Adulting - #102 Body Acceptance, Media Literacy & Self Love with Kitty Underhill

Episode Date: May 16, 2021

Hey Podulters, I hope you're well! In this week's episode I speak to model, speaker and soon to be coach, Kitty Underhill. I came across Kitty after a discussion over on my instagram about boobs and we discuss this in the episode, as well as the three things Kitty wishes she had been taught in school. Kitty's three things are body acceptance, media literacy and self love. I hope you enjoy and as always please do rate, review and subscribe! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey poddlters, I hope that you're doing well. In this week's episode I speak to Kitty Underhill. She is a model, speaker and soon-to-be coach specialising in body and self-acceptance and thinking about the way that we sort of speak to ourselves and think about ourselves. I found Kitty when I did a post which we talk about actually on the podcast about boobs because she has started a movement about tubular boobs which we'll hear a bit more about um and it's covered in her three things she's been taught in school which are body acceptance media literacy and self-love and acceptance so we talk a lot about sort of like kardashians body image social media the concept of flaws um i think it's a really lovely chat and I really hope that you

enjoy listening. As always, please do rate, review and subscribe. Bye. Hello and welcome to Adulting. Today I'm joined by Kitty Underhill. Hey, hey. Hi, hi. How are you? Yeah, I am good. How are you? I'm not doing bad. I'm looking out at the rain, which is making me sad, and the rain forecast, which is apparently forever now. Oh, I see. I can't even look beyond my window because I'm so surrounded by my leopard print duvet. So if you can give me like a visual description of how sad the weather is that'd be great it's

really sad just the listeners kitty has been an incredible guest and has made a studio of her duvet to get the best soundproofing so i'm very grateful as i said honestly i would be i just get too sweaty i also love that it's leopard print yeah i mean leopard print's neutral right if that's what everybody says I'm just a leper print gal it's it permeates my being um does everyone say that because I thought that was my thing I always I see we're already in sync I I see where this is going I'm loving it already it's great that's so funny it's literally what I say to my. I'll put something on and I'll be like, so can I, I literally think there's neutral.

You have beige, black, white, gray, leopard print. Leopard print. Yeah. Any,

any animal print actually is, is neutral. Partial to a tiger at the moment as well. Yeah. I do love a tiger. Also I go in and out of phases of specific types of leopard print. So sometimes I like the ones that are really dark and like really the smaller print and sometimes I really go off that yes I feel you I think you know leopard print has many nuances that we do not appreciate

like some leopard prints I'm like I don't like that one but I really like that one and I could not tell you why I don't know whether it's because of the color the tones the general vibe I agree also something I discovered the other day what is it there's another big cat that's spotty not a hyena what's the other one and sometimes I think what we call leopard print isn't it yeah I think sometimes what we call leopard print is actually cheetah print I discovered this the other day I know it's everything What's a gal gonna do now? I know. So I actually, yeah, I actually think that sometimes it's slightly different and maybe I prefer cheetah. Anyway, glad that we got that out of the way. Yeah, important fact first, yeah. So for people who don't know who you are and what you do, could you give us an introduction to Kitty and your work

and anything else you think we should know? Sure so as you already said before my name is Kitty Underhill and I am a model, I'm a speaker and I am an advocate for body and self-acceptance. So basically what that means is that I am incredibly fed up with the idea that we are taught that we are not good enough and we have to go through the process of unlearning that idea that we're not good enough. All of us should know that we're good enough by default. And so with my work online via Instagram, via speaking, and I'm also training to be a coach as well, I'm hoping to give people the tools and the challenges to help them to unlearn all the nastiness that they've learned about themselves and their bodies. And part of my work is also,

I'm channeling a lot of it into my Totally Tubular campaign because a couple of years ago, for years I'd struggled with my body image, but it was always my boobs that I couldn't quite get my head around no matter how much I learned about body acceptance. And it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I just happenstanced on a article that talked about tubular boobs. So I Googled it some more and I finally saw boobs that looked like mine. I always knew mine were different, but I couldn't put my finger on why. And so seeing all these images, I felt so like, oh, just suddenly like, hooray, I found the thing.

I finally understand what's like going on with my boobs and my body. But then as I was doing further research, nearly every single website that had information on tubular boobs was from a plastic surgery website telling me how to fix it and how to fix the deformity and you know I'm going to add like a little trigger warning here but you know one of the articles said that so many people who have tubular boobs um feel like suicidal thoughts like and so from being so excited to finally understand more about my body I was suddenly like stripped away from me because everything was telling me that my body was wrong. So I launched the Totally Tubular campaign,

not only to show people with tubular boobs that they're not alone, that they're beautiful, their difference is absolutely gorgeous, but also to shine a light on the fact that there are so few compassionate resources out there for people with boobs like mine. Like it's not fair that I had to learn about my body from plastic surgery websites rather than a website that says, here's what it is. Here's the deal. It's just, there's no research on it at all. And, you know, it goes to show that we need more compassionate resources, not just about boobs, but about our bodies and ourselves in general so that's me in a little snapshot so um i've just googled it while you were talking and i and i've googled it before but literally every single image as you said is an augmentation so it shows like the before and then

the after but apart from cosmetically having tubular boobs there's no there's nothing wrong with it is it's just it's just a cosmetic thing yeah so well this is another issue is that there's so little research in it is that it's actually hard to gauge whether you know the only thing that's come up recently is that somebody commented on one of my photos saying it's actually been a bit of a struggle breastfeeding um but then what I found was so lovely is that you know because I I didn't quite have the infinite you know I don't have a child I've not breastfed before in my life. So I couldn't really say, oh, it's cool because I've not been there. Um, but somebody else said, I also have tubular boobs. I'm breastfeeding. I've set up this little, um, community where we can talk about it. And she felt really good about

