almond moms and the cult of generational diet culture
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- Опубликовано: 6 дек 2023
- In today's video essay let’s deep dive into gendered food, diet culture, weaponised incompetence, and the chef vs housewife dichotomy. Get your first box with Book of the Month for $5 using promo code SWEATER: www.bookofthemonth.com/?...
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Additional research and scriptwriting by Nicky Watkinson (nickyjwatkinson.co.uk)
Editing by Sparkles ✨
Citations in the footnotes here: docs.google.com/document/d/1b...
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The discrepancy between "cooking at home is a woman's job" and "most celebrity chefs are male" has always stuck out to me as one of those particular things only patriarchy and capitalism can produce. Great video, thank you for your always stellar work.
Very much this. I stem from an extremely conservative religious family, and almost all of my uncles would not even consider cooking, or even making a cup of coffee. One, however, was a chef, so while "normally" the men did not touch food in any capacity, during larger celebrations he would prepare the food and the women were literally not allowed to assist with most of the cooking. The hypocrisy was so stark even as a toddler I thought that was weird.
You see that with brewing through history and clothing production. Any time women were becoming wealthy in a "women's work" type of field, you see a quick take over by men. Insult to injury, they often rename the field to elevate the men's version of the trade. 🫠
Yeah I remember one of my old bosses telling me that I'd have to wear white for my wedding because wedding clothes "always match the kitchen people belong in"... His of course were black and white to match his stainless and polished black commercial kitchen... I was SO angry, because he just freaking stood there all day while *I ran his damned kitchen* !! He only actually cooked when he was trying to impress a VIP!! He later (much, much later) apologised, but really the only consolation was that the apology came unprompted. It still bugs me decades later.
Women cook like chefs do for one day a year
& it’s a national holiday
I have a core memory of drinking a Dr. Pepper 10 out of spite because a kid told me it was only for boys. He started crying. I think we were like seven. 💀
Nice 😂
Right on! Sadly, I (F) was once washed with soap FOR MEN (also around 7yo), and I cried bcoz I thought I was either gonna turn into a boy or get sick - there had to be some important reason why the soap had "for men" written on it, right? Which was, incidentally, not that far off my extent of english at the time xD (Also incidentally, crying about it was the only thing I ever got a beating for as a kid. Life is weird XD)
So glad to hear that you were in a place to stick it to... well, to "the man" XD
One time in, like, 1st grade, I told a boy his sweater was pretty and he cried cause I used the word “pretty”.
Grown men still get upset when you call them 'cute'. They may grow but not always grow out of it.
@@InsoIence It’s so bizarre.
When i had anorexia in high school, the school called my parents during the day and then when i got home they had a sit down talk with me about it. I remember my mom saying "How did this happen?! I've always told you youre beautiful!" And i just looked at her sideways cause like... Mom do you not remember the dieting books you got for me from the library? And all the summers you asked me to be your work out partner? And all the diet talk and weight watchers points and talks about making healthy choices because chocolate milk has 50 extra calories than skim milk? All the times you told me to sit up straight so my stomach wouldnt stick out? How is this so out of the blue?
I ended up saying nothing
I’m so sorry, I have no idea how mothers like this (mine included) think eating disorders happen.
I can relate to this on such a huge level! My mom used to weigh and measure me regularly and always said "okay now stop gaining weight and only grow taller!", she was ALWAYS on diet after diet and she locked all cabinets and cupboards, so we couldn't reach for food without her knowledge - only for me it resulted in the opposite! And now she claims that I only developed problems with eating once I reached adulthood and all those things never happened, because she always told me I was beautiful...
same, except my mom ended up apologizing for everything years later so there is still hope she may learn
I'm so sorry, I had a very similar experience when my mom found out about my anorexia. She couldn't understand how constant dieting affected me bc she dieted for health reasons instead of weight loss :(
Should've exposed her😢
I cant remember the exact timestamp, but when she was talking about male chefs being abusive, it made me think about how neatly it falls into the "male auteur" archetype. You see it with male directors a lot. They argue and abuse and bully, but its okay, because "they made something only they could make and its important"
I saw this A LOT as a drama major in college and also when I became a professional. Guys were given much more permission to not only behave badly, but also to be heavier. (The latter because there are many, many more "character" roles for men than there are for women, and women, for the most part, aren't allowed to be fat. Especially on screen. Stage is slightly more forgiving.) Most of the directors I worked with were (cis white) men, and they would often throw tantrums and act like spoiled toddlers because they were "artistes". But if a woman behaved that way she was fired.
Another female-dominated professional food field is cafeteria workers. The lunch lady cliché is ubiquitous. And their job is always seen as unserious or a joke. They are meant to plan, prepare, and then serve hundreds of nutritious and tasty meals in 45 minutes (sometimes less). All with an absolutely astonishingly small budget. I'm happy to see that some TikTok accounts are showing the behind-the-scenes of cafeteria work and that attitudes are changing (at least in those social media bubbles).
Women are also more present in fast food jobs, especially women of color, and they too are extremely undervalued.
Most janitors are men. What is your point. In fact most are immigrants. You are just another cis woman sitting at the top trying to lpretend you are opressed
What a great thing to point out! I'd never considered this. I have noticed that attitudes towards "lunch ladies" seem to be better here today in the UK than what I remember from my 90s USA childhood. My children talk of how kind and helpful the staff are and how they get to know the children individually. I hope that means children are growing up with healthier ideas about the role of school cafeteria staff. The ideas I was raised around were definitely the old jokes that made "lunch ladies" out to be grumpy old losers with ugly saggy arms who only had those jobs because they couldn't get anything "better".
I work as a cook part time at a nursing home while in college, and some people judge me since I’m not “fit for the job” since I’m young but I adore the job so much. I feel very helpful and it is a lot of work, and the people who know that are the ones who make my job so worth it!
You had me up to the "nutritious and tasty" part.
Overprivileged middleclass women trying to act like your not the most overprivileged people in society lol yous have absolutely zero shame ya big narcissists 💀
I’m a former professional chef and also a femme woman.
Even during my training, I did a stage (a day or so long unpaid internship) and the guy I was working for literally said to MY FACE that I will *never* reach his level because I’m a woman. He shrugged and was like “yeah, that’s just how it is. Women don’t do well in commercial kitchens”. It was the first time I’d faced such blatant sexism and I froze, not knowing how to respond, especially because he was going to give a report to my school. If I talked back, I could have been penalized so I just took it. Also, in this kitchen, I was one of three women: me; the middle-aged non-English speaking dishwasher; and the pastry chef, a conventionally attractive blond white woman whom the head chef flirted heavily with and all the male cooks treated like some kind of revered Goddess. I am, by contrast, not conventionally attractive and the difference in treatment was staggering.
Later, I tried to get a job and the male head chef greeted me for the interview by saying “you have the same name as my bitch ex-wife so I’m going to call you something else.” I was taken back and it went downhill from there. He made so many comments about women that I got so flustered that I couldn’t answer simple questions which lead to even more comments. I wanted to get up and leave but I was frozen. I hate how many times I let asshole, misogynistic male chefs treat me like garbage.
Thank you for including the section on sexism in the culinary industry, it’s such a huge problem that doesn’t often get addressed. ❤
I think I see why that guy's wife left him, lmao. Good for her.
Hey don’t be down on yourself to “letting” those dudes treat you like garbage. It is dangerous to be the weak person talking back to the ppl in power. And it’s usually just not worth it…. the powerful won’t change their minds and you might have been seriously messed with. :/
@@indigoigloo
A discrimination lawsuit might be in the cards, but theres no guranty it would get you anywhere
I swear they always find new ways to be misogynistic. Cooking and kitchens are usually seen as women’s territory by misogynists but when they’re the ones that like cooking, suddenly it’s a man’s world. They can revenge make up their minds on how to be misogynists
@@moartems5076 people searching for jobs rarely have the resources to sue for discrimination. Lawsuits are ruinously expensive in terms of money and time, and also the potential win is far in the future.
The phrase “man yoghurt” DEFINITELY made me feel doubly uncomfortable 😂
I'm sure I've heard that phrase in other contexts.
@@cherylrosbak4092 lol haven't we all?
This ain't your Mama's yoghurt!
@@rancidkippa4589 How did you make it worse?! WHY??!!!🤣
Marketing for men often feels downright homoerotic...
Developing anorexia to suppress my hormones and not get periods was exactly what I did! It rarely gets talked about in the discussion of eating disorders most of the time, but there are so many people who it applies to. Eating disorder treatment is so cis-woman centered that it was depressingly counterproductive for me. As I write this, my brain is bombarding me with comments made in good faith by healthcare professionals that only reaffirmed how horrible I felt about my “womanly” figure
Literally same. I felt so horribly dysphoric about my breasts that I just stopped eating
Im 300+ pounds and still havent gotten rid of my period, so i might as well loose weight so at least my joints hurt less if i cant get away from the periods, i dont think i want to get down to average but 230 lbs would be ok. My mom had gotten down to the average weight at one point and had gotten faint, i feel like even weight should be dependant on the person, some people can handle more/less weight than another.
I never developed anorexia myself, but I still had the same thought pattern. I remember in middle school there was a recovering anorexic woman talking about how she developed and how she recovered. There was one part where she talked about how her period stopped and my dysphoric self was "Damn, maybe I should try it...". Definitly not a good thought process but I was so desperate to get rid of my periods, breasts and feminine figure. Thankfully, I never developed it.
I still have a unhealthy relationship with food and definitly have disordered eating but I try to get it better and more healthy.
Huh. This is making me wonder whether I should try it. I've barely started watching the video, but I have faith that Rowan will talk me out of that thought process lol.
