
About the Episode
Our F-word for this episode is ‘fear’.
In this episode, we’ll be exploring the cycle of fear and blame the diet industry has created and how this impacts our body image and relationship to food. We’ll also look at some of the nuances, including the erasure of fat folks from history, and why it appears to be socially acceptable to discriminate against someone based on their body size/weight. We’ll also take a look at how the diet industry uses fear based marketing practices to sell their products, and the outcomes when the ‘solution’ doesn’t work.
If you’d rather not hear my life, podcast and business update, skip forward to 12:21
Content Warning: use of the word o*esity within context at 13:40
“...the fundamental truth is that people believe being fat is simply a choice."
Topics discussed in episode 015
- Life, pod and business catch up – skip ahead to 12:21 if you don’t want to hear it
- Why is society so afraid of fatness?
- The diet industry cycle
- The diet industry’s primary marketing tool
- How the diet industry keeps us trapped within the cycle
Chapters
00:00 Halloween Preparations and Personal Updates
07:02 Reflections on the Podcast Journey
12:09 Haunting Diet Myths: Introduction to the Topic
20:15 The Diet Industry Cycle Explained
32:03 Understanding Body Diversity and Acceptance
Transcription:
Melanie [she/her] (00:01)
Hello friends, welcome back to the Culture of It All. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. Happy Halloween week! It is officially here. I feel like this is what I train for. So happy Halloween week if you are celebrating. We are, of course.
It is half-term which means my kiddo is at home. So we are doing a few little things. We’re going on a Halloween trail on Wednesday and then of course Thursday I shall be putting the final touches on my driveway and I’ll make sure to share some photos and things over on socials because yeah it’s my favorite time of year so happy Halloween week. I wanted to just start this episode with a little catch-up. I love doing that with you all so let me firstly say
I shared with you, I think I shared with you, that I was going to drag last weekend. I went to drag last weekend. And I sat here for four hours listening to music, kind of watching CSI, doing my makeup.
My intention was to cosplay Sam from Trick or Treat. I love that film if you haven’t seen it and Sam is just such a cute little baby, but he’s also kind of dangerous. But you know, in his costume he’s really cute, but I wanted to do Sam unmasked. So that involved some makeup and I found a video on TikTok. Kind of followed the video. Mine didn’t look like hers, let’s be honest. But I was quite impressed with how I was able to pull it off.
But to be honest, by the end of it, I was so fed up looking at myself in a mirror and I was just so tired. Yeah, it was, it looked great. It was really effective, but I don’t know that I would do that again.
to that extreme and I was just a little bit sad because I didn’t have any time then to record any content with it. I really wanted to, I got one piece of content out of it, which was, you know, I know that wasn’t the point, but it’s like all this effort. We went to drag, it was a Stranger Things theme and it was so much fun as always. I loved it. It’s so great. It’s so freeing. It’s just so wonderful to watch all of the acts. I love it every year.
I feel like it’s now a new Halloween tradition for me and my mum and my friend and her mum came, that was nice. It was just great.
I feel like that because of this my Halloween costume is probably going to be far more tame. I really think I’m just going to do the whole black floaty outfit and then maybe do some black and red lipstick and makeup.
This week I got my COVID vaccine. If you are eligible to get your COVID vaccine in the UK or if you’re allowed to and because the NHS is fatphobic, you can.
Yeah, go get your COVID vaccine, get vaccinated. My flu vaccine is up next. I’ve got to book that one in. Last year I went to get my COVID vaccine. I’ve been invited for the last few years and I have asthma but it’s very well managed and I just assumed that’s why I was invited. I get like emails and text messages like probably every couple of weeks from September telling me to get my COVID vaccine and my flu jab
So last year I booked it because again I get an email telling me that I’m eligible and when you go through and book the COVID vaccine there are a number of things. If you’re under the age of 65, which I am,
there are a list of reasons why you might be eligible and so most of them I know that that is not applicable. So I’m like, I don’t know, I’m guessing it’s my asthma. that may have been really naive. Now last year, that was what I thought, right? Go to get my COVID vaccine. I go in, I sit down. The nurse asks me why I’m here. And I feel like that’s a really bizarre question because I’m like, because I got like six emails from the NHS telling me to come.
