Extreme Thinness Culture - How Did We End Up Here AGAIN?!

Spicy one this week.  

We both believe that individuals have agency and that commenting on an individual's body, whether it be out of 'concern' or otherwise, is just not helpful.

But can we call out a cultural shift towards extreme thinness?  F*ck yes!

We feel that we have to. We have a duty of care as professionals working in the non-diet space. We work with clients from disordered eating backgrounds, many of whom are slowly rebuilding trust in their bodies but who are often hugely vulnerable.

We have teen girls, who are impressionable and who are drip-fed photos of extremely thin celebs and influencers, all of whom are worshipped and praised for it.

Of course, there are activists in the space campaigning for body diversity on screens, our right to take up space and to show up unapologetically as we are, but they are few and far between.

How do YOU feel?  Do you feel affected by the celebrity weight loss trend which is all around and normalised in Hollywood?

We'd love you to listen and let us know your thoughts.  We are opinionated for sure, but welcome counter opinions and conversation, so get in touch.

Lots of love and strength to you all and remember your body is NOT the problem.

xx

Transcript

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Ela Law (she/her): So, Ella… Hi. How are you doing?

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Christine Chessman: Am I right? You're a bit… you're a bit of a bar humbug, aren't you?

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Ela Law (she/her): I'm very much of a bah humbug. Yeah, before we came on, online, I had a rant. Poor Christine had to hear me rant about Christmas and how much I hate it all. So, I'm not gonna… I've let it all out, so anyone listening, don't worry, you're not gonna be subjected to my humbugness.

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Christine Chessman: Well, as we were saying, I think it's because you are from Germany, which… a country that does Christmas right. They know how to do Christmas and the festive season.

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Christine Chessman: It's just… we were saying, you know, it's not plastic, it's all Gluvine, and you know.

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Ela Law (she/her): cinnamon smells, and waffles, and Christmas markets, and…

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Christine Chessman: Do you know what I mean? Whereas this country is a bit plastic.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, I also, I think it's memories of childhood Christmases that were just lovely. I think that, sort of, when you get an adult, it gets a little bit, like, meh.

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Christine Chessman: I just… and I… I'm the opposite, I soak it up, so I… I'm here for all the Christmas movies, the Home Alone, even Die Hard, I'm here for it, I'm here for it, just let me… I love it, I just think it's great. I don't know why, but it's something… and I like it if it's really cold.

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Ela Law (she/her): I like that. No, wet.

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Christine Chessman: freaking warm.

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Ela Law (she/her): I know, a mild, like, a 10 degrees Christmas day, it's just like, what the hell is happening?

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Christine Chessman: I know!

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Christine Chessman: That's not right.

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Ela Law (she/her): I saw mountains of snow when I was growing up.

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Ela Law (she/her): Like, literally.

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Christine Chessman: We had snow in Northern Ireland, but we had snow in Brighton the first year we moved here with the kids. Never since.

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Ela Law (she/her): Hmm.

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Christine Chessman: It was a little teaser, wasn't it? It's like, oh, look, you moved to somewhere magical. I know, I know, no. So we're… it's very close to Christmas, if you're listening to this out of sync.

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Christine Chessman: It's nearly Christmas, it's the 4th of December. But… and we were going to talk about Christmas, and we probably will at some point, but actually, we want to talk about online debates about celebrity weight loss.

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Christine Chessman: And whether it is a double standard for us to be concerned.

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Christine Chessman: About a cultural shift in wet.

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Christine Chessman: When we're always saying, don't comment on anybody's body, don't comment on people's wit,

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Christine Chessman: And I think that's something that we need to kind of unpack and talk to.

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Ela Law (she/her): 16.

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Christine Chessman: Do you want to kick us off, Ella?

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh, God, no pressure then, no pressure. Yeah, I mean, there's quite a lot to be said about it. I mean, in general, I always say, just like you, don't make any comments on people's weight, and that is in the context of…

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Ela Law (she/her): You see a friend you haven't seen for a while, they've lost some weight.