@@Imbatmn57Scientists theorise the existence of a Set Point Weight - essentially the body gets used to a weight and considers that standard. SPW isn't a hard number though, and seems to have an upper and lower limit. This hasn't been solidly proven, but some studies have supported this theory. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990627/
I've been thinking about this "men can work longer hours" sentiment because I think that it's true in a sense that men can work longer hours because they either don't have a family to take care of or if they do, their wives are there to take care of the children while the husband is doing long hours.
It's not that women can't physically handle it, they just have other things to take care of instead of working 10-14 hours and coming to home just to sleep and eat.
I completely agree. I also think another conversation that’s worth having is WHY we should expect people to work 10-14 hours, man or woman
@@seansweeney3365one: a lot of jobs pay women a lower per hour wage than an equivalent male coworker earns. No different work, no different work hours, just lower wages
Two: a lot of "women's jobs" have terrible work-life-balance. Like a nurse or stewardess doesn't have a better work-life-balance than a chef does
Three: I'm not sure if work-life-balance is the right term when referring to "how many hours can I work while having time to raise kids and do household chores"
there is also the fact (pointed out in this video) that even in partnerships where both partners work full time, women do most of the domestic labor. those 2-4 extra hours of paid work? that's less time than most women spend doing unpaid domestic work in their homes: cleaning, preparing food, doing laundry, even coordinating repairs or calling customer service for things. tasks that need to be done and take up a lot of time that male partners usually spend watching tv.
Also makes me Wonder how people think nurses fit into this. My sister worked as a nurse for several years. 12 hours shifts, night shifts, 10 days straight before she got a day off. And almost all her colleagues are women. Are These magically shorter hours? 😅
Yogurt being considered feminine is so amusing to me. My dad is a super masculine dude. Like, works as a fireman and mechanic, hunts, fishes, loves the outdoors, etc. And he loves yogurt and packs it in his lunch all the time.
So I associate it solely with my dad (and by extension him getting miffed that I ate his last raspberry fruit-on-the-botton. Sorry dad.)
Terry loves yoghurt
Yogurt males are superior
Most of the joghurt we ever got was also for my dad alone.
I was just thinking about that,@@clempaz! The fact that some of the humor comes from the fact that Terry is a "big, strong, man" a sargeant, but loves yoghurt is what makes this video so great. I love Terry as a character, but we can't deny the fact that the comedy comes from subverting the stigma
I was very recently diagnosed with a gluten intolerance so I was looking for some recipes on RUclips and tiktok to not be so depressed about the diet change and suddenly all my recommended videos are ‘quick meals to loose weight’ ‘magic tea to loose 20 pounds’ and diet culture bs like that. I just want to eat and don’t mess up my stomach I don’t want to be sucked into a toxic diet vortex
I had this problem too, but not for gluten intolerance. I had to make some radical changes to my diet because of an autoimmune disease that affects my digestive system…Everything assumed my goal was to lose weight and that is definitely not the case. My goal is to eat healthy foods that won’t make me sick.
SOOOOO glad I’m not the only one experiencing this! Ever since I first started searching for more recipes without gluten (simply because I got diagnosed with celiac disease, and gluten is quite literally destroying my guts), I have been getting an ungodly amount of diet culture-related recommendations!
The loopy whisk makes great gluten free dessert recipes if you’re looking for gluten free treats
@@pamp5180 Definitely looking for gluten free desserts. I have got such a sweet tooth and I’m extremely deprived right now :(
I hear you. Sometimes I watch the ads and think, “Why can’t people be happy eating? Why not have joy in the taste of the food?”
I have been looking into gluten free lately because something is upsetting my stomach. I don’t know yet what’s changed, but I feel like when one gets older maybe the stomach and digestion changes a little. I already stay away from deep fried stuff. It isn’t such a loss imo.
I grew up in a dying town. My dad was the pastor at the church there. My best friend shared a name with me. She was always tall, blond, and skinny. I distinctly remember my mom(who was friends with my friend’s mom) explaining to me that my friend’s mom wouldn’t let my friend eat more than one slice of pizza (while I could easily eat half a pizza). My mom explained that it was a diet, and I remember my mom seemed very disapproving of her friend because it was very restrictive. She told me this bc she didn’t want me to compare myself to my friend. I never did because 1) my mom isn’t skinny, neither is my grandma on my mom’s side and my aunt, I grew up with chunky women as my real life roll models, and 2) my parents would always tell me and my sister how pretty we are and they never told us to eat less
I love that you wrote roll models instead of role models. Not sure if the pun is intentional or an error, but I like it very much.
Imagine EATING being socially unacceptable...
It still is for so many people. Just watch the faces of people on adjacent tables, while they watch a fat person eat their lunch. Unless you're attractive enough to "deserve" lunch, SO many people find eating unacceptable. Decades later I still have very vivid memories of a woman dry heaving while watching me eat a bowl of pasta on the train. Like the whole 45 min trip (I'm a VERY slow eater at the best of times) she maintained eye contact, shook her head with a disgusted look on her face, and kept retching. I've also been told that 'instead of going into the food court, I should go step in front of that tram". Fun times. If people only understood how effing difficult and rare it is for me to even FEEL hungry in the first place...😒
when youre fat you dont have to imagine lmao
i was at some point. In my country we don't really have a skinny culture, beauty at all sizes is the common point of view
@@everfluctuating
Who has to imagine????
@@loganmacgyver2625 where is ur country?? i've heard of some places in asia like this, where larger ppl, esp women, are seen as attractive over slimmer people
I feel glad that male branded yogurt just kinda came and went without me noticing. Aggressively masculinized products are so embarrassing to me. Soap, deodorant, frozen dinners… we’re all humans who need most of this basic stuff. Why bring gender into it at all?!
Late stage capitalism? Can't have men and women using the same soap or shampoo etc., so create gendered versions and increase the price, more sales and profit.
You mean aggressively gendered in general
there is a thing where I live called "gentlemen's chocolate" which is literally dark chocolate...some versions have chips of caramel in them, that's about it. Never made any sense to me. I guess they are referring to nobility/ the upper class?
there's this RUclips video, which is like 10 years old at this point, it's called "shower products for men" and it satirizes this exact thing... like instead of luffas they say real men use steel wool ;)
I am shitting myself everytime I watch it
@@lostkittenxx It doesn‘t happen to be „Schwarze Herren Schokolade“ in germany?
(If yes I too have no idea, just seems rediculous.)
I'm a fat, fairly fem presenting person with PCOS, which means people get real fucking weird about my body and diet real fast. Regardless of age or gender, and even their own body type, people tend to make uncomfortable comments about how my reduced carb, sugar free diet "won't actually make me thin enough" or that I need to "double down and do more exercise to lose that fat".
One time, I had a complete stranger delivering my groceries comment that my diabetic friendly, sugar free drinks and snacks won't make me thin so I shouldn't bother. I also very recently had a fat medical professional, actually larger than me, make the same old comments about how I needed to just lose weight, even though they should understand that the very diagnosis of my hormonal disorder makes it extra impossible on top of the regular impossible for people without it. Friends, relatives, my own therapist. There is nowhere to hide from body policing as a fat person. You are always acutely aware that even the people who love you, even those you pay, are watching you. Judging you. Always. It does things to you.
I have a complicated relqtionship with diet foods. Their existence is due to diet culture, people wanting out of bodies like mine, at any cost. The fact that people with diabetes and other insulin and hormone disorders such as mine also get to eat snack foods is incidental. Collateral. I buy myself sugar free foods because like everyone else, I deserve a snack sometimes. People look at that, they look at me, and see their own hatred of bodies like mine reflected.
Please, stop commenting on people's bodies. If you look at a fat person and choose to say, "Wow, did you lose weight lately?" as a compliment, you're just confirming what they already know: that you're watching and judging us. It's not a compliment.
I really feel you on the complicated relationship with diet foods thing, speaking as a fat person with diabetes :(
As long as you're exercising everyday then keep working on your complex relationship with food not easy but you need cardio to keep your heart strong It is not supposed to be about being thin. Staying active is the best thing you can do.
@StarzMiercolesGomez I think you might have misunderstood my comment. I say nowhere whether or not I exercise or exercise enough. In fact, staying active and doing cardio is an important part of treatment for PCOS!
The only part where I discuss exercise is where I mentioned people telling me to do more. They do not ask me whether I exercise before telling me that. It's based on nothing. And the only weird relationship with food I mentioned having is with sugar free snack foods, because they are often made specifically for people looking to lose weight or anxious about maintaining it, instead of people with diabetes or other hormone disorders who don't actually want to "get healthy" by way of changing their body shape. That feels weird. Honestly, my personal relationship with other foods is pretty normal.
I agree with your assessment, and I completely agree that doing regular exercise is important and wonderful, I just feel like you missed the point of what I was trying to say here. By assuming I need to be reminded to do cardio to keep the blood moving, you are kind of proving my point. Plenty of fat people exercise, even exercise a lot and our bodies... stay fat. Look at fat olympic weightlifters, for example.
I am also fat and diabetic. I've had people give me unsolicted advice on how to get rid of my diabetes by dieting and losing weight despite me being type 1 and gaining a lot of my weight after starting insulin. Anyways a few years ago I was living in a small town and started going on really long nature walks in the mornings. I guess I lost weight and a pharmacist congratulated me on it. It made me disscociate actually because I don't like thinking of my body in that analytic way due to dysphoria but I especially don't like other people looking at my body in that way. First off im not really into occupying my body because im a trans man in a body that is only seen as female. Also people put all these expectations on "women" and their bodies. I don't want that.