And like, if I could have the COVID vaccine, I’m going to have it because like, let’s do my bit for the community. And I was like, because of my asthma? And she was like, I don’t think it’s because of your asthma. I was like, you don’t? Okay. And she was like, well, and she asked me a couple of questions about my asthma. And yeah, my asthma is really well managed. And she was like, it’s not your asthma, it’s your BMI.
I was like, whoa, okay, let’s get straight to that then. And I was like, do you have my medical records in front of you? And it turned out she didn’t. so you’ve just basically made a complete judgment based on how I look. And like, I get it, but also, really? Do we need to do this? And it was this, I guess for me, it felt like it was this overly…
I don’t say antagonistic, it was just the way it was approached. It was like, had to make it really clear to me that it’s because I’m fat. And I was like, okay, duly noted, can we get on with this please? And last year I came out of that and I was like so mad because I’m very much someone who walks away from an experience like that. It’s like, I should have said something. So I got straight on my phone to my coach,
And we kind of worked through it and I was like, well, I’m prepared for next year. So this year I went there, I rebooked this appointment three times because I needed to be in the right head space to go because I was like, I have to be prepared for the fact this is going to come up again. And I got there and I was ready, I sit down, t-shirt ready, like, I’m like, let’s go.
we go through it and it was just a real performance, first of all trying to get like the computer to work and once we got there she’s like, so you’re obviously under the age of 65 so why are you here? I was like, we have to do this again? guys you know why I’m here and I was like, well I last year I thought it was because of my asthma but the nurse I saw you know swiftly fat shame me and told me it was because of my BMI and she just kind of looked at me stunned and was like
probably is because of your BMI if your asthma is well managed.” And I was like, cool, great, let’s move on, please.
Anyway. So I’m going to be honest. It was far better this year because I was prepared. I knew what to expect, but I’m just like, you’ll need to figure out how to deal with this because when I booked my COVID vaccine, there is no option for BMI. And I did say that to her I was like, there is no option to tick. Like I don’t think BMI is a good measure of anything, but
If that’s the reason, then that needs to be added as the reason, because I don’t know that’s the reason if that’s not an option. And personally, I don’t think my body size is like some kind of disease, which is basically what you’re telling me I have to pick.
So anyway. That is, you know, that’s what’s happening, that’s what’s going on, that is where I’m at. I’ve also been very
Reflective, it’s been six months since the first episode of the podcast aired back in April. I hadn’t been sleeping, like last week I wasn’t sleeping very well and Couldn’t get to sleep. My brain was running at million miles an hour of all kinds of bullshit stuff that had nothing to do with anything. And was like, what is going on? And I had this like very weird feeling of like, I don’t want to create content.
today. I need to journal. And so if you don’t know, I am very much an avid journaler. I enjoy journaling and there are also times when I don’t do it for six months, which is basically what happened this year. I spent the end of last year, the end of 2023, journaling like it was my, like it was my job. That was, I spent two, three months just journaling and journaling and journaling and
The reason being is it had this, like, messy end of a friendship and some other, like, wild bullshit that happened because of that. And I needed to get clear on, like, this isn’t my fault. I take responsibility for certain things. But, like, this is not all on me. I am not an awful person. was kind of essentially where I was going with it. And…
It carried into December and in the new year and I spent a lot of time reflecting on my work and essentially this is what led to us being here together today, right? That retrospective, not retrospective, that introspective work led to me creating this podcast because I knew, I knew, that I wanted to podcast again and I…
eventually got clear on the fact that if I was going to start podcasting again, I knew that I wanted to shift my focus because I really didn’t want to go back to creating content about business and online business. Like that I just moved on from that part of my life. And so really when I started the podcast, I kind of stopped journaling and I don’t think it was an active decision. I didn’t go like, I’m starting this, I’m going to stop this.