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Ela Law (she/her): you say, oh my god, you look great, have you lost weight? I know. That sort of thing. Where, really, you don't know what's going on for them. They might be ill, they might be grieving, they might, you know, have an eating disorder. There's all sorts of reasons why they might be, thinner than they were before. Likewise, when you see someone who put on some weight, don't comment on that either. We always say those things, so I totally am in that

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Ela Law (she/her): camp, and I'm not going to move away from that. However, with this recent trend of the very extreme thinness among celebrities in particular.

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Ela Law (she/her): I am incredibly concerned about what that is saying to everybody but young people in particular, and it's mostly, probably,

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Ela Law (she/her): well, no, it's not just young people, but it is… it's those role models that young people follow and worship and enjoy watching that are coming out to be extremely thin. And…

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Ela Law (she/her): you just kind of have to look into what does that actually mean from a cultural point of view? Why are…

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Ela Law (she/her): women in particular, it's not… it's generally not the male actors and celebrities, it is mostly the females. Why do they feel that need to shrink themselves into almost not being there?

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Ela Law (she/her): What is going on culturally there? That means that that is now the new… the new

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Ela Law (she/her): beautiful? I don't know, I mean… What do you think?

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Christine Chessman: Well, I think, I think male bodies are scrutinized too, but,

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Christine Chessman: it seems to be definitely always about the female body, isn't it? The battleground, or we always come back to the female body.

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Christine Chessman: I think it's very dangerous for, you know, having two teenage daughters, I think.

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Christine Chessman: We have no idea how much the media influences them.

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Christine Chessman: You can't underestimate that.

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Christine Chessman: And if they… if all they see is a barrage of extremely thin bodies that are celebrated in Hollywood.

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Christine Chessman: or all the shows they watch are just extremely thin bodies, that's all they're saying. That has a massive impact on what they think is normal, what they think they should be, what their bodies should look like, how their bodies are somehow wrong, because it.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: like, so I think it's very dangerous indeed.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And it's… it concerns me hugely. And I also don't think it's any coincidence that the whole, you know, conservatism and the, you know, the Trump administration and the whole obedience, it feels that you're saying it's about disappearing ourselves, but it's also about obedience, conformity, isn't it?

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Ela Law (she/her): Mmm.

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Christine Chessman: It's like… we're shrinking, we've got discipline, we can shrink our bodies.

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Christine Chessman: It's a thing of privilege as well, but it is… it feels…

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Christine Chessman: that's what we're focused on. It's like, what is that the…

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Christine Chessman: dieting is the most potent political sedative, isn't it? It's the…

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, it's totally anti-feminist, isn't it? Dieting?

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Christine Chessman: And you're not taking up space, you're shrinking yourself. And if you're actually spending all that time

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Christine Chessman: focused on shrinking your body, and if you're actually not having calories to sustain your brain, your body, you're… you're gonna feel like crap. All you're gonna think about is…

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Christine Chessman: your weight, your body, how it looks. You're not actually going to be focused on changing the world, and…

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Christine Chessman: Hounding up for human rights, and…

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Christine Chessman: Campaigning, because you don't have the energy.

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Christine Chessman: And, I know there's a huge nuance here. Everybody's bodies are different, so some people have very high metabolisms and exist in small bodies, naturally.

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Christine Chessman: But, there is a trend. We can all see it.

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Christine Chessman: Do you know what I mean?

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Ela Law (she/her): It's very obvious, and it's very… it's not like…

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Ela Law (she/her): they've always been that thin. They have not. And we have before and after photos in that sense, right? And it is definitely a shift, it is definitely a move towards this extreme,

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Ela Law (she/her): reduced weight, that… and it is… it is very, very concerning that it is being normalized, that it is being, seen everywhere, you know?

