The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep 143 Body Positivity is a scam?

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

We are back with Ger and Rob For another ep of she's in the way talking all about body positivity and the impact obesity has on health markers.

Okay, welcome back to another episode of She's in the Way. We are back and we're going to dive into body positivity versus health reality. So this is what I was there. I was watching this debate on, have you watched Jubilee before? No. I'm sure you're seeing like reels of it online. It's like one person is seated in the center and then there's just like a circle of people around them and they run up to the chair to sit in the chair and then debate them on a certain topic.

no? Oh yes, I know that. I do know it. I haven't watched really watched it done. All right. Well, so the last one which obviously is relevant to all of us who, you know, or have interest in the fitness industry is basically, so there's this professional called Gillian Michaels and she goes head to head with these 20 body positivity activists, right? And it's actually really interesting now. And there's loads of different kind of statements that she makes and people sit down and and then they essentially debate it. So I'm going to ask you a couple of statements and then we'll kind of go through and see what you think so.

The first one that she, her first opening claim was obesity is not healthy and pretending otherwise puts people at risk. What are your thoughts on that? I was thinking about this before. It is pretty well understood, I believe, that obesity is. a health or it increases risk of health issues. So yes in regard to that, but like loads of people could say you can be slim and smoke

and not do any activity and things like that. So there's too many factors to just say that is like going to make you unhealthy, but realistically with obesity comes habit. habits I would suggest, I'd say. So yeah, I kind of agree, I believe in that statement. Chair.

Well, like, as someone who was morbidly obese, like I was 23 and a half stone, 150 kilos, I can tell you right now that of course it's unhealthy. There's so many negative impacts on your life that come from it.

As Rob said, like John, you can have people who are carrying no weight that are just as unhealthy, if not more unhealthy, but it's different. Yeah. They're different complications. Like, carrying weight in certain areas affects how you don't breathe at night time when you're sleeping.

So how you move, like someone might have respiratory issues because they smoke a load of cigarettes going up and down the stairs. Someone else that's carrying 10 stone more than they need to, they're going to be impacting their lungs getting around the place. Like, I'm still, like, when I got to my light aside an eating disorder and I was very fucking unhealthy then, I'm about 20, 25 to 30 kilos heavier than that point now. Yeah. I'm 100% healthier than that situation. Yeah.

I still would like to lose some bit of weight, body fat, not exactly weight because it will benefit my life long term. Yeah, yeah. There was an interesting point Rob made there and you kind of just touched on it as well. It's like you can be skinny and unhealthy as well, which is 100% correct. But the claim is obesity is not healthy. Not that you can't be unhealthy at anybody way because you can't be unhealthy at anybody way, right? You can be mentally unwell, you can be physically unwell and your BMI can look like relatively decent. all right but obesity itself so excess of body fat is I was gonna say do you have a actual definition of obesity in front of you oh no have that yeah well it's it's obesity typically

bMI of 30 plus or more accurately excess adabitis adabot tissue adipose tissue yeah so here's the research on it that the main research on it says correlates with higher risks of type two diabetes cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, hypertension, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, which is what you touched on there, Jair, which is very true as well. I remember having loads of clients who I helped to like lose 10 kilos, 20 kilos and one thing that they would always say is that, or they say that their wife would say that they stopped snoring and stuff like that when they were sleeping. Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease. So the World Health Organization states that higher than

optimal BMI causes an estimated 3.7 million deaths. in 2021 alone large scale meta analysis uh confirmed elevated risk in obese ranges even in some individuals show um um metabolically healthy obesity temporary temporary so what that basically means is even people who because i remember there was a study before and i used to all re i used to always side it about four or five years ago and saying that um you know fitness over fatness which there's There's a lot to be said about that, that you can be quite overweight. But if you're fit, then you're still going to be healthier than someone who is, let's say, of a lighter weight, but unhealthy. But actually, the research now shows that even if kind of metabolically you're a healthy obesity, over time, that's in a short period of time, over time, that still can cause a lot of them risks as well.

So like I don't think there's any debate in that, you know, having excess body fat on you, like that's going to be detrimental to your health over time. Yeah. 100%. So you can't argue it's not. Yeah. I have it. I know it will benefit life not to have it. So then the second part of that statement then is pretending otherwise puts people at risk.

what are your thoughts on that? Yeah. Yeah, I'd say, I think... And here's the question the question actually on top of that, Rob, for you to answer. So pretend and otherwise puts people at risk. So why would people pretend otherwise?

If the research is, if the research is like glaring it in your face, like, you know, like, you know, dozens of meta-analysis shows this. So why, why would people pretend that it's, doesn't and how does that put people at risk? Well, we know how it puts people at risk, but why would people pretend otherwise? Well, in terms of the risk thing, I agree that it puts

the person who is potentially medically at risk, at even more risk, because they're going to be more relaxed about it, although that could be beneficial, I guess, in a way, they're going to be more relaxed about it and just accept it and just keep the habits as they are. I guess if they're more relaxed about it and they're more acceptant of themselves, that is kind of the starting point of a lot of progress, isn't it?

Acceptance and then just being like, okay, I'll work on these things to benefit myself long term. So there could be a benefit to it, but if there's the kind of, I'm going to use the word softness around it and like saying, oh, it's a good thing that you're obese.

