Reclaiming The Word Fat and Being with Body Grief

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor.

When you hear the word fat, what comes up for you? What associations, memories, or perceptions of fat arise? The thin ideal started in the early 20th century when the medical community began to view fat as a health risk. We also saw the rise of fashion and media industries that promoted thinness as the ideal. After World War II there was an explosion of diet culture with an abundant amount of weight loss products and programs. Slimming down became a major focus, especially with the rise of television and advertising promoting thinness. Thinness began to be equated with attractiveness, success, and happiness. From the 20th century until the present day, growing public health campaigns have occurred focusing on the dangers of being overweight often using stigmatizing language and imagery. And, media, like movies, TV, advertising, and the creation of social media, perpetuated thin ideals and portrayed fat individuals as lazy reinforcing negative stereotypes.

The correlation with fat being a negative thing to be judged is so deeply entrenched in our culture that it's hard to disconnect all you may have been taught about fat. There are some studies, that don't get any air time in the conversation around fat, that have shown that what we have societally described as overweight or obese individuals may have a lower mortality risk compared to those with what we would call a normal weight individual. Fat is just a descriptor like a person is tall or short. Fat is a macronutrient that you need to eat. Fat keeps you alive as you couldn't be here if you didn't have enough insulating fat in your body. I discuss this and more with Kristin Jenkins, a Registered Dietitian who works at Rebecca Bitzer & Associates in Maryland. After recovering from her own eating disorder, she knew she wanted to pursue a career where she could help others do the same. She is passionate about teaching her clients how to foster a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. She is an advocate of weight-inclusive care and the Health At Every Size model. She works with clients on how to incorporate healthy behaviors that supports whole-body health in ways a scale could never measure. We explore the connection between food, eating disorders, and body image, the harmful cycle of dieting and how it can contribute to poor body image, the importance of body trust, body grief, the need for systemic change in our culture's ideals of beauty, and a deep dive into the word fat.

If you're fed up with how you've been currently interacting with your body and its shape, the Befriending Your Body Image Challenges with Somatic Eating® Practices Workshop is coming up in three weeks! You will learn a trauma and nervous system perspective on your body image challenges and receive somatic practices to start to be in relationship with your body in a way that fosters a safe body connection. Click HERE to learn more and sign up. Now, welcome Kristin! Hi, well, I am so excited that you're here and to get into a conversation with you about body image and your perspective based off of your work today and would first us love to learn more about you and how you got into the work that you're doing.

Kristin Jenkins 04:25

Sure, absolutely. So I'm Kristin Jenkins. I'm a registered dietician. I work with a private practice called Rebecca Bitzer and Associates. We are based in Maryland. But we do see clients virtually nationwide. I work primarily with folks who struggle with disordered eating or eating disorders and they come to me looking to improve their relationship with food and improve their relationship with their body which is you know, I think a little bit more about what we're going to talk about today.

Stephanie Mara 04:58

Yeah, and I'm curious what specifically drew you to this work. Was there anything in your history that was like, oh, I really resonate with this or healed this and this is really what I feel called to now do in the world.

Kristin Jenkins 05:13

Sure, yeah. I think like a lot of folks in the eating disorder field, I have struggled with my own eating disorder and disordered eating. So that's something that came on in my early teens, I struggled with a lot of anxiety, ended up struggling with my eating disorder through high school and through college, and really didn't have the language to talk about it with anybody. And so when I was introduced to sort of like the body positive, intuitive eating space much later in my 20s, it was kind of a revelation. I was like, oh my God, like people are out here talking about this, like other people feel this way. And it's possible to not feel this way. And I think that that was sort of the game changer of like, I have the power to not live my life like this, because I think at that point, you know, later in my 20s, I was really realizing how much my disordered eating was impacting other areas of my life, jobs, relationships, the ability to engage with friends, be social, it was just really starting to take a toll on me, realizing that I sort of dove headfirst into this space and found a lot of comfort in Instagram, found a lot of comfort in, you know, a lot of authors, I literally have a stack of books here, because I came prepared of like, these are the books that I love. These are the authors that I love.

Stephanie Mara 06:39

Love it.