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Christine Chessman: It absolutely is, and it's…

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Christine Chessman: you know, we're sort of… we don't want to comment on individuals' bodies, because we don't actually know what's going on with an individual. We don't know if they're ill, if they've… we have no idea what they're going through themselves, and as such, I think shying away from actually, like, commenting on that individual is really smart, or is really…

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Christine Chessman: Fair. I think that's really fair.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: But,

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Christine Chessman: But it is not the same as us saying, please don't troll people in a larger body, and I think that's where there's all this, oh, it's a double standard, and it's… it's not a double standard. So if you see somebody in a larger body, in terms of the BMI, which we all know is bullshit, we have no idea, actually.

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Christine Chessman: what their health is like. And there's no reason that they cannot exist perfectly healthily in that larger body.

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Christine Chessman: We're talking extremes here, and when we go to extreme ends of either spectrum, there is problems. There will be problems, so we're talking extreme. And when we're looking at these incredibly, incredibly thin celebrities.

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Christine Chessman: there are issues there. There are much more likely

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Christine Chessman: to struggle with low blood pressure, with heart issues, they're much more likely to develop osteoporosis, and… do you know what I mean? It's…

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, it's got a death.

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Christine Chessman: Dangerous.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yes, for sure.

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Christine Chessman: So they do say that anorexia has got the highest mortality of any mental illness.

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Christine Chessman: And I know that anorexia can…

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Christine Chessman: is not… does not discriminate, and you can have anorexia in any body shape or type. It doesn't have to be a thin body, but it is by far the number one killer in terms of mental illness, so that cannot be taken lightly.

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Christine Chessman: Do you know what I mean?

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Ela Law (she/her): Absolutely, absolutely. So the danger is that those celebrities who are extremely thin

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Ela Law (she/her): I mean, we assume, but we assume, probably quite correctly, that they are completely undernourished and underfed.

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Ela Law (she/her): And therefore, as you said, there's all these health repercussions, all these implications, all of these things that can affect your organs, your metabolism, your brain, your bones, all of those things are affected. Whereas someone in a larger body.

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Ela Law (she/her): might be… we don't know, whereas someone in a really, really, really thin… and I'm… we're talking extremes here.

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Ela Law (she/her): it's almost, without a doubt, being affected. Whereas someone in a larger body, we don't know. They might be, as you said, they might be perfectly healthy.

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Christine Chessman: We're talking extremes, because there's so much fatphobia out there that actually it's perfectly fine to exist in a larger body and be very healthy, be very active, do everything that… you can live your absolute best life in a larger body, because we are diverse, we're all different, our set points are different, etc. But we're talking extreme ends of the scale.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, what we're saying is the extreme thinness.

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Christine Chessman: And I think that's what is really worrying, because our kids are kind of thinking.

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Ela Law (she/her): That's what they should aspire to, or that's what's beautiful.

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Christine Chessman: And if they're not like that.

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Christine Chessman: And if they already fail, not quite… that's something maybe they think they can control.

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Christine Chessman: that's something that they can, you know, if they can't control other stuff, oh, well, maybe I could just control my weight. And it's once you start on that trajectory, it's very hard to pull back.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, absolutely.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, I, I like the, the…

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Ela Law (she/her): The cultural angle that you just mentioned about the…

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Ela Law (she/her): coincidence with a more conservative world, in general, and how… I mean, you know, we're not all fans of Naomi Wolf, but in her book, The Beauty Myth.

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Ela Law (she/her): Which was written when? 70s? 80s?

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law (she/her): that?

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Ela Law (she/her): A long time ago, you know, she already made that point.

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Ela Law (she/her): that, fluctuations in beauty standards, and in that sense, body weight, always coincided. They always came just that tiny fraction after a shift in society. And as you said, all this conservatism is on the rise, in America in particular, but in lots of countries. Yeah.

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Ela Law (she/her): And…

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Ela Law (she/her): Isn't it curious that suddenly women are being put back in their place by actually being preoccupied with, how thin can I get?

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Christine Chessman: Yes.

