Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Ozempic, The Death of Body Positivity & The Price Of Pretty With Alex Light

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Happy Wednesday EICreations!In today's episode we sit down with bestselling author and former host of the brilliant Should I Delete That Alex Light to discuss everything from weight loss jabs to bikini bodies. She also offers invaluable advice on how to limit the impact of social media on kids, raise body positive sons and get through to older generations about their toxic relationship to food and thinness. Alex's new non-fiction book The Price of Pretty is out now, and deftly examines the unbearable and unattainable beauty standards that women are subjected to while also exploring the relationship between a waning body positive movement and the rise of Ozempic and AI. Other topics include motherhood and body image, eating disorder recovery, tweakments, filters and social media.We loved chatting to Alex and you can follow her on Instagram here!Links:NICE Guidance on Semaglutide Body Happy Kids by Molly ForbesWaterstones - The Price of Pretty by Alex Light Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Ruchera. I'm Anoni. And I'm Alex. And this is Everything in Conversation. The booster to propel you towards Friday's main. We'd love for you to take part in these conversations. We love when you agree and disagree with us. And you can give us those by following us on Instagram at Everything is ContentPod.

That's where we decide on the topics and open the floor for all of your opinions. Today we're joined by speaker, social media campaigner and social media campaigner and Monday Times bestselling author Alex Light. He might know from the brilliant podcast, should I delete that, which she hosted with M. Clarkson. She's here to talk about her new book, The Price of Pretty, which is out right now. You can find Alex on Instagram at Alex Light underscore LDN and buy the book from any good retailer. Today's episode will contain mention of disordered eating, diet culture, extreme dieting and body image issues.

Please do look after yourself and listen with care. So we have a fourth voice on the call today. Hello, Alex. How are you? Hi, guys. Oh, I'm so excited to chat to you all. Thank you so much for having me here. It's so exciting. I mean, I love looking at these guys every single week, but sometimes it is quite nice. Get a new face.

I get it, I get it. No, I'm really excited. Thanks for having me. Does it feel good to be back on the mic again? It feels strange. It feels so strange. Yeah, I was just telling you guys that we stopped our podcast in December. and I feel like I've forgotten everything. I'm like, can I even talk anymore? We went from doing two episodes a week of just like nonstop chatting shit to like nothing.

I'm like, oh my God, am I still capable? It is a muscle you have to work. The few times we've taken a couple of weeks off, we come back and we're just like tripping over our words, can't get a thought out. I mean, I'm like that anyway. Mike's upside down. I always found when we stopped, I was just like kind of doing podcasts at the people in my life. And I'd be like, what do you think about this hot topping? And they were like, you need to go back to the podcast.

Stop bothering me at the bus stop. Are you just sending really wild, long voice notes to get that, that part of yourself out? Oh my God, literally. I've had to stop doing that though because I'm like, my poor friends, like they don't need this. Like, they do not need this. But I do feel like I need that as an outlet now. And I'm like, there's so many things that I want to. And also, like, Instagram, I feel like everything is so inflammatory on there and so divisive

and so controversial. Like we were able to say loads of stuff on the podcast that you were able to have like nuanced conversation about it that you just can't say on Instagram. So yeah, my friends have been hit up with like, same as you Beth, where I'm like, what do you think about? Because I actually don't think that. And they're like, okay, here we go. Buckle in. Okay, well, thank you so much for being here. We are all so excited to be talking to you about your new book, The Price of Pretty.

Before we do, Alex, we ask everyone this. We want to know what have you been loving in the world of Popperty? culture or adjacent this week. Oh my God, I have to talk about a TV show and I really hope you guys have seen it. Last One Laughing. There is not much on TV that will actually have me laugh out loud. Like, it'll get a chuckle or a little giggle, but last one laughing has me fully, and my husband as well, fully laughing out loud. It is so funny. There is something just incredibly amusing about watching people need to laugh but not being able to laugh. It reminds you of being in school when you're trying to like keep in the giggles. And it is just funny. And the cast is

brilliant. And I've watched both seasons so far twice. And I can never watch anything twice. Never, ever. But it's that good. I just think it's brilliant. I haven't watched the second series yet. And now I'm like, okay, I need to watch it. Because I didn't know if it was going to be a bit of a one-trick pony. No, no, no, no. Can I ask who's in this? So they've got Bob Mortimer back as the reigning champion. And I just think that anything with him in, like, I just think it's Bob Mortimer's world and we all just live in it. Like, he's so funny. Alan Carr, who's brilliant. Oh, I imagine he's going to laugh immediately.

