Should I Delete That? - Fat suits, food tubes and public shaming: how TV shaped our body image

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

It’s something anthropologists will no doubt look at with bewilderment in years to come: the extraordinary breadth of TV shows that were aired during the 00s. From Fat Families to How To Look Good Naked, we’re not sure there was anything more ruthless than the presenter of a show commissioned by Channel 4 between the years of 2001 and 2010.From the endless stream of TV shows capitalising on the nation’s almost hysterical fatphobia, to the background hum of misogyny that had weaved its way into every conversation broadcasted at the time, this was a truly WILD time to have eyes, ears, or a television license. In this week’s episode - we’re taking a look at the role television has played, and still plays, in our collective body image. Thanks so much to our amazing guests who feature on this episode: Colette Foster, Dr Joshua Wolrich and Stephanie YeboahColette Foster is the founder and Creative Director of Full Fat TV, a new factual entertainment company based in Birmingham, focusing on factual entertainment and feature formats with an emphasis on emerging talent. You can read about their work here: https://fullfattv.co.uk/ Follow @drjoshuawolrich on Instagram Read more about Dr Joshua’s work here: https://drwolrich.com/ Follow @stephanieyeboah on InstagramPre-order Stephanie’s book Chaotic Energy: The hilarious, heartfelt, must-read romantic comedy now!And a special thank you to our guest who wished to remain anonymous in this episodeIf you would like to get in touch - you can email us on [e-mail] us on Instagram:@shouldideletethat@em_clarkson@alexlight_ldnShould I Delete That is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Dex RoyStudio Manager: Dex RoyTrailers: Sophie RichardsonVideo Editor: Celia GomezSocial Media Manager: Emma-Kirsty Fraser Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to episode four of our bumper body image series. If you're new to the series, welcome. And if you're not, welcome back. Over the last month, we've explored the history of diet culture as a concept and as something that in our own way, we all have a relationship with. Maybe it was something passed down to us by our mums through their own unhealed relationship with their bodies, a dynamic that we explored in our second episode dissecting the almond mum phenomenon. Maybe it was informed by the media we grew.

up consuming, the magazine simultaneously full of airbrushed photos of impossibly beautiful models and tabloids consisting of articles hell bent on tearing women down for a faux par as minor as a fat role. If you missed it, we waded through the archives in episode three. Maybe all of this was just an inevitability, a byproduct of the patriarchal systems in which we operate. One thing's for sure is left no one unscathed. And in this week's episode, we're taking a closer look at something anthropologists will no doubt look back at with bewilderment in years to come, and that's the extraordinary breadth of TV shows that were aired during the noughties. From fat families to how to look good naked,

we're not sure there was anything more ruthless than the presenter of a show commissioned by Channel 4 between the years of 2001 and 2010. And honestly, if it weren't for the fact that old clips keep popping up on our TikTok for you pages, I'm not sure that anyone would really believe that it could ever have been as bad as it was. Without the proof, I would be sure that there was something of a Mandela effect at play because there is no way that presenters describe guests on their shows as porkers, is that? And it would surely be totally barbaric of producers to blow up huge, naked photos of participants

to put up around cities in order that they could ask members of the public to cast judgment on them. That didn't all happen, did it? It did. From the endless stream of TV shows capitalising on the nation's almost hysterical fatphobia to the background hum of misogyny that had weaved its way into every conversation broadcasted at the time, this was a truly wild time to have eyes, ears or a television licence. Side note, beautiful sentence, I love that. Thank you so much.

To think back, I distinctly remember evening spent on the sofa with my mom watching Trinney and Susanna swatting at the bingo wings of guests on their shows, or else grabbing at soft parts of their own stomachs in a way that, although never felt overtly malicious, was incredibly informative to the relationship I had with my own flaws. And it taught me a lot about what society expected me to do with them. You mean hide them? Well, yeah, basically. And if the TV shows of the time didn't get the message through to us, the films certainly did. It was only as an adult it occurred to me that Bridget Jones was never even close to fat, that Love Actually's.

chubby girl, played by Martin McCutcheon, was in fact no more than a size 12, and how ludicrous the idea of Courtney Cox darling a fat suit in friends to play the version of her character that we were either meant to pity or laugh at really was. And if all that didn't have you in a state of body dysmorphic panic, then the chat shows of the time were waiting in the wings to scoop you up. Does anyone else remember when TFI presenter Chris Evans whipped out a set of bathroom scales and asked Victoria Beckham, then just eight weeks postpartum to step on the scales to check that she'd lost her baby weight. At the time of this episode's release, I will be approaching that point in my own postpartum journey.

And without meaning to be dramatic, the thought of ever being put in that position literally makes me want to cry. You feel so vulnerable after having had a baby, like physically, totally battered and emotionally exhausted. The fact that we had got to a point of dehumanizing celebrities to the extent that their entire existence, even in the face of this momentous evolution, was reduced to a number on a scale. It is representative to my mind of not just our hugely reductive view of mothers and of women that their worth is so blatantly and intrinsically linked to their bodies, but of this colossal expectation that we put on women to have children and then spend the rest of their lives looking and behaving as if they didn't. This clip represents so much to me.

It encapsulates the pervasive misogyny that permeated our engagement. entire existence. A lot of girls want to know, because you look fantastic again. How did you get back to your shape after your birth? I haven't done it. I mean, I'm really lazy. You must have done. Don't.

They'd be one of the sickly women who didn't have to do anything. I don't, I don't. Actually, a lot of people say, just David help you, you know, sort of work out. Oh, lose weight in other ways. What ways that thing? I've got no idea. Squat thrush, you know, circuit training. Is your way back to normal?

Yeah, it is. Can I check? Do you mind? Oh, no. You did this to Jerry, didn't you? No, but Jerry was like, really small. Yeah, but it's all right.

She's horrible. She only got to number two, it's all right. Yeah, number two's great. Is it all right, number two? You can afford number two, can't you? Eight stone's not bad at all, is it? How do you get on it? Twelve stone six.

Twelve stone. Well, twelve stone. Oh, I've lost six pounds during the show, no one. It sounds better time. I will never forget Chris Evans saying that. Eight stone, that's not bad, is it? Not bad, isn't it? Not bad.

What? He did it to Jerry Halliwell as well. Yes, because Victoria said, oh, no, you did this to Jerry too. Who the fuck? It's critical, like, what if, but where do you buy your entitlement, please? Like, imagine it, imagine it. I could go to medical school for the rest of my life, and I would never have the gul or confidence of this radio presenter

to ask a woman to weigh herself, and then comment on the way, having just birthed a baby. a human. It actually would be all laughable if it wasn't so intrinsically damaging. And the point of this series was for us to explore how ubiquitous diet culture is, how the rhetoric has permeated every facet of our lives. And nothing demonstrates the public mood quite like what we deem to be entertainment. And whilst the staggering boom of reality TV, no doubt says a lot about where we are societally today, for now we want to better understand where we were then. So in the Without further ado, let's go back in time to the Nauties and the wild, wild west of Terrestrial TV.

I think that your thighs are a little big for the stress. I'm going to have you walk in it with a zipper open. I think the biggest concern with Cassie, for me, was the size of her hips. I'm here in the peak district and about to meet two right, massive, fatty siblings who are at the peak of their porkiness. I'm going to be meeting some right beach blubber bellies. I'm in Luton Bedfordshire and about to meet three right jelly-bellied jumbos. Oh my gosh, Martha! Oh! You have a dog!

