Let's Talk about Fitness, the BMI and White Supremacy with Simone Samuels.

Simone Samuels, B.A. (Hons.), J.D., B.C.L. is a consultant in equity, diversity and inclusion and a weight-neutral personal trainer/group fitness instructor.  A lawyer by training and a fitness professional, she has consulted for fitness organizations in Canada, US and the UK and has delivered courses on weight stigma, fatphobia, anti-racism, allyship and anti-oppression.

Simone is a tireless advocate for making the fitness and wider world a more inclusive place.

I was SO excited to chat with Simone and knew it would be a confronting and very important conversation. She was incredibly generous with her time and I know you will very much enjoy this meaty conversation.

We chatted about:

• How white female Fitpros can actually be inclusive in the fitness space?
• The racist roots of the BMI and diet culture.  Simone recommends some must-read books for those serious about doing the work.
• According to the BMI the ROCK (Dwayne Johnson) is morbidly ob*se. It was never meant to be used at a population level.
• Overcoming fatphobia in fitness spaces.  How we can get informed.
• Finding real joy in movement in this hustle culture and untangling weight loss and exercise.
• We chat about Aqua Zumba and ask why aqua is always associated with an older demographic.

What a chat!  I was truly buzzing afterwards and cannot wait to get Simone back for part 2. 

Recommended Reading for Fitpros or anyone engaged in the fitness industry:

Sabrina Strings - Fearing the Black Body. The Racist Origins of Fatphobia
Da'Shaun L. Harrison - The Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness
Ibram X Kendi: Stamped From The Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America

If you'd like to know more about  Simone, find her on Instagram or have a look at her website, where she has lots of different options to work with her.

* Simone was the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion reviewer of the canfitpro Personal Training Specialist textbook, helping to create an inclusive curriculum for future personal trainers in Canada. She has won multiple awards and commendations in the fitness industry, the most notable one being

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.

AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

Transcript

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Christine Chessman: So welcome to another episode of the find. Your strong. Podcast I have got a very exciting surprise tonight. We've got Simone, Samuel joining us. Simone, how are you? I'm great, Christine, thanks for having me.

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Simone Samuels: I'm so excited. I get so nervous for these podcasts, especially when I'm interviewing somebody that I followed for a while, and I'm a bit of a Fan girl. I feel the same way with people. I I'd like to think I set people at ease rather rather quickly. I really in. I'm not that much larger than life. And it's an honor. It's an honor, it's honor to be on your podcast

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Simone Samuels: that you've been doing. And I love connecting with other fitness pros around the world. So this is this is great. This is such a treat for me.

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Christine Chessman: I mean it is one of the joys of, as I can say, joy. But one of the joys of Covid was that it's kind of connected us the world slightly smaller now, which is quite nice. But I wanted just I want to invite you to just delve in to your story. Cause

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Christine Chessman: reading your bio is incredible. It's you know. I don't know where to start, and I'd love you to just

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Simone Samuels: maybe describe how you got where you are now. Sure

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Christine Chessman: I could do that. Yeah.

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Simone Samuels: well, and and I'm trying. I'm gonna try to condense the story. It could be. It could be like a 15 min, you know. Party trick but II never thought I would become fitness, anything, fitness, instructor, personal trainer, anything.

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Simone Samuels: I was always or I considered myself, and I think I was seen as the fat kid at school. I was always. If I weren't larger I was taller. If I wasn't taller. I was larger, you know. I'm not a small person, genetically speaking, so I was always the tallest in the class, or always a little bit more chubbier than my my classmates. I was really good at school. I got really great grades. My lowest mark was always in gym class, and when I say low, it's not like I failed, but like I would always get a beat.

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Simone Samuels: for, like, you know, she showed up. She participated, you know, so II never really felt athletic. I don't think teachers saw any athletic ability in me. And and that's a silly point, because when I did actually make my first sports team in grade 7 I actually counted myself out of it. I thought it was a fluke

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Simone Samuels: right when I saw my name on the the roster, and they're they're like you made the team. I never showed up to practice.

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Simone Samuels: I also did show up to practice, because so it was board and ball, and when I say board involved, nobody knows what that sport is. It's not an Olympic sport. It's like it's like a mixture between

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Simone Samuels: football

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Simone Samuels: and volleyball.

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Simone Samuels: It's kind of intriguing. Oh, my goodness.

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Simone Samuels: cause there! There is a passing of the ball throwing the ball from one another to get from one side of the field to another. It's a field sport. But yeah, it's one of those things that I feel like is made up like Pickle ball, even though Pickle Ball is really po popular. Apparently.

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Simone Samuels: Yeah, I never. I never went to the the practices, but also because to be on the team. My coach wanted us also to join Cross country, and there's no way in heck. I was gonna join Cross country, you know, 70'clock in the morning before school and go to practice like I wasn't that dedicated to this team over all that to say. I really didn't see myself as athletic.

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Simone Samuels: I only started to get into athletics, athletics more more from a recreation side when I was in university.

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Simone Samuels: So when I was in undergrad, I that's when I started going to the gym, because again II have. I've always. I was always seen as larger. So my doctors have always cautioned me and my parents that she needs to lose weight. You know she's going to die immediately.

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Simone Samuels: She's way too big. So that was the the primary reason II started working out, which I think is the reason why, unfortunately, most people, especially back in the the nineties, right?

