Obesity, Body Image & Remembering the Meat Suit

Mary · 0:01
Hey Reggie, what was your favorite part of today's episode?

Reggie · 0:05
My favorite part of the episode was Dylan saying a word that she thought was one word, but it was actually something else.

Mary · 0:11
Oh yeah, that was pretty good, Tim.

Tim · 0:13
My favorite part was just coming to terms with, like, some emotions about the subject we're talking about. Even Mary and me both felt like we were gonna cry at some points, and that was special. I didn't know you were gonna cry.

Dylan · 0:24
My favorite part was breaking the fifth wall and calling Will Diva.

Speaker · 0:28
That

Mary · 0:29
was a highlight for me too.

Reggie · 0:32
Yeah, you guys had some really interesting conversations today, but I think my favorite part was teaching you guys some gay slang,

Mary · 0:41
and my, I think my favorite part was after the episode where I said I wanted to cry a couple of times, and everybody was like, I wish you had, I know, and I'm probably thinking about it, it was really good stuff, I

Tim · 1:03
Yes, that felt good. That was the clack of clack.

Mary · 1:05
Yeah, this, this third time really feels like it's gonna be this is the

Speaker · 1:09
fourth time. For

Mary · 1:11
don't tell me that, Dylan. We almost started without Dylan today because there's torrential rain in Western North Carolina, and we weren't sure she was gonna make it. So

Tim · 1:21
glad she did. Yeah,

Mary · 1:22
oh my gosh, I

Dylan · 1:22
went through the trenches to get

Mary · 1:24
here today, and we're very thankful. Yeah, also we haven't talked about it, but like our windows didn't leak.

Speaker · 1:32
Oh,

Tim · 1:32
I didn't notice that Moses

Reggie · 1:34
came in over the weekend to do a test to make sure he did say I think he said there were minor leaks on these two, I think, but he

Mary · 1:45
said not so bad.

Reggie · 1:46
They're gonna, I

Mary · 1:46
mean, relatively, they're

Reggie · 1:47
gonna still address it.

Dylan · 1:47
We're on high ground, we won't flood

Mary · 1:49
again, so our windows aren't leaking. You may have noticed something else is new on the podcast.

Reggie · 1:55
Oh, yeah, yeah, no, this actually was good.

Mary · 1:59
Before we get too carried away, I should probably say, Welcome to Age the Podcast. I'm Mary Green, and I'm joined by my colleagues Tim Scroggs, Reggie Tidwell, and Dylan Garcia. And, as you've probably gathered, we are here in our studio, such as it is, that's getting improved every day. I'm also very excited that the packing blanket moved from here to here, so we can see will also, yeah.

Reggie · 2:29
The packet blanking is our soundproof, because I'm sure people are like, packing blanket sound dampening

Tim · 2:37
could be like Linus blanket, that's

Mary · 2:40
our security blanket. It is, in a way. So, we on this podcast, we talk about a range of topics. We put a bunch of topics in a trash can, and we're gonna pull one out today and see what comes out. This is my first time actually reaching in to grab the top, like some magic to it,

Tim · 3:02
like a lottery.

Dylan · 3:03
Yeah.

Speaker · 3:04
Oh,

Tim · 3:06
so excited for

Mary · 3:08
today. Okay, for

Tim · 3:10
those that don't know, we see these topics for the first time right now.

Mary · 3:14
Hang on, I also want to,

Tim · 3:15
and we haven't seen them. You don't know when it

Mary · 3:17
focuses, so I'm just gonna..

Tim · 3:19
oh, you do it. You do it so naturally.

Mary · 3:20
Oh, today's topic is obesity.

Dylan · 3:27
GLP ones are on the rise, lady and gentlemen.

Reggie · 3:30
That's a heavy

Tim · 3:31
one. Oh my,

Mary · 3:32
where to begin? Oh, I didn't even hear what you said. She

Reggie · 3:37
said that's a heavy one.

Mary · 3:39
I was in my own head, man. Thank you. Got to bring me back out. Yeah, obesity, so touchy. I feel

Dylan · 3:46
like super touchy. It

Reggie · 3:48
can be, yeah. I

Mary · 3:49
don't know. I think I'm probably.. I haven't looked up my BMI recently, because you don't need to know, but I'm probably technically obese, like by the standards. Yeah, my

Reggie · 4:02
BMI. BMI is like 27

Mary · 4:04
yeah, we're just so.. is

Tim · 4:06
this word even outdated?

Speaker · 4:08
Oh,

Mary · 4:09
obesity. I don't know,

Reggie · 4:14
yeah.

Dylan · 4:16
I mean, every time I open my phone, it's like I'm getting pushed Ozempic GLP one peptide, yeah,

Reggie · 4:23
GLP one, and yeah, Ozempic, that's like there's a whole face named after Ozempic, because apparently it does something to your,

Mary · 4:33
just your lose volume, yeah.

Tim · 4:35
I was just talking to someone just like last week, and they were on it for a year and got off of it and gained 30 pounds in one month.

Reggie · 4:45
Wow, this is

Mary · 4:46
well, I was living with a med student when it kind of like came into our headspace. The

Reggie · 4:51
toddler,

Mary · 4:51
she, what

Reggie · 4:53
gained a toddler,

Tim · 4:56
that's a medium-sized

Mary · 4:57
dog. I, she was. Saying to us at that time, she was like, "Well, it will work to lose weight, but then to manage that weight, you either need to make dramatic lifestyle change or you have

Reggie · 5:08
to stay on it.

Mary · 5:09
Yeah, and like this

Dylan · 5:11
model,

Mary · 5:12
dude. Oh, they make you need

Tim · 5:14
money like crazy.

Mary · 5:15
It's everything else. It's like you've talked about this before, like we're addicted, and yeah, but if you were going to make the lifestyle change anyway, then pair it

Tim · 5:25
together. A

Mary · 5:26
lot of people, I think the lifestyle change is the biggest struggle, and for some people, I think if they could make a lifestyle change, they would see more positive outcomes. I don't know that it always leads to losing weight, but I do think you would. There are healthier habits that we could all integrate,

Mary · 5:41
but but then there's a whole genetic debate, which I love to hear about, because it kind of makes me feel absolved from some of my choices around my weight.

Tim · 5:50
What first comes to my mind is not to say anything, because I have never been obese, and so I don't know that I can even speak to in the experience of being called that in this world, being having to endure that as a child. In the families.

Mary · 6:07
And I don't imagine any of you were chubby kids. I was a chubby kid.

Tim · 6:12
You were. I've seen your pictures. You were the cutest little chubby kid. I know I was

Reggie · 6:15
gonna say it was fitting.

Mary · 6:18
I love her, but I like had to like put my shoulders down. I just realized I was like, I like clammed up, and I am clammed up. I'm gonna be sweating by the end of this, yeah. And it's like even even the idea of like technically I feel like that label applies to me, it has all this connotation that I don't identify with, but I'm even afraid to talk about

Speaker · 6:45
it, yeah,

Mary · 6:45
because it feels like I'm, I don't feel like I have the same stigma, like the way that my body is shaped and the height that I am kind of gives me some permissibility, almost, versus people who are more obviously obese, and so it almost feels like I'm enough on the fringe that I shouldn't even talk about it. I'm seeing a lot of people online talk about them as like mid-sized bodies instead of like obese or not obese, there's like this in between where you don't

Tim · 7:13
size bodies. I thought that was a dad, yeah,

Mary · 7:15
kind of, I guess. But there's also like not genetically predisposed to be like have more meat on your boat, that's the kind of thing. So, but I don't know, it's like boned, yes, and this

Reggie · 7:27
is there that turn off,

Tim · 7:28
and it goes into labels, which we talked about, you know, that you, that there is one standard that everyone needs to be measured at, and that's when those BMI tests, and the things used to take in elementary school, back in the old days,

Reggie · 7:41
oh yeah,

Tim · 7:41
was all about trying to make everyone the same stats, you know, yeah, like you have to be this, this, and this, there's like a car one one

Reggie · 7:50
needed to be close to the bar, right? Like,

Tim · 7:52
in cultures around the world, there are people of all different sizes.

Reggie · 7:56
Absolutely.

Mary · 7:57
I well, and I'm gonna just.. I think this is another episode where I'm like, let me tease some things for people to talk about, but I think there's also.. so I want to talk about genetics, and I want to talk about how, like, the word obesity has come to be a shameful thing, or like a social cultural idea, but I want to believe that the beginning of it was about helping people live longer and be healthier, so like I don't want to throw away, I don't wanna throw the baby out with the bath water and say this word is pure evil and wrong, because I do think having a name for it allowed us to identify, like, what are the behaviors that maybe are exacerbating issues that you have,

Reggie · 8:38
right?