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Ela Law (she/her): It's just curious, isn't it? How that coincides. I… you know… Elation isn't causation, but…

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Christine Chessman: It's almost like everybody's going, oh, it's like Oprah is going, thank God for Ozempic, thank God for Ozempic, isn't it wonderful? I just see it as…

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Christine Chessman: Ozempic helps for many reasons. If you're diabetic, Ozempic is fantastic. There's many medical reasons that these GLP-1s are useful and beneficial for people.

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Christine Chessman: But they're being used for people who are in normal straight-sized bodies to get to an extreme

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Christine Chessman: level of thinness, and that's where I maybe have… issue with…

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Christine Chessman: But Oprah is, like, sort of saying, yay, we can all be thin now. What is that saying? What is that saying to our future generations?

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Ela Law (she/her): Exactly.

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Christine Chessman: Who gives a shit? I mean, Oprah has done… okay, she's done some dodgy stuff throughout her career, but she's done some amazing stuff. But she… when I think of Oprah, I think of she's always trying to lose weight.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yes.

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Christine Chessman: been always trying to be… she's always been uncomfortable with herself, and there's many reasons, because, you know, she's… there's intersectionality of so many different things that she is targeted for, and she is discriminated against for, and I'm not judging her at all, but she is a role model to an entire

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Christine Chessman: population of people, do you know what I mean? So…

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Christine Chessman: people listen to Oprah, this is what I'm saying, people have huge influence in this.

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Christine Chessman: items.

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Christine Chessman: And rather than saying, take up space as you are, you know, just…

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Christine Chessman: It's saying the opposite. It's saying, oh, well, yay, now we can actually conform and be exactly the same as everybody else, and our lives can be better. Why?

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Ela Law (she/her): Do you know what I mean?

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Christine Chessman: Just…

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, the why is the interesting question, isn't it? Who are you doing this for? It's… but what… does nobody want to go, fuck that, fuck the system, let's just… There are some voices, there are some people out there, like some celebrities as well, but there's so few of them.

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Christine Chessman: I mean, you've got, you've got the beautiful, the wonderful Emma Thompson.

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Ela Law (she/her): Emma Thompson.

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Christine Chessman: Always.

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Ela Law (she/her): They are fabulous, but…

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Christine Chessman: Miriam Margulies. Oh, bless her. Fantastic. I love her. And you've got some people that are just taking up space and being themselves.

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Christine Chessman: Leah Emery.

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Christine Chessman: Just, there's so many people, but that's a fraction, isn't it?

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Christine Chessman: It's a fine nation.

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Ela Law (she/her): Tiny, tiny minority of people who are flying the flag for, you know.

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Ela Law (she/her): diversity in terms of body size and shape, it's just really… it really scares me, it really scares me. As you said at the beginning, you know, you've got two teenage daughters, I've got one. If that is the world they grow up in, what is that telling them?

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Ela Law (she/her): What are we teaching?

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Christine Chessman: Tells about the most important thing about themselves.

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Christine Chessman: How much they weigh.

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Ela Law (she/her): Exactly.

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Christine Chessman: It's not actually… everything is pales in comparison. Yeah. And it also seems bad sometimes when I'm talking about the celebrity culture in this way, because I'm bringing more attention to the fact that everybody is shrinking themselves, but in a way, it's…

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Christine Chessman: Necessary.

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Ela Law (she/her): I think we need to bring attention to it, and I think some people are very much like, oh, why are you, you know, why are you highlighting it, and just let them be, and all of that. I think we need to… we need to highlight this, we need to bring attention to it, because it is a very dangerous trend, as you said earlier. It's… it's not about just losing some weight, it is about extreme thinness that has so many

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Ela Law (she/her): Red flags, in terms of health implications, and also for people who want to emulate that.