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Simone Samuels: So I did that. And then I went to law school, and it was also working out as well. Hoping to lose weight, hoping to get to a certain size only for me to realize that

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Simone Samuels: I was never getting to that size that that certain size I had in my my brain. I have poly cystic, ovarian syndrome, and Hashimoto's thyroiditis

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Simone Samuels: which both are related to to weight right with Pcos. It often causes folks to gain weight just because of the insulin resistance. Insulin is one of those hormones that's really it's like a a fat gaining hormone, if you will, if you have high insulin.

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Simone Samuels: and then with Ha! Hashimoto's thyroiditis. That's a auto immune condition. It's a precursor to hypothyroidism. So most people who hai have hypothyroidism actually have this

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Simone Samuels: Hashimoto's before, but it just it usually goes undetected undiagnosed for people like me because I'm a nerd. I do. A lot of reading brought it up to my doctor doctors. Attention, and that's how I got diagnosed. But like, unless you actually get specific blood tests. You would never know that you have for a lot of people. You would never know that you have Hashimoto's. But of course we also know that having a a low thyroid right thyroid is not working also could contribute to weight gain.

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Simone Samuels: So because of these conditions, you know, I was going to the gym as a way to offset these conditions, because I was told that weight loss is the only way forward. But of course, when you have Pcos, and if you have insulin resistant Pcos, your body is working against you like there's no calorie deficit you could ever have that will allow you to lose weight if your insulin is high. So I got to a point where I was even hired a personal trainer.

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and I was Vegan at the time, and the lowest I got with the personal trainer was 217.

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Simone Samuels: I was very quote unquote cut.

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Simone Samuels: I don't like those words. That's why, because it's like you can't sculpt a muscle. But II had the arguably the fitness look. I was still much larger than the Bmi would want me to be right. I'm 5 foot 6 inches. So, according to the Bmi, I shouldn't weigh more than 150 pounds.

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Simone Samuels: However, I remember doing a body composition, analysis. You know how you have those in body machines at the gym, and even from that it told me that of my bone and muscle alone, not even including fat. I'm 180 pounds

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Simone Samuels: a bone and muscle.

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Simone Samuels: right? So you could all. And as a woman we have to have a certain level of fat just to like to live to.

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Simone Samuels: So you could see the the discrep, this, the discrepancy for me in terms of what the Bmi was saying I should be, and what I actually am for me to get to 150 pounds I would die.

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Simone Samuels: And yet the Bmi is telling me, and doctors are basing their advice for me, based on this Bmi. And so there's a a discrepancy there like I'm not going to be healthy, getting to the way they're relying the you know, on that standard. So that's where for me, I was just like I need to unhinge, you know, weight loss from.

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Simone Samuels: you know, health, because I'm not gonna get to that size like genetically and just health wise. I just am not gonna get there, and there's nothing more I could do. All I do is eat broccoli in fact, when I gave my food log to my personal trainer, he's like, you need to eat more food right? And that's not also something that a lot of people, especially women, are not used to hearing or used to thinking I need to eat less need to eat less. But a lot of us probably need to eat more.

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Simone Samuels: But I digress at that time. At that time. That I was going on this health journey. Supposed health journey. I was in law school in Montreal, Quebec Law school, very boring, very boring, and it was my first time going away from home. So it was very lonely and cold and depressing, and and that's why I hit the gym.

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Simone Samuels: But then, going to the gym, I started to see the programs that they offered like Zumba. One day I was at an all women's gym there by me, and I saw the strobe lights, and I saw it was dark in there, and I heard music, and I'm like what the heck is going on. So I go inside, and there wasn't much people cause again. It's a very small woman's only gym.

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Simone Samuels: and I'm like this whole music. So I stayed for my first class, and I was like, this is great. This is so fun. And so I started to get hooked because I love music. I love music. I never thought of myself as a dancer, but more and more going I and going there, I realized I maybe I am actually a little bit of a dancer. And so I got. I got hooked. Now that gym close, for whatever reason it was energy, Cardio.

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Simone Samuels: and they close that location, and the next location was still downtown in Montreal. But a little further. And then that water Alexis, Neil Plaza. So because I was still like a broke little law student. I was not gonna be like trying to take the the bus and and all that kind of stuff to get there. I would walk sometime. So that was summer especially so I would walk.

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Simone Samuels: and it's a 40 min walk, and it was during one of those 40 min walks in the summer that I realized I really dedicated this class. You know. I had time to think.

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Simone Samuels: and I thought to myself, You know, I I've been getting subtle feedback that I'm actually might have some potential in this thing, like when I go to class, I would always be in the back.

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Simone Samuels: But people behind me would be like, I can't even see the instructor because the class were were packed. I had a great instructor, easily 30 to 50 people. It was pack back pack

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Simone Samuels: so oftentimes we couldn't even see the instructor in the back. People would tell me I was just watching you to know what's going on.

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Simone Samuels: And then I had an instructor who really liked audience participation class participation. So she would invite people up on the stage with her, or she'd go through the class, get off the stage, go through the class and and pick people to come with her onto the stage and dance with her, and one time she picked me, and I was like, Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! But it was! It felt natural. It felt fun. I had so much fun up there. Teaching with her. It was like one or 2 songs, but then it allowed me to see myself

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Simone Samuels: as an instructor. So when I finish law school heavily in debt, I realize maybe I should try this zooma thing.

