269. Let’s Get Triggered: Oprah, Ozempic, and Our Outrage

Today’s solo episode grew out of Oprah’s Weight Loss Special Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution that aired on ABC this Monday night. Because it’s network TV, only so much could be covered, which is why I created this episode to go deeper. 

Most of the people having big reactions to Oprah's weight loss are those who’ve never struggled with their weight (and so don’t understand) OR those who have historically struggled with weight and haven’t yet found the peace they want with their bodies.

As someone who struggled with her body and weight for two decades, I know how sensitive it can be to be in a place where you’re struggling. Our culture is fat phobic and really hard on people in large bodies. I’m hoping this episode can help us unearth what’s really going on and why fat phobia is one of the last accepted prejudices.

The opportunities for us to be triggered are seemingly endless with these types of conversations. And yet, I believe that we shouldn’t let the fear of possibly triggering someone keep us from having these deeper discussions that can—over time—shift our perspectives for the better.  Let's keep the conversation going...

Past Insatiable episodes mentioned:

• 77. Your Green Juice Doesn’t Make You Worthy
• 205. Optimize Your Body for Fertility with Dr. Joy Sturgill
• 252. The Religion of Wellness Culture with Anne Helen Petersen
• 261. A Midlife Reckoning: Let Me Tell You My Story (The Shock of It All)
• 267. Esther Blum Demystifies Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for Perimenopause and Menopause Relief

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Ali's Truce with Food Group Program
• Ali's Masters Thesis from the University of Pennsylvania: Truce with Food: A Heroine’s Journey
• Nourished by Dr. Deborah MacNamara
• Poverty and Obesity study
• ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences)

Connect with Insatiable & Ali:

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Transcript

Ali Shapiro [00:00:01]:
Okay, insatiable listeners. This will be a solo episode today divided into 5 parts, including this intro. While longtime listeners know how much I love interviewing people, sometimes it just makes more sense on these timely conversations to go it alone. Today's episode grew out of Oprah's weight loss special that aired on ABC this Monday night and is streaming on Hulu now. But because its network TV was only an hour, which included a lot of ads, only so much could be covered, Which is why I wanted to do this episode to go into more depth about what I believe Oprah hoped to accomplish from her special, which is to stop the shame and blame around people's weight. She planted some great seeds, and today's episode is about how we can keep the ball rolling, starting with ourselves. Because most of the people having big reactions to Oprah or Adele's weight loss are those who have never struggled with their weight and so they don't understand, or those of us who have historically struggled with our weight and haven't yet found the peace we want with our own bodies. I chuckled at Oprah's special when she said one of her biggest revelations was that she always thought she needed more willpower to not think about food.

Ali Shapiro [00:01:21]:
But then she realized that those people who don't struggle with their weight and food just don't think about food. And so they didn't require any willpower at all. As someone who used to incessantly have food noise and no longer does because of my own truce with food work, I can tell you I spend 90% less time and energy on food than I did in my dieting and bingeing days. However, what we will get to later in this episode about why this idea of not working hard around food or weight stirs so many reactions like, yeah, you're lying, or people taking weight loss medication are, quote, taking the easy way out. Because today's episode is going to address the root psychological reasons why body size is so triggering to so many these days. As someone who struggled with her body and weight for 2 decades, I know how sensitive it can be to be in a place where you're struggling. Our culture is fat phobic and really hard on people in large bodies. I got emotional watching the special when Amy, a woman who shared that she lost 160 pounds while taking Manjaro, said that one of the hardest things for her in her weight loss journey was seeing how much nicer people are to her kids.

Ali Shapiro [00:02:38]:
Now that she's thinner, let that really, like, really take that in. That culturally, most people assume better things of her kids because of her weight. I'm hoping that today's podcast episode can help us unearth what's really going on and why fat phobia is one of the last accepted accepted prejudices. Because if we want to make our culture generally more inclusive instead of just driving certain conversations around weight underground or feeling horrible because you do have judgments around fatness. We have to bring these into the light, deconstruct them, and then offer a better way forward. And I wanna go to the deepest layers because I'm someone who has genuinely radically changed my relationship to my body. Part of why I've had so much success is because I understand all the layers from food noise being about imbalanced blood sugar to separation, I e unbelonging. Amy, who I mentioned above, when she was sharing her story, she talked about how her childhood was very isolating, and food was always her friend.

