Challenging anti-fatness - self-acceptance and workplace change with Sophia Apostol

Sophia Apostol: 0:00

People are so worried about getting it wrong. They don't do anything, for example, in the workplace or in conversations, like this whole idea of discomfort versus harm, are we willing to let our own discomfort harm someone else know our job and I'm a privileged white woman. My job is to be in the discomfort and do the anti racism work and mess it up a whole lot. If I'm talking to someone who is straight size, who is not fat, their job is to be in the discomfort of that is to advocate for me at a restaurant for a chair that will fit my hips for a booth that will fit my body like they have to be in the discomfort of that that's their work as the person who is not being harmed by the oppression that I am harmed by. So I've become pretty militant about some of this stuff. I'm like, No, it's your job.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 0:59

Hello, and welcome to unset at work I'm your host, Catherine Stagg Macy, I'm Executive and team coach interested in the conversations that we don't have at work in this week's and said topic might surprise you. It's about anti fat bias in the workplace. The research shows that wage discrimination shows up all the time, like being overlooked for a job being paid less than straight size colleagues. And I was really surprised by the stats. Fat discrimination seems to be one of the last of socially acceptable forms of injustice, both in how we live our lives, but also in the work in the workplace. So to explore body self acceptance, and the concept of body positivity, and really the harmful impact of fat stigma in the workplace. I have invited my guest, Sophia Postel. On and Sophia is a professionally certified coach. And she specializes in leadership coaching in business, but she's also a fat activist who created and host the podcasts of fat joy with Sofia Apostel. And that's how I came across her interest is in the intersection of anti fat bias and workplace culture. She's both experienced this and witnessed the deep harm caused by die culture norms when adopted by the workplace. She uses storytelling to share stories of marginalized identities, because she wants to create empathy and just to further increase representation and a sense of deepening belonging. I came across the fears podcast in very early part of this year when I started my own journey around fat liberation and body acceptance. And I had through this visceral reaction against body positivity movement, how it sort of showed up on social media, we did touch on that. It wasn't me I couldn't relate to but when I found severes podcast, it really opened up a whole new perspective. And I learned a lot about my own internalized fat biases, and just introduced me to a whole new movement around anti fat activism and I'm so grateful for her work her energy and enthusiasm on this topic and her commitment to it. So this is the first part of the interview with Sophia where she she shares her own personal journey into self acceptance right from her she used to hate her body and feel pressured to society's beauty standards to a place of acceptance. And now we delve into the moment where Sofia discovered social justice and anti oppression and realize the harm being caused by wellness initiatives and workplace policies. They're ready for just perpetuate fat bias. This is a grownup episode on grownup topics, and include swearing, because both get quite activated by the topic. So you know, listen with caution, be aware of who else might be around if you're not listening to studio headphones. And with that, let's go and listen in to this week's podcast with my guests Sofia. Sofia Welcome to unset at work this is a conversation I have been dying to have.

Sophia Apostol: 3:53

Yay. I'm so happy to be here. Catherine Thank you.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 3:56

You're in my is weekly with your wonderful podcast. I feel like you and I like besties

Sophia Apostol: 4:02

we are telling me are absolutely

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:04

my ears for so long. We got to know each other right?

Sophia Apostol: 4:08

It's true. I feel like that about when I listen to other people's podcast. Yeah, like don't they know we're best friends like Yeah,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:13

it's like, you know, I completely think the same. It's like of course.

Sophia Apostol: 4:19

I love that about podcasts.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:21

And your podcast, perfect joy, which is it was a wonderful conversation. It's a wonderful mix. I have a laugh with you at the end. Sometimes you're like, Oh, I forgot to bring the joy in the your file is about joyed

Sophia Apostol: 4:34

I was so filled with anger that I was like I should create a podcast about joy and then I forget about joy. Like Oh, yeah.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:43

What what started you on the journey to fat activism, if that's a term that you're using and to create a bit podcast?