Mary · 8:38
Like, like, if you're carrying a lot of weight for whatever reason, that's more difficulty on your joints and, like, pressure on your heart, and all these other things. So, there's like tangible connection to it, and I think that's why probably a lot of people who identify or don't identify, as the case may be, with obesity, like there's a lot of shame around it, because it is tied to health outcomes. You do feel like a less healthy person,

Tim · 9:02
but the thing that drives me crazy about this whole thought is that the entire fat-free movement that started in, like, the 90s, early 90s, maybe late 80s

Mary · 9:11
didn't even make sense. It

Tim · 9:13
worked, though. Mark, from a marketing standpoint, they made money, and now wellness movements are making the similar amount of waves in the world about being well and being fit and being strong and protein, all these things that the capitalistic engine jumps onto, but when the fat-free movement started, you know, like sugar-free sodas, like Diet Coke and fat free milk, fat

Reggie · 9:37
free cookies, fat free cookies. No

Tim · 9:39
one people jumped on it, and later a lot of the evidence was proven wrong, because your body needs fat to actually think in the process. Process, and to actually lose weight, there's a certain amount of fat you need, so a lot of people are struggling from the side effects of getting fat free, of not having enough fat.

Mary · 9:57
We, I think, we talked about this on an episode that we haven't released, and maybe we'll get ballsy and just release it one day. I don't know, but talking about ultra processed foods and how, like, fat free is one of the things that just pushed us further into corporations like meddling with what's in stuff,

Reggie · 10:15
yeah,

Tim · 10:15
and now Ozypic is taking the same approach that fat-free diets, and then all the other things, they're just feeding on the insecurities of people, and I am so angry that that's the way capitalism has chosen to market, has to run the market based on people's insecurities. Yeah, like you're not good enough, you need this. Like, you watch any amazing singer at a normal size over time will get smaller in the public eye, right?

Tim · 10:43
Either they're very unhappy and not eating, or there's a pressure to be small.

Mary · 10:47
Yeah, there

Reggie · 10:47
absolutely is a pressure. Yeah,

Mary · 10:49
or like, have is it Serena Williams who did the GLP one? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I

Tim · 10:55
saw that. How's

Mary · 10:56
that playing out?

Dylan · 10:58
Not good. I mean, as someone who did the whole sports world thing and everything like that, there's always like this stigmatism that, like, smaller is better, especially as a woman, you never want to like become muscular, you never want to look manly, because that's also a different stigmatism on top of it, but she did that deal. It was during the Super Bowl, the Doves soap commercial just came out with all the girls saying that like 73% of women quit sports because of like something said about their body, and then cut cuts to Serena Williams injecting herself with a GLP shot, and like Serena Williams is like one of the most iconic female athletes.

Reggie · 11:41
Yeah,

Dylan · 11:43
Bill

Reggie · 11:43
Super Fit

Dylan · 11:44
can whack a tennis ball, probably, like, and it's just.. it's really hard,

Tim · 11:49
and she had a

Reggie · 11:50
yeah,

Tim · 11:50
she had a strong body. She has a very

Dylan · 11:53
strong body, but now she's in retirement. Things are starting to move slower. Menopause is coming in, like things are happening, pressure stay

Reggie · 12:03
ahead of what bodily changes she might have. I guess supplementing,

Mary · 12:08
yeah. I'm so sorry. No, no,

Reggie · 12:10
that's all I was,

Mary · 12:11
yeah, but I just, it made me think, isn't it so strange? Here's four people with no real investments, Serena Williams' life sitting here talking about her body, yeah, like it's her body, like whatever she wants in it, like isn't that wild that I feel like I, that's like a topic to bring. Yeah, no, it is

Tim · 12:32
like we were talking. There's a premium of people

Reggie · 12:34
talking about your body this morning, Serena. Yeah,

Tim · 12:37
that's sad.

Mary · 12:39
Not that it's like off limits, but that we think our opinion, that we get to have an opinion. Oh, hot take. Yeah,

Tim · 12:47
so podcasts are only good, and people click on them if everyone is in disagreement, right. It's too nice here right now.

Reggie · 12:54
Controversy. So, what I'm

Tim · 12:55
gonna do is I'm gonna go back into my.. because I was an arrogant asshole when I was younger, and my every people didn't like me because of this. Yeah,

Dylan · 13:03
what gave that away?

Tim · 13:04
What gave that away? You feel that energy? Yeah. Well, right, so I guess it's not such shocking news. Maybe I have some work

Speaker · 13:14
to speak of my own

Tim · 13:21
experience. Okay, so

Mary · 13:23
sorry, I was a fat

Tim · 13:27
I grew up in the fat-free movement, so it was okay to call people fat.

Mary · 13:34
Oh, yeah, it

Tim · 13:34
was okay to call people gay. It was okay to do a lot of things that I would never do now, not call people gay, like that's fine now, but to use it as a derogatory statement, like that is gay. Like, yeah, was okay when I was a kid, right? Wrong all the way down,

Reggie · 13:50
technically it was never okay doing it, saying

Mary · 13:54
it,

Reggie · 13:56
you arrogant asshole. I guess

Mary · 13:57
put you off. I'm so sorry. It's fine. We need to

Tim · 14:00
be off. We need to come into some, like, this authenticity of who we are. You're

Mary · 14:05
right. You're welcome.

Reggie · 14:05
Yes,

Tim · 14:06
so I have been struggling, probably from my younger mind and my younger body with myself getting I would call myself fatter than I normally am in sections you can't see, not so much here, not so much here and here, just

Reggie · 14:26
so much

Tim · 14:29
so, and this is, this is stupid, because people who actually have suffered under the social anxieties of this topic, or the social hate of this top of the people of this, anyway, yeah, they look at me like they look at me like I'm an idiot, because. I am not. There's nothing that I can experience in that that relates, and I feel

Mary · 14:55
similarly, though, like there's a line that you cross where, like, actually, do I get permission to feel bad about my body, or do I just need to suck it up and move on because other people feel worse about their bodies?

Tim · 15:05
Yeah, and so I've noticed it's harder to now, it's better, because Reggie and I work out, so this is something that really built you relationship.

Reggie · 15:13
Tim and I am over there, we work out

Mary · 15:17
strange. I don't

Reggie · 15:18
work out with Denny over here, no. But the thing is, nice. I

Tim · 15:21
started noticing it was harder for me to, like, get my shoes on, to bend over was harder than it used to be. This is stupid, right? But it is real leaning over like this and putting my shoes on the part, and I started noticing much

Reggie · 15:41
in the way,

Tim · 15:41
and I started, yeah, because I had more in the way than I used to when I was younger, because I grew up a very skinny kid my whole life, so I noticed it, and I noticed that my parents had gotten bigger over time, and

Mary · 15:55
that's a scary moment, a picture of my future.

Tim · 15:58
Yes, and so I got worried that the 40s are when things start to go downhill.

Mary · 16:04
I really worry about the 30s, baby. Oh,

Tim · 16:06
just wait until you're 40s, so I have

Dylan · 16:08
no luck, I have no future,

Tim · 16:11
tiny though, Dylan.

Mary · 16:12
Yeah, yeah.

Tim · 16:14
And that's not a good or bad thing. It's like it's just.. I know what you are. I mean, I was just.. I was in a party last two days ago, and someone says, "You're so beautiful, and someone else said, "Does that even matter, though? And I was like,

Reggie · 16:26
"They said this to you.

Tim · 16:27
"No, they said it to my daughter.

Reggie · 16:29
"Oh, they said, you're so

Tim · 16:30
beautiful. Notice how

Mary · 16:31
he left that part out when he first said it, and I tell

Tim · 16:34
her that all the time, but I think there's an expectation set. You always have to be beautiful.

Mary · 16:38
Oh, it wasn't like you're beautiful

Tim · 16:41
deeply beautiful, it was like you put your makeup on, you did your hair, you got your dressed up, you're so beautiful. And then someone looked at her and says, but does that even matter?

Reggie · 16:49
It's funny, and I was like, does it

Tim · 16:51
matter

Reggie · 16:51
when people say that to my kids, like, especially my girl kids, they're like, oh my god, you're so beautiful. I was like, she's really smart too, like, you know, just because I don't want, like, the kid, because she's receiving that compliment, I also want her to know that life isn't just about beauty, like, have you heard the thing about being

Tim · 17:12
smart?

Reggie · 17:12
What

Tim · 17:13
you tell your kids they're smart, it can take away their ability to have a growth mindset,

Reggie · 17:18
really. Yeah,

Tim · 17:19
because the pressure to be smart,

Reggie · 17:21
interesting, smart already.

Tim · 17:23
I know, but that's hard to communicate. That's why they say now in child rearing, is it not just called anymore? That's like an old rearing rear my child

Reggie · 17:31
rearing children, they

Tim · 17:33
say. Instead of, you did so good, you're so smart, you did

Speaker · 17:36
it, did

Tim · 17:38
it. What happened? She

Reggie · 17:39
got up and did something cozy. Yeah, now that arrogant asshole. Have you

Dylan · 17:46
all, um, have you all heard about, like, when you wear baggy jeans, you get like a genus, and it like I like I stood up to like get comfortable,

Dylan · 17:57
yeah, in public by the way. And then Reggie's like, are you gonna leave? And I was like, I think I should,

Mary · 18:05
maybe it's time, yeah. There's

Reggie · 18:07
your genus on our podcast, that's

Tim · 18:10
bold. Anyway, it's like it's like we get it's hard to talk now these days, because, like, I don't know what to tell my children.