that. And I was like, this is so great that this community is kind of forming already where they, you know, people with tubular boobs can help each other but yeah so far it's just a visual difference but you know we need a little bit more research um you know it's sadly I think as we know the medical industry is still very much through the cis male gaze you know we have no information about tubular boobs we have no information about PCOS endometriosis all these kinds of things that affect people you know that aren't cis men so they kind of decided to be not interested enough for research which is not cool to say the least so the reason it's so interesting because when I first found you on Instagram it was because I'd done a post

about but I think I'd it started off because I'd talked about not wearing bras in my stories and how as I've got older, I've got more comfortable with not wearing a bra and feeling like I'm not going to let men sexualize my boobs just because I'm not wearing a bra. And this turned into this whole conversation with my audience about like, how do you feel about your boobs? And it turned out that so many women have all these different insecurities and lots of things are coming up, whether that was talking about nipple hairs or like the size of your areola.

And one of the things that came up was tubular boobs. And then people commented, oh, my God, you need to follow Kitty. But when I Googled tubular boobs, I also didn't. I was like, I've seen lots of people who have those boobs in changing rooms, like in my friends. You see loads of boobs as a girl, don you in general life just growing up yeah and I didn't I wouldn't have known that there was a name for it which in of itself I find is quite weird because surely it's just another shape of boob this is almost like what I find it just shows how far we've gone I've seen so many different shapes and sizes and and like variations of boobs in my life that it almost seems slightly misogynistic that there is even like a category

because this boob doesn't fit the like yeah it's like it feels medicalized in a way because you know it was kind of it's seen through the lens of like very medicalized jargon which kind of becomes stigmatizing in itself because it turns into a condition rather than just a different way of having a boob you know it just feels like very unnecessarily medicalized and but then i get you know i guess maybe that that helps kind of justify why all these medical websites go and here's why you need to fix it because they've created an issue around it. You know, maybe if we had more research and we found out that actually there was nothing wrong and it's just purely cosmetic, you know, everyone's allowed to do what they want with their body.

If they want to have cosmetic surgery, that's fine. I'm not going to judge. But if it's posited in a way that is, this is bad and therefore you need to fix it, that's where the problem is. And if it's under the guise of like being very medicalized people may feel like they need to change it because it's it's put through that lens but you're right it is it does feel misogynistic it feels you know it's just such unnecessary labeling it's just another way of having boobs and that's totally cool boobs come in all different shapes and sizes yeah exactly and like obviously they do like I was thinking trying to think of like other shit types of boobs that it

might talk about but I suppose they call like asymmetric boobs and I'm sure there's a word for having like big areas I'm sure that they could they'll find oh sorry what I'm sorry um I I think I remember speaking to somebody I think her name is Rebecca Butcher and she's got something called Poland syndrome which is where one boob is bigger than the other um so I wish I could remember her name on Instagram but she speaks about it quite a bit and that you know that's that's just another example yeah because that's really normal right like my one of my boobs is bigger than the other but maybe it's it I think it depends on the degree right okay I think a bit more research but yeah it's just it's just fascinating and it was interesting to be introduced to you and see

like I can completely understand why I mean it's interesting now because I feel like there's a massive movement towards girls like not wearing bras no matter your shape of your boob like I think that is becoming much more normalized than it was when I was at school like when I was at school you'd 100% wear a padded bra from Lizenza which used to be like my favorite shop. Lizenza now there was a place that celebrated leopard print in a whole other way. They used to do bra I've only just remembered this but I used to have all the bras that like come at the frog on and they would have like padded inserts and you could like add in pads and I used to put in like 10 pads and have my boobs like up to my

chin and they were like double a and I would be like in pain yeah oh my god like I remember I used to go to the club because I was so I felt so ashamed of my boobs for such a long time I'd wear two padded bras I do like the contour cleavage with like makeup I would have kick and fillets I'd do everything just to kind of you know hide or pretend to myself that oh yeah I have quote-unquote normal boobs but like every boob is normal why are we taught this idea that we you know maybe it's it's from the media it's from porn it's from all different kinds of places that we're taught that you know we should look a certain way whether it's our boobs whether's our bodies, whether it's the way we present ourselves. And that can be so damaging. And we don't realize how normalized it is until we kind of learn more

about it and go, Oh, my God, I did that for what? For who? You know? No, exactly. And this leads us on really well into your first thing that you wish to have been taught in school. And you said, you wish to'd talked about body acceptance and not the as long as you're not fat kind of body acceptance radical body acceptance which accounts for all bodies with resources that are compassionate and kind could you tell me about when you first discovered because it's quite different body acceptance and like body neutrality are very in a very different sector from body positivity and I think sometimes people um misuse that phrase of body positivity so could you tell me about body acceptance and when you discovered it and what that means to you and how that's I guess changed your relationship with

yourself and your body and everything else for sure so I think you're absolutely right I think people really conflate body acceptance with body positivity, which can be really troublesome because, you know, body positivity was created for marginalized bodies, especially fat black bodies. So over the past couple of years, we've really seen, you know, big brands and privileged people kind of latch onto it because they know it's a good sell. And it's like, this was meant to be political. It was meant to be something that shook the table, that changed legislation, that created more liberation for fat folks. And instead it became something to like sell to people. And that's absolutely not what it was about at all. So I think in terms of body positivity, we really need to focus it back onto And I discovered it, you know, I was very

lucky when I was at university, I studied psychology and sociology, that my first lecturer, one of her specialities was talking about fat phobia. And, you know, I was somebody who, you know, as we all do, we learn to be fat phobic, you know, we learn to hate our bodies, we learn that fatness is one of the worst things that being fat and gaining weight is one of the worst things that could possibly happen to us and you know I really struggled with body image I really I experienced disordered eating for a really long time it didn't help that I was in a spot where you know I was um in a semi-relations relationship with someone much older than me.

