it's really important too, because this kind of scale does talk about, you know, maybe it could be underway and being underweight has a lot more, I still don't think we should use BMI to calculate that. Um, there's a lot of other things that can indicate. Someone being underweight, or underfed really, and that can indicate malnourishment. And that is a problem, right? Like you, you know, you can die of being malnourished and your body needs to have a certain amount of body fat and nourishment to complete all the necessary processes.

Vanessa: 13:39

Yeah. I mean, when we think about a reproductive cycle for female hormones, if you don't have enough body fat, Functions are just going to shut down because your body is like, we can't support, you know, growing a human. So we're done. We're shutting that off.

Emily: 13:59

And that happens to so many people that are just even exercising so much and have a low body fatness. And it's crazy because you know, fatphobia has not only really pathologized these larger body people, but it's also. Wrongly told everyone, okay. If you're in a thin body and you're working out every day and you're watching what you eat, then that's going to be really great for your health. And the truth is it's not that simple and it can do things like rendering you in fertile. Like that's just the facts.

Vanessa: 14:29

You know, we have these idealized bodies and. Depending on your genetics. And, it's not that you're doing something wrong. You might have a larger bone structure. You might naturally carry more fat than someone else. And most of that is probably going to be because of biological functions or some kind of evolution, evolutionary process. It's not like you can just change

Emily: 15:03

I remember like in school, when we were talking about height and weight charts, and this is so crazy, I want to remember this because they told us, Oh, if you see a child and he's measuring off the charts, like he's way too big, but then you see his parents and they're both really tall. Then you can be like, Oh, he'll, he'll even out. Like that's normal for him. Right. It's a normal growth pattern in his family to have this kind of height. Right. But we don't do that for weight, but we know that it is a genetic thing partially. And there's no mention of that yet. We're completely accepting at about height. It's the same thing. And I think it's just like, before we even go any further, it's so important that you cannot make any assumptions about people's health based on their weight. It's just completely inappropriate. It's a totally separate kind of metric that it's not a lab. It's not specific. It's not about how they're feeling. It's not about symptoms. It's just something that, you know, we aren't in complete control of. And. It's should be kind of set aside when we're evaluating, people's health, which is hard because that's the exact opposite of what people do. And even with body fitness, this has been kind of co-opted by the beauty industry as well. And that was never about health. It was always about fitting the mold that the beauty industry is perpetuating. And even now, like there's such a huge emphasis on being stronger. And the ideal body type is more curvy. Like, you know, We'll talk about the Kardashians again, because we always do.

Vanessa: 16:38

Oh, my gosh, here we go.

Emily: 16:40

was like, thinking about this so hard. It's like, you know, I think some people are thinking, Oh, we're coming a little bit further out of this, you know, toxic, ideal body thing, because look at Kim Kardashians, harass is huge, but look at her stomach. It's flat. Like it's not, these are even more unattainable bodies than before, because they're being achieved with plastic surgery, but it's not like we can't just throw in the towel and be like, Oh, we're done. We're not trying to make women like malnourished and stick than anymore. Like we did in the nineties. We're still doing a lot of harm. It's just packaged a little bit differently.

Vanessa: 17:21

Yeah. I was honestly about to say the same exact thing that it's like. I mean, depending on where your fat is distributed, it might be good or bad if it's in your boobs or your butt, then it's great. But if it moves down to your thighs, like, Oh no, we gotta get that

Emily: 17:37

Right. Yeah. Or your stomach it's like this thing, like who knows in 20 years it could be like all about having like a big belly. Like, I hope that's what happens, but. it's funny. Like even I remember like my mom has a huge budget. Right. And I remember like, when this was starting to become in fashion, she would say stuff like, Oh, you know, does this, does this make my butt look big? And I'd be like, yeah, And she'd be like, Oh no. And I'm like, why? Like I thought that was good now. Like, you know, it's like, she was, she was like, Oh really? Like, this is cool. Now I'm like, yeah, like this is the style now. Right. So it's like, she's like, wow, like, okay, it came around. But it certainly wasn't that way when she was younger, you know? So it's like interesting to the watch, like, you know, that kind of damage it does in us and how we're really at the whim of whatever society is kind of telling us,

Vanessa: 18:31

so I think we've already established that BMI isn't even measuring what we want it to measure. What I wanted to say. They,

Emily: 18:42

like we're not associated with us. What the, the astronomer

Vanessa: 18:49

The people, the, whatever they want to measure. it's not even doing that. Like they're wanting to measure fatness. BMI is not actually measuring that, but then they're categorizing people, based on BMI, which I think is a whole nother issue in and of itself.