Sophia Apostol: 4:49

Yeah. Oh, it wasn't journey. It was a long journey. I have always been bigger, I guess. I mean, now I use the word fat. I would never have you The word fat before. And like for many people, I look back at pictures of myself as a teen. And when I felt huge and was often made to feel very fat, although they used words like lip Jewess or Pleasantly plump or all these other euphemisms for living in a bigger body or bigger than with at the time, people would say bigger than like a normal body or an average body. And we know that's actually not true. But I just really hated my body for decades and decades and didn't know that I actually could choose to not hate my body is one of those things that we're just surrounded by in our culture. And I know we're gonna get into this. I didn't know there was another way to be. And then about 2014. So actually, about 10 years ago, I started my coach training, which like many things, when you are getting training on something, you also have to go through it yourself. Well, I also did a year long, really intensive Leadership Development Program. So both of those things together, opened my heart, my mind my soul, really up to what was the beginnings of learning about social justice and anti oppression and the structures that our society has created to keep us controlled? And I had no idea so I would say from that point about 10 years ago, until now, it's been step by step starting to learn. Oh, hang on. My body isn't wrong and it kind of started with body positivity. That idea. I ran across people like Virgie Tovar, Lindy West, Jess Baker, who had written books, like you have the right to remain fat what no one tells fat girls Lindsey's book is shrill, which of course, it's been made to an amazing TV series, if you haven't watched everyone should. And it was about this permission to actually be okay with being fat and not spend our lives because that's, I mean, I had an eating disorder from around 10 that I didn't know was it eating disorder, I didn't know. That's what it should be called. Until again, about this point, I'm like, Oh, I have an eating disorder that I need treatment for, oh, I don't have to spend my time doing calorie math in my head. Oh, I don't have to spend every moment calculating how many calories I've burned on this run, swim or walk and therefore I don't have to weigh myself four times a day, especially weighing myself after I've like starved myself and exercised and then that's the way for the day. And then I can be happy with myself or mad at myself. Like if you actually think about how much time we spend obsessing fully about the size of our bodies and up a pound down a pound whatever. I just really didn't know there was another way to be so when that door was opened, it was like, whoa, what? What I don't have to do that. I mean, it was so shocking to me. It was so shocking was like the sky is blue. Wait, what? It's purple. Like it was just totally took my feet out from under me. And then I have a rebellious streak, which anyone who listens to my podcast knows. And I was like, Well fuck this shit then. And I was like, what else do I not know?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 8:21

Okay, tell me everything now. Yeah,

Sophia Apostol: 8:25

exactly. Like, let's just pull back the curtains rip them down. What else Don't I know. So body positivity turned in to fat liberation, which I feel like fat liberation, for me was the next step as it is for a lot of people because it was about looking at, first of all, reclaiming the word fat and owning it as a neutral descriptor. And being okay with it. Because before if anyone said the word fat, I would run away crying, I have slammed a lot of doors in my life. After the word fat, runs my room slammed the door in tears and tears of shame. You know, like that hot shame feeling. Brene Brown describes so well in her research. Oh, like I can just I can think of so many moments where that physical activated response showed up and I kind of lived in a shame cycle was trying to avoid it but then experiencing it from a look from someone else or a comment. So basically embracing the word fat. And then the liberation part is really connected into the wider world of anti oppression work, which is what are the systemic barriers that and at this point was all about me. But what is this topic barriers that I personally have faced the discrimination, the weight stigma that I've experienced, because of my size, aka size ism, or anti fat bias, right? There's a lot of words for this. When I started exploring that, I was like, oh, okay, that I feel like for me, that's when I became what I would call like a fat liberationist. I was like firmly in the camp of fat liberation because Because I want to change this fucked up system. That's really then when I started the podcast, I would say that's when I started about halfway through the podcast actually pretty recently, I have started to call myself a fat activist because I have received feedback from people that because my podcast is all about bringing on as guests, other fat people who are doing really cool stuff in the world and talking about it, the joys and the challenges of it, lots of challenges, little bit joy. And what I hear from people, I felt like I could use the word activist because it feels like a very big word. And I'm still a little scared to use it, but because the stories that people were hearing from my guests on the podcast, started to have ripple effects, like a school librarian, who wrote me saying, Hey, I've been listening to your podcast, and I've been reading the books in our school for anti trans sentiment, anything that is negative about queer and gay people, or LGBTQ, and all these other kind of Oh, racism, of course, any kind of anti disability, anti neurodivergent, so any of those oppression she goes, but I hadn't on my checklist. There was nothing for body size. So I have added it. I have weeded a bunch of books, and now I'm buying new ones that are fat positive, and I'm like, Yeah, okay, so some changes being made. I'm just doing the activist that works. Okay, that's so I still struggle with that word a bit. But when change starts to happen, I felt like, Okay, I'm kind of, I guess, this vehicle, this podcast that I host and it's having a bigger impact. And I don't think anything feels better than that to me. Oh, God, no. Yeah. I cried. I got that email. I cried, sobbed. I was like, Oh, it was I could cry right now thinking about it.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 11:53