@@StarzMiercolesGomezyou did the exact thing they talked about. You don't know this person or their lifestyle. Stop it
in her teens and 20s, my mom heavily struggled with anorexia, bulimia, and alcoholism and it landed her in the hospital. she’s never commented on or shamed me for my body or what i eat at all, but she still has some lingering negative self-talk that is kind of hard to ignore especially since we have very similar bodies. once i pointed it out to her though she’s definitely made an effort to further reframe the way she thinks about food and her body and she seems even happier now! she raised me with so much love and it’s nice to see her directing some of that love towards herself as well!
(edit: just to clarify i’m not demonizing my mom whatsoever, she’s the person i love most in this world and it’s not her fault she developed an ED, i needed help fixing my pattern of self-deprecating talk and i’m much happier to be in a healthier place, and i want the same for my mom as well.)
“My mother hates her body, we share the same outline. She swears that she loves mine”
@@vitriolproxyWdym
@@vitriolproxy this is so paranoia laden. even if mom said she loves you as you are, you still fish to see and suspect thay they dislike your physique.
This is really sweet. My mom has a similar negative self talk thing but she and I don't have similar body types. So much respect and love for mothers who try their hardest not to pass their insecurities on to their kids.
If a transgender person has a sex change, it doesn’t mean that they hate everyone who is the same gender they were assigned at birth, it’s a completely personal experience
I just wanted to say thank you for discussing the high rates of eating disorders in trans people. You're the first person I've seen really talk about this even though I've seen it happen in myself and my trans friends. I think many of us turned to restrictive eating around puberty because in the face of unwanted, uncontrollable, and often terrifying changes to our bodies, food was one thing we could control.
"thank you for stroking my victim complex"💀
One thing I notice when it comes to professional settings is that it is always stereotypically women who are expected to be wait staff while the men are the chefs but if you call the wait staff member a "maitre'd" then it feels more masculine. A waitress is seen as a young 18 year old woman who is possibly not seen as smart enough to get a "proper job" or something like that. It perpetuates the idea of women being subserviant. It's just another little observation to add to this debate.
Yup. I've worked in food service all my life, and most of the jobs I had were front of house even though I ALWAYS interviewed for back of house. It got to the point that I'd be really frank and say "I'm great in a kitchen, but I have no people skills, so don't make me a server." But then they'd hire me as a server, and be surprised when I kept being bad at dealing with the customers.
One time I did ask a manager why they'd made me foh when I'd interviewed for boh. He told me point-point blank (and in these exact words) "We don't hire women in the kitchen. They can't handle it." Which explained why literally all of the cooks were men. (And this was only about 5 years ago, so it's not a "back then" problem that doesn't happen anymore.)
It sucks being a pre op trans man especially because of how my body looks. I have thought about losing weight just to lower how many times im misgendered. Even if im wearing more "butch" clothing amd have a shaved head i'm still called "ma'am". Went camping recently and the number of people commenting about how women shouldn't camp alone nearly drove me mad. People put all of these gendered expectations on women that restricts their access to life and even what their own bodies are allowed to look like.
Shaving your head doesn't make you a man it just makes you a bald women lol... ya lil slaphead💀
I'm nonbinary but lean more masculine than feminine, and like yeah, it's really annoying how to be considered "a man" you have to be skinny. And when trying to find androgynous looks, it's always just skinny folks. Like, it's just so infuriating.
I’m a pre-op/pre-t trans guy and I completely feel you
I imagine *one* of the many factors in trans people having a high prevalence of eating disorders is the fact that many of us are denied life-saving health care due to our weight.
very VERY good point!
I agree and I think trans people especially trans women have a higher pressure to fit into the beauty standard in order to have an "easier" time passing. It is easier if you fit into the idea of what a woman is if you conform and the beauty standard is unnaturally skinny if you're a woman and it's also slim but muscular for men
@@c.8292I can see that for sure, and I actually think it goes both ways, idk about equally or anything but as a trans man I feel dysphoric pressure internally to be thin bc I’ll be less curvy/booby that way and I think its the same for a lot of us plus the sprinkles that the mental image a lot of people have of nb ppl or trans men is skinny white people bc of social media
@@BandieDiamanda absolutely agree, as a trans man i've had a lot of dysphoria around my body and my eating disorders were to try and mitigate that. i also had a lot of anxiety about leaving my house to go get food so i would just opt to starve instead of the possibility of being in public and being misgendered
Honestly YES. Also gender affirming surgeries often times require some folk to lose weight. It’s been talked about a lot by trans fems on Twitter, but so many will finally get to a healthy weight and then in the prep stage for surgery be told to lose SO MUCH WEIGHT in order to get surgery. It’s ridiculous
I am so blessed to have been raised in a family where men cook and clean at Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, just as much or more than women. We I love cooking for my family, but so do my dad, uncle, and grandpa. Maybe it's because our family is Scandinavian, where work is more egalitarian.
so interesting, because I’m from Eastern Europe and I have seen many families/households where they share the roles, and many that don’t.
My grandpa for example, I don’t think he even knows how to beat an egg, his household “chores” include buttoning up his shirt, and washing himself.. My grandma even has to put his food in the microwave for him (serve him as he is sat down) and it’s still HER fault if he burns his tongue. Compared to him, my dad cooks pizza nights, soup nights, cooks and cleans, and yeah, respects my mom.
but still baking the cookies is always mom’s job 😅
Same. My father does most of the cooking in the house, and I've had so many women tell me how lucky my mother is that he does that "for her," presumablely. I imagene this is just a backhanded compliment implying that she really should be doing all the cooking (my mother does not like cooking and my father does). Never understood how to respond to a comment like that.
@@jessetaylor9685That's exactly what it is, a backhanded compliment. But in Greece millennial women still brag that their man "has never had to touch" a kitchen utensil. Being a domestic slave is a point of pride
@@annnee6818It's not like America doesn't have a whole trad wife movement...
@@chunkyhairlesscat lol in my household baking the cookies is my job, but that's only because I'm a better baker than I am a chef. My boyfriend on the other hand is a good cook, but can't bake to save his life.
Whoever creates/participates in the mess cleans the mess.
if he cooks, he cleans. I put my own plate in the dishwasher. If I bake, I clean (i actually clean surfaces *BEFORE* I bake because who knows what my cat does when I'm not looking.. actually I know he goes on the counters when I'm not there because of the pawprints lol)
Trans people are also often told that they can't access gender affirming surgery until they lose weight. There's still a pervasive belief in the medical community that these surgeries are cosmetic or elective and that even if you're otherwise totally healthy if your BMI is over 32 they won't perform the surgery. Recent studies have shown the risk is negligible and certainly nothing compared to the risk associated with asking someone to live with body dysphoria for years or develop disordered eating just so they can access gender affirming care.
I have trans friends who are going through this gatekeeping of care, it's not right and I really feel for the trans community (as in, I know not all trans people want gender affirmation surgery and that's ok too, but if they do they should def be able to access it) :(
I think it's more complicated than "doctors want to gatekeep care." Unfortunately, obese people face significantly higher risks when being put under anaesthetic than people at lower weights. Additionally, there are more obese people than ever before on the planet and medical education has not caught up yet to have enough doctors to safely operate. It needs to get there because the demographics of the world have changed, but it's not there yet.
@@TheSim1derful oh my god, finally a voice of reason.
It’s so it is SAFE. If you are over a certain weight, your risk of complications significantly rises.
@@tiaslays255 They've done studies that show those risks are not significant and they need to be weighed against the risk of denying people a surgery that they actually *need* but that the medical community still often classifies as cosmetic. Women with breast cancer aren't denied mastectomies if their BMI is 33 but trans men are told to just suck it up and live with dysphoria (and the related the increased risk of suicide or other self harm or developing anorexia or bulimia) until they can lose the weight. No surgery is safe - you have to weigh the risks and the benefits. And the problem is that the benefits for trans men aren't taken seriously when doctors do the math.
My mom has a catch phrase about weight loss I'm sure she heard somewhere else: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."
I have my own catch phrase: "It's better to eat junk food than nothing at all."
Take care of your physical needs and don't let anyone shame you for doing so. You are a human being and humans need to eat to survive. There is no such thing as a perfect meal and sometimes life is so difficult that the only thing you can manage to eat is chips. At least you're eating, and that's a good thing.
By the way, my mom is not an almond mom and almost never talks about weight loss. I can't remember her ever shaming me for my body. Just goes to show how this stuff seeps into our subconscious no matter how supportive our parents may be.
I heard your mums catch phrase on some proana forums :< I was never EDed but this catchphrases stuck with me for DAYS after seeing them. Your saying is much better. Take care!
3:53
It’s a Kate moss quote I think. Also, glad your mum didn’t shame you, but still , solidarity to you 💜
The model Kate Moss said that and it unfortunately spread from there and I think got stuck in a lot of people's minds :(
In Ireland it’s almost the opposite (as a child in the 90s/00s). The idea of “you have to finish everything on your plate” and “no waste” was generational from the English attempt at genocide of the Irish people (incorrectly called “the famine” but we had plenty of food, the English was stealing it to bring to England and left us to starve 🙃) so it’s generational to almost.. overeat now? I have so much guilt about not finishing everything still
This is a sentiment that’s ingrained in people across the ex soviet countries. Particularly boomers but millennials and zoomers to certain degree
My post-soviet mom got best of both worlds, she always made me finish everything and not waste food and then commented on my fat body😂.
im not irish but woo guilt gang. cannot throw out any food (i feel so guilty throwing out food thats gone bad even though i know i cant eat it), must eat every damn morsel on my plate to the point of overeating. im trying to work through it but damn is it hard
@@lilyachernik942 Yeah my East-german post GDR Mother did the same.
I think this is somewhat common with the boomer generation in general. My parents were born during rationing.
thank you for having me!! i love this topic so much and it made me reflect on how we surveil people's (mostly women's) diets both on and offline. so interesting!!