Emily: 19:12

I know a lot of people are going to listen to this and think, okay. You know, but I feel unhealthy at this way or, Oh, but you know, I've heard that being at a higher way increases your risk factors for this and this and this. I think it's important that we touch on some of the research that's been done, these ideas. So a common question that I get is like, okay, Emily, that's fine. The BMI system's flawed. So then why do quote, unquote obese people? And I really hate that word. I'm not gonna use it again. We'll just say larger bodied increase risk of disease, right. So why does living in a larger body increase your risk of disease? Because all of these studies are showing that that could be true. So there's a couple of reasons why. Number one would be stigmatized healthcare. So if I can just explain, it in a straightforward manner. You go into the doctor and you're just at your primary care and say, you're in a thin body and you sit down and they take your blood pressure. And it's a little bit high, let's say, and they're like, Oh, are you kind of nervous? And you're like, yeah, like I'm, you know, I'm a little. Maybe you have a little white coat syndrome where you're nervous at the doctor like me, and maybe your blood pressure's up because of that, they're like, Oh, okay. Yeah, you're fine. And this is an experience that I've actually had personally, but if a person walks into the doctor in a larger body and they put the cuff on and the blood pressure reading hi, and they might say, Oh, Oh no, like this, this is a, this is a problem. We've got to put you on meds. We've got to, you know, They kind of take the weight and really apply that to the labs that they're seeing, in that moment and they're going to get different care. Right. So maybe at times that could be a good thing. Maybe like they're they really are uncovering this like high blood pressure thing. And maybe that is really true. But it's important to note that those people are getting different care and you can see why it's really easy. And I've had this conversation with nurses before who have said, you know, I have these judgments about my patients and it's really, really toxic. And it can affect the InBody people. Not so great either. Like I have heart disease in my family and, I check my blood pressure from time to time and it's okay. But I know, so I know it's like just higher because I'm at the doctor, but I don't know that. And neither does my physician, but there's gonna be like, Oh, who cares? Like they're thin they're young, they're healthy. I'm sure it's fine.

Vanessa: 21:38

Emily and I have talked about this before, because I actually have had the same kind of experience at the doctor. So I'm also someone that's in a thin body. And so my doctor is probably perceiving me as a healthy person. Which from only the information of seeing me, not digging any deeper into what my actual practices are. And I also have heart disease in my family. My cholesterol is sorta high. It's not crazy high, but it's sorta high and it's never, ever been mentioned or addressed in any way. And I just can't imagine that would be the same situation. If I was someone in a larger body.

Emily: 22:18

And the worst part of it too, is that a lot of the times when we do get these labs back of someone in a larger body, they're like, Oh, it's your weight? Just lose weight and come back, just lose weight. So you know, which we'll get into why that's not proper advice later, fully, but. It's it can potentially cause them to miss actual disease States that have nothing to do with the size of the body and they just blame it all. Oh, it's your way. It's your way. It's your way.

Vanessa: 22:47

And I don't think, I mean, I don't think that kind of, Advice has worked sustainably for anyone the just lose weight. Okay. See you later.

