EP. 33 — Aubrey Gordon (@YrFatFriend)

Jameela [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weight with Jameela Jamil, I hope you are well, I am okay. I’m now safely back in Los Angeles and the sun after a hectic couple of weeks in New York, mid election filming like multiple episodes a day for my game show, The Misery Index. And it was incredibly fun, but very, very scary, especially as it was my first time back on set during a pandemic. If you are someone who’s really been properly back to work after a long time away and you’re feeling as though you’ve forgotten everything that you know and you feel almost like a newborn baby in your skill set, don’t worry, you’re not alone. I think all of us feel really, really rusty. Just ta- just trying to walk in heels or wearing proper makeup again. I um, I look like a baby giraffe who was absolutely shitfaced. So it was it was an odd time. I’m very exhausted, but I’m happy and I’m safe and everyone was safe that we worked with. And so I feel very proud of what we were able to achieve given the current circumstances and the numbers in America. My God. I got to be on the Red Table Talk this week, which was a really fun and surreal life pinch me moment. And that, if you don’t know, is a show that is hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith and her mother, Gammy, and her daughter Willow. And they are just the most incredible women. They are so smart and so emotionally intelligent, so open, so present. And yeah, the show to me is a really big deal. I was really, really fucking starstruck when I went there. I felt physically sick all day waiting for the moment that I would step in front of them and we didn’t really get a chance to meet beforehand. So that was it. That was my only opportunity to warm up with them as when we’re already just kind of knee deep in a really deep and serious and pulling no punches conversation. And, you know, when I was growing up going on Oprah in the nineties was kind of the big interview. And this felt like the equivalent of that for our generation. And we talked about what it’s like to be a controversial woman online and the double standards of how we treat controversial or, you know, men who make mistakes versus women who make mistakes and the history of that and the psychology behind it. And it was really nice to not be completely taken out of context, as I normally am in interviews. And that’s why I love having this podcast, because I get to talk to you directly and I get to control what you hear so that at least if you don’t like me or agree with me or approve of me, it’s on my fucking terms. And we can have some sort of genuine understanding, somewhat of whatever we’re discussing on this podcast together. And then I get your feedback and I read your feedback and I try and make changes according to that. And I’m so grateful to you for that. But if you want to see it, it’s it’s on the Red Table Talk at the moment, me with Jada and Willow and Gammy. And I was so outrageous in my vulgarity that I think Gammy almost had a heart attack. But, um, but in the end, we were fine. Anyway, so that was an exciting life moment for me. And and I know it might be an odd thing to bring up, but I think it’s really important just to, especially in these times, to hold onto the exciting moments or things that we get to do. And I feel mega grateful. Anyway, this week I have the guest for you. She was the first person I approached when I knew I was going to do a podcast or have a podcast. And I said to her that I can’t I can’t do this without you. I’m going to need you to be a part of this at some point. And she graciously accepted. However, she was very busy at the time finishing her book, which is called What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat. Her name is Aubrey Gordon. Until now, most people on the Internet have known and worshiped her as your fat friend, which is @yrfatfriend and she is kind of positioned herself over the years and we go through her journey in this in this chat. But she positioned herself as a kind of aggressively kind educator and an aggressively empathetic and inclusive speaker online. She’s just the best writer, one of the great writers of our generation, one of the great thinkers of our generation, one of the great humans that I’ve ever had  the great honor and pleasure of coming across. Honestly, I cannot tell you how much more starstruck I am by her than by really anyone famous in this world because of the way her mind works. I’m completely in love with her, totally obsessed. And she delivered so hard in this chat. She comes with facts. She comes with history. She comes with empathy, kindness, a firm understanding and such defiance in the face of so much vitriol and rejection and ignorance and unkindness that we show to people who are bigger than what society has decided is acceptable. And so we get into that. And I think considering that the holidays are coming up and people are going to be spending even more time with their bloody families, and Thanksgiving is always a trigger-y time and people are eating more food over Christmas and, you know, their parents, especially their mothers and grandmothers. But generally your families are making, you know, unkind comments about your body or maybe your body’s changed this year in particular. And everyone feels as though their opinion is necessary or fucking helpful at all. It isn’t. Maybe this will send you into battle somewhat prepared. And so please listen to this episode, send it to other friends who struggle with their, you know, with how they feel around their way or who struggle with their family members and the way that they speak about their bodies. You will learn so much from this conversation. I did. And I’ve already been friends with Aubrey for such a long time. I can’t believe she’s finally here. And I cannot wait to hear your thoughts on how eye-opening this episode is. I think I’ll never really be the same afterwards. And I feel I feel fresher and smarter and happier for sitting down with her. I, I don’t think it’s possible for me to have picked this up enough and that was a bold thing to do because now I’ve set your expectations so high. But I think she’s the fucking best. This is Aubrey Gordon, your fat friend.

Jameela [00:06:35] Bloody hell, I’ve gone and gotten one of my online icons to come and be on my podcast, Aubrey Gordon, otherwise known as your fat friend on Twitter and Instagram and all socials and just in the world. Welcome to I Weigh.

Aubrey [00:06:51] Hello. Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to talk to you always. And it’s weird and great to do it on a microphone.

Jameela [00:06:58] Same God. I haven’t seen your face for the whole pandemic. It’s so nice to see you.

Aubrey [00:07:02] It’s been ages back at you, bud what a treat. Also, I’m like very into this, like, houndstooth situation.

Jameela [00:07:08] Oh, yeah. I’m I’m just so fucking cold. They’ve got the AC going mad. So I’m I’m rocking the hoodie outside of the blazer, which is the new fashion just to let everyone know. The reverse Justin Timberlake, yeah.

Aubrey [00:07:23] Pandemic fashion is a real it’s a real take what you can. You know?

Jameela [00:07:28] Yeah, I’ve talked about it on this before that my boyfriend had to stage like several interventions with me about what I’ve chosen to wear because he’s like, hey, I love you no matter what you wear. But also sometimes we have to have sex. And being covered in food is not sexy necessarily. Have you showered in three days?

Aubrey [00:07:51] I did see your Instagram video the other day where you are like fully just like picking hair out of your picking food out of your hair rather. I was like, this is extremely relatable content, bud. It’s extremely relatable content.