And he said that he wouldn't like be seen in public with me until I was a size six. And it just, it sucked because he kind of affirmed everything that the world was teaching me about my body at the time. So when I finally got to university and learned about fat phobia, I was like, something just clicked. I was like, not only does this horrible oppressive force affect so many people and is so normalized, it also results in like oppression, depending on, you know, how fat you are, like that's messed up. And from there, it really started the process for me of unlearning all the hateful things that I'd learn about myself and also about other bodies. It's not comfortable to confront the fact that you learn that some bodies are

better than others. So taking on that process of trying to learn to love yourself and love your own body also means learning to love other bodies as well. And I think we do need to acknowledge that. But yeah, so on this journey of body acceptance for myself, it meant, you know, challenging the stuff that was uncomfortable to me, taking more care of my body, treating it with kindness. Like, you know how we, it's really normalized to kind of poke and prod and pinch your body. I stopped all of that. And that was so liberating. And following people that didn't look like me, following people of all different body sizes and shapes, it was something that just changed the way I felt about myself. And it was such a transformative thing. And it got to the point in my life where I was like, I had to speak out about it. I had to help other people so that other people didn't feel the same way that I did when

I was younger. And so with that, that's how I've used my platform up until now and will continue to do so because I think it's so important because how we feel about our bodies ultimately does translate into how we feel about ourselves I think our minds and bodies are so intertwined and it's very difficult to kind of separate the two so once we learn to accept our bodies we learn to accept ourselves I think that's completely true um and it's it's something that when I was younger I had such bad like body image that if I had like a bad body image day or I felt fat and inverted commas I wouldn't want to leave the house and I've never really been bigger than like a size 10 so I've always been like slim and even then I would feel like oh it would impact my whole day

I was so obsessed with and it was so drilled into me and it's like I think a bit of it is growing older but also it is that exposure to like what everyone's bodies look like and this that women like you very actually rarely see women in real life that look like Victoria's Secret models and yet they were the only things that we would see in the media and it's really now that we are lots of people I'm sure have like curated feeds of lots of different bodies you start to just feel like oh this is real life like this is normality and then you look back at kind of what we were sold and you just think how did we not realize that that was just a complete myth um exactly and all bodies aren't meant to look the same like you know i think it gets said a lot online but like if we ate the same exercise the same did exactly the same things we'd still look different and if we learned that kind of thing in

school from the get-go that like every single body is different fat is okay like if we learn all of that stuff imagine how the next generation of kids would feel about themselves like you know they for one thing they they would absolutely not be you know falling for these marketing campaigns that are like oh empower yourself by losing weight like no one would be falling for that stuff anymore there'd be a whole new empowered generation because they realize that bodies in their differences are so magnificent and gorgeous like that's just the way it is like that's normal totally I think as well like the thing with fat phobia that really kind of like shocks me and actually made me realize like how corrupt it is is this moralizing and sort of like the health policing thing where it's like people are oh but they're unhealthy and if you start to dig deep into that it's like but

why does it impact you if someone else's fat it's like we've been taught to take it as like a personal affront to feel whether that's like disgust or judgment as well yeah absolutely when you realize you start to realize that oh my god what does it does not impact me what someone else's body looks like and yet we feel, exactly that sense of entitlement to judge. And when I realized that I was like, Oh, it makes me feel really icky and realize like, why do I think I have any right to say anything? And also I saw a really good tweet the other day by someone who's a fat person calls himself a fat person online. And they were like, I hate this thing where people go, Oh, you know know people are fat because you know it's their

body shape people are fat because it's like a health condition they're like I just fucking love eating and if I want to overeat like let me that's someone's body is their own business like why do we again we learn the entitlement don't we and that's really icky and uncomfortable once you know I had somebody comment on one of my pictures the other day saying, I'm really glad I found you because someone in my office said that my clothes look too tight. And I said to them, like, I'm so sorry that that person made their own body image issues about you. And like, ultimately so much of this is projection. It's all the stuff we've unlearned and we put it onto other people because it's, it's entitlement, it's all the horrid stuff we've unlearned and we put it onto other people because it's it's

entitlement it's expected but as soon as people start challenging that stuff they can at least draw that you know put that wall up and say okay that's clearly a you problem you've got a lot of fat phobia to unlearn hun but it's still it's still so damaging in the meantime until there's like this whole shift in how we talk about bodies and how we can we just desperately need to be more compassionate about bodies obviously our own but especially bodies that don't look like ours do you know what else is interesting that started I saw this thing on twitter about um a tiktok video that's a girl and she's like roller skating in a bikini and she's just like very averagely sized body and someone was

like oh my god thank you so much for this like mid-size representation and everyone was screeching on it and they're kind of like this is almost like again it's a bit like the labeling of the boob thing it's like sometimes we're so quick to kind of like pathologize things that we don't realize that that girl might have just been living her life so there's like I think there's a double edged sword as well we're almost going too far trying to like not normalize everything but it's just this it's just the uninvited commentary on whatever size someone's body is where it's like that girl might have never even thought about her body being you know anything yeah people are just out here existing and then suddenly there's a thought piece about them yeah how bizarre but know, fat folks get it in such a intensified, horrific degree.