I'm so excited to dive into this video while I eat lunch, but the irony of getting a "weight loss diet!" ad before the video even played is not lost on me
Yeah, I also got one of those. What is up with that?
I got one before AND another one after. 👀
@ZimLikesPastaAnimation I think YT figures out what ads to put on a video based on factors like the title, tags, and comments. Since this video is discussing and criticizing diet culture, unfortunately, the almighty algorithm (sarcasm implied) thinks weight loss ads are what should be popped on here based on word choice alone.
I'm glad I didn't know that essentially a starvation diet could suppress secondary sex characteristics. Had I known as a teen, I might have developed an eating disorder. But in fact I really enjoy eating and have managed to avoid that.
big, big same
I am all of 36 seconds in but the "your brother can take so much because he's growing" unlocked some feelings ive been pushing down since puberty
I have vivid, distinct memories of the very short lived marketing campaign for Dr. Pepper Ten circa 2011. The slogan? "IT'S NOT FOR WOMEN." It was a soda with ten calories. Diet soda is so feminine in our culture that Dr. Pepper came out with the Dude Wipes of soda.
As a trans masc person, i completely understand the desire to reduce one's secondary sex characteristics like breast or hip size. Especially in the US where access to top surgery and hormones is at risk for so many
I distinctly remember being 12 and my mom saying she was on a diet - I asked her "can I go on a diet too??" and I recall I asked it to deliberately test the waters; to see if she would say "you don't need to" (I didn't need to). But she told me yes and my whole perception of myself changed in that one moment. Literally one ricecracker in cued 8 years of sneaking in candy and binge-eating in my room, weight gain and self-loathing. At 20 I started smoking cigarettes and somehow lost the weight I'd gained. And I have been scared to quit smoking since. Because I have to work a 9 hour a day desk job and sit in the car for 2 hours a day and I don't have the time or energy to balance that out with the gym. I love my mom, but she scarred me.
This may be deeply unhelpful, my weight fluctuates with health problems. Smoking is a death spiral. You can get something very bad and then your weight will not matter except being a little extra meaty supposedly helps cancer treatments.
My reasoning is anecdotal. My mom died at 53 from smoking because her mom abused her about her weight. She was afraid to quit but then she finally did. She had made it almost six months when my stepfather told her to just start smoking again. So he killed her. Don't let that happen. He said he was only joking but consequences, you know? Please take care of yourself. (I used the nicotine patches. The dreams are weird)
My mom had been raised by a chronic dieter and wanted my brother and I to have a healthier relationship with food. I’m really thankful for that.
The only little food quirk she has that comes to mind is that she insisted that we have colorful meals. There always had to be at least three different colors and meals def couldn’t be all brown. It was never a moral judgement about food, but rather framed as “Doesn’t that look so much more delicious?” And, it did look better to have some carrots, greens, and berries along with the burger and fries. It was an easy way to make sure we were getting enough fruits and veggies. The downside for me now is that I feel mildly turned off from bland, samey food.
And maybe her fascination with yogurt? She served it with most meals as “dessert” even if we were going then have a normal dessert after. But, I still eat yogurt with most meals now and go through two 32oz tubs per week rather than fussing with protein shakes.
Cooking with colors is how I like to do it too! Food tastes better and looks prettier that way! Sometimes I like the looks of my meals so much that I take pictures just for my personal use. I just like looking at the pretty food I made.
Tbh, I was surprised to hear „Are you really hungry or are you just bored“ as a negative example because I find it quite helpful. I try to ask this myself before every snack, not because out of an obsession with weight, but because in my experience I continue snacking when I’m already full, just because it’s within reach and end up feeling bloated, lethargic and generally uncomfortable
It depends on context. It can be useful for, say, somebody who has ADHD/autism/ect. and has trouble telling what their body needs. But, in this context, it's not being used as a helpful tool to gauge how your body feels; it's being used for people to "help" others starve themselves.
I think this is because the video focuses on restrictive eds and diet culture. Binge eating disorders are more common but less talked about on social media in general. It makes sense as a negative example in that context even if it's good advice for most people.
@@StoneBasiliskno though. It's a valid question. If you starve yourself you'll probably actually are going to be hungry. While I am literally just bored. That's how I got to 270lbs.
@@gur262 ..yes? that's what I said. it can be helpful for some people. we are not speaking in a context which it is, though. if my art teacher tells me to buy a knife for class, I'm going to assume she means a pallette knife, not a kitchen knife.
@@StoneBasilisk but on the other hand autism/adhd comes with different metabolic patterns around carbs especially so it often was both for at least me, even if I’m not bored I still need to be snacking all the time. It’s primarily bc of our brains working overtime burning all those extra calories
Can we talk about how good your american Barbie accent is?
Seriously. Way better than any British accent I could hope to muster 🤣
Ugh my mom is like that, absolutely obsessed with weight and food and beauty, her greeting (not just her greeting to me but to everyone she knows) is literally "You look fat". I remember once buying her a box of chocolates for mother's day and then watching her almost cry as she forced herself to eat half a trouffle, then leaving the rest of the box to collect dust on the kitchen table until my dad and I finally decided to just eat it in one sitting since she was never going to touch it. Thanks god she doesn't know how to cook and was never in charge of my food at home, thanks god my dad is utterly opposed to diet culture, thanks god my grandma is the one who cooks and she actually cares about health instead of looks, it's a miracle I didn't develop some serious eating disorder from my mother.
For years my aunt survived on very small portions of food with almonds and half apples for snacks. She tried to get me to to go on the same diet, I was very ill so I stopped.
Honestly, I’m ashamed to admit this, but as a non-binary trans masc, I’ve definitely tried starvation diets and over-exercising in order to reduce my chest size and to have the stereotypical androgynous build. I had a specific way I wanted to look, and for my clothes to fit.
Partially, it’s because I wasn’t able to access binders (due to being raised by transphobic people), but it’s also because of the standard of what an androgynous person should look like. Tall, lanky, chestless, and ethereally attractive. But I was none of those things, being short, bulky, and sporty. I felt like I was a failure. And despite the fact that I was muscular (by AFAB standards) and had a chest that could pass as a muscular looking man-chest when I wore looser clothes, in my eyes, my body was the wrong type of androgynous. So I turned to unhealthy dieting. Overall, beauty standards, regardless of who they’re directed to, are very harmful.
You do not need to be ashamed for having struggled!
I know that’s easier said than done but I wanted you to hear it at the very least!!
ouuugh I did this as well
Wow my exact experience too, your comment made me tear up ❤ As a younger teen I starved so much just to try and shrink my chest.
Right there with you
Speaking for my own experience, I was told by SO many people in my teens and 20's that I "couldn't be androgynous or non-binary because my boobs were too big and I wasn't thin enough". That triggered HUGE dysphoria, and only compounded the already disordered way I viewed food, exercise and my body. I went from bouts of strict yoyo dieting and constant over exercise, to flat out extreme restriction/purging - And the doctors praised me for it for almost 5 years. When my periods slowed to almost non-existent and my chest got smaller, my face became more angular etc. I got totally fanatical. Felt like I was *finally* getting a body that was acceptable to everyone - Doctors, family AND the Queer community. The fact that the doctors gave me explicit permission to skip meals if I "wasn't hungry" just threw fuel on the fire. I'm not going to share what I was doing and how little I was eating... but it was extreme. I was never diagnosed with a restrictive/purging ED despite *obviously* restricting and purging with exercise and triggering my own migraines to bring on 48 hour long bouts of nausea and appetite suppression.
It makes me SO angry that I had to figure out my disorder myself, fight *against* doctors shaming me and telling me I was "cheating on my diet" when I tried to work on my *own* refeeding process. I even ended up losing my job *in healthcare* because I broke my body so badly that my weight skyrocketed despite the ongoing restrictive behaviours and my existing illnesses snowballed. Despite still dealing with so much fallout for my physical and mental health, I STILL don't have a diagnosis because I'm bigger now than when the disorder escalated. Yay for being one of the 60 odd percent of people that end up permanently stuffing their metabolism and hormones with intentional weight loss attempts.
I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if mum had never decided that a 5 year old should be on Herbalife and Weight Watchers, and instead realised that her child's mental health was more important than thinness and xtian "values"... 😒
Yes having a muscular lean body is big in the queer community. This is common for gay men as well & I read that all queer folks have more ED than cis het do
For a long time I didn't know I was trans, and looking back the reasons I had such problems with disordered eating was because I was both trying to produce gender euphoria and didn't know I had gender dysphoria and just thought I hated my body because all girls did. Loved it when people told me I ate like a boy, or that things I liked to eat were masculine and could "put hair on your chest". But I also didn't like my body so basically viewed it as something for others especially men to look at. So I dieted horribly to be "more of a girl" or "the right kind of girl". Turns out I just wasnt a girl and thats why I felt weird
I came here to say the same. I over ate so much.
@@KezzDaddy for me it was a mix of being proud that I had a "boyish" appetite naturally and the shame of being a "girl" and not being stick thin. The only time I was 115 was when I was starving myself to be more "girlish". But being properly fed and happy with my expression is way more important
The trans stuff came up a lot even in old 90s textbooks on eating disorders. So many quotes of 'women' with what they called Peter Pan type, describing clear dysphoria around puberty and wanting to stay small androgynous and boylike and all the psychologists assuming this must be a reaction to sexual trauma and not.. trans people.
I mean there's a higher proportion of women that face sexual abuse vs afab people who transition, so I feel like it'd be statistically more likely for the former.