Did you ever think you'd see the day? Me with a push? Mother of God, what's with the gut? Well, she's eating something up there. You sound nice but look like a shop girl. That's the problem. Okay. That's something can be worked on.

Well, it's a lot of work. I would do anything for this. I know what you're saying. What am I saying? That I'm overweight, basically. You really are. I'm working on it. Louie.

I'm going to say no. Because I think it's mission impossible, so. Yes, it really was as bad as all that. But much like what's the case with the print media of the time, it was the public's demand for content like this that kept production companies creating them at the rate that they did. To look back, it feels as if they all morphed into one another. But as standalone shows, each with their own USP,

when it came to capitalizing on the nation's concurrent personal, insecurities and almost indecent fascination, we developed towards anyone who deemed to not meet the beauty standard. They were outrageously popular with each episode pulling in millions of viewers in the UK alone. You see, these things didn't exist in isolation. There was an appetite for them and a huge one in fact. Not only were we viewing them in our millions, but we were also applying for the chance to appear in them in our thousands. Now the rationale behind submitting an application for any sort of reality TV show is an interesting one. We think of it now in the context of Love Island applicants, young people shooting their shot at the big time with dreams of huge

brand deals and millions of followers on Instagram to ensure them a lucrative career, at least for the foreseeable. But this was a very different time, a time before virality, a time before we perhaps even realise that this content would exist in perpetuity, available forever more in badly formatted YouTube videos, and then later, if you were really unlucky, in TikTok videos liked by millions. The morality around the exploitation of reality TV contestants has been rather more at the forefront of the conversation in recent years, tragically, if not inevitably, in the wake of the high-profile suicides of those involved.

Love Island, of course, famously lost not just their host, Caroline Flack, but two former contestants, Sophie Graham and Mike Thalacetus, and the Jeremy Kyle show was taken off the air after their duty of care was called into question following the suicide. of a guest who had failed a lie detector test he always claimed was wrong. Although we still have a long way to go, mental health is at least a part of the conversation in the context of modern television and fame in general, actually. For a long time, we lived with the blanket understanding

that if you put your head above the parapet in any capacity at all, then you were asking for whatever you got and therefore unworthy of any sympathy at all. To a degree, there's still a lot of this about, and boy, would I be up for a series in the future, unpacking all the bat but it's nothing like it was back then so yeah some of these contestants applied of their own volition and others were put forward by friends and colleagues as happened with trini and susanna's what not to wear which is so brutal can you imagine anything more gutting

than getting a letter through the door or a call or whatever it was to find out that your office had all got together to stage a nationwide intervention because you dressed so badly i think i would just drop down dead. And then they were thrust into a slightly dimmer spotlight that might await them if they were doing it today, but a spotlight nonetheless. I genuinely don't think I stopped to consider how awful it was that it was your colleagues that put you forward for that. Like your best friend in a well-meaning gesture is one thing. The entire marketing team at your office is quite another. So what possesses a person to go through with it? Is it that they genuinely seek the advice of stylists and dietitians because they want to change their lives and they don't know how?

Is it worth a bit of public flagellation if in return you get a brand new wardrobe paid for by the BBC? Or is the innate need in human beings for our 15 minutes just so strong that we don't really care what happens in them? Maybe it's a combination of all of the above. Definitely food for thought. We have to concede there wasn't a lot of space for nuanced conversation at the time. The general public's understanding of eating disorders barely went beyond anorexia, and even that was completely oversimplified. Disorders like binge eating, for example, were hardly recognised

and actually sufferers found themselves overwhelmingly mocked by the media and public at the time. A show we have to talk about with this in mind is the now infamous Super Size versus Super Skinny, a Channel 4 show that ran for seven seasons starting in 2008. It was hosted by Dr Christian Jessen, and each week it saw two contestants, one overweight and one underweight, swap diets whilst at a feeding clinic under the supervision of Dr. Jessen. Both participants were shown the extent of their poor diet

with the super skinny one showing pictures of their body and being told about the drastic long-term health effects and the supersizer sent to America to visit someone heavier than they were as a shock tactic to show them what they could become if they did not stop their unhealthy lifestyles. The show also featured Anna Richardson who'd examined numerous,

methods to lose weight by trying diets she'd found on the internet, some of which had shocking side effects. At a stretch, I can just about see how someone might have convinced themselves that the intentions behind this show were good, or at least not totally exploitative. It was, after all, supposed to demonstrate that neither extreme was healthy and that health and happiness lay somewhere in the middle. But when it came to articulating that, the show missed the mark catastrophically and looking back as we are doing with the 2025 lens we see that it was problematic as hell particularly when you consider that supersized versus super skinny was and still is unfortunately used as a tool in the anorexic community which included me thinking about why it was so popular in that

space i can't speak for anyone else but for me it was about reinforcing self-control the disgust level that the supersized contestants felt so palpable at least to me I use that to give me motivation to move my body size even further away from that. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes total sense. And I think it capitalises at a core level on the nation's fatphobia,

which was like, I mean, Ancdela is crazy high. But that's going to be under an even bigger microscope in communities like that. So beyond its ripples in the eating disorder community, it's fundamental flaw. And the thing that made it so day, as a mainstream mega beast, as far as we see it, was its use of shame as a motivator?

The party line was always that neither the supersizer or the super skinnier suffered with an eating disorder, and they were allegedly thoroughly vetted by the show's psych teams before being allowed onto the show, thus allowing producers and the public at home the opportunity to relax into guilt-free judgment. It's no fun, after all, laughing at a sick person stuck in their house, but it's easy enough to laugh at someone who ended up like that because they were lazy or who had no willpower or who drank enough Pepsi in a day to fill up a bathtub. So in order that it not be accused of being exploitative, this show and ones like it positioned itself as something intended to help its contributors in a way that was entertaining enough to bring

in millions of viewers a week, of course. The show did little to actually educate participants on either side and it certainly never got close to providing them with the sort of treatment that a complicated mental health illness such as an eating disorder would require. After the veneer is chipped away then, you see the show for what it was, which was utterly unscrupulous. Now, remarkably, particularly given, as we've just said, all of that, we were able to track down the executive producer of the show, Colette Foster, and talked to her about that time. We couldn't believe it when she said, yes, not least of all,

because she didn't just work on super size versus super skinny, but on almost every huge show from that time, including 10 years younger and how to look good naked. I think we need to preface the interview you're about to hear with a chat between us because I think we have to be honest about how difficult we found this. I think me especially, you know, I've been doing this for over 13 years, interviewing people and I've done hundreds, but honestly, I think I found this one the hardest. And it hit a nerve, admittedly, because I have skin in the game here. You know, as I inferred before, a super size versus super skinny had a really negative effect on me and others,

and I feel quite strongly about its impact. But look, this is hard because we don't, we want to be careful not to throw colour under the bus here or just, or lean too hard into placing blame squarely on her shoulders because fat phobia, diet culture, all of it, the things that, all of these things that played into making these shows, firstly a reality and secondly so popular are a collective and cultural problem and they're far, far bigger, think Colette herself, of course. But she was partly responsible for the existence of these shows, which undoubtedly did contribute to and perpetuate our negative body image,

not to even mention the potential effects, as Al said, on eating disorder sufferers. So we didn't really know what to expect from Claire. We were a bit surprised that she said, yes, in the first place given the context of the show. As we discussed in last week's episode, there is always a really big question mark over things like this, people like this, whether or not they are victims or perpetrators. And obviously that's not for us to decide. In terms of this conversation, we pushed our line of questioning with her as far as we felt comfortable doing. And we wanted to strike a balance of not being too confrontational because that's not really our job in the context of this situation. All we

wanted from this really was to understand the time, the motives and the justification for this show. And we did get that in this interview. So without further ado, we hope you enjoy our conversation with Colette. Take us back to the inception of those shows. What was the culture like? How was it at the time? And how did these shows kind of come to be? Well, it didn't necessarily start this century.