But my, any of my, what I would call spiritual work, you know, just kind of really just stopped happening. And I think I was so focused on creating a community here and developing the content. because when I started the show six months ago, I was so nervous of editing and just creating workflows. And it’s actually been far easier than I thought it was going to be. I was so afraid of like it taking hours and it really doesn’t. And it’s been…
a really, really exciting six months. But I’d got to this point a week ago where I was like, I need to start journaling. So I started and it became clear to me there was a lot going on in my head that maybe I hadn’t really processed or I needed to get out, right? It needed to come out of my head onto paper.
And often my journaling can just be lots of freeform thoughts. It doesn’t make sense 21 hours. And often I will journal about my business or journal about what I’m working on projects, things like that, content.
When I tell you within like five days, I had journaled pages and pages. I had been able to work through some of these things with a few different friends who are also content creators or have businesses, have maybe known me for a number of years. By like the end of that week, I was so clear on what had been like simmering in the background. And actually in reflection, it had been simmering in the background for most of this year. There were decisions I needed to make, but I…
my ego and my fear of like making the wrong decision or looking flaky was like, be really noisy. And I think that’s probably why I just focused all my energy and attention into the podcast as well, because I didn’t want to have to make those other decisions. But yeah, I made the decisions and I’m going to be working on that over the next couple of months. I will share more, but…
Yeah, over the next couple of months, I’ll be working on that so that when the podcast takes a break, we are taking a break. That was a decision I made in December. So I’m going to take like four weeks, December into January, off for Christmas, New Year, and we’ll come back mid January and I’ll confirm all of like dates and stuff. And I’ll still be on social media, but I’m just going to take a break from airing new episodes.
And so that was a big decision I needed to make because I wasn’t sure what kind of break I wanted to take. But I knew that taking August was such a good decision. So I was like, let’s just let’s trust myself to do that again. So yeah, that is that is where we’re at. So as I said, more on that to come. I think we should get into today’s episode because this has been a long chat chat. If you hate these chats, tell me. If you really enjoy this, tell me.
I mean, like, don’t be mean, but like, if you really don’t want to hear what’s going on in my life, then, you know, be nice about it, but let me know if like this is not what you’re here for. So today’s episode, Haunting Diet Myths. We’re going to talk about the diet industry cycle that keeps us afraid, hungry and invested. It is spooky season. It is Halloween. I actually am thinking about keeping haunting diet myths as a
Segment on the show. Maybe specifically on the substack, but I’m thinking about keeping that and using some of my stickers and creativity to kind of explore these diet myths because, there’s so many of them. But I wanted today to talk about the diet industry cycle because I think that’s really, really important, right? It’s the cycle that kind of, well, as I said, keeps us afraid and hungry.
and invested.
So one of the myths that I find really wild I find it really wild that we believe it, but it’s this idea that fat people didn’t exist.
And maybe you weren’t aware of this, there just seems to be this underlying narrative that fat people didn’t used to exist. That there was this time when everyone was thin, right? Interestingly it was before the BMI was introduced, before the diet industry became a 70 billion dollar entity, before the obesity epidemic. But the reality is that fat people have always existed. There is this Instagram account
called Historical Fat People. I will link to it in the show notes. It’s over on Instagram and they document photos of folks in larger bodies from various decades along with like magazine articles and pop culture references. It’s really interesting. And again, this is one of those situations that until it was presented to me until someone said, hey, why do we think that fat people didn’t exist? Why do we not have photos of fat people?
why do we not see fat folks in, in, you know, from decades past? Until it’s put in front of you, go, yeah, like why is that, right? It’s one of those things that just becomes so normal that we don’t see photos of fat people from decades gone by.
And like, the reality is that just because society has tried endlessly to ignore larger bodies and prevent them from being documented and recording, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t exist. So if we know that fat people have always existed, why as a society have we become so afraid of fatness? And why do we care so much? Right? And as an empath, I understand that probably seems like
seems kind of strange to ask, but I don’t mean why do we care so deeply about each other, because that is not the case, right? As a person of a larger body, I can tell you that strangers on the internet don’t actually care about my health. It’s never about my health.