This reminded me of an arte (French-German tv station) documentary I watched some time go about the question why men on average are taller than women. The conclusion was that this cannot be sufficiently explained by genetic and hormonal differences but is also due to systematic restriction of food, especially protein-rich food, in various cultures all across the globe. E.g. women only being allowed to eat what the men left over, meat beinh reserved for men / boys and even a tribal culture where it was custom to let baby girls go hungry so "they get used to it" while baby boy's needs were met instantly. So maybe our obsession with women and girls being slim, dainty and basically not eat is in a long tradition here 🤮
I'm Luo. In my culture there are a lot of protein rich foods women aren't allowed to eat or are restricted in circumstances to eat. There is also custom around food like women eat outside or on the floor after the men are served inside on dining tables or hyena skin or papyrus high grade mats. When serving people you have to start on the left heading to the right but we also sit as per custom from the most senior person on the left most to the most junior person the right most with the oldest men to the youngest man then the oldest woman to the youngest woman. Our women are normal height or short but our men are known to be tall dudes.
That documentary was definitely on to something.
@@availanila Wow, that's a really interesting insight.
@@availanilaeyoooo a fellow Kenyan.
Interesting. I'm Eastern European and my mom has often given my brother (5 years older than me, struggling with being overweight) an extra portion of protein (especially meat, if there was more available) saying that he is a boy/guy and he's older, so he needs more energy to grow. Around 18 I developed anemia and some weird absolute lack of appetite, that's luckily mostly gone now.
It's disgusting to hear about the even more extreme restrictions for women eating, since it's among the most basic needs. It's like being capped right at the physical needs level, which is absolutely degrading.
I was thinking about the EXACT same documentary too, one of the best i've ever seen. I think it's still available on RUclips in french
I am reminded of the episode of Bluey where Bandit gets all the praise for cooking the sausages while a frazzled Bingo yells "WON'T ANYONE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE SALADS?!" so that her mom gets credit.
Wow this video definitely talked directly to me. I was born in the early 80s to a mom whose mom would make her wear girdles to school to "slim her down". So diet culture has always been a part of my life. From my mom asking me to do weight watchers with her to the comments about how I looked "why are you wearing such baggy clothes? You should show off your cute figure" I am now 40 and I'm still struggling with my relationship with food. So is my brother. Both of us have been on diet/workout binges since graduating college. I was a victim to the bad side of veganism and know Freely well 😞. We don't really talk about our issues that much....I don't even know if he thinks he has an issue. (he is the golden child as I am very much the ah we'll say work in progress) the family (including my brothers three kids) were at my parents and my mom grabbed my nieces leg and said "look at that leg, it's so slim all muscle!" (My 7 year old niece enjoys a lot of activities including dance and soccer. She's amazing at everything she does but I think I'm just biased ❤) I didn't know how to respond and I cried most of the way home. I want so badly to protect her from all the BS this world is going to throw her way.
You are doing so well! Even if you might not agree. You are aware of so many things, you are part of change through your introspection and care for close ones/future generations.
My mom only made passing comments such as "straighten up and suck in your gut" a lot of the time. She never discouraged my eating (but my brother was getting more food "because he's a boy and he's 5 years older and needs more"; we weren't wealthy so no abundance either), on the contrary - I'm a picky either. Some textures, temperature and dryness bother me. I was actually not allowed to leave the table until I finished food. So I sat alone tossing food behind kitchen counters (they weren't fixed) or smuggling it during 'toilet breaks'. :,) (YES, they found the rotten food years after - got my ass whooped)
Once I moved out, I was able to explore a bit and even grew to like a lot of the food I used to throw out. Figured out my aversion to textures and defined bunch of mommy/daddy issues.
I come home once in a while from abroad, gained weight recently and one of the first comments I hear from my mom is about my weight. And it doesn't stop for almost two weeks, until I tell her off, starting to get anxious. She is very critical towards her own post-menopausal body as well, so I understand I should have toned down. It's not easy to deal with seeing somebody you love be so focused on fitting a specific idea of being. I like to repeat "Please don't talk to my mom like that, I love her/I care for her" etc
Your niece might at some point encounter situations which require context - what a great thing to have this aunt, who can explain complexity of certain matters. I may be a bit naive, but it feels like aunts and uncles have this opportunity to be the cool, trusted ones. Almost a relief if there is tension with parents about some subjects.
Can't guarantee any future, I just know we influence each other and humans need to communicate to learn, there's only so much we can do on our own.
Anyway, remember to also take care of yourself. You can't protect anybody if you're not well. You're worth being the best self to yourself.
@@InsoIence thank you so much for your kind words. I hope I can be a trusted person for all of my nieces and nephews in the future. 💜
I'm worried this is going to get long, but I could have literally written this comment. I truly understand how you feel.
I don't know how your father talked to you/your mother, but I'll say that was another part of the issue for me and my mom- we were never skinny enough for him. She did every single diet there was. Deal a Meal, Jenny Craig, WW, you name it. We exercised together, often with her friends (and their kids!) from work. She ate hardly anything in the presence of other people, but I found her food stashes in her bedroom when I was a teenager by accident. It broke my heart.
My brother also struggled with his weight as a teenager, and listen. He's gay, and I have to tell you. The way his friends mock the pictures of him from that time period is just as bad as anything I've heard from/about women. I know he feels pressure as strong as I do to maintain his body.
I'm 44 now, and pre menopause has done a number on my relationship with my body and food and exercise. I'm back in the game now, because last time I was weighed in the doctor's office, I was only 5 pounds under the most I ever weighed in my life. It broke something in my brain. I went right back to My Fitness Pal, right back to anxiety over exercise frequency, right back to thinking about nothing but food. And, I hate to say this, but it works. It works! It's the only thing that works for me. It's a complicated feeling, to be sure. I want to be free, but, I'm not sure its possible, if that makes sense?
The "don't wear baggy clothes, shoe off your cute figure" thing makes me so angry. A lot of people feel self conscious about their body and feel more comfortable in baggy clothes for so many reasons (could be general puberty insecurities, or, in my case, masculine clothing makes me feel so euphoric and right while tight femme clothes made me feel disgusting) also... SOME PEOPLE LIKE BAGGY FASHION. Maybe don't police what other people do and just support them ugh.
i found this discussion of explicitly linking food and gender to be really interesting, and was thinking about how it related to other non-western cultures, particularly in cultures where sharing dishes rather than individual meals is the norm. in my indian family, food practices have absolutely been something that was gendered even when on the surface eating the same foods - the women would literally not eat until after serving the men (then the children) so that they could have fresh bread to accompany their meal, essentially eating the leftovers of their own meals after the fact. for context, this was happening in my own family when i was a kid, and has only recently shifted in the last 10-15 years or so. thanks for the discussion, lots to think about!
Also in Central Europe. We actually have something called „housewife schnitzel“ where you take the rest of the breadcrumb coating and egg and put it into a pan when the men ate all the meat. Normally the mothers would take little portions to make sure nobody thinks the family is poor. Then they’re to occupied to eat and when almost everyone else is finished they look what is left and THEN take their portion. Of course, that’s my grandmother’s generation. But I grew up with it.
We do family style completely differently, like it means a different thing. It's defined by the family eating together, so if a person eats last it can't be family style by definition.
That cultural difference just threw me and I thought it was interesting.
Here in the states family style means you have one thing and everybody serves themselves at the same time. The food is on the table and you, "make you a plate," with everybody at the same time. You pick your own portions and you make enough food so that everybody gets however much they want. If somebody doesn't get enough of something it's considered rude of the cook.
I guess it's kind of like a buffet, but like on the table where you sit. It's considered rude to eat before anybody else family style, too, so if the mom isn't sitting there eating, nobody would be allowed to eat, because it's rude. So you can't like, wait until everybody else eats and then eat.
I just think cultural differences are neat.
I remember the first time I heard myself repeat my mother's negative self-talk about myself in the dressing room of a jc penny's at 13. I'm so glad I clocked exactly where the thought had come from and was able to reject it. However, I realized just a few years ago that I struggle to eat in front of my in-laws because they're so hyperfocused on their own bodies and aren't shy about commenting on their bodies in front of me in a way that feels really passive aggressive. Did my FIL really need to compliment his wife with "wow honey, you look so skinny!" while i was making breakfast? They've never said anything directly to me, but with the way they speak to/about each other, they don't have to.
That section about baking really landed with me. I always notice how GBBO frames Paul Hollywood as this tough masculine guy, and how some of the contestants who are guys are like, "I do bread!" with the implied next sentence being, 'Not those frufru sugary desserts and aren't even real food!'
The mention of the activia ad was a deep cut- that ad with the skinny white woman stomach is burnt into my brain
My mom and my sisters are all vegetarian. For a while growing up, I thought only boys ate meat.
All three of my sisters have individually told me that the fact that I eat meat is one of the weirdest parts about me transitioning. We're all adults now, but we still have the association of "meat is for the boys" in the back of our heads.
This is so wild and so cursed?? wow i'm so sorry for you
My boyfriend grew up in a "vegitables are for girls" household and it's still uncomfortable to engage with
Maybe a indecent question (sorry for that just corious): Did you start eating meat before realisising you being Trans?
After I came out as a woman and started transitioning, I noticed that when I was thinner, I would get gendered correctly more often. The societal pressure to conform to the idea of an "ideal woman" caused me to cut back on eating a lot. At some point I started avoiding Red Meat too because of that bias against it being "masculine". Nowadays I gorge on burgers and fries, and I love myself so much more.
Growing up, my mom ran errands, drove use around, and cooked all the meals. My dad did laundry, dealt with garbage, and taught us how to bake. Christmas has always been both of their times to shine, my dad taking on cleaning and dishes after my mum spends hours in the kitchen. All of us enjoying my moms turkey and stuffing and then later my dads cookies and nanimo bars.