It started last century, didn't it? But an obsession with weight loss and looking a certain way and appealing to people. But certainly in 2007, when Super Size versus Super Skinny was conceived, actually it was a moment in time where there were there were huge obesity issues that people were beginning to talk about but there was also on the front of every magazine very skinny potentially anorexic people being idolized as having the perfect body so that was that that's what crystallised that idea and to be clear i can't take credit for that there was a development producer called ian dodgeon who made that correlation and so suddenly you think we are

We're always full of contradictions, but it was that moment in time of half the nation, not eating enough food and desperate to be as skinny as possible. And the other half loving their food, if you like, and eating to excess. So it was two extremes, both unhealthy, and it was a way to sort of shine a spotlight at that moment in time. and in a way bringing two people of different body sizes together we were trying to break the mould of you person perhaps carrying a bit too much weight you're the problem we're going to make a show that makes it all about you're the problem by having two people with those different eating attitudes it was saying we've got a collective

problem in this country we are obsessed with our bodies we are obsessed with the way we look it's time to re-examine it really. So you can imagine as a TV producer, that idea of having those extremes straight away, just think, oh my God, this is absolutely golden as an idea. At that time, I think what Channel 4 were brilliant at doing is saying, let's do something explosive, let's do something really provocative, but it's always had purpose to it. It wasn't just, as I say, it wasn't about blame. It was about understanding and possibly the first show that looked at the psychology of how we feel about our bodies as well. But it was a really challenging show to make,

because you're not just dealing with the way people look, you're also dealing with the way they feel. And we also made films with young girls, with eating disorders. So it was actually, it had quite a lot of purpose to it, despite having quite a big, quite shocking premise at its heart. I felt my job was to make it entertaining enough to make people want to watch it and then subliminally give them the information

that they needed to go on to. of that. So it wasn't one without the other. So we were quite responsible, even though it's a very provocative show. And obviously, that's what you want, isn't it? You want to grab people's attention if you want to talk about something. People write about these things all the time. How do you make it make people want to tune in for it? So that was a, that was it. From a duty of care standpoint, what responsibility did you kind of like legally have, like to these people, but also what did you have morally within yourself? Because there is a lot, like you say, you're dealing with really complicated issues.

Interestingly, it wasn't legal. It was definitely moral and professional, I would say, in that we had a psych team on board. And when I say a psych team, you often get psychiatrists who understand about television and would be working in the reality space, if you like. So testing a contributor's robustness to be in that. environment. But we had professional psychiatrists who worked with people who had eating disorders and understood that as a subject. But we also had a full-time dietitian on board as well. So what you see is the front end behind the scenes. Everybody was really well supported. That

doesn't mean that everybody says they would have had a fantastic time. But I think the premise of the show was not about blame it was it it had a different starting point and so for that reason I personally don't think we did anything untoward but I'm not saying it wasn't difficult to make because your people are vulnerable in any situation and actually you know if you think about another show like how to look good naked it's empowering it's a positive show if you've struggled with your weight your whole life and this is you think this is is the last chance you've got to sort of sort of sort your weight out. I'm going to go on a TV show. So you do, you spend a long time before you actually even put them on the program.

You've really got to get to know people and talk about them because you're right. Back then, it would have still been seen as 15 minutes of fame. It just so happens that the subject matter was so sensitive. We knew we had to be. We knew we had to be do well. I still get emails from a guy called Stefan, who is in series one, I think, from Northern Ireland, still. sends me photographs of how much weight he's lost and how he's kept his weight off. So for some people it works. And I would say it's just the starting point, isn't it? If you take part in a program like that and you want to change, then that's good. People are always looking for help, aren't they? You said that it didn't make it easier to make, that it was sometimes,

you know, it was difficult to make because you were dealing with something, I guess, so sensitive. And I don't think the, you know, the contestants who were the super skinnies, as they were called, right, the super skinnys, I don't think you outrightly said, oh, they have eating disorders. But I imagine a lot of them were struggling with their mental health, especially in regards to eating. So with the specific swap, the super skinnies never had an eating disorder. They were always extensively psyched. We did a separate strand about eating disorders. with a group of anorexic people. But for the swap, we'd have never put somebody on the swap who was suffering from an eating disorder.

Right. So the super skinnies, they were assessed by a psychiatric team. Absolutely, absolutely. Prior to coming on the show. They more had food obsessions or quirks. Very often, as we know, though, somebody's desired form of eating can be masking an eating disorder. So that's what the Sykes always had to decide.

So again, I can't remember the contributor's name because it was such a long time ago. But she thought that if she just ate Brazil nuts, there was such a healthy, wholesome food that that was really good. She didn't think she needed to eat anything else. You know, and that wasn't, that was just she, so she had a very healthy approach to food, but it wasn't a rounded approach to food. And so you were just always trying to get under the layers, but there was never anybody in a swap who had an eating disorder. Okay. Can I ask? And this isn't me trying to catch you out on this, on this point of assessing the psychiatric, you know, state of the contestants. But obviously, it was all humans making this show. Humans are fallible and make mistakes. Was there a point where you ever thought about the contestants like, this doesn't feel right? I don't think this person should be on the show. I don't think they should be taking part of their mental health. isn't strong enough for this and I suspect that there's an eating disorder at play. Genuinely and honestly, no, I don't feel that.

I really don't. You may say, oh, somebody's got in touch with us and had an awful experience on it. You might say that. I don't, because I tell you why I didn't make the decision about whether those people were suitable to be on television. And also, when you're put into a reality, so you use the word contestants, so I would never use the word contestants for a factual show,

It wasn't a competition. They weren't there trying to win something. So it existed for a different reason. And people would always apply because they want help. You know, that's whatever. In a show like that, they're looking for help. They're not looking just to be on television. So I hear the point because some people think that is their moment of fame going to be

the answer to other problems in a way. But honestly, the process, it was a very long drawn-out process. And it did have a lot of, there was a lot, it was all about the expertise. of a really excellent psych team headed by Lynn Greenwood, who I still work with now. I think entertainment, the support and care has been something a bit late coming because we probably all look at people

who take part in reality shows and think, well, they know what's involved, don't they? They've seen them all on telly before. Oh, they just want to do it because they're going to get a million pound frock deal. But that's ridiculous because we all know that what's on telly is just the tip of what happens behind the scenes.

I think the thing that's really, important for us to remember is that there was the hunger. I can't find other words apart from these parts. The appetite for these shows was massive. That's why you made them. That's why you made so many like them. That's why we will watch them because... And you know they're still watched in huge numbers on YouTube? I couldn't believe it. When we were researching this, they were all like three, four, five million views on just clips. They're all over TikTok. We still have this and we we and this is a big part of this series is exploring this like voyeuristic way that we all kind of deal with weight and body image and and it's a lot of projection and but it would

be interesting to hear about the kind of ratings and the reaction that you felt at the time as you were making the show because the ratings must have been big did was it was the reaction overwhelmingly positive to them as they were coming out or did you get backash no it was I mean, it was extremely popular. What were you doing before that? Which shows were you doing before that? I just made embarrassing bodies. Okay.