Yeah, that's beautiful. And I, I've heard words like body positive and fat liberation, and you using them to mean different things in the podcast, but I hadn't quite landed on the difference. And I hear that now. Yeah. And it's the latter being more on the systems of oppression. It's so interesting.

Sophia Apostol: 12:10

And, and it's it. Again, nothing is clear around. I mean, we're just very powerful. And there's lots of different ways to use it. Like one of the fat activists that I admire the most is Virgie Tovar. And she really uses body positivity. And when I interviewed her, I actually we talked about that. And the word I think, and again, there's so much depth to this. But body positivity as a movement was actually it was part of like the founding of the anti fat bias movement. It's been around for decades, this term. The reason I shy a little bit away from body positivity as a term is that and I, first of all, again, I'm just rebellious, I love using word fat, and I love shocking people. So that's just kind of my personal potential. But the term body positivity, and this might be starting to shift, I'm not sure but for the last like 10 years or so, it really has been co opted by mostly straight size or non fat white influencers to basically mean take more bubble baths, it kind of lost the teeth, the strength behind it, of having a systemic impact. The only way anti fat bias is going to change is with systemic change. And so I quite frankly got really turned off of the term body positivity. We're starting to I don't know there might be a shift these things like their waves they kind of come and go but that's why for me personally and other people feel differently so this is where we get to send a rider

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:34

our own homework Yeah, but yeah, we're distinct to this with a new with new is. I think I've seen body positivity used and it is on for me it's Instagram. Straight size person going. I know you're brave and we're a bikini today. sighs a look at me and you're like, oh, fuck off. You're not reclaiming anything. I mean, it's a party origin except yourself. That's great, but it's not a hit. This is we're talking about something very different and much more systemic.

Sophia Apostol: 14:01

Right. I had some really I do a lot of anti oppression training through different organizations I work with and like as an I've received them. I don't give that mean, it sounds like I give lots of training. No, I am still deeply learning by a really brilliant anti oppression activist named Rania Al Mukhtar Omar and Rania, we had a great conversation with the group I was doing training with around this idea of discomfort versus harm. So a size a putting on a bikini and going up to the beach and saying, Wow, I'm just gonna like really feel the vulnerability. I'm going to be courageous. I'm gonna wear my bikini. Even though I've got a little bit of cellulite on my bum. Yay, me. Okay. That's wonderful. That is her dealing with discomfort. But me or a fat person going to a doctor and being told no, you can't have this surgery. That's harm. And so there's a distinction there that I think is important. The tricky piece with anti fat bias that Just perpetuated by diet culture, which is all about setting up, basically, ethically and morally superior sentiment around the thinner and whiter you are you talk about that to the racism piece that will come in diet, culture harms everybody. This is the problem. So the size eight wearing a bikini has been harmed by diet culture because they feel because they have a little cellulite on their bum. They shouldn't because they don't look like the size double zero models. Right? Ideal whoever gets to define that, quote unquote, yeah, PDA deal. And it also harms the fat person who wants to be in the bikini too. So sure, but there's a difference between discomfort and actual, like, harm, like we're going to talk. Yeah, medical care, discrimination at work. Not getting the same salary as a thinner person. Yeah. being targeted by employers being fired by employers for gaining a little bit of weight. Yeah. So it's,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:03

there's a difference there. Yeah, it's really helpful distinction, I think. Yeah. And I want to amplify your thread or your story about realizing the sky is purple and not blue. You know, what do you mean? I mean, I get that there are alternatives. Your body of work has helped me come to the same place of a human I can genuinely be okay. I get to choose that I'm okay in the size that I am. Like a man 52 I'm like, what?

