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Hey Mina, I wish you'd talked about race and slavery a little in the transition from fatness to thinness. In Fearing The Blank Body by Sabrina Strings the author writes that lack of self control was stereotyped to be a Black thing, so white people wanted to distance themselves from fatness. You touched on it a little and the video was very interesting and informative, but I just thought to expend on the info here. For Harriet and Jordan Theresa touch on the book in some of their videos so you could also check those out!
You should learn more about the science, history and economics of vitamin supplements, because this is one of the most unintentionally ironic sponsorships I've ever seen.
@@MaterialMenteNo THIS, for real. I couldn’t watch past the sponsorship because I seriously cannot trust anything coming from someone plugging expensive piss, since that’s what most multivitamins become.
What I think is really interesting is that thin bodies are seen as more attractive if societes have very high food security. Fuller bodies are seen as more beautiful in societes with food scarcity. You can even follow these trends through the decades and different places in the world. This is of course just one aspect of the dynamic of body ideals.
@XYXYZ we desire what we aren't born with. society made us convince ourselves that our natural beauty isn't enough and that we need to alter ourselves a bit more to achieve this heightened level of 'beauty'. this is gonna sound lame as hell but beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder anyway, so who really cares when i'm seen as 'a vampire' in america but 'perfect' in asia? love who you are regardless!
But also aristocratic ladies would be depicted as chubby/fat which means that was the ideal. Even though aristocratic people did have access to a lot of food. And art itself back then was for aristocrats. Common folk did not have access to art but they were the population that was deprived of food.
"I'm so safe I can afford to ignore abundance" this is how I feel about minimalist and de-cluttering movements, sort of. Well, it makes sense. My grandma started hoarding as a response to scarcity and I start minimalism as a response to her burden.
@Shroom Gremlins no thank you so much for writing this! Its actually weirdly just led me through a whole thought process of understanding my own attitudes towards this and I've only just realised how my current state and my upbringing correlate. . I feel what you're saying on an insane level. I grew up around so much clutter and mess in a big family that was always moving around. im now 19 and mess makes me so irritated that I can't even relax, not being able to find something within seconds stresses me out and having too many belongings that I can't easily keep a mental catalog of also makes me feel anxious and creates feelings of instability, even though I deeply value and everything I own and consider my belongings literally a part of me. I can't imagine being somebody who doesn't feel weirdly connected to their personal property. As a result I'm very clean and tidy, very organised and am constantly compactifying I guess 'coreifying' (only keeping the core necessities of any category of belonging eg. Clothes, bedding even something as simple as jewelery. I will constantly declutter my jewelery and only keep the best quality most emotionally valuable pieces) I can't stand when I have so many trinkety things much as I love them because they make me feel too tethered to my belongings. Like if I had to up and run very quickly or there was a fire, so many of my belongings which I consider part of me would be left behind and that makes me anxious. So insane how it all connects. Thanks for taking the time to write that all out 💝💝💝💝💝
@@sarathesaraa4756 see my suggestion above additionally, you might wanna stop with ableism/saneism in your language - it always reflects back and hurt people with disabilities/mental illness when words like ins*ne or cr*zy are used derogatory (insults) or lightly as an indicator of _(way) too much_ or something (trivializing it) there are other words that can express the same without...
Wow. I hate buying more than a single serving size of food because my dad has always bought way too much (because he was raised by parents who went through the depression and wars). We either continue the cycle or get into an opposite cycle, it seems...
"The fat person, usually a fat woman, is represented not as a person but as something encasing a person, something from which a person must escape." This made me cry, I have never found a more eloquent way to put it.
As a former anorexic, I'm happy to say I watched this while happily snacking on curly fries. Fuck dieting. I'm invested in my health and wellbeing, not my weight or appearance. For this reason I try to exercise regularly and eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full, and I try to get at least some veggies in every day. If I'm extra hungry, I eat extra. If I've got a major craving for curly fries, I'mma eat some curly fries.
I wasnt anorexic, but i remember i was so obsessed with my weight i would force myself to exercse 2+ hours a day, and i would feel bad to eat more than 500 calories a day from fear of gaining weight. I would check the scale everyday, add minutes to exercise for every extra calorie, etc. I was super depressed. Thats not anorexic (i dont think), but I feel for you. Fuck dieting :(
@@xen-reji uhhh. I'm not a professional in eating disorders but I do have a psych degree and I also had one myself and uhhhh. Sounds like you had an eating disorder my dude.
The fact that dieting can be a form of empowerment to one generation and the antithesis of that to another generation is fascinating. It truly emphasizes the full grasp that these social constructs can have on an individual’s identity.
As someone who's studied the history of dieting in grad school, this was a very well-researched video! I think a newer development with a lot of modern dieting is promoting this idea that your body doesn’t function properly Ex. Detoxes. Your liver already does that you don’t need to go on a juice cleanse.
This is an excellent point. Someone in another video somewhere noted that as the body positivity movement became popular, so did the 'wellness' industry.
I had an eating disorder my whole life till I was 28. My parents never kept a lot of food in the house and were always obsessed with my weight. I recovered from my disorder and gained weight which is understandable, but instead of being proud of me or praising me, my parents fat-shamed the F out of me. They shamed me on a constant basis and it's one of the reasons they are no longer in my life. I'm healthier than I've ever been today and that's what matters
@@josephmcminn1654 A disorder concerning irregular eating habits. This is typically caused by a desire to lose weight, but there can be other motivations, like a desire to gain muscle etc. The most commonly brought up eating disorders are bulimia and anorexia. Anorexia refers to when the person purposefully starves themself in an attempt to lose weight, in severe situations becoming quite life threatening. Bulimia refers to when the person eats a normal amount of food or sometimes even more than usual but vomits it up later. There are multiple other eating disorders, but you can probably research more into it by yourself.
I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself and doing what makes you feel happy and healthy. You deserve to feel good and enjoy your relationship with food. Sending you love!
i just wanna put this out here for everybody. beauty standards are impossible to keep up with. it does not matter what u do, it doesn’t matter how u dress, how much u weigh, or how u do ur makeup. ur never going to find true happiness or confidence if it roots in how society currently thinks u should look.
that's why you should never care about how you look. My conceptualization of society and its standards is complete. TH-cam essayists condense perceived authority on topics so complicated that even the "good" ones are an attack on the human psyche. namaste.
This a thousand times. The only people who should be keeping up with mainstream beauty standards are models who do it for a living and have a vast array of limitless tools and resources at hand (ie. couture tailors and plastic surgery, dieticians and personal stylists etc). It only took 10 years for magazine outlets to go from Paris Hilton to Kim Kardashian and best believe it'll change again real soon. Unless your goal is to emulate the method acting of Christian Bale there's no feasible way to always meet that standard. It's better to just be yourself (and to keep in mind that beauty trends are cyclical, lol).
I grew up in a household with NO speak of diets, body image or negativity surrounding food. When i grew up and went into the real world, I am still shocked to see how sad and bad diet culture is! My mother in law comments about feeling fat in front of her kids. The woman had 5 kids, and she is this harsh on herself! Its so damn sad to hear.
It's important to note that the societal anxiety around women's fertility was very specifically about *white* women's fertility, and when people wrote about the race dying out because of (white) women attending college, it wasn't the human race they were talking about. This goes hand-in-hand with the image of Black women and Jewish women as fat and fecund - and this specific anxiety survives today, sometimes referred to as "The Great Replacement Theory."
Great video again, Mina! And thank you for mentioning the difficult history dieting has in the Jewish community. It's not typically included in these discussions.
My mother is diabetic, she was rushed to the hospital last week because since she got covid she had been drinking a cold & flu tea medicine that contained crazy amounts of sugar and it spiked her blood sugar to fatal levels. She knows nothing about what’s in food, it’s how she got diabetes in the first place. Fad diets don’t work, ruin your relationship with food and I’m also strongly against them. But IMO there is nothing wrong with learning about nutrition so you can make decisions based on it. Knowledge is power
Ooof. Well, I hope this is a wake up call to her that she can't keep living this way.... literally. I really got my type 2 under control once I started focusing on fueling my body with nutritious food. If she's open to it, maybe she would consider trying a 30 day vegan challenge? When you've gotten that ill its sometimes worth it to do a short little challenge, reorder how you feel about food and reset your taste buds.
@@j.munday7913 my mom has diabetes and she's got it under control for the most part but could you please tell me how you did it? Also, she gained a lot of weight because of stress over the years. She was like 45 kgs before (healthy for her height, she's 5'2), now she's around 68 kgs and I worry a lot because I don't want her to suffer. I don't want to give her an ED but I know this much weight can't be healthy for her, specially when she was very thin to begin with. I'm so sorry for the rant, I just love my mom a lot but that woman puts everyone else above her. She's doing extremely well money/career wise right now but she would've been even better if she hadn't been a stay at home mom when I was born and this also bothers me...I kinda feel guilty even tho she's a great mother and loved taking care of me. I just want to do the same for her but I'm going to university in a few months. If anyone has any ideas for losing weight and what kind of foods etc to eat, that would be great! Thank you so much
@@nini-qc1qd She has to want to do it for herself, but I've had huge success with a whole food plant-based diet. If she wants she can try it for a month and just see how she feels on it.
@@nini-qc1qd seconding looking into a whole food plant based (WFPB) diet. I've heard very very good things about it reversing disease and/or making people feel a lot better and more energetic.
I use this video as a tool in my ED recovery. When I struggle to feed myself, I watch this while I prepare and eat food. Nothing gets me more in the mood to eat than saying "f*** you" to patriarchy. Thank you so much for posting this, you are a treasure and you are helping people.
reminded me how a few years ago I was looking up ways to get motivation to exercise and stumbled upon an article that suggested something along the lines of "pinching your flab to get filled with disgust towards your body so you want to exercise immediately" and another 10-15 similar tips. it's still scary af out there.
I've started eating disorder treatment recently and learning about nutrition from the perspective of like ... NOT diets has been absolutely mind blowing and transformative. Diet culture has really destroyed culture throughout history and where we've ended up as a society has so deeply ingrained such disordered behavior its honestly shocking to me more people don't have eating disorders. Also I've never been this early to your videos! I'm a huge fan and you've been such a big influence in me getting into fashion and makeup. Love you!!
Same thing happened to me when I went in treatment. It was such a crazy experience to hear dietitians not tell you to avoid everything! Good luck, im rooting for you!
I definitely got to agree. I noticed that focusing on eating the things that are good for my body solved all the health risks I had in my diet. The focus on what youre supposed to avoid is a big problem I think. Its also easier to feel accomplished when you manage to eat your greens, than when you managed to refrain from x or y (at least for me).
I think a lot more people than we know have some level of disordered eating, it's just so normalized that many people don't think anything of it. I see it a lot with the way people around me talk about food and they just think it's normal, but it's really sad. I'm so glad ur unlearning diet culture's lies and recovering !
@@sweetembrace6706 yeah, some of the diets promoted and praised by fitness bros just seem so incredibly unhealthy to me. The protein powder industry must make BANK.
There was a "Tapeworm Diet" at some point during victorian era. Where you swallow the tapeworm and it lives inside of you depleting your body of nutrients, and makes you thinner as a result. And pale! Which was fashionable. It also can be lethal too. People still do that apparently.
Crazy that women in the 1920s are stereotyped as being very thin and clearly were thought of as thin by society at the time and yet by todays standards I wouldn’t describe any of women in photos from the 20s as being thin - we have pushed thinness to a wholeee new level in the last 30 years that I think would shock people of previous eras
I looked at the 4 ladies in 16:03, yes, the last three look thinner than the first one, who also looks thin, but, even the last two's thinness looks thiccer than the ultra-thin/starved look of some supermodels & actresses, especially of 10 or more years ago. I'm not saying they were *all* that thin, just some of them. I would say thin to the point of hallowed or gaunt. I can double check if you're positive I am wrong...
Glamourdaze, another TH-cam channel, specializes in restoring film clips from the 1920's, if people want more examples from that era to look at, you can try there The ones in the clip I just saw are thin, but not the ultra thin of a decade or two ago.
i was introduced to myfitnesspal in 5th grade (i was 10) in health class. our health teacher taught us how to calorie count and log our food and then made us feel awful if we surpassed the amount we were supposed to eat. she also preached this to everyone regardless of weight. i was borderline underweight and she still made me feel awful for having more calories or fat or sugar than i was "supposed" to.. based on the app's suggestion in 2010.
jesus fuck that’s horrible. we had the fitnessgram test and that made people feel shitty but at least it was private and once a year… your “health” teacher psychologically abused y’all and probably fucked up a bunch of people that would’ve otherwise had fewer or no problems with eating… jfc im so sorry
We had our bellys pinched with a device to tell us if we were fat. I looked at my teacher and she went "well" and skipped me because I carried a lil bit of weight :( this was a science lesson
Holy crap, thank goodness I didn't use MyFitnessPal at that age. I'm using it to get ENOUGH calories into my body to avoid undereating. As well as allowing some healthy carbs back into my body as doing hardcore keto as a Type 1 made me not only avoiding all carbs like fruit and vegetables, I almost got into euglycemic ketoacidosis and an increase in insulin resistance. Granted I'm not gonna shift entirely into WFPB diet but I'm just bored of eating meat and cheese as my main source of energy.
@@2121princesse except the traits we value as beauty are cultural. You know what was hot 30 000 years ago? Venus of Willendorf. Reject modernity, embrace Venus of Willendorf ❤
@@2121princesse Except no. If you aren't carrying weight and famine hits.. being thin by todays standard wouldn't predict good future health at all. It's purely situational.
This is a pretty triggering topic for me as a person recovering from an eating disorder so I'm gonna skip this one BUT I had to come into the comments to compliment your hair, it looks spectacular
The desire for thinness also came about in the late 19th century because of the romanticization of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was seen as an almost angelic disease (the same way people romanticize depression now) which left the sufferer with rosy cheeks, a gaunt frame, and tragic mortality. Poets wrote about TB extensively and the people given death sentences would often go on luxurious vacations to rest and relax. Susan Sontag wrote about it in Illness as Metaphor, which is a really interesting read!
When you brought up the topic of calorie counting and WWI I can imagine being thin was also viewed as patriotic. In a world with food scarcity it would seem kinda immortal to be fat and I guess this sentiment maybe stayed even after the war
We live in a world where really calorie dense foods are readily available, at any hour of the day, delivered to your house. Calorie counting can be a really great exercise is practicing mindful eating. Especially if you’re prone to boredom eating, emotional eating, or binging. It’s helped me to avoid highly processed foods, sodas, and trans fats while choosing more natural and nutritious replacements. Health over aesthetics though.
Damn, as if the pressure to be patriotic wasn't intense enough. I can't imagine the social guilt one would feel in that era for a few excess pounds, those poor women
I love how you brought up how diet culture became racist, classist, etc. I really was touched by the mentioning of feminism because it made me think of a current experience I am having. I gave birth 7 months ago, and pregnancy was awful. And something outside of complications I will never forget is how I was treated while pregnant and after. A bit of background: before pregnancy, I was fit and muscular, plus size but no one noticed much. I never dealt with so much fat phobia until pregnancy. I also was objectified openly by men in public or struggled to find clothes that fit, and I still struggle. It's to the point it's not even just about weight anymore. I dont like having hips or breasts, I cry not just at fatness, but more I cannot stand seeing the things that make me feminine. This video made me realize that in a say diet culture was pushed toward women, and somehow we got "young, stick with no figure to show any feminity" is desirable, and in a way diet culture shames women for having feminine features. Ok, I feel this comment is verbal vomit, but I hope I make sense.
I think alot of this has to do with plastic surgery too. Full feminine features are okay of they are "perfect". Like lifted doubles d's with small areolas and butts that are perky and a round shape. Like you said, real women bodies after pregnancy are fuller but not in a societal perfect way. For examples, the areolas are bigger to aid in breast feeding after birth, but many people find enlarged areolas to be almost shocking and too primal instead of sexy. This is because of the porn industry and plastic surgery.