Kristin Jenkins 06:39

Yes, I have my own personal experience with eating disorders and disordered eating. I actually went back to grad school, getting my undergrad degree in the early 2000s. I was going in a completely different direction, and my healing journey with food and my eating disorder, really, it changed the way that I wanted to interface with the world, essentially, right. Like, that seems like a big way to say that. But ultimately, like the revelation that I had, I was like, I would love for other people to experience this. And like, I had friends who were going through the same thing, I had family members who were and are still going through the same thing. And I was like, this is life changing, like I would love to get into actually helping people in this space. So I took a total career pivot, went back to grad school, got my degree, did my internship, my supervised practice hours and everything and became a dietitian. And I love what I do. I love working in private practice. I love working one on one with folks in an outpatient setting. Folks that come and work one on one seem to be really motivated to do this work and I just love it.

Stephanie Mara 07:49

Yeah, thanks for sharing all of that. I really understand that pivot experience. I know a lot of those who listen here know that my background is in theater. And I thought for a really long time I was going to be an actress, I was going to be directing and also struggled in my relationship with food a lot during that time. And so this pivot experience of like, wow, the way that my body wants to be cared for, and the kind of attention that it needs, this path wouldn't provide that, you know, just feel like I don't want to be in my body in that particular way. So I really understand that pivot moment, especially when you're healing your relationship with your food and your body. Something that I noticed is you discover things about yourself that maybe the eating disorder or disordered eating kind of covered up that you didn't necessarily know about yourself previously.

Kristin Jenkins 08:44

Yeah, I don't think that I realized that I had as many issues with anxiety and stress as I did. I think the eating disorder really helped to numb out from all of that, to which, you know, we talk about a lot in the recovery space of, you know, how does your eating disorder serve you because it usually comes about as something in a sense, that's helpful, right? So I think I was kind of numb to the stress and the anxiety in my life and how that was impacting a lot of the decisions that I was making. And so when I got on this healing journey, I was sort of smacked in the face of like, oh my god, like, there's a lot of things that I need to work on here. And it's not just food.

Stephanie Mara 09:27

Yeah, yeah, I find that's the surprising part. That when you're healing your relationship with your food and your body, there's this sometimes belief, and I know I experienced this myself of like, okay, I just have to heal the food thing, like and then everything will be just fine. Like, yeah, that's it. And then you realize, oh, actually, that's literally just the surface level. That's actually been the coping mechanism to all of the other things that are underneath this.

Kristin Jenkins 09:53

Yes, yes. I tell my clients that all the time. I almost always start off sessions right like when I'm meeting somebody new as a, you know, food doesn't exist in a vacuum, right? Like, I'm not gonna sit here and just talk to you about meal planning, I'm not going to just ask you to do a food log and review that with you, like, we're gonna get deep. I take what I do very seriously as like nutrition therapy. Like, I think that there's a lot of therapeutic work that goes into healing your relationship with food, it's not just food.

Stephanie Mara 09:54

Yeah. And, you know, I'm curious, just in regards to this theme of body image, like how you have seen as a dietitian, like how your relationship with food really gets affected by how you're perceiving your body, or how you are struggling with your body and its appearance, I find that it's really hard not to talk about body image when we're talking about food, because the two are so intimately linked, because of the culture that we live in.

Kristin Jenkins 10:54

1,000%. Yeah, I feel like it's impossible to talk about one without the other a lot of times, especially if you've been stuck in a dieting cycle, because I think often folks sort of fall into a dieting cycle, because they're unhappy with the way that their body appears on the outside. And so I find often in my work, that folks that have poor body image that also really struggle to take care of themselves with food and have a healthy relationship with food. It's like a cycle, right? So what you sort of continue down that path of, it's like body distrust, and body, I was gonna say dis safety, but that's not really a word, but like, essentially, like not feeling at home in your body, right, like constantly trying to find things to fix it or to change it. And I think a lot of people are told in diet culture that like dieting or weight loss will help you fix how you feel about your body. Body image really isn't about the way that your body looks, right. So you might be able to change your appearance with a diet, right? Like we can get into that. And like the sustainability of that, spoiler alert, it's not super sustainable to try to change your appearance with a diet. But if your mindset stays the same, right, like if your mindset stays set on this idea that your body is inherently flawed, and that your body cannot be trusted, and that there's something on your body that needs to be fixed, there's no amount of changing your appearance that is going to change that mindset. So, you know, circling back to the initial question, right, like how our food and body image really linked, I see people dive into diet after diet after diet or, you know, become more restrictive and more restrictive and more restrictive, and attempt to change how they feel about their body. It's a fruitless endeavor, it's what it ends up being.