And it's so problematic. And it's something that we really need to shine more of a light on because it feels like for a lot of people, that's one thing they're just not willing to let go of. Because as you said, there's that whole health entitlement thing. There's just general horrible judgment going on and ultimately other people's bodies just aren't our business and I think it's taking people a long time to unlearn that I think so and it's just it is so in it's so ingrained like I think that it what's difficult as well is that we're fat phobic to ourselves at the same time.

So even if you feel like you've unlearned it about other people, I still catch myself thinking things like towards myself because it's just so insidious. And I think that it's existed for so long. And also because realistically, I do think that the majority of the population, like these conversations are happening in certain circles on Twitter and TikTok and Instagram and you know certain groups of people might but but for the majority of people fat phobia is still like a kind of okay taboo like you're sort of allowed to do it because it has this moralized element and that's what makes it really difficult to kind of like dismantle it because there's still like I would say like 60% of the population haven't even considered fat phobia being problematic. Would you agree? Exactly. Yeah, no, for sure. Absolutely. Like it's so, it's so normalized and, you know, and that's why I think it's so important for this thing to have

been learned in school because, you know, as I said earlier, I also experienced disordered eating for such a long time. And I do, especially over lockdown, I found that kind of stuff bubbling back up again. And I was like, whoa, this is not fun. But I really had to, you know, have a good talking to myself and be like, you know, why is this coming up now? And, you know, because those thoughts aren't kind, they're not nice. They're learned as well. Like it comes from everywhere, but anything that is learned can be unlearned. And, you know, it is a process and, you know, you're going to have your up days and your down days, but that doesn't mean that you haven't made

progress. Yeah, I completely agree. And I feel like I was the same and not down days but that doesn't mean that you haven't made progress yeah I completely agree and I feel like I was the same and not down a bit but I think that's maybe because of the control element of the pandemic sort of making you feel very um and yeah I felt the same and also going back towards in the very first lockdown sort of like my problem was always I always used to like binge eat a lot when I was younger I haven't done it for years and years and years I've really got such a good balance with food and in the very first beginning lockdown I felt myself just really wanting that comfort from food um but it was interesting being able to be conscious of it because before it would be very subconscious and almost kind of like not it's obviously irrational but I can't really explain it I just you can once you start

to understand it a bit more you can not control it better but you know I mean you can kind of take it or leave it but it's a level of self-awareness when you go oh this this isn't good for me you know you have your own kind of what's the word like um not epistat like you have your own spot where you kind of understand you know 10 above and 10 below of you know in terms of your own mental health in terms of your own feelings towards your body yourself and so you can once you develop that self-awareness with yourself and like well done to you for understanding that about yourself because a lot of people find that so difficult at least you could hone in and go oh this is virtually you're not so great what can i do

about it and that's something that i think should be taught in schools as well because no one knows our bodies like ourselves like you know we judge other people's bodies in so many different ways um but we it means that we kind of deflect off ourselves and our own bodies if we're more conscious about everybody else's bodies but our own, it means that we just feel really disconnected and we feel really disembodied. And to become embodied again, it's about being in touch with yourself, being in touch with your own sensations, how you feel about your body, how you feel about yourself, how when your mental health dips, maybe your relationship with food will change. All this stuff is really important. So it's really good that you honed in on it um

but that's that's such an important thing as well isn't it just to know yeah I mean it takes absolutely years because I would say that I I've spoken about this before but I think like my very first like bad relation on the body probably started when I was like 10 11 I'm 27 now and I think it's only in the last like five years that I've like been getting to like a healthy point and now I'm like the best place I've ever been but I say that knowing that it took like it's been a 15 16 year journey which I think it is for so many young women and girls especially because it starts from such such young age and that kind of leads me on to a second thing which also is such a good thing to bring up and I think there's so many things that have happened lately that we can talk about with this but you said

media literacy and we should have all learned how to critique media for example body acceptance conversations center around accepting your flaws but we don't question who taught us our bodies were flawed in the first place I think that's such a good point and such a good way of putting it because it's entirely true these are just sort of like created problems so they can sell you the the quick fix yeah i mean i'm not sure if you know this but um you know cellulite was kind of something that we were all totally cash and cool and chill about until it was in the 1960s and vogue did this huge piece on i wish i could remember the exact title but basically it was like cellulite, the fact you can't get rid of. And all of a sudden, like the anti-cellulite industry boomed, they'd created a problem and they found the fix to, you know, to sell to you. And that that's not

in like, that's recent history. Like that article is as old as my parents. Like, and yet, and I think I remember in pre-pandemic, I remember going to Primark and they had like an anti-cellulite roller, which is literally just a piece of plastic with some spikes in it. And I was like, really? Like all of these non, just, it's complete nonsense. And it makes me so sad that like,

not that we fall for it. you know how can we not when we're in this society that teaches us our bodies are bad and it needs quick fixes you know but it makes me sad that these industries get away with it it sucks and we deserve so much better than that it reminds me of I can't remember when when what time frame it was but I think it might be a similar time when Gillette before this they didn't really sell razors for women and then they realized that if they sold razors to women they would make more money so they said it was unclean for women to be hairy and that's when women started shaving and then they realized that they were still unlining that yeah and but but I was just thinking as you were saying it's interesting because