Actresses and praised figures look like literal children. I realized this at a cook out. The prepubescent kids were all in the pool and I realized their flat stomachs, thin limbs, and perky muscles are what actresses look like. We're adults. We don't and shouldn't look like that.
This made me realize how damaging the way one of my teachers in school is teaching us to eat healthily, her biggest argument is for us to count our calories and cut out carbs entirely, she even forced us to do an assignment where we counted how many calories we approximately eat in a day, handing it in made me feel very humiliated tbh
Oh if one of my daughters had been in that class, there would have been hell. I would have rather had them fail the class. I fought through an eating disorder for all of my 20s and now in my 30s I have to constantly be keeping it at bay. That is terrible.
I have a similar assignment from my health nutrition class in college and gosh her calorie limit for me was 1500 calories and I thought I was starving that entire week of the assignment
i would simply Lie. either with whatever "goal" she expects or some wildly impossible bullshit number, whether that be wayy to high for human consumption or wayyy too low lmao
Counting calories on a low or even no carb diet, which then are high fat diets, is insane! I eat low/ zero carb for years due to health reasons and the number one rule that you learn is NO CALORIE COUNTING 😮
In my first 2 years of high school, I was a few pounds underweight because my adhd pills supressed my appetite. I was made fun of and accused of anorexia, which I didn't have. Junior year, I gained a few pounds and was finally at a healthy weight (my doctor told me my height/weight ratio was perfectly healthy) and I got picked on for being "fat." Moral of the story, high school boys suck.
Especially for women, it's like we can't do anything right to men. "You're too fat" "Now you're too thin" "Ew, gym rat" "God she's so lazy" Don't listen to what others say. I know it can be super hard. But you and your doctor knows you best. Im glad you're healthy
we had boys running around with rulers to measure the thigh gaps of the girls in out class. It shocks me to this day that I had to endure this bullshit. What the f***
In a inappropriate dark humour way "Ayds" does really help you lose weight... *thankfull for the medicine that we have now that can really insure you have good life quality no matter your status
My grandma took "diet pills" in the 60's that were basically speed. It really messed her up. Diet culture really effed up the past couple of generations in my family. I'm trying to break that cycle. I pray my daughter never feels less then because of her body.
Yo my aunt did the same thing when she was a teenager growing up then. She was also taking other meds in combination with those crazy diet pills, which she had no idea would be harmful since her doctor neglected to check, and she had probably the scariest mental/bodily experience of her life. If she hadn't literally sat her ass down in a drug rehabilitation center and refused to leave until they helped her, she doesn't think she'd have survived until today.
I'm a new mom of a daughter and I could not help but think " well of course we dont want to teach diet culture to our kids, but holy shit it's so engrained in us that how do we even?". Like even if we dont teach kids diet culture, someone or something we trust or dont of still teaches kids that and it still like history holds, has alot of backgrounds outside of low body image ( socioeconomic or racism, or lack or abundance of femininity)
Unfortunately (as somebody w/adhd& add) improper use of such medications by so many ppl make it difficult for a lot of us neurodivergent to access these types of drugs.
I think it's important, as a mother, to avoid negative self-talk. Even if you praise your daughter for all the right things, calling yourself fat and making negative comments about your own appearance will affect her views about her own body.
@@WileyCylas in this case its the prescribed use that is bad. diet pill manufacturers were lying about the effectiveness and even necessity of their product. Just saying this because i dont like the implication that it’s the users fault when they should not have been getting those kinds of drug in the first place for treating weight. Because nothing about it is medically necessary, unlike managing adhd as you said.
I would like to mention that the Empress of Austria, Elisabeth "Sisi" (1837-1998) went on extreme diets. She struggled with eating disorders and was obsessed with her weight and her appearance. I thought of this while watching the video, and found it interesting that she struggled with her weight when the beauty standards for women favored being plump, as Mina explained so well. For reference, she exercised in insane amounts, tight-laced, would go on diets of drinking cow blood, and was severely underweight. Her story is fascinating but also extremely sad, so I recommend reading up on her , but with adequate caution.
the most extreme phase of dieting were the late 90's and early 2000's with the size zero phase and the heroin look. every girl in my school was dieting (aka eating just an apple for an entire day of school) and having an eating disorder at this time
My mother is a dietician so I grew up being told that my focus should always be health when monitoring eating habits and weight gain - not appearance. I'm really grateful for this education because when I feel pressure to loose weight from media etc I can pull myself back on track and remind myself it's about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, not how small I look. (Though I still have to reiterate this to myself regularly to overpower the endless fat phobic rhetoric we're fed). I'm also super aware that in cases of obesity and people who struggle with eating disorders, it is always about deeper issues and never a personality flaw or poor lifestyle choice - therefore, dieting without addressing those deeper issues is always pointless.
I think it's also important for mothers not to engage with negative self-talk about themselves. I grew up with my mom commenting how fat she was (despite being a pretty average size) and it significantly affected how I view weight gain and how much emphasis I put on maintaining my own thinness.
@@sierrasouthwell9237 Yes i definitely agree with this and I'm really sorry you have that experience. I think I'm lucky because my mum is a professional dietician she always discussed healthy eating and exercise as a positive goal to keep our bodies and minds healthy - not something that should be measured by my appearance. Although, I understand how much pressure we can feel to judge ourselves by the latter when everyone around us and in the media are judging us that way anyway.
@@josephmcminn1654 In this context I meant people are often quick to judge people by their weight and make assumptions like they're choosing it because they're lazy. But people's diets are actually very complex things determined by multiple factors, environmental and genetic. And people often don't realise that dietetics isn't just telling someone what to eat, in fact dieticians work very closely with psychologists to help people on a deeper level. This is why there's no such thing as a one-diet-fits-all situation and yelling at someone in a bootcamp to lose weight is not sufficient and rarely (if ever) works.
As someone who is trying to recover from an ed, this video really helped me see how stupid the whole thing is and, at least today, made me feel better about my body so thank you :)
I appreciate the conversation between families and diet. I think that a lot of people, particularly girls, struggle with self image partly because of how their parents, mostly mothers or female caretakers, struggle with their own. I feel deeply for my mom but I also resent how I've seen myself for so. many years
This. My mom has always struggled with her weight and I had to grow up around that and hear comments she says about her body, my body, and other people. I feel bad because she's a victim of diet culture and fatphobia but I resent her for causing a lot of the issues I have about my body and that any ed tendencies I have she encourages.
My mom put me on my first diet when I was 7 and my childhood was full of her calling me awful names and comparing me to my thin sisters almost everyday. One of my first memories of her is how she was working out while telling me „no one is gonna love you if you are fat”. Yeah, go figure why i developed an ed when i was just 12 and had several relapses (i’m 25 now). At this point i’m 100% sure she always had ed herself but it’s something normal for her. (Ex. Eating one small meal a day, being underweight, working out all the time, being obsessed with her weight and checking her body in the mirror every 10 minutes)
It sucks because our moms were not only the cause of our insecurities around fat, but they were also the victims. They just perpetuated it along to the next generation without complaint, and that's distressing. In case no one's told you recently, I love you.
I think more adults should embrace the idea of going out to play. Exercise is a word that that just raises some people's blood pressure and stirs up a general crankiness. "Allowing" yourself to feel like a kid again a few times a week has a much nicer ring to it and takes a lot of the negative associations away. Now it's not exercising because "something is wrong with you". It's going out and having fun. Play soccer or hackey sack outside a few times a week. Baseball doesn't involve a lot of moving, but basketball is an excellent way to keep moving. You just have to find something you like doing. I know a really nice lady I grew up with who's on a roller derby team! Having a few friends who like doing it with you is a huge plus. If not, join a club and meet people. At least you have something in common! As for "diet". Just go back to common sense thinking. Potato chips and fries aren't as healthy as a plain baked potato. Don't drown your side of veggies in half a stick of butter. Fast food has never been meant to be a staple in anyone's diet. It's meant at best to be an occasional treat when you feel like you deserve to just let go. I know many people who eat every meal via drive-thru and Grubhub. Their doctors can roughly guess the last time they cooked a meal at home by looking at their bloodwork. Don't snack in front of the TV. It's called "mindless eating" and it puts a serious whupping on your health. It's best to get away from TV and phones for a meal anyway. Strengthens the family bond, as well as helps you to stop getting hungry whenever you're bored. We all know what junk is. Eat less of that. We all largely know what is healthy. Give that a bigger piece of your plate. You don't have to starve, just eat better food. Any diet that says you should be hungry from time to time is absolutely stupid. Eat foods that are good for you and give you non sugar rush energy. The weight will start to take care of itself. Above all else, don't obsess about it. I know a great deal about fitness and nutrition, but I carry a thick middle myself. I think I weigh about 270! I eat like a horse, and not all of my food is healthy. I love candy, chips and beer. I also have spent most of the last 30 years exercising, and these days I try to get in a one hour jog twice a week. I literally have Netflix shows I only allow myself to watch when I'm jogging on the treadmill. We all have our vices, and we all have our carrots that get us to pull our carts. You don't have to look a certain way. You just have to feel healthy and enjoy a decent quality of life. And you can still have that even if you like ice cream. Love yourself first. The others will catch on soon enough.
Yes I teach dance and the hardest thing to overcome in the first week is getting people to have fun while dancing 😭😂💃 It sounds so silly when written down huh ?
I weigh 100kg (I'm AFAB) and I feel really happy and strong in this weight. I swim and lift weights and go on walks. My body may be a far cry from beauty ideals, but I love having broad shoulders and lots of muscle. I do have fat, too, but it's nothing bothersome, it keeps me warm and protected. 🤗
There's something to be said for the new trend of orthorexia going hand in hand with the trend of dieting as toxic positivity. Just personally, I and my mother have been thin for our entire lives and every year she goes through a phase of trying to be ultra-healthy and "just take off ten pounds" and then she'll finally be happy. It messes me up, and re-triggers my ED every time because I was raised to believe that my self worth was tied directly to my appearance, which is then tied to false morality.
Mina: "Yes, I know we start in the 19th century a lot. Sorry." Me, a giant history nerd with a particular obsession with the Victorian Era: "I'm lovin it!" lol
@@matematicarka People say this as a joke a lot, but the "industrial revolution and its consequences" is a very accurate phrase to show how drastically that era changed society
the section about the slimming clubs not helping lifestyle reminded me of jordan theresa's video on "the biggest loser" which was a really awful show based on early 2000s diet culture
I would like to add to Mina's point about non-WASP women being portrayed as fat to exclude them from a beauty standard. Not only is that 100% on point, but it also excluded them from a moral standard. Fat people being seen as greedy and minority women being seen as fat was far from accidental. Hate groups play on the fear that equality will lead to disenfranchised groups taking some inalienable right away from white Americans. By portraying black, Jewish, and immigrant women as fat, they were using a visual tool to bolster fear. And by making them fat, and therefore (in their eyes) greedy, they were demonstrating the perceived moral failings of any member of those groups. P.S. Sorry if this is incoherent. This is my third time trying to post this comment.
no trust me it makes loads of sense and is very introspective. Definitely broadened my mind in regards to some popular tropes regarding women of colour or non Americans. A theory I just thought of is how this might have aided in the stereotype surrounding east Asian women, like submissive, thin, docile what have you, this shows that, as past has shown, Americans view Asians as "good" minorities because they don't try to take up space, or aren't greedy because, even though they are bettering their social standing, they don't try to oppose white people by trying to move past them in wealth, and because the women are submissive they pose no threat to the beauty standard and due to their "paleness" (most Asians are not naturally super pale) they assimilate easier. Something we don't acknowledge much is that society views men through women as well, the image the women of a racial or societal (ig) group uphold is how the rest of society views them, it also is important how that groups men treat their women, by white men making white women the beauty standard, they hold the most societal power, because white women are the standard, men of colour oftentimes view white women as a way to move upwards in class and wealth.
Something Mina didn't mention (this isn't really a criticism, this was an excellent and informative video) is that during the age of "scientific racism" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thinness came to be associated with white racial superiority, which is to say, the WASP ideal was one of puritanical restraint, while black people were believed to be intrinsically indulgent.
@@kimberleywilliams7802 this is spot on! It makes me wonder if the rise in East Asian discrimination of late is partially related to the rise on the global economic stage, representation in positions of power, and representation in media of East Asian people. I know the pandemic unfortunately played a big roll, but any sympathetic person can recognize that people in China suffered as much as anyone else.
@@sin3358 makeup can definitely be an artistic choice but plastic surgery is by no means “an artistic choice”. I’m not blaming women (or men) who choose to have plastic surgery because if you feel very insecure about your face/body due to societal beauty standards, and you have the means to change the thing that makes you insecure, I understand why they would want to do so. HOWEVER in an ideal world no one would get plastic surgery solely to increase how attractive they are.
oof! This one hit home for me. When I used to dance competitively, I was often told my stocky build would limit my flexibility. I thought about dieting but, I realized that it is not healthy to diet if it isn’t sustainable for your lifestyle.
I remember when Ayds came out. It was pre-AIDS, and it was the unfortune shared name that killed the product. Nevertheless, my mom bought a box in the 70s and my sister (7) and I (10) asked if we could have some. We then ate the whole box, as they were tasty, especially in a household that rarely had candy in it. Needless to say, my sister's and my vocacious appetite for the product and then dinner convinced my mother that the "appetite suppressant" was worthless.
Those things were DELICIOUS! Likewise, consumed our Mother’s entire box, but never asked, we waited till she went to work. Ahhhh, that latchkey life. She never noticed cause we picked the four large boxes (seemed excessive, lol) off slowly.
I remember those, and doing the same thing 😂 Also, during that same time frame there was a truck driver training program where I was from (Texas) that was called AIDS (acronym for not sure what) and being in like 7th grade at the time, it confused the hello outta me
Despite being heavy, i have always looked at exercise/weight from a point of view of stamina and energy. If I am able to push my body physically at an adequate level, and I'm healthy, I feel happy with my body no matter how much it weighs and what it looks like. I've also never lost weight due to dieting since it's just not something that helps my mental health. I eat well, i exercise well, and if I lose weight as a consequence of it or I don't, I don't really care.
I've recently come to this conclusion after being at both ends of the spectrum. I'm much happier with just existing and not worrying about how I look compared to anyone else.
I hope I can reach this mindset. I recently went on a trip with my friends and I realized how low of a stamina I had. I would get tired and lagged behind my friends. I could blame the pandemic for making me less active, but I know that’s on me. I feel like I’ve had issues with my body too when I grew up, so I always weight watched, and that was how I determined my “health”. I’m slowly trying to move away from that and exercise more, though.
i first dieted around age 12, and i look back now and just wanna hug the kid who thought they were too fat or had to worry about their cholesterol and salt intake bcs my parents did. i'd eat a salad with lemon juice and olive oil after school and skip dinner, and i never had a big appetite anyways so i fully felt satisfied. as it turns out, eating probably 50-100 calories per day, give or take the calories in school food (which i also didn't eat very often) is not good for the body! i have been chronically anemic and fatigued for years, and find it hard to eat 2 meals daily. it's a constant struggle in my family made even harder by cultural expectations - a mix of being an immigrant and having foods that are shamed in the US and a body that's shamed here too is a lot for all of my loved ones. in conclusion, yeah i fucking hate diets lmao. they've never done me any good, and i've seen how they harmed people i care for. fad diets are truly the bane of my existence
Ive always been chubby after puberty and the documentary 'Sugar Inc.' really opened my eyes about how I was really hurting myself in the long run. It also helped me realize how my family is completely clueless or maybe just ignorant and fine w it. I dont diet bc my family comes from a 3rd world country and eating is a privledge!
im so grateful you dropped this video at the beginning of the year where so many people feel like they need to starve themselves in order to reach their new year "resolutions"
I was literally just recommended a documentary on this subject earlier today and thought “wow this is something Mina Le could have uploaded” and now here we are haha
7:49 Weight = fertility is actually somewhat true. The reason why birth control very commonly causes weight gain is because it functions by sending signals to your ovaries and uterine lining that says "no need to ovulate or create a proper uterine lining, we're pregnant". Sometimes other body systems, like your metabolism, also recieve the message and proceed to act like you're eating for two. Small size is what makes teen pregnancy dangerous from a physical health prespective. My aunt almost died because her body was incapable of putting on enough weight for her pregnancy, and would had without modern medicine. Feeding ovaries is some misogynist bullshit, but when you're pregnant you will be feeding another organism in addition yourself, and having good fat stores is an an indication that your body can pull it off.