Then other people around are going to think, oh, that person's sexy, that person's, healthy because they're obese therefore it's okay for me to be obese and then they'll increase that risk of their like yeah it's not just the person itself it's kind of like passive smoking I guess in a way um and kind of like with the the skinny movement as well just of that's coming back in isn't it or has been back in for a little while um what was the other question why so why do you think people so what i'll do what i'll do is i'll frame this around the actual well, I'll frame it around like what body positivity is and the history on it, right?

So, so body positivity started as a fat liberation in the 1960s, all right? There was a lad called Bill Frabray and he saw his wife discriminated against and then he basically created this like fat underground, 1973 manifesto, calling out diaculture, which is what you're alluding to now. This is where I'm touching on that. So like it was rooted basically in civil rights. and feminism and fighting kind of, you know, racism and misogyny tied to the body size.

And that's how they basically framed it. And then it exploded again on social media back in 2010 with hashtag body positivity and pushing self-love and rejecting like diet culture and, you know, beauty standards and all that stuff. Which like you, like I think all three of us can agree that. Like there's elements of truth in all of that, which you could 100%

get on board with. Now, go ahead. I think that's where we went wrong with it. Like, I do appreciate the body positivity movement, but it's, I think to someone's,

I call it, like, toxic body positivity. Yeah, where it's the delusional side of it that like, it's okay to be overweight. It's more, except your body,

and it's to do with your mental health, your junk. getting depressed. Sitting at home and calling yourself a fat bastard is not going to help you. It's not going to make you feel better. It's not going to make you more inclined

to go outside and do something. But it's now gone to the side of it's okay to be like that. And it is okay to be like that, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do something about it. Yeah. And that's what we've fallen down. I think it's kind of, in a lot of ways,

it's polarized itself, hasn't it? It should be that it's, not, you are not a bad person if you are overweight. That's kind of the message it's, in my opinion, that's what it should be. But it's not that it's okay to be obese, health-wise. It's acceptable to be or like, yeah, you're not a bad person to be, but you, maybe acceptable is the wrong word. Yeah, you shouldn't be, like, that shouldn't be what you're aiming for. But I also think it's kind of gone the other way in that it's skinny shaming as well, a lot of the time, which, then that's a great point right because I obviously did like a deep dive into this a

couple of years ago and made a video on it because I was pointing out the amount of influencers in the like the newer body positivity you know the TikTok Generation 1 and you know all the all the brands that were kind of like really pushing the plus size models and stuff like that which like I don't have any you know I don't have any issue against that or anything like that either. But what I was pointing out was, right, there was these kind of fat positivity influencers and a lot of them were dying from obese-related issues.

So there was this girl called Britney Sauer from TikTok. She died at 28 and she promoted body positivity. But she obviously struggled with bingey. And then she did this, because I watched this YouTube documentary on it. And, you know, by the end of the movement, she decided that she wanted to kind of, you know, improve her healthy and behaviour

and her nutrition and her diet but she ended up dying from diabetes essentially at only 28 there was another girl called Jamie Lopez she did a reality TV and she was a plus size salon owner she died at 37 due to kind of heart complications

there was another girl called Taylor Lejeune Woffler 69 on TikTok she died at 33 and she was like a high calorie food content creator and that was also a heart attack and there was another girl, Cat Posse, she died at 42. Again, same thing, heart attack. And a lot of these people who were pushed at the forefront of the body positivity movement,

a lot of them by the end of it decided that actually I don't want to be part of this movement anymore. I want to try and lose weight. And a lot of them were shamed in the movement for trying to lose weight or eat a little bit healthier and stuff like that. So it became a thing where it's like, you know, this kind of, uh, we are all bonded together by this community of, you know, you know, it's not just okay to be of a bigger body weight or in a bigger body. Like it's essentially a necessity.

It's good for you. You should be. So it went from like, it went from like, uh, like just because you're overweight or obese doesn't mean that you don't have value as a person to then you. should be overweight or you should be obese. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a positive thing. And for you to try and change your body, that's wrong.

That's morally wrong. So when you touched about, you know, demonising people for losing weight or, you know, this attack of people who are skinnier and so on and so forth, I think that's what became like a very toxic part of what Jair said, the toxic body positivity. it was that, you know, they created this kind of, you know, in-group, out-group. So this is the in-group. If you're bigger, you're in this in-group and we're going to empower you.

You're going to have all these kind of brands and, you know, we're pushing this as much as possible. And if you try to lose weight or change your body, then you're not part of this group. You're not in the in-group and now we're going to demonise you for trying to change. Isn't it mad how we live in a society where you're de-a-old? demonized for being unhealthy, you're demonized for trying to get healthy. You know, like people will say, like, if you train a couple of days a week and you're a little bit conscious of your food, they're like, oh, what are you, what are you dying for or relax a little bit? It'll be okay. If you leave yourself, go, then people will talk about it.

It goes, it goes both ways. Like, I, I said it already, like, I am a huge fan of the body positivity movement in certain aspects of it. I myself, tried a fat loss stage was it before last summer and when I was going through shit and I went to do it some of my old habits from my eating disorder days started to creep back in and I instantly went as much as it is valuable to my health to lose this bit of weight there are other things I need to do that aren't going to damage my mental and physical health by aggressively dieting. you know, like improving, like improving cardiovascular levels,

impridden strength, you know, certain eating habits, even though I'm like on the points quite a lot the last while, but like there's certain aspects that like, that trying to improve my health in a certain way is also damaging.