Okay. I still love embarrassing bodies. I'd love to know what the ratings look like of Super Size versus Skinny versus the shows that you'd done prior. Did you see a huge jump in ratings? Was it like a big burst in ratings? No, no. They're about the same.

They're about the same. They were all getting $3 million. Yeah. On a place where you might get $500,000 now. They were hugely popular shows. Yeah. And that was, was that. the same as you went into 10 years younger and how to look good naked?

I did 10 years younger. So I think this is what's interesting about the evolution of TV shows. None of these programs could ever get made now. And I don't think, you know, that's absolutely fine. But 10 years younger was just a, was just a makeover show. But then it evolved because at the time, people starting to have cosmetic procedures. So that's what the show became about. So then you make a show that it's almost like pro-cosmetic surgery. And then you think, well, it's time to make a show that's anti-cosmetic surgery. So how to look good naked evolved. Programs then had, they were always fronted by experts who were a bit finger-waggy, if I was being a bit negative, but at the time, that's how we consumed stuff.

We don't have the world of content that you've got online now. It's just a different time. So all of those shows were appointment to view for people of a certain age in the middle of the week. And they were all aspirational. They were all saying, you know, if you want to look good. You know, these are the tools to do it. You know, embarrassing bodies was, was completely different, but all of these shows come about from a zeitgeist. Something's happening in the ether, make a show about it. Embarrassing bodies famously on the day of broadcast, nobody would speak to me at Channel 4 because I said it was going to bring the channel down for it. But that was from everybody's Googling their health. You can't get an appointment

at the doctors. Let's make a series that's about health. it always comes from something real and then you're educating people and then of course the next day the switchboards going off because you saved my dad's life because you showed something that he'd got you know so they've always got purpose to them but but but there's no point in making something that's purposeful that nobody watches you know you've got you've got you've got to do something that feels like it's got some purpose to it I think what's really interesting and I don't know if it's changed or if you would what you'd think about it now I thought it's really interesting you said that you had one show that

kind of ended up being like pro cosmetic surgery so then you thought all I need to make one that's against it I think in this day and age you'd probably end up needing to caveat the one show with the other you'd need to make a balanced I don't know I don't know if you within one episode you mean within one show yeah because you're not guaranteed that everybody watching 10 years younger is going to be watching how to look good naked so you might just be yeah like yeah what else I do I was watching both, but it's kind of, I really do, as you're speaking, I'm like, I completely understand the time and that makes so much sense. But then I think responsibly, do you think now, in terms of as we've moved forwards with responsibility to sort of thing, you would

need to make one show more balanced rather than having two shows trying to sort of balance each other out? Well, I think the answer is no, obviously. As in, you don't do bake off and then say, well, let's have some low calorie cakes in it. You know, that's true. The show is a show, isn't it? That's what you've got. But I think we did collectively, I think we collectively became concerned that we were, it wasn't deliberate,

but I think we became concerned that it looked like we were promoting cosmetic surgery. And I think that's why. And I say the we, that was me and the production company, but also the commissioning editors at Channel 4, who obviously got huge power of influence on what we, make. I think we just all started to think we've got to make sure that suddenly there's not a rush on everybody wanting cosmetic surgery. It's a bit like what we're saying about all parts of the world. People are always trying to sell you something. And so I think we just got to a place

where we thought, oh, maybe we shouldn't be so keen to say that this is the solution. And in all the cases, again, of the contributors hugely siked a long time before those decisions were made. it wasn't a geo-fancy free cosmetic surgery show it was never that and again a lot of legal and compliance around it but yes I would say that I don't think any of those programs could get made now but then I don't know because I feel like we're not that far away from a show we've done it where we're following people to go and get buttlifts in turkey or veneers or whatever but usually they are showing the downside of those things and and again again, to be clear, if you heard all the voiceover around the surgical procedures, we're very

clear. What we want to try and get back to is, with later shows, is that, you know, you should have ownership of your body. You shouldn't feel shame for your body. And I mean, I think Emma Thompson's, she's like the best advocate because she said, why would I waste my time worrying about my body? And I think that's, that would be the best, that would be the best place to get to, wouldn't it? And I think that's why you don't really see weight loss shows on television anymore. We should be more about body acceptance rather than change your body because that's the answer to happiness. That's culturally the biggest shift. We know it's not, that's the shift we want to be in society. It's not happening. Yeah. But that's the belief, isn't it? But I think

that's why you're less likely to see weight loss on TV. But when you do, it's guaranteed good viewing figures. Because you're right, those shows captured the zeitgeist at the time, 100%. But now, those shows wouldn't be, they wouldn't be allowed. And I wanted to ask this as a two-part question, why you think that they wouldn't be allowed now, but also, do you think it's right that they wouldn't be allowed now? If we were just talking about super-sized versus super-skinny, I mean, we could talk about all those different shows, couldn't we? But super-size, versus super skinny, ultimately that device, whilst powerful and absolutely helpful to those

individuals, ultimately it still feels like you're objectifying someone to make the content because it's not documentary, it's not observed, you are facilitating this swap of diets. And even though it was a short, sharp burst, you know, it was only five days, it wasn't any longer than that and a lot of people got the benefit of doing it. I find it more difficult to answer your second question about whether it would or wouldn't. I know why it wouldn't get commissioned now, but I don't think that's always means that's the reason to not commission it because by creating an entertaining format like that, you get through to people and there's a lot to say about the subject matter.

So I wouldn't make it exactly the same way. But that obsession, like really skinny people, really overweight people, that hasn't gone away. That's still circulating, isn't it? Look, I'm 100% behind responsible program making and always have been. But I think the shame in a way now is that you can't be as provocative because you don't want to cause upset and you don't want, even though it's still out there in society, we just don't necessarily. necessarily see television as being the place to make those kind of shows. But I think in truth, we've changed what we like to consume on TV. As I say, there's a, you know, Instagram is now the place to go if you want your ridiculous

amount of weight loss advice. It's just full of it, isn't it? It's just absolutely full of it. So we watch television for relaxation now, don't we? We want to get away from the stress and the responsibility of life. We watch drama and we watch reality shows. We have got a different appetite for what we want to consume. That's so true.

We're learning from the internet. No, we don't need to learn so much from TV. But it's interesting that you say that if these shows existed today, they would still pull in these big numbers. And I do suspect that they would, that people would still be interested in this content. To an extent, a lot of the things that you did, like a lot of the formatting,

looking at, is it how to look naked? No, 10 years younger, where you'd take a photo of someone in their underwear. And stand them in the street, yeah. But people, too, we are, it's evolved, but we're doing that now. People are on Instagram with their tiny mics and TikTok. That content does, you're right, that content does exist.

It's just not on television. Television is there for a different reason then, I'd say. God, yeah. Did any of them have an impact, whether good or bad, on your body image and how you felt yourself about your own body? I would, I identify more with an obese person than a skinny person because the way we've been brought up culturally is to feel like we're never skinny enough.

So I found that when you're... This doesn't mean to say... We could have made supersized versus super skinny. This sounds like a strange thing to say. We could have made it without the supersizers and just made it with the super skinnies. This is a really strange thing to say. It wouldn't have been interesting.

because the vast majority of us, regardless of our size, feel that we're not eating the right things or doing the right things to have a good body. So I don't want to say there's no empathy for somebody who's skinny, but we feel, we think, oh, they've got it all, haven't they? They've sorted it out. So they haven't got a problem. We put all the problem on the supersizes, but the supersizers are more interesting because they're human. They're fallible.