Like why the fuck do strangers on the internet spend energy caring about someone they don’t know’s health? Well, they don’t. It’s simply a socially acceptable form of discrimination, right? Weight stigma is a socially acceptable form of discrimination. And the default answer is, will I only care about your health? It’s only because I care. And you may have heard this from
People in your life, may have heard this from family or friends as well, like I certainly have, but it’s also become socially acceptable for people to make fat jokes, to stereotype and shame folks in larger bodies, because the fundamental truth is that people believe being fat is simply a choice.
Right, the fundamental truth is that people believe being fat is simply a choice.
And because of that, whether it’s friends, family or strangers on the internet or the person in the supermarket queue or the person in your hairdressers, I don’t know, wherever you are,
that it is acceptable for them to pass judgment on you. That it’s okay for them to tell you your fat just in case you didn’t know because they care about your health.
I watched a video that was really interesting, it was discussing fat bias and how fat bias doesn’t respond to exposure. Right, so the way she explained it was simply when a thin person tells us how they eat or move their bodies, whether we deem it healthy or unhealthy, we just believe them. Right, we believe them. But when someone in a larger body tells us how they eat or how they move…
especially if it’s some if what they’re doing is what society deems to be healthy and they’re still in a larger body right so they’re doing these things you deem to be healthy or they’re telling you they deem they do these things that deem to be healthy and they’re still in a larger body the assumption is they’re lying
They can’t possibly be telling the truth. I’ve seen this on social media with content creators, especially those in larger bodies who are creating exercise content or like fitness content, and they’re in the larger body. There are so many comments and questions of how is that possible? Well, the thing is…
not all people in larger bodies are having the same experiences. They’re not all actively pursuing weight loss. Because fitness doesn’t have to have anything to do with weight loss. Movement doesn’t have to have anything to do with weight loss. Not all people in larger bodies dislike their body, or even attach their self-worth, the moral value to their body. And we’re human beings too, right? Our lived experiences vary and…
we now are beginning to understand that body size isn’t just about how much someone eats.
So when we look at the question like, why are we so afraid of being in a larger body? Why are we so afraid of gaining weight? It’s not about health. That is just a default answer. Because in reality, people don’t want to be treated the same way they themselves treat folks in larger bodies.
They’re not as blind to the oppression of marginalized groups, specifically larger bodies. They know exactly how we are treated and they simply do not want to experience this too. And like, if anyone still says to you health, but health, Melanie, but health. If we care about people’s health, then we should care about their mental health and understand the impact of anti-fatness and weight stigma more on our mental health.
You cannot claim to care about someone’s health and then make fat jokes. You can’t claim to care about someone’s health and then believe they don’t deserve access to healthcare because of their size. You can’t claim to care about someone’s health and assume they’re lying about their lifestyle, activity levels, or question why they don’t just lose weight.
Because the solution to weight stigma is not weight loss. Period. The solution to weight stigma is not weight loss. So let’s talk about how we got here, right? At least part of the reason how we got here. Let’s talk about this diet industry cycle, because I think it’s so fascinating and scary.
So the cycle essentially, the way I see it, and I’m sure there’s like, I’m sure there’s other things out there. I’m not claiming that this is like the only way we can look at this. Just want to kind of make sure that’s clear before I start. But the way I see this, when I was thinking about this episode is like, there’s a problem, right? They created a problem. And from this problem, they had to create fear.
Right, they had to create fear around the problem. And then once they’ve created enough fear, they had to sell the solution. And I use that term very loosely, but they had to sell the solution, in this case diets. And then they’ve sold the solution, and then when it doesn’t work, they had to blame the individual. And this becomes a cycle. Now I should say as well, it’s not just the diet industry. Governments actively participate in this cycle too.