It goes, it goes both ways. And like it is, it is kind of mad that like, the reason they got, the reason they got demonized for wanting to change their lifestyle was because they built their entire platform

on telling people it's okay. Yeah. Not a, it's okay to be. Yeah. And they didn't, they didn't do it in a way. As Rob said,

it's okay to be carrying extra weight. You are still a good person. There is nothing wrong with you because you're carrying excess body fat, but you can still try to improve aspects of your life. Yeah. Is it a funny how if that's, isn't it funny how if you create a message online or people know you for a certain thing or a certain identity, the minute you kind of step away from that, it's like, oh, I don't know this person anymore.

And that kind of feels like a threat to people. So then they kind of go on the attack of that person. Yeah, I was just going to say that in terms of the threat aspect, well, kind of linked to it, if someone's built their platform based on that and made people feel value in themselves because they, associate with that and then you start going actually do you know the thing that we bond over I'm going to change that and I'm going to be something else it kind of rips I guess some of the confidence away from the people that were following them because it's it's taken some of that their value that fragile value away from them and they've kind of lost potentially lost a bit of their identity in the process and they're like oh shit what do I do now it's a false

confidence. It's false confidence. Like I, like, we, you can carry extra weight and be okay with your body and be very happy with what your body can do. But like the same of the day, I know myself, like, I still want to lose weight. Still want to. I'm happier in my body, but that's more, that's more up here, but I still want to change how my body looks. Well, that's, that's holding two, that's, that's holding two truths at once, which a lot of them haven't been able to do because they've been fed a certain narrative. So the two truths you have right there

is that, you know, I'm happy with who I am and I still am allowed and want to change my body. Yeah. Like you, I don't know. Sorry, go ahead, Rob. I was just going to say, there'll have been a lot of people that followed those people that actually were aware of the fact

that her progressed in that way. It's good for her. It's just they're less, I guess less vocal maybe or less reactive online so you wouldn't have heard quite as much about it. But yeah, if they had like a million followers, they're going to have a good chunk of that that are actually like, oh, good on you. We're following you because we're following your journey. And actually, yeah, you would imagine that's people who are quite happy with who they are as well. Because if you think about it, if you're happy in your own circumstances, you're not going to be

grudge someone for trying something new. It's kind of like the, you know, the local town, small kind of small man mentality it's like all right everyone in the town is the same and then this person goes off and tries to do something new and be adventurous or something like that so then they all start to bitch about him as he goes because it's like it kind of it threatens their own identity as a what what a tall poppy syndrome or you know the the nail that sticks out is the one that they hammered down and all themselves i think i think someone i was uh around maybe a couple of weeks back said something like that a lot in Ireland anyway that like we're

we can be a big country of begrudgers that if anyone tries to do better or better themselves like well fuck that guy I don't I don't want to see that person bettering themselves I wanted to stay in the misery with me it's a it's a real big thing we have here

I don't know what it's like it's probably the same in the UK I think it's the same in the UK I remember someone talking about this about like the difference between the UK and I think it was what's the name? Kissin Constanstonston.

It was like in the United States it's all like blue sky tink and it's like oh yeah, go do it, you'll be great, blah blah blah. Americans are like really big each other up to like live the American dream and try to become like a millionaire or a billionaire and then in the UK and Ireland it's more like who does this lad think he is.

But it's kind of you kind of need a little bit of boat because if you're someone who has a big ego sometimes it's nice for someone to kind of pull you back and, you know, like, let you know what you're doing what I mean, who you are. But then also it's like sometimes someone needs a little bit of encouragement, like, yeah, go go and do that thing. Yeah. I saw a video of a guy on, I think it was on with Jimmy Fallon,

and he was talking about becoming James Bond. It was quite a funny little sketch, but basically one of it, a big part of it was Americans always say why not. Yes. Whereas English people say, I can't remember what it was but it was basically saying why would you like what what's

what's the point or something maybe that was it what's the point that's how why would you were why not and why would you yeah that makes perfect sense to me yeah I think and depending on your personality you might need one or the other

like I'm always I'm always like thinking to myself in like in a optimistic way is like yeah well it will work itself out and sometimes I need like if I give if I give like a business idea it to my dad, he'll straight away, be like,

no, this could go wrong, this could go, this could go wrong. And I'm like, you know, I'm like, I don't need to hear all that, it's all going to work out. But I don't look at any of the kind of negative. I'm just like, go all in on it. Whereas, you don't know, I need that. You need a bit of pessimistic attitude in your life as well as optimism, I think.

It's good for you. Like, we're definitely, when it comes to, like, the business ideas or different things like that, we're kind of heading the clouds that like fuck a little work out like I already talk about enough negative stuff myself

but when I want to go do something having someone be the pessimist is actually great I like it's good for me now there's definitely something to unpack with my therapist on that it's the when someone says oh that won't work out

or you can't do that and be like well fucking watch me yeah yeah you know and there's also the other side of it's like if something does work out and it's going well and then you get kind of a head of your like oh I'm untouchable everything I do yeah so and stuff like that and it's like sometimes

you because when you when you're winning you think you're always going to win and when you're losing you think you're never going to you know see around the corner and it's like you're not you're not you're not so great like that you should be cautious when things are going well and you should also understand when like things aren't going so well that like you're only around the corner from something something turn I'm I'm quite I'm quite lucky I always presume something's going to go wrong So you're more cautious then, would you say? I would know, see, this is the thing is,

would you say you're more risk adverse? No, definitely still take risks and still do stuff, but I presume things will go wrong, but I think it allows me to just be like, fine, I'm going to do it anyway. At least I know what's the worst could happen. Like, you know that thing? The worst thing she could say is no.

