This week on the CIHAS pod, we’re switching things up. I’m joined by Jeanette Thompson Wesson (AKA The Mindset Nutritionist), a fat positive nutritionist who supports people to heal their relationship with food and their body. Jeanette and I will be answering some listener questions, and you lot really came through and asked some great questions, so let’s get into it!
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And I think that's where fat liberation really can come in because, you know, everyone's trying to carve out their own space for them. Whereas actually body liberation and, and fat liberation is all about widening that lens to other people. We are not just trying to carve out the space for ourselves individually.
We're trying to carve out spaces and take up space in a way that honors other people's space that they're taking up as well and uplifting the bodies that are the most marginalized and going, okay, these are the people who need this space and we want them to have this space. They deserve unconditionally to have this space as well.
INTRO
Laura: Hey, and welcome back to Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an Anti Diet registered nutritionist, an author of the Can I Have Another snack newsletter. Just a very quick reminder before we get to today's episode that for the month of March I'm running a sale on Can I Have Another Snack paid subscribers to celebrate our half birthday.
If you sign up now, you get 20% off, either a monthly or annual subscription. This is a really good deal and I won't be offering it again this year. So head to laurathomas.substack.com to sign up. You get to join in our weekly community discussion threads plus bonus podcast episodes, twice monthly essays, including my Dear Laura column, and more importantly, you're helping making this work possible. And if for any reason you can't afford a subscription right now, you can email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk and put the word “snax” in the header and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription. No questions asked.
So today I am joined by the wonderful Jeanette Thompson Wesson, and we are gonna be answering listener questions that you've sent in, and there are some really great questions, but if you don't already know Jeanette, she is a fat positive nutritionist who supports people to heal their relationship with food and their body.
And if you want to know more about Jeanette, then I really recommend listening to the episode of Don't Salt My Game that we did together last summer, I'll link to it in the show notes. So go check that out. And how this is gonna work is that we're gonna take it in turns to ask questions and then kind of bounce off of each other to come up with answers.
All right, Jeanette, are you ready?
Jeanette: I am ready. Should we get into it?
Laura: Let's do it.
MAIN EPISODE
Laura: So you're gonna start off with the first question and yeah, let's see where it goes.
Jeanette: So here is your first question from Ger. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the connection between diet mentality and gut problems with constipation.
Laura: Okay, so Janette and I just had a little back and forth about what exactly this question was getting at, because I think what they're asking is if there is a physiological response in terms of our digestion based on the way we think about food and our relationship with food.
Jeanette: Yeah.
Laura: And so I think that's my understanding of the question, but just in case, and maybe wanna take a step back and think about what happens.
To our gastrointestinal tract when we go on a diet, right? So whether it is, you know, your run of the mill, everyday diet, like a Slimming World or Weight Watchers or whatever, or whether it's, you know, more severe disordered eating or an eating disorder, basically the same thing happens in all of those cases.
It's just the degree to which it happens gets more intense, gets worse, the more severe the problems around eating are. So what we could expect to happen is because the total amount of energy available to the body is not enough to support all its basic functioning. A lot of those basic processes like menstruation, like digestion, all of these things that are considered inverted commas non-essential, they slow down so that there's enough energy to divert towards essential functions like primarily your brain. Right? So what happens in our digestive tract is that we have, Jeanette's gonna love how nerdy I'm gonna get, we have what's called delayed gastric emptying. So the contents of our stomach literally emptying, slows down. It's sometimes called, when it gets really severe, it's called gastroparesis, where it's almost like this partial paralysis of the stomach so that contents don't, from the stomach, don't get properly turned around in the stomach.
And then when the, and then it's the release into our small, our small intestine is a lot slower. So you get, you have this feeling of fullness for a lot longer after eating a meal. And you might also fill up relatively quickly or feel, feel full quite quickly after eating. What happens in our guts, so in our small, in our small intestine primarily is we have slowed peristalsis.
So peristalsis is the action of, um, the muscles along our gastrointestinal tract contracting and pushing food through our guts, right? And basically because there's less, there's less energy available to the body, that process slows down.
That's why you get constipated or you might get mixed i b s type symptoms where you alternate between constipation and diarrhea. So that is effectively what is going on in your gastrointestinal tract when you restrict. And it's also why we say a lot in eating disorder recovery and, and when we're working with people with disorder eating, is that the best way to heal your gut is not through going on some sort of low FODMAP diet or some leaky gut protocol or whatever other bullshit is out there, is it's actually having regular, consistent, adequate nutrition and nourishing your body. That's what heals any gut related issues. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't in some cases where people maybe have intolerances or other, you know, have to be mindful of, of what they're eating for other medical reasons, but that broadly speaking, that unless we have enough energy on board and we're eating regularly, then it just sends our guts kind of haywire.
Right. Would you have anything to add to that, Jeanette?
Jeanette: I mean, have a lot of clients who have experienced that and also I have a lot of personal experience with that. When I did Slimming World, I was, I mean, too much information, I'm gonna say anyway, I was really badly, like really badly constipated, and I knew exactly what was going on in my body. Even as a nutritionist, I was like, I know what's happening.
I know exactly why I am constipated right now, and still chose to obviously do what I was doing because of my own internalised fatphobia, because I was working from a place where I thought I had to be thinner.
Laura: Mm-hmm.