obviously women's bodies have always been scrutinized throughout the ages from forever but if you look back to sort of like the marilyn monroe generation of women compared to like what we see as a body ideal now and not just a body ideal but a skin ideal hairlessness skin tone lack of wrinkle like because of the the precision and and it's because of social media i imagine because of photograph taking and kardashians social media, I imagine because of photograph taking and Kardashians, but the bar just keeps moving higher and there are just more and more problems. I think Kim Kardashian had her big toe shaved so that it was, it would fit more neatly into sandals.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur. Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded or 11 p.m eastern restrictions apply see full terms at canada.casino.fandu.com please play responsibly yeah really exactly and like it feels oddly juvenile doesn't it as in like you know we're not meant to have wrinkles so we're not meant to age we're not meant to have wrinkles. So we're not meant to age. We're not meant to have hair. So we're not meant to look like we've gone past puberty. Like it all feels very weird and icky. And ultimately, like, you know, this is why I always say to people,

just question this stuff. Because, you know, whenever there's that really great quote, which is like, whenever you feel down about your body, just think who's profiting from this, like who benefits from this? Cause it certainly isn't you. Like there's an industry out there that's like, Ooh, great. We've got another diet that absolutely doesn't work, but it will suck somebody into the cycle and they won't be able to leave. And they'll keep giving us our money. Like it's all so, as you said before, just insidious, isn't it? And I hate the fact that we have to go through this process of being critical about it. And, you know, hopefully that that becomes more normal, that we are critical about it so that these people make less and less money and this stuff kind of dissipates and goes away. But until such time,

you know, we got to work out how to say no to it. Well, this, but the other double-edged sword I'm always sort of flip-flopping around I mean I don't know how to frame it as a feminist issue but like this choice feminism idea where I saw another tweet god I need to go to twitter but this girl was like do you know what she was like if someone wants to go out and get their lips done get their body done get their face done because it's going to improve their quality of life include increase their ability to make like a better wage, et cetera, then go for it.

And I was like, shit, that is such a true, like, because the problem is, while we're still under these systems, we can like resist it as much as we want, but it obviously will impact the industry, but it also will directly impact us. I know that like, if I lost a bit of weight, thing crosses my mind, I think maybe I'd get like more ad campaigns

with certain people. It's an awful thought to have, but it's kind of weight, thing crosses my mind. I think maybe I'd get like more ad campaigns with certain people. It's an awful thought to have, but it's kind of, it's sadly probably true. Like if you did certain things to make yourself look like this specific ideal of a woman in this society,

it may well actually benefit you. And then, so it's hard to be like on an individual level, you know, it's hard to say that we should all reject it because especially, I think especially women't necessarily choice feminism is kind of a bit redundant but I still agree that you should be able to do anything you want to do but I don't think that's necessarily feminist do you know what I'm getting at with this yes absolutely I think ultimately as we said earlier it kind of touches on how we talk about bodies but like

ultimately your body is your choice you know Something that came up for me when you were saying that is that whilst campaigning with my Totally Tubular campaign, something that's been quite interesting is that people have DMed me privately and said, oh, well, I'm going to go and have surgery in this kind of really apologetic tone as if they're waiting for me to say no you bloody shouldn't stop that cancel your appointment but you know the way I say to them is like if that's what you feel you have to do then go ahead you know as I said before sadly there aren't enough statistics on how prevalent tubular breast syndrome is but the article about how you know suicidal thoughts can come up for people was really shocking and i just thought if looking at yourself in the mirror if your boob shape is making you feel a type of way that you don't want to exist anymore then do what you need to do i think as long as you're cognizant of the forces at play that teach you that that's the only way like that's you need to just be aware and then you make your choices I think it's if you jump into these kinds of things uninformed and unaware that's when it

can get tricksy but as long as you're making kind of choices that feel congruent to you that feel kind to you and that don't hurt anybody else then do the thing by all means yeah and I think also the other thing with like the boob situation is it's not like I don't know weight loss or another thing which you can control it's like there's really nothing you can do for a boob shape apart from therapy so if someone else is feeling like like you said that they have to change their boobs in order to feel well then like it all every single decision that anyone makes in terms of like appearance surgery all the thing always makes sense to me I understand why people do it and I felt I've gone

through the motions of like at uni I was like desperate I thought I wanted a boob job and then thankfully I didn't and I'm really glad that I didn't now um but like even in lockdown I think I was on zoom so much I was like oh my god I want to get a nose job like these is it's it's very easy to think like this will solve some sort of problem um yeah well it kind of targets the symptom and not the cause doesn't it you know going back to our point on media literacy I think it's really important that we critique the system that makes us feel like we have to do this or that life will be better once this is done, rather than the individual. I think we're so keen to go, oh, well, they were talking about body acceptance and now they've got lip fillers. What is the truth? And it's like, no, no no talk about the system that makes people feel like

you know they're more worthy and more desirable and better in general because they've had something done like the system is at fault here not us as individuals who are just trying to get through it you know i completely agree do you know what's really interesting i haven't really spoken about it in depth but the chloe kardloe Kardashian situation I'm sure you saw it recently there are so many situations I don't know what's the latest there was one where she basically someone leaked a bikini picture of her that was like sort of unedited and unfiltered and she was like really upset so she did a legal thing to get it taken down and then because she felt like she didn't look it didn't represent what she looks like and she looked amazing in the photo but she it was like an unflattering in her mind photo so she sort of I think she sued them she managed to

