Body Image (Gen X vs. Z)

This one's a mashup of everything. Marit and Sonja dig into body image across two generations, what's changed, what hasn't, and where the pressure actually comes from. They also get real about divorce and its impacts.

Plus: a round of Word Up, the rapid-fire word game where generational gaps get exposed fast, and Sonja gets quizzed on a Gen X game she's never heard of. Spoiler: it does not go well for her.

Heads up: we swear sometimes. Real talk between a mom and her teenage daughter doesn't always come out G-rated.

Transcript

Body Image (Gen X vs. Z)

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi everyone, welcome to Youth is Wasted. On the young. I'm Marit the Mom. And I'm Sonia, the daughter. Here we talk about everything: periods of menopause, acne and wrinkles, sex or lack thereof, friendship, divorce, dating, and whatever else we two young women, just 37 years apart, refuse to shut up

Double D: Body Image

SPEAKER_00 0:25

about. Alrighty. For our first segment today, double D dialogue and discussion. And our topic is a heavy hitter of body image and body image issues. Mart, would you like to get us started?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Oh gosh, this is a hard one. It's very complex and I'm sure changes a bit with your generation, so I'm just gonna talk about mine. I'm gonna talk about my childhood, my body image issues that I still have. I think we as women it never goes away. I come from the generation, the best generation, Gen X, but supermodels were introduced in my young years. It was the group of what Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington, Kate Moss, all of the very thin, beautiful, sometimes Kirby, but mostly very thin supermodels. That was tough. That was before we realized that there was images that were being corrected or erased, refined. And I think we, as my generation, especially of girls, would sit and watch TV, but also teen magazines. It was really jarring and emotional to look in the mirror and think how fat we were. How many inches can you pinch? Slim fast and all these fat diets. I do remember in grade school my mom lifting her thigh up, and she was skinny money, she was always max a size four, and uh showing me fat on her thighs and saying, Ugh, I need to get rid of this. And I just thought, wow, you're fat, you look so skinny. What's fat then? And I remember a friend of mine said, Look at how wide my thighs are when I sit down, and she was so cut and so buff, and I just thought, oh my god, if if you think your thighs are fat, mine must be horrific to look at. So definitely had a lot of body shaming. Bulimia came front of mind. I have a friend from church that died of anorexia late in high school, Karen Carpenter, dying of anorexia. I can't imagine that any girl, namely in the 70s and 80s, was not scathed by body image. Though I have to say I'm gonna speak specifically about me, I'm gonna be really vulnerable. I grew up with vitiligo, I still have it, for those of you who don't know what that is, that's white patches on your skin. And I was more ashamed of embarrassed, I would say. There was nothing shameful because there was nothing I could do about it, but I really had a hard time having vitiligo on my body, and it was so noticeable when I was a kid, especially in grade school. And I would pull up my socks really high above my knees, and I would try to cover everything I could, even in the heat of the summer. That was really hard on me, and there's a million things I could say about how it could have been addressed differently at home. But that was more shameful for me of my body and the image that I had of me than being fat. But I do recall, this is really gonna blow your mind, Sonia. But I do recall bargaining with myself when you blow out your candles and make a wish every year for your birthday. And I always used to wish, dear God, will you please make my Vitiligo go away? But then I'd start bargaining with myself, thinking, well, I can't be skinny and not have Vitiligo, so which would I offer up? Would I be thin and have Vitiligo, or would I have Vitiligo and be fat? Because I knew I couldn't have both. And this played tricks on my mind. Oh my god, probably up until I got married, to be honest. So body image for me was a little bit different. Yes, fat. I still look at myself and think, okay, now my my boobs are long, I call them my 36 longs. Gravity is not kind, but I have to say everything's just falling off of me now. I want you to really dive into this, but I applaud your generation because I do look at girls your age and they will wear anything that we would not have had the courage to do in the 70s and 80s. So I'm tossing it back at you. Here's your curveball, girl.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah, I mean, I think you said a lot of good stuff, and I have a lot of a lot of comments. I think first thing that came to mind is your Vidalago. It to me, it doesn't even register, it's just a part of who you are. But I think it's interesting to me how you view it because one, I'm your kid, so it's always been just there. And I think that the fact that it was so hard for you because you had no representation when you're young really sucks. Because you know about Winnie Harlow, yeah, supermodel. Yeah. Her claim to fame is her vital largo. I prayed for Winnie Harlow. She, I think, is such an inspiration to so many young girls, especially who have Vidal Argo. And hers is very noticeable because she's black.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Right. And I'm a white chick, so I feel like I shouldn't complain.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