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Ela Law (she/her): They can… they can end up with an eating disorder, they can end up with…

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Christine Chessman: organ failure, if they try and follow that. And this is the thing that I find really scary, is that that extreme thinness is…

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Ela Law (she/her): is only achieved by means that are not going to be good for you, that are not going to be healthy. You cannot achieve that kind of thinness, because that's just how your body is. I'm sorry, that is just not a thing, and I think that is where the danger comes in, right?

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Christine Chessman: I think if you're not giving your body the minimum amount of calories that your organs need to thrive, survive.

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Christine Chessman: there's… it's a non-point, you know, you can't say it's fine. You can't say it's okay to eat 1200 calories. It is not okay to eat 1,200 calories. That is a toddler… a toddler's day. You know, a two-year-old, a one-year-old, probably. You cannot survive. You… you can survive for a while.

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Christine Chessman: You cannot thrive.

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Ela Law (she/her): No.

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Christine Chessman: And, you know, you… what I sort of say to my daughters tonight is, if I want to go to do a workout, I want to make sure that I'm nourished so that I can work out hard.

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Ela Law (she/her): I can…

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Christine Chessman: get the goal, I want to chuck a kettlebell in there. I want to feel nourished so that I can do that. I want to feel nourished so that my run feels okay, and I don't faint halfway through, or not have any energy. I want to feel good when I'm working out. I want to feel like I've got energy when I'm doing the podcast, doing the classes, you know, trying to…

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Christine Chessman: why would you… this is why I'm saying, why are we not questioning this? Why are we not saying, hold on, I don't… I don't need to be super… why do I need to be super skinny? It's a trend, it's a… but these… the teenagers who are sitting in their rooms.

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Christine Chessman: You've got… it's constant, you know, in our… in our day.

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Christine Chessman: It was… it was certainly with the Special K generation, and we had all of that.

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Ela Law (she/her): It was certainly ham down our throats constantly, but we did not have phones.

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Christine Chessman: where social media… we were basically… it was IV drip constantly, constantly seeing a stream of these similar bodies, constantly. So that's… and there is research to show that you want to be what you see most.

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Christine Chessman: So if you saw larger bodies, or a diversity of bodies all the time, you would think that was normal. But if you're only seeing one type of body, this has been ideal, that's what you will aspire to, or that's what you'll measure against.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yep.

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Christine Chessman: Does that make sense?

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Ela Law (she/her): That makes total sense, and I think even when we were growing up in the sort of so-called heroine cheek, which I hate that expression, but yeah, just for sort of context, I don't think even then it was this extreme. Would you agree?

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Christine Chessman: It seemed to be away from us. That didn't seem to be as close.

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Ela Law (she/her): Mmm.

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Christine Chessman: Over there, that was for the models.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Christine Chessman: The bottles were a heroin shake, but it wasn't the entire…

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Christine Chessman: It wasn't… it didn't seem as perversive or as… I don't know.

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Ela Law (she/her): No.

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Christine Chessman: Well, I mean, in terms of… have you… Have you ever been impacted?

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Christine Chessman: by watching something or seeing something, can you resonate with that, or does that not make sense to you?

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Ela Law (she/her): In terms of this extreme kind.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, I mean, throughout your life, have you ever thought, oh.

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Ela Law (she/her): I honestly can't say that I have.

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Ela Law (she/her): But then I've always been privileged in being in a… in a straight-sized smaller body. So…

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Ela Law (she/her): For me, the difference…

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Ela Law (she/her): to get to whatever skinny model I was seeing. Obviously, I was never there, but the difference wasn't as, sort of, in your face, so to speak.

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Ela Law (she/her): Whereas, I think nowadays, and then, it really highlights the difference. So, a sort of straight-sized body compared to this extreme thinness. If you look at that, it's now seen as, like, oh my god, that's massive.

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Christine Chessman: bus size.