You'd be surprised. Yeah, you'd be surprised. Oh, okay, because I meant he's such, he's literally giggly, chatty man. Diane Morgan as well. Yes. Oh, I love her. Oh, Sam Campbell I have actually seen. Yes.

Mel from Melon-Soo, which I say about, I don't know her name. Gerdroch, Gidroyk. Geroic, I love her. Yeah, and a new, like an up-uncoming comedian called Ellie Gladhill, who I really like, It's just brilliant. You guys have to watch it. It's so good. It's like pure escapism, you know, after the end of the world. Of the long day. Talking about beauty standards and the world and body image. I'm like, oh my God, this is just such nice escapism. That's a relief. Well, actually, on that, let's get into it. So for people who are uninitiated, could you tell us, give us an introduction to you and also what made you want to write the price of pretty? Basically, I was a journalist for 10 years, and during that time, I was going through eating disorders

and then ultimately eating disorder recovery. And as I was going through eating disorder recovery, that I decided to start talking about that on Instagram, which was, I mean, at the time, this is like 2017. And at the time, no one was talking about eating disorders. There was still like a huge, I mean, there still is, but there was even more so a huge stigma around them. It was a really taboo subject. And I started talking about my experience. And then that led me to invest. and researching, sorry, beauty standards and body image and like why we, as women particularly, feel the way we do and why we have so much pressure on us to look a certain way. And everything spiraled from there and I built my Instagram off talking about this.

I wrote my first book, You're Not a Before picture. And then this, the price of pretty is kind of a follow on. And it's an investigation of where we are now in terms of beauty standards, for example, with OZMP and JLP ones, but also things I didn't cover. in the first book like aging and motherhood and postpartum and pregnancy and skincare and treatments and cosmetic surgery. It's a it's a minefield, the world of beauty standards. So that's where, yeah, that's in a nutshell. So there are so many great topics that you tackle. One that we are often drawn to on the podcast actually reading the summary of the book. I was like

this is kind of an EIC Bible. But we were particularly interested in the chapter on family kids and breaking the cycle. We were all brought up. in that similar generation, that kind of millennial, just coming into like millennial feminism, but also like on the tail end of the 90s. And so all of us, I guess, are grappling with all of this unlearning about this conditioning to do with food and the body and body image and pleasure. And I think it's almost a relief to realize that we do actually have some power now as we get older to disabuse younger generations and save them almost from the same fate, even if to some degree there are some things that we might be correcting ourselves forever, there is something that we

can do for Gen Z, for Gen Alpha, for younger people. And that's really important. I think that the, you know, that's a lot of what the focus is on in that chapter is like breaking the cycle. But also for us as well, it's critical. And for our parents, like, for our mum's generation, you know, I mean, I had a conversation with someone the other day and they said, oh, you know, No, it was a man, of course. And he was like, oh, surely by the time you get to 60, you just don't even care anymore. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Someone I know who's in their 70s got scammed by, she was trying to buy weight loss drugs online

and got scammed, basically. It just highlights that, like, this stuff never goes away. It, like, plagues women, the idea that we have to look a certain way, that we have to be a certain body size to be acceptable. It never goes away. And it's horrible because it really does, it can be, for a lot of people, it's debilitating. and it can really impact how we live. So I think we have to break the cycle for everyone, all of us.

Yeah, of course, the younger generations as well, that's so important. And you see kids like young girls now. Like I went into a school with Dove to teach some lessons about body image. And the girls were like seven to eight. They were at the point where they were like just about to be affected by body image and about to become aware of their body as something that is perceived for how it looks for its appearance. And it was so magic to hear them focus on like what their body can do and how their body feels and all the things it allows them to, you know, to be in the world. And I was like, imagine if

we could preserve that. Imagine if we could preserve that and these girls could go through their lives just being body neutral and not having to think about their bodies in terms of how they look, how others are perceiving them, what, you know, social status it gives them, like what social currency it gives them. So yeah, I just, I just really hope we can at least try and break some of the cycle. But I am, I don't want to be negative. But I don't know how hopeful I am as well. with the new, you know, the revival of like ultra-skinny and JLP ones being so accessible, obviously has had a lot to do with that as well. I mean, I wonder as well how being a parent has made you feel about it. Does it give you a third dimension in that fear? Because now you have