get the picture thing down and then afterward she spoke did an amazing sort of like um post about how she spent so long she's always called kind of like the ugly sister and everyone was always really cruel to her and it's taken her so long to accept her body and like seeing that image of her being put out without consent really upset her and then she went on to post like videos to prove what she looked like and I was like god this is such a Russian doll like chicken and egg situation because that family have sort of been so instrumental in the way that we view bodies and even the way that we sort of like now really champion people having like bigger bums and slightly more curvaceous and yeah they've literally changed the beauty standard it's yeah wild the power that but then so then I was like I can't decide maybe I don't need to have an opinion

but when I read her thing I felt really sorry and I completely understood it because she really was targeted by the press and the media as being like adopted she's taller than the other girls she's slightly bigger she doesn't look necessarily as petite as Courtney and Kim um and so she's definitely been such a victim to it but then her sisters have totally sort of like or especially Kim taken this thing and run with it they sort of used this means of oppression as a means for them individually to gain traction and gain power and gain whatever else and I found it such a head fuck to read to see how she could feel this way and kind of be unaware of how she's complicit and I don't and I think that's like a really good example of how this this whole mess is so confusing because if even Khloe Kardashian is saying like can't recognize how she's played a part in the system and how the system is still

impacting her so much I don't know did you have any feelings about that did you follow it very closely did you read her post and things yeah I kind of was in and out because I kind of go out of my way to not follow them you know um it I think you're right. It's such a, I mean, I do find it, you know, I try and have compassion for all people, you know, that kind of underpins my practice and it underpins my work, but I do find it very difficult that they can be so aware of body image issues and go, Oh, well, at least I get my paycheck. You know, like Kim and all of them selling all these terrible detox tummy teas that can really wreck your digestive system. These weight loss lollies that probably do absolutely nothing, but instead just give people more of a complex about the way they look. And it's a shame, I think, because I think for Chloe, there was a real opportunity there to go,

I feel really bad when a quote unquote bad photo of me comes out. Therefore, I'm going to be more cognizant of the way I operate online. But instead she was like, so I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing, you know? And it's like, it's a shame she didn't take this as a learning experience but then having you know been somebody who's felt so terrible when you know back again quote unquote what I thought were bad photos of me what on the internet you know I think everybody's felt that way and the way that she feels is probably more intensified because there are millions of people looking at her. It's so, you know, I think as I get older, the more I kind of sit in the gray area with stuff. I don't think anything is ever black and white. I think we can hold space for being angry and, you know, critical of the ways that they've played a huge part in the

way that so many young people now feel about their bodies. But we can also hold space for a little bit of compassion for somebody who's operating in the system who has under a huge magnifying glass does feel terrible is made to feel like the odd one out and there isn't like a clear answer on what's right or wrong it just sucks and it's a bad system and it needs to be dismantled you know i completely agree with all of that but you know what you're saying about having a bad picture and how it makes you feel this was actually really instrumental in my like my beginning to have body acceptance because basically I would die because I used to be more of like a fitness influencer and if I ever went to an event and someone took a picture of me from a

inverted commas bad angle or I thought I didn't look good it would really make me feel like it would throw me back into that kind of disordered feeling I would feel really upset I would feel like like so overexposed because I wasn't in control of the image and like not that I've never like edited my photos or doctored them or anything but obviously when you stand in front of a mirror or you put it in the area that you wanted yeah it's very different from you creating a photo and and I used to literally get so heptap and I'd be like oh my god and and I would end up doing these like reality versus Instagram pictures being like this is me but this is also me and then one day I was like oh I think it's probably my boyfriend said it to me he was like babe sometimes you look amazing in photos and sometimes you look shit in photos you can't have can't expect like

an amazing photo without there ever being like no bad photos and that all that that like changed my mind so much I was like of course sometimes you take a picture of you and you look so unreal you're like that doesn't even look like me yeah literally how can those pictures exist and then you expect there never to be a photo where you also might not not be representative of what you look like necessarily or like it's doesn't you don't even look bad because to other people they see you in movement all the time anyway so they're used to seeing you fluid and moving and and being a body and letting go of that idea of like there being a bad picture so like now if someone takes a picture me and I don't

I love it I'm like oh well and that has been like the most empowering thing yeah so liberating and that's one of the things I do say to people and like oh you know how do I learn to accept my body is like look at your body from all angles not just the palatable ones like you know look at your side profile where you may have more of a double chin like look at you know relish and focus on the parts of you that have more roles than others like because once you get used to that exposure of yourself from all different angles, not just the palatable ones, you know, you get used to your body without conditions. You know, if you only like your body when it's in a certain pose or looking a certain way, then is that truly body acceptance? Look at yourself wholeheartedly from all angles and it will just liberate you even more.