And I'm like, no, no, the worst thing she could do is belittle you in front of a giant group of people. Yeah, I love that. There's some great videos of that. What do you think you are, Rob? Do you think you're more like blue sky thinking or more, like, tread with caution? Definitely tread with caution.

I was thinking about that, a fair bit in comparing myself with, and I noticed you carefully worded it right at the start of the podcast, where you were just like have an interest in the fitness industry because you were going to say work in the fitness industry. And obviously I don't really at the minute. and I think a big part of goodbye, Rob. He was making such a great point there as well,

doesn't he? Next sake. Too many way we progress. Are you back? Are you back, Rob? I can hear you. Can you not hear me? Yeah, no, you froze back for a second there.

But you were making a really good point. I don't know. He was making a good point about not being in the fitness industry. yeah so basically just i think a big part of that is a lot of hesitation and a lot of what ifs i focus on the what ifs a bit too much that's funny that you know that i did that actually you're very uh very in tune of very good i didn't think you i didn't think you noticed that i did that well done oh i did okay anyway let's go back to the we we've we've i don't know how we ended up on that uh tangent but we're back we need to go back to the body positivity because right i've spoken about the like

The real world consequences of like promoting obesity. Okay, obviously the three of us are an agreement that obesity isn't really good for your health. It doesn't mean that the person doesn't have value. But to promote it as a, to promote it as healthy is factually wrong and probably dangerous. Are we agreed? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Now, let me go. Let me go on to the pros of body positivity. All right. Now, you have touched on what you've think. that body positivity should be and I would agree with Bodie is on that. And then I, because I remember, obviously, when I was obviously online coaching stuff like that, a lot of the conversations you're going to have with people is going to be based around food and then then beating themselves up and

stuff like that. So I remember going through a couple of different studies on this and I wanted to pull them up because this kind of ties into body positivity. And number one was less shame helps people to lose weight or stick to better habits, which I'm sure you would both agree. So when people stop beating themselves up and start being kinder, that's self-compassion, a core part of body positivity, they tend to do better with their weight loss goals anyway. So studies on compassion programs like group therapy sessions show they cut body shame big time, boost kindness towards yourself and help people to drop pounds more sustainably. One trial found folks in these programs lost weight while feeling less, way less depressed.

66% saw real mood improvements versus almost none in the controlled group. Reviews of multiple studies say self-compassion boosts motivation for healthy eating, exercise and weight loss. People who practice handle slip-ups better. So no binge restriction cycles and stick with changes longer. Like I presume that's even without the research use obviously know that intuitively. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at before.

When you take that add a bit of acceptance and less judgment, you tend to feel a bit freer mentally to actually just live. Shaming someone or yourself into certain habits or different new lifestyle isn't sustainable. Yeah. If you're eating a certain way because you're ashamed of the way you're eating before, you're going to end up developing habits that are also not good for you. Like even if someone is ridiculously fit, eats well, goes to the gym loads,

like not that that's an essential for being fit, but like does everything that realistically can and together is good for you, people can shame those people. And even then, even though they know they're doing the stuff that's really good for them, they can feel a bit of shame themselves. And that kind of stunts their growth in different ways. and stunts their ability to kind of live life as they want to. So yeah, just the shame in general is quite debilitating sometimes, I guess.

Second study that I pulled up as well, which follows on from that point, is shame doesn't stop overeating. It triggers it. Research shows people teased or shamed about weight binge or about weight binge, eat way more even years later. It spikes guilt stress and comfort eating cycles. Multiple reviews link weight. weight stigma directly to binge episodes, emotional eating and full binge eating disorder.

That shame makes a food, that shame makes food a quick escape for feeling bad. Which, yeah, again, it's like shame and people isn't a positive way or a productive way to create behaviour change. I don't think it just feels it even more. What's that, that Austin Powers clip with, um, is it. is a big fat bastards. Yeah, yeah. And he has that clip where it's like,

I eat because I'm sad and I'm sad because I eat. And I remember the first time seeing that and I was like, there you go because like it's your, it's your emotional support when overeating is a big thing is you go to food. And nine times out of ten as someone who's been true that, you can be sitting there eating the things that you think are bringing you comfort while you're shaming yourself for eating them. Isn't it terrible when you laugh at something

and then realise, oh shit, there's so much true on that and then it makes you feel sad? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got to laugh at the darkness just a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. True. And then the other study was shame makes people skip exercise. Acceptance gets you moving.

Nobody skips the gym because they're lazy. Shame makes them hide. Big reviews of dozens of studies show everyday weight discrimination and self-shame lead to way less physical activity. People avoid workouts to dodge. judgment or feeling exposed. Even

unadultly, like when I talk to people, I remember having a one client and she wanted to start running, but she was too nervous to go for a run in case people like seeing her, do you know what I mean? So I'd say that, like if you think about it that way, it's like when you feel embarrassed or

ashamed about how you look, your lesson client to do things that people who are healthy and active do. Like we know from working with people that a lot of people don't go to the gym because they're, they're worried about what people will say about them or what they'll think about with them when they see them at whatever level they're at. Like, I didn't run, when I started running last

year again, I didn't run in front of people until I did that 10K race. I have a private estate. I go to where I run. Now, it's fantastic because I don't want to be around people when I'm doing it. But like, I don't thoroughly enjoy doing certain activity around people. Like running, I think running with you was the first, was one of the first times I ran with someone else since I started last year. I went running with my brother on Saturday.