Jeanette: And what it was at the time. And it's, it's really quite, it's really quite horrible to be in that place where you are like, oh my goodness, my body should be doing this. And it doesn't feel comfortable. And but when you really think about it and you tear everything, like you strip everything back, how amazing is our body to basically put ourselves in these like survival modes really?
Laura: Mm-hmm.
Jeanette: Because actually if we didn't have that delay within our body, um, how would we actually be feeling within ourselves without, with our hunger hormones and stuff, if we didn't have that delay, we'd actually be feeling probably quite ill, really
Laura: Mm-hmm.
Jeanette: Even worse, even more miserable than what we've been, we would, would be feeling.
And I think that's the thing that kind of blows my mind with all of these biological processes that go, goes on, is that we forget that when we're actually dieting, we are putting our body in that place of restriction, which our body doesn't actually realize that that's intentional. I mean, it's clever, but it doesn't realize that we are actually choosing to do that.
It just goes, oh my goodness, like, what is happening? We are not getting, you know, what, we, we should be getting into our body and these things happen. So it just blows my mind. It's, it's, I always love it. I'm a science nerd myself. So , it's enjoyable.
Laura: There's something else that I wanna talk about here, which is what I wonder if the question was kind of getting at, so I've, I feel like I've maybe answered a different question, but I just wanted to give that context because I'm sure a lot of people will wonder like, okay, well what is actually happening inside my body as I'm restricting?
Right. Whether it's, like you say through, you know, like legitimate food scarcity in, you know, if someone is food insecure, or you know, from a evolutionary perspective, if there just wasn't enough food around, right? That's why this, this process is there in, in the first place, right? Conservation of the species.
But then there's the other side of things, which is this voluntary, and we could argue if it's voluntary or not under diet culture, but you know, like putting ourselves on a diet. What is that doing, both from a physiological perspective, but what is the diet mentality? So just the kind of mindset of restricting ourselves.
What does that do to our digestion? And I think this is, I don't know specifically of any literature that connects both of those dots quite as clearly, but I do know that there is something called the nocebo effect. So the effect is essentially the inverse of the placebo effect. So if I tell you this pill has like magic qualities and it's gonna make you feel amazing and you take the pill, you're gonna start feeling amazing.
That's the placebo effect. But equally, if I tell you that gluten in your food or like y you know, milk, protein, strawberries, and it could be literally anything if I tell you that that's bad for you, even though it doesn't cause a, you know, even though there's no physiological basis for, um, you to have a reaction to that food, the nocebo effect means that you do have a very real response to that food.
Not because there's something, you know, kind of defective in your digestion, but because of the gut brain access and the connection between our brains and our guts. And so that can have major impacts on digestion. And there are studies that have shown that people were given, so there were two groups. They all had self-described lactose intolerance. Both groups were given sugar pills. One group were told that the pills had lactose in them. The other group were told that they didn't have lactose in them.
And of course the group that were told that they had lactose in the pills had a physiological response. So they reported increased bouts of diarrhea and constipation. Right. Versus the group that were told that it was just sugar pills, even though they were all receiving sugar pills. But it shows you that there's a real strong physiological impact on our digestion just because the seed has been planted in our brains, which is, that blows my mind that that's even a
Jeanette: It's crazy, isn't it? I see There are a lot with people who, um, go for like allergy testing. You know, the kind of ones where you can send like something off on the internet or I don't know, one of, one of those kind of pay 50 pounds and we'll give you a list of all these random things that we think that you are intolerant or allergic to, and you get this list back and they're like, oh my God, how many things are am I supposed to be intolerant to?
And you know, people start restricting these things and having exactly the same reaction that you, you know, you said, you know, actually I feel so much better without these being in my body. And when I do have a strawberry, like one of the interesting things is like strawberry comes up quite a lot in my experience when I do eat a strawberry.
Oh, I feel awful. I have like diarrhea and this happens and that happens. And, and I think that that gut brain axis is, is so incredibly powerful. And then one of the other things it kind of like takes me to when we are dieting as well, dieting is incredibly stressful. Like really, really stressful.
And um, it also makes us feel very miserable. And then when you are coming up to weigh in day, the anxiety, the nervousness of of have I lost weight? Have I not lost weight? And actually having to stand on a scale, the gut-brain axis as well, like axis can actually have a big impact there as well. And cause that constipation and, you know, having diarrhea as well because of that really strong reaction you can have to just actually being on the diet and the men mentality that comes with being on the diet as well.
And we, I think we forget about that mental link that we have.
Laura: Mm-hmm. . And there are studies that show that that dieting increases your cortisol levels. Right. So your stress, stress hormone. So although there, so I guess what we're saying is, although there's no like, like single study I can point to, there are lots of potential mechanisms by which like, The thought of going on a diet and people know themselves, right?
Like how many times have you thought, okay, like diet starts tomorrow, therefore I have to like, eat everything in the cupboards right now. What impact do we think that's gonna have on our digestion if we just like flood our bodies with, with more food than it can handle in one go? Like of course that's gonna have an impact on your, on your digestion.
So, okay. Should we head on to the second question?
Jeanette: Let's
Laura: This is a question for you Jeanette. This is um, from Monica, and I think it will become clear why I wanted to ask you this question. So, Monica says, I began intuitive eating a few months ago after years and years of heavy restricting and recovering from an eating disorder.
I've had problems feeling the fullness and hunger cues, but I feel like I now manage it. Not perfectly, but Okay. And I try not to get too hung up on it. What I most struggle with is noticing my hunger and eating properly during my workday. I work as a teacher and many days I do not have a proper break, maybe like 10 to 15 minutes in total.