Jameela [00:08:06] My best friend as videoing me. I thought it was the meanest thing I’ve ever seen. So funny. And I just think we need to normalize women eating and we need to normalize that salad is really, really hard to eat gracefully. We need to we just need to – yeah we need to stop being embarrassed of just being our caveman monkey selves. There are maybe a million things I want to talk to you about today, and I’m so glad that you’re here. And I, I think, first and foremost, I need to introduce my audience to you. And so I know you as a great social commentator, as a writer, as an activist. But would you kindly explain how you would like to be known by my audience?

Aubrey [00:08:50] So I have been, I think, known best on the Internet as your fat friend. I am a writer. I mostly write personal essays and some sort of research driven work around fatness and fat people and a newly minted podcaster and sort of generally a fat lady about town. That’s my deal.

Jameela [00:09:15] You’re also, you’re also an organizer. You know, you’ve spent years and years and years on the ground actually organizing change for many different marginalized groups, not just for within for those within the fat community, for so many different people. You’re a legend, she’s a legend. Kind of a legend.

Aubrey [00:09:34] Thanks buddy. Yeah yeah I spent about a dozen years as a community organizer, so, like turning people out to vote, getting them to talk to their lawmakers, getting them to take action together for things like trans rights and immigrant rights and racial justice and voting rights and all of that kind of stuff. So my work as a writer now feels kind of like an extension of that. You know?

Jameela [00:09:55] Your your journey to becoming an online, you know, figure who so many people look to and learn from is so interesting to me. It started with an argument with a friend. Will you tell me more about that?

Aubrey [00:10:07] Yeah, totally. I, I got into an argument with a friend. This is like I don’t know, five years ago. We were talking about sort of what it was like to be fat and what it was like to be thin. I am fat, she is thin and we just didn’t see eye to eye. It was like a respectful conversation, was a good, productive conversation, but we just couldn’t quite meet up, you know? So I wrote her a letter because I felt like maybe writing it out would be an easier way of sort of explaining to her that like, no, there really are material differences between the ways that fat people are treated in the ways that people who are not fat are treated. Right. So I wrote her that letter. I sent it to a friend to proofread it. I’m sorry. My dog is flipping out.

Jameela [00:10:58] He’s a big fan of me. Is a big big fan.

Aubrey [00:11:00] That’s right he’s like Oh my God Jameela’s on mic.

Jameela [00:11:04] I’m big with dogs.

Aubrey [00:11:05] Yeah, totally. Yeah. So I sent her to a friend to proofread mostly just because I was like, am I being a total jerk in this letter. Am I being like unreasonable? Am I like will you just give me a read on like I know all of this is true for me. How would you read it if I was sending it to you? And he said it was really helpful and asked if I would be willing to post it somewhere. So I found a medium where anyone can post just about it anything. Posted it there under the name your fat friend, and just a ton of people read it really quickly.

Jameela [00:11:42] Forty thousand people. Forty thousand people.

Aubrey [00:11:44] Forty thousand people. And I realized I had more to say about what it was like to be a fat person. So I just kept writing and that was like, I don’t know, four or five years ago. It’s been it’s been a minute for sure.

Jameela [00:11:58] Yeah. And you are someone who is so looked up to not just within, you know, the fat community, but just generally online. Because of your approach. I asked you you kind of on a date two years ago and we went out for cheesecake in Los Angeles, key lime pie specifically. And and you told me back then that your approach was just to be kind of aggressively kind.

Aubrey [00:12:23] Yeah, yeah.

Jameela [00:12:24] Which is not which is not normal in activism, especially as we’ve seen in the last year or two. It’s become much trendier to be, you know, to to, you know, maybe pull no punches in ways that I definitely respect, admire, but also sometimes to be deliberately unforgiving and intolerant.

Aubrey [00:12:40] Like, listen, the person I want to be in the world is someone who has good faith conversations with people. And I would rather assume that people are trying to learn than that they are trying to mess things up. And I try and approach folks that way. Right. That like even when people say things to me, like you’re glorifying obesity or whatever right, that I go, hey, what about this, you know, photograph of a fat person that I have shared? Seems like glorifying anything to you, do you knoq what  I mean, like, what about this, you know, article talking about sort of medical mistreatment of fat people? Seems like it’s glorifying something to you. It doesn’t seem like it’s glorifying much of anything to me. Right. And just actually have conversations with folks that assume that they are trying their best and that tries to get underneath, you know, what they’re thinking and why they’re thinking that thing. I find that particularly from organizing world that actually like one of the most effective ways to get people to confront their own biases is just ask them a bunch of open ended questions and let them walk through their own thinking, sort of in your presence. Right. And find the sort of pitfalls and find the, you know, really uncharitable ways that they might be thinking about people on their own, right.

Jameela [00:13:55]  I do the same thing, but I would love to know how some examples from you that other people might be able to use who are listening to this.

Aubrey [00:14:02] Yeah, totally. So, um, so one that we actually used when I was canvasing when I was again, like going door to door and talking to people about how they felt about, you know, transgender people, for example, is people say, well, my religion is against it, my religion is against it. And I was like, OK, does your religion usually guide how you vote and how you think public policy ought to be shaped? And they would say yes or no. And I’d say, OK, does it guide how you treat people? Do you want it to guide how you treat people? Or do you think that people should just have what they need because they’re people. You know what I mean, like, where do you fall on this thing? And then folks would sort of walk through their own reasoning. Right, rather than me going, that’s totally transphobic. You don’t know what you’re talking about right like that I could actually, like, just sort of have a genuine and relatively curious conversation with them that came from a genuine place within me. Right. To get them to sort of explore their own thinking, because a lot of the ways that a lot of the biases that we hold as human beings in the world, a lot of the ways that those work is that we just sort of uncritically accept them and parrot them back out. And we don’t tend to give them a lot of thought. Right. So the trick is giving folks some space to, like, think it through for themselves and decide who and how they want to be in the world, you know?

Jameela [00:15:29] So I want to go back a bit into your past and just hear about your journey, as you know. I mean, you are many things, but but one of the areas in which you are for sure a known expert on mine and a leader is the fat community. And I would like to I’d like for everyone to kind of hear if you’re willing to share a little bit of your about your journey with your body, you know, from when you were a kid.

