Bonus Episode: Mailbag!

My partners aunt, at a holiday dinner, was going ON and ON about how she was going to put on so much weight and what a problem thar was (& commenting on my weight - a thin person due to chronic health issues). I generally dont comment on someone's weight for obvious reasons, but since she wouldn't stop i finally said "oh, I dont think weight gain is a moral failure," to which she said "i don't know about that! I don't know about that..." and just... yikes on all the bikes

FK

Sonia in Chekov's Uncle Vanya: I know I am ugly, because people always tell me what pretty eyes and hair I have.

Julia

as a fat person i’m not talking medicine here but I very much take a fat amy approach where I bring it up before anyone else can, so I can definitely see that.

coffinrehearsal

I work as a guest speaker in schools (on sexual violence prevention) and I’m usually in health classrooms. There’s an endless barrage of outdated food pyramid and portion size bs, but by far the most triggering to me was a health teacher promoting an app to high school students that you scan barcodes and it gives you a score on how healthy or unhealthy the food is. It has the usual suspects like sugar and micro nutrients, but it also takes preservatives into account? And gives a bad score for them? Gross.

Cricket

Great episode! Quick thing, in case nobody's mentioned it before: scalar is a real word in math and physics, which might be why Tesla came up when you googled it. That said, a scalar is literally just a number. Like it's a fancy word for number. "scalar healing" is nothing.

Had to pause the audio to write this the minute you guys talked about Ozempic. I’m one of those diabetics who was initially prescribed Ozempic but will have to settle for another drug because it has become a boutique weight loss alternative for people who don't really need it. I've been so angry that I've actually cried a few times. I so appreciate you guys bringing these issues to light! (And being so hilarious while doing so 😜) Love you guys!

Cristina Rivera

Yeah, the reason why most fat folx dislike it when a former fat person becomes somewhat slimmer is that their attitude changes and they start to buy into the very same anti-fat rhetoric that we are constantly fighting against.

Would to hear an deep dive on ozempic, which I know has been covered a lot since its taken over tiktok. I'm not sure about what the right angle would be but something about this craze is making me think of Phen Phen craze in the 90s, though obviously very different types of drugs. I am concerned about the impact of this increased use of diabetic medicine for weight loss because I'm reading some truly wild stories about people using the drug in the ozempic subreddit.

I don't know much about it but from what I have heard it sounds similar to 12-step addiction programs like AA. That in of itself is a big red flag, for one thing, the efficacy of 12-step programs to treat or manage addiction is disputed. The other thing is, I don't think anyone should approach food as the equivalent of having an addiction to alcohol or narcotics.

Meh

Would love an episode on bright line eatting- seems very culty and my friend has sadly got sucked in

watsonemma89

How ridiculous! USA, despite being wealthiest country in the world, still hasn't gotten around to removing lead pipes. It makes sense for governments to surveil and upgrade physical infrastructure. It makes no sense to closely monitor individual children solely due to their weight.

Meh

Hi Katie! I logged on to Patreon because I was listening to the news brief (on NPR no less) the other day and I heard that the American Psychiatric Association (I think?) just recommended something like close monitoring of children "at risk of obesity." WTF!? Is this really happening? Thank you for sharing your story and thank you for finding a new pediatrician. That is nuts.

Jennie Vex

Ewww oh no!

I'm making the same face I made when I learned some guys think skidmarks are an unavoidable fact of life.

Just listened and wanted to share my story with kids BMI. When I took my then 3yo in for his regular check up, our pediatrician said she was concerned his BMI was 1 point over the normal range. I pointed out he was about to hit a growth spurt and kids often grow out before they grow up. She said it was still concerning and recommended a low carb diet. This woman recommended putting a 3 year old on a low carb diet?!?!?! Needless to say, we found a new pediatrician. But this was only 2 years ago; she should have definitely known better.

i never considered that.. thank you for sharing!

Thank you for saying it! It's been rubbing me the wrong way on this podcast, too. AAVE deserves better than co-opting, and joke-ifying.

Hannah Burtness

I feel like "sparkling personality" is what they use to describe people after they have been murdered.

hey guys - but especially michael - the new thing of saying something w the sentence structure “women be shopping,” for example, really rubs me the wrong way because this way of speaking is AAVE, not just a way of dumbing down language in order to prove a point about someone’s bad/trite opinion, if that makes sense. i’ve been seeing this happen a lot recently amongst white people and i just wanted to bring that to your attention! - a woc