Now I enjoyed that because he's home, he's visiting, and it was, we got to chat and stuff of that, but not too fucking keen on running in front of people. And like, I know one of the lads said it to me, he was like, well, the way you're running now with your size is fucking great. and I'm like, yeah, cool. But, like, even the run we have in six weeks and stuff like that,

being surrounded by that many people having to do a run, I'm going to have those little triggers that I'm going to have to work my way through. I know that's coming. You know, it's not something I haven't done before, but, like, you can understand how people who haven't done that work on their headspace going into situations like that would very easily be like, do you know what, it's safer for me to stay under the blanket at home. on the couch and avoid feeling

any bit of shame that way. What is it that you, when you're running, what kind of shame are you trying to avoid? Well, mine is like, it's funny because I've played sports all my life and it was never a huge issue doing that, but just straight running.

It's my head. Don't, like, it's, we perceive people are going to be thinking a certain thing about you and you have to remind just like, fuck them. Like, who cares? Like, if someone who's out there can run a 5k in, I don't know, let's say, fucking 20 minutes and they're judging you based on you

running a 5K in 40. Like, you're out there trying. They're an arsehold. So is it more of a performance shame that you're kind of... Performance, performance shame. Because like, I'm doing my running for team thick thighs. You know, finishing this half marathon in six and a half weeks is for all the bigger people who think they can't do it. Right. You know, that's my reason for doing it. And I still have to work through stuff. That's interesting that your shame is more centric around performance rather than appearance where I think most people who are of a bigger body would probably start with appearance.

But I suppose you've probably done that work on yourself, but you still, like anything that you do in terms of fitness, whether it's strength or sport, you're, you're going to. at it. So probably this is something that you're starting from the start. So it's, you're probably more conscious of that. It's, it's something I've never put this amount of time into. Do you know, like, even the fact that like,

I met, I met, I met Owen Feeney there on Monday Nice and he was like, I'm surprised you're still running. And I was like, well, I have the half marathon in May. And he was like, okay. He was like, so you're, you're training for something. And like, it is, uh, I've always tried to put

a big focus on activity stuff. being performance. Because if I constantly just make it about trying to change my body, I'll never be happy. Yeah, true, true. I'll never be happy. And I always look back on like, I remember a doctor coming into our rugby team when we're all like 17, 18.

He was doing the whole BMI testing and everything like that. And he said, I think he said like 75 to 80% of this team is, is overweight and unhealthy. And I remember one of the lads big prop, just goes, I'd like to see you on a field for 80 minutes. And it's that, like, for his sport, yeah, he was carrying a bit of weight. The guy could get around for 80 minutes, do a savage fucking shift inside it.

And you notice it with most rugby players how they do shrink a good bit after they come off the field. You have to carry weights. The only way you'll survive there. But I think that's the big thing with the body positivity movement is, and I do it with clients. is trying to focus on performance. Because if you do focus on performance, your aesthetics will change. Your shape will change.

You'll feel better about yourself if you can do something you couldn't do before. But if your only measure of success is that ticker on the scale going down, it's going to go up and down so often that you'll never be happy. Yeah, I think it's really good. Like if someone, let's say someone is,

self-conscious about exercise and going to the gym, going out for a run, going out for a walk, whatever it is, doing some sort of physical activity because they are worried that they will be judged, that they were maybe judged in the past, they maybe got like snares or nasty comments from kids when they're younger, whatever it is. Like it's very difficult then to put yourself mentally in a place where you want to go and feel uncomfortable again or feel embarrassed or set yourself up for for that judgment. Like nobody likes to do things that they're not good at.

We, like, everybody hates that. I think it's, we kind of forget about that when we go to the gym or whatever we do because we've done it for so long that you forget how uncomfortable that feeling can be for people.

I suppose if you are doing some sort of a performance-based goal where you've kind of really set yourself the task of, you know, doing something that's difficult, then you have conflict in your brain because you have, okay, I can go out for this walk now

and feel, be at risk of being embarrassed or feeling like people are looking at me, or I can not go on the walk and then, you know, 10 months go down and I'm supposed to do this race and I'm not prepared and now I look even worse at the start line because I'm not going to be able to finish it. Like you can kind of use that in your advantage as well. Like you said, in terms of performance, it's like you're using the, you're using that end goal, whether it's the half-maritin or what to kind of motivate you to go even though you're going to feel uncomfortable in that race,

but it's also going to prepare you to be like, all right, I'm going to go out today and do what I need to do because I have this thing in the future. I think that can maybe help some people when it comes to, because you're going to feel, you're going to feel uncomfortable regardless. Like you're going to feel, until you go out and do it, you're going to be like, oh, what if people judge me?

What if people see me? And then you go out and do it. And then you're like, oh, that wasn't too bad. but you have to do it. And I think that's one of the things that I think the body positive movement, I don't know if it really did benefit, hopefully it did,

but had the potential to really benefit with it is you can still, even though you are. Like you are obese, but you can still go for a walk in the park. You are obese, but, and like rather than just allowing people to sit there feeling shame for being obese and having to just accept the bullying

that they've gone through at school or at work or whatever or the negative comments from family members, even if they're unintentional. Like having that voice online to say, it's all right that you are. Like, keep moving. That then helps people then go out to the park and do a walk and then maybe go on those runs late down the line.