Aubrey [00:15:53] Yeah, totally. So I was like a pretty active little kid. I was always fat, just always have been fat since jump. I’ve been a fat kid and that has not changed.

Jameela [00:16:06] Do you come do you come from a fat family?

Aubrey [00:16:10] Partly fat, partly not fat. You know? I am built a lot like my dad. He and I have a similar build. There you go. And I was really into swimming. We had a neighborhood pool. I wanted to be a lifeguard. I was on the swim team. I was super into it. And for me, that sort of moment of, like, body shame was visited upon me in a doctor’s office, actually, which I think is not necessarily the case for a lot of people who are thin and or able bodied, right? Yeah. So I had this wild conversation with a doctor when I was in fourth grade, so I would have been about nine, maybe 10. Who was just like, you got to stop eating pizza and ice cream. I know it tastes good, but it makes you big and fat. And I was like I don’t know, man, like I am from a Weight Watchers family, right, like-.

Jameela [00:17:06] What does that mean as an everyone’s on the plan?

Aubrey [00:17:09] Yeah, like for for periods there would be like sort of an intense focus on Weight Watchers, like counting the points and using a little slider and the whole thing. Right. The like using a food scale to weigh your food that whole bit.

Jameela [00:17:24] I had the same.

Aubrey [00:17:25] Yeah, totally. And it was really confusing to me that this person was like, hey, lay off the pizza. When I was like, we don’t really have pizza. We have like chicken breast and rice pilaf, right like and that’s like sort of it. And it didn’t sort of compute for me, but that was the beginning of years and years and years of interventions from people, predominantly people who were not fat, trying to sort of correct my body, quote unquote. Right?

Jameela [00:17:57] Mm hmm.

Aubrey [00:17:58] Oh, honey. So that was the beginning of, like, lots and lots and lots of diets. It was the beginning of lots and lots and lots of prescription diet drugs. I was on, in high school, I was on fen-phen, which for folks who were around in the nineties, was a prescription diet drug that caused permanent brain damage and killed some people before it was pulled from the market.

Aubrey [00:18:23] I was on that when I was like fifteen. Right. And was in Weight Watchers and totally developed an eating disorder because how do you not develop an eating disorder if that is how everyone around you is treating your body, right?

Jameela [00:18:37] Yeah.

Aubrey [00:18:38] So it’s just it’s a different sort of conversation to talk about sort of growing up as a fat kid than it is to talk about growing up as a thin kid right where, as a fat kid no matter how you feel about your own body, the world insists on treating you differently. Right. So it’s less sort of internally driven body shame and more sort of like people will get upset with you if you don’t seem ashamed as a fat person. And that has followed me around a lot for a long time. It’s rough.

Jameela [00:19:12] Yeah, I, I’ve been both as a child and to flip between the two kind of weirdly equally fucked me up because I experience one. And then when I got thin I experienced the other. And then that made me terrified of becoming fat again. And I don’t know if you were like me, but I feel like we grew up in a less self-aware time. So when we were kids, I, I just didn’t think about my body. I didn’t think I didn’t think about my body being different from other kids. My body was just my body. I was a chubby child a lot of the time and and it just didn’t occur to me. I thought my stomach was amazing. Oh my God. I thought it was the coolest thing anyone had. And I would stick it out as much as possible. And when I would lie down, I would push it out as much as possible and show everyone my food baby. Like I would stand with my my hand on the back of my hips so I could push my stomach out as much as possible. So and I would wear like light colors because it would look bigger if I wore gray, which is something that men do with jogging bottoms. And so I had no idea until I was weighed at school. So that was my big that was my big moment. And, you know, they’re still kind of advocating for that to happen now for kids to be weighed in school. And no one realizes that when you just hand someone this messaging without any further information, support, understanding of the fact that some people a) also have a fat gene. I think it’s called leptin. Is that right?

Aubrey [00:20:36] Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yeah.

Jameela [00:20:38] And that many things play into an economic situation could play into someone’s size because I, I grew up poor, so we found that it was cheaper to buy like a week supply of smiley faces, which is deep fried microwavable potato than it was to buy some chicken breast and spinach. So we just ate whatever we could.

Aubrey [00:20:57] Yeah.

Jameela [00:20:57] And this idea that if you’re thin, you are like if you’re poor, you must be thin. And that size is a sign of abundance. It’s just inaccurate. It’s boldly inaccurate and wildly offensive.

Aubrey [00:21:11] Well, to your point about being weighed in schools, I will say I think it’s it’s around like twenty states in the US require at the state level that schools send home what are called BMI report cards. So kids are weighed in schools and then their BMI is sent home to their parents. It’s not data driven. It’s not something that they were like, oh, we found that this works, right? That this makes fat kids less fat or it makes them still fat but healthier somehow or whatever. It is just these fat kids are fat and their parents need to know that they’re fat. And we’ve decided that we’re the people who need to tell them, which is a wild approach.

Jameela [00:21:50] Can we just talk about the BMI? Because like, you have so many people on being like the BMI is steeped in white supremacy or is racist or is that phobic, etc. like as someone who is genuinely, as an expert in this area, can you just break the fucking BMI down to me and to us?

Aubrey [00:22:07] Yeah, totally. So the BMI was developed in the mid eighteen hundreds by a statistician and astronomer. So not a doctor. Step one not developed by a doctor, not developed for individual health measurement. Right. It was a way to assess whole populations like whole nations, not as a way to individually sort of assess someone’s health or, you know, make any recommendations about what they ought to do differently. It was based at that time on the body measurements of white men from France and Scotland. So this thing that is supposed to be the most universal thing in the world is like almost exclusively based on white men from the eighteen hundreds. So like, even if you just think about how much taller we’ve gotten, it’s wild to think that that is like a measure of bodies that everyone should be held to.

Jameela [00:23:10] Yeah.

Aubrey [00:23:10] It didn’t. It sort of sat on a shelf for a long time. It was part of this sort of again, mid-1800’s sort of project of finding what they called the ideal man, which was essentially sort of trying to figure out like what’s the best human and of course, the best human was going to be a white man, you know, like.