Mary · 18:18
Yeah, I

Tim · 18:18
don't know if I can tell them they're beautiful, or if they can tell them they're smart, or tell them they're good at sports. Like, can I say anything to them except just say hi? I am dad.

Reggie · 18:27
I feel like you

Dylan · 18:28
are son. Hi, Dad. I'm your daughter.

Reggie · 18:30
I feel like all these studies just do that. They make us insecure to be able to speak now. I feel like it has more to do with your intention, like if you are like, obviously I'm not trying to limit my kid's growth mindset by saying, but she's also smart. I think there's something in the delivery and the intention of things that are being said, and that I think is what matters most, because if we start policing ourselves so much, and I don't mean in a like a PC way, but like just in a like, you know, well-intentioned delivery of something that you're saying, you're like, "Oh, should I have said that, man? How, how awful of a life is that? I just feel like that makes it really challenging to have normal and authentic conversations.

Tim · 19:15
Yeah,

Mary · 19:16
well, and it's one thing I think that there I suffer from this, the thing that you're describing, where it's like, oh, I don't feel like I'm allowed to say, or it's not allowed, it's not like there's somebody taking away my permission, but out of my love and care for other people. I don't want to harm someone with my words. Yeah, absolutely. And weirdly, this gets worse the closer to my family it gets. When you think it would go the other way, I just mean to say that, like, I.. it gets in the way of intimacy. It gets in the way of, like, being fully with someone, because I'm afraid of being misunderstood or misinter. Interpreted exactly,

Tim · 19:49
you can't say, and you feel like you're walking on eggshell,

Mary · 19:53
yeah, and to feel that within your own like family dynamic at home is really hard,

Tim · 19:58
yeah,

Reggie · 19:59
I almost rather say the thing with well intention, and then if someone finds it offending, then talk about it, like walk it back, and like, and be in that moment where we can say what our intentions were, and also be apologetic if it was received in the way that you didn't intend.

Mary · 20:16
Here's the thing, though, if you're 10 years old and your dad's treating you or saying a certain thing to you, you're not thinking about like what that means. So then you get into your, you may not, late 20s, early 30s, and you're in therapy, and suddenly you're like, actually, that bothered me, and that was not okay, right? But I wasn't able, for whatever reason or whatever, to voice that. So now you've got all this like resentment, maybe that you have to work through, but I agree with you that, like, all you can do is the best intention thing, and then try your best to keep connection.

Reggie · 20:49
Yeah,

Mary · 20:49
that to me is like the moment's gonna come, somebody's kid is gonna yell at him about something when they're in their 30s or something, but I think like there is no controlling it, there is no perfect scenario. So this comes back to like the ruthless authenticity thing, it's like all you can do is be the best you can be, hope it works out for people right, but I am afraid when you start to get further away from my family, I think the stakes are actually kind of low with my family, because, like, actually, if I piss them off, I do think we'd find a way to get over it,

Tim · 21:20
right? There's an understanding, there's a foundation of like forgiveness and acceptance and love. It

Mary · 21:25
might take us some time, we're not very practiced at it, but I think we isn't

Tim · 21:28
that a deeper, isn't that a deeper thing to bring up about the connection that we have as humans, and I've noticed this in my family, that people are stronger in their opinion about things they're not connected to, so if you have a friend, let's just, I mean, I brought up being gay in my family, growing up Christian, that was wrong, and but if, but we had, we had a gay guy come into our youth group, we were calling everything gay, he told us, guys, I am gay, and that really hurts my feelings, which was awesome in our church youth group at church, so it was like this like revolutionary moment for me, suddenly my mind, as a 15 year old or 16 year olds, like my mind's open, it's blown, and I was like, this is insane, and I felt it was very like an awareness happened in my whole being. Good on him for

Reggie · 22:21
calling it out, though, right?

Mary · 22:23
I know he probably is like running the world, yeah, right, he knows

Tim · 22:26
who he is, he'll know who he is, but he opened my eyes, and what I began to see is that to love a person, to be connected to a person, connects you to the subject matter more than the subject. So we study subjects like how to train your children, but you're not connected to my children, you know. You, I know you have your ideas about like what this may do and that may do, and you don't know your studies, but we're also uniquely connected, like little universes in each other's orbits, and so when that was said to me, I saw even my dad would say things intensely in a vacuum, but then I'd see him with someone who he was saying these things about, not he would never say something directly about someone, particularly, but about a group, a label, or a category of people, and then I'd see him with someone in that group, and like completely compassionate and loving, yeah, and I was, and I was like, this is where we're missing

Speaker · 23:22
it, because

Tim · 23:23
the more disconnected we become to anyone who's being called obese, or what, then what obesity means when we talk about it between us, none of us are obese. It's like we're not connected to it.

Reggie · 23:35
To my smart scale, I mean,

Tim · 23:39
my wife, she got a scale, and she's like, "Yeah, buy a scale, put on the floor, and also she was like, "Wait a minute, do I want our kids to be seeing us weighing ourselves?

Mary · 23:49
Yeah, like, is

Tim · 23:50
that something they need to see, or be worried about, or think that that's something that's even

Reggie · 23:54
matters, right?

Tim · 23:55
And so we hid it in our closet,

Reggie · 23:57
that's hilarious,

Mary · 24:00
wild. Well, I want to just like, as a maybe hopeful thing, and this leads to the topic that I've been trying to bring up, which is genetics, but I think that I read a study one time. Sorry, I did read a study. I don't think that I read a study when I was in school, and it talked about how civil rights for queer people have progressed so much more quickly than civil rights for black people, or even necessarily women, or some of these other groups, and part of it was this connection thing that you were talking about, how you know if you're not from a family of black people, or if you don't marry into a black family, you might not ever interact with that community, but anybody's son can be gay, anybody's daughter can end up a lesbian, you know,

Tim · 24:47
the demographic. Graphics,

Mary · 24:49
and it's not. I mean, insofar as we can tell, a genetic thing. It's like, oh, this could sort of be anybody, and it could look like somebody that you already, yeah. It's like, not, it's unrelated. It's so.. there

Tim · 25:00
are people, right?

Mary · 25:01
So that's what helped it progress at the rate that it did. Now, that's not to say that, because people would have loved ones, and they would

Tim · 25:08
understand.

Mary · 25:09
Yeah, and they fought tooth and nail, like I want to, like, go on record and be like Stonewall was badass, but I'm just saying that's an interesting thing to me, that, like, oh, because everybody could know somebody, it made it easier to relate, and I wonder about obesity, because it does run in families, and there is a theory, and I don't know, maybe it's been proven by now about epigenetics and about historic ancestral trauma and famine, and like the ways that our biology has been trained over generations to behave. I don't know, maybe it's like if you're from an obese family, you have less judgment about that, but if you're from a really thin athletic family, you do, so I wonder if that concept works against us there as well.

Tim · 25:56
I wonder,

Mary · 25:57
I don't know.

Tim · 25:57
That's a beautiful point to bring up. It's literally like we're all brainwashed, we don't even understand the influence that's been on us, that we judge people by their outer appearance, by their body.

Mary · 26:09
Yeah, and just in

Reggie · 26:10
our industry, too, alone, like, especially in, like, in marketing, like, good heavens, the way they push all the thin bodies and all the.. like, there's a whole.. I do know having a daughter that is a model that, and being close to industry, just through her experiences, that there has been a shift in narrative, like the what they call it, oh,

Mary · 26:37
this is really good podcasting, it's like, yeah, it's, it's the,

Reggie · 26:42
it's the, it's the

Mary · 26:44
cheek,

Reggie · 26:45
no heroin chic, heroin chic, really thin and overly, yeah, like that is like kind of frowned upon now, like they, they seem to be moving away from what could be seen, you know, deemed as unhealthy the other way, like overly thin, too thin, not, you know,

Tim · 27:08
that's an interesting topic, though. Have you ever heard of the thing about skinny girls? Nobody made fun. I

Mary · 27:13
stay here about skinny girls. Yeah, what is the.. they

Tim · 27:16
get made fun of in the same way that big, yeah. And it was there was this whole thing about bullying.

Reggie · 27:22
Oh yeah, absolutely. Well,

Mary · 27:24
you see, I also remember hearing stories about that, like my mom was a skinny kid growing up, and she got made fun of in the 70s, I guess. And then when I was growing up in the 90s and early 2000s nobody got made fun of for being stick thin.

Reggie · 27:40
Oh, right. It was amazing. It was like they were putting in your face, like you look at, you know, in Milan or New York Fashion Week, everybody coming down the runway was like incredibly thin,

Mary · 27:55
and like I grew up watching seasons upon seasons of America's Next Top Model, you know, like Tyra Banks, Tyra

Tim · 28:03
Banks. Yeah, one

Reggie · 28:04
of my friends was on there, actually. She's an Asheville, and really, and she was very thin and very fit, you know. That was just that whole industry. Is it

Tim · 28:15
weird that the topic wasn't obesity in women, but we're only talking about women? Yeah.