Stephanie Mara 12:45

Yeah, I'm really glad you brought up this piece around safety. I actually talk a lot about that here on the podcast. And it's kind of like if we attach our sense of safety onto something that is never salient, your body is never the same, it is constantly changing. And so you never get a consistent sense of safety in your body. If it's attached to body image.

Kristin Jenkins 13:11

Right.

Stephanie Mara 13:12

Yeah, just as you were describing that, that's exactly what it made me think of, of, we have to find a more consistent home and base for your sense of safety that doesn't have to do with the look of your body. Because what happens when it changes, what happens as it ages, what happens is it you know, goes through life experiences like yeah, we have to kind of create that internal consistent sense of safety, rather than attaching it to this external body appearance.

Kristin Jenkins 13:40

Yeah, absolutely. I think we talk about resiliency a lot in body image work. And I think you just described it perfectly. At its core, trying to make peace with your body is trying to improve, maybe tolerance to discomfort or improve resiliency to change, because you're absolutely right, like your body is constantly going to change. There is no one snapshot of your body that is always going to be the same.

Stephanie Mara 14:10

Yeah, I'm wondering, even with your view of working with individuals predominantly around their nutrition, we're talking about how food can affect how you relate with your body in kind of maybe sometimes a harmful way of yeah, how can I change my body? How can I make it better? How can I achieve this societal expectation of what my body should look like through food? I'm curious if you've also seen the opposite, like how one is eating or relating with food then helps them heal their relationship with their body and its appearance.

Kristin Jenkins 14:45

Yeah, I think that that is a lot of what the intuitive eating work is about. So I'm a diehard believer in the the intuitive eating principles. I use the workbook with my clients very often. I think that the intuitive eating work that is meant to improve your relationship with food is centered on this idea of body trust, right, and building up your confidence in listening to your body. And I think that in doing that work, it fosters a really strong sense of safety, right? Like safety and trust again, you're able to listen to your body and hear what it's telling you so that you don't have to question your body. And it's not so much about the appearance anymore, right? Like, it's more about how can I take care of myself, and I tell my clients this all the time, you don't have to love the way that your body looks on the outside, to be able to take care of it. And I think that once you sort of cross that barrier, then you engage in more of these behaviors, food included, that help you feel better in your body, right? Like they make you feel energized, maybe eating more is helping you sleep better, maybe eating a more well rounded diet, right? Like, where no foods are off limits that actually helps improve digestion somehow, maybe it brings peace to your meals. But yeah, I think that when folks are really centering on this idea of body trust, it brings a whole new sense of it brings a whole new definition to the idea of body image, because it's no longer about the way that your body looks. It's about the way that you feel in your body.

Stephanie Mara 16:35

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that perspective, because it takes away the experience of like, my body is something that is in my control. And I just want to name that sometimes there have maybe been experiences that if you're listening to this, you've been through where you needed to feel like your body was in your control, like maybe nothing else in your life felt like it was in your control with the environment you were growing up in, or you know, what was going on externally. And so that perception, and it is just a perception, because we're actually not in control of our body. And thank goodness, we're not like, thank goodness we don't have to tell our heart to beat or our lungs to breathe. Like there's so many things that we're like body, thank you like thanks for just like doing this all on your own. And I don't have to step in at all here. And that that body image control came in for a reason. But what you're referencing is how important stepping back into that trust in your body, that you can have that regardless of how your body looks. And then I know we were talking a little bit before our call of then there's kind of a next phase that I find a lot of people step into around grief. That, you know, it's like, okay, so I'm respecting my body, I'm feeding my body consistently, I'm giving my body what it needs, I get that it needs this, regardless of how I feel about it. And now there's this grief piece of oh, this is just the way my body looks, like I am respecting it, I am taking care of it, it is getting the nutrition it needs. And then this grief of like, oh, it's never going to look the way that I was promised it would look if I just dieted hard enough or if I just followed these protocols hard enough.