Small size in teen pregnancy is not just fat. Teens up until 20-21 are not fully grown yet physically. Their pelvis bones still need to enlarge. You also, as you said, are supposed to still gain weight after you turn 16. And that is hard for young adults. Puberty and its effect on the body can trigger disordered eating patterns. Especially combined with the pressure to fit a body ideal.
People aren't necessarily thinner in adolescence. If anything, I am smaller now. Doesn't puberty spur body fat percentage increase? I went to school with curvy girls who were curvy as teenagers and still are. The naturally slim ones are still naturally slim.
Not accurate. Women after menopause are at extremely high risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Our hormones prior menopause partially shields us from those illnesses. It’s important to cut back on calories, fat post menopause:)
I still remember when my Mom put me on a diet at 13 and I cried myself to sleep because I was so hungry. I’ve never dieted since and am happy with my extra pudge. 💕
Your poor mom thought she was helping for all the reasons outlined here. But how awful! I had a friend in Jr. High who was, like both her parents and her younger siblings, solidly built, but her mom was always making my friend go on diets. It seemed to me that this was an attempt at vicarious living on her mom's part and very unfair. We are 52 now and she never did get thin, just really nervous.
@@ivycohernour wow.. i agree it must've had to do something with vicariously living through her daughter. so messed up. honestly every case of this (parents trying to fulfill their wishes by way of their children), that i've heard of terribly backfires & doesn't benefit anyone. i wish parents learned that having a kid isn't a "2nd chance", but luckily, i think this new generation is doing much better than previous ones as we've been constantly calling out questionable behaviour & trying to correct it ourselves :)
the only 'diet' ive ever participated in is eating more vegetables. from a health perspective, what you eat can make a huge difference in your health. particularly woth mood, digestion, gut microbiome, etc. i dont care too much about weight but ive been fortunate to not have to worry too much about it.
"You don't need a diet you need a life style change" You need a healthy lifestyle and a healthy relationship with yourself You deserve to be happy and healthy You deserve to love yourself right now not just once you lose weight or meet some arbitrary body goal
The bit about dieting being about bodily autonomy was very important. As an example of the good side of this, my mother had been in a abusive relationship were she felt she couldn't do anything for herself, she didn't see or valued herself as a person so she stopped taking care of her health and physical appearance. After that relationship ended she got better and decided she had the right to her own body, the right to eat healthier and exercise to feel better about herself not only because these activities put you in a good mood but also because she wanted to not be overweight anymore and have the appearance she always wanted. She did all of this in a healthy way and that was the period of time in her life when she felt her best
Yeah, my grandma always tells me about how when she was younger being called "fat" or chubby would be taken as a compliment, and now people take it as an insult 😂
My grandma did the same thing. My aunt had to explain to one of my crying cousins that grandma calling her fat was a good thing because what it actually meant was "you look healthy and beautiful" we all had o explain to my cousin that grandma growing up in a poor farming area of a poor country back in the old days a fat baby or child was seen as a blessing and a good indicator that the child was going to grow up, and a fat woman meant that she was well taken care of and usually fat women on farms in that area meant that she had a ridiculous amount of muscle under the fat aka very healthy and desirable for farmers to marry
@@hambone4984 yeaaah same, my grandma grew up in the countryside of my country which was pretty rough at the time, and being called fat meant you looked healthy and pretty. Still kinda sucks when she calls us fat but unlearning that being called fat shouldn't be an insult is a work in progress.
Great job on this video! I'd also like to point out that sometimes people are forced into some aspects of diet culture due to health conditions. For example, as someone with Type 1 Diabetes, I have to count all the carbs I'm going to eat so I know how much insulin to dose for it. So while I'm all for diet culture dying out, I think low-carb substitutes and things like that still have a place in our society and shouldn't be immediately discounted as "just another toxic diet culture thing."
Zero-calorie sweeteners in their early days were marketed as a way diabetics could enjoy things like soda, kinda sucks that diet culture has gotten a chokehold on that kind of stuff
Im insulin resistant and have to reign in carbs before I can think of losing weight to fix the underlying issue. I hate that we have put low carb in a fad category when its directly ties to insulin production or in your case lack thereof.
my 'diet' in middle school used to be straight bottles of water and naps. maybe an apple. my friends noticed i wasn't eating anything at lunch one week and i began to make up lame excuses like 'the lunch is nasty today' or 'i had a snack earlier, i'm not hungry'. i used to get so anxious whenever one of them told me to sit on their laps on bus rides back home whenever the seats were full and i would just try to joke it off by saying 'i'm too heavy' and instead could just crouch next to them. they'd give me funny stares and tell me i was 'so skinny' and the lightest one which ironically did not help my ed at all. ah those were the dark ages
I love how supportive this community is. I hope you are doing better today and wish you all the best at the start of this new year. We're proud of you for making the steps for your own wellbeing, that's the most important step at the end of the day and you DID it 😊
may i ask what would have helped you to feel a little better even if it was just a small comment bc i know someone with the same problem and i dont want to make them more insecure
i lost 7+ kilos last year due to adhd meds and stress, and the first thing all my friends told me when they saw me again was how i looked great. i could barely eat a meal a day at the time and i blacked out frequently.
@@azukichiu very. It’s also incredibly aggravating. Like, I know I can shop at ModCloth and Girlfriend Collective and a few other stores. But I can’t just go to a clothing store without checking first if they sell my size.
@@laurenconrad1799 I feel you with this, even thrifting is very hard because all the sizes are in the 20's range, and the ones that I do usually find in my size are not that good or lesser in quality. There is fortunately a special store I know but its not thrift and is quite expensive.
This overview was really well done. Nutrition science has a lot to apologize for. It is unfortunately that many of the same recommendations made more than 70 years ago based on questionable research are still advanced by physicians, dieticians, and government agencies today.
I will say it tends to be nutritionists (who are not certified by official institutions) who spew the most BS or personal trainers (who are qualified to give exercise advice, NOT diet advice) over stepping their bounds, rather than most registered dietitians, who are fully qualified. Of course, every profession has quacks, but I always like to inform people nutritionists/trainers do not equal dietitians
@@frostyskeletons8950 Agreed. There is a difference between these groups. However, there remains the problem of medical advice based on poorly done observational studies that infer causation from correlation, as well as poorly done experimental studies. Often when I look at the evidence behind the most recent NYTimes health article, I find bad research or research that has been interpreted incorrectly.
@@frostyskeletons8950 you know whats funny is that the majority of nutritionists and dieticians have eating disorders; primarily orthorexia (obsession with food purity and restricting based on purity) and anorexia.
I remember in the 3rd grade learning about old paintings from the 1800's, our teacher showed us some of the paintings and they were paintings of women naked but they were curvy. That's when our teacher explained to us that back in those times being "fat" or having meat on you made you look rich and wealthy and was considered beautiful when being thin made you look poor like you couldn't afford to even eat. I remember all of us in the class were very confused by this because for so long we had thought that being thin was a good thing and being told it wasn't was very odd to us.
lol same, and I was a chubby teenager, obviously people made comments about it -- 'if you were born in a different time you'd be killin it', I still think about it.
I think that dieting can be good for some people it all just depends on their individual personality. I have heard some people say that they need structure in their life to function properly and careful meal planning helps them achieve this. at the same time I acknowledge that there are some people, like myself, who have the personality where you have to go overboard and push yourself too far and because of this i personally stay away from dieting.
Thank you so much for including Aubrey Gordon and the Maintenance Phase podcast. This is such a good conversation we should be spreading to all platforms, and Aubrey and Michael have created such a good resource for learning even more and contextualizing a lot of the "knowledge" we've accepted as truth. Well done. Loved it.
I have binge eating disorder that developed from restricting foods because I was surrounded by 'diet culture' in my household and my friends at the time would talk about was being 'skinny' it was really damaging to my emotional and physical health. I am recently in remission of my eating disorder and had a reunion afew months ago with these friends and it was really triggering. I am trying to remove myself from these situations and focus on body neutrality and for me in this current moment it works better then body positivity. Sending love out there to anyone who has an eating disorder.
I'd unsuccessfully followed dumb celebrity diets during my late teenage years and then through my twenties, doing more harm than good, loosing huge amounts of weight by basically starving myself and then gaining it all back in months binge eating and emotionally eating. Only in my thirties I've been able to learn proper nutrition basics, afford therapy, and, through gradually introducing lifestyle changes, slowly but surely reach a healthy weight range (healthy enough to reduce my risk for t2 diabetes/cancer at least; as these sadly do run it the family, on both sides, among the obese and overweight members exclusively). I've learned to not eat out my stress, be active physically and mindful about my body, mind and emotions enough to maintain a healthy balance. Counting calories, meal planning, and modifying my diet (as in what I eat regularly) had been nessesary in the beginning. Slowly though, I've become able to eyeball my portions and not count my calories and macro-nutrients religiously, and eat intuitively without it just toppling into uncontrollable binges. It took years to come to that point, and there's still ways to go. I'm sad I've wasted all that time on bullsh*t diets and worthless and damaging media advice. But I'm grateful for being lucky enough to both gain and being able to afford support and opportunity to reach this point I am at now, and being able to give some informed advice and offer support in that regard to some of my relatives struggling with the same issues.
i think cultural awareness on healthy eating is very low in america compared to other countries. when i went to korea i ate out for two weeks straight and the food felt so nourishing and tasty. i felt like i was eating homemade food and felt amazing. whereas if i eat out a few days in a row here in the US, i am not so happy. i find cooking my own food leads me to feeling more healthy than eating out even if it isn't as flavorful. our diet should be decided on what makes our bodies feel good first and foremost. it's a more reliable indicator than all the vested corporate interests that drove these diet crazes in the first place. however this probably comes easier to me since i get physically uncomfortable by many foods more easily than others. the idea of always being in a "reducing" mindset seems inherently unhealthy. and if you're not always "reducing" you will be either "gaining" and then "reducing" so basically swinging between these two poles.
Wait, I'm korean American, and framing korea as a place without diet culture, and without issues of an increasing population of eating disorders, heart disease, diabetes etc.... is incorrect. With Korea becoming more industrialized it has borrowed alot from the west, now adopting its western diet culture.
@@demilovatofaith While yes, the diet is still very different than an US one. I would say look at traditional (common eaten) dishes and then compare/contrast
@@alishamcg I wouldn't generalize korean food that way... plus it feels a little like exoticising our food. Like the magical health food of the *rient.... Our food isn't magical cure all.
@@demilovatofaith hey I'm sorry if you felt that I may be exoticising Korean food. may I ask what you mean by this? I'm ethnically South Asian and grew up eating south asian food. I love Korean food in its own right because it made me feel just as wholesome as eating the food my mom prepared. I ate a lot in korea but did not have as many negative side effects as when I eat out here in the US. I'm biased too because I grew up eating and enjoying Asian flavors. didn't mean to imply Korea didn't have toxic diet fads or anything like that. I'm aware a little due to hearing some of the kpop diets. I'm using korean food as an example of food in other countries that may be more or less nourishing while being tasty. this depends on many factors (govt regulation, additives, processing etc). but it also depends on what the people of that country deem acceptable for their food as a social norm. responding to the history of processed food in the 50s that was shown here. I've heard from someone else about Greek food being much fresher than American food. and I'm also using Korean food as an example of food that gave me joy which is important to derive joy from the food you eat in addition to it being healthy.
to be fair, cutting out processed sugars, sweets, chocolate, that sorta stuff, makes sense both health-wise and ethically when you consider the environmental impact and human rights abuses involved both currently now and throughout history (palm oil, various other oils, certain "exotic" fruits that require specific climate and conditions, especially all that child slavery to cultivate cacao!)
It’s definitely better for you. But I know when I was struggling with my ED I obsessed on not eating processed sugars and gluten, etc. It became really unhealthy.. but I was telling everyone I was healthy lol. Its all about moderation.
I love your channel. I’m a 45 year old Latina woman that, through my years long love of classic Hollywood and history, has seen many interesting trends that gave me pause. Your channel is entertaining and very eye opening. On the weight thing, I also recall Betty Draper making a huge fuss about Sally being plump and, early in the series, Betty hardly ever eats. Fast forward to the later season she’s overweight. That’s clearly the mark of someone that hasn’t ever had a good relationship with food that’s deeply ingrained by her own upbringing. I recall she also joined a weight club of sorts that really seemed terrible to the psyche.
i think you didn’t mention this but i think it’s very important to bring up in the context of why dieting and even hiking and taking up sport became popular. with the industrial age and with people now being mostly sedentary while working in comparison to what working meant when agriculture was the main source of income, people working in different industries now felt the need to keep up their bodies since physical labor wasn’t necessarily part of their everyday. also, with different industries being mostly in urban places, with people now mostly not working on farms and outside (especially with electrification when it really stops being important if you work at daytime or nighttime), hiking, in colder places skiing, spending time outside and in nature also became a way for people to get away from urbanization and keep themselves “in shape”. and of course, this was all reserved for the upper class and bourgeoisie since the working class had no choice but to work and make barely enough money to survive
she did mention the more sedentary lifestyle due to changing industries thing, in the part of the video where she talks about old money v newer money men
Yes, I remember seeing a home shopping product at 7 where this soap will magically make you lose around 3cm of waist. It blew my mind. I begged my folks to give this for me on Christmas so I would no longer be teased for being fat. I'm 27 now and was thankful my dad banned me from that channel after I made that wish.
Ty for this video... I was put on Weight Watchers, LA Weight Loss, all that stuff as a kid. I'd lose 15 pounds, stop losing weight, and then gain twice as much back, every time. I think the most harmful thing of all was to be told again and again by not only society, but by loved ones, that you will never be loved as you are. At age 26 I am still struggling to see myself as whole and complete today, right now, not as I _could_ be in a fictional and impossible before/after picture vision I have in my head. I have always been fat, and I always will be fat! Diet culture didn't change that about me, but it did instill a sense of shame about myself that I will be trying to shake for the rest of my life.
every era thinks to be the best. To look at past times with a smirk and "look how fool they were" is exactly what the future will do at our era "beauty standards"(if we can call them that way)
I'm sure people will look back at the current fake long eyelashes and long fake nails trend and will be really weirded out by this because I'm getting weirded out by it right now especially the long nails...we can't do anything with them on, can't even eat food with hands.
@@RandomSwiftie13 pretty sure the long fake eyelashes and long fake nails trend was inspired/taken from the black community, having long fake eyelashes and especially long fake nails was a very popular style within the black community for a long time and white people used see it as ghetto / ratchet, until it was popularised by celebrities and now it’s trendy.
THANK YOU for mentioning Jewish women + dieting!! i've been veeeeery slowly working on a book of essays on Jewish diet culture and these references are going to help me so much it's unreal--genuinely such an exciting thing for me to see in this video
Wait- is there a connection between that and Fran Drescher’s portrayal of Fran Fine in “The Nanny”, a Jewish character who was really, really skinny, but who had an overweight mom?
