Bonus Episode: Mailbag!

Many thanks for the specific guidance on how to talk to thin and slightly fat people about how to talk to their fat friends. This is so hard, especially as a Boomer with Boomer friends who have decades of listening to the fat is unhealthy propaganda.

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

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

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

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 There’s an endless barrage of outdated food pyramid and portion size bs, but by far the most triggering to me was a health teacher promoting an app to high school students that you scan barcodes and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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh my gosh, Aubrey all the time growing up I got “you have such beautiful eyelashes!” 🙄

I can't remember where the interview was, but Zac Efron talked about how awful it was to stay in "Baywatch" shape and the reality of that lifestyle's impacts on mental health. Pretty good celebrity take.

PreK teacher in a public school. We are required to do a BMI report card. Us not nurses. I take the information because they check. I don't send home the report card. It finds the trash can 🤷‍♀️

What the heck is an adaptagen?

Jason Fung and his books obesity code and PCOS code (he cowrote) I had both chucked at me after my PCOS diagnosis, he was hugely worshipped on YouTube and reddit there for a minute

Has anyone else heard of the allergy testing via a hair sample? It was big in Australia about a year ago. You send a sample of your hair along with your money to find out all the foods your allergic to. The company sends backs traffic light system on foods you should avoid. I had a friend eating tomatoes and sunflower seeds for a month because she was “allergic” to everything else, including pigeon, something she had never eaten before.

Isogenics….

I would love an episode about the garbage science of body types and character/psychological dispositions. Having obtained my psychology-degree in the early 2000s, I still had to learn about the “histrionic” or “masochistic” body type. I believe it goes back to Wilhelm Reich and then to psychoanalysis, finally. I think this pseudo-science has done a lot of harm an I would love to see it getting debunked!

I'd love to hear something about Juicero and Doug Evans. Pretty wild stuff, his instagram extolls the virtues of only eating sprouts.

I would love a bonus episode about the correlation between anxiety and health! (Especially gut health). This past year I've found myself experiencing profound anxiety and panic attacks for the first time in my adult life, and something I realized I put on consistently as a comfort noise in the background is pt 2 of the Jordan Peterson episodes, and I realized recently that it's because Aubrey briefly opens up about her own struggles with anxiety. Hearing just those few sentences made me feel less alone, and I go back to that episode at least once a week just for the creature comfort. As I've been learning about managing my own anxiety I've found so many grifty ass quick fixes, and also there's such a profound connection between the anxiety in the mind and the alarm felt in the body, so I feel like there could be a really dope episode in that!

My 11yo said she heard about the cotton ball diet online and she thinks it would make a great topic for the show.

Yes please do an episode on academia! I would love to hear your analysis.

Oh no my brother just asked for books on the Wim Hof method for Christmas. I will absolutely not buy them for him, please give me a MP debunking episode instead! ;)

I once worked at a school for autistic children. The PE teacher (who had been there 18 years and was very much immune to complaints made against her) took every opportunity she could to talk about the kids’ weight. She once described the teenage girls I was supporting as ‘feeders’. She would talk about students in front of them if they were nonverbal/ non-talking, but not about their weight or body, which meant she knew that her comments about people’s bodies were wrong but obviously though I was a ‘safe’ thin person to have this kind of discussion with. Anybody that wasn’t 2% body fat was ‘unhealthy’ in her eyes and she always asked me about my plans for dinner and commented how healthy it was. Super fucking disgusting. Oh, she also said to a coworker (who would be classified ‘obese’ by the medical system) during a school charity run, ‘don’t worry about it, you won’t be able to do it anyway’ clearly referring to his body. He did it anyway. Why is it always the PE teachers???

I was shocked to see that you havent done Jilly Juice.

Can you do an episode on Dr Robert Lustig? He seems to have extreme views that I would love to see debunked…

Gosh I would love for you to have one of these "health influencers" as a guest.

that one about the secondary school…omg. if i found out my photo was used that way at school i would have likely ended my life. they just don’t care about fat kids

Just listened to the Food Pyramid episode, and then I saw this in my Facebook feed and laughed way harder than I would have without listening to that episode first -- if you follow Bianca del Rio she's known as quite snarky, and this sassy post refers to daily allotment of minerals which just killed me dead... 😂 It's using "adult" language which I doubt anyone here has any issues with, but just a warning before clicking the link - https://www.facebook.com/TheBiancaDelRIo/posts/pfbid0xtxCafXE3oak2MamzeqXEuaNakh9NfCJtemCGRAS1JiMfnXPN93NFtYAM4HXrUX5l (and sorry for the stupid long link, thanks Fb...) And speaking of adult language, I kept having to rewind that episode by 10 seconds at a time as a friend kept chatting to me and I was missing bits, but the amount of times I'd hit the 10 sec rewind and hear a curse word as the first indication of where I was in the episode was truly glorious... It became quite melodic after a while. 😂😂😂