But I mean, it's the same thing. We all we all have different things that hurt us. But also talking about eating disorders is so prevalent. What is the saying? Nothing tastes better than skinny feels. That blows my mind. I'm a foodie. I love food, you know, and I love to have good food. And that's I I mean, I would almost call it a hobby. It's a great joy of my life. And the fact that people would rather have that skinny, tiny anorexic body, and instead of enjoying life, like it just I understand it, but it also just makes me so angry that that's what society has normalized, especially on young girls. And then as you were talking about getting older and the wrinkles and the cellulite and the stretch marks, I think that it's all a sign of a life well lived. And the fact that society shames us for aging and smile lines and wrinkles, I think it's all bullshit. I think we should always embrace and love our bodies, and it's easy to say it. It's so much harder to actually do it. And I think people my age are a lot more accepting, but there's still that stigma around small, petite, being a size zero, two. It's just it's a hard world.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah, I'd love to hear what men's perspective, different various age of men's perspective is on weight and and body image of women, because I think that we are our worst enemies, we as women. Yeah, I don't think men probably care as much. And I also find it interesting when you're in a relationship, the happier you are in a relationship, the less you care about what your body looks like because you kind of lean into the enjoyment of food again.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

And that's what they say, dating makes you fat. Happy.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yeah. Fat is happy. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm really proud of your generation. I look around again, I've said this to you guys so many times. I love that you walk with such pride in what you're wearing and wear anything. I mean, it's amazing. Show it off, you got it. And the other thing that kills me about my generation, especially back in the mid to late 80s, we had most of us, that was probably the best shape we ever were in our lives. And we wore these huge sweatshirts and big baggy jeans, which it's kills me that you guys are doing that again now, but whatever. All this style of cyclical. But I really I just think god, if I would have just shown what I had in high school, I hit it with these huge champion sweatshirts and big baggy zipped up jeans. That's kind of wild.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Jingos, yeah. Yeah. Another thing I think that you talked about earlier, I think people are becoming more transparent with editing and filters and plastic surgery and Botox and all of the nine yards that people will spend money on to look better for social media. And it's two sides of the coin because you have these rich influencers, supermodels, celebrities that are getting liposuction, lip filler, tanning. They're doing everything to look their best, and then the filters, the editing, whatnot, it makes the beauty standard so unrealistic unless you have millions of dollars, right? So it's pushing the finish line away from young girls, and they don't see that realistic body type. But then there's also the other side of the coin where people are being transparent about the work they've had done or the fact that, yeah, I always have a beauty filter on. It's a part of social media nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Oh, I agree with you completely. I could care less what people do to themselves. If you feel better, go and do anything that you have available to you. Get a group on and go and try Botox. I could give a shit. Whatever makes you feel better. I have a skinny mirror, right? I walk out the door, I'm like, oh my god, I look amazing. I probably don't, but my mirror tells me I do, and therefore in my head, I look phenomenal. I could care less what anybody does. How do you feel? And I'd love to ask men too, but how do you feel about all the enhanced lips?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

I mean, I think do whatever, your body your choice, do whatever you want. Aesthetically, it's not my favorite, and I think it's a little bit of a slap in the face to black people being made fun of for their big lips, and yet all of these white, mainly white girls coming in and getting insane lip filler. Oh my gosh, look at my big lips. And yet that was something to be ashamed when it comes to black people.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