Emily: 22:59

So if we really want to get into the research about weight loss, weight loss tends to increase the risk of premature death among higher weight, larger bodied individuals, even when the weight loss is intentional and the studies are well controlled with regards to hazardous behavior, underlying disease, A national sample of ethnically diverse people over the age of 50 show that mortality increases among those who lost weight. And this is like weight loss. This is the pursuit of weight loss, right? The intentional, like you go home, you do what your doctor tells you. And while many short term weight loss intervention studies do indicate improvements. Because the weight loss is always accompanied by a change in behavior, right? That's really important to know. It's not known whether to what extent the improvements can be attributed to weight loss or to the behavior. And what the research shows us is that regardless of if weight comes off behaviors like being more active, you know, taking a walk, eating more fruits and vegetables, those behaviors are going to have a positive impact on your health. Whether a weight loss result comes with it or not. And longterm followup studies document, the majority of individuals regain virtually all of the weight that was lost when they're on a diet or on a weight loss plan, regardless of whether they maintain it or not. So one of the largest and longest clinical trials contained 20,000 women, they all maintained a low fat diet and reduce their calorie intake by an average of 360 calories per day. That's like not a lot, right. We would be eating around like 2000, and increasing their activity. And after eight years on this diet, there was almost no change in weight from the starting point. And average waist circumference, which is a measure of abdominal fat had actually increased. So once again, when people are trying to go down this intentional weight loss pursuit path, it's not having the results. So if this happens, if literally almost every single person fails at this as a physician, I don't think they would ever recommend a drug that has a 95% fail rate. So I'm out here, like, why are you recommending weight loss? And it's funny because you know, bariatric doctors who are doing weight loss surgeries, which that's an entirely different topic, but those people are using those same staff to say, look, you can't lose it yourself. You've got to come to me. You've got to let me get in there and make my money, do whatever I need to do and do this weight loss surgery, because. you're totally screwed on your own. See, look at this data. So it's very good.

Vanessa: 25:43

And that's something we won't get too much into the weeds of. Bariatric surgery, but Mark my words, I want this to be on record that I truly think that is one of the surgeries that years from now. We are going to look back and say, Oh my God, that was absolutely barbaric. I cannot believe we were doing that to

Emily: 26:07

I'm really, really curious.

Vanessa: 26:10

I'm not sure what the exact numbers are. Um, so I'm not going to say any, but in my anecdotal experience of working in a hospital, I saw a lot of failed bariatric surgeries or. Surgeries that had been done again and again and again, and people who, you know, they have all of these procedures, mental, mental evaluations and people that, I mean, I found it absolutely disgusting that would be cleared, um, to go through with surgery. So more on that, maybe on another podcast.

Emily: 26:47

we definitely to talk more about that, and the eligibility for those weight loss surgeries is usually tied to Gus. What BMI, So same ties, healthcare advice for weight loss is going to be enough. and another, really another, so our original topic, why does measuring it this obese level on the BMI scale, increased risk of disease? It's pretty stressful living in a body that doesn't fit society standards that can lead to chronic cortisol increases, which we know. Is linked to poor health. The lack of body acceptance is scientifically proven to, have a negative impact on your health. And conventional thoughts kind of suggest body discontent or feeling really shameful about your body helps motivate beneficial lifestyle changes, but the evidence is not consistent with that. And promoting body discontent instead induces harm resulting in less favorable lifestyle choices. It's almost like, you know, if you think, okay, I'm going to be on a diet and I'm going to feel really, I feel really bad about myself. This is going to be my motivator to like lose weight and whatever. And it always ends up in some kind of like self hate spiral, which can even end up in overeating or, you know, over-exercising all these different things. Less favorable lifestyle choices.

Vanessa: 28:19

And something I don't understand too, with this, for us as a society. I mean, I think it's pretty well-known that in most cases, positive reinforcement works much better than negative reinforcement, but for some reason, and this incidents, we think that shaming people is going to make them change.

Emily: 28:46

Yeah. Which literally I don't understand because every single bit of research ever, like in psychology says the opposite. We can't do that.

Vanessa: 28:56

And I mean, if that worked, then why wouldn't we tell, I mean, why are people still smoking? You know, it's well documented that they are an increased risk for lung cancer and heart disease and all of these other things. And they know that. I don't think anyone is under the impression nowadays that smoking is good for them. So, you know, going to the doctor and them saying, Oh my gosh, you know, this is really bad for you. You're doing this really bad thing. It's it doesn't seem to be changing that many smokes.