I'm also often really stressed during the day, and I end up snacking the whole day. Every time I have five minutes by myself at my desk, and I end up never feeling hungry and never feeling satisfied either. Do you have some tips for intuitive eating at work? At home when I manage my time, it's a lot easier.
So yeah. Monica, the question totally makes sense and I wanted to ask you that because up until pretty recently you were a teacher. So, what are your thoughts reading this question?
Jeanette: My thoughts are like, my heart goes out to you because obviously we know at the moment and just in general that teaching is an incredibly stressful career to be in and you very, very rarely have time to slow down. So I completely understand where actually you say that you can kind of pick up your hunger and fullness cues not perfectly, and not being hung up on that, but then also eating throughout the day as well.
I mean, it's no wonder really that you eat the way that you eat because of school.
Because like with teaching, you have such little time to yourself and I want to say how important it is to think of intuitive eating as an like, not as like hard and fast rules, cuz we don't want to be approaching intuitive eating like a diet and actually coming from place of imperfection is completely fine, especially in the space that you're in at the.
Coming from the teacher point of view as well, I would ask you, is there any way you can try and carve out some time and space during the day, during your break times and your lunch times where you can really take some time out? Is there somewhere you can go to eat that serves you? You know, have you got an office? Have you got a a, a place away for your desk? I think is one of the important things because when we are sitting at a desk and we're trying to do a thousand of one things at the same time as a teacher, we are checking the emails. We are trying to do a detention. We've got kids in front of us. We're trying to answer things. We're trying to create resources. We're trying to lesson plan all throughout our lunchtimes as well. And we don't have that chance to sit back and really have a listen to ourselves and being able to honor our hunger, which is why it makes complete sense why you are going to be eating and snacking throughout the day and that eating and that snacking throughout the day. Also wanna say how normal, that normal that is and how, you know, in the stress of that job job, if you are eating that as almost like an emotional regulator during the day, that is also completely valid to be doing as well. Because if you are in that moment and you are feeling that stress and it's a long time to be under stress from whenever you, you know, head to work like 7 30, 8 and end up leaving like 5, 5 30, then you know you've got loads of work to do in the evening.
You know, you've got that anticipation as well. And we also don't have time, with time poor people as teachers, we don't have enough time to be able to be checking in on ourselves and we don't have enough time to be put in other coping mechanisms in place that would actually be really healthy things for us to have in place as teachers as well.
Laura: Hmm.
Jeanette: I would say at this at the moment, if there's nothing you can change, in the teaching role that you're in right now, to be able to carve out that time away from your desk to be able to honor that hunger when you can honor that hunger is to understand that coming from imperfection in intuitive vision is perfectly fine.
And know that hopefully sometimes soon you will be able to listen to those internal cues in a much better way. Maybe when there's less pressure, maybe, um, if and when you want to make a change to the role that you have as well. And also to know that following intuitive eating during your time away from work is also just as important as well, and being able to take that time to honor yourself then,
Laura: Yeah. I'm really glad that you said that. You know what you're doing is fine.
like if that's what you need to do to get through the day and survive, it's okay that, you know, for you intuitive eating doesn't look like, you know, three perfect meals and however many snacks a day that it, it just means putting something in your mouth when you can
Jeanette: Which is intuitive.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes like if it feels better than just drop the label intuitive eating. Right. Because, you know, I think that we associate intuitive eating with looking a particular way
Jeanette: Oh my
Laura: And yeah. And it doesn't have to be perfect. So, you know, how can, how can you maybe bring a little bit more acceptance to, you know, if you, like you say, if you can't change anything, which like, I feel like if she could, she probably would've by now
Jeanette: Exactly. It's hard. It's hard to do that.
Laura: So. Yeah. You know, like, how can you maybe even bring a bit more self-compassion to that of like, well, fuck, this is hard and teaching is a really hard job and I have a lot of other pressures, so I don't need to put more pressure on feeding myself. I can just let it be what it is for now. And you know, if it, if it's, I, I appreciate that like, you are not really ever feeling hungry, but never feeling satisfied either. And if that feels like it's more of a problem, then, you know, taking a look at like, what, what are you bringing with you, right? What is it that you know is gonna help you feel more satisfied with what you're eating? So is it that you need to bring a bit more balance to what you've got there?
Like have, I don't know, a bit more protein or a bit more carbohydrates or something to help power you through the next like, set of lessons or, or whatever is, do you have, like, I'm thinking, is there anything practical that you can think of, Jeanette, in terms of like helping this person feel a bit more satisfied with what they're eating?
Jeanette: I would say what I see from teachers is bring more, have a, I always used to have a whole draw in my desk, literally dedicated to snacks. Because we are up so early in the morning, um, I, you know, I, I have children as well that had to sort out in the morning, so my priority wasn't actually making sure I had enough snacks in my bag when I got to school.
So I actually just went out and I'd go out every couple of weeks and I'd buy so many long life snacks that I could just keep in there. And that was a mixture of a whole load of things. It was a mixture of cereal bars and little packets of raisins and nuts and also chocolate and caramel buttons and Oreos.
And so just literally have that all available to me. And it was literally in my desk so I could just snack as I went to, like as I went along the day. And that was a really helpful thing for me to put in place for myself as well as bringing a really big bottle of water. Cuz otherwise I would just not drink anything. I just didn't have any time to.