It is interesting that you bring that up. I love that you brought that up. Here, people, I'm just gonna say the general word people, I'm lumping society into one big sack of shit. But we look at brown skin being beautiful, want more of the Roman nose, want big lips, but you don't want big black lips. Everything is just so sad. Look at what Michael Jackson did. By the way, he had vitiligo, but he had all body vitiligo. But what he did to his beautiful black face was to look more and more white as far as his nose and his cheekbones and his jawline. And it's just sad to me because I think we're all so beautiful, but we're all trying to become the same version of each other. Um, and that's I think we need to differentiate who we are and stand up, shoulders back, tits out, walk proudly. But that's a really hard thing to own. And I think that comes hopefully with age, but self-confidence, self-advocacy, it's rough out there for any age. But I have to say, your generation, you Gen Zs, I think are better than we were at Gen X's. We might have had a drink out of the garden hose and nobody gave a shit where we were, and at 10 p.m. an announcement truly would come out. It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your kids are? But with the fact that life was more lenient for us, we weren't bubble wrapped like you guys are. We also were led to our own devices as far as body shaming, body image, trying to keep up. We didn't talk about it. Mental health was not discussed.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

That is something that I think has really improved is the talk about mental health and the talk about the mental health problems that come along with body image, and that's definitely bettered with time. But I also think it's gotten worse in a way because it's in your face all the time with social media. There's always some new fad, some new diet, some new exercise tool, some new form of liposuction, or what about the Ozempic craze? That has blown up with the improvement in technology, and I think that's worsened a lot of people's relationship with food and people's relationship with their body and how they look in the mirror. It's changed so much. I think self-confidence has been encouraged more, but I think that the atmosphere in which people are raised, boys and girls, it's not just a female issue for sure. That environment has worsened.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I'd like to give a big plug to Noah Khan. If you have not seen his documentary, it is a must-see. He talks about body dysmorphia and how prevalent it is in males, and it's so true. Let's not overlook the fact that boys deal with this all the time, and lack of athleticism and all this sitting behind computers probably adds on to it too. But I agree with you on social media, there's so much miss and disinformation out there about diets. Remember that crazy amount of water people are drinking and I'd yeah, it really is alarming, and it's it's terrifying, quite frankly, the amount of information that's out there that is incorrect. Okay, so anything else you want to add before we move on? I mean, I feel like we could talk about this for hours, so I think we could. I would love to

Word Up: Divorce

SPEAKER_01 12:59

actually bring in one of your cousins or your brother talking about body image as males, so maybe we can do that another time. Okay, let's move on, Sonia, to our second segment.

Word Up: Divorce

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Let's do word up and then I'm gonna ask you something and see if you know what I'm talking about. Okay, word up. I'm gonna say a word. You don't know what it is. You think about it for a hot second and then tell me what comes to mind. Yeah, I'm sure you have an hour or three to talk about this word, but just try to keep it brief. The word is divorce.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Divorce. Um, 50% of marriages end in divorce. I think it's common for a lot of people to experience. I like to joke that I'm a child of divorce just because it sounds so corny. I think it sucks, but it's a reality a lot of people face. I think that when your parents get divorced, it definitely impacts your development. Impacts the way you see relationships in life and how you visually have come to understand what intimacy and love means. I think it impacts a lot of things. It's hard, but it's at this point in the modern era. I think it's a part of a lot of people's lives. It creates struggle, but it also creates character just like everything does. Every experience we have.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Good answer, girl. My parents were divorced, your parents are divorced. Nobody goes into a marriage.

Gen X Memories: MASH

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Not that I've ever heard of goes into a marriage expecting to get divorced. Um, it's rough. It is rough for all parties. Okay, let's get to something more fun, Sonia.