Kristin Jenkins 18:29

Yeah. And I think I mentioned this before, I love following body image with Bri because she talks about body grief so eloquently in her posts on Instagram, and in all of her trainings. She even has a support group where she talks about it. But yeah, I think that concept of body grief can be really difficult on multiple levels, right? Because I think that we're talking about body grief that can be addressed at the individual level, right? Like, how to sit with the discomfort of knowing that perhaps the way that your body looks, is not within your control, maybe even the way that your body feels is not within your control, right? Like, maybe you have chronic fatigue, perhaps you were diagnosed with diabetes, right? There are certain things that are not within our control. And it's maybe sitting with the grief of feeling like we don't necessarily have a say in that, but how do we take care of our body anyway. I think at the individual level, there's work that you can do to again, improve resiliency and tolerate the discomfort of that. It's not just up to the individual to do that work, because I think that some of that grief is also coming from the pressure of a culture that still idealizes the thin body, right? So I don't think it would be as difficult as an individual to sit in a body maybe that was larger, didn't function the way that they were hoping it would, if there wasn't so much pressure to be thin or there wasn't so much stigma against chronic disease. So I think that while we can talk person to person about like, how do you cope with the sadness perhaps, or how do you cope with the grief, there's still a lot of systemic change that needs to happen. And so I like to remind folks that it's not all on you, you are not solely responsible for how you're feeling. And we can feel sad, we can feel angry at those systems. And it's important to call those out. Because it's not all our fault as the individual and it shouldn't be all on us to just simply fix the way that we feel, it should be about systems at large.

Stephanie Mara 20:44

I completely agree. Yeah, it's kind of no longer turning that anger inward on yourself saying, I'm the one that needs to change. And taking that anger and saying, yeah, I'm allowed to feel angry. But I'm also going to take that outward into I'm angry that this is the culture that I live in that ever made me believe that I was less deserving of respect, or less deserving of comfortability in my body because of the way that my body exists in the world.

Kristin Jenkins 21:18

Exactly. Right. And I think that, you know, a lot of the things that we talk about when we talk about, like, being more comfortable in your body or improving body image, there's a lot of privilege in that, right. Like, I think a lot of recommendations are, you know, go out and dress your body in ways that feel comfortable, right? And like, there's privilege in that statement, because not everybody can walk to the mall and find clothes that fit them. Right. So I think that little things like that are like, don't be afraid of you know, going out and ordering the food that you actually want to order, when perhaps the restaurant doesn't have seats that we fit in? Or perhaps there is somebody there making comments about our food, right? Like, we don't always have control over those things. So yeah, we do the individual work, but we push to do the systemic work, too.

Stephanie Mara 22:04

Yeah, I agree with that. And just bringing around this sense of safety, again, that for some individuals, because of the culture, it's hard to have a consistent sense of safety in the body, simply because you live in an environment that never lets you feel safe. And so sometimes it's bringing it into the like the second by second experience of like, okay, yeah, like, I'm getting a lot of messages around me that my body isn't safe here. But in this exact second, yeah, I'm comfortably at home in this exact second, I'm safe in this body, that it actually is a lot of work that the individual has to do that. I even get angry that that is the way that we've set up our culture. The only word that comes to mind right now is like, it's really unfair, that it's so much on the person to have to do the work, when it's really the society at large that is making them have to do that work.

Kristin Jenkins 23:08

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm very like, I don't even know that I can add anything to that. Because it is a point that I often get to sometimes in my sessions with folks where I'm like you are putting in the work like you are putting in the hours, you are healing your relationship with your body, you are sitting in the discomfort. And there are things that I cannot fix, there are things that you cannot fix in this exact moment. Right. So, again, maybe it's just about having those support systems setup, surrounding yourself with the people and the environments that do feel safe, just so that you constantly don't feel under attack, basically, right, like so that you do have safe places in this world to to interact with the people that care about you most.

Stephanie Mara 23:53

Yeah, and I know that you mentioned you brought in some resources or wanted to reference some books that you're like, oh, yeah, if people want to check these out, this can kind of be supportive. And I know, the community here really like loves to read and loves resources. So I like to bring as many resources into this podcast as possible, because I find that that is the most important thing is how much coregulation we can bring in through other people's presence, through community, through other people's words, reading them off the page of a book to be like, you know, you mentioned this, I've had this experience of I'm not so alone on this journey. I'm not the only one who is experiencing having a hard time living in a body, especially the way that my body looks. So I would love to hear some of your favorite resources.