Reggie · 28:19
Well, I was gonna shift one of the things I was gonna bring up was that there are other communities and other countries that don't seem to have the same body makeup that we have in America. What do you guys think about that? Do you think, like, like per capita in America, that bodies are bigger, or do you think this is a global,

Mary · 28:43
like America has an obesity problem. Yeah, like that's

Reggie · 28:47
been the narrative that, like, you go to Japan, it's a big Japan, like they don't have as many big chunky, you know. Oh, I'm about

Mary · 28:55
to go. Oh,

Tim · 28:56
I was really fun, you're gonna go, and I went, and literally, while we were traveling in Europe,

Reggie · 29:01
yeah,

Tim · 29:02
me and my wife lost weight the whole time, and as soon as we back in America, she started gaining weight again. How crazy is that? Much

Reggie · 29:10
better out there, like, and no,

Tim · 29:12
no changes, except food,

Reggie · 29:14
you know. It's funny, I mean,

Tim · 29:15
some walk, there was like less walking,

Mary · 29:17
walking makes a huge, yeah, walking. Here's

Reggie · 29:19
a theory, having having been good. Gluten-free since 2012 I'm well versed on the subject. One of the things I celebrated for you is that in Europe they only live in 6% of the gluten protein that we do, which means they don't have as much gluten, and I've heard of people that have gluten sensitivities going to other countries, going to Europe and eating pastries and breads and pastas and not having a reaction to it and gluten. I know when I was gluten, when I was doing gluten, yeah, when I was,

Mary · 29:54
I'm doing glutenous

Reggie · 29:57
individual.

Mary · 30:00
Go ahead, Reggie,

Reggie · 30:01
I was bigger. As a matter of fact, there's a photo of me where I modeled for WMC magazine. We had this whole, like, so

Mary · 30:09
fat, and they called me into

Speaker · 30:10
modeling. No, I'm

Reggie · 30:12
dead serious. We had this outdoor outdoor apparel shoot that we did, and I was about 217 in during that shoot, and my face is all jowly and big, like you wouldn't recognize in the photo. How old

Tim · 30:30
are you then?

Reggie · 30:31
I was maybe mid 30s.

Tim · 30:34
Yeah, youth face is that's what they're trying to do now with the cheeks. Youth face is bigger than older face, possibly, but

Reggie · 30:42
one of the, but here's, but here's what I will tell you, is that that same year was when I actually, you know, within a few months I quit gluten, and the jowling jowl leanness went away and never came back, it

Dylan · 30:58
was like a drug,

Reggie · 30:59
never came back, because gluten is a natural

Tim · 31:03
stands for in GLP. Gluten is a

Reggie · 31:04
natural inflammatory,

Dylan · 31:06
gluttony, gluttony,

Reggie · 31:08
gluten is a natural inflammatory, and I think it doesn't just inflame like joints, it inflames tissue, and so your tissue, everything is just more swollen, you know, somebody that eats a ton of like pastas and breads and stuff like that. They have this typically this sort of

Tim · 31:33
study

Mary · 31:41
like tone thin beautiful.. I'm gonna say Italian women and men,

Reggie · 31:47
that's true.

Mary · 31:49
So, I think there probably is something around.. they're

Reggie · 31:51
probably importing their shit from Italy, really good stuff.

Mary · 31:55
But I think you're right, there's like a histamine response thing that happens in the body, and I think it affects different people different. Oh, absolutely.

Reggie · 32:02
I 100% agree with you. Yeah,

Tim · 32:04
I would say I like what you brought up, that it was an.. you were in Philly inflamed.

Reggie · 32:07
Yeah,

Tim · 32:08
so I think that it's not that you wanted to be less jowly.

Reggie · 32:13
I did want to be less.. I mean, but

Speaker · 32:14
why.. this is

Speaker · 32:16
the

Tim · 32:16
topic. This is very relevant to our industry because of branding, branding, I know I said that way, branding, brand is this is assumed a surface thing in typical markets, and in our market it's becoming a deeper thing, and it needs to be a deeper thing, I think it's the only way it works, but the outside appearance is so important to everyone.

Reggie · 32:40
Oh

Tim · 32:40
yeah, you know, so jowli and us meant something to you. It made you feel less valuable. It shouldn't have, but if your body doesn't feel good, if your body is feeling inflamed, if your knees are feeling inflamed, if things aren't working right, then that is another topic than obesity. Oh,

Reggie · 32:58
yeah, no, because

Tim · 32:59
that's something that everyone wants to feel good. Well, that's right. No one wants to suffer. Yeah,

Reggie · 33:06
you don't want to be in pain, you don't want to have inflamed, achy joints, right? So,

Tim · 33:10
in so a little bit of in this is, I hope no one takes this as me being able to relate to what it is to be obese, but I have noticed in working out I have not been able to change what's changing about me in my 40s, so it gives me a sense of

Reggie · 33:24
metabolism slowed down. It

Tim · 33:26
gives me a sense of what it feels like to be out of control with how your body is behaving, or how your body is shaped, or how your body is changing. So, this happens in women too, when they go through menopause and puberty and different things, and it happens to men, but I'm just saying that when you get into a situation where

Reggie · 33:44
you're the one you want to change things,

Tim · 33:46
you are where I'm working out, I'm trying to watch all the things, but nothing's changing. There's a certain level of hopelessness that comes in.

Mary · 33:55
Oh yeah,

Tim · 33:56
because that is important to be this look in this look like chase

Reggie · 34:02
what we think we should look like, and I think as we get older, it's why people actually start working out more as they get older, because they're like, oh shit, I don't look like I used to, I need to get back there, yeah, there's this fleeting feeling of like, oh my gosh, if I don't lose to get control of it now, yeah, I'm gonna become. This person that doesn't look the way I want them to look.

Mary · 34:25
It's so tricky, though, because I think you're right. You said earlier, if your knees are inflamed, that's a different topic than obesity, right? And yet, there are things, like we mentioned earlier in the episode, that are linked to obesity, so there are these like negative health consequences. Never mind, there is this social thing that happens to you, where you're like, well, this is my body, they're telling me that I ought to hate this body because other people hate this body, and now you start to feel distant from it and out of control of it, so it really creates this like the word that's coming to mind is psychosis, which I probably, probably isn't right most of the time, but this like cognitive dissonance that you live with every single day, and like I'm not saying this as someone who feels I actually am in better shape than I've been in in the last five years, because yeah, thank you. Covid really like sedentary lifestyle, really bad. Why I quit my job, but I think that even we talk about my fashion. I'm looking at Dylan because I really seek her counsel on fashion. She's our fashion. Yeah, it's like the clothes that you wear, the clothes that you feel like you can buy, the confidence you feel about whether or not, those clothes are going to fit you in six months, and do you want to make the investment now? Right, do these clothes look bad on me because I'm fat, or because I'm too tall, or because I'm too short? Do I need to get them tailored, or am I just going to be imperfect forever? Is it

Tim · 35:52
flattering?

Mary · 35:53
Yeah, but

Reggie · 35:55
it is.

Mary · 35:56
I think that there is a reality I want to talk about it like all fluffy, and oh yeah, it's, it's this thing that we all should be forgiving about, and it, it should be, but it is tied to negative health things managed.

Tim · 36:11
I'm gonna know, I'm gonna say this, because this is, I don't know this for sure. They have done studies that disprove the studies we think are true about obesity. Yeah, in terms of it not being healthy, in terms of it affecting your joints, in terms of affecting your health, I mean your heart and stuff. They have, they have tried to link, you know, why they link these things is so that their movements, their capitalistic money grab can work, yeah. If you put people in a state of anxiety over their death, you will move them to action.

Mary · 36:43
happen in climate movements, yeah, there's a lot of doom and gloom, right? Oh, yeah.

Tim · 36:47
And so there is it, we think, and this happens across science, like when I, when you knew when I were growing up in school,

Reggie · 36:52
yeah,

Tim · 36:53
we studied a different science than what is being revealed now, and it disproves things we learned as law, scientific law.

Mary · 37:00
Weird, how? And there's no like startup course to like get you up to speed, right? What's six graders? But there's also

Tim · 37:06
no, nobody saying we're gonna learn science now. This is a growing, emerging, evolving field. We're going to tell you what we know right now. This may not be true. Yeah, you're gonna have to

Mary · 37:17
keep your thumb on the pulse of this. At some time, you're gonna

Tim · 37:19
learn that electrons will just disappear and reappear on the other side. Yeah, quantum mechanics and quantum, the quantum, yeah, quantum physics. So, the things we learn about being obese, even the word obese, and what can what is considered obese, that's not the facts. Yeah,

Reggie · 37:37
no, I could totally see that. I know people that would be, they would consider themselves big, larger people, they're totally healthy, they move like they move, work out all the time, and they just, this is their body, like this is how they shape. I'm gonna throw another

Mary · 37:54
thing here. Here's another one to bat around, as, as someone who identifies, I, in my family, I link obesity to there's a genetic component. Like, I just don't think we're small people, and I'm actually kind of proud of that part. Like, I'm cool to be from a family of giants, like it's, I mean, like my mom's 510 you know, like odds of me being tiny were not bad, yeah, and there are plenty of like beautiful people that we see as contemporarily like gorgeous people, like models who are tall and big and like have a shape, but I think that where it starts to become unhealthy, like this is I'm just trying to establish the divide between does obese mean unhealthy, and I agree that the answer is no, but I do think there is some sort of correlation between people who are obese and people who are on some level mentally not doing super well, and I attribute some of that to addiction, and I attribute that addiction genetically, like going back to things like alcoholism, or binge eating, or like any, like emotionally coping, yeah, a coping mechanism that has to do with sedentary behavior or consuming food. And I

Reggie · 39:11
stress a lot of people stressing just because they,

Mary · 39:16
wow, wish I'd worn nicer shoes today. A

Reggie · 39:22
lot of people actually do stress eat because comforting. You tried to

Mary · 39:27
feed me a dog treat and I almost ate

Speaker · 39:29
it. That was

Mary · 39:32
so, the

Reggie · 39:37
bag, I was like, wait a second. Reggie

Mary · 39:39
is a snack dealer, he's like everywhere he goes, like, here's a little snack, he'll receive

Reggie · 39:44
everybody up.