this tiny person who is growing up in that world. Like how, how is that influenced, I guess, your practice and how you feel about all of these things? Totally. I feel like since having my son, I'm even more, like I'm, I feel even more protective of that generation because they are so innocent and untouched by beauty standards. And I want to preserve that as much as possible. And, but there's another layer to this as well, because I want my son to grow up feeling neutral about his body and not allowing the way he looks to impact how he lives his life. But I also want that he goes through life without casting judgments on other people's bodies. I want him to see other people's bodies as neutral as well. I think that's something that's really important and something that we didn't get

from our parents' generation because they, I mean, I can't speak for all of you guys, but like in general, I think they were quite critical of other people's bodies and very quick to perceive other people's bodies and we are just sponges. Like we just, we sort of just absorbed all of that. Totally. There's a quote that really stuck with me in the book where you said, it's my firm belief that body obsession is passed down through generations, not because women want to harm their daughters, but because they believe it's the only way to keep them safe. Like I had, such bad disorders eating from such a young age and it's taken me over a decade to actually get to a great place with it. But I was even thinking like I'm nowhere near having kids.

I've only just decided maybe I do want to have children. And I already was saying to my partner the other day like, how do we like give our kids a good relationship with food? Because you want them to eat, have a good appetite, but you're not supposed to force kids to like finish everything on their plate because they intuitively understand when they're full. And I want them to like exercise because I've only just learned to like exercise. And I really want them to find it really fun. But I don't want them to think that they have to exercise. And I don't want them to think that they have to exercise. and I just already, I don't even have a child and I'm so worried about that,

you know, like the Philip Barkin poem that's like, you fuck them up no matter what you do. I'm like, I want to somehow give them like a really good relationship with food, but also that I want them to exercise, but find it really fun and I don't want the tree. And it's like it's, it is almost like a Sifian, what's that thing called? A Sifian, Sifian task with the guy like pushing them up on the hell.

How do you navigate all of that? Oh, it is such a mind feeling. It is such a minefield. And bear in mind that this is, like, this is my full-time job, body image and beauty standards. I talk about it day in, day out. It is like all of my work. And I still feel sometimes paralyzed with like, what do I say to my son about this? What do I say to my son about that?

How do I react to this? And I think, and actually, Molly Forbes has an amazing book about this called Body Happy Kids. For anyone who is a parent and wants to, like, explore this further. She really goes into it and has some amazing advice. but I think where I've landed is that I'm never going to be perfect with this. I'm always going to have blind spots. There is always going to be things that, and you know, I had an eating disorder for, until I was in my early 30s, I didn't recover from my eating disorder.

So there are going to be things in my psyche that, you know, are disordered, are like maybe quote unquote toxic. And I have to accept that, but I just have to do my best and not be paralyzed over it. I have to just try my hardest to bring him up, feeling neutral about his. body about other bodies and also and eating you know having been neutral about food as well but also teach him that food is you know can be nutrient dense and non-nutrient dense it is so complicated it is so hard and that's why I think when it comes to our parents generation like what is really important for me and I totally appreciate that people might want to handle it differently might feel differently

but for me it's so important that we maintain that level of compassion for our parents because they didn't have a guidebook and what they were taught is that fatness is really bad and that being thin is really good. Like that's essentially what they learned, what they were taught. And so it makes sense that they were trying to instill that down into us. And they wanted us to live. And you know, it's, it's no secret that you have, you're treated better by society when you're thinner than if you're fatter. We know that. We've got like data on that, like horrifying data on that. It would make sense that they would want us to have an easy life as possible. And that would therefore mean being thin. So I think it's just really important to have that level of compassion and rather than

point fingers and blame, I think it's more important that we try and educate them differently and bring them into our journeys which are different to theirs. What I really love about that is, and I think it's, I hope I'm not misremembering this. It's kind of like you write, the goal isn't to be perfect or isn't perfection. It's to be conscious. And I like the idea of redirecting that, not just to ourselves, but to the people around us who perhaps didn't always get it right, but are now willing to try. Obviously as adults, we don't have to entertain anyone that continues to be fatphobic or shaming

or give no ground on that. But when people are trying, and it's kind of like that healing going both ways of saying like, you're an older person in my family and you are not set in this one way. You could feel better about food. Maybe if we just have these conversations. And I think perfection is the language of the oppressor,