Kristin Jenkins 24:41

Yeah, I mean, I would be remiss if I didn't start with the food resources, right. So like, I have to recommend the intuitive eating book and the intuitive eating workbook. I think it may be like a step beyond that would be Christy Harrison's Anti Diet. I think that that's a staple, right? Like especially if you're not really familiar with a lot out of this conversation. Beyond that, I think Sonya Renee Taylor does a really great job with her book, The Body Is Not An Apology. Virgie Tover is one of my favorite authors. She has a book, it's a it's a great little summer read if you're sitting by the pool, the conversational tone that she takes, it was kind of like listening to a friend talking, reading that book. And then there's another book by Lindsay and Lexi Kite, More Than A Body, which I think is a really great read as well. And of course, that's not an exhaustive list that just happened to be what I had in my book bin next to me where I was like, I should pull some things out.

Stephanie Mara 25:39

Yeah, I totally get that there's so many fantastic resources out there. I love all of those books. And all of those authors. So great suggestions. I'm curious from those, what do you find has been kind of some key things that you've explored with some people that you've worked with around this conversation of body image. And I know there's been a lot of dialogue around owning the word fat, there's so much around even just the word fat and what that means. And so yeah, I'm curious where you've kind of explored with individuals, especially as like a dietitian, like fat is a thing that we need, like we literally can't exist without fat on our body.

Kristin Jenkins 26:22

Yeah, the fat conversation is an interesting one, because I can talk about like, dietary fat as being really important, right? Like, we need fat in our diet to be able to absorb certain vitamins, we need fat in our diet to provide flavor and texture and satiety, we need fat in our diet because it helps create hormones, right? Like the hormones that regulate mood, or the hormones that regulate your menstrual cycle. If you don't have a menstrual cycle, it still regulates other sex hormones. And then we can also talk about just like fat on your body, which is what you're talking about, right? Like it regulates temperature, it protects vital organs, it's necessary to have a certain amount of body fat to be able to continue having a menstrual cycle. Yeah, all of these different things where we're just talking about, like fat as being a particle. And then we have sort of like the larger sense of fatness as like a body descriptor, which I think you're absolutely right. I think that sort of the fat activist community has worked really hard over the past couple of decades to reclaim that word as being something completely neutral, right, like a neutral body descriptor, the same way that you would describe somebody as like tall or having blue eyes. And I think that that's a really important aspect to this, too, is sort of reclaiming that word is like no longer an insult. Like this is just how my body is right. Like, this is how my body was genetically determined to be.

Stephanie Mara 27:58

Yeah, I agree with all of those layers there that there's actually quite a lot of first different definitions of the word fat. Like you, you mentioned, dietary fat, you mentioned fat on the body, then there's the cultural description of like, a fat body shape, and just kind of reclaiming that this is just a word. And it's been used as something that I feel like diet culture has kind of weaponized, as like, this is the worst thing that you could possibly be, that sends this very different message around the word fat. And then it was like, you know, the low fat craze, all of a sudden, just fat on every single level and layer is like, this is bad.

Kristin Jenkins 28:50

Yeah, get super personal with you for a second if that's okay. That was, I think one of the, I wouldn't say the root cause of my eating disorder, because that was certainly like anxiety and wanting control. But that was one of the first ways that I figured out how to sort of like execute disordered eating was simply if I do not want to be fat, because I was told that that was such a terrible thing to be, then I simply would not consume fat. And of course, when I was growing up 30 years ago, that was very easy to do, because that was at the height of the fat free craze. And so it was very easy to find items that were labeled fat free. And it just sort of spun out from there. Right. So like, you know, you continue to find ways to restrict and restrict and restrict, but I think you're absolutely right. I think that the connotation underlying all of that was simply that fat is like a horrible thing to be. And I think that that comes up but now sort of like not centering myself in the conversation anymore. But I think that comes up in conversations with clients. And I call them out on this often, when they come to session, they say, Kristin I feel really fat today. Right? Like, I think that that's an extremely common statement. And I really try to challenge folks to identify what does that actually mean? Right? Because fatness is not an emotion. You could feel physical fatness on your body in the sense that like, perhaps I can move this way and feel a roll, right? Like where I bend this way, and I feel my stomach resting on my thighs, right? Like, I can feel fatness on my body. But fat itself is not an emotion. And so I really challenge people to identify like, it's usually something very negative, right? Like there is sort of like a negative connotation when used in that sense. But what is it that we're really feeling there? And I can even go into this idea of the fat funnel if that's something that you've ever talked about on your podcast before?