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Simone Samuels: It'll be a great side hustle, you know, and I really II honestly, really struggled with that decision at the time I think it was like $350 Usd, I'm a Canadian for your listeners. So $350 us is is nothing to snuff about. And I was like, is it even worth it like, who's gonna hire me. I know I don't look like your typical gym instructor. So it might. It might actually be a sunk cost, but my sister was like, just do it, go and do it.

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Simone Samuels: So I did it.

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Simone Samuels: and the rest is history. Not only did I get hired well, the first thing I was hired for was Aqua zumba

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Simone Samuels: I became a Zoomba instructor, and but Zoom was pretty saturated, so most gyms already had Zimba instructors, but not a lot of Gyms had awkward Zoomba instructors, and that remains the case even to this day. So that was back in 2016

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Simone Samuels: and so I got my aqua Zumba license, and so I was able, just to, you know, immediately teach Aqua Zoomba and I was teaching Aqua Zoomba until Zoomba Spot opened up at the gym, and then I was teaching Zumba. And then, but in teaching Aqua Zoomba I was like, I need to get a better understanding of the principles of aqua fitness. I need some kind of aqua fitness, certification. So then I got my aqua fitness, certification, and then, with aqua fitness, I saw that they had aqua kickboxing

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Simone Samuels: like. Okay, let me get my awkward kickboxing certification. And then, as I started to teach aqua fitness more and more, those who teach aqua fitness. You know that for what it's worth.

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Simone Samuels: the people who tend to be attracted to aqua fitness are older individuals, you know, injured individuals or people trying to rehab. I wanna change how aqua fitness is seen because it is a great workout for people regardless of you know your level of fitness, your size, your age, etc. But for whatever reason, no matter where I go in this world.

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Simone Samuels: it's always the older individuals who go to that class. So anyway, I would be teaching, and then folks would ask me if I do personal training.

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Simone Samuels: and I didn't even realize there was a demand for that. So then I was like, I need to become a personal trainer, personal trainer.

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Simone Samuels: and then, you know, becoming a personal trainer. It was like most of your clients are are women. So then I started to work on my girls gone strong certification so you could see how it's still was supposed to just be Zumba. And then it just literally became like a second career. I don't practice law, because again, laws boring.

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Simone Samuels: I've been able to parl. I did graduate. That was important for me, I said, just get the degree you could do whatever you want. So I graduated from law school. I'm not a lawyer. I still use my law degree in other ways. I was able to parlay that into a career in equity, diversity, and inclusion, because a lot of that is focused on human rights, and knowing you know the human rights legislation in your jurisdiction.

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Simone Samuels: But then I have this, and I still have this fitness career that has burgeoned and

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Simone Samuels: developed, and I think now I'm in the the space of my life where the the 2 are coming together, whereas you know my fitness career. I always went into it, wanting to be the instructor that I did not see, which is, I want to see

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Simone Samuels: a black instructor, black female instructors who look like me, who have boobs and tummy and bum and jiggly bits, and you know, and I wanted to see that, but that it started from just being solely about body positivity. And now it's more about being anti oppressive. So making sure that my classes and my fitness practice is just a as accessible as possible. That nobody is left out, that people aren't further stigmatized or marginalized

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Simone Samuels: when they work with me. And that as a fitness instructor as a fitness professional. I am using an equity lens to make sure that I am not, you know, causing trauma or or harm to folks. So that's my journey. Oh, gosh!

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Christine Chessman: That's amazing! II could listen all night. Just keep talking, and I didn't know there was Aqua. Zimbo didn't even know that. But I'm absolutely with you in every pool around England. It is the older generation. It's anybody recovering from injury. You think of aqua aerobics you think of. You don't think about going unless you're injured or you're

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Simone Samuels: it's ridiculous. It's sad. It's sad, because and II wish more people would try it. I don't know how to get rid of that. You know. I don't know bias.

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because it's it is a great

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Simone Samuels: workout aerobic workout, and it's great for your joints. It's great to support your joints as well. Fantastic. But Emma sort of coming onto the point of

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Christine Chessman: oh, I we talked about this earlier. I'd love to touch on the anti-oppressive side of your work, but also

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Christine Chessman: the racist roots of diet culture cause this is something, I think, is fit pros, especially white female. and fitness pros who have thin privilege, etc. And perhaps work in the non diet space.

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Christine Chessman: I'm not sure that we all

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Christine Chessman: and think about the racist roots of diet culture enough, or include it, yeah, or practices enough, or do the work enough. And I include myself in that 100%. And that's what I wanted to ask you if you were just

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Christine Chessman: talk to us a little bit about the racist rates of diet culture. Why, it's so important that we do the work that if we call ourselves inclusive in this space.

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Simone Samuels: that's a great question. So when it comes to fat phobia and the Dmi, they both have roots and races up.

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Simone Samuels: I didn't know that until a few years ago, and so I always make sure to to let folks know that this is not even an argument that I researched. And I discovered this people far more learned than I discovered this. And and it's like, you know, a lot of us fitness. Professionals have been like drawing the lines and linkage and putting things together so works that folks should really check out, and people that folks should really check out are Sabrina strings. The racist fruits of fat phobia.

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Simone Samuels: They should check out Deshawn Harrison, the belly of the beast, and he's that Mrs. Anti blackness

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Simone Samuels: they should check out. Abram ex kendi. He wrote a book called Stamped from the Beginning, and he is. He has a chapter on the Hottentot, Venus, or Sarah Bartman.

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Simone Samuels: and how that plays it.