So I know that I'm within a healthy body weight, but I don't feel any happier about my body just because I am. Because mentally we've been brought up in a way to think that we could always have a better body. And so that's what I empathise with. That's a really good point. We didn't have much empathy. I mean, but we didn't have, we didn't really have empathy for the obese person either because like you say, it was a blame.

thing but it's really interesting what you say about the skinnier the skinny person in the show I think maybe that's what it was with all of it was that we as a public did lack a lot of empathy when it came to each other at that time yeah and I think that's probably why we ended up with the content with with the hunger I cannot find another word but with the appetite for that content. And maybe it didn't feel real because these people, they didn't have Instagram accounts to defend themselves. They didn't, you know, like, you know, they'd signed up for it. Reality TV now is full of explosions and drama because we want something to react to, don't we? And I suppose in its own way, if you're watching a program where somebody's

overweight, it's almost like, oh, it's horrible to say it's point and stare because that wasn't the premise of the show. We were very warm towards the people who were overweight. We really were. It wasn't a cruel show. We absolutely wanted to help them. But inevitably, if you see somebody larger than yourself, you can also think, oh, at least I'm not as big as that person.

So when you say we just, it's all going on in our lives. You just won't see it on television. There's still that judgment. That's not changing. We still have huge judgments against people and the way they look. Still there. Yeah. And I guess you can just, like anyone making any content can capitalize on the human condition at any given point.

And we are very judgmental. So it's a bit inevitable, isn't it? What did you and the other people who worked on the show? Yeah, specifically, too many asses. Specifically supersized versus super skinny. That is a lot of messages. It obviously, it really, it garnered a lot of criticism and there was, you know, the head of beat,

which is the UK's leading eating disorder charity at the time, came out and said it was really triggering and that it shouldn't be used for entertainment. You know, there was a lot of criticism around it. And I do think it would be remiss of me not to bring up and full transparency. I've got skin in the game here because I had anorexia for a long time.

And I was part of, you know, I was very involved. in the online groups that shared a lot of pro-anorexia content and super size versus super skinny was huge it was huge in the 18 disorder community and it was really it was very triggering but it was also oh god this fucking word hungrily consumed I can't think about to say hungry for the rest of the day you know we there was a there was a huge appetite for it for that content you know we we can I I distinctly remember watching it and getting tips from the you know I was I would make myself okay maybe maybe it's not helpful to get into that actually no no no you should you should talk about it because it is really important to yeah I think it was just

it was it was it was it was really big in that community and I do think that it probably did you know cause harm in that community and there was a lot of criticism leveled at the producer, you know, the creators of the show around that. How did you, were you aware of that? Were you aware that it was big in those communities at the time? And how did you feel about that criticism that it, that it, that it copped? So that that's interesting because, um, we worked with beat. We did. Yeah. And we worked with beat specifically on the anorexia strands, the films that we made in every series. We never featured weight loss tips or revealed how the anorexics were controlling their

weight. We didn't do anything like that. We were honestly working with experts in the field. But I think the point that you make that if you have an eating disorder and that is the way you live your life, then you are going to be compelled to consume that content. I understand that. can see um why that's not right you know i i i totally acknowledge that but we did work with beat a lot um we we didn't we didn't make it without without them um it was but i hear what you're saying

no but i think that's that's really important for us to know as well and to like you know round out that side of it because i don't think any of us are looking back thinking that there was like you know intention behind it or anything. So I do think it's important to know that, that you had good intentions and that you, you know, you worked, you did your due diligence on that side of things. I, but, but in full transparency, I don't think we'd have understood the triggering element at the beginning. I don't think we'd have understood that. We'd have thought we're doing something with purpose here. We're creating these films that have got something to say and understand about our relationship with food.

But we wouldn't have thought, oh, this is a handy takeout supplement for how you two can become anorexic and suppress your weight. And so I would say that we wouldn't have understood that enough at the time and we absolutely do understand that. Yeah, which makes sense. We didn't understand that at the time. It was a completely different time. And we were used to seeing a lot of shocking content.

and that didn't come with a trigger warning, it wasn't softened, we were, we, we, we, that was just how the culture was at the time. You're absolutely right. There was no warning before the episode or no, and that, that obviously that responsibility lies with us, but also relies, lies with the broadcaster as well. But that is why you won't really see weight loss on television now because it is triggering. We would not be doing our due diligence in the creation of this series if we didn't try and attack this from all angles. So we wanted to try and speak to someone else who was around in this environment at that time. And we spoke to somebody who wanted to remain anonymous, but worked as a junior production assistant on super size versus super skinny at the period we've been talking about. And this is what she had to say about her time working on that show.

I was a junior member of the production team on a diet shows that compared two different eating styles. It's the most polite way to put it. And when you're in a very junior role like that, you are the person who does anything and everything. You are the person who picks up props for that program. I was sourcing underwear. I was making food and meals to be thrown down the food shoots as part of the production. I'll come in on weekends to do that kind of thing. You're accompanying participants between locations and venues

and just being there to support them when filming is happening. You're picking up the talent. It's whatever needs doing on the day. That is what your job is, is to go and do that. Wow. You made the food. On a Sunday. Actually, I never thought about all that food had to be, obviously,

had to be made, had to come from somewhere. Yeah, there's all these weird little background things that happened. And I'm like, what was this life? So I'd go in on a Sunday. and me and one of the researchers would cook the food until it just had enough colours that it looked like it was a meal so that you could throw it down a food tube

and then on the Monday we'd do the production and we'd spend three hours with hot lights in this very glass-oriented buildings it was just like a sauna with food being thrown in these tubes adding all the orange and the Coke and stuff that people had so they filled up and it smelled disgusting and I had to bring swimwear with

me so that after the production of throwing the food down I would empty the food tubes with the other runner but because he was a man and I was a woman it was expected that I would then get in the shower to wash these food tubes like it was just insane actually insane yeah oh my god we had to wash them in the shower oh my god the whole thing was just as such a bizarre ridiculous experience. Whenever you've like, doing conversations in the pub

with your mates about the worst job you ever did, I always win hands down. You win. When you say you were

spending time with the participants, one thing that's been stressed quite a lot since these shows is that there's always been

a duty of care to them and that they have always been looked after. Within that, we've been assured that no one

who ever participated on that show, had an eating disorder that was known about. And yeah, they were, they underwent a lot of psych analysis and were therefore like totally fine, normal people who just kind of fancied a shot at being on telly. Would that be a fair assessment from your, from your perspective? I'd say for a duty of care perspective, until the people that spent the most time with those participants, it was people like me. It was people like me. It was. was the most junior members of staff who earned the least but had in lots of ways the most responsibility because duty of care for somebody is a huge, huge thing. And I think sometimes

that position could be abused slightly as well because you were there in a more sort of informal role often. You befriended them. You got to know them quite well. And, you know, producers would sometimes, you know, it was always subtly done, but kind of want you to ask certain questions or find out information while you were having those very informal moments with those participants. And thankfully, I'm a very socially awkward person, so I was terrible at doing that, so I didn't really ever pay off. But yeah, if ever there was more senior people involved, at producers, it was always the constant sort of plying of information, even the downtime moments weren't downtime moments. You were kind of all

and the clock as a participant. In terms of the sort of the psych interviews and stuff, they did undertake them, but I would say it was a very light touch experience. I think they had one psych interview, and I do remember a conversation where a producer identified a potential participant who had a concerning eating habit,

and they would, they only ate very tiny portions, and they would always leave a tiny bit of their tiny portion to prove that they could. And they identified that as a worrying behaviour. But the conversation around it with a senior producer on the show was, well, hopefully she passes. And she did and she got through and she was a participant on the show. So there were elements where I think it was easy to ignore those things

because I think the expectations around the time about duty of care are so much different to how they look now. I can understand why producers and these kind of shows thought they were doing the best things for the participants and that these people were consenting. But I think informed consent was missing. I don't think everyone knew what they were consenting to always. And, you know, there is a draw.