Mina is taking no prisoners. I struggled with my weight: newsflash girls who develop early and are busty are often not meant to be very thin. I wonder if you can comment on the fashion of Monica Lewinsky with a look at ACS Impeachment and her real life style evolution
I would actually say that starting puberty earlier is highly contributed to by their prepubescent weight (cuz hormones) and thus makes it more difficult to be thinner over time
Also breasts have mass. I don't have any figures for a typical cup size to weight conversion, but I have a fairly large chest and suspect that when I get top surgery on paper I'll loose a concerning amount of weight in one day. Having breasts will give you a bigger number on the scale.
@@nuclearseahorse kinda agree, kinda disagree. I do believe that it is tough to lose weight while going through puberty but I don't necessarily think it continues after puberty (adulthood). But that's mostly how it was for me because it was really easy to gain weight during puberty but it became somewhat easy to lose weight ( i also didn't diet) during university, but I think it definitely depends on a person's environment as stessers can contibute to one weight.
“newsflash girls who develop early and are busty are often not meant to be very thin” as someone recovering from an ED, that sentence has just changed my entire perspective on my body. i’m not joking when i say you may have just changed my life :”)
I'm gonna show this to my mother. Because literally anytime we watch older movies together she ALWAYS says "there were no fat women back then. They were all thin because fast food wasn't around, and they kept their figures despite having kids. " And recently I stated that "no mom, they were all on speed. " and she just rolled her eyes.
I really enjoyed this video. Great background information... Though I always feel like there's too much focus on "self esteem" issues with being fat and not enough focus on societal consequences of being fat. It doesn't matter how much I'm okay with my body, I will be treated badly. I will be ridiculed and told my body is grotesque and I am diseased. The discrimination is will documented in many different ways, from job discrimination to medical discrimination. That marginalization really hurts a person so much more than how you feel about your own body. I was put on my first diet at 9. In weight watchers by sixth grade. I'm still fat. Finally gave up dieting in my 30s
The idea of bodily autonomy coming from dieting is fascinating, I love you for the historical links and overall intersectionality. I MASSIVELY recommend Philosophy Tube’s video, Beauty, Food and Mind. Also I cannot get over your hair in this video and overall outfit, it’s immaculate.
I’ve always been overweight since I was little and diet culture has always been so present in my life. When I was 10 I started taking laxatives and it would be a daily thing I didn’t stop until I was 15, and then at 16 my mom decided to take me to Mexico and they put me on weight suppressing pills called phentermine, it did help me lose weight but it made me develop an ED, I still struggle with it but therapy has helped with coping
You should definitely listen to the Phen-Fen episode (it’s about phentermine) of the podcast Maintenance Phase. I’m so sorry you went through this, and i think the podcast might help you. It has helped me heal and find so much solidarity.
I got into kpop in 2019. After seeing only people on the skinny size, I went through a phase of skipping a meal and exercising on a daily basis. I never had a concerning high weight (I am on the skinny side) but I started to hate my body. After learning that it's not healthy and seeing that my body is completely normal, I can now live without too many worries. It really shows that if we dont have an inclusive surrounding, with people all sizes, we start to think that we are not normal. All body sizes are normal
I love kpop but we need to talk about how their standards are literally giving people ED's and body dysmorphia. I straight up stopped eating properly for like a month because i wanted so bad to be skinny like LISA (not her fault since she's naturally skinny) and as a brazilian that sh*t is impossible to achieve.
Yeah Kpop definitely made my insecurity about my weight worse. Now I almost exclusively listen to male groups because they don't trigger my body dysmorphia and I generally prefer their music anyway.
Love your social analysis on each video. It’s like a university presentation,no joke professional academic work.I’ve seen a couple of them and I find them irresistibly interesting and intriguing.The way you approach each subject you conclude every aspect of a point , you’re inspirational. One thing’s for sure history nor society were (still are) generous to women , their skills and achievements.
I'm recovering from an ED (or at least trying), but I watched anyway, because I thought this would put into perspective how silly these body standards are. And this video did put it into perspective very well. It's good to know how we got here and what I fell victim to. All bodies are good bodies, so mine too
i remember when I was in 4th grade i wanted to be slimmer. so I would stay up all night and starve myself to only one meal a day. I look back think about how terrible it was and I haven’t told anyone until now.
I feel I see a lot of people, when the topic of beauty standads come up, they come up with this sentiment that we need to go back to the old beauty standards in which being plump was considered attractive, instead of just recognizing that having any beauty standards to begin with is harmful and unnecessary. I feel like because in present times, in western countries at least, starvation is not a big problem anymore, and our present problems surrounding beauty have to do more with fatphobia, is easy to just see the "good" in past beauty standards, but if you think about it, there is just something inherently fucked up about people seeing other people starving and just going "damn, that is ugly and unnattractive". Beauty standards don't exist in a vaccuum, they reflect a society's prejudices and discrimantion. Plumpness was considered attractive in the past because it was a way to flaunt wealth, and being skinny was a sign of poorness, you can see very clear classism there. Just as today, in order to fit our beauty standards you have to be of a certain income bracket in order to have the money and time to spend on your appearance that achieving these standards require. All of these not even taking into account other factors such as race, able-bodiness, mental health, etc.
This is a very good point. In paintings from the past we rarely see the people who did not manage to fit these beauty standards because they were too poor to be "plump" or whatever.
"They reflect a society's prejudice and discrimination" is the definition. I think things have turn the opposite 'cause (it's just an assumption I'm not quite sure of this part) with processed foods being more caloric fat has become something more accessible and capitalism saw it as a way to capitalizes thinness and also (I think the rise of capitalism is the great booster to it) with the rise of manufactured clothing setting sizes standards in order to increase profit. That's the beginning of bodies needing fit into clothes not clothes on bodies.
this made me question the way i view myself and how i think of weight. it made me realize there is no reason to think the things i do about myself, it's society that has made a lot of us feel terrible about our appearance when in reality there is nothing wrong with us. very insightful video, ty for this
Just excersize everyday and that's it. Never be in any extremes and yeah being chubby or slightly overweight is not a big deal if you function normally like everyone else
I believe that the "beauty standards" is a lie to keep women backwards, because we will never be beautiful in the medias eyes there always has to be a flaw with in women. Just a reminder that no matter how you look you are still beautiful, and don't let people control how you look!! 💞
@@kmrose yeah the world is effed up but as a woman too we can see the diff clearer as we face ut everyday like how we're catcalled when looking good insulted when looking meh or dressed casual influencers doing many surgeries magazines having a dieting category not getting hired for not being enough thin or white.... your cousin must have been through sm for being in the "superior gender"
I've come to feel that body positivity isn't great and work towards body neutrality. My weight has fluctuated a lot over my life and what helps me most with viewing changes in a positive or neutral way (I want to be stronger, I want to like how my clothes fit better) rather than negative (I'm fat) is to just not compare myself to anyone or feel like its a competition. That way if someone else is dieting or NOT dieting, I don't see it as a moral good or bad, or something that I need to do or not do. We're all on our own separate journeys. But of course, "no one needs to compare their bodies to anyone else" isn't very marketable is it
I absolutely love this video 😍✨ Can I request a part 2? 👀 Maybe picking up around the diet fads in the 2000s/2010s? Though I know it can be a heavy topic, so no pressure. I just love seeing you connect beauty ideals to fashion trends
I'm recovering from an eating disorder and it's honestly like a veil has been lifted from my face sometimes, because now I can see how many people have an unhealthy relationship with food. How many kids in school skip breakfast or don't even bring food to school. I've seen people opening their phones to count the calories they just ate. I know people that just don't drink soda if it's the regular instead of the zero version. I think more people think in a disordered way than not when it comes to calories and food.
loving the look today~ i don't know why its just now striking me how skilled you are at summarizing literally centuries worth of information on a broad topic. like really wishing i had a little mina in my head for all my school essays haha
Yo I dont know how people hate the history part of video essays, the joy i feel when you say "lets go back to the 19th century" The history is my favorite part!
Ever since New Year TH-cam is just spamming my ass with diet ads, it's mad honestly, every second ad is about diets. I'm just sitting here waiting to skip them being perfectly happy with my body, but thinking about younger me and if she had seen all those ads when I had severe body image issues and thinking about every girl who STILL has them and sees this shit 100 times a day .... Oof the emotional and physical damage, and all of it thanks to yt capitalism ad gods looking out that we stay depressed
I feel like a lot of things that used to be targeted towards men (the color pink, heels, wigs, makeup, dieting, etc) got targeted towards women over time. Fascinating
A friend of my mom actually lost weight through weight watchers. She said for her it was a good experience because for the first time she made friends who she knew wouldn’t judge her because of her weight. Also in her Meal Plan fruits of any kind didn’t count as calories so they always said that if she was hungry after her meals she could eat as much fresh fruits as she liked.
The section on appetite suppressants, though short, really got to me. I was diagnosed with ADHD in college and when I started taking medication, one of the side effects I was told about was reduced appetite. As expected, I lost weight since I was eating a little less (also because ADHD can make people more prone to snacking due to it being an easy fix of dopamine and I was now getting the right amount of dopamine through my medication). That’s when I learned that people actually seek out amphetamines specifically to lose weight and it made me feel horrible. Any time anyone commented about how I lost some weight and looked great, I felt so guilty! Especially when people who knew it was because of my medication would say they wish they had ADHD so they could take medication and lose weight too. I felt like I was becoming the poster child of a horrible practice. Even though I’ve always been thin and am aware of how privileged that makes me, I’m so much more conscious of my weight than I ever was before and it sucks.
Its horrible. I got to take meds for ADHD as a child too. The true reason I had trouble concentrating turned out to be malnutrition, so eating even less made everything worse. My physical developement even suffered from it. But I always got a lot of compliments on my flat tummy -.- My teacher in boarding school took me of Ritalin, so the story has a happy end.
Bro, same, I started taking ADHD medication recently and I lost a lot of weight, I am "overweight" and have been since I can remember. But now this effect of the medication is getting weaker (which can happen with time) and I started gaining weight again and my god I felt so guilty, I don't eat like before but now that I am eating a little bit better people started talking about how I am fat again, it's so frustrating...
@Lord Arthur oh my god I’m going through the exact same thing. It’s really depressing when someone like me, who has never cared to lose weight even tho I’m “obese” as mom called me, wishes I can be put on a higher dose because the appetite suppression is losing effect. Guilt, guilt about feeling guilty, it’s all so messed up. Really hope things get better for you! Wish we can some day as a society learn to decouple morality from weight.
@@AwsomenessRain My mom does the same, but she is more "delicate" like always saying when she noticed I gained weight and making me be on diets since I am a child, so I can feel your pain. The guilt for feeling guilty is also so REAL, I always say to other people how they weight doesn't matter when they are happy and healthy, but it's so difficult to say that to yourself sometimes... Regardless, I hope you feel better about yourself one day, having your parents talking about your weight is so... I don't even know how to describe.
@@lordarthur2165 parents should be given a a book about “low self esteem 101, things to NEVER tell your child” when the baby is born. Wishing you the best, love and light!
Thanks again to Ritual for sponsoring this video! I love their vitamins because I love knowing exactly what I'm putting in my body. Remember to use my code MINALE for 10% off your first three months! ritual.com/MINALE
Mina this look is amazing for you. You are so good at period looks, please do more should your personal time and finances allow it.
what's the closing credits song u use?
Hey Mina, I wish you'd talked about race and slavery a little in the transition from fatness to thinness. In Fearing The Blank Body by Sabrina Strings the author writes that lack of self control was stereotyped to be a Black thing, so white people wanted to distance themselves from fatness. You touched on it a little and the video was very interesting and informative, but I just thought to expend on the info here. For Harriet and Jordan Theresa touch on the book in some of their videos so you could also check those out!
You should learn more about the science, history and economics of vitamin supplements, because this is one of the most unintentionally ironic sponsorships I've ever seen.
@@MaterialMenteNo THIS, for real. I couldn’t watch past the sponsorship because I seriously cannot trust anything coming from someone plugging expensive piss, since that’s what most multivitamins become.
What I think is really interesting is that thin bodies are seen as more attractive if societes have very high food security. Fuller bodies are seen as more beautiful in societes with food scarcity. You can even follow these trends through the decades and different places in the world.
This is of course just one aspect of the dynamic of body ideals.
Here are some studies about this!
Anderson et al., 1992
Silverstein, Perdue & Kelly, 1986
ooo definitely gonna read into this. thanks for sharing!
@XYXYZ we desire what we aren't born with. society made us convince ourselves that our natural beauty isn't enough and that we need to alter ourselves a bit more to achieve this heightened level of 'beauty'. this is gonna sound lame as hell but beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder anyway, so who really cares when i'm seen as 'a vampire' in america but 'perfect' in asia? love who you are regardless!
goes to show how impossible beauty standards are to keep up with
But also aristocratic ladies would be depicted as chubby/fat which means that was the ideal. Even though aristocratic people did have access to a lot of food. And art itself back then was for aristocrats. Common folk did not have access to art but they were the population that was deprived of food.
"I'm so safe I can afford to ignore abundance" this is how I feel about minimalist and de-cluttering movements, sort of. Well, it makes sense. My grandma started hoarding as a response to scarcity and I start minimalism as a response to her burden.
@Shroom Gremlins no thank you so much for writing this! Its actually weirdly just led me through a whole thought process of understanding my own attitudes towards this and I've only just realised how my current state and my upbringing correlate.
. I feel what you're saying on an insane level. I grew up around so much clutter and mess in a big family that was always moving around. im now 19 and mess makes me so irritated that I can't even relax, not being able to find something within seconds stresses me out and having too many belongings that I can't easily keep a mental catalog of also makes me feel anxious and creates feelings of instability, even though I deeply value and everything I own and consider my belongings literally a part of me. I can't imagine being somebody who doesn't feel weirdly connected to their personal property. As a result I'm very clean and tidy, very organised and am constantly compactifying I guess 'coreifying' (only keeping the core necessities of any category of belonging eg. Clothes, bedding even something as simple as jewelery. I will constantly declutter my jewelery and only keep the best quality most emotionally valuable pieces)
I can't stand when I have so many trinkety things much as I love them because they make me feel too tethered to my belongings. Like if I had to up and run very quickly or there was a fire, so many of my belongings which I consider part of me would be left behind and that makes me anxious. So insane how it all connects. Thanks for taking the time to write that all out 💝💝💝💝💝
@@sarathesaraa4756
see my suggestion above
additionally, you might wanna stop with ableism/saneism in your language - it always reflects back and hurt people with disabilities/mental illness when words like ins*ne or cr*zy are used derogatory (insults) or lightly as an indicator of _(way) too much_ or something (trivializing it)
there are other words that can express the same without...
that's actually how minimalism as a lifestyle was created
o.o
Wow. I hate buying more than a single serving size of food because my dad has always bought way too much (because he was raised by parents who went through the depression and wars). We either continue the cycle or get into an opposite cycle, it seems...
"The fat person, usually a fat woman, is represented not as a person but as something encasing a person, something from which a person must escape." This made me cry, I have never found a more eloquent way to put it.
As a former anorexic, I'm happy to say I watched this while happily snacking on curly fries. Fuck dieting. I'm invested in my health and wellbeing, not my weight or appearance. For this reason I try to exercise regularly and eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full, and I try to get at least some veggies in every day. If I'm extra hungry, I eat extra. If I've got a major craving for curly fries, I'mma eat some curly fries.
Happy for you ☺️🙏
I wasnt anorexic, but i remember i was so obsessed with my weight i would force myself to exercse 2+ hours a day, and i would feel bad to eat more than 500 calories a day from fear of gaining weight. I would check the scale everyday, add minutes to exercise for every extra calorie, etc. I was super depressed. Thats not anorexic (i dont think), but I feel for you.
Fuck dieting :(
@@xen-reji uhhh. I'm not a professional in eating disorders but I do have a psych degree and I also had one myself and uhhhh. Sounds like you had an eating disorder my dude.
@@xen-reji that is DEFINITELY anorexia. no matter your size.
@@dannydunn79 well damn 😭 i didnt know that, my mom just said "yeah whatever thats hormones" so i just figured it was alright. Welp.