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Simone Samuels: So those are some some key people to start with. Read what they've they've written. They have books. They also have articles. Read those, I think, for a lot of fitness professionals. We are familiar with the Bmi. Any of us who've ever gone to a doctor. We're familiar with the body mass index, I think, as fitness professionals, most of us hopefully.

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Simone Samuels: Probably you know. We contextualize the Bmi. I think once you work with bodies, you work with people, and you see how they move, and you work with clients who are very fit. But for whatever reason, are not getting outside of the obese quote end quote and overweight, quote unquote category. You realize that there's problems with the Bmi, and then you also realize, especially if you work with athletes.

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Simone Samuels: that there's problems with the Bmi like. I like to tell folks that a lot of our Olympians, which arguably are some of the fittest. People are the most fit people on the planet.

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Simone Samuels: A lot of them don't fit within Bmi categorizations. There is a image that floats around every so often you could find it on Google Image Search. That shows you the different sizes of different athletes, Olympic athletes, and how they're all the size that they need to be for their sport. So Michael Phelps, in swimming is tall and very

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Simone Samuels: in a way that Simone Biles is much more compact in a way that you know, a Sumo wrestler or a power lifter are just gonna be bigger, and and they're all fit for their sport right? And so there's that, and then there's people who I love like John Cena Dwayne Johnson, these former pro wrestlers they are.

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Simone Samuels: I always tell my daughters the rock on the Bmi is morbidly obese, the rock exactly

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Simone Samuels: exactly so like II don't know if that's so. That's something fitness. Professionals know, but not the whole. The larger society and population. I realize, don't realize that

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Simone Samuels: right? So I always knew that the Bmi, from my own personal experience. But now working with people was inaccurate. So it was not something that I really relied on.

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Simone Samuels: However, it's only when works from these people that I mentioned, including Aubrey Gordon, Aubrey Gordon.

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Simone Samuels: your fat friend. Yeah, you know her. Hopefully, their pronouns are. See her? Maybe they are they them? But

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Simone Samuels: they wrote an article on medium in around 2017 2018, talking about the racist roots of the Bmi. And I was like, Oh, my gosh! Mind blowing so in a nutshell for your listeners the Bmi was created by a statistician. So he was a mathematician. Adolf Kitale, a French man. He himself was white.

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Simone Samuels: and he basically am I off of other white Europeans, I believe, mostly Scottish

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Simone Samuels: people, white men, not even just white European white men.

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Simone Samuels: So just from a starting point anytime.

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Simone Samuels: you have a standard based off of

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Simone Samuels: a group of people, but applied to a larger group of people. It's gonna be discriminatory. So that's why, you know, you mentioned Diva Richards, podcast that I did. I started with white supremacy. The definition of white supremacy is white being and whiteness, not white people. Because we have to differentiate between the phenomenon and the context versus individual people, but like whiteness being seen as the default and being seen as superior.

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Simone Samuels: So if white is the default in anything. If if there's a standard that's based on whiteness, white as default, that is white supremacy

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Simone Samuels: period, right? And people need to understand that. Or else you're not going to understand the rest of

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Simone Samuels: the argument.

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Simone Samuels: So the other analogy I like to make is, there's a book called Invisible Women forget the name of the author. But one of the examples in that book

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Simone Samuels: is how seat belts were created, and how seat belts were tested

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Simone Samuels: as seatbelts were tested on like crash mail, crash, test dummies like the idea of a male body.

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Christine Chessman: That is why women actually die from car crash car car crashes at a higher rate seatbelts. The seatbelts were never tested on women.

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Simone Samuels: It's it's a sexist standard that's been applied to more than the people who it was tested on, and especially as it relates to women. We see this everywhere. And that's why that book was was was created menstrual products only until recently have been tested using menstrual blood.

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Christine Chessman: So we've been wearing tadpods and pads, thinking and blaming ourselves. Why am I thinking

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Simone Samuels: when it's like it was never tested using the actual fluid that it's supposed to catch. And that's why that's why these things make sense here. Cause I know folks are like, okay. So you say, the Bmi is racist. Everything's racist da da da. But why does that? Why does that matter? It's because I see. And I'm sure you see, Christine, too many of our clients come to us with with blame and shame.

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Simone Samuels: They're not able to reach and be part of and fit into a certain standard a standard that they were never meant to reach. It was never made for them. It never had them in mind, especially if these people are black. People

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Simone Samuels: are people of color, are racialized people. There are studies out there that show that black women actually have a harder time of losing weight. And you know, people might wonder, okay, why, that is. And I think we have a really individualistic society, and individualism is a feature of white supremacy in our society. There's like a list of 10 to 12 features. A white supremacy in a in a society. Individualism is one of them.

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Simone Samuels: So we think, okay, it's my fault, my personal responsibility. I'm eating too much ox, tail and rice and peas. How much or I'm eating too much, you know, of this food. I'm not eating the Mediterranean diet, and that is why I am fat as opposed to.

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Simone Samuels: maybe, but also the lives of racialized people are stressful. You are under chronic stress even on a good day, even, you know, even if you solve, for you know socioeconomic status, and you know marital status and everything.

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Simone Samuels: If you are a racialized person, that is chronic stress and trauma.

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Simone Samuels: We know from a physiological perspective that stress means high inflammation. So you have higher crp.

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Simone Samuels: When you do your blood tests, you also have probably higher levels of cortisol.

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Christine Chessman: We also know that cortisol raises blood sugar.