Jameela [00:23:32] H ey we all know it’s true. All right. We all know it’s true.

Aubrey [00:23:35] It’s just science, Jameela.

Jameela [00:23:36] Is what everyone on this podcast believes in. All right. And that’s what we fight for it. Actually, we fight for that belief on this podcast. So please keep talking about this great truth that you’re telling us.

Aubrey [00:23:48] Yeah, that’s right. And like hard science you know what I mean, like the most scientific science.

Jameela [00:23:54] One hundred percent .

Aubrey [00:23:56] An astronomer measured, some Scotsman in the eighteen hundreds, that is science.

Jameela [00:24:00] Amen.

Aubrey [00:24:01] Totally. So it’s sat on the shelf for a while and didn’t reemerge until the 20th century when U.S. insurance companies were trying to figure out how to charge some customers more than others. And they sort of dug up the BMI as a way to do that. And that is sort of how it started worming its way back into like specifically into health care settings.

Jameela [00:24:25] So kind of using it as a preexisting condition of some sort, like in the same way that they use a preexisting condition to be like, well, you weren’t doing everything for your health. And so therefore, why should we insure your health if you aren’t kind of meeting us halfway?

Aubrey [00:24:41] The BMI, like just about everything around sort of weight and body is is socially constructed. Right? It’s not there’s nothing inherent about a body. Right. That is defined outside of people. That is like now this is a fat body. Right. That’s people looking at other people and making a visual assessment and going, that’s a fat person. And that’s kind of what the BMI does. Right. I think it’s also worth noting that, you know, the BMI has never been tested sort of on a global scale on on anyone who isn’t white. There was like one study in Japan. There was like a brief study, but they didn’t have quite the numbers that they needed in South Africa. But overwhelmingly, the BMI has only ever really been studied in white folks. And the data that we do have on people of color shows that it actually puts folks health at risk. Right. That because the standards are developed based on totally different kinds of bodies, the sort of learnings that we think we have about BMI correlation with different health conditions is really just BMI correlations with those health conditions in white people. Like that’s the thing we’ve studied. So the idea that this is, again, sort of like some universal standard is not like not the case. Just not the case.

Jameela [00:26:02] It doesn’t even make space for muscles. Do you know what I mean? Like, the fact that muscles weigh three times more than fat and some people are just naturally more muscular than others.

Aubrey [00:26:10] Listen, here’s how you know the BMI is not helpful. The Rock is obese according to the BMI. Right. Fascinating. Totally right like because the BMI doesn’t distinguish between muscle and fat. Like it’s not even assessing people’s fatness. It’s just how much do you weigh divided by how tall are you? There’s your BMI, like more or less, right?

Jameela [00:26:36] Yeah.

Aubrey [00:26:37] So it’s like completely not you know, it’s geared toward exactly one group of people and it was geared toward them one hundred and fifty years ago. Like that’s not exactly cutting edge technology guys like we got some growing to do team.

Jameela [00:26:53] That’s so true.

Aubrey [00:27:03] A few years ago, I believe it was, the American Medical Association redefined obesity as a disease, which I think a lot of fat folks had a really strong reaction to. Right. Because even if it is even if you want to think of it as a disease, like we don’t have a cure, we don’t have any, like, quote unquote treatment that we know works. Right. Like we don’t actually have any evidence based practices that make fat people reliably make fat people thin in the long term. Like we don’t know how to do that.

Jameela [00:27:34] Uh, Keto, excuse me. Hello. Have you not had an Appetite Suppressant Lollipop before, Aubrey? Get in touch.

Aubrey [00:27:46] Someone has been trying South Beach. Yeah totally. Right like, so there is this sort of redefining of quote unquote obesity as a disease. Right. But what the sort of data tells us and what researchers are telling us is that I think last I checked, they have found like 70 distinct types of obesity or a fatness. Right. Some with genetic markers, some with sort of chronic illness conditions, some that are sort of driven by anxiety or trauma. Right. Like, there are so many things that make people fat. And one of the things that makes people fat is sometimes they’re just are fat people. Right. Like since time immemorial, there have been fat people. It’s really just in the last 30 to 50 years that we have decided to make that a public health issue.

Jameela [00:28:45] Yeah.

Aubrey [00:28:45] And the way that we’ve decided to make that a public health issue and the thing that we’ve decided fixes it is by stigmatizing fat people, making fun of us and insisting that we do something that is scientifically like pretty impossible. Right. Ninety five to ninety eight percent of people who try to lose weight fail. Like we just don’t have evidence based.

Jameela [00:29:08] How much?

Aubrey [00:29:08] Ninety five to ninety eight percent.

Jameela [00:29:13] Oh, my God!

Aubrey [00:29:14] Right, depending on the study, depending on-.

Jameela [00:29:17] I knew it was bad, but fuck me, 95 to 98 percent.

Aubrey [00:29:22] So instead, culturally, we focus on the two to five percent of people who manage to make that happen and not the 95 to 98 percent of people who are unable to lose weight because we don’t know how to do that. Right.

Jameela [00:29:39] Well also we like we keep trying to treat symptoms when we don’t understand the multitude of causes you you touched on stress. I think it’s a really interesting, interesting fact, which is that we don’t understand that many, many different things can impact the way that your body digests food. You know, and also, by the way, I have many friends who are bigger than me who eat the same amount as me. Sometimes it does not. It’s sometimes it’s just based on their metabolism. And then let’s talk about the things that affect your fucking metabolism. One of those things is stress. Cortisol is something that kind of courses through your veins when you are very stressed, when your adrenals are kind of in overdrive. Is that right? And then your cortisol spikes and then your insulin spikes in order to be able to meet your cortisol where it’s at, to be able to I don’t know like help your body cope with whatever crisis you feel like you’re in. And that crisis doesn’t have to be an actual emergency that could just be being body shamed, that could just be feeling stressed out all of the time because society makes you feel like shit or it could be just, you know, any kind of trauma or horror that kind of happens to you. So when we have this kind of spike, this constant spike, of cortisol and intulin, cortisol and insulin, it affects the way that our bodies digest sugar. And so this can start to impact the way that you are able to process calories. And so in itself, the idea of shaming and stressing people out over their size, you are very likely contributing to only, by the way, making them bigger and also impacting their adrenals, which impacts their entire life, not just the fact that you are harming their mental health on a physical level. This is just for the people who have no empathy and are bastards. You are you are it’s a complete own goal like you are. This is you are making zero progress. I’ve never. And also, when have we ever found that shaming people leads to making them make intuitive decisions? And then let’s talk about another kind of health. You’re like emotional and mental health that comes from exercise. We have essentially subliminally or sometimes blatantly banned fat people from exercise in a way that I I truly couldn’t be angrier about. I think it’s one of the things I know there are many things to be angry about in this world. But I think maybe because I experienced it myself and I also so many of the people I love experience this on a daily basis, the ways in which we a) don’t even make fucking exercise clothes big enough for bigger bodies and we don’t. We create the idea of like a gymnasium, we see all the pictures, people who are already thin with like six packs or eight packs and people I know and I definitely would like this when I got bigger that I didn’t want to go to a gymnasium. I didn’t want to go out walking so people would heckle me. I know that someone heckled you like a month or two ago where they would just like you were just walking your dog in leggings and someone shouted out, what do they say?