The fact that dieting can be a form of empowerment to one generation and the antithesis of that to another generation is fascinating. It truly emphasizes the full grasp that these social constructs can have on an individual’s identity.
As someone who's studied the history of dieting in grad school, this was a very well-researched video! I think a newer development with a lot of modern dieting is promoting this idea that your body doesn’t function properly Ex. Detoxes. Your liver already does that you don’t need to go on a juice cleanse.
This is an excellent point. Someone in another video somewhere noted that as the body positivity movement became popular, so did the 'wellness' industry.
@@elysia5379 and Wellness is often just repackaged snake oil, pseudo science, and diet culture
Juice cleanses are the epitome of idiotic
This!! Annoys me so goddamn much every time I see another iNfLuEncEr doing a ”detox” as if it’s actually doing anything
The nearest you can do to a Detox is consuming probiotics to help your gut work properly
I could listen to her explain anything. she makes everything so interesting.
I agree
ikr i wish she could teach me physics
Totally agree she’s fantastic
seriously she could make a video on the history of socks and I would still wouldn't be able to take my eyes off it.
@@soleil4417 i highkey want a video on socks, socks are interesting
I had an eating disorder my whole life till I was 28. My parents never kept a lot of food in the house and were always obsessed with my weight. I recovered from my disorder and gained weight which is understandable, but instead of being proud of me or praising me, my parents fat-shamed the F out of me. They shamed me on a constant basis and it's one of the reasons they are no longer in my life. I'm healthier than I've ever been today and that's what matters
Probably mentally healthier too, considering you yeeted them out of your life
Omg fatphobia is very serious
what is a eating disorder
@@josephmcminn1654 A disorder concerning irregular eating habits. This is typically caused by a desire to lose weight, but there can be other motivations, like a desire to gain muscle etc. The most commonly brought up eating disorders are bulimia and anorexia. Anorexia refers to when the person purposefully starves themself in an attempt to lose weight, in severe situations becoming quite life threatening. Bulimia refers to when the person eats a normal amount of food or sometimes even more than usual but vomits it up later. There are multiple other eating disorders, but you can probably research more into it by yourself.
I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself and doing what makes you feel happy and healthy. You deserve to feel good and enjoy your relationship with food. Sending you love!
i just wanna put this out here for everybody. beauty standards are impossible to keep up with. it does not matter what u do, it doesn’t matter how u dress, how much u weigh, or how u do ur makeup.
ur never going to find true happiness or confidence if it roots in how society currently thinks u should look.
that's why you should never care about how you look. My conceptualization of society and its standards is complete. TH-cam essayists condense perceived authority on topics so complicated that even the "good" ones are an attack on the human psyche. namaste.
@@josephmcminn1654 a shower won’t hurt you
This a thousand times. The only people who should be keeping up with mainstream beauty standards are models who do it for a living and have a vast array of limitless tools and resources at hand (ie. couture tailors and plastic surgery, dieticians and personal stylists etc). It only took 10 years for magazine outlets to go from Paris Hilton to Kim Kardashian and best believe it'll change again real soon. Unless your goal is to emulate the method acting of Christian Bale there's no feasible way to always meet that standard. It's better to just be yourself (and to keep in mind that beauty trends are cyclical, lol).
Truth
I grew up in a household with NO speak of diets, body image or negativity surrounding food. When i grew up and went into the real world, I am still shocked to see how sad and bad diet culture is! My mother in law comments about feeling fat in front of her kids. The woman had 5 kids, and she is this harsh on herself! Its so damn sad to hear.
It's important to note that the societal anxiety around women's fertility was very specifically about *white* women's fertility, and when people wrote about the race dying out because of (white) women attending college, it wasn't the human race they were talking about. This goes hand-in-hand with the image of Black women and Jewish women as fat and fecund - and this specific anxiety survives today, sometimes referred to as "The Great Replacement Theory."
Love that you added this point
Reading this comment just made a lot of things click into place. It makes a lot of sense to me.
This!!!!!
sickening. Thanks for sharing!!
@@bianca-ns5fq this reminded me of "thanks! I hate it!" but better.
Great video again, Mina! And thank you for mentioning the difficult history dieting has in the Jewish community. It's not typically included in these discussions.
I heard about that a lot, especially when reading about Monica Lewinsky.
@Rebecca Woolf I know there were some Princess jokes made at her expense. Because we like to de-sexualize or over-sexualize non WASP women!
I didn’t know that and now knowing this it makes some things in my family make a *lot* of sense.
i love your videos so muchhh
Definitely would like to know more about this
My mother is diabetic, she was rushed to the hospital last week because since she got covid she had been drinking a cold & flu tea medicine that contained crazy amounts of sugar and it spiked her blood sugar to fatal levels. She knows nothing about what’s in food, it’s how she got diabetes in the first place.
Fad diets don’t work, ruin your relationship with food and I’m also strongly against them. But IMO there is nothing wrong with learning about nutrition so you can make decisions based on it. Knowledge is power
Ooof. Well, I hope this is a wake up call to her that she can't keep living this way.... literally. I really got my type 2 under control once I started focusing on fueling my body with nutritious food.
If she's open to it, maybe she would consider trying a 30 day vegan challenge? When you've gotten that ill its sometimes worth it to do a short little challenge, reorder how you feel about food and reset your taste buds.
@@j.munday7913 my mom has diabetes and she's got it under control for the most part but could you please tell me how you did it? Also, she gained a lot of weight because of stress over the years. She was like 45 kgs before (healthy for her height, she's 5'2), now she's around 68 kgs and I worry a lot because I don't want her to suffer. I don't want to give her an ED but I know this much weight can't be healthy for her, specially when she was very thin to begin with. I'm so sorry for the rant, I just love my mom a lot but that woman puts everyone else above her. She's doing extremely well money/career wise right now but she would've been even better if she hadn't been a stay at home mom when I was born and this also bothers me...I kinda feel guilty even tho she's a great mother and loved taking care of me. I just want to do the same for her but I'm going to university in a few months. If anyone has any ideas for losing weight and what kind of foods etc to eat, that would be great! Thank you so much
@@nini-qc1qd She has to want to do it for herself, but I've had huge success with a whole food plant-based diet. If she wants she can try it for a month and just see how she feels on it.
@@j.munday7913 ah thank you! She doesn't eat meat at all but she does consume tea daily. I'll look into this, thank you so, so much
@@nini-qc1qd seconding looking into a whole food plant based (WFPB) diet. I've heard very very good things about it reversing disease and/or making people feel a lot better and more energetic.
I use this video as a tool in my ED recovery. When I struggle to feed myself, I watch this while I prepare and eat food. Nothing gets me more in the mood to eat than saying "f*** you" to patriarchy. Thank you so much for posting this, you are a treasure and you are helping people.
reminded me how a few years ago I was looking up ways to get motivation to exercise and stumbled upon an article that suggested something along the lines of "pinching your flab to get filled with disgust towards your body so you want to exercise immediately" and another 10-15 similar tips. it's still scary af out there.
I've started eating disorder treatment recently and learning about nutrition from the perspective of like ... NOT diets has been absolutely mind blowing and transformative. Diet culture has really destroyed culture throughout history and where we've ended up as a society has so deeply ingrained such disordered behavior its honestly shocking to me more people don't have eating disorders. Also I've never been this early to your videos! I'm a huge fan and you've been such a big influence in me getting into fashion and makeup. Love you!!
Same thing happened to me when I went in treatment. It was such a crazy experience to hear dietitians not tell you to avoid everything! Good luck, im rooting for you!
i'm so proud of you for getting treatment! ❤️ and thank you for your words 🍀
I definitely got to agree. I noticed that focusing on eating the things that are good for my body solved all the health risks I had in my diet. The focus on what youre supposed to avoid is a big problem I think. Its also easier to feel accomplished when you manage to eat your greens, than when you managed to refrain from x or y (at least for me).
I think a lot more people than we know have some level of disordered eating, it's just so normalized that many people don't think anything of it. I see it a lot with the way people around me talk about food and they just think it's normal, but it's really sad. I'm so glad ur unlearning diet culture's lies and recovering !
@@sweetembrace6706 yeah, some of the diets promoted and praised by fitness bros just seem so incredibly unhealthy to me. The protein powder industry must make BANK.
There was a "Tapeworm Diet" at some point during victorian era. Where you swallow the tapeworm and it lives inside of you depleting your body of nutrients, and makes you thinner as a result. And pale! Which was fashionable. It also can be lethal too. People still do that apparently.
holy hell, seriously?
Yeah. A beauty pageant mom once made her daughter do it and it made the news.
hear about this all the time, unfortunately
It was even in The Office.
I think I want to vomit🤢🤮
Crazy that women in the 1920s are stereotyped as being very thin and clearly were thought of as thin by society at the time and yet by todays standards I wouldn’t describe any of women in photos from the 20s as being thin - we have pushed thinness to a wholeee new level in the last 30 years that I think would shock people of previous eras
Agreed
I don’t know where you live but those girls were pretty skinny even by todays standards
Just take a look at 16:03
I think thats considered model skinny?
I looked at the 4 ladies in 16:03, yes, the last three look thinner than the first one, who also looks thin, but, even the last two's thinness looks thiccer than the ultra-thin/starved look of some supermodels & actresses, especially of 10 or more years ago. I'm not saying they were *all* that thin, just some of them. I would say thin to the point of hallowed or gaunt. I can double check if you're positive I am wrong...
Glamourdaze, another TH-cam channel, specializes in restoring film clips from the 1920's, if people want more examples from that era to look at, you can try there
The ones in the clip I just saw are thin, but not the ultra thin of a decade or two ago.
i was introduced to myfitnesspal in 5th grade (i was 10) in health class. our health teacher taught us how to calorie count and log our food and then made us feel awful if we surpassed the amount we were supposed to eat. she also preached this to everyone regardless of weight. i was borderline underweight and she still made me feel awful for having more calories or fat or sugar than i was "supposed" to.. based on the app's suggestion in 2010.
jesus fuck that’s horrible. we had the fitnessgram test and that made people feel shitty but at least it was private and once a year… your “health” teacher psychologically abused y’all and probably fucked up a bunch of people that would’ve otherwise had fewer or no problems with eating… jfc im so sorry
We had our bellys pinched with a device to tell us if we were fat. I looked at my teacher and she went "well" and skipped me because I carried a lil bit of weight :( this was a science lesson
Holy crap, thank goodness I didn't use MyFitnessPal at that age. I'm using it to get ENOUGH calories into my body to avoid undereating. As well as allowing some healthy carbs back into my body as doing hardcore keto as a Type 1 made me not only avoiding all carbs like fruit and vegetables, I almost got into euglycemic ketoacidosis and an increase in insulin resistance. Granted I'm not gonna shift entirely into WFPB diet but I'm just bored of eating meat and cheese as my main source of energy.
Body types should not be "fashionable." Can bodies just fucking exist?
@@2121princesse except the traits we value as beauty are cultural. You know what was hot 30 000 years ago? Venus of Willendorf. Reject modernity, embrace Venus of Willendorf ❤
@@2121princesse Except no. If you aren't carrying weight and famine hits.. being thin by todays standard wouldn't predict good future health at all. It's purely situational.
Isn’t it weird body types trending? Clothes, food, activities, yes. But how did bodies get involved? I don’t get it.
Thank you! This is why I never liked body positivity. Body neutrality makes more sense
yes, exactly. Bodies can be healthy and enable us to live our lives, or not. There's really no other sane way to think about them.
This is a pretty triggering topic for me as a person recovering from an eating disorder so I'm gonna skip this one BUT I had to come into the comments to compliment your hair, it looks spectacular
Take care of yourself lovely ❣️
hope you have a healthy recovery❤️
Doesn't she look amazing? That hair-blouse-eyebrow combo is a 30s dream.
We're all rooting for you! We know you can recover and get through this!
This is so responsible of you. Wish you the best ❤️
The desire for thinness also came about in the late 19th century because of the romanticization of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was seen as an almost angelic disease (the same way people romanticize depression now) which left the sufferer with rosy cheeks, a gaunt frame, and tragic mortality. Poets wrote about TB extensively and the people given death sentences would often go on luxurious vacations to rest and relax. Susan Sontag wrote about it in Illness as Metaphor, which is a really interesting read!
@@sweetembrace6706 You must have been living with patrick star for the past 10 years then
@@sweetembrace6706 it is romanticized in media all of the time...
sweet embrace how is that a false narrative? it’s a full blown fact. of course, we are trying not to romanticise it anymore but it still happens
@@sweetembrace6706 you sound guilty:/
l like your comparison to modern views of depression, it reminds me of the lana del rey tragic heroine era
When you brought up the topic of calorie counting and WWI I can imagine being thin was also viewed as patriotic. In a world with food scarcity it would seem kinda immortal to be fat and I guess this sentiment maybe stayed even after the war
Counting calories is nothing but a tool. It can be used for good and bad. It isn't evil. It's just counting.
@ferret no its a good idea for people to calorie count in general if they aren't prone to EDs
We live in a world where really calorie dense foods are readily available, at any hour of the day, delivered to your house.
Calorie counting can be a really great exercise is practicing mindful eating. Especially if you’re prone to boredom eating, emotional eating, or binging. It’s helped me to avoid highly processed foods, sodas, and trans fats while choosing more natural and nutritious replacements.
Health over aesthetics though.
@@C.C.353 disagree its useful
Damn, as if the pressure to be patriotic wasn't intense enough. I can't imagine the social guilt one would feel in that era for a few excess pounds, those poor women
I love how you brought up how diet culture became racist, classist, etc. I really was touched by the mentioning of feminism because it made me think of a current experience I am having. I gave birth 7 months ago, and pregnancy was awful. And something outside of complications I will never forget is how I was treated while pregnant and after. A bit of background: before pregnancy, I was fit and muscular, plus size but no one noticed much. I never dealt with so much fat phobia until pregnancy. I also was objectified openly by men in public or struggled to find clothes that fit, and I still struggle. It's to the point it's not even just about weight anymore. I dont like having hips or breasts, I cry not just at fatness, but more I cannot stand seeing the things that make me feminine. This video made me realize that in a say diet culture was pushed toward women, and somehow we got "young, stick with no figure to show any feminity" is desirable, and in a way diet culture shames women for having feminine features.
Ok, I feel this comment is verbal vomit, but I hope I make sense.
I think alot of this has to do with plastic surgery too. Full feminine features are okay of they are "perfect". Like lifted doubles d's with small areolas and butts that are perky and a round shape. Like you said, real women bodies after pregnancy are fuller but not in a societal perfect way. For examples, the areolas are bigger to aid in breast feeding after birth, but many people find enlarged areolas to be almost shocking and too primal instead of sexy. This is because of the porn industry and plastic surgery.
@@Dim.g0v You mustn't have read their entire comment, because the very bottom of it says exactly that
@@eilidhcathcart5024 It literally doesn't
Actresses and praised figures look like literal children. I realized this at a cook out. The prepubescent kids were all in the pool and I realized their flat stomachs, thin limbs, and perky muscles are what actresses look like. We're adults. We don't and shouldn't look like that.
@@gundog4273 that type of figure hasn't been considered the idea since the 70s with twiggy
This made me realize how damaging the way one of my teachers in school is teaching us to eat healthily, her biggest argument is for us to count our calories and cut out carbs entirely, she even forced us to do an assignment where we counted how many calories we approximately eat in a day, handing it in made me feel very humiliated tbh
I would have noted the number of time her homework convinced me to throw up
Oh if one of my daughters had been in that class, there would have been hell. I would have rather had them fail the class. I fought through an eating disorder for all of my 20s and now in my 30s I have to constantly be keeping it at bay.
That is terrible.