You want to be on TV. There is, you want to get, you know, be visible and know that you've done that thing that other people will see. And I think it's often not having. highlighted what the elements of this will involve, what the drawbacks can be. And it's easy to ignore warning signs, very visible issues with food, when you are looking to cast for a show, because this is casting. You know, there are researchers who are casting researchers. You are assigning a role to these people and you want that person to fit what you'll look at the story you're trying to tell.

I guess it's hard to look back now and imagine that the people working on the show genuinely believed that the people involved didn't have eating disorders. Do you think that that was the case that people genuinely believe that or do you think it was a case of purposefully turning a blind eye? Again, that's a tricky one to answer

in terms of the people that work in the show because I think people at my level and just above were just people trying to earn a living. so I think people on a runner level and on a researcher level you could see it but you had a job that you needed to do and you could raise these issues

but it was ultimately for the assistant producers and producers and exec producers to make those decisions but in the context of the culture of the time this was so normalised there were so many shows like this going on there was toxicity within the industry

in terms of getting to the roles that you needed to get to, particularly as a woman. It was very, very, very competitive. People, you had to work so hard early in your career and to climb the ladder, you know, you had to be ruthless and then pull the ladder up behind you because someone was always coming for your job. And I think that adds a pressure to just let some things slide.

Obviously the participants were, I mean, half of the participants were the supersizes. Is that what they were called? So, yeah, the show was Super Sysed versus Super Skinny, which had come out of, I think, the context of supersized me, the documentary about McDonald's. And so that language was being popularised. In terms of how the participants were spoken about

outside of the filming, I had definitely heard in the office them being referred to as fatties and skinnies and them being reduced to those elements. And it shocked me that as a runner, often I had the most respect for those participants. It wasn't they referred to that all the time.

There were generally referred to as participants, but that language wasn't picked apart. It wasn't squashed as inappropriate. And the attitudes to the different participants was very different. The overweight participants, I think, were perceived as lazy and were shown as that on TV. But there was never any narrative showing the difficulties that they might be facing with their current eating habits,

whereas the narratives for the underweight participants was a lot more sympathetic. And that is something that I've noticed a lot in my own life as well is when I've been struggling with food and it's been over-eating and it's not been weight loss. No one steps in. No one intervenes. People want to look away. But if you're under-eating, it's a concern for support. There is care. And I think on the TV show that was definitely lacking. Thinking to what you had to do with the having to cook the food and, you know, really be part of that quite like dehumanizing

experience, I suppose. Did that have it, and the language that surrounded it, hearing, you know, like casual fat phobia and stuff around you with your colleagues, did that have any effect on you personally when it came to your body and your body image working on shows like this? Enormously. When that language is normalized, you internalize it so easily. I remember there being a conversation in the office, one of the producers who was preparing a researcher for a meeting with the executive producer. And she'd said, you know, make sure that all your stats are completely accurate that you have double-checked them because this producer has an encyclopedic knowledge

of the caloric content of food. So if you'd said a banana, I don't know, it was 120 calories. She'd be like, no, it's 117. and I remember hearing that and the internalised message for me was well I don't know the colourific content of everything I'm eating should I know that? Is that why my body doesn't look like these pupils

but I was very young and had grown up with the toxicity of diet culture and you know our mothers were openly critical of our bodies at that time because of how diet culture had been embodied for them. So this kind of conversation was normal, but so harmful. And it definitely, definitely has played a part in the struggles I've also had

with my own body image and my own eating habits. And it crosses over with a lot of different things. Because I'm neurodivergent and, you know, there are elements of not knowing, say, T, T, T, Cues and that kind of thing. but definitely emotional eating became was very much fueled by what we saw and what we heard on screen and in my job every day you know going to work on a program where it's all about body image of food of course that's going to sleep into you and because I had one thing on my CV I got you know I kept getting pick up to do shows like this I did two or three different

diet shows. One of them was a historical diet show where people trying different diets from history and one of them, one of those diets was for people to chew their food a hundred times and then to spit it out. And on the day of filming, the participants were too self-conscious to spit that food out. And it was only on that day that it was decided that they could swallow the food as long as they chewed it a hundred times. When you are young, you are vulnerable. I look at myself now, a very different person to who I was then. And In an industry like TV, that is so competitive, the feeling is always that you are lucky to be there

and you are so, so, so replaceable. And it is a dangerous environment because it stops people from speaking of. It stops people from just questioning whether something is okay. And environments will wild things get normalized? They're still normalised. still think that that is normal and okay, it's not until you leave that environment that

you go, wait a minute, so much if that wasn't right. And I, you know, I carry, I have a conscience and I carry the guilt of knowing that I was involved in shows like that and I make very different decisions now. But equally, the decisions I make now also come from a place of privilege, you know, the choices I have more freedom to make choices because I'm in a different financial position because I'm not in that industry anymore. You know, that industry encouraged competitiveness. It encouraged stabbing each other in the back. And that's, again, another reason why I left, because it's just not the place for me.

Having spoken to Collette and to the junior member of production staff, we were keen to get an outside opinion as well. Dr Joshua Walrich is an NHS doctor and nutritionist, who you'll hear more from in next week's episode. We asked him for his thoughts on super size versus super skinny and other diet shows. Super size versus super skinny. It feels like it was a big show and it was quite a pivotal show for a lot of us, especially people struggling with eating or body image. What are your thoughts? Big question. What are your thoughts on the show? It was incredibly problematic. It massively trivialized any sort of disordered eating and took the piss out of it and made it a clown show

essentially like I remember those big those big tubes that they would be like fill up your week's worth of food it was like it wasn't there was no interest in helping these people at all and the only help that they thought they were giving was just like we could shock you into changing your behaviour when has that ever worked like ever it's essentially just stigma on display on TV Right. It's just, and, you know, nowadays, one would hope that there is, there's more of a focus on making sure that from a mental health perspective, there are a psychiatrist with shows that there wouldn't have been, I mean, they're bullshit if they're saying there was that on those. They are saying, they are saying, bullshit. They were extensively psyched. Complete nonsense. Because there were people on there that, and I remember some of these episodes, and I've seen clips of them more recently as well, ironically, or coincidentally.

There were people on these shows who categorically had eating disorders. And to say that there were psychiatrists that had vetted them, et cetera, complete bullshit. There's no way that happened because they should not have been on these shows. It was incredibly problematic this stuff. And of course they will say that they had stuff vetted because it was on, what was it, ITV or Channel 4 or something. So, you know, it's a prime network, or whatever we call it in the UK, channel. And so they would have had to tick the boxes, but their definition of appropriately vetting people is very different to now, right? You'd never have supernanny going on nowadays.

You'd never have, whatever that idiot was that went around, fat families, right? That was absolutely unhinged. Exactly. Like, these shows were clown shows to adjust as entertainment, right? And we're close to it with embarrassing bodies. Maybe a controversial statement. But, you know, I think embarrassing bodies is the equivalent nowadays, but not quite as, you know, but it's meant to be nicer.