Ali Shapiro [00:03:45]:
And it was this isolation or unbelonging actually got accelerated during COVID and so did her eating. Right? So my work is all about, like, what is that initial feeling of separation about? And then eventually, it can become about our weight, but there's something underneath that. And for some people, food noise is a biological brain issue as they talked about on Oprah's special. And even Oprah said, not everyone has this biological brain issue. Right? Weight is so many more things than just calories in, calories out. Also, I do have to acknowledge that even at my heaviest weights, while I was definitely overweight, I was never obese. And this is important because while I had deep shame around my body, I didn't have society constantly treating me as horribly as obese people are often treated. Oprah talked about in her own weight struggles, she took on the shame that the world gave her as she was ridiculed for decades about her weight.

Ali Shapiro [00:04:42]:
And many of us remember this because for many of you insatiable listeners, we grew up with Oprah. I remember coming home from school, throwing my stonewashed denim purse like book bag with a trapper keeper onto the floor, walking into my sunken living room, turning on the TV and turning the remote to channel 8 at 4 o'clock. If I was dieting, I'd eat SnackWell's devil's food cookies. And if I wasn't, I eat big bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios. I'd watch it mostly alone as my dad, who was a phys ed teacher, was often coaching cross country or school or soccer after school. Or my mom would come in to say hi, but would talk with my grandma who was getting dinner ready. And sometimes, if I wasn't going to be home and there was an episode I didn't want to miss, I'd have my dad record it for me on our VCR with a VHS tape. If you don't know what that is, Google it.

Ali Shapiro [00:05:39]:
You'll you'll be impressed. Living in the Pittsburgh suburbs, which isn't exactly a bastion of culture, I was starved for so much of the texture and variety of life. While the suburbs offered a sense of safety, there were certainly big trade offs. In the eighties nineties, no one in my neighborhood or school was talking about spirituality or discussing the KKK as if it were living history, not the past. By the time I was in high school, Oprah was mainstream and her interviews would create cultural dialogue around the world. Oprah allowed me to access some of that richness, the complexity, the range of diverse experiences of what it meant to be a human being, and that I was desperately craving. Not only that, but she was ambitious. She was smart, warm, wise, and successful.

Ali Shapiro [00:06:32]:
So many of us saw her as a role model, aspirational. We identified with her on so many levels, including her weight loss struggle. Many of us remember Oprah tugging a red wagon brimming with £67 of fat onto the stage, representing the weight she had lost on a liquid diet called Optifast. Oprah joked on Monday night on her Monday night special that the Internet will never let her forget this. When she hauled out that fat, it was 1988, only 2 years after her show first aired. Being 10 years old and one of the few kids at my school struggling with their weight, at least that I knew of, I didn't feel so alone in my struggles. And a year later, I'd walk into my first weight watchers in a suburban strip owl. I was hashtag influenced.

Ali Shapiro [00:07:22]:
And if Oprah was doing something, it was good to do, diets included. This is why brands love to be included in her favorite things. An Oprah endorsement sold lots of things. And so if someone you identify with makes decisions that counter how you decide, it can feel really confronting. It can create a feeling of separation, a feeling like your belonging or connection with Oprah is just different now. And it's easy to not did to not and it's easy to deny that this is what's going on because we don't like to think of ourselves as easily influenced. None of us likes to think we are influenced by a culture so many of us know is highly problematic, but we are. It's okay.

Ali Shapiro [00:08:12]:
It happens to all of us to some degree. Alan Watts, one of my favorite thinkers, said, we seldom realize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images that we did not invent, but but which were given to us by our society. And there are few spaces more influenced by language and images that Watts is referring to here than body image and what someone weighs. And so while this podcast episode is using Oprah as a jumping off point, we can just as easily be talking about Adele or perhaps your favorite Health and Every Size influencer who lost weight. Or even what comes up for you if someone, especially that you've known for a long time, seems to suddenly lose weight or gains weight, or has done neither in a celebrating their own body as I recently saw on doctor Eviva Ram's Instagram. For those of you who don't know doctor Eviva Ram, she's amazing. She was a midwife.

Ali Shapiro [00:09:13]:
She went back to Yale to get her her MD, so she's a doctor. And she's been all about women's health, natural, integrated, and empowering women. And she had a video of herself in spandex and a sports bra celebrating her 57 year old menopause body and all the natural ways she supported herself. Most comments were positive, but there were people who told her they were triggered and disappointed in her given her life's work is to empower women. In which she wrote back, they were essentially shaming her for celebrating her body. I wanna use this episode to hopefully help you more deeply understand our cultural and perhaps our own strong reactions to Oprah's changing body and weight loss medications like Ozempic. So we can stop the shame cycle around bodies and changing bodies in general, even when it appears more noble or good. And we are going deeper to the root cause of body image because none of this on the deeper level is actually about someone's weight.