Sophia Apostol: 16:33

I always wondered, man, because I talk to like 16 year olds who are fat liberationists. I'm like, God, who figured this out at 16 That could be running the world, Catherine

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:45

them, right. And that sense of the heaviness and trying to fit in Tyler thinking I don't fit in it for different reasons other than how I look. It's exhausting. It's exhausting trying to fit up to some ideal that you don't fit into. Yeah, and you touched on something that I think it's a useful grounding work before we talk about fasting at work, which is this intersection of the anti fatness stigma is rooted in racism. Yeah, that was you open the door for me. I'm like, what the actual Talk Talk to us about that.

Sophia Apostol: 17:22

Yeah. This devastated Oh, I again. Oh, I'm feeling really, this is 9am For me, and apparently, I'm just going to cry a lot. It's so emotional. You're

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 17:30

welcome in this. Yeah, it is.

Sophia Apostol: 17:33

Yeah, yes. Yeah. So basically, there's if you want to know more about this, anyone listening, there's there are two excellent books, I recommend the Belly of the Beast by Deshaun. Harrison and Sabrina strings, his book that's called fearing, fearing the black body fearing the black body. Yeah, those are kind of the two seminal works in this area. Basically, the Coles notes of it is the early European colonizers who were bringing enslaved people to North America wanted to differentiate themselves both morally and ethically as superior to the mostly black people. They were enslaving. They wanted to set up an us versus them, you know, basically, we are not them. It's very interesting. People talk about this in terms of it's unnecessary tactic to dehumanize people so that you can treat them really horribly, because if they were human to you, you couldn't treat them that way. So there's, I mean, this is, it's so deep, it's so horrible. And so as this was very much devised, by the way, this is not accidental. If this was like planned, body size, and skin color were easy ways to create that us versus them that distinction. So this is where the quote unquote beauty ideal comes from this beauty ideal that is still with us today. This idea that the thinner you are, the wider you are, the better you are of a human. So it's insidious. And this is what we're still reckoning with everywhere.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:09

I mean, I was skimming through the book this morning in prep for the school. The fear in the black body is Sabrina's strings. It's the morality aspect of this that it's so striking that Europeans go to Africa and right back about these overly sexualized native they've got the writing isn't the stored centuries later. Like there's a real disregard and and a looking down on and we don't want to become that. Yes. Because that's less than one that becomes

Sophia Apostol: 19:37

this purity culture that's embedded in North American society. Where and I imagine English society as well.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:45

Exported us Yeah. I mean, I'm so African, but I'm really Yeah, I can. Yeah, thanks. We exploited it. Yeah. Yeah.

Sophia Apostol: 19:56

I mean, I'm not to get too off on a tangent but we can See the threads of this really still showing up with like Planned Parenthood being shut down? Women's and people with uteruses right to abortions being taken away. The control of people's bodies is what we're talking about rooted in racism and then die culture perpetuates it because diet culture says this, again, the smaller you are, the better you are, the more worthy you are, the more likely you will be. And the diet culture industry is estimated conservatively at about $90 billion, which is ridiculous $90 billion to present people with options for intentional weight loss, everything from bariatric surgeries to medications, like ozempic is the most popular one right now. To try this South Beach diet or whatever gyms. I mean, it's just it's huge.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 20:52

It does raise this point, what hope do we have of getting out here alive and

Sophia Apostol: 20:57

myself every morning? How do we get why? What is this world?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 21:03

Oh, my God, you're not talking about how we bought into all that like we had? I mean, are we surprised? Okay, of course not. Like if that's if it's a $90 billion industry. We can't You can't have somebody homelessness and you can't win against that.