I’m lucky - I grew up in a house where the partnership exceeded any society expectations about who would do what. It’s taken me a lot of years to realize it’s not the norm for most people, and it’s really unfortunate to see the ramifications of that disparity in the folks I care about, and even in strangers online ❤
Dude this is the first time I've ever seen anyone outside of my family mention nanimo bars. They're so good!
haven’t watched the video yet but i was literally talking to my friends yesterday about how the reason i can lie so well is because my mom was so weird about snack foods that i had to steal food very frequently and would lie about it afterwards
That is so messed up. I hope you live with less external control now.
As a trans woman I can 100% corroborate the whole trans people having eating disorders more frequently thing. I've met so many skinny trans girls especially with terribly unhealthy relationships with food. It comes from many many reasons. I think the data you shared about how trans mascs are more likely to have diagnosed EDs while trans fems who had disorders in the study were more likely undiagnosed and just self-reporting, shows there's also a big gap for trans fems. If the statistic relied on self reporting, how many more are out there that have undiagnosed disorders and are either in denial or just don't know? I think it's fair to take those numbers as the absolute lower bound of the likely rate of EDs among trans people, which is just tragic. We desperately need help in this area, it never gets talked about.
As a trans man, I know that the diet culture that my mom perpetuated had serious ramifications on me specifically because I was raised as a girl. Not only that, I was a fat girl. As I began to pass, most of my issues with food went away because it is so much more acceptable to be a fat man than a fat woman. Now as a bearded, hairy man, no one makes comments about my body, my weight, or my style.
While it's true men aren't held to the same body standard, body issues are still abound.
I'm cis/het dude, and I am CONSTANTLY in shame of my own body. I despise the dad bod. Makes me feel like a gross hairy jabba the hutt. In fact I was bullied for my weight all through school, and then when I was in the military, also constantly being taped and measured (actually got demoted for being a little too husky). The horrible part is i'm told I look fine by everyone around me, but I always FEEL like I look like a naked greased up Danny Devito (no disrespect to Devito, love that guy).
@@TrepidDestiny Totally respect that perspective but I think we are also coming from different angles. Not only with the trans perspective but also as a fat and hairy man who is attracted to other fat and hairy men, self hatred just seems silly when I am actively attracted to people who look like me! I definitely still battle with body image issues, I can say that the gender euphoria that I feel towards my body now greatly offsets the worst of it.
@@rayfox8649 And I respect that. Different strokes for different folks.
based fatphobia against men erasure
@@barneybetsington7501 Not saying fatphobia against men doesn't exist, just that my experiences with it aren't nearly as severe as the fatphobia my 15 year old girl self experienced. Notice the part where I wrote "it is so much more acceptable" and how that doesn't erase the fatphobia I have experienced as a man.
Loved the “But I don’t even like almonds.” Great video, as always. Hope it finds new viewers to your wonderful channel.
i'll take the almonds if she isn't going to finish them
I’ve worked nearly two years in two separate chocolate shops and I am still blown away and surprised by how many people assign morals to the space. I’ve been finger wagged, called “a devil”, and told countless times how dangerous or evil the shop is. I was lucky enough to only grow up adjacent to the mindset because of my grandmother, but this sort of moral system was never enforced in my own home, which makes it even more devastating to hear all these people every single day repeating such a dangerous rhetoric.
I am so so grateful you talked about trans people and eating disorders bc I am somewhat recovered now, but before hormones I was quite anorexic, both to pass better and to give me a sense of control over my body that was not afforded to me in a gendered regard. it's a very direct connection, and I'm definitely not the only one, if my other gender queer friends in high school, and the people in online ED spaces I used to frequent, are anything to go by
Went to the gym after seeing this video and their tv had an advert playing for protein rich yoghurt and I was like "ah, that's what Rowan was talking about"
I grew up watching my already quite slim mother jump from fad diet to fad diet, comment negatively on her body and the bodies of others, and even comment on my very skinny teenage body in a very damaging way. She's a little better now, but doesn't seem to understand that talking badly about her own body means she is talking badly about my body as well, since we are similar sizes. She recently got ill and lost a lot of weight, to an unhealthy degree, and I can see how happy that makes her even though she tries to pretend otherwise. Nothing makes her happier than passing her now too large jeans on to me, who they fit perfectly. This is a competition with her I did not choose to enter, but seemingly can't stop participating in. Both of us are losing.
I have always hated my body, am quite bad at eating these days, and tend to spiral when I'm feeling anxious or stressed. I ALWAYS swore I wouldn't become my mother, but just recently made my partner cry about her own body by disparaging my own in front of her. In that moment it really understood how deep the cycle of trauma and darkness goes and how hard one has to work to escape. I just hope I will succeed with that during my lifetime and not spread this harm further to the people I love.
love to see elle literacy in this one !!!
also wrt to your discussion of men, food and body image... i feel like fitness accounts that market themselves to men often really promote that same orthorexic obsession with what "macros" are present in your meals. certainly it still has advocacy for "balance" but in general i see it as a dulling of the enjoyment people can gain from eating what they want. chicken breasts and rice with veg is just so narrow of everything that the culinary world has to offer 😢
to bring it back to moms as well... i think that the naming of the "boy mom" phenomenon hints at how much boy children might be accommodated for their food preferences. having worked food service there are so many parents who insist their Adult sons will "only" eat chicken fingers and fries. there's tiktok's aplenty about "hiding vegetables". I get that it could be a sensory issue which necessitates a set of "safe foods", but honestly i doubt that girls who have similar aversions to unfamiliar or new foods are just allowed to carry on. or they are taught to cook or have to become more active in cooking to ensure their needs are met
Totally! When you take a look at male fitness/bodybuilder spaces, there are so many practices that delve into ED territory but are normalized since they're for the sake of getting gains or getting cut
@@welpppppppppppppp afab and have arfid/starvation syndrome and I can confirm this, my brother was policed less on how he ate compared to me. I was forced to finish everything if I left even as much as a crumb on my plate or didn't like something in front of me I was punished for it. My mom's dad was the worst for this he literally policed me for everything I did while my brother got slack, even down to the covert sl*t shaming of how I sat. It doesn't help because of societal pressures and gender expectations that autism and arfid present differently in afab folks. I grew up malnourished and really sick because no one understood I had disordered eating I almost died. It's absolutely a gender bias thing in general so many things amab people do are permitted while if an afab person does it it's the worst sin of highest hell and we should be burned at the stake for it.
I’m(afab) a professional baker with more than 15 years of restaurant and bakery/pastry experience. The amab bakers who work with me have significantly less experience, even combined. They are still paid higher wages than me and all of the other afab bakers on staff.
Of course.
the ability to create home cooked, healthy, and delicious meals for a family while managing a budget and daily life is an incredibly important skill that everyone should have. if one parent decides to stay home to manage this it should be considered the most important role. the food we eat shapes who we are, growing up on healthy food sets you up for success in many subtle ways.
I reversed my high blood pressure by changing my diet but I’ve become that annoying family member always preaching about proper diet but we don’t have one in my family proper diet that is having dinner every night was a luxury so my siblings think having food is a achievement it doesn’t matter if it’s healthy or not
Hoo boy. The irreparable damage to my body image that my mom did putting me on diets starting in 3rd grade into my college years... Yeeeeah.
I grew up with a young mom and was born in the late nineties, my childhood was full of skinny cow ice cream sandwiches, 100 calorie packs, and my mom straight up pointing at people and asking "am i fatter than her?"
I wish trans guys were included in this conversation more. Specifically growing up as a girl and then living as a man is an important perspective here. Learning how to take care of a home and family as show of good character, and then inhabiting a persona where others become uncomfortable when you show any care for these things, really demonstrates the divide.
Growing up I was definitely raised to be a good host. I love sharing a nice time with my friends - and I'm uncomfortable if I don't offer my friends some tea or coffee when they come over, and usually cook or bake something tasty to share. I used to never get any weird reactions about this when I presented fem, but since transitioning that has completely changed. I have noticed that people now get WEIRD when it's a guy serving them, the same way that I've always done my whole life without a hitch. I refuse to bow to their expectations and continue to share treats with my friends when they come to visit. It feels like a lonely fight to fight, and I wish there was more camaraderie between me and women going through the exact same things. The largest loss for me in transitioning to being a guy, was losing that shared default understanding that we're on the same team here.
I also had the definition of an almond mom, total sports family. Thanks for the video, it makes me feel less alone in all this.
Being a good host should absolutely not be a gendered trait. That's just manners and consideration. That association is so weird! I see you out there subverting those expectations.
I was a teen during the early 2000s and I felt all of this. 😞 I haven’t yet been able to heal from body dysmorphia.
my mom still believes in this myth that eating late at night causes you to gain weight because you can't "burn it off." Even when I was dancing 35-40 hours a week and getting home late, she would try to stop me from eating for this exact reason.
When I think of women in professional kitchens I always think of Colette from Ratatouille. I also think about how the winning dish of that movie is a peasant dish that is made up of roasted vegetables that reminds the big scary critic of his mother’s cooking and his childhood.
Just an interesting thought.
My mother is so wonderful, but as kids we definitely lived in a “don’t ever eat junk food” household. When I got older I realized she struggled with feeling out of control around her favorite cookies/snacks, so she would not allow them in the house, and my dad was worse- any time we had anything sweet, it would be gone by morning because he would eat it in the middle of the night. Not only would I binge on unhealthy snacks whenever I was at a friend’s house or party, but I would hoard sweet foods in my room or at the back of cupboards. Everyone in my family struggled with eating in secret and feeling shame around food.
Before I came out as trans (ftm) I refused any cooking because it would make me too "girly". I started a couple of weeks ago because living off just sandwiches and frozen stuff is just not healthy.