just allowing yourself to try with parenting, with how you speak to yourself. I really love that. And I think it's what I've been thinking about lately in terms of, I mean, don't have children, but if there are young people in my lives, there's this new frontier of body image, a kind of body image attack, which is social media. Obviously, we had the glossy magazines. We had the messaging top to bottom of thin is good, fat is bad, but there was almost like, then I could

go on the computer and play, or I could go outside and play. There is this new frontier online where these beauty standards are endemic and young people are going online, kids are going online. And I wonder if you have any thoughts, aside from, we all throw our phones, away and we live in the woods. How can we minimise the potential damage that this kind of digital content promoting beauty ideals does to young, young women especially for all young people? Like, is there a guidebook? Is there kind of advice that you've received or would give? There isn't a guidebook, but I think there should be. And I don't think we're far off because it's having a huge effect on young people. I say especially girls, but it's having a huge effect

on boys as well, you know, in different ways. I actually went to the, I went to Parliament to speak about this actually, because ultimately the responsibility I do believe should be with social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram because they have like these really powerful algorithms that serve content whether it's harmful or helpful. And they don't actually tell the difference between harmful or helpful. They just know what keeps people watching. And so this harmful content, like we've seen Skinny Talk sort of take over both TikTok and Instagram, that content is just, it goes viral so quickly and it reaches so. many millions of people because it's this shocking, harmful content. I know that social media companies

are being called on to do more and to regulate and to put guidelines in place, but I don't, I don't think that that is going to happen anytime soon, at least not in a meaningful way. So unfortunately, I think it's down to us as parents, teachers, caregivers to teach our children social media literacy, essentially, and teach them about algorithms and teach them about beauty standards and teach them to recognise what is harmful that they encounter on social media, because it's not going away, social media. And look, I hope that we follow suit with Australia, who have banned social media for under 16s, I hope we follow suit and go down that route, because I think that would be hugely, hugely impactful, but it did get thrown out recently, I believe, in House Commons. But I think teaching

social media literacy is key here and making kids like super aware and that comes down to all of us to muck in and realize that like this is our new normal and we have to do something about it to ensure that our kids grow up in a safe environment and are shielded as much as possible from that stuff or perhaps not even shielded because it's impossible to do that but that we help build them up an armour so that they are able to recognise this stuff and so it won't get absorbed. We had so many messages from people. I'm going to read one from Kitty who said this is something that I think about all the time. I grew up absorbing so much of diet culture through my mum, aunties, even my grandmother. I would fall asleep to the soundtrack of my mum on the treadmill downstairs and don't remember a time.

She wasn't trying some diet or the other. The scales were a permanent fixture in her bathroom and it felt like an inevitability that one day I'd get too big and I'd have to try and shrink myself in those grueling ways too. She also, like you said, makes the note of saying, my mum is incredible and has always made me feel beautiful, but she always spoke so negatively about her weight and there was no way it wasn't going to trickle down to me. So many people told me I looked just like her. So Kitty says, as I start thinking about having children, it's something that I'm really conscious of.

And I know I'll take active steps. That being said, I wonder how every generation of parents don't make their own mistakes. Yeah, I think going back before to what we were saying about progress, not perfection, if you can make small tweaks, small changes in how you bring up your child. But I mean, already this is a huge head stop. Because already Kitty is so aware of this, the fact that she is so aware that what she experienced with her mother was probably toxic and unhealthy when it came to body image. The fact that she's aware of that and the fact that she wants to do differently with her child, I think already is incredible. And like that that has to be the foundation of like, I need to do better.

I want to do better. So I think be kind to yourself, compassionate, realize that this isn't about perfection. It's just about making progress. And you're already in such a good place by being aware of. those things and I think that deserves some recognition. I think like it's so hard because the other thing I always think about is even if you're the most amazing parent, you're so clever about the way you talk about things, you don't pass these things onto your children.

Your children then do obviously go to school and that they can pick up all sorts of things and friends. That's like another element and then add social media onto that and I can imagine you can feel quite helpless and hopeless and out of control. And a big portion of the book is talking about how and I remember this so clearly the way that social media became like an incredible place to learn about body diversity, body neutrality. It actually was for me, I was posting online at that time as well. And I got over a lot of my disordered eating and my relationship with my body and food,

primarily because I was following so many accounts talking about it. I was so educated through fat liberation activists and body positivity accounts. And it gave me the tools and the knowledge and the understanding to recognize diet culture, what it is and how it had impacted me. Social media is not like that now. That is, that's basically died. And I wondered if you could comment on the ways in which you think why that has happened because it is a real shame.