But, you know, there's no way that those things were appropriately vetted. Absolutely not. So going back to Collette, we asked her if she had any regrets about her time on these shows. Is there anything? And I guess it's hard because, you know, we're always learning. Is there anything that you regret? I don't regret anything except for the idea that you need to have cosmetic surgery to look good. That's the only thing that it put a retrospect, looking back on it, it felt like we were putting

another pressure on women to feel bad about the way they looked and they needed to do something about it. That was a big one. Yeah, I didn't realize before, I guess. But again, you know, we had different experiences with, we've had different experiences of life. I didn't know the effect that a show had had on you, so I didn't know that interview would be hard for you to do.

And I think we were both surprised by how emotional you were afterwards. Afterwards, yeah, I cried. I've never cried. Yeah. But it's, I mean, it's like. anyone ever I don't think but I think that's such a lie you cry all the time better more of an empathetic cry oh my god that is the biggest lie I think you probably cried if we have the time we could pull a montage of you crying in every interview we've ever done

but I never cry for myself I feel like it's always it's always yeah like I'm crying yeah it's such an empathetic no it really it struck an nerve of me I think I wanted something out I'm going to be really honest here I think I wanted something out of the conversation going into it and it's not where the conversation went and I think you can hear in that interview I was trying to get there trying to get to it I don't know if I'm being very elusive here or cryptic I think you're you were hoping probably for some acknowledgement of wrongdoing and perhaps an apology for the pain that it caused you not to me not an apology to me but yes I was I was hoping for an acknowledgement.

And I'm not even talking specifically about eating disorder sufferers here. I think we can't understate how big an impact this show on had, this show had on everyone. I think you only had to be even aware of your body image for it to have had an effect on you. So I feel like that's what it was lacking. Yeah. I felt like that's where I wanted the conversation to go

but of course it's not my I wasn't the interviewee and that was those are her answers and that's her prerogative and that's that I think interestingly I had more emotion attached to the last episode we did the tabloid I think I don't know why I felt more deeply affected by that well I think that's because of your first-hand experience

yeah probably yeah you've got experience of being in the public eye so yeah that's where you've got a different lens that's where our skin is yeah yeah and I think that's an interesting thing and something we have to acknowledge as we do this as well because to me I didn't find the interview with collect that difficult because I just wasn't I didn't really watch the show to be honest and I can kind of look back and be like woo that was a ride but like I wasn't hurt by it so yeah so I wasn't hurt by it right but I think that's a really important thing that's and that's why we wanted this series to be a

as all encompassing as it is is, I think we've all been hurt by different elements. We're not saying that every single person has been like bashed by every area of this. Although some have. Although some have. By and large, little bits will have been whacked in the head by a branch

of this massive tree at some point. We're not saying it's like the wamping willow, like the whole tree's like all whacking you around all the time. It's just like occasionally a flying branch will get you. And for you, it was super size versus super skinny. For me, it was like the tabloids, you know, and people will have different things

as we keep going through it as well. Yeah. But it's interesting with what it brings up, isn't it? It's super interesting. And, I mean, not to lay with the point, but like, we have talked about body image and we've interviewed so many people of our body image so much on this show,

and I've never once felt trigger, even slightly triggered to the point of crying. So it was just, it was quite shocking. but um so i was quite surprised how i felt about it but i i do actually want to say a huge thank you to collect for coming on because she didn't have to um and she answered you know she she tackled all of our questions you know she answered all of our questions and ultimately like i'm going to sound like a real boomer but like our triggers aren't her problem she was doing her job she doesn't know as sorry and that's the weird thing like you know we're looking at this in a way that we're

like this was all objectively bad but there are people who'll be clapping through it going No, that was fine. The noughties were fine. The 90s were fine. Whether it's because they're unheeled or they just genuinely believe that they were. And we, you gotta leave space for that. Yeah, totally. She doesn't, she definitely doesn't, she does not owe us an apology, for sure. I feel like it is more complicated, more nuanced than, you know, than us all, being directly responsible for our own triggers. A hundred percent.

I mean, we are. I mean, we are. I was being a boomer, but also we are. But also, we're not. It's complicated. You know, I'm being very simplistic there. I'm being very simplistic. I think I just mean on that, I mean, with her, with this conversation, with this one thing, you can't do the trigger thing about this one show because this whole time was triggering.

Do you know what I mean? A hundred percent. I think that's what we need to accept. It's like the whole thing was wildly triggering. Yeah, we can't single out one person and demand you owe the information. entire nation. Yeah, yeah. An apology for what you did in the ears of.

Yeah. Of course we can't. Of course we can't. The problem is much bigger, much more systemic than one person, than just one single person. So thank you to Collette. And we hope it was interesting for you to listen to. When considering all the factors that might cause a person to have bad body image, TV might not be at the forefront of your mind.

It is, or at least it was, a really. relatively small part of our lives when we were growing up. Before we could stream Netflix or iPhones, we'd probably not watch more than an episode of The Simpsons when we got home from school or one of the aforementioned transformation shows with our mum's before heading up to bed. Could that really have been enough to leave a lasting impression?

Evidently, yes. There was a fascinating study led by Anne E. Becker in the 1990s that explored body image around young girls. The three-year study measured the effect of television in Fiji, a country with a culture that revolves around food, along with an appreciation for large, robust bodies that was at odds with the Western ideal. Becker visited Fiji in 1995 a few weeks after television was introduced to the island

and returned in 1998, three years later. Each time, they asked Fijian girls of average age 17 about how much TV they watched, along with questions about their eating behaviours and body image. The results? Girls who watched TV at least three nights per week were 50% more likely to see themselves as fat, which they viewed in a negative light, and 30% more likely to diet. Risks for developing eating disorders increased significantly. High scores on an

eating disorder scale called EAT 26. A screening measure to help determine the presence of an eating disorder increased 12.7% and instances of bulimia increased 11.3%. Becker concluded that key indicators of disordered eating were significantly more prevalent following exposure to television. This increase in body dissatisfaction and disorder eating patterns is thought to be down to this new Western thin body ideal being introduced via TV. Becca quoted from the 1998 interviews, I want their body, said one Fijian girl of the Western shows she watched. I want their size. That difference was tracked over three years. You can only imagine the effect that a lifetime of exposure has, particularly when we talk about what exactly we were exposed to. I mean, yeah,

we've played you some shocking clips, but it's important we feel to take a step back and look at the wider picture here. It was very, very rare that we saw a person in a larger body on screen. And if we did, their character was being made fun of, they were the butt of the joke, or they were portrayed as gluttonous, dirty, unhygienic, lazy, greedy, even evil. We touched on it earlier, but it's important not to downplay the significant. of having Courtney Cox put on a fat suit to play the role of Fat Monica and Friends, one of the biggest shows of our time. When Fat Monica appears on the show,

she's either playing into fat stereotypes like constantly eating or crushing objects because of her size or being portrayed as a laughable, unlovable character whose only hope is to lose weight. The jokes are at her expense and the audience laughs at her, not with her. Fat Monica has a crush on Chandler and in one episode she overhears him making fun of her being appalled by her weight. It isn't until fat Monica loses weight the following year as revenge, that Chandler is finally able to see an attractive woman and her friends begin to take her seriously.

This messaging is not subliminal. It is evident and it is everywhere. Lest we forget Regina George's fat ass in mean girls and that now infamous moment in the Sex and the City movie when Samantha arrives for Charlotte's baby shower only for Anthony to ask her what's with the gut. But it gets even worse, because before we're watching sitcoms and rom-coms, we watched the cartoons and what were they teaching us? Well, Disney could always be counted on to vilify their fat characters.