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Ela Law (she/her): And you think… it's highlighting this kind of…

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Ela Law (she/her): you know, the difference even more, and I think that's not helpful for anyone

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Ela Law (she/her): Flying the flag for body diversity, for their possibly slightly larger body, who have been working on finding peace in their body, and being happy with

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Ela Law (she/her): their shape and size. Having this thrown at them and in their face, literally every time they open a newspaper or scroll down social media, that's not going to be helpful to all of the work that people have done on, you know, finding peace in their body, and learning to accept their body.

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Christine Chessman: And, you know, we always go back… we're both intuitive eating counsellors, and it is that thing that I always try… I go back to if thoughts arise, is that you…

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Christine Chessman: You want to sort of listen to your body, and it's… when you feel hungry.

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Christine Chessman: you don't want to push it down and suppress it, because that's your body talking to you, and I think.

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Christine Chessman: The further you go down the road of suppressing hunger cues.

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Christine Chessman: The less in touch you are with them, so it takes quite a while to…

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Ela Law (she/her): Hmm. Rebuild that body trust.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Do you know what I mean? So you probably won't feel hungry.

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Ela Law (she/her): Huh? Nothing.

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Christine Chessman: In the same way.

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Ela Law (she/her): And also, if you're on a weight loss drug, you probably don't hear any of those signals anyway, which I would imagine a lot of those celebrities are, to kind of give them a little help, extra help.

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Christine Chessman: But I… I think I kind of see, you know, it's, it's… I see food and exercise being this…

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Christine Chessman: I want to make sure that I'm fueling my body enough

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Christine Chessman: So that I can feel okay, and I think my body will then take care of itself in terms of weight. So, you know, I… it doesn't mean we're not very much eating nutrient-dense food. Doesn't mean that we're not taking care of our bodies. It absolutely means the opposite.

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Ela Law (she/her): Premier.

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Christine Chessman: We're really thinking about what our body needs.

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Christine Chessman: Do you know what I mean? And it's…

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Christine Chessman: I don't know, it's this idea of letting your body take care of it, so being kind to your body and letting it do the rest, so trusting it to kind of do the rest.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: So, eating nutritious food, feeding the body what it needs, moving it in a way that feels good, and letting it take care of the rest.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, and that could be slightly larger, slightly smaller, whatever it is, but not at that extreme end.

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Christine Chessman: But this is… this is what's hard, because if you do like your body take care of it, and you don't like…

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Ela Law (she/her): how it takes care of it, because we're living in this dieting culture. I think that's…

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Christine Chessman: when… It's very hard to stay in that distress, that discomfort, isn't it?

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Ela Law (she/her): That's what I mean when I said earlier to, you know, it highlights that you do all this work on accepting your body, and trusting it, that it does what it needs, and what it needs to do, and we do for it what it needs us to do, and then you have that

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Ela Law (she/her): as a counter image in your face, it is very hard, definitely.

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Christine Chessman: And I struggle sometimes to watch TV shows that are just full of…

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Christine Chessman: you know, I can't watch the Kardashians, let's just… no shade to them, but…

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Ela Law (she/her): Never watched that, ever.

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Ela Law (she/her): What's content.

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Christine Chessman: No, I can't do… I just can't, because that's just too… so I like to watch shows where there are people who are

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Christine Chessman: real. Like, they… and that… and I showed my daughter a show the other day, so I've banged on about somebody somewhere.

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Christine Chessman: which Jeff Hiller won the Emmy this year.

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Ela Law (she/her): I love that one.

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Christine Chessman: It's a beautiful show, and it's just wonderful. And my daughter watched it and was like, oh, it's really boring, and it's like, I've never seen acting like that. It's just, like, real, and it's… and it…

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Ela Law (she/her): Hmm, not interested at all.

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Christine Chessman: Because… and it is shot in a very real…

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Ela Law (she/her): Yep.

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Christine Chessman: like, you could be living there, you could… they could be your friends, they could be… and that's what I loved about it, because it was so authentic, and it was, like, people, not skinny people… nothing about skinny, not people who were, kind of.