Do you know what's so interesting as well? I saw my mum recently for her birthday and we took look Matt took my boyfriend took loads of pictures of us and they're really cute we're like laughing loads and my mum they're lovely I saw them yeah I loved them my mum kept being like oh I don't like that one because I've got a double chin and I was like mum I've got a double chin because we're laughing like I was like look how happy we are don't like we don't worry about that and it was so interesting even she was like self-conscious it was like her 63rd birthday and she's still worrying about whether or not

she looked like she had a double chin. But that generation, yeah, I think they've, it's so hard for them. You know, like, I think that's one of the difficult things that I think people find is that, you know, I talk about this stuff with my mum quite a bit. And she kind of, you know, she'll say stuff like, Oh, I know not to say that in front of you. And I'm like, Oh, oh man but she is learning bit by bit it's about you know just that little challenge I'm sure will really change the way she thinks you know because as you're right like a double chin meant that you were laughing and having a fabulous time and that's what the photo's about not you know hyper fixating on these tiny what we're taught are flaws you know like none of these things are flaws at all

no exactly and when you start to post I'm sure you got you got this but like when you just start to post images and not I used to literally especially when I would spend hours pouring over it and if there was like anything wrong with the picture I wouldn't post it whereas now I'm just like oh that's nice I'll post that and then afterwards if you look at it too much you might suddenly start to think oh I don't like this I don't know that but once you post it it's like you've you've done that's it like you've put that out into the world no one else is going to give a shit either it's just that act of you sort of like relinquishing control over how you might be perceived which is a hard thing to do all around in general anyway because we're taught as women to be like constantly

controlling what we're doing what we're eating what we're saying and it's all about like restriction and um even that small act of posting a picture where maybe you feel like oh you don't look as amazing as you'd hoped that can be a really amazing step in liberating because you'll realize that the reaction will either be no one will say anything or people will get more engagement because you look really happy or you can tell that you're relaxed and I know this is such like a basic thing to talk about in regard to social media but I think that is kind of the driving force for lots of insecurities now is social media. For sure and also it's I don't think it is it's like it's the building blocks isn't it like I don't think there's any small

or petty or tiny thing because all these things amount to a much bigger picture don't they and you know touching on that like how sad is it that we're taught to you know pick ourselves apart and don't we deserve so much better like because ultimately we're the ones who pick ourselves apart the most like as you said when you post the photo people are like oh you look so gorgeous you look so happy and know, not that it's about all the positive reinforcement that you get when you post something, but it just goes to show that you can pick yourself apart as much as you like. But, you know, our own inner voices can be our own worst enemy sometimes. And the more we learn to quiet that voice and go, you know what, picking myself apart is such a waste of energy why don't I just post my joy like that's such a step in the right direction I totally agree and this actually leads on perfectly into your third thing which is self-love and acceptance and you said that we're taught from the gap ago that we're not good enough not pretty enough not working hard enough

so it's become normalized to beat ourselves up looking after ourselves and not feeling bad about it is a vital element of mental health education that needs to be implemented um and i agree and it feels and it is that saying it's like the most radical thing you can do is love yourself and i know that it's said over and over again but i i i do find it every time i see that i do think yeah actually it's our default is literally to want to be mean to ourselves because that is a currency in of itself and I've spoken about this on another podcast but it's a really complicated thing where like not even like if it's talking about dieting or kind of like restriction it's not even the end goal like the actual weight loss that's like championed it's the actual act of restriction it's the actual act of like women knowing that they should be chaste in some way that they should be like it's like you said earlier

all kind of ties into some very weird like dominance thing where women are hairless and no wrinkles and young and and restricted um and when i think when you look at it from that angle it's kind of it really grosses me out because it just shows that there's some fucked up system at play. Yeah, that's just formulated by the patriarchy and the cis male gaze. You know, like I when I was at uni, I read this another great article that was given to me by this lecturer, which was written by I think they're called jeff and stirkle and the it was all about something called the self-control ethos and it's this idea that as a society we uphold and celebrate self-control the most so that's exactly what you said is that it's not so much the the end goal that people celebrate it's that oh you're not having too

much at dinner oh you, you're, you know, you're exercising in just the right way. And it's like, where is the space for like expansion and fun and isn't controlled, you know, like if we keep, you know, if we keep upholding this idea that we're on this earth to control ourselves, like where's the fun in that? Like get some joy. I think, especially now it's really pertinent as well because I think I've even found myself saying something like this but obviously since April 12th

and everything's kind of opened up every I've gone out for more dinners than I can count and I kind of seem find myself thinking to myself on next week I'll like rein it in a bit that's such old language that's obviously like coming up from somewhere and I've seen it so much on social media people going or have gained a bit of weight but it's just because obviously we've come out of the pandemic and like we're eating loads and it's like oh my god we have been restrained for like 15 months and you're finally allowed to your friends and you're finally allowed to your family and you're going out to lovely restaurants you're having lovely food and our immediate reaction is fuck I need to stop doing this when you've literally not been able to do it for 14 months and I caught

myself doing it and I was like don't stop it like just enjoy yourself exactly what you're saying like have abundance have joy have fun and I think that lots of us are really gonna like struggle in this period especially like after next week when things open up again because it's like we're gonna have forgotten how to get that nice like neutral feeling towards doing things because we're all going to want excess we're all going to want a bit of fun and and and I'm worried about that having that like elastic band thing where we all go really far and then come back so I think remembering that you're allowed to have time where you're just enjoying yourself and there needs to

be no like what's the word I'm looking for there doesn't then have to be like a like something you have to make up for afterwards like that whole thing it can just happen on its own yeah because ultimately in that way you know you feel more present if you don't have that voice being like oh are you sure you should be doing that oh you're kind of you know know, if you're always got that beating yourself up for something voice in the back of your head, how are you meant to be present in the moment? And I think that's something that with my coaching training has become so apparent that like when our inner voice gets really loud and critical, that's the thing we can concentrate on. So we're not present with our friends. We're not present with our families. We're not present in our own bodies because we're so hyper fixating on all the ways that we could do