I have a similar assignment from my health nutrition class in college and gosh her calorie limit for me was 1500 calories and I thought I was starving that entire week of the assignment
i would simply Lie. either with whatever "goal" she expects or some wildly impossible bullshit number, whether that be wayy to high for human consumption or wayyy too low lmao
Counting calories on a low or even no carb diet, which then are high fat diets, is insane! I eat low/ zero carb for years due to health reasons and the number one rule that you learn is NO CALORIE COUNTING 😮
In my first 2 years of high school, I was a few pounds underweight because my adhd pills supressed my appetite. I was made fun of and accused of anorexia, which I didn't have. Junior year, I gained a few pounds and was finally at a healthy weight (my doctor told me my height/weight ratio was perfectly healthy) and I got picked on for being "fat." Moral of the story, high school boys suck.
Everyone sucks so
Especially for women, it's like we can't do anything right to men. "You're too fat" "Now you're too thin" "Ew, gym rat" "God she's so lazy" Don't listen to what others say. I know it can be super hard. But you and your doctor knows you best. Im glad you're healthy
we had boys running around with rulers to measure the thigh gaps of the girls in out class. It shocks me to this day that I had to endure this bullshit. What the f***
Lady! I hear you, was the first in my year to get breasts…
Aye I mean high school girls suck too teenagers suck in general
AYDS was always going to age poorly, but we could have never predicted just how poorly
yeah, I CACKLE whenever I hear clips from that ad.
In a inappropriate dark humour way "Ayds" does really help you lose weight...
*thankfull for the medicine that we have now that can really insure you have good life quality no matter your status
Truly oof inducing
it cant be a coincidence
My grandma took "diet pills" in the 60's that were basically speed. It really messed her up. Diet culture really effed up the past couple of generations in my family. I'm trying to break that cycle. I pray my daughter never feels less then because of her body.
Yo my aunt did the same thing when she was a teenager growing up then. She was also taking other meds in combination with those crazy diet pills, which she had no idea would be harmful since her doctor neglected to check, and she had probably the scariest mental/bodily experience of her life. If she hadn't literally sat her ass down in a drug rehabilitation center and refused to leave until they helped her, she doesn't think she'd have survived until today.
I'm a new mom of a daughter and I could not help but think " well of course we dont want to teach diet culture to our kids, but holy shit it's so engrained in us that how do we even?". Like even if we dont teach kids diet culture, someone or something we trust or dont of still teaches kids that and it still like history holds, has alot of backgrounds outside of low body image ( socioeconomic or racism, or lack or abundance of femininity)
Unfortunately (as somebody w/adhd& add) improper use of such medications by so many ppl make it difficult for a lot of us neurodivergent to access these types of drugs.
I think it's important, as a mother, to avoid negative self-talk. Even if you praise your daughter for all the right things, calling yourself fat and making negative comments about your own appearance will affect her views about her own body.
@@WileyCylas in this case its the prescribed use that is bad. diet pill manufacturers were lying about the effectiveness and even necessity of their product. Just saying this because i dont like the implication that it’s the users fault when they should not have been getting those kinds of drug in the first place for treating weight. Because nothing about it is medically necessary, unlike managing adhd as you said.
I would like to mention that the Empress of Austria, Elisabeth "Sisi" (1837-1998) went on extreme diets. She struggled with eating disorders and was obsessed with her weight and her appearance. I thought of this while watching the video, and found it interesting that she struggled with her weight when the beauty standards for women favored being plump, as Mina explained so well. For reference, she exercised in insane amounts, tight-laced, would go on diets of drinking cow blood, and was severely underweight. Her story is fascinating but also extremely sad, so I recommend reading up on her , but with adequate caution.
the most extreme phase of dieting were the late 90's and early 2000's with the size zero phase and the heroin look. every girl in my school was dieting (aka eating just an apple for an entire day of school) and having an eating disorder at this time
My mother is a dietician so I grew up being told that my focus should always be health when monitoring eating habits and weight gain - not appearance. I'm really grateful for this education because when I feel pressure to loose weight from media etc I can pull myself back on track and remind myself it's about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, not how small I look. (Though I still have to reiterate this to myself regularly to overpower the endless fat phobic rhetoric we're fed). I'm also super aware that in cases of obesity and people who struggle with eating disorders, it is always about deeper issues and never a personality flaw or poor lifestyle choice - therefore, dieting without addressing those deeper issues is always pointless.
what is a poor life style choice
@@josephmcminn1654 It’s a continued habit that impacts you negatively. Examples are reoccurring over/under eating, chronic drug abuse, and etc . . .
I think it's also important for mothers not to engage with negative self-talk about themselves. I grew up with my mom commenting how fat she was (despite being a pretty average size) and it significantly affected how I view weight gain and how much emphasis I put on maintaining my own thinness.
@@sierrasouthwell9237 Yes i definitely agree with this and I'm really sorry you have that experience. I think I'm lucky because my mum is a professional dietician she always discussed healthy eating and exercise as a positive goal to keep our bodies and minds healthy - not something that should be measured by my appearance. Although, I understand how much pressure we can feel to judge ourselves by the latter when everyone around us and in the media are judging us that way anyway.
@@josephmcminn1654 In this context I meant people are often quick to judge people by their weight and make assumptions like they're choosing it because they're lazy. But people's diets are actually very complex things determined by multiple factors, environmental and genetic. And people often don't realise that dietetics isn't just telling someone what to eat, in fact dieticians work very closely with psychologists to help people on a deeper level. This is why there's no such thing as a one-diet-fits-all situation and yelling at someone in a bootcamp to lose weight is not sufficient and rarely (if ever) works.
As someone who is trying to recover from an ed, this video really helped me see how stupid the whole thing is and, at least today, made me feel better about my body so thank you :)
me too! it really puts it into perspective. Wishing you a smooth recovery
same, wish u all the best :)
I’m wishing you a healing recovery. Stay strong
same same same !! wishing u all the best - take care of yourself , you are worthy & i believe in u
Listen to the podcast Maintenance Phase!!!!! It is the best and has helped me heal SO MUCH
I appreciate the conversation between families and diet. I think that a lot of people, particularly girls, struggle with self image partly because of how their parents, mostly mothers or female caretakers, struggle with their own. I feel deeply for my mom but I also resent how I've seen myself for so. many years
This. My mom has always struggled with her weight and I had to grow up around that and hear comments she says about her body, my body, and other people. I feel bad because she's a victim of diet culture and fatphobia but I resent her for causing a lot of the issues I have about my body and that any ed tendencies I have she encourages.
My mom put me on my first diet when I was 7 and my childhood was full of her calling me awful names and comparing me to my thin sisters almost everyday. One of my first memories of her is how she was working out while telling me „no one is gonna love you if you are fat”. Yeah, go figure why i developed an ed when i was just 12 and had several relapses (i’m 25 now). At this point i’m 100% sure she always had ed herself but it’s something normal for her. (Ex. Eating one small meal a day, being underweight, working out all the time, being obsessed with her weight and checking her body in the mirror every 10 minutes)
It sucks because our moms were not only the cause of our insecurities around fat, but they were also the victims. They just perpetuated it along to the next generation without complaint, and that's distressing. In case no one's told you recently, I love you.
I think more adults should embrace the idea of going out to play. Exercise is a word that that just raises some people's blood pressure and stirs up a general crankiness. "Allowing" yourself to feel like a kid again a few times a week has a much nicer ring to it and takes a lot of the negative associations away. Now it's not exercising because "something is wrong with you". It's going out and having fun. Play soccer or hackey sack outside a few times a week. Baseball doesn't involve a lot of moving, but basketball is an excellent way to keep moving. You just have to find something you like doing. I know a really nice lady I grew up with who's on a roller derby team! Having a few friends who like doing it with you is a huge plus. If not, join a club and meet people. At least you have something in common!
As for "diet". Just go back to common sense thinking. Potato chips and fries aren't as healthy as a plain baked potato. Don't drown your side of veggies in half a stick of butter. Fast food has never been meant to be a staple in anyone's diet. It's meant at best to be an occasional treat when you feel like you deserve to just let go. I know many people who eat every meal via drive-thru and Grubhub. Their doctors can roughly guess the last time they cooked a meal at home by looking at their bloodwork.
Don't snack in front of the TV. It's called "mindless eating" and it puts a serious whupping on your health. It's best to get away from TV and phones for a meal anyway. Strengthens the family bond, as well as helps you to stop getting hungry whenever you're bored.
We all know what junk is. Eat less of that. We all largely know what is healthy. Give that a bigger piece of your plate. You don't have to starve, just eat better food. Any diet that says you should be hungry from time to time is absolutely stupid. Eat foods that are good for you and give you non sugar rush energy. The weight will start to take care of itself.
Above all else, don't obsess about it. I know a great deal about fitness and nutrition, but I carry a thick middle myself. I think I weigh about 270! I eat like a horse, and not all of my food is healthy. I love candy, chips and beer. I also have spent most of the last 30 years exercising, and these days I try to get in a one hour jog twice a week. I literally have Netflix shows I only allow myself to watch when I'm jogging on the treadmill. We all have our vices, and we all have our carrots that get us to pull our carts. You don't have to look a certain way. You just have to feel healthy and enjoy a decent quality of life. And you can still have that even if you like ice cream.
Love yourself first. The others will catch on soon enough.
I loved this comment, thank you.
Yes I teach dance and the hardest thing to overcome in the first week is getting people to have fun while dancing 😭😂💃
It sounds so silly when written down huh ?
I literally just started riding a bike again. I feel like a kid again especially riding down a slope and feeling the nice breeze! I love it
I weigh 100kg (I'm AFAB) and I feel really happy and strong in this weight. I swim and lift weights and go on walks. My body may be a far cry from beauty ideals, but I love having broad shoulders and lots of muscle. I do have fat, too, but it's nothing bothersome, it keeps me warm and protected. 🤗
Yes!!! Playtime!!
There's something to be said for the new trend of orthorexia going hand in hand with the trend of dieting as toxic positivity.
Just personally, I and my mother have been thin for our entire lives and every year she goes through a phase of trying to be ultra-healthy and "just take off ten pounds" and then she'll finally be happy. It messes me up, and re-triggers my ED every time because I was raised to believe that my self worth was tied directly to my appearance, which is then tied to false morality.
!!
Mina: "Yes, I know we start in the 19th century a lot. Sorry."
Me, a giant history nerd with a particular obsession with the Victorian Era: "I'm lovin it!" lol
Yeah cause it had the most cases of departure from nature, loneliness, and “modesty”
So does McDonalds lol
@@matematicarka People say this as a joke a lot, but the "industrial revolution and its consequences" is a very accurate phrase to show how drastically that era changed society
No cuz same
the section about the slimming clubs not helping lifestyle reminded me of jordan theresa's video on "the biggest loser" which was a really awful show based on early 2000s diet culture
I would like to add to Mina's point about non-WASP women being portrayed as fat to exclude them from a beauty standard. Not only is that 100% on point, but it also excluded them from a moral standard. Fat people being seen as greedy and minority women being seen as fat was far from accidental.
Hate groups play on the fear that equality will lead to disenfranchised groups taking some inalienable right away from white Americans. By portraying black, Jewish, and immigrant women as fat, they were using a visual tool to bolster fear. And by making them fat, and therefore (in their eyes) greedy, they were demonstrating the perceived moral failings of any member of those groups.
P.S. Sorry if this is incoherent. This is my third time trying to post this comment.
no trust me it makes loads of sense and is very introspective. Definitely broadened my mind in regards to some popular tropes regarding women of colour or non Americans. A theory I just thought of is how this might have aided in the stereotype surrounding east Asian women, like submissive, thin, docile what have you, this shows that, as past has shown, Americans view Asians as "good" minorities because they don't try to take up space, or aren't greedy because, even though they are bettering their social standing, they don't try to oppose white people by trying to move past them in wealth, and because the women are submissive they pose no threat to the beauty standard and due to their "paleness" (most Asians are not naturally super pale) they assimilate easier. Something we don't acknowledge much is that society views men through women as well, the image the women of a racial or societal (ig) group uphold is how the rest of society views them, it also is important how that groups men treat their women, by white men making white women the beauty standard, they hold the most societal power, because white women are the standard, men of colour oftentimes view white women as a way to move upwards in class and wealth.
No, this was written very well. Not incoherent at all ☺️
@@kimberleywilliams7802 That's a really interesting theory that I hadn't even thought of before. I can totally see it, though.
Something Mina didn't mention (this isn't really a criticism, this was an excellent and informative video) is that during the age of "scientific racism" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thinness came to be associated with white racial superiority, which is to say, the WASP ideal was one of puritanical restraint, while black people were believed to be intrinsically indulgent.
@@kimberleywilliams7802 this is spot on! It makes me wonder if the rise in East Asian discrimination of late is partially related to the rise on the global economic stage, representation in positions of power, and representation in media of East Asian people. I know the pandemic unfortunately played a big roll, but any sympathetic person can recognize that people in China suffered as much as anyone else.
The conversations about dieting being feminist sound a lot like the conversations we're having now about makeup and (especially) plastic surgery.
This comment hit like a brick. That IS happening, huh?
There are loads of things sold to women especially young women as feminist that obviously aren't
Both are an artistic choice, but taken toxicly by society
@@sin3358 makeup can definitely be an artistic choice but plastic surgery is by no means “an artistic choice”.
I’m not blaming women (or men) who choose to have plastic surgery because if you feel very insecure about your face/body due to societal beauty standards, and you have the means to change the thing that makes you insecure, I understand why they would want to do so. HOWEVER in an ideal world no one would get plastic surgery solely to increase how attractive they are.
My grandma used to joke "I had AYDS for years, and it never hurt me!" She thought it was HILARIOUS. Oh boy.
That ad. The people who thought that was an acceptable name for a pill to lose weight. I can't
oof! This one hit home for me. When I used to dance competitively, I was often told my stocky build would limit my flexibility. I thought about dieting but, I realized that it is not healthy to diet if it isn’t sustainable for your lifestyle.
Oh man I hope you are still dancing
There are healthy ways to make lifestyle changes
oof!
I remember when Ayds came out. It was pre-AIDS, and it was the unfortune shared name that killed the product. Nevertheless, my mom bought a box in the 70s and my sister (7) and I (10) asked if we could have some. We then ate the whole box, as they were tasty, especially in a household that rarely had candy in it. Needless to say, my sister's and my vocacious appetite for the product and then dinner convinced my mother that the "appetite suppressant" was worthless.
yeah that advertisement aged super poorly
Those things were DELICIOUS! Likewise, consumed our Mother’s entire box, but never asked, we waited till she went to work. Ahhhh, that latchkey life. She never noticed cause we picked the four large boxes (seemed excessive, lol) off slowly.
I remember those, and doing the same thing 😂
Also, during that same time frame there was a truck driver training program where I was from (Texas) that was called AIDS (acronym for not sure what) and being in like 7th grade at the time, it confused the hello outta me
Despite being heavy, i have always looked at exercise/weight from a point of view of stamina and energy. If I am able to push my body physically at an adequate level, and I'm healthy, I feel happy with my body no matter how much it weighs and what it looks like. I've also never lost weight due to dieting since it's just not something that helps my mental health. I eat well, i exercise well, and if I lose weight as a consequence of it or I don't, I don't really care.
I've recently come to this conclusion after being at both ends of the spectrum. I'm much happier with just existing and not worrying about how I look compared to anyone else.
@@fyarae3750 do you mind if I ask for your advice on how you came to such a healthier mindset? It currently feels like such an uphill battle for me
Yes! We are more than our size
that's ideal! I wish society at large will think the same thing one day.