Mary · 39:44
Yeah, but

Reggie · 39:45
I'm just trying to keep them healthy, like

Mary · 39:48
people feel happy.

Reggie · 39:49
Yes, food is happiness, and I think that's another thing. I think there's a whole other side to it, but

Tim · 39:54
when you

Reggie · 39:55
were people, I know people who are chefs, and they are larger people, and they are healthy, and they're cooking food, and they are, they couldn't be happier, at least on the outside, like that's what they're projecting. I'm gonna say

Tim · 40:10
one more thing, and I want Dylan to,

Dylan · 40:11
oh, prepare yourself.

Tim · 40:14
I want to hear how you feel about obesity in your young experience. One thing I'm gonna say before you start

Dylan · 40:18
is

Tim · 40:19
on the subject of eating, the thing that is most present in body positive is intuitive eating, when the body knows what to eat.

Speaker · 40:28
Yeah,

Tim · 40:28
and so we've come from a culture where you're trying to restrict yourself at every point, and it creates a scarcity feeling.

Reggie · 40:35
Yeah,

Tim · 40:35
and it causes a kind of a mental, emotional distortion around eating. Yeah, because you're not supposed to eat that, not supposed to eat that. You got to eat a limited amount of this, you can't touch that. No eating after this time. All these rules, yeah, that their body can't, and it needs things the body needs, sugar, fat, all the things that we're talking about that have been demonized in our world have been, have been in our lives for human kind for all time. So I think there's, there is like an emotional mental distortion that's happened that's causing some unhealthy experiences within the body.

Mary · 41:14
Well, never mind. You might have come in predisposed with it, like baked in hardwired, and then culture like exacerbates it, and going out of sync here.

Tim · 41:23
Sorry, I want to hear Dylan, because I imaged in your..

Dylan · 41:27
I've been listening in on like what you guys have said, and I'm like I'm trying to cultivate my own thoughts, but like I feel like my friends, my young people are on the other end of the emblem, like we're all recovering from like our eating disorders that were placed on us through sports and through college. It's like by

Mary · 41:51
trying to push away from obesity, yeah, took a whole different,

Dylan · 41:54
yeah. So, like, we've been like on the other side of it, and especially like, like I think the school did a study, like 87% of the girls on my team like identified with an eating disorder, and like our coach didn't even realize it, we didn't even realize it, we were all just kind of like, yeah, so it was like we're kind of on this other side of the emblem of it, and especially just like with athletics and like moving and stuff, it's been really interesting to like come out of this, like me and my friends were actually on the phone about it last week, we were all talking and we're like, our bodies are changing, we don't look the same as what we did in college, and we're like all trying to mentally like keep each other accountable about like honing into that. It's like when you like deprive your body for so long, and you talk about like the negative repercussions, when you guys were talking about like the joints leaking, linking to obesity, there's like an other side of the emblem where it's like you lose your period, yeah, nutrient stops going to the bones, like all that other stuff, and it's, it's really hard for me to be like, yeah, I don't really know what to say, other than like there has been like a very shift, and I know in a lot of my friend groups there's been a big shift to the other side of the emblem. I know one of my friends is getting married, and she went to her doctor, and her doctor basically did scribe her Ozempic, and she's not - she's the same size as me for her wedding,

Reggie · 43:27
what?

Dylan · 43:28
And so it's like it's on the other side of an emblem, of like there is like the scarcity of like do not get too big, but then it's like what for me, and like what I hope for like my generation is like there's both sides to emblem, like what is

Mary · 43:45
the most, there's both sides to pendulum,

Tim · 43:48
pendulum,

Mary · 43:48
oh swings, but sorry, sorry, sorry, you were just saying it, I was like I think I know what this, yeah, and the third time you said it, I was like, I'm not sure,

Dylan · 43:55
yeah, I think for me it's just like there is an extreme, it's either obesity or it's anorexia, whatever you want to call it, it's like, how can we not get in the middle and be like, yeah, I'm gonna hone into how my body is gonna change, I am gonna be how. For it, whatever

Reggie · 44:11
that is.

Dylan · 44:12
Yeah, I remember looking in the mirror the other day, and like I had noticed that, like, I'm gonna be honest, I've been trying to gain weight to, like, be a health, like, be healthier than where I was. If

Mary · 44:23
you want help with that, I'm happy to be in.

Speaker · 44:26
So it

Dylan · 44:27
wasn't like, in like, yeah, but there was also, like, a guilt and shame of like telling my parents that of like I was trying to gain weight, I was trying to like have a normal cycle, I was trying to like get out of this kind of,

Mary · 44:38
yeah,

Dylan · 44:39
whatever, and they took it to the extreme, they were like no, no, you can't be doing that, so what really like hurt my feelings is that like there's even, and like my parents know that we talked about it, but there's even like this opinion that, like, my parents are like, "No, you need to stay like this, because this is this is how you are, this is you in your 20s, and I was even like starting to get ashamed of, like, I could like notice, like, I was like, "Oh, underneath my neck or whatever. And then I looked at my mom, and my mom had the same genetics as, like, stuff like that, and it's like, instead of, like, wanting to get rid of it, I had to start viewing like some parts of my body as like, oh, that's my mom's, yeah, oh, that's my dad's, or whatever, cry about that, but like, I think what I really try to say, for like my generation, is like there is two extremes, finding the middle that still works for you, I feel like there's so many people trying to tell everyone what to do that it's hard for you to even like decide, like I'm making this decision for me, because I personally think it's okay, but then I'm going and telling my parents, my parents are like, no, like that's like a downward hill spiral, like what are you doing, and like that's crazy to me, that like my parents had that fear for myself, but then I see it like as we're all talking, it's all been a fear for all of us, and it's like this outside judge perception, but if you feel healthy and you're happy working out, I'm not gonna tell you to stop working out, I'm not gonna shame you for like moral heading lunch, you're if you're happy and healthy, that's a great decision for you,

Reggie · 46:06
and sounds like what, what I might take away is you're saying is that people need to find their happy balance,

Mary · 46:11
yeah,

Reggie · 46:11
so that they can basically be themselves. I think so many people, to what you were saying earlier, too, is like we are constantly trying to shift because we're being told you can't eat this, you can't do this, you can't do that, and that puts a lot of pressure on people all the time, like you go out to a restaurant, you're like looking at the menu, and you get sad because you're like, well, I'm not supposed to have those things, but if you find to Dylan's point, what works for you regardless, like nobody should have any kind of opinion that holds weight in your life about your eating, your body, or any of that. I love your parents, but I still think, like, if you were like, 'I want to gain weight, they should be like, 'Yeah, I think that's what you want to do, do it.

Dylan · 46:58
I think they were more genuinely scared of, like, the negative repercussions that I would have faced,

Reggie · 47:02
right? But

Tim · 47:03
imagine if you said, 'I want to lose weight, what would the pushback have been?

Dylan · 47:05
My parents would have cried, because during my running career, they were telling me they're like, 'You're not healthy,

Tim · 47:12
so they're like straddle the two

Reggie · 47:14
straddling, so it's like a maybe they have

Tim · 47:16
their own fear about right, what happens when you get older. So

Reggie · 47:20
it's a happy medium for you, for themselves.

Dylan · 47:23
And I love my parents, like, do not get me wrong.

Reggie · 47:26
Oh,

Dylan · 47:27
they're great, they're great people. I learned a lot from them, but like the same thing, like you were saying, it's like we keep being told all this stuff unless the government is coming to my door and telling me, hey, you are being in this study, this is what is fit best for you. I don't know if I can listen to it anymore, and that sounds like such a cheesy, like, bullshit answer, but it's like, how I'm trying to frame my brain of just like, if they're not coming to my door personally, taking my blood or checking out who I am, I don't know if I should listen to it. Yeah,

Reggie · 47:55
and the reality is like there is a study for everything almost in the same breath. You could read a study that says carbs are bad for you, and then you can literally go find another story, study that says carbs are good for you, and there's this constant back, and that's why I

Tim · 48:11
think it comes back to what Mary was saying, when there's connection to people,

Reggie · 48:13
yeah, and

Tim · 48:14
their experience, because a lot of times people will say they're happy,

Reggie · 48:17
yeah,

Tim · 48:18
like I'm not eating food all the time, like it's the recipe, it's what someone would say when you

Mary · 48:27
go through phases of not eating real food, yeah, you do a liquid master, so I'm just saying, like, you

Tim · 48:32
can see someone not eating, yeah, and they're like, yeah, I'm happy, but unless you're really close to that person, can you tell whether that,

Reggie · 48:42
yeah, right? Because

Tim · 48:44
we should all be able to do what we want, you know, if it doesn't hurt someone else,

Reggie · 48:49
yes, you want to

Tim · 48:51
lose weight, you should be able to do it, and not be judged by someone like, "ooh, no, you're bad, you shouldn't be doing that.