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Simone Samuels: Again, from an evolutionary biology. Physiologically, physiological response, because cortisol is our stress response cortisol is supposed to raise when you see the bear, so that you know. Oh, my gosh! You're stressed! So you think about fight, flight, or freeze, and your blood sugar raises your adrenaline raises so that you could run away from the bear you need the blood sugar to raise, so you have the energy to run away from the bear. But what happens if you face the bear every day in your life?

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Simone Samuels: Your body was not meant

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Simone Samuels: to be under that chronic level of stress, where just you, you are facing a bear every moment of every day the bear of racism.

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Simone Samuels: So if you're always having higher stress, you're going to also have

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Simone Samuels: higher blood sugar, higher weight.

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Simone Samuels: So, and and those are the parts that I don't hear enough people kinda talking about, because then people start to blame themselves about, you know. Why can't I lose weight? Why can't I lose weight? Why can't I lose weight?

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Simone Samuels: You know it's about it's about what I just talked about. It's about genetics, it's about, you know your social determinants of health, you know. Do you live in a food desert? Can you even access food? What do you know about nutrition? Can you access a doctor? Can you access a registered dietician? You know all these things come into play when it comes to what our bodies look like and how our bodies respond to our environment.

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Simone Samuels: So going back to the Bmi, that is why the Bmi is racist, created by white people.

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Simone Samuels: tested all but up, and it was not supposed to be a population standard right? But for whatever reason, medical profession and and health professionals, public health professionals have been applying it as a population standard, as a way to be able to say underweight, overweight, obese, morbidly obese. And so that's why I don't use categorizations like obese and morbidly obese.

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Simone Samuels: I'm technically, morbidly obese, right? And people hear that. And they they they end up feeling really stigmatized and really shameful. And the way the word obese actually means eating oneself

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Simone Samuels: like overeating or eating oneself to death, or whatever the case might be so, even inherent in the name of the category, it's it's shame, right? And so it's like, I don't use those categorizations because I know that they're based on a flawed racist premise.

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Simone Samuels: So I don't use that

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Simone Samuels: then when it comes to fat phobia now, fat phobia or or wait stigma being the idea of hatred of fat people. So a lot of people. I remember diva's. Podcast she was like. But people don't hate fat people. And I'm like our society hates fat people.

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Simone Samuels: Our society is not made for people above a certain size. You can only find certain size closes up close up to a certain size in most most stores, most retailers your playing seats are gonna be a certain size. Your bathtubs are gonna be a

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Christine Chessman: I was just gonna say on that I went to see Aubrey Gordon. Her film, the premiere and she was. She was at it, which is brilliant. But they were talking about the irony of watching this film

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Christine Chessman: in states that most people couldn't fit in

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Simone Samuels: that weren't made for the people going to see the film.

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Simone Samuels: And it was just this, this create, you know, bit of irony right there, that the film exactly what the film was talking about. We were all experiencing in that moment. That's a perfect example that everything in the society has made, or is made under the assumption that you're gonna be under a Us. Size 14 size 12 and I know Uk uses differ slightly.

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Simone Samuels: But in North America the average size, the data that we have is based on Americans who tend to be slightly larger than Canadians, but the average size is a size 18 Us. Size 18. But most of the things that we have in our society are made for people smaller than that size.

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Simone Samuels: and most of our establishments and institutions, whether it's education, health. any other industry are made in such that we exclude people of size.

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Christine Chessman: or we, if we don't exclude them, we certainly stigmatize them.

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Simone Samuels: So you know that's a hill. I'm willing to die on in terms of how the society hates fat people. We wanna get rid of fat people. That's why we have the Vmi, because the the premise is that there are people who are too big, and they ought not be that big, and they ought to be smaller. And to say that you know certain people who are naturally big, which I know is a controversial statement that there are people who are naturally big because there are.

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Simone Samuels: If for those people who are naturally big to try to get themselves to be smaller, based on the Bmi. They will die. It's a little bit of a slight Eugenesis kind of argument, like some people will die, and, you know, get skinny or or die trying type thing. And and that is a subtle eradication of our body. Diversity of fat people right? Anyways, people may not agree with that argument, but that is something I'm seeing.

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Christine Chessman: It's I mean, it's shocking. I really find that especially prevalent in doctors surgeries. When people go about any pain in their body. It's like, well, if you lose weight, then that is the first thing that is brought up in every conversation, and

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Christine Chessman: it's it has to change. You know, there's small changes being made, but they're small, and they're.

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Simone Samuels: you know, it's a sea, and there's like drops drops in the ocean drops in the ocean. When it's a systemic issue. It's not an individual. Again, individualism.

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Simone Samuels: It's not gonna solve anything. It has to be collective. It has to be communal. It has to be systemic.

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Simone Samuels: But yeah, and it's even worse again. So my friends, who are thin, who go to the doctor are sometimes told. Hmm, maybe you lose some weight, especially if yeah.

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Simone Samuels: especially if if it's a they're dealing with a condition that is associated with weight. So I have thin friends who, like one friend. The doctor said you might have sleep apnea sleep. Apnea is often associated with being higher weight, not necessarily caused by being higher weight, but often associated with being higher weight. And therefore the assumption is that

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Simone Samuels: well, you're having a fat person's disease. So you probably have to lose weight, so she was told to lose weight. Same thing. If you have diabetes, diabetes is often associated with people who are higher weight not necessarily caused by people who are are higher weight, but associated with people who are higher weight. So because it's a fat person disease, whether you're thin or larger, you're probably gonna be told to watch your weight. The thin person may or may not be told to watch their weight. The fat person will be told to watch their weight. Right?