Aubrey [00:32:28] This woman was walking by and she went, good for you! You’ll get there! And I was like, I am walking my dog.

Jameela [00:32:35] Oh so patronizing!

Aubrey [00:32:36] I’m wearing workout clothes, but also slippers. And she was like, you’re doing it. And I was like, I don’t know what message you are getting from this, but I am walking a tiny dog who is terrified of everything and takes twenty minutes to take, like to go like a yard right.

Jameela [00:32:55] A hundred percent.

Aubrey [00:32:57] And it’s like so deeply not about any of that. But she saw a fat person in workout clothes and was like, oh, this fat person must be trying to lose weight. And because that’s the only reason anyone would exercise. Right. I mean this woman was like again, not ill intended.  She absolutely thought she was like doing the right thing. And I think there are a number of people who would take that as like thumbs up. Good encouragement. Thanks. It did not feel that way to me because it felt like there were so many sort of judgments packed into that. Right. It was like, I notice that you’re fat. I notice which is bad. I notice you’re wearing workout clothes, which is good. I noticed that you’re physically moving and I believe that you need my encouragement and this is my good deed for the day.

Jameela [00:33:46] Yeah, this used to happen to me whenever I would go on walks and like at the time when I gained sort of like seventy five pounds really, really quickly when I was the kind of height of my fame in the UK, I was on steroids at the time. And so it’s just like, it’s like a race for your body to just eat whatever you can. And people would shout out of their cars, run, fatboy, run or don’t worry, you’ll get there or like, you know, keep going, you’ll be skinny again. And this would just be one I would just be going for a like just a wander or going for a walk, or if I would even be walking past a chip shop like a fish and chip shop, they’ll be like, don’t go in there. And I wasn’t I wasn’t going in there. But also, if I was my fucking business, I’m an adult. This is my life. I called it fat calling instead of catcalling. But you know this the impact of then finding all these different ways to gatekeep exercise, to gatekeep exercise clothing. We’ve seen that Nike, every time they try and have a fat mannequin to show off their bigger clothes, which I think is incredibly important and progressive, there is a huge international backlash against them for, quote unquote, promoting obesity. So what do you what do you want? Like what what are these people want? That’s the thing that I don’t understand. I can’t imagine how confused you are. Like, so you don’t want anyone to exercise. You don’t really want them to be in a gym. You don’t want them to have clothes to exercise with. You don’t want them to feel calm, ever, literally ever calm and accepted and and like shame free ever for a second. And you don’t actually know anything about science and you’re using false science made up by a fucking astronomer 200 years ago. So what do you want?

Aubrey [00:35:21] Yeah. Well, I mean, if you like, the answer is pretty clear, right? It’s not a great answer, but it’s a clear one, which is I want there not to be fat people. And if there are fat people, I want them to be showing me at every moment that they are ashamed.

Jameela [00:35:36] And by the way, I’m not saying this because I’m like, how can you expect them to lose weight when we’re not helping? It’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is what people are, what parents and teachers and people who love us, who say it so nicely and friends, you know, about their concern or doctors who are rude and shaming or strangers who are literally just abusive and unkind.

Aubrey [00:35:56] Mm hmm.

Jameela [00:35:57] Think about the mental health of these human beings. Think about the fact that the vast majority of people are bigger than what our society tells them they are supposed to be. So think about how many people you are ostracizing, erasing and abusing all of the time and think about the impact. So that’s not just having on the mental health, but also on their actual bodies that you so desperately think it’s your position to try and change. Just think. Send this episode to your parents, to teachers, to your doctor, even, because I think it’s really important. And sometimes these hard these things are really hard for you to advocate for yourself. I think that’s why I was so desperate to get you on here, because I feel like one of the things that you do and you have been for me is someone that I can I can send your your pieces that you write about what it’s like to travel as a fat person and how seats are not built for you or restaurant seats are not built for you, what it’s like to live inside your body and various different things or the history of, you know, racist and fat phobic approach to bodies. You are a resource for me to be able to go and pass over onto other people. And I hope that anyone listening to this, either the checks themselves or uses this is something they can send someone where they feel like, you know, because we get gaslit out of talking about these things.

Jameela [00:37:17] Can we discuss weight discrimination because a lot of people think it isn’t real and it’s statistically very real. I mean, no one can see you, but you’re you know, you are laughing because of how intense it is. Tell me all of the things that it is legal to discriminate against a fat person for.

Aubrey [00:37:38] Yeah, so I am I’m only sort of well versed in the law in the US. So, you know, your mileage may vary in other countries, but in the United States, there are two states and one city where you are protected from discrimination as a fat person. And in every other state and every other town, it is perfectly legal to deny a fat person a job, to refuse to rent to them or to sell them a house, to refuse them service at a restaurant or in a hotel just because of their size. And it happens quite a bit like there have been cases that have gone to appellate courts and judges have repeatedly said, yeah, no, it’s totally fine for cocktail waitresses to have to meet a certain weight in order to keep their jobs. Yeah, no, it’s totally fine, right, for all of these things to happen. And it’s not just sort of like, what are you allowed to have? It’s also, you know, sort of in terms of like implicit bias. It also shows up in how much we’re paid. Right. Some studies show that fat people are paid up to ten thousand dollars less a year for the same job as a thin person. So there are very, very real prices that folks are paying, that fat folks in particular are paying for these sort of biases while everyone else kind of works out their stuff about fat people. Like we’re just waiting around being like, hey, can I get a job? Who would you hire me for this? Right. And often that discrimination is really overt. The number of people that I know, fat people that I know who have applied for jobs in retail and have been told, well, you know, we’re really trying to sell an image. And you’re not the image. Right. Like very overtly.