Stephanie Mara 30:53

No.

Kristin Jenkins 30:54

I picked this up from Jessica Setnick, who does a lot of education in the eating disorder space. But she has something called the fat funnel, which is essentially this idea of you have a funnel, and in the top of the funnel gets shoved all of these emotions that we don't necessarily have coping skills for. And it's usually the big stuff, right? Like loneliness, purposelessness, disconnectedness, stress, anxiety, right? Like things that maybe you don't have the skills for, maybe other people do, right, but like, perhaps you don't have the skills for and they all get kind of shoved down into this funnel, because we don't know what else to do with them. We don't know how to process them. And out of the bottom of the funnel pops this idea of fatness, right, that like instead of feeling disconnected or feeling lonely or feeling purposeless, I now can just say I feel fat, because that culturally has such a negative significance that I can one convey the negative feelings that I'm feeling, but two I've been told by diet culture that I do somehow have the tools to deal with that, right? That I am in control of fatness somehow so I can fix how I'm feeling with diets or with exercise, and cutting out foods from what you're eating, or, you know, going to the gym excessively, is not going to fix purposelessness, not going to fix loneliness. It's not going to fix anxiety. It's almost like a redirection. And so I do I challenge folks, I say, whenever this thought of I feel fat pops up can you use that as like a notification system? Instead of jumping into okay, I feel fat, how can I fix it with what I'm eating? Or how I'm exercising? Can I say, how can I use this to figure out what I'm actually feeling underneath? Because there's something happening under there. Can I just use it as like a red flag that my body is sending up with like something doesn't feel good. I've been told that it was a sense of fatness, but really, it was something else. And I think that that is a great way to approach body image to have, you know, if we're feeling poorly about our body, maybe it has nothing to do with the way that our body looks, right. So instead of immediately launching into trying to fix our appearance, can we use that as a notification system of is there something else underneath that I'm feeling that I could have other skills for?

Stephanie Mara 33:36

I love that. Something that I often say is can we start to see that as interpretive instead of literal. And that's what I really hear in that is really starting to see that like, how many times, every time you have thought, oh, I'm fat, I need to fix this, have you listened to that? Where like, okay, you start looking at diets, googling, all the things you can do about this fatness that is like this is the problem, this is what needs to be fixed, and then everything will be okay, you've listened to it maybe every single time. So your body gets the attention that it's craving and that it's wanting, but it's kind of masked under this, well, if this is the way you're gonna give me attention, I'll take it but actually what I really want you to address is the purposelessness. But maybe we'll get there at some point. I hear you and kind of describing can we just start to see that when the thought pops up in your head of I feel fat, kind of meeting it with a, yeah, that's really interesting I'm thinking that right now. That's a really interesting thought. Like, what is that trying to tell me? What is my body trying to relay to me about its needs that might have nothing to do with my body's appearance?

Kristin Jenkins 34:54

That's exactly it. I couldn't have said it better.

Stephanie Mara 34:56

Yeah, so I'm so glad you brought that in because it is starting to just meet every little thing that you think about your body with a lot of curiosity, that that's coming in for a reason, maybe out of protection, out of support, out of distraction, out of to numb out, it is trying to help you in some way. And so it's sometimes even thinking like, if we get into parts work a little bit, like the part of you that is making you have that desire for a body change, like, thanks so much for showing up or like, body, thanks so much for sending the message to my brain to think about my body's appearance to try to get my attention, because you're really needing something right now. So the kind of odd thing is, we don't actually want to get rid of that at first. Because if it's your only body's way of communicating something to you, and you keep trying to get rid of your body image concerns, then your body maybe doesn't have another way to communicate its needs yet, sometimes that language needs to be built up and then kind of the body image language gets to kind of take a backseat.

Kristin Jenkins 36:06

Yeah, I think you're touching on something really cool there, which is like how often some body image recommendations can fall flat, right, of oh well, you know, just like recite affirmations, right? Like, just stare in the mirror and say, like, no, my body is great. Like, I love my thighs when they touch or I love my rolls on my tummy when they fold over, right. Like, I don't think that that's getting at the root of like, when you're staring in the mirror and you're like, oh, I don't like what I'm seeing, right? Like, it's really just slapping a bandaid on it, right? Like it's putting positive language on something that, like you said, your body is trying to send you a much deeper message with that thought. And you're not, you're not getting to it when you're just sort of like slapping this, you know, body positive sticker on it, essentially.