Oh God I'm not the only one 💀
I feel embarrassed to admit it, but this is too relatable
incredibly embarrassing
I’m not sure if this is mentioned but, from my experience, eating meat has been gendered in of itself. When I was a teenager I had undiagnosed endometriosis that cause me to become anemic. Until I was diagnosed, I ravenously craved meat and was constantly made fun of and told that that was masculine. “Meat and potatoes” was more of a man’s meal and “salads and light meals” were for girls.
My mum tried the "just eat a few almonds when you're hungry" thing on me, but she had taught me to cook too well and I am a stubborn hedonist so I will rather whip me up a nice meal than attempt to starve myself for anyone.
Mind you, I still do not have a healthy relationship with food, I eat to cope, even forcing myself to eat when I have no appetite cause I don't wanna slip into that mode of depression again where I ate next to nothing for weeks on end cause my appetite had completely vanished. I give myself little treats for any unpleasantness I experience which has become more and more often as I've gotten older and it is an extremely unhealthy coping mechanism, but I don't really have the energy or willpower to change that all by myself.
Also, something I wanted to comment on as someone who is fat and works in the medical field, I have experienced it on myself and also on some of my patients that being fat is being seen as the primary (and sole) diagnosis and many doctors will refuse to see any other possible cause for problems if your BMI ain't below 25. First you gotta lose some 30 kg and then we'll see if that shortness of breath ain't a problem with your heart or your lungs.
Sorry for long incoming comment lol
So I’m a trans man who’s struggled with disordered eating for most of my life. There’s a handful of reasons for it, that all somewhat interact with each other and have had less or more focus at different points in my life.
The ‘repressing physical signs of my GAAB’ was a significant one in the early days of transition, but as I’ve got further into medical transition (I’m hitting 10 years on T soon, to give some idea), it became less of a factor. Instead, the policing of gender, weight, and the way the two intertwine within the UK’s GIC system became more present. The sad truth is even if I had been at a point to heal my relationship to food at that point, the medical gatekeeping around my weight would not have allowed it to continue.
I also think there’s an element to which being fat is treated as both un-gendering and hypergendering somebody at the same time. While the placement of fat is treated as emphasising somebody’s sexual characteristics, culturally I would argue it is treated as degendering. The few cultural models we have for attractive fat men are often tied to hyper masculinity (e.g. the rugged strong-fat mountain man types), and the same is true for the few models we have for fat women (the ‘dolled up to the 9s hyperfeminine fat woman’ archetype). It definitely comes down harder on women because of misogyny, but even for men there’s an element of being expected to hyper-perform gender roles to be treated as on the same level as skinny people when it comes to ‘doing gender right’.
I’ve got less examples to go off when it comes to non-binary people, but I have noticed that fatness often comes up when demonising non-binary people (and especially in contrast to the hyperskinny bodies in positive coverage). Admittedly, part of that is my own biases and where I see non-binary people uplifted as artists/figures/etc, but I do think there’s a pattern there.
Finally, I think a lot of people do not examine how much of what is considered a ‘successful’ transition is tied to being treated as sexually appealing to cis people. This happens in both overt ways (I’ve seen cis people who have been positive about people they find hot post-transition, while saying people they don’t shouldn’t have transitioned) and more subtle ways (e.g. within transmasc communities, I see a lot of guys focused on getting a cis gay boyfriend because of the validity it would give them). Again, this is something that comes down harder on trans women and transfeminine people because of misogyny and transmisogyny, but transition ‘success’ being equated with ‘being seen as sexually desirable to cis people’ still impacts trans men and transmasc people. And given ‘being seen as desirable’ in the mainstream is equated with ‘not being fat’, you end up with a lot of people very afraid of fatness.
neither of us have it worst, i think its important to remind ourselves that societal standards of beauty/health impact trans men just a hard, but differently
I love to start my day with MAN yogurt. Feel like that's a little less heteronormative sounding than the marketing agency hoped for
As a cis guy, I always felt weird how I could HALF relate to the almond mom TikTok's, my mom was like an almond mom to herself, but opposite to me, in fact in most meals she made me overeat until I felt sick, if she would cook something like a pot of pasta I was expected to eat half of the big pot in one sitting since I was a growing boy and she was afraid I would be humiliatingly short, even at 16 when I stopped growing taller than 5'10 she blamed how short I was on my bad eating habits, about how I was anorex!c not really, I only threw up after meals because it physically hurt being that full, yet whenever I tried to get a smaller plate she would scream at me and claim I was trying to KMS as revenge for whatever, yet she loved calling me fatty, said it was her term of endearment, and to ask her to stop calling me very fat was taking away her rights as a mother
Cooking for others has been my love language for as long as I can remember. I love how it brings people together. I bake for my coworkers a lot. Recently I made povitica with my family and brought some for them to try. Baking it every year is a tradition in my family so I wanted to share it with them. The flavor reminded my boss of a German bread Nusszopf her grandfather would bring her whenever he visited. She hadn’t thought of him in years but my baking allowed her to open up to me in a way I hadn’t seen before. Food is so powerful but for some reason we are desperate to relegate it as fuel and nothing else. That saddens me in a way I can’t begin to describe.
I personally grew up in a household where my eating was completely unrestricted, and I struggle not to eat like shit as an adult. I was obese from the age of 12 until I was 21. I would eat when I was bored, and I would get hungry when I didn’t need to eat any more food. There needs to be a medium where parents are allowed to encourage healthy eating habits without bringing on unhealthy attitudes towards food. “Diet culture” can definitely become toxic but the US does a horrible job educating children (and adults) about dietary health and I think doing the opposite-encouraging kids to eat whatever they want, never being cognizant of how it can affect their health, mobility, cognitive function, etc.- can similarly bring on binge eating disorders. I grew up thinking if I decided to lose weight to be healthier, that I’d be contributing to “diet culture” and would be letting down all my overweight friends and family. I was told that if I intentionally lost weight, I’d give myself an eating disorder (despite the fact that I already had one). As you said, food marketing is the main culprit. This video raises excellent points and I agree with the toxicity of parents who take things too far, I just kinda wish my family had helped me be a bit more aware of my eating habits, instead of being so scared of hurting my feelings or making me a victim of “diet culture” that they never said or did anything. Food obsession is unhealthy, but so is complete nonchalance. Not saying this as a counterpoint to the video, just giving my two cents.
About weaponized incompetence: When I was a kid (3 decades ago) it was a big fun joke in my family that my uncle was asked by my aunt to do dishes and he broke a plate and never had to do them again. The joke was everyone knew he broke the plate on purpose. Honestly never considered how messed up that was until watching this video. She worked full time, did the cooking and the cleaning, volunteered and raised 2 kids and he couldn't be bothered to do the dishes. And they were upper class income, so this is a problem that isn't new and isn't specific to one income bracket. I would be beyond furious with a partner if they did that.
Thanks for sharing! I didn't know about how common it was for trans people to EDs. It's also always a scary reminder to hear the statistics on how much less women get paid and how much more home labor they do.
woah woah woah, i think putting the entire crockpot into the fridge is a great move. This is a hill i am willing to die on. I mean, obviously just the ceramic bowl not like the cable and all.
Well done on this video. This is so ubiquitous and sad.
My mom put a treadmill in my bedroom when I was a little kid and made walking on it a chore like doing dishes or cleaning. She said things like, “You’d be so pretty if you were thinner,” and “I don’t have to worry about weight loss because I’m already married.”
I get so much anxiety when I don’t know where accessible food is even when it’s irrational.
I think I would be way more damaged today if I hadn’t gone to an all girls high school where I was popular and loved by my classmates for being myself. Positive friendship is so important in a journey of self-love. My heart goes out to everyone struggling with this.
I'm saying this early in the video, so bear with me if it's covered later,
But another reason why trans mascs might have such high rates of eating disorders is because people with high BMIs are routinely barred from receiving top surgery. Sometimes even BMIs that are *just* over "Healthy Weight" (I say this super sarcastically, fuck BMI) lead to people being discouraged or outright barred from top surgery, or told to return only when they drop a certain amount of weight.
thank you for this video. i'm a recently diagnosed diabetic, and in terms of the food intake that i need to change for my health, all of the advice i find online / in the dr's office always falls into this sort of rhetoric. it's getting harder and harder to not fall into disordered eating habits myself, especially with the new pressure of my health being as precarious as it is - and being autistic as well means food is a touchy subject in the first place. but this is a good reminder to take a step back and plan. health does not need to be restrictive, just smart.
Hi, person! I have type 1 diabetes. Idk if you are type 1 or 2, but either way, I found that If you can find a good and supportive nutritionist, that helps a lot. I think most of them are pretty supportive. Diabetes adds another weird layer of food feelings, for sure. Sorry you're dealing with that!
@@nueroptera i'm type 2 myself, so it comes with different challenges, i know that much. thanks for the support, i'll be doing my best ! a nutritionist definitely seems like the best idea, i'll try to look into that
As a fellow autistic, I found counting calories very useful for overcoming binge eating disorder. Lots of people knee jerk to assuming counting calories=restriction but remember that the goal isn't to have as little food as possible, it's to have a healthy amount. That means it's just as useful for making sure you're eating enough as for preventing overeating. Using a TDEE calculator can give a starting point. Use your TDEE-250 for sustainable weight loss and remember to re calculate occasionally; as you lose weight your TDEE will lower.
every time I watch something like this it makes me really appreciate how equal my household was growing up, and particularly how my mom never made me feel bad about my body in anyway and stood up for me when my grandma would sometimes make comments. I never really thought about it at the time, but hearing other people's experiences just makes me super thankful (I love my parents sm lol)
this rings so true, especially with the double standard with brothers. i eat much less than i used to because of constant monitoring of my eating habits, but the kind of stuff my mother would literally take out of my hands, my brother eats constantly and openly and it's barely commented on
I’ve only heard about almond moms only very recently and thoroughly intrigued by any discussion on them.