Emily: 29:31

They're like, I, like, I get it. Like, believe me. I live in this body every single day. Right? Like, and we talked last week with Aaron Flores about body image and, you know, go back and listen to that. If you want to hear more about, you know, what it's. Experiences that people have in larger bodies, but you know, that's, it's putting a lot of stress every day to walk through feeling discontent with your body, whether you're in a larger body or not. You can still have that kind of discontent. So let's talk a little bit about metabolic syndrome. So metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that happened together and they can increase supposedly your risk of heart disease, stroke, and type two diabetes. Okay. And these conditions can include lab values like increased blood pressure or high blood sugar. And one of them is excess body fat around the waist. Okay. And. It's kind of been suggested in recent research that psychological distress is a big precursor to high metabolic risk, which we need to know that our current health promotion policies are reducing rather than increasing psychological stress. And what does. The advice of weight loss due to most people, especially in larger bodies who have undoubtedly tried, right. Because who wants to be having that, you know, difficult experience of trying to fit into our culture, that super fat phobic, so overall we're starting to see in research where weight stigmatizing and discrimination really impact our health and our health seeking behaviors. Right. If you're constantly heading to the doctor and they're telling you to do all these things with Wade that you aren't able to accomplish, who wants to go back. Like people just start avoiding it. And it's just when you're being blamed. Like we were talking about at the beginning of our episode, if you're a physician is kind of blaming you for this by saying, well, if you just really got to your guns and lost weight, then you could fix this. Who wants to go back and see them again?

Vanessa: 31:45

there so many times there is something else going on that is making your body hold on to weight. So simply telling someone to just lose weight is such unhelpful advice because for so many people, that's not even possible, whatever diet trend they, they do. It's not, I mean, we all know of people who've been, you know, they've done it all. They've done all the trends and they're, you know, so. Like infuriated and frustrated that nothing has changed for them because it's not always that simple and providers aren't always willing to dig in deeper. Um, especially, you know, from their own anecdotal experience or if they are in a thin body, they might just think, well, like what's the problem, you know, eat healthy and exercise.

Emily: 32:45

To me, it's just kind of lazy healthcare. You're like, okay, well, this is just something that I can see. And it's really simple. And so I'll just comment on this and you can go home and it's a perfect time to, to mention that, like people say, Oh, diets have worked for me in the past. Okay. If the diet had worked for you in the past, it would still be working, right. We're looking at long term situations. So people say, Oh no, no, no diets do work because I lost weight in the past on one. Right. But then, then what happened? Like you just scanned it back. And there's a large study by the national Institute of health and they've determined that one third to two thirds of the weight that you've lost is typically regained within one year. And almost all is regained within five years and five years is kind of like the Mark that we've studied a lot so far about when we look at a regain of a weight loss. And that's usually around the point where you'll see it all come back and typically you will see an increase over your previous weight. So that's another thing. How are these physicians recommending weight loss when that's going to literally have the opposite impact on the body? Almost assuredly.

Vanessa: 33:57

It's important to think about the assumptions that you make when you see someone else that's in a larger body, or if you yourself are in a larger body, think about the assumptions you make about yourself. Are you engaging in lots of. Quote, unquote, healthy activities, but still find yourself in a larger body. And, you've gone to the doctor. You're not having any issues. Are you still leaving, labeling yourself unhealthy. And why are you doing that? What is it based on? Because to me as a dietician health is based on your behaviors, how you feel, and then also that lab work component.

Emily: 34:40

And it's no wonder that people feel this way. Right? So it's, you know, if I have a patient, especially, that's just really convinced that they're still unhealthy because they've been told this their whole lives holding space to realize that you're the victim. Like this system took you and really like drilled into you, these facts that are completely untrue, and it's really insidious and harmful. And you were the victim and we'll talk a little bit at the end about some solutions that potentially, you can apply.