Mary · 48:57
Yeah,

Tim · 48:58
but it does get into a weird place when we're influenced by such strong forces, such like outside, and I'm gonna bring this to our culture, to our industry, marketed true. Strategically targeted culture about being thin and being better and being smarter and being quicker and being a better person for being smaller, like when you fight that all the time, it's how do we know what we want

Reggie · 49:26
and think about it. Marketing certainly is a culprit of this, but it really starts even on the playground when you're in like elementary, is it marketing informing that

Tim · 49:36
experience?

Reggie · 49:36
Totally, that's what I'm saying. Marketing, so all of it, there's always some outlier that is forcing you or talking to you about your physical appearance. Like, I just remember kids in elementary school getting picked on because they were larger and I was the guy because I always, you know, I always went for the underdog. I'd always felt like I needed to protect people, and I remember getting into this huge fight because this one girl was like making fun of this guy because he was big, and we got into this huge argument, and there's this big old thing, and I think that happens in every school, happens in every workplace, it happens everywhere. We're constantly being influenced by the marketing, but also by culture, and that's the thing that puts the constant pressure. In

Mary · 50:29
that instance, when you were growing up, where do you think that bully, that girl who was making fun of the other guy, where do you think those beliefs came from? Like, what instilled that in her? You think

Reggie · 50:40
I would imagine it could even be at home, like her parents, yeah, who are influenced

Tim · 50:44
by the market, who are

Reggie · 50:45
influenced by the market, the market is

Tim · 50:47
generating constantly. Yeah,

Mary · 50:50
well, this is why there's all that pressure on parents now, right? Like, we're gonna blame the parents no matter what they do. So, there's also like entertainment and media, I think, like there's probably stuff that you're seeing on TV that your parents aren't in control of, too. Like, there's this YouTube and social

Tim · 51:07
media, yeah. But here's something interesting: is that there's a thing about men liking larger women, but not being able to admit

Mary · 51:16
it. Yeah, this like seedy under seedy, like

Tim · 51:19
pornography underground thing, but they are the trophy wife is this thin beautiful person, and but they, but the men, there's a ton of men that actually like a larger woman. Yeah, why there should be an

Reggie · 51:33
underground thing. It is because

Tim · 51:34
of the markets perception of the market, because the woman is supposed to be a certain way in the market. So, what do we do as marketing like that? Sells,

Reggie · 51:43
and do we

Tim · 51:44
not show that it is

Reggie · 51:46
that a big, larger guy is seen, is seen as like successful. Oh, he's larger, he's must have money because he eats, and whatever. It's such a weird fucking thing, because

Mary · 51:59
it's because women are trophies, objects to be purchased or be earned somehow. And if you don't have the newest model, who are you? A lot dies with Will. Just this is a big issue for you. Brad Pitt

Tim · 52:13
walked in with, like, someone was like 33 years old. Who did Brad Pitt some? He walked in some event with someone that's 33 years old. I'm like, that's weird about our last conversation. Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, your point, like,

Reggie · 52:30
such a stigma for going after, because,

Tim · 52:35
because youth is such a treasure, and there's a germ, as soon as they

Reggie · 52:39
get 25 he like kicks himself, but to bring

Mary · 52:42
it back to the point, he does keep going out with younger women, but if he were to start going out with a fat younger woman, that would be a whole different narrative. Yeah, like that's a whole different thing. Yeah,

Reggie · 52:51
I'd be really interested to see how that would. Yeah, but someone

Tim · 52:54
has to be the first mover, is what I'm saying. You don't make a trend by everyone abiding by the old trend. You don't make a new trend. So, what is the.. who is the mover? Who's gonna make the move? Who's gonna be the man that says, I like a full-figured woman.

Reggie · 53:08
Yeah,

Mary · 53:09
out there, that's already happening. Larger.

Tim · 53:14
No, I'm just saying, where's the brand? Where's the movement? Where's the influence that you're seeing?

Reggie · 53:18
Yeah, I didn't think the market is shifting in the fact. I think it's going to take a while. You don't think it's

Mary · 53:25
resentful of this whole conversation because we're debating how men are going to pick women down by the whole fucking thing, I think it comes down to health and our vision of health and beauty, and I think that the beliefs about it are so, like, think about how many products on some base layer are marketing to you to make healthier choices, probably with the ultimate goal of being more beautiful, and it goes so deep, like we can talk about GLP ones, and that's so direct, or we can talk about supplements, or we can talk about essential oils, or we can talk about aroma therapy, or we can talk about, like, there's all kinds of things that get sold

Tim · 54:01
to you, and that's why you said you to burn. Whatever that fat is, yellow fat, brown fat, it

Reggie · 54:09
burns brown fat. And, of

Mary · 54:10
course, I know that. Go ahead.

Reggie · 54:13
Yeah. No, I think you're spot on, Mary. I do think Tim has a point, though, that the market is too much of an influence, and I do think

Tim · 54:23
really close, like something.

Reggie · 54:26
I do think the market is too much of it. I think we should cut times. I think we should start doing okay. Some things I like, what you

Tim · 54:33
said about men choosing. I think that's

Reggie · 54:35
being well,

Mary · 54:36
it's just like that's a marketplace, and I'm skied out by it,

Tim · 54:39
right? But okay, so if we get a project, let's say we get a project, would, and you choose the models in this project, who's who's holding the food, who's,

Mary · 54:47
oh, I see,

Tim · 54:48
holding in the products like

Reggie · 54:50
guys, girls, what's your move,

Tim · 54:52
right? What, who are you picking? What's the visual like? What's the.. it's they call it esthetic, and my daughter loves this word, it's so esthetic. Is there a play? How long does it take to retrain a culture that that is esthetic?

Mary · 55:06
Yeah,

Reggie · 55:06
how do you change that obesity

Tim · 55:08
is esthetic,

Reggie · 55:09
and that's what I was trying to say, is that it is slowly changing, like they no longer call models plus size, that was a thing,

Mary · 55:17
they haven't changed the tags in clothing yet, but they will soon.

Reggie · 55:21
Oh, wow, oh, interesting,

Tim · 55:24
since Trump came into office, people have been going crazy about fat girls in movies, or in shows, or in advertising, in a good way, in a bad way. The pendulum, it swings back, because the pendulum, these people that are so repressed from not being able to say things, because it's politically correct, they're now trying to say everything, but

Mary · 55:41
isn't that, and I always, I'm always this guy who I'm like a little more conservative than I actually am happy to be, but I sympathize heavily, because the feeling that you just told us about with your children is the same feeling that I think many people in this country have about, like, well, I can't move without being criticized for how I'm saying it, so I connect with, like, I want to let them off the hook a little bit. Also,

Reggie · 56:04
absolutely, we

Mary · 56:05
gotta get this under control, guys.

Reggie · 56:08
I mean, and, but where do you draw the line? Like, should everybody be going lines? Should everybody go be going around willfully shouting the N word, because I haven't been able to say, so like, how do you like, but that's what they're doing now. That's happening really well. Yeah, what's her name? Who, like, called that little autistic boy the N word, because he was playing with the toys in her diaper bag, and she, like, came after him. And then, because she got, like, canceled, she raised over a million dollars, because everybody else that felt like they should also be able to say the N word were like, oh, well, like, I feel bad for her, so they, she raised a crap ton of money, so I don't know, it's weird, it's a really tricky place. I agree, I do think people should be able to say what they want, but I also think we need to be kind. Yeah, we still need to be kind. We shouldn't need to feel like it shouldn't be in us to say that I'm gonna feel better if I can call that person a fat person. Yeah, like

Tim · 57:11
no.

Mary · 57:12
What if

Reggie · 57:12
that man?

Mary · 57:13
What if the litmus test were something like, before I say anything, have I established enough rapport and connection with this person and helped them feel psychological safety around me, so that if I cross a line, they can tell me,

Reggie · 57:29
right? Can

Mary · 57:30
I speak with enough love and gentleness so that they hear my intent and they can help me? And that's it. It is

Reggie · 57:35
all about the intention.

Mary · 57:37
Yeah,

Reggie · 57:37
not trying to hurt this person.

Mary · 57:38
Yeah,

Reggie · 57:39
yeah.