That's the huge point. And that's what the body positivity movement should have been about it's not even body positivity, it's body acceptance. It's like, this is who I am. This is the way I'm at. And yet I still belong and deserve to be in this gym just like anyone else. You made a good point there as well. I think labelling it body positivity gives it a polarisation.

Like that suggests there's body negativity as well, whereas actually which there is obviously, but body acceptance doesn't give really the freedom for it's good this way or it's good that way. It's just everything's acceptable. Yeah, body positivity is kind of like, right, I'm perfect the way I am and therefore I don't need to change. And actually, I shouldn't want to change. And by me trying to change, that's a bad thing. I'm doing a bad thing.

That's where the shame came in from people trying to lose weight from this kind of community of, you know, overweight activists and stuff like that. It's like, yes, you have value. Yes, regardless of what weight you're at, you have, like, you have every right to exercise and train and you shouldn't be judged and you shouldn't be shamed in a perfect world. And you're still allowed to want to lose weight. Well, isn't it? There's something about if you're in a place where you're saying I have no more growth to achieve you've failed.

It's the idea of like I'm perfect the way I am and there's nothing I can improve on is utter madness like perfection isn't perfection isn't a real thing. It's not there. We all have things we can improve on. If you're saying that you can't improve on anything

you're basically just giving up having you like yeah like giving up looking for progress. I can talk about I can talk about changing changing the levels of fat I'm carrying or increasing my or increasing my levels of performance in the gym or outrunning.

But if I decide that's the only thing that's going to help me and not working on my mental health and the way I deal with things, and failing in that aspect. There's like, we shouldn't strive to stay just the same. That shouldn't be a go.

It's okay to be where you are, but you should strive. to try to change something. Do you know what I like? I like the dynamic of like, because they talk a lot about self-love and I've often talked about self-respect when I talk about body positivity.

So it's like self-love is like you love yourself no matter what. And like realistically, who fucking loves themselves every day? Like there's days when I'm like, oh, I'm a piece of shit. I shouldn't have dragged last night. I shouldn't have texted that person on.

no like you don't always love myself we'll move on quickly but you know what i mean your behavior doesn't deserve love all the time but you deserve to respect yourself and respecting yourself might look like okay um you know i'm i may not be where i want to be in terms of my body weight but i still have to respect myself and respect my body and respecting my body might mean going out for the walk it might be drinking a glass of water because my body deserves to be hydrated. My body deserves nutrients, so deserve vegetables and fruit and, you know, protein. And self-respect also looks on the other side of that as like, I'm allowed to have like some chocolate and not beat myself up. Like if you respect yourself, you're not going to give yourself

shit for having a burger or having pizza or having chocolate. Like you're not going to, that's not someone who, that's not someone you respect. You don't treat yourself like a piece of shit. But also respecting yourself also means being honest with yourself and having hard conversations with yourself and saying that you know what i'm not in a very good place health wise and that i'm i do need to move my body or exercise or lose 20 kilos because right now i'm not feeling great and that's not respecting my body either so it's like on both sides of it like you're coming from a place of respect for yourself right self-love that's just not really realistic of anything that puts more pressure on yourself because when you don't love yourself and someone tells you that you should

love yourself then you're like well what the fuck is wrong with me then it's it's what you're said that it's why you said about the difference between body positivity and body acceptance. And I think the reason why it started moving towards more toxic body positivity and staying that way is also from parts of the fitness industry or other people who believe there, the epitome of health, knocking you down to a level that it's safer for you to just be like, I'm perfect the way I am. I always look back at the was it David Goggins on a Joe Rogan podcast where he's having a go at someone. I think it might have been some

comedian and he just starts calling him a fat bastard. And he just starts slating him on the thing and I'm just like, well this is also the reason why we have the other side of where people want to hide away from going to the likes of a gym where they're going to meet someone like you. Yeah. That's a ski. That's a, that's a skit now you do you do know that like the other as soon as as it came up i was just like gone yeah no that's a skit i can't stand i can't stand your man what's the comedian's name it's um oh i he's he's gotten really famous but yeah he did two of them were on and he was like he was

like begging uh uh your man um what's the name what's his name again uh gogins yeah he he was he was saying guggins yeah so he was saying guggins i want you to go i want you to rip me new one be as as me mean as you can basically. The only edits I've ever seen of it is just him ripping him online. And I've been like, well, I'm not watching this full episode. Hence, boy, I never watched that Manistphere thing because I saw a few clips. I'm like, I can't feel this after watching this.

You're not. You're about it. It's good with Louis Thoreau. Sure, we've kind of talked about all that anyway, but I think you would enjoy watching it. Because Louis Thoreau is hilarious. He's funny and he's goofy, you know? Yeah. He's just so blunt, isn't he?

right yeah and anyway the last one that I wanted to to the last research study on the pros of body positivity is misdiagnosis in doctors so studies show when docs focus only on weight they blame symptoms on size and misreal issues like infections heart problems are cancer now you can also say that like obesity causes a lot of them things and but they spend less time order fewer tests and give less education. Patients can feel judged or they skip appointments, avoid screenings and delay care leading to worse health outcomes. One review found higher weight folks get poor treatment overall because of the weight bias. And I remember there was one case where someone was someone who was overweight was diagnosed with,

um oh no they had they had something wrong with them i can't remember what it is so i'm just paraphrasing but um the doctor basically said oh yeah you're you're just overwage you just need to lose some weight and they obviously had something wrong with them and they nearly died and the doctor obviously lost their license and the hospital was was sued but yeah that's that's another thing is that you can kind of you you're because people do have a weight bias as well um things like that can end up happening Yeah, and like being obese may have triggered some form of cancer or whatever, but losing weight isn't going to get rid of cancer.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have any issues with cancer. So, yeah, having a bit more of an open-mindedness to exploring what might be wrong with the person rather than just going, you're clearly fat, lose some weight, you'll be all right. I'd be set up my cancer-free 12-week program. I bet she was one out there. I'll clip that for social media. All right. Starting in April.