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Christine Chessman: Trying to conform to a certain extreme, or had to, you know, have… they were just people who were friends, who were incredibly talented people, and actors and actresses, and…

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, it's about their lives, not about their looks, right? It was about the day-to-day life, and it wasn't about how thin or big they were.

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Christine Chessman: But you could see beauty in all of them, and that's what…

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Ela Law (she/her): 100%, yeah.

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Christine Chessman: That's the thing that we're losing here, because there's not just one type of beauty.

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Christine Chessman: Do you know what I mean? And I think that's where we're getting our blinkers on, that there is not just one type of beauty, there is so many. People are beautiful because of who they are, and…

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Christine Chessman: All different types of people can be beautiful.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, but we're not being told that by… if you just watch any kind of… I mean, interesting what your daughter said about it, that's just, like, real.

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Ela Law (she/her): It…

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Christine Chessman: I know.

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Ela Law (she/her): Highlights the fact that we're being fed fake.

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Ela Law (she/her): From morning to night.

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Christine Chessman: We've been… Yeah.

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Ela Law (she/her): Literally fed fake shit.

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Ela Law (she/her): It's… I mean, do we want that? Are we not gonna wake up to that and think, actually, this is… this is all a massive lie?

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law (she/her): No, I don't know where this is gonna go.

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Christine Chessman: I just… I just feel very strongly that we need to speak out, Ella.

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Ela Law (she/her): keeps making.

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Christine Chessman: tonight, and it keeps…

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Ela Law (she/her): Absolutely.

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Christine Chessman: Talking about it, even…

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Christine Chessman: if not everybody agrees, because I do think it's incredibly damaging, and we gotta think about our next generation of people coming up thinking.

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Christine Chessman: that's the only way that I'll be accepted, if that's…

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Christine Chessman: When it has nothing to do with that, and it's the least important thing.

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Christine Chessman: I don't know, we're just… we've gone a bit skew with…

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Christine Chessman: It just feels like we need to bring it back, I don't know.

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Christine Chessman: And you kind of were saying it's an outcry, everybody's like… but I don't think it is a national outcry, I think it's a…

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Christine Chessman: People in the non-diet space outcry.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, in our bubble, everyone is up in arms about it. I think everyone else is kind of proceeding with caution, and looking into, where can I get Ozempic?

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Christine Chessman: But do you think it will peter out? So, as it's a trend, do you think it'll come and go?

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Ela Law (she/her): It probably will eventually, but I don't know, we might have a nuclear war before that happens, I have no idea. I just… I feel like this is… it just keeps coming back with a vengeance, and every time it comes back, it's… it's harsher.

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Christine Chessman: If you look at the trends over the years, you know, you had the 70s, where… or the 60s, where we had Twiggy, and then we had the…

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Ela Law (she/her): 2000s with a hairy and chic. Now it's 2025, and it's literally… I mean, you cannot lose any more weight.

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Ela Law (she/her): Where's this gonna… see, it seems like… it seems to spike, and then kind of come down, and spike more, and spike more. I don't know where this is going to end. Maybe we need to just eradicate women, and then the men have got the use of the planet, and they can nuke each other.

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Christine Chessman: There's a quote that I'm gonna put in the show notes from Alok,

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Incredible, and they were talking about the act of disappearing ourselves to please other people.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, well, there you go.

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Christine Chessman: it just feels like that's what we're doing, and I think it's time to kind of go, no, we're here, let's accept this, or F off, that's kind of…

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And it's trying to get a bit of that grip back, it's trying to get a bit of that… no, no, no, I'm not gonna apologize for…

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Ela Law (she/her): Yep. Definitely. I think that it can help to have a bit of community around you, can't it? To kind of bolster you with that.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah. But, do we have any… do we have any kind of positives to end on for our lovely.

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh, God, I mean, there's always a positive, isn't there? But I just think anyone…

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Ela Law (she/her): anyone listening to this, I would just say, if, you know, think about who you're doing this for.

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Ela Law (she/her): think about who are you… who are you trying to shrink yourself for? And if the answer is for myself.