I just thought of a tagline for the most recent episode: The podcast that throws shade on the food triangle to make you think it's a pyramid

I just listened to the Food Pyramid episode and I can’t believe you didn’t talk about Mulligan Stew! It was a children’s show created by the USDA about healthy eating. We did a poster contest for it in 4th grade. Their slogan was Eat 4-4-3-2. I can’t remember which foods go with which number but I sing the Mulligan Stew theme song all the time!

on the recent daily harvest episode i was hoping when talking about meal kits + workers you’d mention hello fresh and their union busting efforts! i’m so sick of seeing them being sponsored non stop. they’re shady as hell!

"are you from the Bolsonaro family?" honestly made me spit my coffee. you two are amazing. thanks for the work and for going through these emails. I love these episodes.

Mike & Aubrey - I’m just a lil brand new baby school counselor trying to make life easier for all my students but with a special attention and awareness of my students who are part of marginalized groups. Just popping into say thank you for making bonus content available for all tiers. Currently fighting to get cost of living increases at work, so it is incredibly awesome that I am able to access this content with what works for my budget. So much love for you both!

If this is an appropriate thread for begging you to tackle a subject, I'd love to see you two tackle macrobiotics. My mom lived in a macrobiotic commune in Cambridge back in the day! And lately I've been meeting other people my age (Gen X) who had macrobiotic parents. I'm so curious as to what your research eagle eyes would yield! When I was growing up my mother always quoted the leader of the macrobiotic movement about all kinds of things. She totally bought into everything he said. I think it was her gateway into all kinds of wellness b.s. and disordered eating, that she passed down to me.

More suggestions for Michael’s new podcast: the EQ book by Daniel Goldman? And that prisoner of geography nonsense which like Diamond’s book basically argues that developing countries are fucked so we should just leave them to it. The other one is pretty old and probably debunked enough but The Rules was huge for a while and affected a whole bunch of women who bought into the steaming pile of crap. Outliers episode was great!!

One really frustrating thing I've found as a teacher is fat representation in books for kids. Fat characters are either used for laughs or as Teachable Moments on how what matters is being beautiful on the inside. I try my best to push back by highlighting how those portrayals are based on stereotypes and also that being fat is just a descriptor with no bearing on if someone is beautiful. And don't get me started on anti-fatness in health books for kids (I'm looking at you puberty book that tells pre-teens to watch what you eat or you might get fat! oh and also, track what you eat).

Can you do an episode on the Whole30? It was definitely my gateway into some pretty disordered eating habits for a long time. It’s a great toxic combination of severe restriction (it’s based on the paleo diet, but even more extreme!) plus shaming (disguised as “tough love”). It also has lots of wild claims (all anecdotes!) about reversing certain conditions and diseases.

Please do an episode on academia please!

I am wondering about Mike and Aubrey’s take on a trope in media about fat people. I most recently saw this in the comic book series Saga, where a thin character (The Will) gains a lot of weight after his sister dies. It feels like body fat is being used as a visual way to convey that a character is emotionally unhealthy. On the other hand, I think that emotional eating is a very real way that people cope with grief. So is this good representation of one phenomenon at the expense of fat people who don’t want to be conflated with personal tragedy and assumptions about their coping mechanisms? I have mixed feelings and would love to hear y’all unpack this. It seems similar to the Marianne Williamson argument that fat is emotional armor and it’s pathological.

Mike was named dropped on the podcast Cautionary Tales with Tim Hartford in their Halloween Poisoner's episode!

HMU if you want to take a deep dive on toxic diet and body culture in the orthodox Jewish community. Spoiler: there are matchmakers with checklists involved

Hello! I'd like to recommend for Michael's new podcast the book "Guns Germs and Steel" wherein it turns out that racial inequalities aren't due to race science being real nor racism so no one has to feel bad about anything! /s

Would love to hear your take on Kambo, the frog poison ‘cure’… seems to be making another resurgence with desperate Long COVID sufferers. The treatments sound god awful and very risky. https://www.psycom.net/kambo

Hello there I never use Twitter but I want to tell Michael that his new podcast on shit books everyone seems to believe (is that what it's called? :)) is fantastic and honestly I would listen to you guys read telephone directories if we still had them. But anyway, please make many more episodes of MP and the new one and anything really. From a sad Michael Hobbes Stan