Yeah. The last, actually, actually there is. Do you know what are the two Grace Jones lads called? I hate them. Oh, the twin lads, those. Yeah, they were, they tried to basically. No, Logan, Pauls. No, no, no, not them.

Not that famous. No. I can't think of them. The happy pair. The happy pair, yeah. Happy pair, yeah. I remember they put out a video basically suggesting that they could cure cancer by, like, because obviously their whole stick is basically it's,

I think it's a vegetarian or whatever it is, a vegan, a vegan-based diet. And they tried to basically claim that they could, they could, uh, because they, they, they put out a research study, um, that was obviously just, and a dole. And, uh, tried to basically claim that they, that you would, uh, you're getting cancer because you're not, uh, a vegan. And, I, I find a funny man. One of them was 100% stoned out of his tree doing a super value ad with, uh, with strawberries. You could seed in his feck and face. I was like, I've been around the party seed myself. I know exactly what it looks like. they're fucking yeah those lads are i i i just i don't like that when like you're you're coming from a business

angle to kind of fair monger people by saying that this causes this when it's just not true just it's a multi-factor of why cancer was called but anyway that's that's another uh tangent anyway so the last next claim last claim will go through is the body positivity movement oversimplifies disorder eating and trauma um which when i was looking at the debate i was like yeah that actually makes a lot of sense so disorderly and whether it's anorexia uh binge eating restrictive patterns often stems from trauma so abuse neglect bullying genetics perfectionism low self-esteem uh or feeling like your body betrayed you it's not always just about hating your looks or societal's tin ideals body positivity pushes acceptance and fights shame which is great for many

but when it's framed when it frames everything that's diet culture caused this or just or just accept yourself or just love yourself, it reduces a deep pain to simple mindset shifts. That might make people feel invalidated or even discouraged from therapy, meds, or structured recovery thoughts. So basically body positivity is taking people's willingness to take action away.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I thought you though. Yeah, well, it simplifies it, doesn't it? If everything's just caused by diaculture, and if everything's just caused by the beauty standards, then you just need to fight against the beauty standards. It doesn't matter if, you know, you have trauma from abuse. Like, you know, it's just eye culture, you know.

Yeah, it's providing yourself another enemy, isn't it? Which then once, when you're focusing on trying to fight that enemy, it takes energy away from other areas of your life that could actually be beneficial. Yeah, I can see that. especially if you do still have those deeper traumas kind of acting on you. Like if you've worked on them and you are kind of as far past them as you can be for now, like, yeah, maybe focusing on the other movements being a bit of an issue could be beneficial. Like if you end up then acting in a way that kind of counteracts them.

But yeah, overall it sounds like that would be relatively harmful, or just trying to pass the buck onto something else. Yeah, I think, there's a study that I used to always cite, which was like about fat as armour, and it's like girls who were sexually abused when they were younger, have like a 50% more likelihood of becoming obese when they're older. And essentially what they're trying to do is they're trying to discourage predators by like basically, you know, by gaining so much weight

that they're not desirable to their predators essentially like that. And you know, you're not going to solve that by, by just being like, oh, yeah, body positivity, you know, weight shame is terrible and, you know, you should just accept yourself as you are. Like, that's, you know, that's not going to help you become a happier, more content, more a peace person. And yet you're still going to, you're going to be physically unhealthy and, you know, mentally you're not really

accepting yourself like that isn't going to be the way forward. Yeah, and my view of it is, sorry, I know I'm not a psychologist, like trained or anything, and I don't know exactly that situation, but to me, from what you said, in terms of, let's say, they were abused

when they were younger, and then they gained loads of weight, yes, part of it could be a conscious, I'm going to make myself well, it's subconscious, to try and resist someone. But in my mind, someone's taken control away from their life.

What's one of the things that that person can have control of? Yeah, that's true. It's potentially food. So if you then target someone else saying, oh, you're eating problems as someone else's fault, you've lost control of absolutely everything, potentially in your life. Or at least you've been told that you have.

So you weren't even in control of your eating habits. So like you might spiral even more. That's kind of where my man was. Yeah, that's a great point. I 100% agree with that. What do you think, Chair? It's hard, like, coming from having an eating disorder, like, I always look at it that,

I used to have moments where I thought was, like, the triggers for what caused it. And it was quite interesting for me to start looking back at, like, how, how, my childhood impacted leading up to those certain situations that I thought were triggers. The way people talked about food, the way people talked about body shapes around me from a, from a young age, wasn't directed at me, but you'd hear people talk about other people to like getting to a point where you were 16, 17, 18, playing high level of sports

and a focus. I was tracking calories at 17, 18. school with taking a notebook and someone coming in and great coach but they i was literally being berated about how i was eating wasn't being taught anything about how i should eat there was no thought to let's do some extra training sessions that could help with my fitness or anything like that you were belittle for your food choices and there was no understanding in it it made you it made me hate hate playing rugby

and doing all that stuff to the point I went down the other end and that's when I said of gaining all the weight your self-worth is in the fucking toilet like and it is a very hard thing to climb back out of because when you have those days

where you're trying to better yourself and this is where the whole like managing expectations comes in as a coach that there's a reason why eight to 12 weeks shreds work because people believe it's going to take eight to 12 weeks to completely undo 10 years of a lifestyle you've had. That's why they sell. And every time you have one that'll slip up that you overindulge here or you don't do that training sets you do, you feel guilty and the easiest thing for you to do is slip back into an old habit.

and it's hard. I quite enjoy talking about my years of like I spent six months thinking I was ill. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I avoided going to a doctor checking. It was the only time people commented on my body in a positive way. I looked great in a suit.