Jameela [00:39:30] Not allowed in certain bars and clubs, by the way, like always the one left in line.

Aubrey [00:39:36] Totally. There are also, you know, thankfully, they are few and far between, as far as I know. But there are also doctors who set weight limits on the patients that they will see. Right. So there are doctors that famously are like nobody over two hundred pounds. Bye! Which is a real wild thing to hear from, is supposed to help you get healthy or be healthy or stay healthy. I mean, the other thing I’ll say, just like circling back to this health thing, is, again, like a question for folks to consider on all of this is do you want to be the kind of person who treats someone differently based on your perception of their health? Right. Like, even if you’re right, even if you’re looking at a fat person and they have every health condition you think they have and they are sort of paying every health price that we think of as being associated with fatness, do you want to be the kind of person who treats someone differently because of, you know, that they look differently than you think they ought to look or that their health is different than what you expected? Do you want to be the kind of person who treats people with chronic illnesses differently or worse? Right. Like who do you want to be in the world? Right. How do you want to go about this?

Jameela [00:40:54] Yeah, one of the most interesting things I found out recently, I was watching Shrill.

Aubrey [00:40:58] Oh, yeah.

Jameela [00:40:58] On Hulu, which is great. I have gone seven years, never understa- seven or eight years, never understanding how I got pregnant a couple of years ago because I was using a condom and the condom broke. And then I took the morning after pill like an hour afterwards, which is way sooner than you are supposedly, you know, then you need to necessarily. Now, I was much fatter than I am now. And the person behind the well the pharmacist who gave me the morning after pill, didn’t tell me that over 170 pounds the the morning after pill only works if you’re under one hundred and seventy pounds. In fact, they were so awkward around my fatness that they didn’t even want to bring it up to me. They could see I’m clearly bigger and I’m tall, by the way. So being 170 pounds, five foot 10 or 11 isn’t hard.

Aubrey [00:41:56] Yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely not.

Jameela [00:41:58] No and then on top of that, I was clearly a larger person and they just gave it to me. So I had no idea. I was basically taking a skittle and I got fucking pregnant and didn’t know and wasn’t prepared for it. And I ended up having an abortion. But like, how do we not know that? Why was it not made, like more of a thing of how are we possibly knowing that the world is predominantly over like a size 16 or 18 or over like as a as a national average is how the fuck did I find out from a comedy eight years later? Yeah, that’s why I got pregnant.

Aubrey [00:42:33] Yeah. Well, and you know, the morning after.

Jameela [00:42:36] And why don’t they make pills for bigger people, as if fat people don’t have sex and get pregnant. What the fuck is going on.

Aubrey [00:42:42] Totally. Well that’s part of it. Right, is like, look, nobody’s sleeping with a fat person. It’s sort of like feels like an assumption that’s built into that. Right. Like regardless of the intentions behind it, it’s just like we don’t need to worry about it. Right. But it’s also true that, like, you know, the morning after pill is like a particularly acute and alarming example of that. But that’s true of most medications on the market

Jameela [00:43:07] Really.

Aubrey [00:43:08] Have not been tested on fat people. It’s not part of the testing process for the most part. Right. So many, many, many medications have not been tested for someone my size. Right. So we don’t actually know if the dosing needs to change or what have you. I mean, like there have also been conversations about, you know, we’re recording this in pandemic quarantine times. There have been a number of public health experts who have sort of spoken out on this publicly that they’re like, oh, we’re not going to we’re not going to make a vaccine for fat people. And the covid vaccine will be designed for thin people. And we’re not going to want to test it on fat people.

Jameela [00:43:46] What?

Aubrey [00:43:46] Yeah totally. And we’re and we’re also not going to develop a separate one for fat people. Again, it’s not sort of lead messaging, but there are absolutely people who are, you know, sort of pretty proudly talking about that. I mean, at the beginning of covid, there were hospitals saying if you need a ventilator and you are fat, you will not get a ventilator because we’re going to prioritize people who have, you know, what they believe are the best chances of survival.

Jameela [00:44:10] Yeah.

Aubrey [00:44:11] Which is kind of a wild thing to say.

Jameela [00:44:14] It’s outrageous.

Aubrey [00:44:14] We don’t think you’re going to survive, so we’re just going to let that happen. Right. So I think that’s another thing that I think folks don’t really understand. Right. 50 percent of doctors and medical students in the US describe fat people as awkward, non-compliant and unattractive.

Jameela [00:44:34] And lazy. Lazy’s the other big one.

Aubrey [00:44:37] And lazy and all kinds of things. Right. So if I go to a doctor and there is a 50/50 chance that that person thinks I’m already non-compliant like that doesn’t exactly set me up for great health care. And it shows up in the ways that they treat fat people as well. Right. Fat people get shorter office visits, we get more tests, but fewer treatments and doctors develop less rapport with us. They sort of many doctors and nurses and health care providers of all stripes see us and think, well, this is already a done deal. They’re not going to do anything I tell them to so why bother? Right. So we start from the point of why bother?