Stephanie Mara 36:59

Absolutely. It makes me think of the really famous video. Well, Brene Brown gave a talk and someone made it into a video about the difference between sympathy and empathy. And that like, you know, sympathy is someone's like, I'm having a really hard day and you're like, oh, you'll be okay, and you just like slap a bandaid on it. Whereas empathy is kind of someone's like, I'm in the darkness, and I'm struggling and you're like, let me climb down into the darkness with you and hang out with you here. And so just even experiencing that when you are having a difficult body image day, for example, I don't like to call it bad. You know the language is always like a bad body image day. And it's like, well, why does it have to be bad just because you're having like a difficult day being in a body? So you know, if we're having just this difficult day being in a body, can you kind of like climb down the ladder into the darkness with your body and being like, it is hard to be in this body today. Like, yeah, I'm having a lot of harsh critical thoughts about my body today and meeting yourself in it instead of, I love how you framed of like just slapping a body positivity sticker on it. Yeah, like that doesn't actually get at meeting yourself with what it is that you are experiencing.

Kristin Jenkins 38:16

Yeah, well, and I think that that's where a lot of like mainstream body positivity really falls flat too, right. I think that I honestly think that diet culture has really co opted a lot of like the language and the, you know, the hashtags for body positivity. And I think it makes people feel as though if they're practicing body positivity, that they're just always happy about their body, right? Like, they're always happy about the way their body looks, they're always comfortable in their body, like everything is just rainbow and roses in their body all the time. And I have yet to meet a single person personally or professionally where that is true. And I think that that puts as much of an unrealistic expectation on people as perhaps the thin ideal that you know, okay, well, like if you're going to be in a larger body, at least be happy about it, right? Like I don't think that that's helpful for folks. So I tend to try to steer people away from this sort of like glittery version of body positivity, and focus more on body acceptance or body respect or body neutrality even right like can I just feel neutral about my body, can I not think about the way that my body is looking one way or the other for five minutes, five hours, right, like a day and I find that that's often a lot more accessible and helps make some of the self care stuff feel a little bit more accessible again, because you don't have to love the way that your body looks to be able to nourish it or hydrate it or give it adequate sleep or you know, go out in the sunshine, right, like you don't have to love the way your body looks to be able to do those self care things that would otherwise make you feel better.

Stephanie Mara 40:01

Yeah. And I actually really appreciate the baby steps you just gave there because when you're starting to explore maybe having a different kind of relationship with ebbing and flowing with your body image journey, that sometimes it's wow, let me just notice how often I think about my body's appearance throughout the day. And you might realize, like, oh, it's there all day long. And I love just your suggestion there of could you guide your attention for an hour is probably a long time, especially if you're thinking about it like all day, every day, like for five minutes, like or a minute? To like practice thinking or reflecting on something else, besides your body's appearance and notice what that feels like. And then, you know, do that for a couple of weeks and then say, okay, I really have it kind of nailed down, I can spend five minutes of the day thinking about something else besides how my body looks, could I extend that out a little bit longer and a little bit longer? And I find that there's this space that happens of oh, okay, so I'm not thinking about my body or worrying about my body's appearance, and then how I need to eat to control my body's appearance, what do I fill all that time with?

Kristin Jenkins 41:18

I totally agree. I had a therapist explain it once to me. And I might even still have the card that I use. Essentially, picture having a postcard. And on that postcard, we can just call that body image, right. So I think if you're in it all day, every day where you're thinking about your body, or thinking about the way that your body looks, you're thinking about the way that other people are perceiving your body. It's as if you're holding the postcard right here touching your nose. It's the only thing that you can see, it's clouding your vision of everything else. I think what you just just described is this process of, okay, can I at least stretch my arms out? Right? So that the postcard is further away. Right? Like, I can now see other things in my vision, I can see things in my periphery. How does that feel? And then once you're in that place, maybe you realize, wow, like, this feels great. But my two hands are still holding on to the postcard. And so while I see the things around me, I can't interact and interface with my life the way that I want to, because I'm still holding so tightly to this body image piece. So again, how does it feel to lay the postcard down in your lap? Now you have your two hands, you can interface with the world, you can be social, you can enjoy things in your life, you might still feel the weight of body image from time to time, right? Like, you might still feel that postcard in your lap, you can look down and you can assess it, and you can be curious about it. But it doesn't have to be your entire vision. And I just found that really powerful because it was like, wow, like what a great way to think about distancing yourself from just being totally immersed in all of those thoughts, right? Like, how is my body looking? How is it being perceived by people?