But for the sake of focusing in on one theme and not becoming a two, three hour episode, we will focus solely on the diet industry. Now, I think the first thing is, let’s not forget that the diet industry is a business. It makes $70 billion a year, right? It makes money. And the first thing a business coach teaches us is that you need to solve a problem. I don’t know how many times I used to hear this.
It’s simple, you just have to solve a problem. Every business solves a problem. And then they use marketing strategies and tactics to sell you their product, their solution, right? So they do this by like making you hyper aware of your problem.
Even things that you don’t really think were problems suddenly seem like this massive problem that you need to fix. If you think about like infomercials, I always think about when I was in the US once and they had this thing called Slap and Chop, which I already owned a version of this from Pampered Chef, but they, and it wasn’t called Slap and Chop, but it’s like this food chopper and you slap the top of it and the blades come down and it chops the food, Great name, Slap and Chop.
And I always think about that, So by the end of this like 10 minute infomercial, you’re like, I can never use a knife again to cut my food. I have to use a slap and chop, right? It’s that kind of, that kind of awareness, Reiterating, regurgitating the over and over again why this is a problem. like pushing on your pain points. Now, personally, I really dislike that phrase. I heard it so often.
when I started my business, as a business coach once told me, our goal is to take them from pain island to pleasure island. And it just feels gross, but yeah, that is essentially the goal, They want to take you from being miserable to you being so happy. That’s why they use like before and after photos, This like before and after of
What can happen and how you can look at all these different things? We’ve seen it time and time again.
And you the emphasis is the fact that your life is going to be so much better. You’ll no longer have these quote problems, Sometimes they’ll use buzzwords and phrases to like really push their products and instill fear and also make themselves seem more intelligent. I saw this a lot in the health and fitness industry when I worked there. A lot of people talking about things that are in ingredients labels, things that are just like natural products or natural ingredients, I should say.
One of them I remember being soy lecithin. I think that’s how you pronounce it. You probably if you looked at the word you’d like, I’ve seen that on food labels. It’s a food additive made from soybeans. But there is so much debate on the internet still of whether it’s good or bad. And I’m like, guys, this is just really distracting. Like for more important conversations around food quality and equity and access. Like those are things that we should be really talking about. But.
A lot of this work, a lot of this marketing, especially in the health and fitness industry and in business industry as well, and I’ve talked about this before, it’s very cult like, You’re not allowed to question the leader. You’re not allowed to question the person that’s telling you that this product is bad for you and that you should do this, We see it in certain fitness communities and fitness groups. you know, I’m going to name some and I’m sorry if you do this exercise, but like CrossFit, it’s not all the same.
I know, I know it’s not all CrossFit. I know it’s not all CrossFit. lots of these communities become so obsessed with like their way is the only way. And then we’ve seen it with diets and things as well. We’ve seen it with people who want to like sell us on the carnivore diet. The maintenance phase podcast do a great job.
of looking at some of these, like really focusing in on these diets and the people behind them But you know, unfortunately, fear is a great marketing tool and fear is the diet industry’s primary marketing tool.
And when I look back, I have been so afraid of my body, of my decisions, of my mind. I’ve been afraid of socializing, losing control, eating at home, outside, in public, wherever.
I’ve been so afraid of forgetting what I ate or miscalculating. I’ve been afraid of food shopping, vacations, celebrations, the holidays. And it got to the point where I was afraid there was something wrong with me. And I don’t know if you can resonate with that as well. Like, it just felt like this had to be my problem.
I knew on some level I wasn’t the only one struggling with how their body felt, but no one was really talking about it at that time. I didn’t have a community of people who were talking about the fact that, like, this is bullshit. And also I am so afraid there’s something wrong with me.
I just thought I was broken and despite all of my positive traits, despite all of the things I had done, all my successes, my skills, I just thought I was broken. I just thought I was broken just because of my body size. And this is what diet culture and the diet industry does to young people and it is so fucked up.
To repeatedly tell someone that they are bad, broken and damaged just because their body doesn’t fit into some arbitrary and unrealistic beauty standard? To tell young people that nothing else matters if they are not thin? It makes me so mad.