Sophia Apostol: 21:17

No, I know. No, I'm hopeless cotton the 97% of the time.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 21:21

Yeah. Like, like, like, all systems are raging. The decks are stacked against you. Yeah.

Sophia Apostol: 21:27

Yeah. And I mean, and this is true with all the oppressions, right? Racism, anti trans sentiment, homophobia. Yeah. Like, I mean, disabled people who can't access public buildings. I mean, like, it's just it's so half the time I'm like, Am I an anarchist? Do I believe we should just burn it all down? Or do I believe that there are bits of hope because I get emails where a school library is being changed for the better. I oscillate back and forth, I would say it's 5050. On any given day, whether I want to light a match, or whether I want to make another podcast episode

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:04

is a environment. Joanna Macy, she talks about something called she calls it act of hope. She's actually you know, from an environment perspective, she's she's pessimistic. But her point was, you can choose hope as a choice. I agree with that. But I think that's what I'm hearing in you as activists sucks, and I'm still going to choose to do this. It's my way of

Sophia Apostol: 22:28

showing up. I'm the kind of person I'm a doer, to my detriment sometimes, but I get great solace by just doing something about it. I'm not a great thinker, but I'm a doer. So I always feel like I use this analogy cuz I feel this in my body. I'm like an arrow that's like knocked and ready to just go and I'm like, putting me somewhere, let me go. Because that energy is what I live with. I think just kind of who I am, who I've always been, if I don't do anything, that's when I can really get into depression and apathy. And it just is not good for my mental health, whether I'm going to make a difference or not. I don't know. But I also kind of feel like that's not the point anymore. It's just to do as much as I'd like, I heard Glennon Doyle talked about this on her, we can do hard things, podcasts, which I love, which is like, I'm just gonna keep my side of the street clean. I'm gonna do my best. And if we all kind of do that, maybe it'll shift. I don't know. Is it too late with the climate crisis? I don't know, gathering. But I don't know. But I'm gonna think, an act of hope.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 23:37

Act of hope. Yeah. I mean, part of leadership is showing up and doing what you can do, right? I mean, that's the right thing that contributes to something bigger than you.

Sophia Apostol: 23:46

It's so true. I mean, I like as my kind of bread and butter is as a leadership coach. And this is what I talk to leaders all day about. It's like, Oh, my God, my company decided to reorg again, after six months, and now I have a totally different team. And everyone's confused. And I don't even know who my new boss is. Like, there's just always or the economy is shit, and we're having to lay people off and you're right, it really is this ability to, I guess we use words like resilience and being able to pivot. But I think it goes deeper to I think there's the one thing that I'm always working on and I even hate this word saying it this idea of surrender this idea of like, what can I do? And what do I need to let go of? I feel like that's my daily question. And often my question to leaders as well it's like okay, great. Let's write a list of what you I literally did yesterday with a client like a list on one side of what is yours here a list on the other side of what this person you're very frustrated with? What's theirs, and then I said okay, so go over to their list and put a star beside the ones that you're actually actively trying to do and she starts laughing because I'm trying to do all of them. I was like, Alright, so let's think about that a little. Right. So I think

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:56

my channel in the world of social justice, my discomfort With do what you can do, it's what systems of oppression want you to do. Yes, it's playing your corner. Yeah, color between the lines, because that's how it perpetuates. So I, there's no right answer here. And there's a healthy aspect of like, what's in your zone of control and like, focus on that unless you want to run yourself into the ground, I get that. And part of me is like, that's what they want.