Jameela [00:45:17] One hundred percent. And that’s how so many things get messed. You know, like this happened to me. It’s happened to a multitude of my friends where they’re like endometriosis or the polycystic ovarian syndrome got missed. And so a lot of us had our fertility because we were, you know, teenagers, whatever our fertility was not being looked over, we were just being fat shamed in doctors offices who never even thought to just check our hormones or check to see if they were little cysts on our ovaries or if maybe that was contributing to all the symptoms we were having. All they look at these like fucking medical experts who went to school for seven years are still never looking to the cause often enough, especially not when they are confronted with a fat body. It’s so lazy and ignorant like and also so many friends of mine have had cancer go missed or a tumor or a huge issue with their thyroid. And the thyroid is such a pivotal part of what like controls some of the most important functions in your body. And then they don’t realize that they have hypothyroidism, which is when your thyroid, you know, works incredibly slowly. So, so they’re just being shamed and put on diets that only harm your metabolism further, by the way, which are also maddening for your mental health. They are they make you antisocial. You can’t go out and do anything. You can’t go anywhere, you feel weak, tired, angry, they aren’t nutritionally valuable, and so you’re being put on these things that are only harming you further and because you’re eating less than you’re supposed to eat, your body isn’t like panic mode. So then you’re more stressed and then your thyroid is more, you know, burnt out and your adrenal, the more burnt out. And so just this loop of just ignorance. What the, what I want people from take to take away from this episode is not like God. It’s really hard to be fat in this world. I should do everything I can to avoid it. It’s what are we doing as a society? How can we better support ourselves and each other? What needs to change isn’t the existence of fat people. What needs to change is the way in which we treat fat people in this world. And also just, we’re late to the game in this, but can we discuss ways in which to address fat people? Because I think every time I, as a thin woman, try a different word, it’s met with always like a myriad of reactions. And from you and Stephanie Yeboah, I have decided to just use the word fat because that’s what you use and you are leaders in this area. But some people say is a thin one woman. I’m not allowed to use that word. I only use the word fat because I do not see any stigma attached to it, just the same way that if I said someone was thin, I would not consider that to be shameful. I consider it just as a descriptive term, not as a way of creating someone’s identity.

Aubrey [00:47:55] Yeah, absolutely. That’s how I feel about it, too. I am tall, I am fat, I have blue eyes. Right. Like there are just like baseline things about me and I feel sort of equally neutral about all of them. It has taken a while to get there and I know that not everyone is there. Right. There are plenty of folks who are uncomfortable with the word fat,

Jameela [00:48:14] Understandably, because it was used you know, it’s been so used and weaponized against them. But you don’t, you don’t like euphemisms, do you? Tell me some of the euphemisms you don’t personally adore.

Aubrey [00:48:26] I was at a restaurant at one point, like cute new restaurant in Portland, Oregon, which is where I live. And we were getting seated that this was for a work thing a few years ago. And the person who was seating us from the restaurant was getting ready to put me in a chair that was like this teeny, tiny, rickety chair. And I am a big fat lady. And that chair was not going to work right. So I started to sort of walk up to the table and in front of all of my work colleagues, he went, no, no, no, no, no, don’t sit there. That chair doesn’t work for fluffy people. And like, I love fluffy people, but like, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. So this was someone who was like thinking that he was doing the nice thing by not saying the word fat. And meanwhile, again, sort of like shining a spotlight on this place is not built for your body and your body is sort of an aberration here, right in front of all of my work colleagues. Right. It was totally weird and mortifying.

Jameela [00:49:27] Yeah.

Aubrey [00:49:28] I think it’s not uncommon for people to think as long as I don’t say the word fat and as long as I don’t approach this with overtly mean spirited, sort of an overtly mean spirited approach, then like, I’m fine. And it’s just way more complicated than that. And I think also like, listen, man, you and I have met I’m a fat lady by like any measure, right. There is not a world in which there is a definition of fatness and I don’t meet it right. Like, I just am fat. I have eyes. You have eyes. Right like everyone knows I am a fat person. And it doesn’t really help me to deny that. And actually, what it tells me is that if I’m with someone who can’t or won’t use the word fat with me, it tells me that they have a bunch of stuff around fatness and fat people they haven’t worked out.

Jameela [00:50:21] That’s too important to even say out loud.

Aubrey [00:50:25] And I also think, like just in my experience anecdotally, like the folks who are hurt the most by hearing the word fat are people who have not been fat. Right. Because sort of the worst thing that they can imagine is being called fat. Meanwhile, people who are fat are like, oh, that’s not the worst thing.

Jameela [00:50:43] Yeah,.

Aubrey [00:50:44] This is fine. Yeah, just call me fat. It’s just what I am, right? Don’t call me curvy or fluffy or more to love or whatever. Right like no thanks. Rather than trying to convince yourself or to convince me and do the like sweetie no you’re not fat right. Like that whole conversation. I think what you were saying earlier is exactly right, which is like focus on changing the ways that fat people are treated. Don’t flip out about what word you’re using or not using.

Jameela [00:51:13] Yeah.

Aubrey [00:51:14] Focus instead on like doing a better job of sort of recognizing our humanity and making sure that we can meet our own needs and stuff like that. I also think there’s something about complimenting weight loss and about the ways that we think and talk about weight loss. I don’t know that people think about this in terms of like when thinner friends talk to me about how excited they are about losing weight and expect me to congratulate them.

Jameela [00:51:37] Yeah, it’s crazy.

Aubrey [00:51:38] They are expecting me to congratulate them for looking less like me, you know, like, why would I congratulate that? Why would I see that as an achievement? How would that be affirming to me? Right. I’m not saying that people don’t put in work to try and lose weight. I’m saying that 95 percent of the people who put in that work don’t end up looking thinner. Right. So if you want to congratulate people’s work, congratulate people’s work regardless of the size that they are. But like, this thing is largely outside of our control and is actually driven by much more by markers like are you a person who’s living in poverty, to your point? Right. Like if you are a person who’s living in poverty, you are much likelier to be fat. And if you are fat, you are much likelier to be living in poverty right. So like we’ve also got to sort of open up to the idea that this isn’t just, you know, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. It isn’t just, you know, Protestant work ethic. It isn’t just rugged individualism. Right. It isn’t just grit that gets people thin. You can have all of those things and still not become thin. Right. You can still be a fat person and have all of those things.

Jameela [00:52:50] OK.

Aubrey [00:52:50] And that feels really tricky.