Mary · 57:39
I do think when we get upset, though, or if we're feeling really like riled up, like the woman you're describing, your like ability to self monitor just like goes out the window a little bit, like I don't know, maybe not for everybody, but like self-awareness in that moment gets a lot harder. I'm somebody whose emotions come on really fast, and I have to like slow the pace,

Reggie · 58:00
but I think you wouldn't say things that wouldn't be in your regular

Mary · 58:03
right

Reggie · 58:04
vocabulary, but if

Mary · 58:05
I'd been raised around people who use that word all the time, and didn't think anything of it, even if I thought that was something bad. I do think there's probably something the back of your head that, like, the word is still in there, like one that I see a lot in my generation. A lot of people use the R word, retarded, and throw it around, and, like, for my generation, no longer cool, not an okay thing. They

Reggie · 58:29
use it all the time in my generation. Yeah, I also,

Tim · 58:32
but can you use it? We don't think it's cool.

Mary · 58:35
I don't know. No,

Tim · 58:36
I never know, because I kind of like the word. You can't

Reggie · 58:38
use it, even when you're talking about things. You can't say, 'Oh man, don't. That's..

Mary · 58:42
I think a lot of people. well, the pendulum has swung, yes,

Dylan · 58:50
pendulum,

Mary · 58:51
and, but I, yes, I agree

Tim · 58:53
with you, will

Mary · 58:54
we're there, we'll go to dinner, like, but I think that you know it came into and out of fashion, and then it's coming back in again for all the same like trends that we're catching on to, I think when people use it synonymous with. Stupid or synonymous with I don't know, there's probably a better word than stupid, but I don't think it's okay to use, and yet it gets baked into your brain, and I feel like it becomes a shortcut, like another one that I watched come into and out of, and probably back into fashion is gay.

Tim · 59:23
Yeah, I know, I've seen it, or the

Mary · 59:25
F word, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, faggot is like in and out and in again, and I don't know how to cope with that necessarily, but I do think it's there's intention there, and but there's also reclamation of the word that's happening, and that's happening about across all three of those too, I think,

Reggie · 59:45
yeah, I don't know, I push back a little bit, only because, and maybe I think it depends on the person. All those words are in there for me.

Mary · 59:52
Sure,

Reggie · 59:53
and I can't think of a single scenario where I would lose my shit so much that any one of those words that I deem not appropriate would just slip up. Yeah,

Tim · 1:00:01
I just

Reggie · 1:00:01
don't.. I just don't see it too.

Reggie · 1:00:04
What'd you say?

Tim · 1:00:05
I say the other word all

Reggie · 1:00:08
the time, yeah. Yeah, but like, there's no scenario where I would use the R word or the N word or the or the C word or any of those. I know they exist. They don't, they don't ever. I never like, no matter how mad I C

Tim · 1:00:24
word, the one I'm thinking,

Speaker · 1:00:25
even when the next

Dylan · 1:00:26
Tuesday,

Speaker · 1:00:26
see,

Reggie · 1:00:27
even when it's the most ridiculous drivers on the planet, do I ever go, "Gosh, you freaking yada yada yada. Just,

Mary · 1:00:36
yeah.

Reggie · 1:00:36
And so I don't know if that's just more of a.. I don't know. I, I think maybe I just have to chalk it up to people just having different levels of being able to deal with things

Mary · 1:00:50
to handle, and I think it's also a little bit like, how fused have these two concepts become in your mind? Like, people who use the word retarded, and they mean stupid or ill-conceived, or you know, you could fill in the blank, they don't see a difference between those two concepts. People who use the N word have a bunch of stuff attached to it, and they can't disconnect it, but meanwhile, there are people who I think are really working to attribute new meaning into the word, and like, by using it, they're sort of trying to pivot it, they're changing

Reggie · 1:01:21
its contents. Yeah, that's how

Mary · 1:01:22
I feel about

Reggie · 1:01:23
stupid. It's more,

Mary · 1:01:25
yeah,

Reggie · 1:01:25
like those shoes are whatever,

Mary · 1:01:27
like I'm just gonna say we're gonna click explicit on all of our episodes, so I'm gonna say it out loud. If you've got a kid in the car, now's a great time to mute this whole thing. If you haven't already,

Tim · 1:01:37
never thought of that's a good thing to work.

Mary · 1:01:39
Yeah,

Reggie · 1:01:39
you piqued my interest,

Mary · 1:01:40
but I'm gonna say, like, is she a cunt or is she cunty? Yeah,

Dylan · 1:01:45
cuz my friend group used cun t all the time. Really, that's a word I've

Reggie · 1:01:48
never heard, that word

Tim · 1:01:49
either. This is a queer culture, maybe. Yeah, let's do a

Mary · 1:01:53
drag race viewing. Not that's that's political, and on next steps,

Tim · 1:01:56
like the same as being a bitch, or what does

Reggie · 1:01:58
Kunti mean?

Mary · 1:01:59
Um, I think it's different. It's kind of like, I mean, well, maybe I don't want

Tim · 1:02:05
anything,

Mary · 1:02:06
it's Karen thing. Yeah, I mean, it probably was for a minute, I don't know, it's more just like I think of it sort of like sassy and like self fulfilling, like self she's expressing herself fully, and like, what do you think it is? That's an

Reggie · 1:02:25
absolute,

Dylan · 1:02:27
yeah, yeah, another word for Devo, hunting,

Reggie · 1:02:32
talk about a reclamation of the word, nobody sees it that way,

Mary · 1:02:35
but queer communities, but like that's how it's getting shifted. Do you think we'll

Dylan · 1:02:39
like revamp the word obesity in that same way, or do you always think it's going to be negative con

Mary · 1:02:44
fat is being reclaimed, people are taking fat and like, well, yeah, I'm fat, and like, what do you want with that? I'm bad and sexy.

Tim · 1:02:52
I love that spirit. Yeah,

Mary · 1:02:53
so I think it's, it's happening, the pushback is happening from within the group, but maybe we need like ambassadors to help

Reggie · 1:03:01
movements, like it's cool to have a dad bot, you know, that's like, you know, and that's there's that's a reclamation of something that we would not have in the past deemed flattering, but now it's like people are leaning into, you

Mary · 1:03:14
have a dad bod, and you, not you, but like maybe I don't know,

Tim · 1:03:18
which can admit it, right? Tim's like just the

Mary · 1:03:20
parts of me you can't see, I just wear a bigger shirt. Well, I think it's okay to have a dad bod and you're just like with children, but we're like working on women getting their bodies back after shoving a child out of their body. What a ridiculous double standard. I will say, though, that

Tim · 1:03:40
John Ham and our friends has a normal size body. I love it. It makes me feel so seen.

Reggie · 1:03:49
Yeah, because he's not like Brad Pitt. Yeah, like, yeah, I like it.

Tim · 1:03:56
I was gonna say, when you were talking about someone reclaiming the word fat, I just felt a mind shift in that person, like it wasn't something that was culturally shifted, it wasn't cool, it was just. Literally, that person saw themselves,

Mary · 1:04:09
yeah.

Tim · 1:04:09
And even when you try to restrict people from saying something, if they're saying it in their mind and acting in this way, it doesn't matter if they say it or don't say it, they're still saying, you're just separating

Mary · 1:04:20
them from your reality, you're just like forcing them further and further into this cognitive dissonance thing, and probably making them much less mentally healthy, right.

Tim · 1:04:29
And sometimes I think when someone says it, it allows everyone to look around them and say that person isn't safe, right. And so I know social media culture will kind of congregate around the crazies, but in real world and real communities, people self-select and help to restrict those who are endangering the group.

Reggie · 1:04:48
Yeah, if they take it the wrong way,

Tim · 1:04:50
acting conniving, and is trying to create harm,

Mary · 1:04:55
yeah.

Tim · 1:04:55
You can't catch them, but so sometimes I wonder if it's like, say it, so we can see who you are, and how you.. okay, finally you're saying how you feel, and I'm saying this, not having grown up in a minority culture, or not a minority group, and not having been obese, so I'm saying this from a completely disconnected point, but I want to be able to connect with that experience of what is what's in someone's heart is going to come through. Now, I don't think anyone should just say everyone should say the N word whenever they want. I just think that when you repress an entire culture, and then they start creating this different twistedness about, like, now I'm gonna be the rebel and say it just despite you saying I can't say it. It's like we create this cycle of disconnection again.

Mary · 1:05:38
Yeah, it's almost like I'm asking you not to engage with me as a person about it, but to engage with the theory and what I'm dealing with. And that's all valid, by the way. There's a lot of theory, and there's a lot of shit to deal with, and it's sort of not my responsibility to educate you on all the problems in society. But also, if I want to be connected to you, which is not always the case, right? Like, we meet a lot of people every day where we don't make an effort to connect, and that's a question mark in my head. Like, if I really want to connect with you, I got to just be like warts and all for a minute, be like pretty warty, you're looking pretty full of warts, but then be like that bothers me, like that really makes me feel x, y, and z, and I really think a lot of people, if they were met with that sort of cool headedness, would be responsive, but it comes back to how are you supposed to say that cool headed when somebody throws the N word out or throws the wrong word at you,

Tim · 1:06:32
right? My kids say, Dad, I want to be like you and be able to connect something, anything so strongly to the way you connect anything to digital devices. They're like, I'm feeling tired lately. It's because you're spending too much time on your devices. I'm feeling like a little bit, everything they say convenient. My mom would like to drink

Mary · 1:06:51
some water. Both are probably so much simpler. Yeah, well, I didn't do that either. But

Tim · 1:06:56
I do wonder, how much of this gets accelerated and exacerbated by the way that we are socializing, the channels that we're socializing in, and the way that that connection feels or isn't even connected, because when you, I think, Dylan, when you talk to your friends, you're having real conversation, and you and your friends are able to like go through it together, but if you were trying to connect online, it's a little, it's a large change, something very missing in that experience, that human physical presence, and I wonder if now there's not a lot of places for kids to talk about these things, to experience the, to have the experience of being fat and being made fun of with anyone but themselves, like in the beauty show I brought up a few times there is a girl who looks completely like better than whatever the standard normal is. She's fine, but she feels so ugly that she wants to take this drug. Yeah, it's weird that it comes out at the same time this GLP thing is out, because

Reggie · 1:08:04
it's a similar kind of thing.