Ali Shapiro [00:10:15]:
It's about what we think our weight means about us and thus other people. And while we are focusing on weight today, this type of reactionary judgments are just a flashpoint for what's been happening overall around health choices in the past several years. Today, many people will think if you eat meat or not says something about you and how much you care about the environment, or if you're a morally good person. I joked 17 years ago that those who didn't have religion found nutrition, and it's only gotten worse. Or take birth, home birth, c section, natural birth. You'll get a strong set of reactions there too. The COVID 19 vaccine. Ugh.

Ali Shapiro [00:10:59]:
The opportunities for us to be triggered are seemingly endless. But I believe that we shouldn't let the fear of possibly triggering someone keep us from having these deeper conversations that can over time shift our perspective for the better and perhaps radically change our health and well-being for the better. I also want to add in a disclaimer here that I'm not trying to be the last word on all things weight loss drugs as I know there are parts of this cultural conversation, like shortage shortages and and accessibility for these drugs for diabetics that have also gotten a lot of well deserved media attention. And I'm sure there are many other questions and issues raised by these drugs that would each be their own episode. Also, before we move on to the next part of this episode, I wanted to give you a heads up that I'll be mentioning past relevant insatiable episodes throughout this episode. I mentioned the specific episode numbers when I do, but no worries as links to these past shows will also be found in the show notes. Alright. Thanks for listening and on to the rest of the show.

Ali Shapiro [00:12:05]:
Part 2, are you being a good girl? A part of what we do in my group program, Choose With Food, is to unpack and investigate our big reactions, or some would call them triggers, especially around food and weight. To food, whether it's feeling guilty for having some sugar or why our big reactions to stress make us turn to food. Or exercise. Why do we think it only counts if it's hard, sweaty, and burning a certain amount of calories? Or our weight to getting weighed at the doctor's office as I did not too long ago, and it's much higher than you expected. Or to why you might feel smug and moral when you're on track and eating well or bad and out of control when you're off track. And if you're curious about my own midlife reckoning with my weight, check out episode 261. Or why Oprah is doing a special on weight loss and weight loss medications and not a huge special on her thyroid medication that she talked about years ago going on. Right? In my group program, we unpack our reactions in order to see what are we making all of this mean about ourselves and thus, other people.

Ali Shapiro [00:13:22]:
For most of us around weight, our reactions come from wanting to be good. From our culture, many of us have come to believe that battling our bodies is the right thing to do, whether it's battling cancer to our weight. This is the cultural narrative and norm around our bodies. And this is what my entire master's thesis was about, which I'll also link to in the show notes for anyone interested. If our bodies are to be battled, then it follows that we need to be good soldiers. And this idea that there is a rigid binary of good and bad is in truth with food, what we call the good girl mind. For those wanting to dig deeper, I know we have a lot of academics in the audience. This is an adult development plateau called the socialized mind, and you can Google doctor Robert Keegan and doctor Lisa Leahy to learn more.

Ali Shapiro [00:14:13]:
Most of us start in the good girl mind as young adults. In this place, we base our ideas of what is good to do good or bad to do based on what we've internalized from our families, our schools, our work, and our church environments. And we believe this idea of good and bad is capital t truth. Of course, it's important to work hard. Of course, it's important to be productive. When we're in the good girl mind, our goal is to uphold the norms and values of our early influences, and this secures our belonging, especially at younger ages when we didn't have all the choices we have today. For most of us listening, we're of an age where media was much more concentrated, and so there was a pretty homogeneous idea of how to be good. To be a good soldier in the body battle, you had to restrict.

Ali Shapiro [00:15:07]:
You had to have willpower, discipline, strength in the face of tempt of temptations. And your reward for all of this, the promise then the promised land of thinness, And thinness brought all the cute boys, money, fame, and happiness. In other words, success with food and life. If you were bad, it was because you didn't have enough willpower. You were undisciplined and out of control. You were weak, and your punishment was fatness. And fatness meant isolation and failure, or at best, not as much success as possible. This has been the basic narrative for so many years, so you can see why it can feel like capital t true.