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Ela Law (she/her): think again, because that is not the right answer. That's not why you're doing it.

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Christine Chessman: Because yourself doesn't care. Yourself doesn't care.

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Ela Law (she/her): No, no, no. It's not you, and it's never you. So it's always not doing it for you.

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Christine Chessman: And also, you know what, I've… there's a cracking person to follow if you've got teen, girls or boys, or people. Teen… teens. Just say teens. Spencer Barboza, she's an influencer, but she's…

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Christine Chessman: Not in a super skinny body, and she's in a straight-sized, normal body, but she sort of talks about the pressures that are on her, and that she refuses to stop eating, and she's always showing herself eating big burgers.

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Ela Law (she/her): Hmm.

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Christine Chessman: very comfortable in the body that she's in. But she shows pictures of… like, she did a post the other day saying, oh, I need to eat less, or I shouldn't have that ice cream.

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Christine Chessman: And then it showed… the next slide was her, when she was 2 or 3, going with an ice cream, and it saying, you shouldn't have that ice cream. And then the next one was like, I look fat in a bikini, and the next one was a little 2-year-old in a bikini going.

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Christine Chessman: you look fat in the… do you know what I mean? It really hit at home, because.

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Ela Law (she/her): Where does it come from?

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Christine Chessman: If you looked at yourself as a… if you looked at yourself as a child, you would never treat that child the way you're treating yourself.

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Christine Chessman: And that child does not deserve to be treated that way, and that's still you, that is…

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Ela Law (she/her): And that's… I know that's a kind of extreme thing, but I think that can bring it home sometimes, that…

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Christine Chessman: Our bodies are crying out just to be fed, and to be loved, and to be…

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Ela Law (she/her): Hmm.

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Christine Chessman: nourished.

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Ela Law (she/her): And we're kind of just… Ignoring them.

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Christine Chessman: Ignoring them.

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Ela Law (she/her): Punishing them, but it just highlights the question, who are you doing this for? Because if you're a two-year-old, and you're being told that, and then you internalize that, of course you're going to struggle when you're an adult, right? It's just internalized

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Ela Law (she/her): you know, anti-fat bias that you've grown up with. So, you know, there's no judgment on our part for anybody who is in that mindset, or who thinks that, oh, I want to lose weight. But that's where the question comes in. Who are you doing this for?

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And why would… how would your life be better?

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Ela Law (she/her): Because anytime that I've…

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Christine Chessman: gone to that, when I've thought, I want to be this, and I've… I've got there to my goal weight, or to what I thought I… I should be. I've always been the most miserable, because I had no energy, I had no strength, I was cold all the time, I was… so it's… it doesn't bring you the happiness that you maybe think it's gonna…

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Ela Law (she/her): No.

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Christine Chessman: Confidence is not waiting for you there.

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Ela Law (she/her): No.

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Christine Chessman: Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: So, I think we'll end on that, but our lovely listeners, I think, as Ella said, the question to ask is, who are you doing it for?

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Ela Law (she/her): Hmm.

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Christine Chessman: And join us in trying to be unapologetic and just being ourselves and taking up space.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yes.

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Christine Chessman: Easy to say, obviously, in straight-sized bodies.

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Ela Law (she/her): Of course.

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Christine Chessman: privilege.

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Christine Chessman: But it's something that needs to be said, so please let us know your comments and how you feel about this epidemic at the minute.

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Christine Chessman: And thank you for listening, we appreciate each and every one of you, and sorry about Ella's anti-Christmas vibes.

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Ela Law (she/her): Don't be sorry about it, and I'm not sorry about it. If anyone wants to talk to me about bar humbugness, I'm all for it, so just get in touch, and we.

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Christine Chessman: Alright.

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Ela Law (she/her): Hamburg together.

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Christine Chessman: Alright, okay then, Ella.

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Ela Law (she/her): Bye!

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Christine Chessman: See you next week!