I'm an educator, and I teach a class for 5th/6th and 3rd/4th graders we call "Rap Around" where we talk about social stuff, emotions, bodies, identity, all that good stuff. Last January I did a unit to try to combat the new year's messaging around bodies that I knew the kids would be receiving and overhearing. Some of them really fought me on the idea that "fat does not equal unhealthy", but I did my best to start planting the seeds. These are kids who love learning (even when they grumble) so I know that the data I was giving them - in kid-accessible ways - was sinking in. AND! Two different kids who I know are receiving messages about their size brought up the lesson with me this fall in positive ways. My plan for this year is to collaborate with a plus-size colleague to do a staff training on fatphobia and sizeism. The teachers at my (progressive, maybe even radical, tiny, abolitionist) school are really willing to do better -- they keep coming to me to ask for books about getting teased for being fat, and my answer to them is: how do you talk about yourself in front of the kids? How do you comment on your own eating habits? We can read books about not teasing, but let's start from the ground up! Anyway -- I know it's mostly not like that in schools, but I wanted to give folks some hope that there are places where we're trying!

I had a coworker text me at 7am on a Monday morning to tell me that WLS was the best thing she’s ever done. It was more hurtful than any other fatphobic comment I’ve ever received. 😔

Podcats no longer play on Google Podcasts :(

Hi! Love the show, but I’m confused- I see a “bonus “ ep under the regular feed called “Bariatric Surgery…”, dated Oct 30, which I think is the same as THIS ep under MP after dark? But I can’t open the one in the normal feed? I don’t need to support both MP and MP after dark, do I? Thanks, love you guys, Carol

I would LOVE an episode on TB12 (and Tom Brady)

Hi! Speaking of "studies with bad methodologies", the PACE study is super interesting and could make a great episode. The short story is that our society is so eager to label chronic illness as laziness (and save insurance companies $$) that a whole study was designed to prove that all ME (aka chronic fatigue) patients needed was therapy and exercise. It was so badly designed that 13% of participants met the success criteria before it started... It's one of the reasons we're so unprepared for long covid now. https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/21/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-pace-trial/ There was a horrible article about this by Jeff Wise in NY Mag a couple days ago that was basically like "this study was debunked, but what if it was right?" I would LOVE to see you all take this on!

Ok long story short I’ve had to go on anti anxiety medication for the first time in my life mid-pandemic because things were just like, getting to be Too Much and then recently my doctor recommended I stop because my dose was pretty low and I seemed to be back on an even keel. Alas this was The Wrong Call because not only did I have shit withdrawal symptoms the debilitating panic attacks came back. I’m going to the doc to ask for my drugs back this Monday but in the last few months of strugglebussing listening to your podcast has the only surefire way to get my scumbag brain to calm down and my heart rate back to normal levels. Y’all are literally saving my life and I thought you should know that, seriously you guys are the best.

I recently started working as an educator in an extension office in a rural community where diabetes is hugely prevalent. Most of my job is supposed to be teaching gardening workshops and food preservation classes but increasingly, people want me to provide nutritional information/advice for weight loss. This is alarming to me, as I am not remotely trained in nutrition and as a big fan of this show, not interested in handing out weight loss tips. I've been able to mostly ignore these requests, but it makes me sad to see how pervasive the myth of personal responsibility for diabetes is in this community facing so much systemic food insecurity and poverty.

TW/CW for discussion of weight loss attempt. Disclosure - currently taking a GLP-1 to help manage blood sugar, lose weight, and I am not a diabetic. I would be interested in a more researched and in-depth episode on semaglutides, but I’m not sure the jury is in yet. There are new GLP-1 (and similar) drugs in development that are just too new to assess long-term results. This is a topic with a lot of gray area to me, because if a drug ends up being effective, then why wouldn’t it be ok for doctors to prescribe to address weight-related issues? I have severe insulin resistance and PCOS, and past a certain weight gain, I am suffering a lot more from my PCOS symptoms. I am attempting to lose 10-15 percent in order to hopefully restore ovulation and manage my symptoms better. The drug I’m taking has helped me feel so much better - I have more energy, and I am off the roller coaster that leaves me hungry 10 minutes after I eat to satiety. I’m able to do this without going to extremes with my diet, which is not sustainable. It’s been life changing for me, and I would take a weekly injection for life if that’s what it would take to manage the condition. It’s not much different that the daily medication I take for other health issues.