Laura: Oh yeah. I think getting, like having a snack drawer. And I was thinking as you were saying, like, I think you said pretzels maybe, and I was like, oh yeah. Like something crunchy. Something that's gonna give you, you know, thinking about like your sensory, like what's going to make help you feel satisfied from a sensory perspective?
Is it that you need, you know, something like crisp and crunchy or do you prefer something chewy and soft or you know, what is it that will help you feel satisfied even, you know, with that five minute little snack session that you can have? So, yeah, hopefully Monica, that gives you some ideas to think about.
All right. Shall we do this next question? What have we got?
Jeanette: Okay. My sister-in-law is, to my mind, extremely extra about her kid, currently two and sugar, whereas we take much more relaxed approach with ours currently. For example, we rent out for coffee last weekend. Both sets of parents and kiddos, they had a massive slice of cheesecake, of which their small was allowed a thumb size piece. Well, that's really sad. While they ate the rest, whilst they ate the rest, we merely let our get stuck into our banana bread and chocolate chips. As they get older what's the best way to explain this disparity in attitudes to our kiddo? And how do we handle it with our nephew if he's, if you ask why his cousin can eat what he wants when he isn't allowed? Oh.
Laura: This is so heartbreaking for this little nephew. And I also wanna say like, from this parent's perspective, I get it in a similar boat in terms of like how we feed our family compared to how other families around us feed their kids. And like right now, you know, when they're little, when they're toddlers, it like they don't notice, right?
But as they get older, they start to think more and more, they'll start to ask more questions, and you're gonna have to figure out how, how to navigate this. But I also think this is a really interesting place that you could talk about differences and how differences are okay, and that we're all different.
And sort of thinking about how we can tolerate differences between ourselves and other people. Because yeah, I feel like the more tolerant we are of other people's differences, like the better we will be just as a society, you know? I think it really depends a lot, you know, how you approach this depends a lot on how, on how much time you feel like you're gonna be spending with them.
Like if you're gonna be hanging out most weekends, then it, I wonder if it might be, helpful to have a conversation with your sister-in-law, and say like, this is how we approach food, and I know that this isn't how you do things, but how can we navigate this together? Like can we come up with like an approach that works for both of us or that we can, that we both feel comfortable with?
And, and I think that with, yeah, like I said, with your kid, I mean, first of all, your nephew is gonna wanna hang out at your house all the time. If you're like , you know, if you've got the goods, then you know, I think they're, they're gonna be kind of excited about that. I wanna hang out with you all the time, but, but yeah, like how, having those conversations with your kids about how everyone eats differently and that's okay.
And, but also maybe as they get older and start asking more questions, like being really curious with them, of like, oh yeah, what do you, yeah. Did you notice that you know, little Charlie can only have two chocolate buttons. What did you think about that? Like, how did you feel? How would you feel if I said that you could only have two chocolate buttons and, and just like get yeah, get them to think about it with you a little bit. What do you think Jeanette?
Jeanette: I think well exactly the same. You know, I don't navigate things exactly the same way. You have said, I mean, I've got a six year old who, um, has come back from school and um, you know, asked me like very similar questions, how come I can eat this? And I have this for snacks, but actually my friend so-and-so says that she's not allowed snacks or she's only allowed fruit for a snack and that kind of thing.
And I very much like to promote having a really nice talk about it and obviously a nice like age appropriate one and going, okay, well it's because, and having a really lovely, like, chat about it for however her attention span last loss in that moment.
Laura: And what does what, what kind of things does your six year old say about, about this? What do they come up with?
Jeanette: Um, she looks confused a lot of the time, but not with what I say, as in, I'll kind of turn things on. So, a recent one was, um, one of the, one of her friends isn't allowed to have chocolate at the moment because her mom's not allowed to have chocolate in the house because she's not eating chocolate at the moment because she's on a diet. And she was like, but why, um, why isn't she allowed to have chocolate? And I was like, whoa.
Laura: Why isn't she? Yeah.
Jeanette: You, you tell me. And she kind of sits there like scratching her head and she was like, but chocolate's not bad, is it? And I was like, no, because, because she's come back previously saying, is chocolate bad for me?
Because that's what school had taught them. And I'd obviously have a conversation neutralizing that as, you know, as we do. And um, and she was like, so it's not bad. And I was like, well, no. How do you feel about chocolate? And she was like, well, it makes me feel, and I think she literally put her arms out. It makes me feel wonderful and put her arms out like this.
You can't see when you're listening to it, but my arms are
Laura: Jeanette's got her arms up above her head hearing.
Jeanette: me feel wonderful. And then she said that she felt really sad for her friend that she couldn't have that same wonderful feeling.
Laura: And that like, that's it. Is that if we can get our, like we don't need to tell our kids what to think.
Jeanette: Yeah.
Laura: Because we can get them to tap into that embodied experience of like, and there's research that shows this as well, that like, kids understand how foods feel in their body and that's how they make sense of their world, is that embodied experience.
And so if you can help them, you know, instead of like reflexively being like, oh, well that's ridiculous, why would they think that or do that? Like just probing them and, and getting them to connect with, you know, what feels right and true for them. I feel like that's the best that we can do with this
Jeanette: They're so good at it as well. And I think because we've dieted, because we've internalized all these messaging about diets and how food is good and bad as when you start children off really young with just allowing them
Laura: mm-hmm.