Now, in recent years, as people have become more savvy to restriction and the failure rate of low calorie diets, they had to shift their tactics and formed this kind of subset, I guess, of like wellness brands who claim to care about creating healthy lifestyles and they claim not to be diets, but A, they’re still using the fear of fatness as a tactic and B, they’re still a goddamn diet. So.
know, they’re still restrictive, they still create rules around how you eat, and at the centre of their quote healthy lifestyle are thin white able bodies.
So again, they create a problem, they create fear around that problem, they sell the solution, and then when it doesn’t work they blame the individual.
As I’m looking at my notes and I can see where I’ve written this out, this cycle, I’m like, guys, the business coaching industry does the same thing. I’ve talked about this before. I’m never not going to mention this because I’m like…
It’s the same fucking thing. It’s the same thing. Create a problem, create fear, sell a solution, and when it doesn’t work, blame the individual. We’re not allowed to blame the coach. We’re not allowed to blame the product. We’re not allowed to blame the program, the book. because how many times have we, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this too, you’re like, that didn’t work for me.
And someone gets so annoyed. It’s like you’ve insulted their soul, And who they are as a being because you’ve told them that didn’t work for me.
It happens. People get very, very protective over this stuff.
It’s always about blaming the individual.
How many times have we gone back to a product program system, wherever you want to call it? I’ve heard the sentence, “I’m going back to <insert diet here>, because that’s what always works for me.” But if it worked and solved whatever problem we’ve been told we have, we wouldn’t need to go back to it. If diets worked, the industry would not be worth $70 billion.
The only reason the diet industry is worth $70 billion is because diets don’t work. That sentence I just said, I’m going back to whatever it is because it’s always what works for me. That is one of the reasons why the diet industry is worth what it’s worth. Because of this cycle. This cycle of blaming the individual. It’s our fault. We’re to blame. It’s never the Insert Diet Programme’s name.
here problem. It’s never the coach, it’s never the fact that it just doesn’t work. It’s always the individual’s problem. It’s always their fault.
I’d also go back to my point earlier, like, if we care about people’s health, we care about their mental health and like, blaming someone over and over again throughout their life because they can’t conform to an unrealistic beauty standard because being hungry is miserable, because being hungry is actually unhealthy.
and being hungry all the time contributes to, you know, damaging our mental health. That’s when this whole, I only care about your health thing is absolute bullshit. It’s not true. You want it to be true, but it’s not true.
So yeah, if diets worked, the industry wouldn’t be worth $70 billion. We wouldn’t have to keep going back, we wouldn’t have to keep trying new things. There wouldn’t be a new diet cookbook, there wouldn’t be a new book, a new Buzz diet next year, right? We’re heading towards the end of the year, as of the new year, there’s gonna be all the new things. The last couple of years, we’ve seen it. It’s been these drugs, these surgeries.
they may not be diets.
but they’re still contributing towards this industry.
if diets worked there wouldn’t be thousands of different versions, right? If one thing worked there wouldn’t need to be all these other versions of them. And also if diets worked they’d find something else to sell us. Like that’s inevitable. They’d find something else to be a problem. And I… I want to end with this.
Even if diets worked we would all look different. We would all look different. our bodies would all look different because genetics make up a large part of our physiology.
So thank you so much for joining me for this Halloween week episode. I feel like I have so much more to say. We’re already at like 40 minutes. As I said, let’s not make this a two, three hour episode. I have lots of exciting things coming up. As I said, I will be sharing that in a future episode. Next time we are going to be joined…
by Naomi Katz. Yay! I’m so happy. We’re going to be sitting down to have a conversation. Our F word is going to be food. And I can’t wait for those of you who do not know Naomi, for you to be introduced to her and hear all of the incredible things that she’s going to be able to share with you because especially as we head in closer to holiday season and potentially a more sociable season and even as we head towards New Year.
it’s going to be a really really important conversation. So I’m excited for that, I hope you are excited for that. I will see you next time friends.