Regarding the autoimmunity thing, because I do feel it's very relevant to the podcast, I wanna recommend a book to anyone who wants to understand those connections more. Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery

I haven't read all the comments above so this might have been mentioned already, but autoimmunity is not a good thing! It's when your immune system goes haywire and starts attacking your own body's tissues. It's the mechanism behind diseases like MS and rheumatoid arthritis. (If you're looking for evil scammy grifters preying on vulnerable and desperate people, by the way, look no farther than all the diet and supplement miracle cures marketed at people with chronic illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, post-infectious disorders like ME/CFS and long COVID, and so on. It's seriously dark stuff.)

I absolutely love when Michael has no idea who some famous celebrity is! And Aubrey is like, come on!

One of my favorite episodes yet. I learned a ton and you guys discussed things I never would have thought about but totally should.

I was listening to this in the car AND I HAD TO PULL OVER because I was laughing so hard at Mike’s comment about looking like Putin.

Just about cried at the doctor advocating for fat people's access to fertility care. Accessing appropriate care is a huge challenge for fat people trying to conceive, and can be heartbreaking. It means a lot to me to see people shifting their perspectives and advocating for their patients.

Can we follow up about replicating the state auditor’s success?

For whatever it's worth, you're making a difference in a variety of fields. I work in active transportation, and I recall even in my graduate thesis having a line in the intro about reasons to promote bicycling that had a throwaway "and to combat the obesity epidemic" in it. Now I would never frame it that way, and encourage my colleagues not to do so either if I ever spot them doing the same. I've struggled for years with how to balance the fact that I do genuinely feel like I should exercise with not wanting to be shamed for my size because exercise and size were so inextricably linked in my upbringing, like I simply couldn't understand that exercise existed for any other reason than making ourselves smaller. This show has helped me land on the perspective that I should bike, and hike, and walk, because they do in fact make me healthier... which may or may not ever be reflected in a way that people can visually understand. And if they never make me any slimmer, that doesn't mean I should give up because they "aren't working," because slimness is not the measurement of whether they are working—my heart rate, blood pressure, glucose, and frankly my mood are the measurements. So y'all have helped me bring a healthier perspective to my work, and continue to advocate for cycling and pedestrian resources without triggering the hell out of people with my own baggage.

You asked for educator comments. I teach foods, health, nutrition in a high school. I sent an email a while back, but its R O U G H out there. The curriculum, which has been used for years, is so damaging and harmful. And when I make attempts to update it and restructure, I am hit with a wall. Other teachers are against that and there very few resources out there for teaching nutrition to children and teenagers.

Interestingly, the most recent bonus episode of Conspirituality talks about a grifter who claims to heal with "Scalar!". It's quite loony.

In response to the gym membership for the student — it may have been about weight (which would be gross), but I work at a community college with a lot of low-income students, and for housing-insecure/utilities-insecure students, a gym membership often means access to a hot shower, a well-lit place to get ready in the morning, access to wifi, etc. I’m not automatically assuming that this was the purpose, because I know that some people really do think weight is a more important issue than housing security. But I am holding onto a slight hope that maybe it’s about more than that.

I love the responses to the advice letter. Very helpful.

I appreciate your words on weight loss drugs and surgery. Everything you both said resonates with me. However, I’m still grappling with the fact that, just like diets, weight loss surgery is a low calorie diet in a surgical form. And if we are comfortable looking a fad diets and pulling apart the research that shows that diets don’t actually work, why are we uncomfortable looking at the research on weight-loss surgery? I’m not here to shame anyone about their health care decisions - I am a large fat with a chronic health condition so every doctor I see wants to make me smaller. For anyone interested, Ragen Chastain has a great substack on these issues, including advocating for yourself in the doctor’s office and ensuring that you are informed before consenting to medical treatment - whatever that may be.

Lol @ “women be reading articles”

Have you guys ever done an episode on essential oils and/or sketchy ass weightloss and “wellness” MLM scams? I would love to hear you absolutely tear those companies apart and also just laugh at how ridiculous their claims are

Listening to the DH episode while making dinner. Are my frozen bell pepper looking suspicious and getting overcooked? Why yes they are.

I was literally just thinking about how I would love to hear a mail bag episode. Keep 'em coming! <3

I've worked at a school for a few years now and we have never talked about a students weight because they were fat. Certainly never made a staff meeting about it and with pictures?! The only time I or any teacher I have worked with has mentioned weight of a student was in the case of a thin student. Their weight ht along with other things we had noticed made us think they may be being neglected. That's the only time. I'd rather my students be fat than starving.