Sophia Apostol: 25:19

Yeah, the systems of oppression want us to stay within the lines. I agree. I think for me, the whole surrender piece on what I can control and can control is underpinned by what can I rebel against? And what like, Where can I make a difference? And where can't i? So I can make a rebellious podcast that like, hopefully changes a few hearts and minds. But what I can't do on my own is completely change diet culture with a magic wand, like I would like to, I find I'm the kind of person that gets really stressed about not being able to do all the things. Yes, the hard thing is to figure out, okay, well, I do believe this is wrong, where can I impact and have influence in a way that I want to, I also have to let go that I can't change that culture overnight. Again, that Rania Alma Gummer training, she said something so brilliant. She said, we've been getting it wrong for hundreds of yours. So we're going to do our best we're going to rebel. We're going to like this was a talk around transformative justice. If we keep trying, and we even just screwed up as we go for the next 50 years, that's still better than what's been happening for hundreds of years. So I've now taken on the I'm gonna screw this up for 50 years, but that's okay. I'm just gonna keep on track and keep on trying.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 26:35

Yeah, but I think perfection is part of sort of patriarchy and capitalism as well. Right. 100% Oh, my God. Perfect, then don't do it. Then don't do it. No, we're gonna do it imperfectly.

Sophia Apostol: 26:46

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And that's I think that's really important. Just I just want to underscore that for a second Catherine, because this is what certainly stopped me in my early anti oppression journey. I literally am so embarrassed. I literally said in my one of my first NCO trainings was okay, so I'm really worried about messing it up. If I say something like if I do a micro aggression, or if I say something that comes across as racist to someone else. So could you please give me the five step process that I need to do to not be be racist anymore? Oh, my God. Like, that was literally all these oppressive systems talking through me. I want to get it right. I don't want to screwed up. Could you please use your colonial education principle? To give me five

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 27:30

steps? Yeah, let's take care of the fragile white woman and Mokona.

Sophia Apostol: 27:35

fragility. It's right. And I think the same to tie back to anti fatness, this is the same thing with anti fatness, as an oppressive system, people are so worried about getting it wrong. So they don't do anything. For example, in the workplace, or in conversations, like this whole idea of discomfort versus harm, are we willing to let our own discomfort harm someone else know our job, and I'm a privileged white woman, my job is to be in the discomfort and do the anti racism work and mess it up a whole lot. If I'm talking to someone who is straight size, who is not fat, their job is to be in the discomfort of that is to advocate for me at a restaurant for a chair that will fit my hips for a booth that will fit my body like they have to be in the discomfort of that that's their work as the person who is not being harmed by the oppression that I am harmed by. So I become pretty militant about some of this stuff. I'm like, No, it's your job.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 28:41

Yeah, that's what I'm realizing part of where this pod my podcast is growing into, as I keep saying to her guests, I'm willing to be uncomfortable in this conversation for the sake of my listeners and me learning if you are willing to go on that journey with us. So we don't do harm be awkward, because I might ask the wrong question or have or ask things I don't really know anything about but I know because listeners are probably in a similar place. Like how do you do this together?

Sophia Apostol: 29:06

And you're modeling that it's okay, we can we can make messes because we can also clean them up like we can repair? Have we forgotten that? I mean, I certainly had for most of my life and now I'm just I'm like, alright, I'll sell I'll tell people look, I'm probably gonna say this wrong. Especially if I'm talking to someone else who lives in a marginalized body. I don't ever expect them to do the emotional or educational labor to correct me, but I will own okay. I think I probably said that wrong. I'm gonna go and do my own work around this. And if they want to support me in that, that's great. They can offer but that's the other thing too is not expecting people who are living in marginalized bodies, which comes with higher stress levels, greater health impacts, because your nervous system is activated all the time because you are made to feel wrong and not fully human in various situations. So we have We also have to care for people. I think there's this idea of communities of care and how do we care for people without asking them to do our own educational work? Yeah, so there's a lot to

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 30:12

this a lot to it. There was a lot of that. And let's talk about how we see you how you see auntie so fasting was showing up in the workplace.