Vanessa: 35:16

I think it's important to remember that unhealthiness and I hate to even call it unhealthiness. Cause that's just like so broad and not really a good word, but I don't have another one right now. So I hate to, we say health at every size, but also unhealthiness is that every size too. So just because someone is then, and they appear to be quote unquote healthy, that does not mean they're healthy. They could have just had, you know, they might be like, I don't know, a super Seddon and sedentary person who's really stressed, stand eating a really poor

Emily: 36:04

So this is a whole other episode, really, but kind of to combat this, the movement, every size was created. And the goal is to provide health care to people regardless of weight stigma. So we're shifting the focus from weight to actual health that can be measured by so many things as Vanessa just mentioned. And it's really important also to note that everybody struggles with body image, right? Not just folks in larger bodies, but. My thin bodied people still have privilege, right. That larger body folks don't have. It's like those Instagram pictures where it's like, this is what a posed photo looks like. And this is what a relaxed photo looks like. Okay. But you still have been privileged in both of those photos. You know, just because your belly sticks out a little bit, someone in a larger body is seeing that and thinking cool, like I'm not impressed with that. Right. So you have to know that, like, even though you can face body image issues too, we're not getting this like large scale discrimination and war on your body, that people in larger bodies have. And it kind of goes back to what we were talking earlier about insurance, insurance providers do use BMI to make changes in your policy. Like some insurance providers lower the cost for people who are at a lower BMI and that's really messed up.

Vanessa: 37:28

And if we go back to our favorite friend, Dr. Douchebag. So Dr. Douchebag has an, I think he might've had a morbidly obese BMI. So Dr. He's looking at, you know, maybe much higher insurance rates based on that, but is a person that. We would, I mean, bodybuilding is a whole nother, I don't know if I would necessarily cause like say it's a super healthy thing to be doing to your body, but you know, society would view that as a very healthy person.

Emily: 38:04

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So we already know that BMI is targeted just towards white men, which not that shocking really. And a lot of these health assessments really fail with people of color. So they're not adjusting for how much chronic stress or economic inequality or institutionalized racism could affect black folks in America. And there's a really, There's a really great book written by Sabrina strings and it's called fearing the black body, the racial origins of fatphobia and she really delves into it and explains everything about the idea of blaming fatness for black women's health problems. And it's all just the suedo science total bullshit. Situation on surprisingly. But it just goes to show that this BMI system is completely a failure when it comes to almost everyone, but especially people of color.

Vanessa: 39:06

So in summary, I mean, first of all, BMI isn't even measuring what they want it to measure.

Emily: 39:14

Yup.

Vanessa: 39:16

It's used for things that can discriminate easily and it's psychologically damaging. So why we're still using this tool is beyond me. But I want you to all leave this podcast, knowing that you are more than your BMI. If you go to the doctor and you hear your BMI and you know, maybe the number is higher or categorizing you in a place that you're perceiving as negative. Please remember, there is so much more beyond your weight and BMI about you, but in truly just looking at your BMI. it doesn't work.

Emily: 39:59

So some practical, immediate things that you can do to kind of combat this in your own life. Number one, ask your doctor not to weigh you at appointments. Unless you have some kind of medical reason, like you need a medication dose or something, they can always figure that out and you don't have to see your weight. So if it's triggering to you, and this kind of, even if you don't really care and your weight doesn't trigger, you asking your physician not to weigh you destigmatizes. People in larger bodies asking. So even if you aren't in a larger body of yourself, it can still be a productive thing to refuse to be weighed at the physician's office.

Vanessa: 40:35

And I think that really, really important. No, because I know even for myself, I'm in a thin body, I know that I'm in a thin body. I know that, you know, there's not any issues. And I know that weight. Doesn't matter, I'm equipped with all of that knowledge and still sometimes seeing that number is very triggering to me.

Emily: 40:57

Yeah, no one is immune to that. And once again, we know that when you see that number, it's increasing stress, which there's where the. Negative impact on health really lies. As your doctor, not to weigh you. Supporting interventions that change major determinants of health that reside in other areas like inequitable, social, economic, and environmental factors. There's a lot of stigma and oppression that we can focus on fixing before we start to do more war on larger bodies. And I really do suggest that fearing the black body, the racial origins of fatphobia book by Sabrina strings, because that'll just give you all of the background information that you need.

Vanessa: 41:45

Yeah, so BMI sucks. Y'all

Emily: 41:48

That's it? Mic drop.

Vanessa: 41:51

See you later. So, thank you so much for joining us for this episode of wellness mess. Please remember to subscribe and review and join us. Next week, we are going to be talking about chlorophyll, water and green powders. We already came for celery juice and we're not done with the green drinks. So we're going to tell you all there is to know about these other trendy things. time.