Ali Shapiro [00:15:54]:
Then recently, we have the health at the health at every size theory and body positivity. Suddenly, there's more choices than just being a good soldier who restricts. But when we're in this good girl mind, you think in the binary good or bad, which often feels like black and white or all or nothing thinking and being. So if any of these movements speak to you, you essentially try to be a good group member in order to feel a sense of belonging and to feel like you're doing the right thing. As a result, for so many people, they thought their goodness would be preserved by ed identifying with an anti diet culture or intuitive eating, which is a huge subset of this trend and working to give up their desire to lose weight. Because when we're in the when we're in the good girl mind, if we are good, we judge what is bad. Right? We judge ourselves when we're bad and we judge what other people are doing as bad if they're not doing the same thing as us. And so these movements often look to people like Oprah or Adele as examples of being able to be wildly successful in bigger bodies.

Ali Shapiro [00:17:02]:
So when someone like Oprah, Adele, or maybe your favorite Health and Every Size influencer loses weight, what happens to some of us on a deeper reactive level? Why are we so triggered in the sense of having a strong reaction or judging what they're doing? Some may feel but aren't unconsciously aware that their reaction is around the fear of, am I not good anymore? Am I bad because I haven't lost weight? Which is most deeply about, will I still belong now? Or maybe it triggers you want to triggers you to want to lose weight, and then you judge yourself as bad because the anti diet groups you've identified with tell you you should not want to lose weight. When Oprah interviewed Adele a few years ago after her 100 pound weight loss, Oprah asked her about the backlash she received for losing weight. And Adele replied, it's not my job to make you feel validated about your body, and she didn't want anyone to feel bad. And holding the and, she's right and that it's not her responsibility to take on everyone's feelings, especially because on a deeper level, it isn't about Adele's weight loss. It's, am I still good? Will I still be accepted? It was the fear of, I might not be good or worthy anymore, and if I'm not good, I won't belong. And you can see this play out in other areas, not in terms of weight. Right? If you decide not to have kids, it makes people question their own choices. Or I've had some clients retire early or make career decisions that weren't about more and more and more career sex success and money, but rather to enjoy their lives.

Ali Shapiro [00:18:42]:
And the panicked reactions from their friends and family was more a deep stirring of, did they make the good choice? And doctor Deborah McNamara lays out in her book, Nourished, why belonging is more important to us than food, shelter, and water. It's because you need other people to help you secure these things, especially when we're younger, and we still need them as adults. Right? God, I need I don't know how to grow my own food. In the apocalypse, I'm like a goner. I don't have a lot of skills to survive. What's important to know is when we're in the good girl mind, it's hard to be with complexity. For example, in this space, we think weight loss is calories in calories out, eat less, move more. Oprah kept saying in her special, obesity is complex.

Ali Shapiro [00:19:31]:
Not all people who are obese or overweight have it as a disease. The doctor on from the Cleveland Clinic who spent decades studying this said, there's so basically, there's so many moving parts to this. He said the food supply has changed. This has there's microbiome changes. There's environmental toxins. People's base weight set points are different. Some have different brain food reactions, etcetera, etcetera. He just started listing off so much more than just calories.

Ali Shapiro [00:19:59]:
And now I'd add in belonging, because that's I know this is a huge, huge piece to this, not eating the right foods for your body, and trauma. There can definitely be a psychosomatic piece to weight. The adverse childhood experiences scores or ACE scores used to score childhood used to score childhood trauma came out of an obesity clinic where they realized some people, not all, felt terrified of losing weight because they felt like it made them more visible and a target as a result of various traumas, or I've had a few clients who packed on weight when they wanted to get divorced. And once they got divorced and wanted to feel more sexual, all of a sudden the weight came off, nothing changed, right? There's so many different reasons for weight, But how do we really start to change the way we feel on a deeper level about our weight and that of others? And that's what we'll explore in the next part of this episode. Part 3, how about an option c, or what's called complexity fitness? Really changing how we feel about our weight and other people's weight involves maturing into what we call the self authoring woman in Truth With Food. In other words, you begin to write your own story. Once we are able to cast off our good girl ways of thinking, we we begin to see things differently, figure out what factors aside from discipline are causing us to struggle with food, To really be open to the idea that we shouldn't be ashamed of our eating habits or that it's about so much more than discipline, We need to increase what is called complexity fitness, our ability to be with the hard stuff, in other words. I love that term because it acknowledges that this is a skill set we can work on, that so much more goes into all of this, that there are more moving parts than we initially realized.