It's like we went so far to basically people weren't actually, we got to the point where no one was even allowed to talk about dieting because it was like it's really, you know, don't even mention it. And now it's very in your face. I'm going on a diet. I'm going to lose weight. I'm doing X, Y, Z. It's almost like the pendulum swung even farther back than it was at the beginning.

I actually think with body positivity, I think it was a trend. And it's something I didn't realize at the time. and I was like really involved in that movement. And I just didn't realize that it was a trend. And the moment that GLP ones became accessible, it just died. It died really quickly as well. And I think it was hard to see because body positivity, the movement of the early 2020s, was really nuanced.

And I don't think it was necessarily all good or all bad. I think there were a lot of different aspects to it. And it was really complicated. But I think the great parts of it, what came out of it was brands, increasing their body diversity in campaigns in marketing. It was kind of a given at that period in time that brands would have to showcase like a cross-section of society. And that was so cool to see and so cool for a lot of people to feel represented in a world where they had never previously felt represented. And what was so disheartening was to see how quickly brands dropped that the moment

that thin was back in again and it was cool to be thin again. And now we're just seeing brands using exclusively like ultra-skinny models, which, you know, isn't bad in and of itself if we're seeing all different types of bodies, but if we're only seeing that one type of body, then that becomes a problem again. But I think the body positivity movement was really complicated because a lot of people believed that it was promoting obesity. That's not my belief at all. And I believe it was just calling for the respect of all bodies, not just thin bodies and allowing bigger bodies to exist, which is like incredibly important because these bodies have been pushed to the margins of society for forever. But we had a lot of people like Pearce Morgan and men with podcasts really going hard on the health aspect of body positivity.

And I do think that that was its downfall, or at least one of its downfalls. Actually, we had a message from Louise. And I think you've sort of answered this question to say, has a Zempic killed the body positivity movement? And you do write about this in the book in a really clear-eyed way. You write, Celebrity Influence, Accelerated the demand for a Zem-Pic. and other gLP ones, somewhat shifting the concept of thinness from aspiration to expectation and amped my pressure on everyday people to keep up. This is something I think we all can feel, whether straight-sized or otherwise, there is this sudden expectation of thinness. And we did get

another message from an anonymous listener who said, I feel anxious in a bikini every time I go on holiday. Logically, I want to not give a fuck, but the reality hasn't caught up. How do I kindly get myself to that point? And I think it's one of those questions that makes me feel so tender and so sad because there's never been a time in history where a woman has not felt it's tough to go to the beach in a bikini no matter what is going on around us. But it does feel very specific to this point in time, this a Zempic gold rush, this, and I'm, you know, not totally critical of a Zempic and actually anyone who reads the book will see your take on it is very measured. But this idea of OZempic as a gateway for anybody to access thinness and access beauty and be acceptable, I do think

more and more people will be, this summer will be feeling that pressure to get on the beach and just be right and just that dissatisfaction for a whole season. I mean, you know, the beach body thing, the bikini ready has plagued women for years. But there's something about a Zemik, I think, in conjunction with that. And I wonder if you had any thoughts on, especially as summer as approaching, on how we can all shore ourselves up against that feeling without dieting, without thinking, all right, I'll just go on a diet. Totally. Because I, oh, God, I have like so much, compassion for this girl because I so get it and it is really rough out there especially at the moment because like you said it's it's thinness has become an expectation now because it's like Hollywood has always been

thin like famous people have always been thin but not only are they getting thinner but it's trickled down to influence I mean this is the the trickle down effect it's trickled down to influencers the shrinking and it's trickled down to people in our everyday circles as well and that has become really hard for for women who don't fit the beauty ideal and I'm hearing a lot of women say you know I'm scared of being the biggest one left, like the last big woman standing. And so when it comes to things like going on the beach in a bikini, like it can feel really frightening and really like an attack on our nervous system as well. Like it's just awful. What I will say on this is the, I don't know where we're headed with the future of GLP

ones, but I do know that the guidance from NICE is that you should only be on them for two years. For a lot of people, we're kind of coming to the end of those two years. And we do have a lot of data on what happens when we stop using GLP-1s. And the British Medical Journal recently found that you regain the weight four times faster than if you're on a traditional diet when you stop a GLP-1. So I will say we don't know where the future is headed. But also to this woman that's going onto the beach and feeling scared about being in a bikini, this is something that really helped me when I started going through my eating disorder

recovery and I would like cry to my therapist because I was gradually putting on weight and I was just terrified that people around me were going to notice and look at my body. And she said to me, okay, so Sharon, let's say, thinks, wow, Alex is put on weight, and then what? And I was like, oh yeah, and then what? Like the world keeps spinning. Like, I'm still safe. I've still got people who love me. I've still got my friends and family.