Stephanie Mara 43:11

I am such a huge proponent of imagery so I love that example. Because it really just lands in the body of like, this is what it's like for your body to have this in front of your face all the time, where it's really hard to actually interact with the world and your life when this is constantly like a tape playing in the background or that postcard that's right in front of your vision, and you can't see anything else. Yeah, I love that. That is the process. Like, okay, I still need this. This is kind of like a safety blanket for me. But can I like take a little bit of space from the safety blanket? And then can I put the safety blanket down on my lap where I can grab it if I need to, but you know, I'm maybe not holding on so tightly to it anymore.

Kristin Jenkins 43:11

Right. Exactly.

Stephanie Mara 43:15

I love that. Well, for those who are beginning, in the middle of this journey, you know, often I like to kind of offer a baby step. And it's really interesting, just the different baby steps that people offer on yeah, what's a baby step you feel like someone could take if they are on this journey and wanting to come into relationship with their body and their appearance in a different way?

Kristin Jenkins 44:22

Yeah, I mean, I think we touched on it a little bit. And it's just this idea of are there moments during the day where we can practice curiosity and not judgment, because that doesn't require any action, right? Like, I'm not asking you to take any action. I'm not asking you to fix anything. I'm not asking you to do anything differently other than observe a thought that you're having, without buying into the thought or acting on the thought, right? Like, can we just observe it with curiosity, and not judge it and not act on it? And I think that that allows folks just to, again, get a little bit of distance from those thoughts. Maybe not jumping to this idea that like that, just because I'm having a thought about my body, it must be true. Because then we can sort of take the one two punch of like, is it true? And is it helpful? Right? Like, that's sort of like the next step. But yeah, I think just observing, and not acting on things.

Stephanie Mara 45:23

Yeah, I love that. I like to find the most tolerable smallest baby step that we can take, that doesn't feel too overwhelming in our body. And curiosity is so available in any moment, whenever we really feel like we're in it, just to meet ourselves with curiosity, that ultimately can sometimes also open a door to compassion, that it's like, I'm feeling this for a reason. And I'm having these thoughts for a reason. And can I meet myself with curiosity around why this might be an experience I need right now?

Kristin Jenkins 45:57

Yeah, well, then I think it sort of takes the blame off of the person too, right? Because you're not blaming yourself for not doing something about it. And you know, like we talked about earlier, like, maybe being able to zoom out and say, like, why, why am I having this thought, right? Like, whoever made me feel this way in my body? What is it about my environment that's making me feel this way in my body? So really taking the pressure off of the individual to try to fix it.

Stephanie Mara 46:22

Yeah. Well, I so appreciate all the wisdom that you have shared here today. And I'm curious how others can keep in touch with you and the work that you're doing.

Kristin Jenkins 46:33

Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the ways that you found me slash our practice is through Instagram. So our handle is @marylanddietitians, all spelled out. You can also find us on Facebook and Pinterest on that same handle. If you're interested in working with me or one of my weight inclusive colleagues, we have a whole practice of dietitians that specialize in lots of different conditions, not just eating disorders, you can find us at our website, rbitzer.com. And you can reach out to us that way.

Stephanie Mara 47:09

Awesome. Well, I will leave all of those links in the show notes and just thank you so much, again, for your wisdom and your fantastic insights that you have into this. This was just such a like I feel inspired by this conversation. And so I appreciate your time today.

Kristin Jenkins 47:26

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me on. This was such a joy to have such a wonderful conversation with you. So thank you.

Stephanie Mara 47:33

Yeah, well to those who are listening as always, I will leave our contacts in the show notes so reach out anytime with any questions and I hope you all have a wonderful, regulating, safety producing rest of your day and I will be in touch with you all soon. Bye!

Keep in touch with Kristin here:

Website: ⁠https://rbitzer.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marylanddietitians/

Resources mentioned:

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

Intuitive Eating Workbook by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resh

Anti Diet by Christy Harrison

The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

You Have The Right To Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar

More Than A Body by Lexie and Lindsay Kite