Jameela [00:52:51] No, and I feel so fucking great to have you and be able to just have this conversation really unapologetically where it doesn’t feel like we’re just trying to put the cherry on top or like try and reassure everyone. Don’t worry, it’s not so bad. It’s really important for us to talk about this. And in this year, where we have seen fat people and Asian people both singled out during covid-19 in very different ways for some sort of cause or reason, the death rates are going up or, you know, it’s been covid has been used as an excuse to just really just lay into fat people around the world. This is a vital conversation to have. And I thank you so much for being so candid with me and also just so, so thoughtful and and factual in so many of your responses. So for anyone out there listening who wants to be a better ally to their fat friend, fat mother, fat daughter, fat colleague, fat student, what advice do you have?

Aubrey [00:53:53] I mean, I think there are, there are a few things that I would say. One is I would say check in with yourself about what your fat loved one wants versus what you think they want. Right. Ask them like maybe they’re trying to lose weight. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they want your encouragement. Maybe they want to be left alone and never want to talk about their body again. Right. So, like I would say, step one is ask fat people what would be most helpful to them and then do those things. That feels like the biggest baseline thing. If we all just got on board with that, we would have sort of quantum leaps forward and how we think and talk about fat people. This is a place where sort of the golden rule kind of breaks down. Right, because I think there are a lot of thin people who want to lose more weight. Right. And they’re like, I would love to have encouragement for weight loss. Right. But treating other people as they would like to be treated is maybe not actually the approach. Right. I would actually say like check in with yourself about what is sort of your own projection versus what is something you have heard from a fat person.

Jameela [00:55:00] And delicately ask for consent.

Aubrey [00:55:02] Totally ask for consent. Absolutely. And then ask them what they want and do that thing. It really, really, really does not have to be complicated. It can be real simple. Also, ask them about their experiences. I feel like, you know, I hear from readers often that I must have like terrible luck, that people have been so awful to me. And I’m like, actually, I sort of before starting this project and before starting to write about what it’s like to be a fat person, I thought of myself as living sort of a charmed life. And I do. And a lot of ways I totally do. I’m a white person. I grew up middle class. I went to college. Right. Like, I have all this sort of wind at my back from privilege. And when I experienced anti fat bias, which was pretty much constantly right, it’s like most days that I’m out in the world, somebody says something or does something or whatever. It wasn’t that that was OK with me at the time. It was, that was the only model that I had. Right. Was just sort of like the way that we treat fat people in this world is, well, however, people treat you is just the price you pay for being fat and failing to be thin. Right. So I didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t tell people about it because why would I? It’s not going to change anything is how it felt to me. Right. Even as an organizer, I was just like, what’s the point? So it also feels like super important to actually just ask folks what they are experiencing, ask fat folks what they’re experiencing, ask them what would be helpful. Hey, if somebody shouts something at you on the street, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to shout back at them? Do you want me to shut up and keep moving? Do you want me to make sure that you’re safe? Do you want me to check in with you afterwards? Right. Like if we’re on a plane and the flight attendant threatens to kick you off the plane because you’re too fat for the flight, how can I show up for you? Right. Just like ask the fat people in your life what they’ve been through and what they need in those situations.

Jameela [00:57:02] So thank you for that. And for anyone else out there who would like to follow Aubrey online, she goes by your fat friend. But that’s yrfatfriend. She also has a book coming out, which I’m so excited for. Called What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat and I cannot wait for that. And you also have your own podcast out, which is called.

Aubrey [00:57:25] Maintenance Phase. So I co-host that with Michael Hobbs, who also co-hosts You’re Wrong About, which is one of my favorite podcasts. I love it so much. And we sort of noticed that of the many health and wellness podcasts out in the world, very few of them actually talked about the science or history behind the sort of health and wellness trends that they were pushing. Right. So we’ve been doing sort of deep research dives into where did the president’s physical fitness test come from in the United States or what was the deal with Fen Phen, this prescription diet drug that killed people? And how did that get approved? Has that changed? Right. And we’re also talking about stuff like adaptogens, which is like a word that’s everywhere now. And I don’t think anybody really knows what it means.

Jameela [00:58:13] What is an adaptogen? Shall I just listen to your podcast?

Aubrey [00:58:17] Yeah you kinda do. I don’t know, go to Moon Juice they’ll tell you all about it.

Jameela [00:58:22] Oh, my God. So before you go, Aubrey, what do you weigh?

Aubrey [00:58:31] I would say being a good friend or trying to I would say my niece and nephew, being proud of me and doing things that make them proud of me, I would say my like ongoing organizing work for LGBTQ rights, for immigrant rights, for racial justice, for voting rights for fat people, all of that. And I would say my sense of humor. Feel like it’s important to be able to be lighthearted about some of the stuff some of the time, because the world is a heavy, intense place. You know.

Jameela [00:59:06] I agree.

Aubrey [00:59:07] And I would also say, listen, all of those things are how I measure myself. And I also live in a world that very much does measure me by my weight. So I would say I also weighed 350 pounds. And that has significantly shaped my experience. You know, not I don’t say that to put myself down or to reinforce that model, but just to say that as a fat person, that’s kind of inescapable right. In the world we live in today.

Jameela [00:59:36] Well, that’s on all of us to change. So I’ve got your back to the very end. I am, I’m constantly trying to ask myself if I’m literally in love with you. You are truly one of my favorite people I’ve met as an adult. And I’m so lucky to have you in my life. Thank you for coming on to this podcast. It’s been so informative and interesting and full of heart and and so inspiring in the way that you look at the world. I always hope to be more like you, and so I’ll keep working on that. And so go buy her book, follow her online and and listen to her Maintenance Phase podcast. Loads of love to you.

Aubrey [01:00:14] Back at you bud it’s so fun to talk to you always. And to do it on mic is a real treat.

Jameela [01:00:19] Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carson. And the beautiful music that you’re hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate, review and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. I really appreciate it and amps me up to bring on better and better guests. Lastly, at I Weigh we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at one eight one eight six six zero five five four three or email us what you weigh at iweighpodcast@gmail.com. It’s not pounds and kilos so please don’t send that. It’s all about you just you know, you’ve been on the Instagram anyway and now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners.

Jameela [01:01:11] A listener wrote in today and said, I weigh my consciousness, my willingness to learn and grow my two lovely sons who are my biggest joy and frustration at the same time, my ability to apologize, my passion for crocheting, which hopefully will become my source of income, my fight with depression, and my liberty of not explaining myself to anyone anymore.