Thank you for addressing your thoughts and concerns about bariatric surgery. I find myself caught square between the conviction to speak up about the detriment of these surgeries and the devastating idea of harming people who have already suffered enough. It feels impossible to approach the subject at all, let alone tell my sister’s story and find some kind of justice for her. How much I wish I could empower all large bodied people to love themselves so fiercely it would shatter the stigma driving us to extreme measures. But for now I can be encouraged with bi-monthly reminders that I have the right to exist in this world just as I am.

They give BMI at all pediatrician appointments at my practice (SF Bay Area). As if it matters at all that my six-month-old has a BMI of 16.47…

I was listening to the Tim Ferriss show the other day and thought to myself - wait a minute, wasn't his first business in supplements? I checked his Wikipedia and it seems to be the case. Could that be something worth checking out, along with "The 4-Hour Body"?

I would love an episode on the demonisation of seed oils! While it may originate with keto weirdos, I see it coming from non-keto people too.

I would love if you did an episode on fat phobic books from when we were kids! Blubber and Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade fucking scarred me

As an Aussie who has experienced fat bias by doctors, medical gaslighting, all the negative things, etc it was nice to hear that there is a doctor here that is not only listening but taking some action. In Australia weight loss surgery has become the new plastic surgery. I know of people intetionally gaining weight to be over the minimum threshold, with the surgeons knowledge. I was personally referred to an obesity clinic by a GP who told me that the endocronologist there would run tests only to turn up and have the endocronologist give me a sales pitch for weight loss surgery, losing interest in me within moments. To this doctor I would say, you are fighting an uphill battle but if you don't do it no one will and patients will continue to suffer.

"Autoimmunity" isn't good; it's when your immune system attacks your own body because it mistakes healthy cells for pathogens. Autoimmunity causes diseases like Crohn's, rheumatoid arthritis, MS, and lupus.

Some of the "vegan health aura" communicated in the Daily Harvest episode made me REALLY want to hear a breakdown from y'all about all the absolute fuckery around veganism. It's simply an ethical position about not eating animal-based foods when practical and possible, one you can choose to align with or not align with. And yet, the topic is a bottomless pit of misinformation, bad faith arguments, and moral projections. Veganism doesn't mean restricting your calories or only eating quinoa, and to say that a food is vegan tells you absolutely nothing about that food's origin or impact on your health. Similarly, "plant-based" food is just that, food not made of animals that you may choose to eat for ethical, environmental or "that doesn't make my tummy feel great" reasons. I've been seeing a huge increase of media reporting gotcha stories about oatmilk, faux meat and other products – ie "Is Oat Milk Actually Good For You?" which are mired in shitty number crunching health claims from both sides of the issue. I just feel like we're carving an unfortunate groove here of media first holding up specific vegan products or "superfoods" as the new holy grail of healthy choices, then everyone comes out to dunk on those claims. And then the whole institution of trying to eat food you like/food that doesn't make you feel sick/food that you feel aligns with your values gets knocked down a peg in favor of speculating on whether or not that extra gram of sugar in your oatmilk is going to destroy your health (read: make you get fat). Obviously this is a fraught topic for a lot of people, but I'm dying to hear your thoughts when it comes to marketing, media and health communications moreso than whether or not individuals are making the right choice or an effective choice by eating vegan.

Thank you for this episode! So much in this one I needed to hear.

Thanks for this episode! One topic you have touched on briefly in different episodes but I would be super interested in a deep dive, is "gym culture" and the rise of protein powder and other supplements for muscle growth/ recovery/magic?. How much truth is there behind those products, and how much is based on pseudo-science? Also tracking the history of how gym fitness as a health ideal came about :)

Episode idea: would love for you guys to cover grifter of all grifters Brittany Dawn. She started out as a fitness scammer and now has gone full fundamentalist Christian and there is SO much to unpack. Love the show! This episode was especially poignant 🙏🏼

Smallfat ELL teacher here. I *will* say body image stuff persists in every culture, but my kids in general have been pretty good about any adaptation to curriculum. For example, in reading an article about technology use that mentioned a side effect of technology use is weight gain, I just told em that we were gonna skip the next two lines because that's just not something we're gonna be judgey about people for. Because I'm small fat, whenever I talk to my kids about being fat, they have been like "YOU'RE NOT FAT". We were reading a book about sumo wrestlers and talking about how fat isn't a bad thing... But as soon as I said it was fat, they got very protective of me. I talked about how I identify as fat and I have fat on my body and it's okay, and *one* girl got it, it was like oh okay Ms Nancy is saying she's fat so she's fat and it's not a problem. Anywhooooo. I work in a hella progressive school with a super active civil rights team so that may be why! I do have to make a lot of adaptations to outside of school curriculum. I had the most fun adapting the "donuts are bad apples are good lesson" to a taste test of all the different sugars, to reminders that sugars are a place, and different activities to reflect on how our body feels with different amounts of sugar, and there are times , like a birthday party, when you WANNA feel stuffed fulla sugar, and other times, like before soccer practice, where ya dont! I guess I'm just saying that good education works, I'm in a good school that views body size as something students have a right to be free from discrimination on, and as such, I have fourth grade boys calling each other out on body shaming