Tim · 1:08:05
It's a genetic remodification of the body to make them their beauty, and, and, but you just see this person going through this thing by themselves, and that is impossible.

Mary · 1:08:16
Yeah, so what if we started having more like face to face, one to one discussions about health, and could come to sort of our own understanding of what healthy means versus just taking what's delivered to us in culture or making assumptions about how someone else is living.

Tim · 1:08:42
I will say that when you say go ahead, though,

Dylan · 1:08:44
no, I was gonna say you cold plunge, he walks, we walk, we do our little things.

Mary · 1:08:49
Yeah, I couldn't tell you what I do to be healthy. I'll be honest,

Tim · 1:08:52
I'm just working on my mental health,

Mary · 1:08:54
like that. Honestly, feels like step number one, stress reduction,

Speaker · 1:08:58
first move,

Mary · 1:08:59
but,

Tim · 1:08:59
but I do think that when you, I like how you bring it to health, because obesity is used in a lot of contexts where it's related to health, you know, like. In a scale, in a measurement, in a diagnosis,

Mary · 1:09:10
well, maybe, and maybe I'm, maybe that's short-sighted, but to me it's like beauty, in theory, to begin with, anyway, was tied to health, it's like you want to seem full of vitality, yeah, and young, because youth is health is fewer issues in theory, so I don't, and it like everything goes back to sex and like reproductive aging and bullshit and

Tim · 1:09:37
aging. Imagine if we weren't always trying to be young.

Mary · 1:09:41
I'm exhausted with it, so we might do that experiment this month, but

Tim · 1:09:46
but to value the person aging versus, yeah, you can age, yeah, we're gonna throw you out into a nursing home, you know, like,

Mary · 1:09:53
yeah,

Tim · 1:09:53
there's so much like body modification happening, you know, like with plastic surgery and things that it's so normal now.

Mary · 1:10:00
Well, it's your responsibility, you need to manage your health, because if it goes wrong, I don't want to take care of you,

Tim · 1:10:07
right?

Mary · 1:10:08
I don't want more of more of whatever unhealthy version of you out in the world. It's like a pushback against it. So, I don't know if that's the root cause, but I do wonder if we're not having enough person to person connection about health, and we're trusting these like subject matter experts who are just working with statistics and talking about groups at a distance, a person who doesn't know your daughter, who's telling you what's healthy for your daughter and your relationship, and that kind of thing. Yeah, I don't know

Tim · 1:10:35
what it.. I got one. What if we worried more about the inner body than the outer body? My spleen, your spleen feeling that I

Mary · 1:10:47
do care about your spleen, yeah,

Tim · 1:10:53
you know, like so much focus on the outer body, like there's an inner body, an inner experience happening. I

Dylan · 1:10:58
heard this quote, and it was like it doesn't matter, like how you look on the outside, or like you could have whatever, but if like the characters there, you literally have nothing, and sounds so cheesy now that I set it out in public. Oh, go ahead. No, but I was thinking, like, when you're saying that, I was like, oh, like, you have a soul, yeah? Like, and I think,

Tim · 1:11:19
right?

Dylan · 1:11:20
Yeah, I think we were talking about the window quote, where it's like, like looking through the window, that's just like transparency, but if you like, open the window, let the person come in, like, and see the soul, and like, see that, like, hey, like, this is how I feel about, like, my personal whatever. I don't to bring it back into, like, brand and everything. I just don't see a lot of brands like doing that. It's more of, like, here's a product that makes the outside look good, and I kind of feel that way about supplements as well, as, like, hey, this is gonna make you on the outside, but, like, I don't see a lot of brands offering, like, hey, as a woman, you're gonna go through menopause, hey, as a man, your testosterone is gonna start dropping, so that's why your body's gonna start, you know, I don't know, I think my what if is like, what if capitalism wasn't real,

Tim · 1:12:09
I want to call him. Dylan dropped the mic.

Mary · 1:12:18
I, there's a metaphor that Tara Brock introduced to me, and I don't know if she came up with it or if she took it from somebody else, but I mean, can we steal concepts that's on capitalism, IP should be free, but I think she gave me this metaphor that really I don't know, I came back to it a lot, which is saying something, I'm very forgetful, she was like, well, I sometimes talk about this as like the meat suit, like I'm just wearing this around, like I'm trying on this meat suit today, but she talked about like an astronaut visiting some foreign planet or something, and you're, if you're an astronaut and you're on a place that doesn't have the atmosphere that you can breathe naturally, you need your suit. The suit is an essential part of your ability to like move through the world, but you are not the suit, and if you live in the suit long enough, you are so dependent on the suit, it might be easy to forget that you are not the suit. It starts to feel like it is you, but the reality is you're in there, and like it's just a spacesuit. And I feel like that applies to brands too, like you need the suit, you gotta have the spacesuit, we get it, we understand, but you are not the suit, there's got to be something in there, like you were saying,

Tim · 1:13:30
and the power of branding is now starting to trend, where the inner being of the brand means more. Absolutely, we're figuring

Mary · 1:13:39
out that it's a space suit, and that we can look past and there's another being inside there. If we've met an alien and we were in these big puffy suits. How would they know that that was a suit? They don't know, they're just meeting us for the first time.

Tim · 1:13:53
Where do you go, Tara?

Mary · 1:13:55
Yeah, and if

Dylan · 1:13:55
you're an astronaut looking for a meat suit

Speaker · 1:13:58
and

Dylan · 1:13:58
you're able to breathe through, this is the place to come and you're

Mary · 1:14:05
watching this podcast. Please get in contact. We would love to have you on the show. That would be an incredible get. My

Reggie · 1:14:13
what if is what if we could all just be kind enough to people that they could feel comfortable showing up in whatever meat suit they're wearing, yeah, without feeling the pressure of having to like shift or change.

Mary · 1:14:27
Yeah,

Reggie · 1:14:28
you know,

Tim · 1:14:29
yes, do the real thing. And I apologize to anyone out there who is struggling with this topic,

Reggie · 1:14:37
yeah. And

Tim · 1:14:37
how much injustice we may have given this topic in our discussion, we, we want to, we want to be there for this experience that all, all everyone is going through, and to open those windows in our work and in our lives, and be kind, and to try and create a better world.

Mary · 1:14:56
Yeah,

Reggie · 1:14:57
yeah. For those of you out there who aren't kind to people, and you're listening, maybe consider, maybe. Sorry,

Mary · 1:15:05
that's so perpetuating too. No, you're gonna settle the word, that's gonna be

Reggie · 1:15:11
their villain origin story. No, I just saw everybody there. I just know

Tim · 1:15:15
that we are not obese people, and we're talking about obesity. I know that's a touchy subject, and I am just want to know that you're seen and you're valuable.

Mary · 1:15:23
Yeah, and we're ill-informed in the best of times. We probably just said a million things that are not correct, and I think there's a podcast I watched called My Favorite Murder, shout out Karen and Georgia, but yeah, you know them, we're true crime people, but they do this thing every so often, they do it less now in the early days, they would have to do a lot of corrections corners at the beginning of the episode, so

Tim · 1:15:46
I have to do one of those,

Mary · 1:15:47
if anybody even cares enough to give us your opinion, we would love to have it. I

Reggie · 1:15:51
would love that. Yes, yeah, especially on some of the data.

Tim · 1:15:57
Anyone else out there and has something to share about this? What if we just redid this one with someone who knows?

Mary · 1:16:02
Yeah, that would be awesome. I think

Speaker · 1:16:05
this is the

Mary · 1:16:06
heaviest topic we've gotten into so far, and it's teaching me a lot about, you know, how we want to navigate, and I think we're going to get a lot better at it. Can't wait to

Reggie · 1:16:16
see what we pull out.

Mary · 1:16:17
Yeah, next, I've watched previous episodes, I'm like, we're definitely going to need to do some correction scores. Thank you for watching. This has been Age of the Podcast, and we will see you next week. Bye. Oh man, oh man, that was tough. That was long. Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, Mary Green, and Dylan Garcia. Produced by me, Mary Green. Live production and editing by Will Canady, graphic design by Dylan Garcia, and set design by Megan Scroggs. Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 Hearts, creators of enduring value. Transcribed by https://otter.ai