I hope I can reach this mindset. I recently went on a trip with my friends and I realized how low of a stamina I had. I would get tired and lagged behind my friends. I could blame the pandemic for making me less active, but I know that’s on me. I feel like I’ve had issues with my body too when I grew up, so I always weight watched, and that was how I determined my “health”. I’m slowly trying to move away from that and exercise more, though.
i first dieted around age 12, and i look back now and just wanna hug the kid who thought they were too fat or had to worry about their cholesterol and salt intake bcs my parents did. i'd eat a salad with lemon juice and olive oil after school and skip dinner, and i never had a big appetite anyways so i fully felt satisfied. as it turns out, eating probably 50-100 calories per day, give or take the calories in school food (which i also didn't eat very often) is not good for the body! i have been chronically anemic and fatigued for years, and find it hard to eat 2 meals daily. it's a constant struggle in my family made even harder by cultural expectations - a mix of being an immigrant and having foods that are shamed in the US and a body that's shamed here too is a lot for all of my loved ones. in conclusion, yeah i fucking hate diets lmao. they've never done me any good, and i've seen how they harmed people i care for. fad diets are truly the bane of my existence
Hahahahaha, lol.
Cope.
In fact it is 3 meals and 2 snacks for a minimum of 1200 calories for a productive and healthy day
@@drdoofenshmirtz7620 and you, go cry in front of the Mirror, you don't deserve confidence
Ive always been chubby after puberty and the documentary 'Sugar Inc.' really opened my eyes about how I was really hurting myself in the long run. It also helped me realize how my family is completely clueless or maybe just ignorant and fine w it. I dont diet bc my family comes from a 3rd world country and eating is a privledge!
im so grateful you dropped this video at the beginning of the year where so many people feel like they need to starve themselves in order to reach their new year "resolutions"
I was literally just recommended a documentary on this subject earlier today and thought “wow this is something Mina Le could have uploaded” and now here we are haha
Could you remember the documentary? I'm interested!
@@johku7638 yes! It was “a history of dieting” by TH-camr History tea time with Lindsay Holliday
@@berber7146 thanks! I have to look that up :)
7:49 Weight = fertility is actually somewhat true. The reason why birth control very commonly causes weight gain is because it functions by sending signals to your ovaries and uterine lining that says "no need to ovulate or create a proper uterine lining, we're pregnant". Sometimes other body systems, like your metabolism, also recieve the message and proceed to act like you're eating for two. Small size is what makes teen pregnancy dangerous from a physical health prespective. My aunt almost died because her body was incapable of putting on enough weight for her pregnancy, and would had without modern medicine. Feeding ovaries is some misogynist bullshit, but when you're pregnant you will be feeding another organism in addition yourself, and having good fat stores is an an indication that your body can pull it off.
Small size in teen pregnancy is not just fat. Teens up until 20-21 are not fully grown yet physically. Their pelvis bones still need to enlarge.
You also, as you said, are supposed to still gain weight after you turn 16. And that is hard for young adults. Puberty and its effect on the body can trigger disordered eating patterns. Especially combined with the pressure to fit a body ideal.
People aren't necessarily thinner in adolescence. If anything, I am smaller now. Doesn't puberty spur body fat percentage increase? I went to school with curvy girls who were curvy as teenagers and still are. The naturally slim ones are still naturally slim.
That thing about birth control “tricking” the body into thinking it’s pregnant WAS true. For the first generation of pills. We’re on 3rd/4th now.
@@sweetembrace6706 What implant? Nexaplon? Do other IUDs also do that?
Not accurate. Women after menopause are at extremely high risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Our hormones prior menopause partially shields us from those illnesses. It’s important to cut back on calories, fat post menopause:)
Girl you should be a curator in a museum or something- you are so smart and talented. Big FAN
Thanks!
I still remember when my Mom put me on a diet at 13 and I cried myself to sleep because I was so hungry. I’ve never dieted since and am happy with my extra pudge. 💕
Im so sorry you experienced that and I'm glad you're happy now!
Your poor mom thought she was helping for all the reasons outlined here. But how awful! I had a friend in Jr. High who was, like both her parents and her younger siblings, solidly built, but her mom was always making my friend go on diets. It seemed to me that this was an attempt at vicarious living on her mom's part and very unfair. We are 52 now and she never did get thin, just really nervous.
@@ivycohernour ''she never did get thin, just really nervous'' gosh how us women are tormented :( makes me so sad
@@ivycohernour wow.. i agree it must've had to do something with vicariously living through her daughter. so messed up. honestly every case of this (parents trying to fulfill their wishes by way of their children), that i've heard of terribly backfires & doesn't benefit anyone. i wish parents learned that having a kid isn't a "2nd chance", but luckily, i think this new generation is doing much better than previous ones as we've been constantly calling out questionable behaviour & trying to correct it ourselves :)
❤️
the only 'diet' ive ever participated in is eating more vegetables. from a health perspective, what you eat can make a huge difference in your health. particularly woth mood, digestion, gut microbiome, etc. i dont care too much about weight but ive been fortunate to not have to worry too much about it.
Vegetables are really tasty too. Goes to show how capitalism has brainwashed us into not enjoying veggies
"You don't need a diet you need a life style change"
You need a healthy lifestyle and a healthy relationship with yourself
You deserve to be happy and healthy
You deserve to love yourself right now not just once you lose weight or meet some arbitrary body goal
The bit about dieting being about bodily autonomy was very important. As an example of the good side of this, my mother had been in a abusive relationship were she felt she couldn't do anything for herself, she didn't see or valued herself as a person so she stopped taking care of her health and physical appearance. After that relationship ended she got better and decided she had the right to her own body, the right to eat healthier and exercise to feel better about herself not only because these activities put you in a good mood but also because she wanted to not be overweight anymore and have the appearance she always wanted.
She did all of this in a healthy way and that was the period of time in her life when she felt her best
Yeah, my grandma always tells me about how when she was younger being called "fat" or chubby would be taken as a compliment, and now people take it as an insult 😂
When your grandmother wanted to give you a compliment and says you have gotten fat.
Being called thicc is a compliment
My grandma did the same thing. My aunt had to explain to one of my crying cousins that grandma calling her fat was a good thing because what it actually meant was "you look healthy and beautiful" we all had o explain to my cousin that grandma growing up in a poor farming area of a poor country back in the old days a fat baby or child was seen as a blessing and a good indicator that the child was going to grow up, and a fat woman meant that she was well taken care of and usually fat women on farms in that area meant that she had a ridiculous amount of muscle under the fat aka very healthy and desirable for farmers to marry
I'd like to believe this was true for my grandma when she'd comment on our weight, but she wasn't a very pleasant lady all around...
@@hambone4984 yeaaah same, my grandma grew up in the countryside of my country which was pretty rough at the time, and being called fat meant you looked healthy and pretty. Still kinda sucks when she calls us fat but unlearning that being called fat shouldn't be an insult is a work in progress.
Great job on this video! I'd also like to point out that sometimes people are forced into some aspects of diet culture due to health conditions. For example, as someone with Type 1 Diabetes, I have to count all the carbs I'm going to eat so I know how much insulin to dose for it. So while I'm all for diet culture dying out, I think low-carb substitutes and things like that still have a place in our society and shouldn't be immediately discounted as "just another toxic diet culture thing."
Good point! I'm just trying to replace some carbs in my life with other types of food, and that actually is good for your health.
Zero-calorie sweeteners in their early days were marketed as a way diabetics could enjoy things like soda, kinda sucks that diet culture has gotten a chokehold on that kind of stuff
Im insulin resistant and have to reign in carbs before I can think of losing weight to fix the underlying issue. I hate that we have put low carb in a fad category when its directly ties to insulin production or in your case lack thereof.
my 'diet' in middle school used to be straight bottles of water and naps. maybe an apple. my friends noticed i wasn't eating anything at lunch one week and i began to make up lame excuses like 'the lunch is nasty today' or 'i had a snack earlier, i'm not hungry'. i used to get so anxious whenever one of them told me to sit on their laps on bus rides back home whenever the seats were full and i would just try to joke it off by saying 'i'm too heavy' and instead could just crouch next to them. they'd give me funny stares and tell me i was 'so skinny' and the lightest one which ironically did not help my ed at all. ah those were the dark ages
sorry ik no one asked 😭
I asked. I hope you're doing much better now love, and if not, I truly hope it gets better soon. ❤
I hope you are doing better now, too! Thanks for sharing your story with us all, I know that couldn't be easy.
I love how supportive this community is. I hope you are doing better today and wish you all the best at the start of this new year. We're proud of you for making the steps for your own wellbeing, that's the most important step at the end of the day and you DID it 😊
may i ask what would have helped you to feel a little better even if it was just a small comment bc i know someone with the same problem and i dont want to make them more insecure
i lost 7+ kilos last year due to adhd meds and stress, and the first thing all my friends told me when they saw me again was how i looked great. i could barely eat a meal a day at the time and i blacked out frequently.
Tried to diet multiple times and every time I came out weighing more than before and progressively feeling more at war with myself. Good video
1923 fashion designer: I don't feel the need to design for plus-size women.
Me in 2022: I thought I heard someone say that yesterday.
Kinda sad tbh
@@azukichiu very. It’s also incredibly aggravating. Like, I know I can shop at ModCloth and Girlfriend Collective and a few other stores. But I can’t just go to a clothing store without checking first if they sell my size.
@@laurenconrad1799 I feel you with this, even thrifting is very hard because all the sizes are in the 20's range, and the ones that I do usually find in my size are not that good or lesser in quality. There is fortunately a special store I know but its not thrift and is quite expensive.
This overview was really well done. Nutrition science has a lot to apologize for. It is unfortunately that many of the same recommendations made more than 70 years ago based on questionable research are still advanced by physicians, dieticians, and government agencies today.
I will say it tends to be nutritionists (who are not certified by official institutions) who spew the most BS or personal trainers (who are qualified to give exercise advice, NOT diet advice) over stepping their bounds, rather than most registered dietitians, who are fully qualified. Of course, every profession has quacks, but I always like to inform people nutritionists/trainers do not equal dietitians
@@frostyskeletons8950 Agreed. There is a difference between these groups. However, there remains the problem of medical advice based on poorly done observational studies that infer causation from correlation, as well as poorly done experimental studies. Often when I look at the evidence behind the most recent NYTimes health article, I find bad research or research that has been interpreted incorrectly.
@@Adrienne557 oh I agree! There’s a long way to go
Funnily enough, the contemporary research on nutrition is just as bad!
@@frostyskeletons8950 you know whats funny is that the majority of nutritionists and dieticians have eating disorders; primarily orthorexia (obsession with food purity and restricting based on purity) and anorexia.
I remember in the 3rd grade learning about old paintings from the 1800's, our teacher showed us some of the paintings and they were paintings of women naked but they were curvy. That's when our teacher explained to us that back in those times being "fat" or having meat on you made you look rich and wealthy and was considered beautiful when being thin made you look poor like you couldn't afford to even eat. I remember all of us in the class were very confused by this because for so long we had thought that being thin was a good thing and being told it wasn't was very odd to us.
lol same, and I was a chubby teenager, obviously people made comments about it -- 'if you were born in a different time you'd be killin it', I still think about it.
I think that dieting can be good for some people it all just depends on their individual personality. I have heard some people say that they need structure in their life to function properly and careful meal planning helps them achieve this. at the same time I acknowledge that there are some people, like myself, who have the personality where you have to go overboard and push yourself too far and because of this i personally stay away from dieting.
Thank you so much for including Aubrey Gordon and the Maintenance Phase podcast. This is such a good conversation we should be spreading to all platforms, and Aubrey and Michael have created such a good resource for learning even more and contextualizing a lot of the "knowledge" we've accepted as truth. Well done. Loved it.
I have binge eating disorder that developed from restricting foods because I was surrounded by 'diet culture' in my household and my friends at the time would talk about was being 'skinny' it was really damaging to my emotional and physical health. I am recently in remission of my eating disorder and had a reunion afew months ago with these friends and it was really triggering. I am trying to remove myself from these situations and focus on body neutrality and for me in this current moment it works better then body positivity. Sending love out there to anyone who has an eating disorder.
I'd unsuccessfully followed dumb celebrity diets during my late teenage years and then through my twenties, doing more harm than good, loosing huge amounts of weight by basically starving myself and then gaining it all back in months binge eating and emotionally eating. Only in my thirties I've been able to learn proper nutrition basics, afford therapy, and, through gradually introducing lifestyle changes, slowly but surely reach a healthy weight range (healthy enough to reduce my risk for t2 diabetes/cancer at least; as these sadly do run it the family, on both sides, among the obese and overweight members exclusively). I've learned to not eat out my stress, be active physically and mindful about my body, mind and emotions enough to maintain a healthy balance. Counting calories, meal planning, and modifying my diet (as in what I eat regularly) had been nessesary in the beginning. Slowly though, I've become able to eyeball my portions and not count my calories and macro-nutrients religiously, and eat intuitively without it just toppling into uncontrollable binges. It took years to come to that point, and there's still ways to go. I'm sad I've wasted all that time on bullsh*t diets and worthless and damaging media advice. But I'm grateful for being lucky enough to both gain and being able to afford support and opportunity to reach this point I am at now, and being able to give some informed advice and offer support in that regard to some of my relatives struggling with the same issues.
proud of you!!
You would LOVE the podcast Maintenance Phase!!!!
i think cultural awareness on healthy eating is very low in america compared to other countries. when i went to korea i ate out for two weeks straight and the food felt so nourishing and tasty. i felt like i was eating homemade food and felt amazing. whereas if i eat out a few days in a row here in the US, i am not so happy. i find cooking my own food leads me to feeling more healthy than eating out even if it isn't as flavorful. our diet should be decided on what makes our bodies feel good first and foremost. it's a more reliable indicator than all the vested corporate interests that drove these diet crazes in the first place. however this probably comes easier to me since i get physically uncomfortable by many foods more easily than others.
the idea of always being in a "reducing" mindset seems inherently unhealthy. and if you're not always "reducing" you will be either "gaining" and then "reducing" so basically swinging between these two poles.
Wait, I'm korean American, and framing korea as a place without diet culture, and without issues of an increasing population of eating disorders, heart disease, diabetes etc.... is incorrect. With Korea becoming more industrialized it has borrowed alot from the west, now adopting its western diet culture.
@@demilovatofaith While yes, the diet is still very different than an US one. I would say look at traditional (common eaten) dishes and then compare/contrast
@@alishamcg I wouldn't generalize korean food that way... plus it feels a little like exoticising our food. Like the magical health food of the *rient.... Our food isn't magical cure all.
@@demilovatofaith hey I'm sorry if you felt that I may be exoticising Korean food. may I ask what you mean by this?
I'm ethnically South Asian and grew up eating south asian food. I love Korean food in its own right because it made me feel just as wholesome as eating the food my mom prepared. I ate a lot in korea but did not have as many negative side effects as when I eat out here in the US. I'm biased too because I grew up eating and enjoying Asian flavors. didn't mean to imply Korea didn't have toxic diet fads or anything like that. I'm aware a little due to hearing some of the kpop diets.
I'm using korean food as an example of food in other countries that may be more or less nourishing while being tasty. this depends on many factors (govt regulation, additives, processing etc). but it also depends on what the people of that country deem acceptable for their food as a social norm. responding to the history of processed food in the 50s that was shown here.
I've heard from someone else about Greek food being much fresher than American food. and I'm also using Korean food as an example of food that gave me joy which is important to derive joy from the food you eat in addition to it being healthy.
I agree! I ate everything I wanted in Europe and lost weight without trying! It’s a lot harder to lose weight here in the US.
to be fair, cutting out processed sugars, sweets, chocolate, that sorta stuff, makes sense both health-wise and ethically when you consider the environmental impact and human rights abuses involved both currently now and throughout history (palm oil, various other oils, certain "exotic" fruits that require specific climate and conditions, especially all that child slavery to cultivate cacao!)
your diet will not stop big corps and those things will kill you in excess..
It’s definitely better for you. But I know when I was struggling with my ED I obsessed on not eating processed sugars and gluten, etc. It became really unhealthy.. but I was telling everyone I was healthy lol. Its all about moderation.
I love your channel. I’m a 45 year old Latina woman that, through my years long love of classic Hollywood and history, has seen many interesting trends that gave me pause. Your channel is entertaining and very eye opening.