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Simone Samuels: And it's not a it's not an innocent thing to be told. I can't tell you how many times, no matter how much I've weighed, whether I was at my lowest or at my highest. It's always like 5 to 10 pounds, you know, even losing 5 to 10% of your weight will help 5 to 10% like, how many times will I lose 5 to 10% of my weight? And and I know. That's what the research shows that a 5 to 10%, you know, reduction in weight

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Simone Samuels: is correlated, not necessarily causative of whatever whatever. But you know you could only be losing 5 to 15 to 15 to 10 for so

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Simone Samuels: for so long. Why is it? Every time I go there's another 5 to 10% to to be lost.

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Christine Chessman: And it's I mean, you can. You can lose weight. We can all lose weight. But it's the, you know, after 5 years vast majority of people have either gone back to the way they were, or increase in wit and with cycling, the impact of wait. Cycling on. Your health is huge, so it can cause lots of issues, cardiovascular issues, lots of. And pee. This is never spoken about, spoken about.

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Simone Samuels: No, and and ironically never spoken about from the people who allegedly care about your health, because that is also part of my health to know that. You know I'm I'm on kind of a failed mission. If I'm trying to lose weight cause the the issue is not actually weight loss, right? It's actually not hard to lose weight. I can go on a juice fast.

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Simone Samuels: and I will lose weight.

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Simone Samuels: probably won't keep it off, because I will eventually need to eat food.

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Christine Chessman: but so like strict weight, loss is not hard keeping it off

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Simone Samuels: in the hard part, and, like you rightly mentioned.

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Simone Samuels: most people are not able to do long term weight loss, especially if they are big people. To begin with, genetically.

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Simone Samuels: because your body has a set point, your body likes homeostasis. Your body likes to be in and around where it wants to be right. We are really good at

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Simone Samuels: gaining weight. Our body wants to protect us, so we have mechanisms to make sure that we have the energy storage that we need. Our body is not really efficient at losing weight as much as it is at gaining weight. But as Sabrina Strings and Dyson, Harris and others have said, fat phobia comes from this idea of, you know. Once upon a time.

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Simone Samuels: being fat was a good thing, and I think most people who said know that right? So cause it meant like you have money, opulence, because you can eat, which you have money beautiful, and it will see. You know you, you know we we you hear people of old antiquity talking about the the ready skin and the beautiful countenance, and you know we love fat babies, and we love fatness.

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Simone Samuels: But then, when Europeans went to the New World, to North America, and and other places into Africa. They saw that the Africans looked like them. They tour fat.

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This is a problem. I can't be morally superior as a white person. and and and look like you.

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Simone Samuels: And so just like how racism and race is a social construct.

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Fat phobia is also social construct. They literally people made this up to be like.

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Simone Samuels: Okay, the diff. The difference between white people and and black people is white. People are morally superior, cleaner, closer to God. White is right. But black people are fat and lascivious and promiscuous and unclean and animalistic like that is literally the argument that was made literally made up. So if folks are listening, and they're like

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Simone Samuels: that sounds really made up. It's made up. It is made up. But that's the basis upon which a lot of this science is

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Simone Samuels: is based right?

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Simone Samuels: And so what? Sabrina Strings, who is a sociologist, a black female sociologist? What she saw in her research was this gradual movement to to to distinguish between the races. And how fat was seen, as in fact, phobia seen as a way to discipline. White women, you know, don't get fat. Is that the moral issue stay small and to discriminate against black people. So it actually hurts

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Simone Samuels: everybody right? And so she talks about Harvey Kellogg's, and how he created the cereal. And I'm I'm actually a Seventh Day Adventist like Harvey Kellogg. So I'm I'm familiar with this story. But that cereal was not just created because Adventists wanna be vegetarian. The cereal was created because it was like too many people are masturbating. And we need to create.

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Simone Samuels: We need to create. The idea was like, let's create a diet as bland as possible, so as not, to, you know, stir up the animalistic

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Simone Samuels: tendencies. Right? So that's why, even in Adventism, even like Ellen White, one of the founders of the Adventist Church, was like, stay away from spices, cause that might make you animalistic, and, you know, stir up passions like, how dare you be aroused? Right? And so that's why that serial was created, because the idea that started the idea of food as a moral issue or food being related to morality.

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Simone Samuels: Right? So that was Kellogg. And then both Ibram ex kendi, the the the researcher and and social scientists and Sabrina Strings talked about the hot and top Venus, the hot and top Venus was taken from a tribe in. I wanna say, South Africa

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Simone Samuels: she has a name, but they gave her a Dutch name, Surachi Bartman, or Sarah Bartman. right? So she was captured, and she was put on display at different festivals and sidesholes, because she had a large buttocks.

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Simone Samuels: Really and truly, and I know this might be surprising, for people who have not heard the story. When I heard about this in undergrad, I was like for real. And so yeah, she was just displayed display cause she had a protruding buttocks, and she had I think she had longer. Labia Menorah.

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Simone Samuels: you have to ask yourself, how do they know

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Simone Samuels: that she has longer? Just ask yourself how cause. Most people don't know what my labia look like. Ask yourself, how do they know? So she was just, you know, paraded around. Most likely she was sexually abused. She actually got a sexual transmitted infection

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Simone Samuels: from being abused by her many handlers. People could go up and poke her. She was asked to show her vagina to people, and when she died they cut her up and kept her vagina for display for many, many years.