I would love love love to hear you all talk about Bea Johnson and zero waste living - on the surface it doesn’t sound like it’s a health & wellness thing but it absolutely is. It’s a ridiculous mix of alllll of the lifestyle stuff out there thats packaged to make you think you’re going to be happier and healthier because your life is “simpler” (there’s decluttering/minimalism, capsule wardrobes, harmful chemicals in store-bought make-up, natural household cleaners only, etc etc)

I am also curious! In that same time frame I had friends who had to PUT ON weight (after successfully losing weight on their own) in order to qualify for the Gastric bypass/duodenal switch. One is thriving; he's been great. The other is not.

Also: they start calculating BMI at a newborn’s first doctor’s appointment and put it on the report after every appointment all ages. Thankfully our pediatrician has thus far not talked about weight/BMI at all mostly just seems happy my toddler will eat chicken nuggets, but there it is in her medical record for reasons unknown.

I’m one of the people who has asked about bariatric surgery as a topic. Personally I was curious as to whether it had fallen out of medical favor and what the history was there. Aubrey mentioned that most of the people she knows who have been recommended for it are in the 500-600lb range and it’s been done to access surgery and treatment. This was the kind of thing I was wondering about because about 10-15 years ago I knew a bunch of people doing it who were more in the 250-300lb range and doing it for more cosmetic reasons, and/or because doctors told them it wasn’t healthy to weigh that much without any other specificity. It seems like there has been a quiet shift that doctors and patients are more cautious with it? I know people whose lives were significantly impacted by it, not in a good way. If trends have changed over time it might signify a change in how both doctors and individuals are thinking about fatness.

Not an episode idea, but Aubrey you should let us know the recipe for your apple cider vinegar drink from the Braggs episode, it sounded really good!

I am super looking forward to more coverage of how this garbage ends up in schools (BMI report cards and such). If you're open to having guests, maybe Virginia Sole-Smith? Her upcoming book would definitely be relevant here! And she is one of my favorite anti-diet voices in the parenting space, which is FULL of secret diet culture.

Academic here. Just had a discussion last week about how quantitative research is often considered "masculine" an qualitative research is often view negatively as "feminine."

Hey I'm a government performance auditor and I really want to read the report "Dr.Y" talked about, but I can't find it in our database so I assume it's not published yet. I'll keep my eye out for it but it would be great to let the listeners know the audit office or name of the report so they can read it too

Hello I am a teacher in the UK for sixth form students (16-18) and we don’t have any weight related things in colleges but I have firsthand seen the effect of them on these kids. It’s gross and I think some things have changed since I was a child but it’s also way not enough.

Ps - Haylie Duff is Hilary Duff’s sister! Not Blake Lively 😂💕

Today’s Daily Harvest main episode regulatory Wild West is all the more frightening given the recent research linking Norovirus infection with possibly triggering Crohn’s disease for folks with a common genetic mutation. (Am someone who suddenly developed the illness after age 30 initially assuming catering food poisoning.) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna50564

I don’t agree that bariatric surgery can’t be discussed. It’s being recommended for smaller and smaller people now and younger and younger people as well. It’s something that causes suicide, death, permanent disability. I’ve been told I should be getting the surgery because my sister who was a small fat person got it and lost a bunch of weight. Doctors will lie and hide the symptoms and the effects. It’s really a nefarious industry. I think it’s perfectly in line with the show. Its so much bigger than a choice between a person and their doctor. I think it’s one of the biggest issues facing fat people in our time - being told to amputate a vital organ in pursuit of thinness.

I welled up when I heard the part from Dr Y and the GP. Must be so gratifying to hear how your work is influencing those in healthcare. Thanks for all you do, such a great podcast

I would love to see you guys do an episode about diabetes sometime. I'm diabetic and I find it very hard to look after myself, in part because of how interconnected diabetes seems to be with weight loss.