Ali Shapiro [00:21:53]:
For example, many Americans on some level believe success is defined as rich and famous, and successful people got this way because they're smarter and have worked harder. Sometimes, this is true, and many times, it is not. Especially in America, usually the more wealth you have, the more of a head start from family money you had. And I'm not judging this either. I'm just saying that this assumed idea of what it means to be successful is so much more complex, including if you start to unpack how you want to define success. But back to health and weight, long time insatiable long time insatiable listeners know that my brain is hyperlinked, so I love me a tangent. And why people are so reactive these days to so many body and health choices is because it creates overwhelm in the good girl mind, which feels like good is a moving target. So that fear and anxiety of not belonging feels really scary, can even feel painful.

Ali Shapiro [00:22:55]:
We've never had more choices than we do now, and I'm not just talking about nondairy milk. If you and if you don't have a discerning filter around what's true for you, which includes what works for you, It's so easy to get swept up in, okay, it's bad to wanna lose weight, or, okay, it's good to want to lose weight, or, oh, now I should be keto. Oh, now I should be paleo or now I should be vegetarian. There are so many choices in between all of these. For example, in the good girl mind, there's often an assumption that weight loss can only damage your relationship to yourself. But that's not been my experience using my own Truth With Food Process. I wanted a option c, so I created one. I didn't know I was going to.

Ali Shapiro [00:23:43]:
Both times I've lost weight, though. In my twenties and now the last few years postpartum and menopausal, I've strengthened and deepened my relationship with my body. Or in my mid thirties, when I had an episode of depression and gained weight from not wanting to eat and barely exercising from doing some deep grief and trauma work from my cancer, with my therapist, Bob, I knew my healing was more important than gaining weight. I could be flexible in my thinking because my with around my weight, because I've also separated my worth or what's possible for my life from my weight. And all of this starts with the work we do in Truth With Food. We unpack your big reactions, which are rooted in these ideas of, am I being good or bad, and will I be left behind if I'm bad? To discover what we call option c, which is here's what feels good for now. And you learn how to be flexible with your thinking so you know what's true for you, and you have a solid center instead of feeling tossed around by the wings of change or what every influencer is now saying or what's politically correct. Once this foundation is laid, it becomes a lot less likely you'll get swept up in the reactions of others who are in the good girl mind.

Ali Shapiro [00:24:57]:
So this is the first layer of our reactions to others wait. If we haven't become a self authoring woman, which is the next level of adult development, we will feel unmoored when the group leaders we've identified with, whether it's the influencer of Health at Every Size to diet culture, change because it makes us question our own goodness. Even though Oprah and Adele or your favorite influencers are curating a brand, in real life, people change. So the very reason we trust in brands because of their consistency is not realistic to necessary expect of the real humans behind these brands. I saw this happen with Alexandra Jamieson, who did the documentary supersize me with her now ex husband, Morgan Spurlock. And at the time, she was a high profile vegan who got death threats and lost a lot of her platform when she started eating meat because that's what her body needed. And this brings me to the deeper cultural layer that isn't as obvious, yet it adds to our collective and perhaps individual reactions, which are perceived values violations. For example, when I first heard about Ozempic, I actually didn't think much of it.

Ali Shapiro [00:26:08]:
But me even dismissing it and not being curious is because I know I have a bias against drug intervention. While Western medicine, chemo, and radiation saved my life, it also did a number on my body, and so did many of the drugs I tried for my IBS, my depression, and acne, and they actually worsened my health. So before using hormone replacement therapy, which is HRT, and recently, Novocaine at the dentist, I hadn't really used Western medicine in 20 years beyond some cancer scans. And even with my breast MRIs and colonoscopies, I spaced them out way more than was recommended. I didn't use Western Western Medicine interventions when I was diagnosed as infertile. I didn't even get an epidural for the birth of my son, Esa, who I would eventually have because of natural medicine, like Chinese medicine and my naturopathic physician. For those who want to hear more about my fertility struggles and how I work through them, you can check out insatiable 205, episode 205. Anyhow, I share this because this bias that comes with a lot of proof or receipts, as the young kids say, towards natural medicine has profoundly influenced my choices for the last 20 years, which is basically half my life.