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Simone Samuels: This just the idea of otherness. The black woman and this black woman in particular is other because she doesn't look like us. She has huge bum put off. She's she's really shapely, and you know, let's try not to be like this ugly thing.

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Simone Samuels: and that's where fat phobia comes from. So fat phobia is not just, you know, scared of being fat, we have to ask yourselves, why are you scared of being fat? Why do you hate fat? Why is you gaining weight of a you know. Bad thing, and it's it's hard, especially if you are like me, who is a black woman and who has medical conditions. Ha! Are.

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Simone Samuels: Ha! You've been told that they are contingent upon your weight and weight, loss or weight gain, and you're kind of you're fighting that all the time. Every appointment. You go to every that's you're always facing that. You can't escape that

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Simone Samuels: yeah

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Simone Samuels: note.

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Simone Samuels: So that is fat phobia in a nutshell. And I just I wanna ask, do you ever get fed up with explaining this to white women

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Christine Chessman: who are asking you these questions? So fitness, professionals? Do you feel it's not really your job to be educating us. It's our job to be educating ourselves. Do you know what I mean? Do you ever say

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Simone Samuels: yes and no? I think, after having so I don't. I haven't actually explained this

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Simone Samuels: like often, often, often, often, often right. I think I

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Simone Samuels: so. I'm not tired yet. I'm actually I like. I love talking about race and racism. And that's what I do for my day job. I love love talking about like social justice, and this type of stuff I'd love to teach. I love to educate. I'm what I'm realizing is I think I might create a digital course

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Simone Samuels: on this because this I do. I'm getting this question more and more as I talk about it on social media. Every time I post about fat phobia being racist, people are like, what?

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Simone Samuels: What do you mean? Most people who follow me are like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. This is really interesting. But then you always have one or 2 people like you're wrong.

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Simone Samuels: like, even under that most recent post. You'll see if you look at some of the comments somebody was like, you need to be more open minded.

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Simone Samuels: How does this this like white like this? Does it hurt black people? This, this doesn't necessarily hurt white people. And I'm just like you. If you don't understand white supremacy, you're not gonna understand this argument. But I'm realizing maybe I should create a digital course and profit from this education in that sense of like, you know, time for money. Since I have to explain this.

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Simone Samuels: II think when it comes to a lot of stuff in anti-racism. I think PE folks, especially folks with racial privilege or and or socio economic privilege ought to take it upon themselves to educate themselves if they actually care

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Simone Samuels: and certainly when George Floyd was killed there was a lot of this backlash. A lot of people of color were, and and racialized people were like, it's not for us to educate the white people. You need to educate yourself.

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Simone Samuels: I did have some people slide into my dms. Some of my white friends, people I went to law school with who are like, I wanna do something, but I don't know where to start.

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Simone Samuels: and II think on a the, on a case by case basis like I don't actually mind that. II know some people might be like no, you still need to learn yourself, but it is in my interest.

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Simone Samuels: my my personal interest, to help my my white friend, like a friend who I know and love. It is in my interest to to kinda lead them on a pathway cause there is so much out there. So I'm not saying black people ought to do that, or there's a obligation. But I think on a case by case basis. It is not wrong. They can do that. They don't have to. Certainly they don't have to, but they can.

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Simone Samuels: so I don't. Personally, I don't get tired of talking about this stuff. That's why you know, they pay me the big bucks in my day job to talk about stuff. I would never talk about this. I make it like, why, by living for free cause, it's emotional labor. But Flip side I love. I love talking about this stuff.

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Simone Samuels: Well, I can't wait for your course. I can't wait to buy it. It's it's an idea I literally just had last week. I was just like, you know, enough people have this question. I should just do a course. I agree.

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Simone Samuels: Yeah. And it's you know, I just. I've been working a bit with Demali Frasier. She has a inclusive Kettlebell training course, and I love cowbells, and so I've kind of. I've done the first stage of her, but it's fun awesome, and it just. It seems like I thought I was inclusive. This is this is what you know, I think I felt I was being inclusive. And then I kind of started her course. And I went.

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Simone Samuels: Yeah, I really wasn't actually. And I learned so much just from that short course. And I think it's really beneficial. So yes, Simone, please. Okay, I think that's another important message to your audience like. And and this is what I tell my colleagues at work, too. It's not like you ever get to a point where you've arrived. No, sometimes. When people are introducing me in my bio, they're like she's an Ebi expert.

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Simone Samuels: and for what? It's that may or may not be true.

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But

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Simone Samuels: it's never a situation where I could say I have arrived, and I know everything. So I imagine if I took to Molly's Kenabel course, there's things that I would have learned. I thought I was being inclusive in my practice at the beginning of being a fitness professional in retrospect.

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Simone Samuels: Not Nope, not as much as I could of. I hope I'm being inclusive, but I can imagine that if I'm still in this industry, 10 to 25 years from now, I'll look back to me at 20 in 2024, and be like.

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Simone Samuels: Hmm, journey. It's always about doing a little bit better

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Simone Samuels: and asking be the fact that you cause. I think a lot of times people get overwhelmed by this information is like, there's so much to know, and we're doing things right. And sometimes there is that that that freeze response of like, I don't know what to do, because I don't wanna do anything wrong, and I don't wanna hurt anybody. But the fact that you know, if you see somebody. And now you're pausing and you're asking yourself a question of why do I think that way?