Was there an article or something about semaglutide advising people to use it to lose weight? Is THAT why I got a sudden flood of rxs for ozempic? (I imagine what neighborhood you're in changes how many rxs a pharmacy gets for this too. My current pharmacy is in an upper-middle class area, so that explains why I'm seeing so many off-label rxs for it.)

Omg the semaglutide thing!! I'm a pharmacy technician and it has been so frustrating and depressing to see how hard it is to get ozempic for my diabetic patients because doctors are prescribing it off-label for weight loss. Like, things can be prescribed off-label, that does happen, but when seen like this, it causes so many goddamn issues. It happened all at once where, suddenly, there was no ozempic available and I'm having to fax doctors like "this is on backorder for 2 months" is fucking ridiculous. Now everyone's moving to Mounjaro which is still meant to be for diabetics but I'm seeing it primarily for weight loss in patients and I'm seeing it primarily because Mounjaro is offering manufacturer coupons that severely cut the price down from over $1000 down to $25-ish. (Which someone told me they suspect is a way to get people on the med and also avoid taxes or something.) I still see so many people on phentermine, which is a controlled drug for a reason, just for weight loss. (At least that's not off-label I guess.) But it's like, why are we prescribing amphetamine-type drugs to people to lose weight!!! Does it not tell you something that we basically have to have someone on speed for the rest of their life for the desired outcome? It's ridiculous. It's depressing and fucking tragic.

As a parent, I've had my kids come home and tell me they had their teacher talk to them about healthy & unhealthy food, why you shouldn't eat lots of candy, etc, and why "eating healthy" will "keep you healthy." They even tried (in our school district) to force the PTA, who does all the hot lunches, to only do "healthy options" and not McDonald's, or treat items. I emailed them, along with writing a response on FB ( cuz they posted asking for feedback) and myself & a bunch of staff, careivers & families got them to change their mind. (The reason why McD hot lunches are popular is cuz they are cheap & popular, meaning the PTA can make money!)

Gigantic thank you to fellow patron Liz W for sending me funds so that I could finally afford to subscribe to the Maintenance Phase Patreon. This person showed up for me (I hope you see this Liz!) and this bonus content is truly lifesaving. I have been listening to MP since its inception and it's nice to finally be here thanks to Liz, hello everyone!!

I would love to see an episode about the movie Forks Over Knives or the underlying ideas behind it, many of which come from The China Study book. I found the documentary a bit too pat back when it came out and I've read that the book itself does some cherry picking of data to make its argument, but I'd love to hear what y'all have to say about it, especially since the movie then led to a diet and books.

To the MPH emailer from the start of the episode: You can go a long way toward developing the kind of expertise you are looking at without necessarily learning the ins and outs of advanced statistical methods. A lot of the time, when a study is bad, it's bad either from the design side or because it's using some basic shady statistical fudges you probably already learned about at some point but maybe aren't at the top of your list. Learn the science behind the limits of self-reported data or retrospective accounts. Brush up on what it means when a sample isn't representative (or how you check whether it is.) Get in the habit of asking what variables the researchers didn't include and think about how those variables might be important. Review the concept of p hacking (although Michael gave an overview in an episode, if you're going to read journals critically, you might want a more precise definition of the connection between p hacking and statistical significance), Think about what it means when a researcher opts for a one-tailed test. Watch for associations being given the weight of causal inference. You've already learned most or all of it--but we have a tendency to let the authors frame the question, and sometimes they do it well, and sometimes they don't. Of course you can also always learn more stats, but the thing about stats is that they are "garbage in, garbage out." No amount of fancy analysis will wrestle good conclusions from terrible designs, like the kinds of studies featured so often on this podcast.

As a fat HS teacher in the US, one thing I've noticed is how difficult (or impossible) it is for fat bodies to navigate physical classroom spaces. Whether a problem with too many students in one class/room or poor desk configuration, it can be difficult, embarrassing, and/or impossible to move around some classrooms. As a teacher this makes my job more challenging (and can be a safety risk - I might need to reach a student to give emergency medical assistance). For students, not being able to navigate the classroom is stigmatizing and embarrassing. Physically accessible classrooms are good for all (go Universal Design!).

I’m the PR person for a large research institute in Ontario (love that Michael used a fake ON university as an example, lol) and I’m here to say I read the ENTIRE journal article all the way through, and then have the authors vet my presser before it’s released. They almost always find something I’ve gotten a little wrong or maybe misrepresented. Science communicators have a big job and we need to take responsibility for what we’re communicating!!!

Gosh. It's just never enough. As soon as the episode is over i’m already waiting for the next one.