Ali Shapiro [00:27:27]:
And yet, I've done my own truth with food work to cultivate complexity fitness with my body and, thus, other people's bodies and their choices. This enables you to learn, to cut through all the noise, know your biases and learn how to discern what's happening in these big reactions. So you can proceed in a smart, sustainable direction instead of dismissing something because it doesn't conform to your bias. It's why I was even open to HRT in the first place, even though it took me a while to actually research further. And for those who wanna learn more about HRT, check out episode 267. Again, all of these will be linked in the show notes. Complexity fitness can be thought of as discernment and nuance. It's asking, why am I having this be this big reaction, and what else might be true? It's really holding the end.

Ali Shapiro [00:28:15]:
Or I like to think of it as the right tool at the right time. Take antibiotics, for example. They are lifesaving, but not when they're in your livestock for food or you use them for a viral infection that can't help. Right? That's not helpful. Leads to antibiotic resistance, but the right tool at the right time, or weight loss. Context matters. Sometimes losing weight will help your health. Sometimes it's because you have cancer and are very unhealthy, as was my case.

Ali Shapiro [00:28:44]:
Sometimes losing weight won't actually affect your health that much. You need complexity fitness to be able to discover what actually works for you with food, health, or life wise. And to do that, you need to unpack your strong reactions. And again, by strong reactions, it's not just like, I'm triggered. It's the judgments you have of other people, the judgments you have of yourself. Because a lot of what people think are gut reactions or clear yes and noes are actually generated by their unconscious biases rooting and try rooted and trying to be good. But intuitive knowing is much more neutral than reactive. To help you begin your to unpack your own reactions to your own weight and and other people's weight and start building some complexity fitness muscles around your own body weight, which will then change again your reaction to other people's weight or even weight loss medications, I have a little thought exercise for you.

Ali Shapiro [00:29:40]:
Imagine you're at a work event, and there is a panel of people. And you notice several people on the stage are thin, and one is overweight. What's your reaction to that? What do you think of the thin people? What do you think of the overweight person? And be honest, you don't have to tell anyone if you don't want to. Chances are because, again, often how we think is how culture tells us to think. Those people on the panel who are they're thin and successful, and chances are you attribute their thinness and success to hard work and discipline even if you don't consciously think about it. And the overweight person probably doesn't have as much success or could have more if they lost weight, which is subtext for worked harder and had more discipline. I used to think both of these things. And in fact, in my choose with food group recently, one brave woman who gave me permission to share this aired out how she talked to herself when she felt fat and how she used words like out of control, disgusting, etcetera.

Ali Shapiro [00:30:48]:
At first, she felt horrible and ashamed for saying those things out loud, especially because she had been obese before, but was thinner now. But it was a safe space. People join Truth With Food because they don't want to think about themselves or others like this. And we we have to air out our strong reactions before we can clean it up. And others chimed in or like, you're not saying anything. I'm not thinking about myself. This is part of the work that is uncomfortable. But the thing is when you share that and you realize you aren't alone, you start to realize maybe these thoughts aren't unique to you.

Ali Shapiro [00:31:21]:
And that's because this is how we've been socialized in our culture. But if we're willing to do the work, we can become a self authoring woman. This involves questioning your strong reactions, unpacking them, and wondering what else might be true about yourself or others, from body size to political views. For example, so many of my clients are disciplined in all areas of their life. They work hard at work, at parenting, at friending, and at not wasting food. You name it. They're on it. But then they suddenly don't think they're disciplined enough around food.

Ali Shapiro [00:31:53]:
Maybe discipline isn't what is required around food for success. But, oh, discipline. As we say in coaching, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Part 4, the meritocracy myth in weight loss. Aside from the fear and anxiety of, if I'm bad, will I belong that is contained in our big reactions to people we've identified with changing body sizes, The deeper level of our reaction to people's weight and weight loss medications, at least here in the US, is around the perceived values violation of discipline and hard work. In general, when it comes to body sizes, we've been socialized to thin to think thin equals hardworking plus discipline, and we define discipline as control here, equals successful. We've also been socialized to think fat equals lazy, undisciplined, or out of control equals unsuccessful. That's the binary of the good girl mind.

Ali Shapiro [00:32:50]:
What's interesting about this, especially as someone who used to be obsessed with food and my weight and now has a very healthy relationship with food and my body, the harder I worked on my food and the more discipline I tried with food and exercise, the less successful I was with my weight and well-being. And I know from working with my own clients who are all shapes and sizes, those struggling with food and or weight work often work harder than naturally thin people. But we don't think like this. Instead, we have strong gut reactions of, well, of course, some people don't have to try, but I do. So this story that hard work plus discipline leads to success in America, this is best wrapped up in the meritocracy myth. This meritocracy myth is that anyone regardless of their race or ethnicity or ethnicity ethnicity can succeed if they work hard enough. This story is so central to America and how it views itself. It's like the brand of America.