Sophia Apostol: 30:23

Yeah, Virgie Tovar who I've mentioned has written a ton of like Forbes articles about anti fatness in the workplace, Regan Chasteen, who is a brilliant researcher and specializes on sharing information about anti fatness from medical contexts, which is also really important for workplaces, because a lot of workplaces say, oh, but it's about their health. So this whole like, Oh, you're fat, we're just concerned about your health. Rhetoric is often what shows up in are one of the big things that shows up in the workplace, this idea that if, if you're fat, you're unhealthy. And I just want to say to everyone listening, and it's okay, if you don't believe me. I was saying to Katherine, I've tried for 10 years to have my family, believe me on this. And we've got no contact at this point, because it was too harmful for me. But there is no condition, illness or disease that only affects fat people. And at the same time, it is ableist of us, which is ableism is an oppression. So it is ableist of us to believe that we owe our health to others. So there's a both and here that is really important. Health is so nuanced, way more nuanced than diet, culture and capitalism would have us believe because diet culture and capitalism will say pay me 100 bucks, and I'll make you skinny. It's bullshit. This whole calories in calories out thing is also total bullshit maintenance phase did an amazing art podcast episode on that. Go listen to it if you want to learn more about that.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 31:58

So that's yeah, record. This co host Michael are just fantastic on the space.

Sophia Apostol: 32:04

They're incredible. And it's they every episode of theirs is incredible. Everyone should subscribe immediately.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 32:09

They funny as hell, it's like you wouldn't have them the dinner party because you just they laugh the whole time. And then you end up like I'm very difficult topics. Yes, brilliant.

Sophia Apostol: 32:17

It's so informative. It is so funny. And it just like, again, if you want the curtain pulled back on a lot of stuff you believe is true, like 10,000 steps a day, told me that based on nothing, by the way, everyone, because companies do these like Fitbit challenges and everyone get your 10,000 steps. It means nothing. It was made up by a Japanese marketing firm just running shoes. Any of

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 32:39

these like, term, it's like kind of BMI, BMI, they are the foundation on which they live on is ot news. And yet, Thai National Healthcare systems are based on these things did like how the hell did that happen?

Sophia Apostol: 32:53

I mean, it's just astounding to me that it's still continuing. This is one of the things where I do have to surrender. I'm like, Well, I can't do anything about that specifically, but I can like talk about a bit about it, do podcasts about it. But I do want to say just to finish this thought, which is that, because I do think people don't quite get this, we are largely not in control of our health. And this is really hard for us because humans like to believe we can control everything. But we are largely not in control of our health. There are over 220 determinants of health things like genetics, access to food stress levels, lived to trauma, past trauma, do you live in a marginalized body or not? Do you live in a fat body? Are you bipoc, black, indigenous or a person of color. And at the very most, there's an estimate that food and exercise maybe make up about 25% of what impacts our health. So when organizations and workplaces focus on health as a way of like lowering their insurance premiums, or even you being able to qualify for health insurance in your workplace, it's so fucked up. We also know that intentional weight loss fails 95 to 90% of the time. So you put these things together and the fact that it's based on the BMI which is the body mass index that is used, which Oh my God, you have to listen to the mainspace episode. BMI because basically, it was created by like someone in a Scandinavian country, some researcher I forget his name. It's like a youlet or something to do population level statistical analysis of white Northern European men. So we have taken white, Northern European men as the what gold standard and BMI and then everyone else in the world. Women, children, people with different types of bodies get measured, their health gets measured against that quote, unquote ideal. I'm just like, This is so fucked up. What are we doing? So in workplaces, they combined all this bullshit together, you must have a certain BMI to qualify for insurance. Insurance gets based on this idea of if you're fat, you're unhealthy, which is also not true, and like, and then they thrown things like walk 10,000 steps a day. And all of these things kind of coalesce into having fat people in the workplace feel deeply demoralized, deeply pointed out, deeply stress.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 35:30

That's it for this week's episode, I decided to break this interview into two episodes, there was just so much goodness, there's a next week, come back and we'll get into the detail at half extinguishers up in the workplace. Sofia shares some terrible stories that she's collected from people around a company wellness program and some other horrifying stories with her white chairs and uniforms and harmful and non trim conversations about diet cultures and food choices. These stories are very heartbreaking and you know, really underline the point that no fat people, human beings fat people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect just like anyone else. And in some places. We're just doing a terrible job with that. So next week, we'll also get into more detail about how you can use your power and influence at work to include weight stigma and diversity training and to work with fat activists to spread the awareness of this form of discrimination in the workplace. Until next week, this is your wing woman signing off