Amazing video. I had a talk with my mom about this and she said from her experience growing up most of the house chores and responsibilities were left to her and her sister while the boys did other activities. Only proves the point.
As a Millennial woman who is a parent, I do find myself deliberately emphasizing "food is food," while also telling my kid that eating a variety of foods for different nutrients is a good idea. I try to focus on the idea that food is a building block and fuel, while it's also a good thing to enjoy, and that it's not about weight. My mom dieted constantly when I was a kid and worries about her weight all the time, and while she didn't try to make me diet (her mom would do that to her, so she was working on doing better with me, I think), I definitely developed insecurities around my appearance and food partly as a result of exposure to those ideas. So I'm trying to do better for the next generation, too.
Re; The white male celebrity chef, a lot of people forget that Gordon Ramsey himself was called out for his misogyny & fatphobia towards Tracy Grimshaw, by the Prime Minister of Australia at the time (Kevin Rudd) and his own mother. Nowadays hes portrayed as lifting women from poverty and being supportive of young women chefs, and a loving, kind and gentle father to his daughter and I have to do a double take.
My mother will always comment on what time eating “bread is evil carbs are so bad for you” “are you really going to eat all that?” “You don’t need seconds you’ve already had one portion I don’t care if you haven’t eaten all day” she’s gotten deathly thin she looks like the soul has been sucked out of her and she just doesn’t eat any more and over the years I’ve experienced extreme disordered eating when I’m not so happy I starve myself because I want to look better so I feel better but when I’m happy I eat and don’t even think about how much I’m eating or what I’m eating I just like food and tastes make me happy it’s some thing that I struggle with and it’s ruined my stomach and I can’t eat my favorite foods any more and my body doesn’t work like it should even though I’ve gained weight but I still was praised when I lost weight no matter how I lost it (which was always by starving) and put down when I would gain no matter how much or little I gained and it’s ruined my body and my mind in trying to learn to love myself but it’s so hard when your family and every one on line thinks you should be skinny
LOL it took me 6 minutes to realize that the food on one side of the table were diet food. I kept looking at that packet of Yorkies. We don’t always get them here in Cyprus and when we do it’s at some obscure kiosk or old fashion grocery store. They are one of my favorites. 😆
Yeah, now I want almonds, snickers, beef jerky and diet coke.
I've never seen them here in America. Snickers, on the other hand... I could use a Snickers.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 😆
One side are marketed at males, other side females.
With how diet drinks for children does damage to metabolism and increases risks of diabeties, it's always terrifying seeing how many 'health conscious' mums give their kids diet sodas and diet products! even beyond mental health and education reasons
You’d think they would do just… water??? My mom never gave us soda growing up and I’m so grateful. It’s so much sugar, the acid is bad for teeth, and overall it is just a lot of calories for little payoff.
You need to cite your sources. There have been no substantial studies that diet drinks cause those things, which is an important difference. The correlation with diabetes does not mean it causes it.
Diabetes is largely genetic so I highly doubt this is true
Wtf do you mean by metabolism? Same crap all the time. Frankly this s..... Is offensive because some people actually have the fast/slow metabolism you fantasize. It's a condition. Hyper/hypothyroidism. A treatable one too. A dangerous one as well.
@@user-jk5jo3xc5v Yeah - I am Type 2 diabetic and I feel for sure a lot better when I have say, Pepsi Max, or a Ribena Light, than if I eat sugary foods. Also diabetes definitely runs in my family. So I'm skeptical of these claims about diet drinks being bad/worse for health than the full sugar versions. I get that there's individual variations and I'm not here to shame anyone for what they eat or drink, just stating my own perspective as a diabetic :)
It’s funny how 364/365 days a year it’s “Women just can’t do long work hours, aren’t suitable for stressful work environments, can’t rise above to be professionals”
And then Mother’s Day comes and all the same men are yelling “I LOVE MY WIFE, I LOVE MY MOM THEY WORK THE HARDEST JOB IN THE WORLD WITH ZERO PAY I COULD NEVER BE A MOTHER THEIR WORK IS AMAZING! MOMS MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND❤️❤️”
And then the next day arrives and it’s back to “Motherhood? Cleaning? Cooking? Yeah not a big deal it’s just programmed into them “real work” takes years of training”
One of the best things for me being a normal human being was from a YA book where a manly blacksmith / warrior told his wife to sit down because she was tired while cleaning and when told it'd be unseemly for a man to do laundry he went “By whose decree? A man’s work, or a woman’s, is whatever needs to be done. Now go sit down; you’ll feel better once you’re off your feet." Over a dozen years later I still fondly remember that book because it was just a short exchange that completely threw my idea of girls do housework men do yardwork out the window before it could set in lol
This reminds me of drinking vodka with lemon slices because the soda would make my stomach look distended 😂😂😂😂😂😂. We laugh so we don't cry.
When I was a teen, I would usually drink straight vodka to save the calories from whatever you'd usually mix it with. I would also eat little to nothing beforehand bc the alcohol was so calorie-dense AND then I'd need even less to get wasted. I was not a smart teen haha
@@Mimim0n we lived life on hard mode!
I taught my husband how to grill and smoke meat. I also bought him his first grill. My extended family is another story. They literally give me the silent treatment if I try to talk grilling around them and refuse any offers of help from me. It's such a novel experience having a man in my family refuse my offer to cook for him that I offer every single time. 😂
Your acting in the beginning is soo good I started tearing up 32 seconds in and will have to pause the video and put it on my watchlist for later.
That person is completely ignoring how a large number of vegans were criticizing Banana Girl and others who ate mostly fruit. Those influencers were not the leaders of veganism.
that wouldn't support the video's narrative, I guess
Your Barbie impression is pretty impressive, albeit a tad unsettling. I was hooked right away for this video.
Food, dieting, and body image is something I've struggled with since puberty, and my mother definitely didnt make it better with her passive aggressive comments when I'd indulge in sweets.
I still struggle but I'm trying to work on it.
Thank you for such a well researched and well spoken video. Both my parents are millenials who had kids as teenagers, so I'm in my mid-twenties and grew up around friends who had "almond moms." My mother, goddess that she is, worked extremely hard to not talk badly about her body or badly about food in front of her children. She worked so hard and I never realized how much of a benefit it provided me until I started to transition. I am a binary transgender man, so as a child, thinking I was a girl, I had no issues with food or weight because my mother modeled so well for me.
My father, on the other hand, was constantly dieting and talking about his weight and how much he hated it and what food was good or bad and how he wanted to be under 200lbs like back in high school. As I started to transition and view myself as male more confidently, I felt the bad example my father set start to creep in. I recently had to drastically change my diet and restrict it for health reasons and under a doctor's supervision, but I could not call it a "diet" because that was triggering for me of all the times my Dad tried diets to lose weight. Instead we are calling it the "doctor diet" or the "COVID diet" because it is a restrictive diet aimed at treating long COVID. Just changing this wording really helped me be able to embrace the change without attaching moral value to it. Also, the diet has worked really well in reducing my long COVID symptoms which is just amazing.
My heart goes out to all the people with almond moms. If you want a new mom, my mother is constantly adopting people and she's just great.
Hi, I'm currently suffering from long COVID/post viral chronic fatigue, and was wondering if you could post or DM details about what's been working with you so I can discuss it with my doctor
Unfortunately everything I've tried so far hasn't helped, so new things to try would be great
I was terribly sick with diabetes when i was 9, I lost a ton of weight, which I wasn't fat when I was a kid. Everyone praised me and said I looked so good, but my family suspected I had an eating disorder, to which no one said anything. My diabetes went undiagnosed until my therapist threatened to report my mom for neglect.
My "health" was ignored and my thinness was favored over it. The doctors said if we waited a couple more days I would have been in a diabetic coma.
❤
My mum and dad are almond mums. My dad's always on crazy restrictive diets and binging. He's often on dangerous or useless pills, supplements and shakes.
My sister and niece got a lot of praise from family, neighbours, acquaintances, etc. from engaging on unhinged, dangerous dieting at 13 and 12 respectively. So did my cousins, classmates and friends when we were kids and tweens. Some of them were diagnosed with EDs. My sister is Gen X, I'm a Millennial and my niece is Gen Z.
My eldest aunt (Boomer) has spent most of her life starving herself. She has now eaten only once a day; more or less a third of a portion of what a regular adult eats for about 5 decades while living a very active life. She keeps herself very busy. Plus exercising at least an hour per day. She has sugared coffee for breakfast and runs on diet coke instead of food and you know, water or healthier drink than diet coke. She claims that she was "fat since (she) was a baby", which is way the way babies are supposed to be. She wasn't even an overweight baby. She simply didn't look like she was in the middle of a fam!ne. Just a regular baby. I've seen tons of pictures from when my mum and her siblings were babies and children. My aunt and everyone else were of average weight/aspect.
She has 2 sons so she fed them the way "m3n eat" because they were "growing sporty boys". Bcs if she and her husband would have had daughters OMFG!! Her husband is a disgusting, obnoxious, ignorant, conservative, highly misogynistic, creepy, predatory cheater. And my aunt is a trad wife. If they've had a daughter she would've cut them off and would need therapy for the rest of her life if she hadn't unal!ved herself.
My mum only thinks it's a bit much that my sister has taken legal and medically prescribed amphetamines to lose weight on and off over the years. But it's totally fine with literal children starving themselves or being starved by their parents or caregivers. She's rarely ever gotten into dieting but she takes dodgy shakes and other silly and potentially dangerous stuff.