Jeanette: listen to themselves and how they feel. What I've been like, my, my six year old also came out.
She really likes iceberg lettuce. Loves it. And I was like, so what? What about the lettuce? Do you really love? And she literally got up from her table and started kind of like dancing. And she was like, it makes me feel like I want to do this cuz it's really crunchy and I really like it cause it's crunchy.
And she had like a bit of a jig and I love that because I was like, that sounds like it makes you feel really happy and really joyous. And she was like, yeah, it does. And to be able to have that communication with her body, to be able to know that that's how that food makes her feel. And obviously she has food that doesn't make her feel good.
And sometimes she'll say to me, oh, what was it the other day that made her feel sad? I think it was mashed potato or something. She was, I did some lazy mash which had like, I leave the skins of the potato
Laura: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeanette: And she really didn't enjoy the sensory quality of having the potato skins in with the mash.
Laura: Would be mad at you for that too.
Jeanette: Sorry. It was just really lazy and she said it how sad it made her feel and she really did look really sad about this mashed potato. And obviously she didn't have to eat it because
Laura: Yeah. You don't, you don't force
Jeanette: Her. Yeah.
Laura: I was thinking about this last night actually. So we had dinner last night and I, Avery had asked for some chocolate, um, with dinner. And so I put. We have like lots of Easter eggs in at the moment because we're just normalizing Easter over here.
Easter chocolate. Um, so I put one out on his tray and he had like some fruit and I think he had like some frozen mango and like blueberries and he had like, like the main that we were having and he ate all of his main and he didn't touch his fruit and he didn't touch his chocolate. And at first my mind went to like, oh, that's interesting.
He didn't eat his chocolate. It's like, you know his, he's listening to himself, right? Something in him made him listen to himself and think, oh, you know, he didn't want his chocolate. But something also made him listen to himself and say, I don't want my fruit. And I think we often, it made me think about how are more willing to trust our kids when they don't eat the, the so-called bad food according to diet culture. But if they don't want the, you know, the more healthy inverted commas, food, like fruit or their veggies, we are so much quicker to dismiss their experiences. And, and I just thought about that double standard is in absolutely no way related to this question, but I just like, yeah. I don't know. Mm-hmm.
Jeanette: I've experienced exactly the same and yeah. It is so much easier, isn't it, to kind of, yeah. no, I'm really like that, pointing that out. Definitely. Yeah.
Laura: All right. where are we up to with these questions? Okay. I have a question for you, Jeanette, from Louisa. And just a little content warning here. I'm gonna use the wording that, um, Louisa has put, and it involves the O word, so just skip past this bit if you don't wanna hear that. But Louisa says, I'm overweight, and then she says, I'm not sure best how best to describe myself. My dad was overweight before he died at 65 of heart disease. Are there things I can read slash learn about generational approaches to weight and emotional eating slash being happy in your body, which my dad wasn't. Thanks. So I feel like there's a lot to unpack in this question. Jeanette, where do we start?
Jeanette: I'd like to start with, I'm so sorry to hear about your dad and, you know, 65 is actually a really young age at the moment, isn't it? So I can totally understand any fear that has really come from your dad, you know, passing away at this age from heart disease as well. I mean, I'm sure that your brain has automatically gone to, oh my goodness, my weight.
What am I eating? Am I eating too much fat, too much salt, you know, am I healthy enough? You know, what can I do within my control? Like, what can I do? And I want to add that because you've actually named yourself as overweight and you know, BMI is like awful. We know that BMI is awful.
We know that BMI is a really terrible way to, um, for the healthcare professionals to say how, whether they're assuming someone is healthy or unhealthy, whereas a chart with some numbers can't accurately name us as unhealthy or healthy or accurately say, and what kind of risk we have in our bodies as well, because it's really putting fatness and health kind of together and kind of connecting that together.
So I'm going to kind of take that you feel that you are overweight. I don't know if you are in a large body yourself because BMI scale and the size or the level of fatness that you're at, they don't go together. But I know we can talk about a lot of internalized fatphobia and anti-fat in relation to this as well.
Laura: Mm.
Jeanette: We know that regardless of our weight, we can have healthy behaviors that can really. be protective towards us, can really support our health and support our heart heart's health. None of that means that it's a guarantee, but it means that we can feel supportive um, regardless of what we do in with the size of our body, we know that we don't have the diet to actually reduce our risk of any cardiovascular disease and any, any problems with that.
And really good things to read around that is really having a look at, uh, The Fat Doctor UK and their Twitter and their posts as well are really good. Um, who else? Ragen as well. Um, you'll have to put these things in these show
Laura: I'll link to it. So Ragen Chastain has a great, uh, newsletter called, um, Weight and Healthcare, and it's basically how to approach the healthcare system in a weight inclusive way. So she unpacks things like you were saying about how BMI is really not a helpful measure of our health. It's just a way of like categorizing bodies and gatekeeping healthcare, which is so fucked up when you think about it.
Um, I would also say Aubrey Gordon’s work might be a good place to, yeah, so Aubrey has two books, which I will link to in the show notes. So one of them is called What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, and the other one that just came out, um, like a month or so ago is, um, You Just Need to Lose Weight and Other Myths.
So I would start there in terms of like an accessible place to learn about internalized weight stigma, medical fat phobia, anti-fat bias in general. I also wanted to offer, you don't say this explicitly but I wondered as well about you know, if what part of what you're looking for here is something around how you can care for yourself and pre prevent, or, I don't wanna say prevent ill health because we also know that a lot of this is out of our control.