Ali Shapiro [00:33:48]:
Obviously, this myth is showing, it seems, a lot right now. And if you want to understand more about this myth as it relates to health, weight, and class, you can listen to episode 77 titled your green juice doesn't make you worthy. It's one of my favorites and probably will resonate more today than when I did it 6 years ago because a lot has been unveiled in the past 6 years. And we tend to think this myth stays in the work race and class space, but it doesn't. This essential myth is the DNA for the prosperity gospel for invalid evangelical Christians and the manifestation ideas of the wellness spiritual world. Right? If I'm good, I will get my reward. It extends to the health space too, especially around weight. We think those trying the hardest with the most discipline will be successful.

Ali Shapiro [00:34:38]:
And, again, discipline being defined as control and success defined as thinness and wealth and fame. That being thin means you're in control of your appetite and life. And yet in America, obesity has strong associations with larger cultural determinants, like low individual income, poverty, and lack of food security. So here, it's economic class, not discipline, being in control that are the issues. And in the your green juice doesn't make you worthy episode, I dive deeper into the assumption that poor people aren't working hard. And in fact, those in poverty are often the hardest working people in America. So circling back to weight or using weight loss medications like Ozempic and Winjaro or anyone else taking this class of drugs, our gut reaction that we aren't likely to unpack actually has very little to do with what we think it has to do with. Rather, it's based on how much you value and believe you have to work hard and be disciplined for success.

Ali Shapiro [00:35:33]:
This is why one of the most common reactions in judgments to this weight loss drug is, it's the ways it's the easy way out. No one says that about someone on Synthroid or chemo because we don't have cultural narratives that thyroid disease or cancer is a result of lack of hard work and discipline. So many of my clients work hard and are so disciplined that they are successful in their careers and elsewhere that they have little energy or time for their own health. But again, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And the cultural story tells you hard work plus discipline equals success. And if you're curious why Americans value hard work and discipline so much, this isn't because it is some absolute or definitive truth on how to achieve success. It's more rooted in religion, specifically, productism and puritanism. For more on the religion of wellness culture, listen to episode 252, the religion of wellness culture with Anne Helen Petersen.

Ali Shapiro [00:36:34]:
Meanwhile, the healthiest and most content cultures are those that don't necessarily make hard work the center of their lives. Blue zones are back in the media. I think it's because now they have food products. But if you look at those culturals cultures that prioritize community, eating with others, social connections, they're so freaking happy and healthy. They define success very differently. Now there's nuance here. Right? We're gonna put on our complexity fitness muscles, everyone, which means you can hold the and. I don't want you to hear this and think I'm saying health and or weight doesn't often take work or discipline.

Ali Shapiro [00:37:07]:
Again, the good girl mind thinks in binaries or all or nothing, black and white. In America, especially, this is simply not true. You actually have to opt out a lot out of a lot of norms like hustle culture or alcohol culture to be healthy. It just is what it is. But it's a different type of work and discipline and success focus than what most people are defaulting to. It's not burnout, white knuckling, and restriction. What I'm saying is understand that the health meritocracy myth is exactly that, a myth. And then if you think it's only hard work and discipline, with discipline being defined as control that you need, you're going to burn yourself out on your health or weight loss journey.

Ali Shapiro [00:37:50]:
And that is not health. You cannot burn yourself or stress yourself out into well-being. Now let's turn return to Lady O. Less publicized is what Oprah shared later in People Magazine. She stated this last night too, but I'm sure that's not the main talking points that will be repeated. She said, after knee surgery, I started hiking and set setting new distant goals each week. I could eventually hike 3 to 5 miles every day and a 10 mile straight up hike on weekends, she said. I felt stronger, more fit, and more alive than I'd felt in years.

Ali Shapiro [00:38:26]:
Also in the article, she talks about the beauty she's surrounded by in Hawaii. Here, Oprah is self authoring her idea of work and discipline. It's not more restricted and deprived. Right? She's getting an immediate ROI that goes beyond weight loss. So it doesn't just feel like restriction. There's replenishment there. There's fulfillment there. The article goes on, Winfrey is aware of the buzz around her body size, especially as the use of medications like Wegovy, Ozempic, and Monjaro for weight loss have surged in popularity.