Think Ursula and the Little Mermaid, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, Madame Min in the Sword and the Stone, and the list goes on. They're all villains, they're all fat, with their commonalities including selfishness, greed and cruelty. These are, in turn, the associations that children are taught. to make about fat people. By stark contrast, they see happy ending after happy ending awaiting characters like Cinderella, Snow White, Pocahontas, Bell, Jasmine and Ariel, all of whom who have the idiest biddiest little waists. It's hardly surprising then that when Professor Hayes and Professor Tantaltoff done asked girls under the age of six to select the real princess from a choice of ballerinas as part of their 2009 experiment that 50% chose the thinnest one,

a third of those girls also admitted to worrying about being fat. The content that we were exposed to from an early age, the content that no doubt contributed to us becoming the clamouring public, calling on producers like Collette to make yet another show about all that was wrong with women's bodies, informed so much of how we thought about ourselves and each other, about not just our sizes, but our gender and race as well. This is something that we spoke to author and influencer Stephanie Yuboa about,

Do you have memories of specific things? Obviously, you know, you do, one does put themselves into situating. You know, if you're watching a sitcom or if you're watching or whatever, you know, you try and relate it to your own life. Do you remember having points at which you felt targeted or hurt or specifically hurt, is the word I'll stick with, by moments in TV or film? Yeah, TV especially. like the whole super size versus super skinny was a thing

there was this TV show it recently went viral on TikTok because people are bringing it up again and it was this guy who's a presenter and he just goes around calling people fat I thought it was what I mean I honestly I thought it was a Mandela effect like I thought it couldn't be real and it was real

it's an actual thing and I was like we used to watch the women with kids and like it was fine back it wasn't fine but it was so normalized movies like shallow how movies that had actors playing in fat suits and, you know, the way that fatness is portrayed in the media, it's always either we're lazy, we're stupid, we're unlucky in love, we're the sassy best

friend. We were never the stars of our own shows, especially as it pertained to rom-coms and desirability. You know, we could never just be fat and desirable. We always had to go through some kind of change or, you know, things like that. Or we were the villains. So you see in a lot of Disney movies. The villains are fat. You have like, you know, the Queen of Hearts is fat. You've got like in Pocahontas that the colonizer guy is fat. Ursula the Sea Witch, who was very fabulous, mind you, like she's amazing. But again, a fat, a fat creature, a fat octopus. And then you have things like Tom and Jerry where you have the housekeeper as a fat black woman and you tend to see a lot of fat black women specifically in subservient slash

made maternal roles, like very de-sexualized roles. So it's, even when you bring race into it, there is a whole other underbelly of the way in which fatness is categorized with black women specifically. We're either seen as the maternal, strict house mother, a lot of the times played by black men, which is another conversation completely, or we are hyper-sexualized,

which is something that is more to do with the ways in which black women are hypersexualized, unfortunately, in the media. And so it's only recently that we're starting to see TV shows and movies depict fat women in a normal light, not even like a good like, just normal. And it's taken what, nearly like 150 years of TV or whatever for us to get to a point where we can actually have our stories told in a way that represents us truthfully and in a respectful way. So, yeah, I think early TV was. just trash it was awful wasn't it so bad one thing to discuss perhaps before we conclude this episode

is the shift in what we are consuming now throughout our lives tv and film have essentially normalised the bullying of fat people and largely contributed to and perpetuated the notion that they don't really belong when larger bodied actors do appear on our screens they are rarely if ever afforded nuance in their roles or a complex character arc but in reality we just don't really see them that much, which means when there is a body on screen that differs from the typical slim woman, it comes as a shock. As recently as last year, we found our size drowning in think pieces after Bridgeton cast Nicola Cochlin as the lead of their third series. And I think we have to acknowledge as well that I don't think you can even count Nicola as plus size. No, she, I mean,

she says herself that she has like a body smaller than the sort of average normal woman in the UK has. Right. If you'd heard the reaction without having seen her body, you'd have pictured something very, very different, I think. Right. The absolute frenzy era. And she couldn't get through, they did a big press tour for Bridgeton. And she couldn't get through a single junket without being asked a question about her body size. And it's nuts how groundbreaking it felt that a plus size woman might be cast to have like steamy, intimate, exciting sex with a straight-sized man. And like the noise around, because she wanted to do her own sex scene

and she wanted to show her body and she wanted to do it as the other girls in previous seasons had done it because that's the point of the show. And people were like, wait, what? And that's 2025, that with that shocked, that a plus-sized woman gets a conventional story arc in a popular TV show.

And also what followed was a ton of people talking about mixed-weight romances. Of course. Prompted by this depiction on screen, which is also a weird, very weird term, but the one that only seems to apply to couples, heterosexual couples, in which the woman is larger than the man. Yeah, because there have been, quote-unquote, mixed-weight relationships forever,

in the shape of Homer Simpson and Marge Simpson, Peter Griffin and Lois Griffin, Fred Flintstone and Mrs. Flintstone. I've never watched the Flintstones. Wilma. Wilma. You can't stop. You cast your mind, you'll catch one.

But no one's ever used the word mixed weight. We only heard it last year, where actually they've been a thing, unsurprisingly, because people have different types and different bodies. Crazy. What a concept. But still, I can picture in my head, like even thinking like Pierce Brosnan, you know, the way people talk about his wife because.

Yeah. Yeah, because she's like his age, which is nuts. And like, yeah, she's like not a stick insect. And people are like, whoa, what a guy. I think we'd be remiss to talk about Nicola Cochlin and that press talk without one of the most iconic quotes of all time. She was at screening Q&A in Dublin, a journalist said that Nicola was very brave to bear her on-screen body. And without missing a beat, she replied, you know, it is hard because I think women with my body type, you know, women with perfect breasts, we do not see

ourselves on screen enough. I am very proud as a member of the perfect breast community. I hope you enjoy seeing them. Obsessed. It is wild to think in such a long time that so little has changed. But in 2012, after Girls aired on HBO, and many of us saw for the first time a complicated and entire protagonist that wasn't very, very thin, Joan Rivers famously referenced Lena Dunham's weight in a radio interview saying that it sent the wrong message to girls. She's sending a message out to people that it's okay to stay fat and get diabetes, she said. I'm saying, if you like the way you look, Lena, that's fine and you're funny.

But don't say it's okay that other girls look like this. Tell them to try and look better. Thanks, Jane. Good idea, Joan Rivers. That's a really nice idea for season six of girls. What's sage advice? The way that we consume content has changed hugely in 20 years. And to an extent, we can celebrate how far we've come since the TV of the mid-naughties.

But, as the Bridgeton example showed us, we have a long way to go and so much to consider when it comes to what we deem to be entertainment. Whilst art imitates life in the context of the fictional worlds that we escape to, our hunger for exploitative reality TV does warrant some reflection perhaps. These shows, after all, would have been nothing had we not consume them with such further. But consumption comes naturally to us and as we find ourselves going through the motions of the diet culture cycle, on the hunt for the next quick fix. The thing that came next felt like such an inevitability that it's no surprise at all we fell on it in the way we did. It was, after all, quite tiring trying to be thin had anyone considered that we could try and be healthy instead. Step aside Weight Watchers, wellness is coming to town and it needs us walking 10,000 steps a day,

drinking at least eight glasses of water and spiralising everything. Join us next week for an of the 2010's, the time in which diet culture truly took me by the bollocks. We'll see you then. Should I delete that as part of the ACAST creator network?