I don't know then what. And she says, and even if Sharon talks to Karen, we'll do some rhyming. Sharon talks to Karen about it and says, God, hasn't Alex put on weight? Yeah, she has, hasn't she? And then what? What else can they, what else can they say? Like, that's it. And they're also so, you have to remember as well, that,

people are so wrapped up in their own lives and their own insecurities and their own body image that they don't really care. They might look and think something, but that's it. The attention then goes back to themselves. I think in our heads we can just make it bigger and scarier than we think it really is. And I think that your happiness, your enjoyment, your fulfillment, your pleasure is way more important than what someone might say about how you look in a bikini. Like way more important. Like life, such a cliche, but so true. Life is so short and we can't let it be taken away by what we think other people might think about us or say about us. We really can't. And I know that all of this is easier said than done, but I'm hoping that

maybe it's sort of plants a seed and that this woman can sort of play that situation through like I did in therapy and realise there's nothing kind of big or scary at the end of that. I don't know if that makes sense or that's helpful advice, but I just know that it's something that really helped me. And, you know, I just, I want her to know as well that she is absolutely not alone. And the people on the beach, like 90% of the people on the beach will be feeling exactly the same way as her and all thinking about themselves, about their own insecurities, their own body image, how their own body looks, will cellular like they've got, blah, blah, blah, blah. She should be really kind to herself, really kind to herself, but also gently push herself to do the things that will

ultimately bring her pleasure and joy and don't let her how she feels about her body get in the way with that. Do you know what I always think about the beach? I said this before, but the beach is actually the best place for every type of body. I've never gone to a beach and it's been like uniformly Victoria's Secret models. It's almost always every kind of body you can imagine. Everyone's got their tits out. Everyone's doing whatever they want. And it's actually like you kind of get there and you go, oh, I don't know what I was

thinking it's going to happen. Like this is not a Victoria's Secret show. Like everyone's just on the beach. And at the minute there's a trend where people are doing these pitches where it's like the beach if I was 10 pounds lighter and the beach if I'm not. And it's like this holiday is going to happen whether or not you decide you want to splash about in the sea. This 2026 summer is only going to happen once.

You either are there and you try and enjoy it or you restrict. And that's what I had to keep thinking. It's like, okay, fine, don't enjoy it, sit in your room and be cross that you don't look how you want to look or just try and experience it. And it's a bit of like, it's so interesting thinking about that. Because I think social media has walked our brains as not so much as well. It's like you go on social media and you think this is what the world looks like. And then you get on the tube and you're like, oh no, we're all just walking around. Everyone's got wrinkles in a spot.

Like this is not real life. Totally. And that was what was so nice. Like I said about the body positivity movement where we just, we were able to see like a cross section of just society. just like normal, I say quote unquote normal because all bodies are normal. I don't mean that, but just to see that diversity, which is what we see every day as we walk down the street. Like, it's not a parade of Victoria's Secret models because the 1% if that of people look like that, you know? And I think, yeah, it's so important that we have that in mind. And that's actually

really good advice. I think for people who are sort of wanting to expand their definition of beauty outside of the beauty standard is to just notice as you're walking around like people around you how they look and how different everybody is. The diversity is wild and yet we're so used to just seeing one standard of beauty. It's so warped. It is warped. And that might be the answer to this question that I had, which was obviously an only touched on how important Instagram was for her

learning about, you know, body positivity. And that was the same for me as well. You know, Instagram has been an amazing resource previously. But what advice do you have for people who feel slightly unmoored because maybe some of the influences they've followed have now, you know, changed the content that they're putting out, or they just feel like the kind of movement that they were tied to that was really influential for their sense of body image

and many of the amazing lessons they've learned is now slightly shaky. Oh, this is so hard because you're right, a lot of the people that, I mean, a lot of the advice that we heard during the body positivity movement was like find people that look like you and see them sort of embracing their body or like showing their body in a positive way, not as a before picture, which is what we've only ever seen of bigger bodies before, which was like, this is the before, watch them transform into an after.