A lot of our health is determined by the social determinants of health as well as things like our genetics. Um, but what can you do to care for yourself in a weight inclusive, non diet way? And there are things that you can do, like you alluded to Jeanette around how we care for ourselves.
And I wanna say as well that you're not obligated to be healthy, but I also understand why you might wanna find things that help you feel better and, and care for yourself. So I wanted to offer that we put together a Weight Inclusive Guide to Dyslipidemia or elevated blood cholesterol.
And so if that is something that you're navigating, then that might be a helpful guide because it talks about supportive behaviors and in a kind of like more holistic way than just like lose weight, go on a diet. So I'll link to that in a show notes too. But I think like something for me that that kind of came up was like this idea of not, not sure how best to describe myself.
And I wondered if we should like, talk a little bit about language and you know, how we kind of. Yeah. The language that we use around, around fat bodies, like this is something that we were talking before we started recording, and it's like, it's something that I grapple with a lot because like, technically according to my BMI I am the O word, right?
And, but at the same time, I'm straight size, right? I can go into most clothes shops and be able to find something, um, I can fit into, you know, normal, not normal. What am I trying to say? I can fit into plane seats without worrying about, um, being really uncomfortable. Like, I don't have to think about access.
But at the same time, there are, you know, real material things that I have to navigate. Like, you know, the example that I was giving you that I said to you earlier is like, if I were to get pregnant, I would be obese at my booking appointment, and that would have implications for the type of care that I was, and the type of birth that I was entitled to.
And my maternity pathway would be completely different because of that. So there's this, it is kind of, I suppose what I'm grappling with is, you know, the loss of privilege as your body gets bigger while still having a fuck ton of thin privilege. I don't even know if that what my point was there, but what did it bring up for you?
Jeanette: For me, it brings up a lot about the conversation to do with mid-size.
Laura: Mid-size? Yeah.
Jeanette: Yeah. That's what it kind of brings up because you
Laura: Do you wanna explain that?
Jeanette: Yeah, so mid-size is something that people tend to use and they use it in. This is the thing, this is the tricky thing that I find with mid-size because I find that it, it can be useful and could be useful for a lot of people, but I also feel like it is used for some people to distance themselves away from fatness.
So it may be used by people who maybe small fats. So small fats are generally people who, who are like a 18 to 20
Laura: So that's like a UK 18 to 20. Yeah. Cause
Jeanette: A UK.
Laura: Most of our listeners are in the US, which I find it really weird, but that whatever. Yeah. So UK 18 to 20
Jeanette: Yes. I'm
Laura: Would be.
Jeanette: Would be for us, but a UK 18 to 20 a roundabouts. And it's, you know, when we're talking about small fat, we're talking about a person in a body who's just beginning to experience a lot more. Um, well experience quite a big loss of, um, body privilege, but not quite enough that they still, that, you know, they still fit in society.
It's just that it's uncomfortable to fit in society. Then you have mid fat, which is, it's more uncomfortable, you know, you, you can fit into most seats, but you might end up, um, getting bruises from them and then you get super fat which is probably won't be able to fit in some of the seats. And you will be getting bruises.
You will be hurting from sitting in, you know, so we have this kind of level of body privilege we can talk about. And some mid-size people use the term mid-size to distance themselves because of their own internalized fat phobia from calling themselves a small fat or identifying as fatness. But then also we have a group of people who potentially, you know, like you were saying, who are potentially are still experiencing some form of anti-fat really, and because of the BMI scale and that kind of thing, but aren't fat, but aren't straight sized.
So they're trying to carve out a space for them in like a community way to try. But it, it's really difficult I think, and I think it's difficult to find that space, which is why I'm very much of the opinion of you. We need to try and find a way that is honouring our fattest people and trying to find equity and you know, lift up our fattest people whilst at the same time recognizing that there are people who are in smaller bodies who are still experiencing some form of anti-fat as well.
Laura: Yeah. And I think there were a couple of different things that you talked about there, Janette, that I just wanna like go back to. So when you use the terms small fats, mid fat, large fat, and then super fat and infini fat, you're talking about what is often referred to as like fat degrees or the fat spectrum, right?
And so what that names is how, as our body size gets bigger, we lose more and more privilege and become further and further marginalized.
And, Linda from, uh, fluffy Kitten Party has done a great explainer on categories and it would be, I think it's a really helpful resource if this is new to you, like how do you, like what language do we use to describe our bodies?
The midsize thing is a whole fucking trip, where I think like in its original inception, it was this really important kind of bridge for people between who were at the top end of the straight size spectrum. So maybe like a 16 to 18
Jeanette: Yeah.
Laura: Who or like the bottom size of the plus size spectrum when it comes to like, clothing, let's say. Because I think that really the mid-size thing is about clothing a lot of times. And like how it can be, you know, it can be really tricky if, if you're in that spot to like, do I try and shop in straight size stores where it might not quite fit, but then the plus size stuff doesn't always fit either.
So like it can be a tricky space to be in and you still have a fuck ton of body privilege. Right.
And then, but what it feels like has happened is that like objectively straight size people, like people who are like a UK size 12 have co-opted this term.
Jeanette: Mm-hmm.
Laura: And just because they're not like stick thin, they are like, oh, they're like, it's, yeah. It's kind of, they're using it to, to, to kind of like take up space basically, when actually they're just like a fraction away from the ideal
Jeanette: Yeah.