Gen X Memories: MASH

SPEAKER_01 14:39

I'm gonna ask you about something. I'm gonna say a word. Or an event, I guess I should say, from my childhood and see if you know what the heck I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

When I say the word mash, M-A-S-H, what comes to mind?

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Mash potatoes. Um mash. Like the monster mash.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Okay, all right, so wrong, wrong, wrong. So mash for us, for my generation, especially the girls, I don't think the boys played this game. Mash, M-A-S-H, Mansion Apartment, Shack House. So, what we would do is we take a piece of paper and we would write out M-A-S-H, and then we would write out the next category: husband, and there would be four spots. Job, four spots, car, four spots, kids, four spots. So this is what it would be. The mash is already pre-written. Husband, you would name four boys, because God, nobody was gay. So you would you would write down four boys that you liked, and then you would write four jobs or careers that you wanted, then you would write four types of cars that you wanted, and then you would write numbers for kids, how many kids you wanted. Okay, it could be one, it could be 25, whatever. So then once you've written all this down, your friends asking you, jotting it down on a piece of paper, then you say start, and you start with your pen doing big circles, and when the person says stop, you see how many rings of that circle it was. Then you go through the mash, you count. So let's say I stop at three. Okay, let's say that my circle, follow with me. It's hard. I'll have to physically show this to you, but anybody in my generation totally knows what I'm talking about. Then you would go one, two, three, M-A-S, cross out, and you go through the whole list and you cross out three until you get to one type of living. So it's either mansion, apartment, shack, or house, and you'd come up with one boy's name, one job, one car, and one amount of kids, and that was your life. It was basically your horoscope. Yeah, crazy. So instead of texting each other and passing along reels, we would play actual games with a physical piece of paper and pen, and it was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

That's yeah, that's something special. I feel like we had something along the lines of that, but probably digital. Yeah. No, we used to do it. It was like it's like the dumb little nursery rhymes, and then it's sitting in a cheek. Yes, I and G.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Sonya in the baby carriage, sucking her bottle, wetting her pants. Trying to do the hula dance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

I didn't know that's how that ended. That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

So much has died. Okay, do you have anything you want to ask me to see if I know?

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Oh my gosh. I don't

Chilled Reds & Outro

SPEAKER_00 17:23

know.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I mean, I'm really very with it at the end.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah, you're very woke. You're very in the know. Um you put me on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

I don't know.

Chilled Reds & Outro

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Okay, I want to share something funny that a bartender said the other day when I was ordering wine with a friend. I said, How's your chilled red? I'm kind of into chilled red these days. And he looked at me and he goes, Well, I don't know. Do you like capri-suns with alcohol? And I was like, dude, that is so good.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Alcoholic juice.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

I said, That's so good. Come on, there's a lot of really good chilled reds now. It's kind of like orange wine was really cool a couple years ago, and he just rolled his eyes.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah. Do you know about like buzz balls and beatboxes and stuff?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, trash. Yeah. Gross. It's all hangover. So for us, it was Jaegermeister Schatz.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Jaeger's coming back.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

It used to be on tap down the street and Underback. And then Bartles and James cool wine coolers. It was like straight up sugar gross. We got those in a four-pack bottle. And then boxed wine is boxed wine underrated. Boxed wine is amazing, especially somebody on a budget. I mean, I like my wine in Trader Joe's box mine, it's pretty good. I would call myself a wine connoisseur. God, this is not even her 18th birthday yet. Okay, anything else, Sonia, before we bid adieu to y and y and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Oh, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Okay, well, I am really happy that we got to do this again. I hope that we've improved a bit. I don't know, it got a little deep and dark for a second.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, depressing.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Was it? Okay. Well, anyway, thank you all for joining us for Youth Is Wasted on the Young. Hope to see you again. Share, subscribe, tell a friend, smash that like button. Is that what they say?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Okay. You don't listen to podcasts, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

That's YouTube. I love YouTube. Adios.