On the weight thing, I also recall Betty Draper making a huge fuss about Sally being plump and, early in the series, Betty hardly ever eats. Fast forward to the later season she’s overweight. That’s clearly the mark of someone that hasn’t ever had a good relationship with food that’s deeply ingrained by her own upbringing. I recall she also joined a weight club of sorts that really seemed terrible to the psyche.
i think you didn’t mention this but i think it’s very important to bring up in the context of why dieting and even hiking and taking up sport became popular. with the industrial age and with people now being mostly sedentary while working in comparison to what working meant when agriculture was the main source of income, people working in different industries now felt the need to keep up their bodies since physical labor wasn’t necessarily part of their everyday. also, with different industries being mostly in urban places, with people now mostly not working on farms and outside (especially with electrification when it really stops being important if you work at daytime or nighttime), hiking, in colder places skiing, spending time outside and in nature also became a way for people to get away from urbanization and keep themselves “in shape”. and of course, this was all reserved for the upper class and bourgeoisie since the working class had no choice but to work and make barely enough money to survive
that's a great point, i never thought of that! lol thanks for sharing this info :)
she did mention the more sedentary lifestyle due to changing industries thing, in the part of the video where she talks about old money v newer money men
The tea you served: rather unfortunately hot as it's still relevant to our society
The tea in the mug: probably cold as ice
LMAO
Yes, I remember seeing a home shopping product at 7 where this soap will magically make you lose around 3cm of waist. It blew my mind. I begged my folks to give this for me on Christmas so I would no longer be teased for being fat.
I'm 27 now and was thankful my dad banned me from that channel after I made that wish.
Good dad. He must have been so sad to hear his daughter say that.
Ty for this video... I was put on Weight Watchers, LA Weight Loss, all that stuff as a kid. I'd lose 15 pounds, stop losing weight, and then gain twice as much back, every time. I think the most harmful thing of all was to be told again and again by not only society, but by loved ones, that you will never be loved as you are. At age 26 I am still struggling to see myself as whole and complete today, right now, not as I _could_ be in a fictional and impossible before/after picture vision I have in my head. I have always been fat, and I always will be fat! Diet culture didn't change that about me, but it did instill a sense of shame about myself that I will be trying to shake for the rest of my life.
every era thinks to be the best. To look at past times with a smirk and "look how fool they were" is exactly what the future will do at our era "beauty standards"(if we can call them that way)
Agree!
I'm sure people will look back at the current fake long eyelashes and long fake nails trend and will be really weirded out by this because I'm getting weirded out by it right now especially the long nails...we can't do anything with them on, can't even eat food with hands.
@@RandomSwiftie13 pretty sure the long fake eyelashes and long fake nails trend was inspired/taken from the black community, having long fake eyelashes and especially long fake nails was a very popular style within the black community for a long time and white people used see it as ghetto / ratchet, until it was popularised by celebrities and now it’s trendy.
@@RandomSwiftie13 the person under you is correct but theres also long fake nails are as old as the ming dynasty
THANK YOU for mentioning Jewish women + dieting!! i've been veeeeery slowly working on a book of essays on Jewish diet culture and these references are going to help me so much it's unreal--genuinely such an exciting thing for me to see in this video
Wait- is there a connection between that and Fran Drescher’s portrayal of Fran Fine in “The Nanny”, a Jewish character who was really, really skinny, but who had an overweight mom?
Empress Elizabeth (Sissi) from Austria had eating disorder and she was on a diet forever.
Mina is taking no prisoners.
I struggled with my weight: newsflash girls who develop early and are busty are often not meant to be very thin.
I wonder if you can comment on the fashion of Monica Lewinsky with a look at ACS Impeachment and her real life style evolution
I would actually say that starting puberty earlier is highly contributed to by their prepubescent weight (cuz hormones) and thus makes it more difficult to be thinner over time
Also breasts have mass. I don't have any figures for a typical cup size to weight conversion, but I have a fairly large chest and suspect that when I get top surgery on paper I'll loose a concerning amount of weight in one day. Having breasts will give you a bigger number on the scale.
@@nuclearseahorse kinda agree, kinda disagree. I do believe that it is tough to lose weight while going through puberty but I don't necessarily think it continues after puberty (adulthood). But that's mostly how it was for me because it was really easy to gain weight during puberty but it became somewhat easy to lose weight ( i also didn't diet) during university, but I think it definitely depends on a person's environment as stessers can contibute to one weight.
Omg I relate
“newsflash girls who develop early and are busty are often not meant to be very thin” as someone recovering from an ED, that sentence has just changed my entire perspective on my body. i’m not joking when i say you may have just changed my life :”)
I'm gonna show this to my mother. Because literally anytime we watch older movies together she ALWAYS says "there were no fat women back then. They were all thin because fast food wasn't around, and they kept their figures despite having kids. "
And recently I stated that "no mom, they were all on speed. " and she just rolled her eyes.
I really enjoyed this video. Great background information... Though I always feel like there's too much focus on "self esteem" issues with being fat and not enough focus on societal consequences of being fat. It doesn't matter how much I'm okay with my body, I will be treated badly. I will be ridiculed and told my body is grotesque and I am diseased. The discrimination is will documented in many different ways, from job discrimination to medical discrimination. That marginalization really hurts a person so much more than how you feel about your own body.
I was put on my first diet at 9. In weight watchers by sixth grade. I'm still fat. Finally gave up dieting in my 30s
The idea of bodily autonomy coming from dieting is fascinating, I love you for the historical links and overall intersectionality. I MASSIVELY recommend Philosophy Tube’s video, Beauty, Food and Mind.
Also I cannot get over your hair in this video and overall outfit, it’s immaculate.
I’ve always been overweight since I was little and diet culture has always been so present in my life. When I was 10 I started taking laxatives and it would be a daily thing I didn’t stop until I was 15, and then at 16 my mom decided to take me to Mexico and they put me on weight suppressing pills called phentermine, it did help me lose weight but it made me develop an ED, I still struggle with it but therapy has helped with coping
You didn't deserve that
I’m sorry you had to go through that. I hope you heal soon
You should definitely listen to the Phen-Fen episode (it’s about phentermine) of the podcast Maintenance Phase. I’m so sorry you went through this, and i think the podcast might help you. It has helped me heal and find so much solidarity.
I got into kpop in 2019. After seeing only people on the skinny size, I went through a phase of skipping a meal and exercising on a daily basis. I never had a concerning high weight (I am on the skinny side) but I started to hate my body.
After learning that it's not healthy and seeing that my body is completely normal, I can now live without too many worries.
It really shows that if we dont have an inclusive surrounding, with people all sizes, we start to think that we are not normal. All body sizes are normal
Hopefully there will be more people on the curvier side in kpop one day like hwasa
kpop also gave me an ED, I still stan twice but ever since I first saw ''Likey'' it all went downhill :(
@@laprophetesse428 hwasa our beloved
I love kpop but we need to talk about how their standards are literally giving people ED's and body dysmorphia. I straight up stopped eating properly for like a month because i wanted so bad to be skinny like LISA (not her fault since she's naturally skinny) and as a brazilian that sh*t is impossible to achieve.
Yeah Kpop definitely made my insecurity about my weight worse. Now I almost exclusively listen to male groups because they don't trigger my body dysmorphia and I generally prefer their music anyway.
Her research is so elaborate and well organized. Love her so much!
Love your social analysis on each video. It’s like a university presentation,no joke professional academic work.I’ve seen a couple of them and I find them irresistibly interesting and intriguing.The way you approach each subject you conclude every aspect of a point , you’re inspirational. One thing’s for sure history nor society were (still are) generous to women , their skills and achievements.
I'm recovering from an ED (or at least trying), but I watched anyway, because I thought this would put into perspective how silly these body standards are. And this video did put it into perspective very well. It's good to know how we got here and what I fell victim to. All bodies are good bodies, so mine too
Take care, friend! You are doing so well. Intuitive eating is amazing and takes off so much food-related stress.
i remember when I was in 4th grade i wanted to be slimmer. so I would stay up all night and starve myself to only one meal a day. I look back think about how terrible it was and I haven’t told anyone until now.
That's so sad to hear. If this is still an issue look in to counseling.
wishing you well my love ❤️💌
May all of us heal from the scars inflicted from diet culture amen 😓
@@nuhaomar9542 amen
I feel I see a lot of people, when the topic of beauty standads come up, they come up with this sentiment that we need to go back to the old beauty standards in which being plump was considered attractive, instead of just recognizing that having any beauty standards to begin with is harmful and unnecessary. I feel like because in present times, in western countries at least, starvation is not a big problem anymore, and our present problems surrounding beauty have to do more with fatphobia, is easy to just see the "good" in past beauty standards, but if you think about it, there is just something inherently fucked up about people seeing other people starving and just going "damn, that is ugly and unnattractive".
Beauty standards don't exist in a vaccuum, they reflect a society's prejudices and discrimantion. Plumpness was considered attractive in the past because it was a way to flaunt wealth, and being skinny was a sign of poorness, you can see very clear classism there. Just as today, in order to fit our beauty standards you have to be of a certain income bracket in order to have the money and time to spend on your appearance that achieving these standards require. All of these not even taking into account other factors such as race, able-bodiness, mental health, etc.
Period. that and how eurocentric based it these standards are too.
This is a very good point. In paintings from the past we rarely see the people who did not manage to fit these beauty standards because they were too poor to be "plump" or whatever.
"They reflect a society's prejudice and discrimination" is the definition. I think things have turn the opposite 'cause (it's just an assumption I'm not quite sure of this part) with processed foods being more caloric fat has become something more accessible and capitalism saw it as a way to capitalizes thinness and also (I think the rise of capitalism is the great booster to it) with the rise of manufactured clothing setting sizes standards in order to increase profit. That's the beginning of bodies needing fit into clothes not clothes on bodies.
this made me question the way i view myself and how i think of weight. it made me realize there is no reason to think the things i do about myself, it's society that has made a lot of us feel terrible about our appearance when in reality there is nothing wrong with us. very insightful video, ty for this
Just excersize everyday and that's it. Never be in any extremes and yeah being chubby or slightly overweight is not a big deal if you function normally like everyone else
I believe that the "beauty standards" is a lie to keep women backwards, because we will never be beautiful in the medias eyes there always has to be a flaw with in women. Just a reminder that no matter how you look you are still beautiful, and don't let people control how you look!! 💞
Love your nickname
Men have impossible beauty standards too. Society just doesn't talk about them. My cousin is recovering from an eating disorder....
@@currybread5298 thx u
@@kmrose i understand that.. that why I said media was the problem
@@kmrose yeah the world is effed up but as a woman too we can see the diff clearer as we face ut everyday like how we're catcalled when looking good insulted when looking meh or dressed casual influencers doing many surgeries magazines having a dieting category not getting hired for not being enough thin or white.... your cousin must have been through sm for being in the "superior gender"
I've come to feel that body positivity isn't great and work towards body neutrality. My weight has fluctuated a lot over my life and what helps me most with viewing changes in a positive or neutral way (I want to be stronger, I want to like how my clothes fit better) rather than negative (I'm fat) is to just not compare myself to anyone or feel like its a competition.
That way if someone else is dieting or NOT dieting, I don't see it as a moral good or bad, or something that I need to do or not do. We're all on our own separate journeys.
But of course, "no one needs to compare their bodies to anyone else" isn't very marketable is it
I absolutely love this video 😍✨
Can I request a part 2? 👀 Maybe picking up around the diet fads in the 2000s/2010s? Though I know it can be a heavy topic, so no pressure. I just love seeing you connect beauty ideals to fashion trends
your video essays are outstanding! i love how thorough your research is, and the delivery of your finds is direct and concise. it's so satisfying.
I'm recovering from an eating disorder and it's honestly like a veil has been lifted from my face sometimes, because now I can see how many people have an unhealthy relationship with food. How many kids in school skip breakfast or don't even bring food to school. I've seen people opening their phones to count the calories they just ate. I know people that just don't drink soda if it's the regular instead of the zero version. I think more people think in a disordered way than not when it comes to calories and food.
Moderation isn’t disordered eating
loving the look today~ i don't know why its just now striking me how skilled you are at summarizing literally centuries worth of information on a broad topic. like really wishing i had a little mina in my head for all my school essays haha
Yo I dont know how people hate the history part of video essays, the joy i feel when you say "lets go back to the 19th century" The history is my favorite part!
Ever since New Year TH-cam is just spamming my ass with diet ads, it's mad honestly, every second ad is about diets. I'm just sitting here waiting to skip them being perfectly happy with my body, but thinking about younger me and if she had seen all those ads when I had severe body image issues and thinking about every girl who STILL has them and sees this shit 100 times a day .... Oof the emotional and physical damage, and all of it thanks to yt capitalism ad gods looking out that we stay depressed
I literary got a diet ad before this video played...
I've been getting domino's ads throughout it. Wonder what that says about me.
There's a way to stop the ad by saying it's repetitive, irrelevant, or inappropriate by clicking the little i in the circle when it plays
Was just talking to my partner about this !!!! The number of times I’ve seen weight loss ads like noom in the past few weeks has been astronomical
I feel like a lot of things that used to be targeted towards men (the color pink, heels, wigs, makeup, dieting, etc) got targeted towards women over time. Fascinating
A friend of my mom actually lost weight through weight watchers. She said for her it was a good experience because for the first time she made friends who she knew wouldn’t judge her because of her weight. Also in her Meal Plan fruits of any kind didn’t count as calories so they always said that if she was hungry after her meals she could eat as much fresh fruits as she liked.
The section on appetite suppressants, though short, really got to me. I was diagnosed with ADHD in college and when I started taking medication, one of the side effects I was told about was reduced appetite. As expected, I lost weight since I was eating a little less (also because ADHD can make people more prone to snacking due to it being an easy fix of dopamine and I was now getting the right amount of dopamine through my medication). That’s when I learned that people actually seek out amphetamines specifically to lose weight and it made me feel horrible. Any time anyone commented about how I lost some weight and looked great, I felt so guilty! Especially when people who knew it was because of my medication would say they wish they had ADHD so they could take medication and lose weight too. I felt like I was becoming the poster child of a horrible practice. Even though I’ve always been thin and am aware of how privileged that makes me, I’m so much more conscious of my weight than I ever was before and it sucks.
Its horrible. I got to take meds for ADHD as a child too. The true reason I had trouble concentrating turned out to be malnutrition, so eating even less made everything worse. My physical developement even suffered from it. But I always got a lot of compliments on my flat tummy -.-
My teacher in boarding school took me of Ritalin, so the story has a happy end.
Bro, same, I started taking ADHD medication recently and I lost a lot of weight, I am "overweight" and have been since I can remember. But now this effect of the medication is getting weaker (which can happen with time) and I started gaining weight again and my god I felt so guilty, I don't eat like before but now that I am eating a little bit better people started talking about how I am fat again, it's so frustrating...
@Lord Arthur oh my god I’m going through the exact same thing. It’s really depressing when someone like me, who has never cared to lose weight even tho I’m “obese” as mom called me, wishes I can be put on a higher dose because the appetite suppression is losing effect. Guilt, guilt about feeling guilty, it’s all so messed up. Really hope things get better for you! Wish we can some day as a society learn to decouple morality from weight.
@@AwsomenessRain My mom does the same, but she is more "delicate" like always saying when she noticed I gained weight and making me be on diets since I am a child, so I can feel your pain.
The guilt for feeling guilty is also so REAL, I always say to other people how they weight doesn't matter when they are happy and healthy, but it's so difficult to say that to yourself sometimes...
Regardless, I hope you feel better about yourself one day, having your parents talking about your weight is so... I don't even know how to describe.
@@lordarthur2165 parents should be given a a book about “low self esteem 101, things to NEVER tell your child” when the baby is born. Wishing you the best, love and light!