Laura: and they're still comparing themselves to that thin ideal. And that's where I think the problem is.
Jeanette: Yeah. And that's the problem of society, isn't it? That's the problem that if we are not conforming to this really quite strict view of, you know, thinness and beauty, then you know, you've, we've got a whole load of different people trying to find community in the way that best fits them.
And I think that's where fat liberation really can come in because, you know, everyone's trying to carve out their own space for them. Whereas actually body liberation and, and fat liberation is all about widening that lens to other people. We are not just trying to carve out the space for ourselves individually.
We're trying to carve out spaces and take up space in a way that honors other people's space that they're taking up as well and uplifting the bodies that are the most marginalized and going, okay, these are the people who need this space and we want them to have this space. They deserve unconditionally to have this space as well.
And that's when I think it's really unhelpful when we have people who are trying to create community and take up their own space when they're not thinking about their impact on the other people and marginalized bodies around them.
Laura: Yeah. And that's, I think the thing about the mid-size trend is that there is no acknowledgement of either thin privilege or of body liberation or of how there are people that are way more oppressed than, you know, struggling to find clothes for your size 12th body. Right.
Jeanette: Definitely.
Laura: Okay. I think, do we have time for one more question? Should we do one more and then,
Jeanette: Let's do this.
Okay, so this is a question from Janice. I've been on a disordered eating recovery journey for about three years. My rejection of diet culture and calling out of weight stigma, particularly in the medical profession, has been a dramatic change. My husband is not on this journey with me and is still fully committed to diet and exercise equals health and wellbeing.
We've had arguments about it because when I call out weight stigma, he gets defensive. He now says he won't speak to me about body image, food, eating because he feels attacked. He also feels that my views are just subjective opinions and there is no evidence that what I say is true. I get upset and then I can't think objectively either.
What is the easiest and quick data I can, or research that backs up our non diet, weight inclusive approach to health? Or should I just accept that this is something we really can't talk about at the moment and I continue my work and get in therapy for support. I really appreciate your advice and obviously love the podcast, and.
Laura: Oh, oh, Janice, Janice, Janice, Janice. I felt really sad re when this question came in, we can, and we will give you papers that you can read, that's fine. But that's so far from the point here. It's so far from the point, because even if this is just your subjective experience, that really fucking matters, that's so important and you deserve to have your experiences validated.
And so I just wanna do that first and foremost, like your experience of weight stigma, and particularly like you say in the medical profession, that's so valid and it matters and it's important. And I'm really sorry that that has been dismissed or trivialized. It's obviously not just in your head. So yeah, that's the first thing that I wanted to offer is that that really matters and that's really important. And I'm really sorry that you know, someone who you love and care about has dismissed you like that. That must be extremely painful. What are you thinking, Jeanette? Like can see you
Jeanette: Yeah.
Laura: Just looking really sad as well.
Jeanette: I just really feel for Janice, and I also think this is something that comes up a fair bit as well, especially if, um, the person themselves is in a large body and a fat body. And especially if the partner is at a fat or large body themselves, because obviously they've got a lot of work to be doing themselves around, you know, rejecting diet culture and working on challenging than internalized fatphobia.
But I also, it's difficult doing that journey without a supportive partner. And it's even more difficult doing it with someone who wants to challenge, even if it's something that's subjective, that's hard. But also even if we gave, you know, give researching and show papers, I find it doesn't necessarily always, sometimes it does change people's mind because people need to be in the right place themselves to be able to hear the message.
Unfortunately, this is why me and Laura aren't millionaires, because we can't go out and force people into rejecting diet culture. You've almost gotta get to this kind of place where you are ready to step into that space and ready to start doing this work of challenging everything that you've believed and everything you've internalized for pretty much the whole of our lives. And it's difficult. So difficult. Also thinking that the partner, your partner isn't in the same place that you are in relation to that as well. So, I'm sorry that you're experiencing this really.
Laura: Yeah. And I don't know that I really have a, a helpful answer or solution. You know, I just wonder if you have like a safe place like that you can talk about these things and it doesn't sound like you necessarily do, but I wonder what like take to get you to be able to have conversations in a way that, you know, neither one of you feels attacked and you both have your experiences held and, and validated.
And I don't know if that's like couples counselling or therapy or, you know, even working with like a Jeanette or a Laura or like, you know, somebody to help you process that together. And I'll link to some papers in the show notes, but like you say, Jeanette, I don't know if that's gonna nudge the dial any really, but the, the one that I'm thinking of is the Tracy Tylka paper, the weight inclusive versus weight normative approach to health because it really neatly, sort of lays out the issues and summarizes the evidence. I did a Q&A with a weight inclusive researcher, Lizzy Pope, a couple weeks ago, and she shared some research literature as well that that, um, and I think she includes that, that til paper that she uses when she's trying to convince other researchers that this is the way to approach things. Any other like resources or, or things that you think would be helpful?
Jeanette: I think maybe you know, in the long term, something like that you can do as a couple to be able to validate each other. Trying to find that way forward is important. But in the short term, is there any way of you finding, um, your community, you know, have you got someone outside of your partner that you can discuss this with?