And I think the problem is that people did that and they found comfort in that. And now a lot of those people have lost significant amounts of weight and their content has pivoted. So it's rough. Like that is really hard. And I think that's, we've seen that happen a lot with like plus size celebrities as well, like Adele. That was like a real, that caused a real storm because for a lot of people, she was plus size representation in a place where there just wasn't any plus size representation.

And it was incredible to see a plus size woman being. so successful and obviously then she lost a lot of weight and I think this is really tricky because when we search for external validation like that when we sort of base how we feel in how someone else looks I think we're always on shaky ground then because that person can always change how they look they probably will fluctuate and then what happens to our self-confidence then does that fluctuate with that person's you know weight fluctuation so it's tricky because I think the the validation has to be internal but at the same time sorry this is really complicated but at same time we are humans and we are wired for comparison and like how we judge ourselves and other

people is through relativity and I always think like God, is this some advice so wishy-washy, but I think the first step with all of this is like being kind to yourself and compassionate to yourself and thinking like it's so normal that I feel this way, that I feel a bit betrayed, that I feel like these spaces don't represent me anymore. I think that's the first step. And I think if you look hard enough. There are people still talking about body positivity. There are amazing people still promoting body confidence and body neutrality. You just have to search harder for them now. Sorry, that was a really complicated way around because I do think this subject is really complicated and there's a lot that goes into it and it's just a shame that in the first place

we ever have to feel like our body size is an indicator for like how worthy we are or how successful we should be or how desirable. Like it's just such a shame that we have to deal with this in the first place. So that's why I think like compassion, just being really kind to yourself is just really important. What I really loved about the book and your writing is that it does meet the reader where they're at, by which I mean it isn't powered by shame. It isn't, you know, you're very open about the fact, yeah, it is a shame that this is the situation we find ourselves in.

You're not saying like, look, you've stupidly fallen for these patriarch of beauty standards. I'm here to help you stop being so stupid. It's just information. And I think it's information that is powerful for each of us who kind of like given up a lot of our lives to these beauty standards. And it's going, here is information that will, yes, make you feel a lot of grief. And I think this is what I felt as a teenager kind of entering the feminist spaces and reading about these for the first time. It was grief. I thought I kind of didn't realize it was this bad.

And it's the once you see it, you can't unsee it. But it's also like, it is very freeing. It is saying like if you keep pursuing beauty, you can only ever just end up wanting more beauty. And then guess what? By the time you've achieved it, you're old now. And society, there's nothing society hates more than, you know, an old woman. Right. And I just kind of, I do feel a lot of that grief.

And I wonder in moments where it does, like obviously writing this book, I imagine that was you immerse yourself into a world that you are already really familiar with, but just to a degree where it is overwhelming. Like, is it possible to kind of switch off thinking about these things for you personally or just the average woman on the street who just feels like I need to escape this? Is there anything that you do when you're like, I need to be in my body, I need to be in my joy, I need to not think about how bad things are. Yeah, it's hard because, like,

Like you say, when you unsee it, you can't unsee it and it's everywhere. As a woman, it is everywhere. And I think a lot as well about me and my own personal choices and I can't pull myself out of the system fully. You know, I do try in different ways, like my own like small acts of rebellion. But I think I've realized that I can't get there fully at the moment. I don't know if I ever will and I hope I will, but I still conform to a lot of the beauty standards that women find themselves sort of placed under. So I think about that a lot. I talk to my

husband about that a lot. I'm like, I'm such a fraud. I'm such a hypocrite. But then I'm like, I'm also operating within the system that we're trying to break down. Like I also, I'm still, I'm still within the system. I can't get out of it, you know? So it's really complicated. But yes, I, yeah, I sometimes I'm like, fuck all of this. I can't be arsed with beauty standards. My head is like swimming with it. And so I'll just watch something shitty on TV. like real housewise, you know, for some like escapism and there's loads of beauty standards in there as well, but I'm like, I'm just switching off to it. I am switching off to it and pretending that they don't exist. So valid. Yeah, it is, it's really hard though because it's like, it is