Ali Shapiro [00:39:08]:
But she stresses it has not been a magic bullet or singular since solution. It's everything, she says of her all encompassing health and fitness routine. I know everybody thought I was on it, but I worked so damn hard. I know that if I'm not also working out and vigilant about other things, it doesn't work for me. So here's the nuance. Right? And I actually think Oprah's an ideal candidate for these drugs. I only think she's a stand in for most people struggling with their weight who aren't usually at the extremes like the guests she had on her on her episode. Let me be clear.

Ali Shapiro [00:39:43]:
I'm not saying everyone should be taking these drugs either. I'm I have, like, no skin in the game. I'm I'm not for or against them. Right tool at the right time if it makes sense for something. I'm just saying it was emphasized last night and with medical experts who understand these drugs that you have to eat well, move your body, get good sleep because there are some people who are just trying to lose weight with these medications and are are not changing anything else. And to me, that is a risky proposition. And I think these drugs work well when you've done the inner work. We do interest with food.

Ali Shapiro [00:40:16]:
And by inner work, I mean, we end the internal battle with these perceived values violations of hard work, discipline, and success. The way our culture defines these values are unsustainable and soul sucking. But complexity fitness or being a self authored woman is knowing when you can also trust in ease because you no longer have a binary tension between easy and hard work, and you can find the moderate middle of ease and be open to ease. Now, Oprah says, I eat my last meal at 4 o'clock. I drink a gallon of water a day, and I use the weight watchers principles of counting points. I had an awareness of weight loss medications, but I felt I had to prove I had the willpower to do it. I no longer feel that way. And she made a joke because the doctor she had on from the Cleveland Clinic said he's been working with these weight loss medications for 18 years.

Ali Shapiro [00:41:10]:
She's like, what? Where was I? Like, I literally go to the Cleveland Clinic. But, again, when we have certain stories and certain judgments and strong reactions, we don't become open to other things. Right? HRT, again, my recent example of using that. I wish I would have been open to that so much earlier, but I wasn't because of my own bias against intervention. And, of course, it's easier to change your mind when you're the one with direct experience. Adults learn through lived experiences, But many people will never take these drugs or unpack the reactions to their weight or other people's weight. They will just think what they've been conditioned to believe is capital t truth instead of a richer understanding of someone's story and the complexity involved in weight challenges. Or we can get curious about our own reactions.

Ali Shapiro [00:41:56]:
This makes us less reactive and judgmental of ourselves and less others. I loved how Oprah ended the show by saying, hey. You're in a bigger body and love your life. Awesome. There's room for you. Or if you're struggling with your weight and might have obesity as a brain disease, there's room for you. She's holding the and not making anyone else bad or wrong, which is just continuing with the shame and blame. And the more we unpack our culture, unpack our collective and individual reactions, the better we will be to each other, which is foundational to well-being.

Ali Shapiro [00:42:27]:
We can stop the ping pong of shame, which rests on there being a good or bad way to be. To end fat phobia, we have to stop the policing and morality around people's body size in general, no matter what it is. All right, let's wrap this up. It's a lot of Allie today. I'm going to close today's episode with a coaching prompt to start to consider your own biases because we can't just extract our biases like surgery. It takes work like the work we do in Truth With Food to really shift how we feel about believing we need to be good instead of focusing on what feels good. But here's a great starting place. I want you to think back to when you had food ease in your life.

Ali Shapiro [00:43:08]:
Think back to a time. Was it because you were working so hard and were so disciplined in your life? Or was it when you had the most fulfillment or some level of fulfillment? For most of my clients, they found that this foodie was, at times, they felt the most belonging to themselves, their values, and what holistically nourished them. For one client, it was after having 3 babies and really learning what family could be. For another, it was living abroad in London and being surrounded by beauty and studying fascinating subjects and always having adventures. While they all look different, they all find it's usually a time when life, sure, had some discipline in it, and it had ease that nourished them. I hope your answers plant some seeds that valuing our health is so much bigger and expansive than hard work, disciplining your weight. And this can support you on your journey to self author your body story and be kinder and more tolerant to yourself and others with their body choices. I hope you enjoyed today's episodes and expanded your thinking.

Ali Shapiro [00:44:13]:
If you have any questions or comments, call in our new insatiable number, 412-475-8006. Again, that's 412-475-8006. And if you like this episode, please share it with a friend or two to start this important conversation. And as always, I would really appreciate a review on whatever platform you listen to podcasts. It matters so much to the success of this show, more than you'll ever know. And don't forget to come back for another episode in 2 weeks. Thanks for listening.