Can you find someone, can you find someone through like Facebook groups? You know, is there anyone? Cause there's loads of really goods, um, anti-D diet, non-diet approach, Facebook groups that you can find. And although online friendship doesn't replace and obviously shouldn't replace the relationship that you have with your partner. But it could be a really good short-term solution. So you still have someone that you can talk to this, talk about all of your experiences about who can validate you, who can go, well actually yeah, this is what I'm experiencing as well, which might be useful.
Laura: Yeah. I'm curious to hear like if you have, you know, if your husband has always been on board with this for you. If that's been like a learning curve. I feel like I'm pretty lucky in that Dave listens to all my podcasts and reads all my shit. Like he's the first person to see anything, to like read any drafts of anything I've written.
So he just knows, that if he didn't get on board it would be divorce. Right. But I'm, I'm curious, like, did you have that, you know, because you've been on your own journey and we talked about that in the last podcast we did together, but how was, what was that experience like for you?
Jeanette: I've had a very similar experience as you to be honest, I am incredibly lucky that, um, no matter what I have decided to do with my body, my husband has always been supportive, has always championed my own body autonomy. And I'm really, I'm really lucky, like exactly the same as you. He's always the first person to listen to podcasts and the first person to read my posts and, you know, he reads all my emails that he sends out.
I dunno why he subscribes to them, but he also reads those, you know. So I'm really lucky. I think the place that I struggle with personally is my family. I have a member of my family who understandably, really understandably for her own personal reasons, is entrenched in diet culture. And I do set boundaries with, with her. And she knows that. And we've, we've had the, we've had the, the talk that, um, she's not allowed to talk about weight loss and diets and food being good and bad around the children especially. But she doesn't necessarily understand what I do. She's still very much, you know, fat equals bad. My family are all people who are in fat bodies.
Like when you look at both sides of the, when I wear, I was, I was never just in, in my genetics to have a small body. I am six foot tall and I'm also fat. I am supposed to be taking up a lot of space. And when I look at the you know, the generations before me, they're the same. They're also tall people who are fat as well, which comes with a lot of generational, you know, diet culture. But yeah, it, it's hard. It's hard when you don't have family and you don't have, you know, in this case, a partner who is supportive of, of your own body autonomy
Laura: Clearly the answer is you have to become an anti diet nutritionist. Like that's the, and then your husband will get it. All right, easy just do that.
Jeanette: We just literally talk at them for so long that they have to listen to us and internalize
Laura: Yeah. They have to, they have to get it, otherwise you threaten them with the divorce. So thank you for sharing that, Jeanette. Really appreciate it. I think it's always like, just so much more helpful to hear people's personal experience. So yeah, I'm so glad that you were here to answer these questions with me.
I don't feel like we give Janice a very satisfying answer. I'm sorry, Janice. Hopefully there is something to, to think about in that. But, um, yeah, I think we, we've covered a lot of ground here. There were a couple questions that we didn't get to, so maybe we'll do a part two at some point and finish them up.
Should we share our snacks? So at the end of every episode, my guest and I share something that they're snacking on. So it can be like a podcast or a book, or a movie or a show, or like literal snacks. So what do you have for us?
Jeanette: The first thing that came to mind of what I have been snacking on recently is a podcast. And, um, I have been a very busy bee at the moment, so having a podcast, um, that has been away from like anti-diet
Laura: Yes.
Jeanette: Sort thinking about fatness and stuff has been a really lovely respite to me. And it's, um, my, and it's probably one, it's been out for a while. I think they're finishing up. my dad wrote a porno.
Laura: Oh yeah. I haven't listened to that in so long.
Jeanette: No, I keep on it. I started listening to it back in 2019 and then I kind of forgot about that. Now, every now and then I kind of pick up, I go, oh my goodness, I need this in my life. And it's usually when I'm really busy. Like usually when I'm really busy, my brain just needs
Laura: Something. Yeah.
Jeanette: and something really funny.
And so that's what I've been snacking on at the moment. How about you?
Laura: So funny. We've been watching a lot of Bob's Burgers, which I love, Bob's burgers. Because our kid goes to bed so freaking late these days, so we usually have like, you know, we just wanna watch something mindless for like 20 minutes before we go to bed, have a snack, and then like an, I mean an actual food snack, watch a show. So they, yeah, that's like, that's what we've been watching lately. Um, but also, like the other thing that I had, cuz just cuz it's sitting on my desk, this is super bougie, um, because I was like having a bad day and I went into asip, which is always a mistake. And I bought, what is it? It's, um, like body bam, pink grapefruit, orange rind and lemon rind. And it's in this like paint tube, which I love
Jeanette: I love that.
Laura: Yeah, it's so, it's not, I wish, like I'm, I'm holding it up to you, like, you can smell it, you can't, but it's like really citrusy and fresh and like Yeah. I just, it's very, it's like a complete indulgence. But I love it. So yeah, that's my snack also.
Um, Jeanette, tell us where people can find more about you and your work and a little bit of what you're up to.
Jeanette: Okay. Um, you can find me on Instagram, the mindset nutritionist. You can find my freebie, which is great on my website, www dot mindset nutritionist dot co uk.
Laura: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, go download Jeanette's freebie. It's all about getting in the picture and yeah, being there for the, the moment and not being like hyperfocused on how you look or your body.
Jeanette: Thank you so much for saying that for me,
Laura: All right. Thanks for listening everyone, and thank you, Jeanette for being here and helping us answer all those questions.
Jeanette: so much for having me.
OUTRO
Laura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week.
19: AMA w/ Jeanette Thompson Wesson