everywhere, it is everywhere and it's just, it's a woman's currency. How she looks is a woman's currency and that is just so scary and it can be, it can be really overwhelming. It's so difficult, isn't it? Because resisting it is so hard. Like the patriarchal beauty standards is the air that we breathe. So when you start resisting it, it's actually really difficult. And it's interesting because there's so many people who maybe would be familiar with the things that you talk about, maybe are different points in their own journey to uncouple from these things. But then you'll have people in your life who fully succumb to every single beauty standard, who doesn't even really know that they're doing that. That maybe has, there's like people, might be people in your life where you think, God, you're eating is really disorder. But she shouldn't think about someone else. And you can't really say it to them because also, So I think that's one of the hardest things is, and you talk about in your book, there's a really beautiful moment where you do a talk and your dad stands up and you're like, oh my God, what's he going to say? And he apologises for in the past having said things that would have contributed to the way that you thought about yourself and your body. And you talk about how afterwards all these women come up to you and it made me want to cry.

And they were like, just having that apology and that acknowledgement is so valuable. But what's weird is not everyone is going to get there. So you might be going through what feels like a real uphill battle to overcome your own insecurities, overcome everything that you've been taught. at the same time as coexisting alongside someone who was doing all of the things that you're viewing as sort of harmful. And you don't really, we can't really stop people from doing that because in lots of ways, as you said, like right at the top,

it can make people's lives easier. How do you like grapple with the fact that you can't always get everyone to see your way of thinking? Although when you do like with your dad, it's beautiful. I'm actually really glad you brought this up because this is something that I wanted to say before when we were talking about breaking the cycle and sort of educating the older generation. I think it's really important that people know that for a lot of our parent generation, they're just they're not going to be receptive to this. I think it, because I think it brings up a lot of stuff.

And it's also not great to be told that how you've lived your life, all your life when you're in your 60s, 70s was the wrong way. And there's a lot of cognitive dissonance there that you have to face and then it's difficult to face. So I think it's really important to know that the older generation might not be receptive to this and it might not go as easy as like, hey, I want to have a conversation about this because, you know, I've learned a lot about body image and da-da-da-da. Like, you might be met with resistance.

And I do think there is only so much you can do, you know, you can need a horse to water. And I think you can introduce them to resources, like really good resources that will educate them. But at a certain point, you have to draw boundaries for yourself as well. And I think that that's where sort of compassion only takes you so far, I guess, for people who are struggling to break through and, you know, when the older generation is still having a detrimental impact on their body image, I think it's really important that you have to set your boundaries, put your boundaries in place. If you don't want to be spoken to about your body or have your body commented on, that is absolutely fair enough and you can set those boundaries and the outcome will be the outcome.

That's not your responsibility then. That's theirs. I think you have to be really firm in and put your mental health first and make it a priority. I think just also on resources, anyone like someone reading this book, especially out of our mum's generation, I'm holding out of Alex's book here, The Price is Pretty. It's so good because it does kind of walk you through. But it is, it's such an emotional and loaded thing and it's frustrating, but it's also just like a deep sense of sadness. Because like you said, Beth, what a waste of time we've all been spending on this when we could

just be doing something else. If you think about how many diet phases they have lived through, right? We've lived through enough, like Atkins, Dukin, like Slim Fast, Sliming World, Weight Watchers. They've lived through like twice that, like so many different diets and diet phases. And they've picked up eating habits from each of those, which is what you'll find that we, when you start to sort of interrogate your own relationship with food. You find that you've picked up a lot of stuff like that too.

Like I thought that I couldn't eat carbs like after 1pm. Like I didn't even know where I got that from, but it was from like the low carb revolution. So if you think about it, it's like of course, of course they are like totally fucked up when it comes to food. Like totally fucked up. And like they don't really know. And I'm saying they, but also us like we don't really know how to have a healthy, good relationship with food. because all of our lives we've been bombarded with low fat is best. Oh no, wait, low carb is best. High fat is this. No, low sugar, actually, it's sugar that's the devil, the enemy.

You know, and it's confusing and conflicting, and we end up just in a mess, all in a mess. And we've basically, like, decimated any chance of intuitive eating, you know, and the intuitive eating that we are born with, it's gone. So I do think, yeah, we just, that's why, like, a level of compassion is so important for that generation. You can find Alex on Instagram at Alex Light underscore LDN, where she writes and talks so brilliantly on all of the topics we touched on today, plus many, many more. The price of pretty is out now, so pick up your copy ASAP if you haven't already. And please do follow us on Instagram at Everything's ContentPod, and please do leave us a review on your podcast player at all, a little comment on Spotify. We'll see you as always on Friday.

Bye.