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Simone Samuels: That means that you're doing the work. That means that we have achieved the aim. So I'm not asking

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Simone Samuels: everybody to become a Mini Sabrina Strings and to go out there. But I'm asking you like when you have a fat client in front of you, when you have a black client in front of you, that if you pause, you ask yourself.

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Simone Samuels: why did I think that way? What's gonna help this person? Who is this person? And you're leaving with curiosity and compassion?

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Christine Chessman: I love that I absolutely love that and I think it's a perfect note to end on. But before we end I need to ask you

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Christine Chessman: about joyful movement. You've already talked about Zimba. So I wanna know if he had, if he could do anything, any kind of movement on the whole, what would you do that would bring you joy?

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Simone Samuels: I've struggling with that right now that the transition from student to instructor really Joy cause now, when I go to other people's classes. I try to enjoy myself, but I'm still in. It's not like I'm criticizing people, but I'm also like

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Simone Samuels: I like my class, you know, whereas I wasn't as as scrupulous and as skeptical and critical while I was a student.

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Simone Samuels: So Zoombot was my joyful movement. But now that I'm on the other side and teach and have to plan a class. It's not as fun anymore.

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Simone Samuels: So I'm trying to find things that are fun because I'm trying to motivate myself, to work out outside of my own classes that I teach. But joyful movement to me is anything that brings you joy, anything that brings you joy, and you know sometimes we have clients who get stuck. On the whole, I have to exercise for an hour and break into my heart pumping for it to count.

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Simone Samuels: And it's like, if vacuuming

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Simone Samuels: brings you joy. That is joyful movement. I love to go for walks, and walking is one of the most accessible exercise to folks. It's free. Most people can do it from an ability perspective. Most people have access to it. So it's like, I love to walk. So I think that's kind of my joyful movement right now.

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Christine Chessman: I wanna find something that's a little bit more joyful. And II totally get you, because if I go to a class like a cattle bell class, I am slightly judging. I'm not judging, but I am. I'm going. I would have said this I wouldn't have. Oh, maybe I should. So I what I've just done is I've joined a contemporary adult contemporary dance class for beginners, and it's so out of my comfort zone, and it's like a bit, and it's not me so. But I don't know how to teach that.

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Christine Chessman: So it's not something that I'm going. Oh, II would have done this because it's so of my phone.

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So that's the only way I've been able, because I agree with you if you. It's like bus man's holiday, if you stay in the

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Christine Chessman: like in that Zoomb space. you can't get away from it, really.

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Christine Chessman: Oh, that's tough, isn't it? It is very tough, like I try to go to other people's zoom with classes. I haven't found the instructor. I like the best. But I think that's a really good tip for me to do something that is out of my comfort zone, something that I can't teach

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Christine Chessman: like II wanna get back into bachata lessons. I used to take bachata lessons when I was in Montreal. I wanna get back into salsa salsa when things are hard. It's not fun for me. Yes, yeah, it's not fun. It's not. And this this sounds every week I'm like, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. It is fun. Yeah.

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Simone Samuels: I feel the same way, Christine. I feel the same way. Even when I teach my classes. I love my students. I love my classes, but I'm in a point right now. I'm tired. And so often times before my class is like, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. But then, after class, it's like.

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Christine Chessman: Well, Simone, cause. I know that you're in the middle of your working day. I'm going to to stop the podcast but before I do, where, if somebody, for example, in the Uk wants to work with you after hearing this, podcast where can we find you. What ways can we work with you?

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Simone Samuels: You could contact me through my website. So Simone Samuels with an s.ca, if you Google, me hopefully, my SEO is strong enough. So and I, yeah, taking clients virtually, I take clients in person if you're in Toronto. But that's a really really minute amount of clients, but

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Simone Samuels: mostly virtually so. If you are in the Uk or anywhere in the world, we could work together online. You could be trained just as effectively as in person. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of ideas for digital courses per.

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Christine Chessman: And so those will be slowly put off my website for purchase. I currently do have a course with the body. Positive fitness, alliance on how to have an anti racist

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Simone Samuels: practice practice, fitness practice. So you could touch type in Bpfa, or just type in body, positive fitness, alliance, and the digital courses that they have will come up, of which 1 one of them is mine. I have a Pcos Patreon.

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Simone Samuels: so given that I have Pcos. If you want a way, inclusive environment and way to manage your Pcos. You could join that Patreon that's patreon.com slash, Simone, Samuels and I just post 2 workouts a month

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Simone Samuels: on it, and there's other people there, and I pull stuff about Pcos and Pcos information, and I'll have interviews from people like Dr. Astra, Larami, and others. People who are in this way, inclusive Pcos space, so that we could, you know, manage this condition. So there's 2 tiers there, and if you're interested you could join, and it's regardless of gender identity. I don't believe in women with Pcos is more so. People with Pcos. As long as you have a uterus

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Christine Chessman: you could have Pcos but also, if it's just like I just like Simone. But I don't have Pcos. You could also join, I will say no, so that allows you to have on demand workouts, but then also will be scheduled scheduling some live workouts. So we can work out together online, no matter where you are lots of stuff. Just go to my website and see what I'm about. And hopefully, something there will suit your fancy.

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Simone Samuels: Absolutely brilliant. And I love this conversation, and I would love to have you back for Part 2 cause. I have lots more questions, but it's lovely to talk to you and thank you again for taking the time today. My absolute pleasure, Christine. I've loved this conversation. Take care, everybody. Thank you.