I was getting sick after nearly every meal. I was binge eating. I was 1200 calorie days. I felt horrible, not just physically, mentally. And it's, it's why I like helping people focus on performance and stuff and that like your weight and stuff

is another additional thing that it's not a huge focus straight away. It's not something we should put all our eggs into the one basket for because it's a tough life not feeling like you have any control over any of that. Do you think here's a question for you, do you think when you were in that situation, would something like the body positivity movement of helped you in what it manifested into

of like you shouldn't want to change how you look, you shouldn't want to lose way? No. No. Not at all. If I had, if I had a, if you had a body positivity of movement that was more about acceptance and like some of the coaches we like know now

how working on your habits and lifestyle to feel happier in what you're doing, that would have led to me being able to lose weight in a way that wasn't going to destroy my physical and mental health. Yeah. Like, I was eating the equivalent of what a 40 kilo child should eat. Yeah. All right, well, let me finish off then with two different questions, okay?

So question number one, Bodius, I want Bodius to answer this. So can we accept people at every? size while still saying that excess weight leads to long-term health issues. Can we say it again? Can we accept people at every size while still saying that excess weight often leads to long-term health issues? Should we? Should we? Yes, I think so.

Can we? I ask. But can we, societally? Probably not, unfortunately. as an overall society no because we all have judgment on people we don't know but you can you can look a certain way and be a cunt like you know what i want i wanted to also touch on but we don't have time which it would be which it only makes sense to touch on this topic is how g lp1 medications have changed the the the frame and around that movement culturally because a lot of people who were part of the kind of body positivity movement in what it manifested into our now on GLP once.

Like Megan Trainor. Oprah is on it as well. She speaks very positively about it. There's so many different examples. Now I know Hollywood just swings with the times anyway though. Whatever is the virtuous message they're going to jump on anyway.

But I mean, I think it definitely does. Like I'm using. my position on JLP1 Z's now that I'm definitely an advocate of it for the right person obviously but I think it has definitely shown the fragility of some of the people who kind of have jumped on board the plus size models messaging and then you know the minute they have a medication that helps them to be skinny and then you have your skinny talk online and stuff like that yeah like it just shows that regardless of what even though even though we would like to live in a society where everyone is accepted no matter how big or small they are um like from a beauty standard people

don't want to be obese yeah we live we live in a world of judgment yeah yeah it kind of goes back to, in terms of the JLP1 stuff, it goes back to your question at the start as like why people, I can't remember the exact question, but why people are saying that it's acceptable to be obese, I think basically, like why is that the case? Yeah. Partly because they want to not have to work on themselves, I guess, they want to be able to accept, which is good in some ways they can accept themselves, but it's people that are quite extreme with it. For example, potentially these people that are doing those medication now and maybe like they can't see a way

of being able to improve themselves health-wise so they kind of go, do you know what, I'm just going to accept where I am health-wise and I'm not going to have to work on it. I've got all of this going on. And then as soon as you find this thing that could be kind of like a cheat code almost in a way, but not in necessarily a bad way,

it is a good cheat code for the right people, like you say. It's a, for someone who's like, if I go back to them, all them influencers, who died from obesity I mean like I don't want to sit there and be like ha ha told you so that obesity's

unhealthy and here's the proof of these case examples it's like you would much rather to be able to give someone medication who has struggled with obesity obesity their whole life and actually saved that person like who who wouldn't want that it's insane and then you have the other side of it

of like yeah okay you have all of Hollywood who, you know, would, you know, follow the wind no matter what, whatever is popular. And they were saying, you know, plus size models, but now they're all on OZMPIC. Again, if people are on OZembroke for vanity reasons and not from a health perspective with the way it should be done, like even then, I'm not going to judge them people either because, you know, people want to, people want to change how they look. And I'm not going to judge someone for wanting to change or not wanting to change. But just from an evidence perspective, it's like, yeah, okay.

obviously not so great for your health. I could go on those Zempic and take rides, but I know I'm not going to be happy with it. Yeah. It would make certain things easier, but like there's lots of aspects where it would make my life

more complicated. Yeah, but that and that's a personal decision based on like you weighing up the cons and pros. And again, if you did, I'm not going to sit there and say oh well, Jair's on this and this like that's a bad thing or a good thing. It's like. Not camera. Yeah.

I was going to say not in the podcast, maybe, maybe after a couple of pints. The only thing I'll judge Geron is, is, is, is running, running performance. No, no, I would never judge on his running performance. Only is women performance. The last, last, and I didn't, I didn't mean that in the way that. I was going to make a comment about that, but I just thought. Sorry, I'll set up a tripod next time. I'll give you a show.

You shouldn't be talking to his ex. All right, we'll leave it there, folks. It was great to have his back.