better but you know in this world it's radical to accept yourself as you are and it's radical to accept your body as you are because there are so many forces at play telling you that that's that that is just not enough so especially now when we've I mean a lockdown is like you know they were literally called restrictions like and it's obviously what we needed to do so to then come out of that and go need to keep restricting myself it's like no get that abundance mentality and realize that you deserve love joy and compassion for yourself and for your life can you tell me a bit more about your coach I'm really interested so will it be sort of like life coach would it be

specific to what we've kind of spoken about today or will it be broader I'm quite interested in I have another friend who's a coach and I actually I I think it's such a important thing because I think it's such a self-love thing to get like a mentor or coach as well to be like oh I'm actually valuable enough to kind of like invest in me as a person not just me as like someone that goes to work or someone that is a mum or someone that is xyz labels that we give for sure yeah so my my niche is um in body and self-acceptance coaching because as I said before I think um so one of the things that I have studied and I'm a practitioner in is neurolinguistic programming which is essentially this idea that we have all learned unhelpful programming at some point in our life and this model kind of gives you

the tools to unpack and unlearn the unhelpful programming um and so one of the theories that kind of underpins NLP is that our mind and body is one system. And I think when you tackle how you feel about yourself, you'll feel differently about your body. And, you know, these things kind of, they go hand in hand, don't they? And you're right. I think, you know, we're kind of taught to dismiss that part of ourselves. It's like, oh, it's just silly or, oh, you know, I feel bad about my body, but I'm just being silly. And it's like, no, no, no, it's not silly because it really changes the way that you walk through the world and how you present yourself and how you occupy space, how you interact with people, you know, and I want to be

part of that change that really helps people, you know, yes, of course I'll continue to do so with my online platform with modeling and everything, but like to be able to work one-on-one with people to really unpack that stuff so that they can feel confident and more at one with themselves and their bodies. That's just something I want for everybody. So, um, I'm hoping that with my work and, you know, um, you know, with the workshops I'll do and the one-to-one work I'll do, I'll be part of that change. Because I think everybody deserves to feel at one with themselves and their bodies. It's what we deserve, even if the system and society tells us that we don't deserve it, you know.

Completely. And I think people do really need to be given that permission. I feel like we do need a holding hand sometimes. Someone just saying, that's okay to feel like that. And this is how you can change that frame of mind like you said and the other thing that I was thinking about um when you were saying that is how I've said it numerous times about this podcast and I and I often find myself doing it it's like internalized misogyny woman but I talk about something that's like feminine or or gendered around women and I kind of and all social media all these kind of things that generally are seen as women's issues.

They're like belittled. But then the irony being exactly what you said, where we're told, oh, don't be such a nuisance, like being upset about your body, like it's not a big issue. And like women's kind of bodies, it's like a sideline, it's sort of like cheap chat. And, you know, it's not as highbrow as talking about, I don't't know something that's more gendered towards men like cars but the irony being that every single aspect of the media culture growing up everything constantly talks about women's bodies like they are commodified in every single aspect objectified in every single corner of our lives and yet when we kind of speak up and say oh I feel insecure it's kind of like well that's okay love but you can't talk about it it's like we're not allowed to it's such a looming heavy pressure but at the same time

you have to keep quiet about it pretend that it doesn't impact us and just and literally sacrifice like our joy hunger and whatever else yeah exactly it's so pervasive and for us to then go oh, oh, but it's silly. It's like, no, if it matters to you, if it makes you feel a type of way, then it's absolutely not silly. And you're allowed to talk about it and you're allowed to occupy the space and go, oh, I don't feel so great about this. You know, like that, that's allowed. Like, I think you're right. Like, again, you know, it's deeply misogynistic to, you know, to expect women to get through it and you know to just smile smile your way through it like I'm so fed up with that let's hold space for

ourselves so that we can have these conversations and unpack it so that we can feel better about ourselves in the future it's what we deserve totally I completely I've absolutely loved talking to you and I can imagine that you're going to be such a fab coach because you're just got a lovely voice as well you know sometimes people are just really nice to talk to um thank you so much it's such a pleasure also that time has gone by in about five minutes do you feel the same what yes that's wild absolutely um so apart from following your instagram is there anything else that we can point people in the direction of or anything that you'd like people to look at or read or uh yes so um the hashtag totally tubular campaign if you are able to follow it that would be amazing

whether you've got tubular boobs or not you know i'm trying to spread the education and awareness around the condition so the hashtag is totally tubular but with the um it's the call me emoji because if it's just totally tubular without the emoji it's just lots and lots of californian surfers um so you can check which you know because that's something that's the reason why i chose totally tubular is that like um as a phrase for the campaign is that i remember i think it was like the teenage mutant Ninja turtles would be like, Hey, totally tubular dude.

Like when they were talking about something cool. So I'm trying to like reframe it in a way more positive way. Exactly. But it does mean that you do get lots of surfers in the hashtag. So just to make sure when you're following it to include the call me emoji and you'll be able to find posts where I'm talking about the condition, my own experiences with it. If you have tubular boobs, of course, you're more than welcome to use the hashtag. But I understand if you're not ready, if you're not at that point yet where you feel like you can

share your experience, that's absolutely fine. All of this is, whether it's tubular boobs, whether it's body acceptance, all of this is a journey and it's totally individual. So you take it at your own pace. But know that that hashtag hashtag that space is there for you to use and view whenever you want it to um so yeah apart from my social media check out the totally tubular campaign oh amazing well thank you so much kitty it's honestly been such a pleasure to speak to you um and thank you everyone for listening i will see you next week bye Bye. Thanks for having by 11 p.m. with your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute?

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