Loved this episode! I am a teacher and your call for stories from teachers encouraged me to comment. I have struggled with eating disorders throughout my life and have been in the “overweight” BMI category most of my adult life (yes, I know it’s bs). I teach at a boys boarding school in the US. This year, three parents of students have asked me to monitor and report back on their sons’s weight and for me to encourage them to eat “healthy.” Not only is this NOT MY JOB and SUPER PROBLEMATIC, but it has sent me into a panic attack each time. I wonder if they would have asked me to do this if I fit a societal perspective of “fatness.” I haven’t known how to respond, so I told each of them that I am not trained to know about healthy weights and encouraged them to talk to our school nurses. I feel bad for not standing up to them or challenging their beliefs, but in a private school there is a high value placed on keeping parents happy. I feel so bad for these kids whose parents seem to care more about their appearance than their happiness.

please make a “dangerously confident” maintenance phase t-shirt! And also, “function in disaster. finish in style.”

Fantastic bonus episode. You two are AMAZING. You are changing the world for the better. 💯 Still hoping you'll make a bonus episode just featuring all of your different laughs. I could use that most days.

When I was in undergrad for psychology I got a mini sampling of the ways that department interests trickle down. We had to do a mini human subjects research project. Mine was on how food impacts interaction, are people more cooperative when sharing a meal/snack?... Turns out, the department head was obsessed with the "impact of sugar on the brain" so our study was turned into "are people more likely to cooperate on a problem if you give them carrots or m&Ms?" The findings of our mediocre design and TINY sample size were inconclusive (not shockingly). But I remember being irritated that the department head changed the study focus before giving us "approval"

whoa that audit person is INCREDIBLE that’s so insane!!!

Thank you for not covering the topic of weight loss surgery - as Mike said, it's a decision between an individual and their healthcare provider and only they can make the choice over what's right for the individual. I totally respect your decision to not "go there" and I feel you handled the topic in this bonus episode *beautifully*. I was relieved (though not shocked) at how you managed to balance both sides to this topic without making me feel judged for both not wanting surgery for so long and for finally going through with it. Thank you, thank you. Full disclosure, I had WLS and it is something I have no regrets about and have not had any complications from so it was absolutely the right call for me - but this was after decades of fighting my own body to get to a "healthier" weight (I grew up through the 90s with WW, the food pyramid, atkins, etc) and this was MY CHOICE to make. I don't judge others for not wanting to try it and I appreciate that others can avoid judging me for making it. The hardest part is trying to get away from weight being *the* focus of my life because I'm just me, I'm not "Allison [enter starting weight, surgery weight, current weight stats here]".

I had to write in. The BMI for children is raising the hackles on the back of my neck. I’m a fat white woman. My son developed life threatening anorexia in 2010. Thankfully I got him help and addressed it with the help of a specialized psychologist and FBT (family based treatment) or Maudsley Method (https://www.feast-ed.org/). If this is a new policy in schools to do BMI report cards, we are going to be in for more of a shit storm of kids with eating disorders. It’s really harmful, infuriating, and terrifying.

I’ve stopped myself from requesting an episode about weight loss surgery a few times. While I would love to hear your thoughtful take, I also understand why you won’t weigh in. I was offered WLS for the very first time last week. I was seeing my doctor about my stubborn depression and she noted that my blood work and overall health was all good, and instead of referring me to a psychiatrist (which is what I’d asked for) she offered a referral for WLS. I can’t grasp the ethics of suggesting that a healthy patient get a risky surgery with a dismal success rate. I’m considering changing docs but there’s an extreme doctor shortage in my province so it may take years and I May wind up with someone worse. All that to say, I understand your choice to not cover the topic, it makes complete sense. Nonetheless I love the show and wait excitedly for the next time episode!

I am another vote for an episode on the Herbalife liver toxicity scandal! Fair warning to all-- Herbalife's latest tactic is to convince their independent sales reps to set up local "nutrition shops" that sell "loaded teas." These drinks are crazy expensive versions of Crystal Lite with very high amounts of caffeine. The shops do not make a profit, they're a front to sign people up. If you sign up for their rewards program, you're actually signing up for an account with Herbalife. Look in your area for these shops, they usually have some kind of local name followed by "nutrition." They're small, they only sell drinks, and they are slimey.

To build on the conversation about both kid BMI + medical providers, I’m an IBCLC: International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. So I work with families on feeding - sometimes breast/chest, sometimes bottle/formula, sometimes weaning and the transition to solids, etc. I am also small-mid fat. One of the things that I struggle with is seeing families restricting BABIES’ food intake. We’re talking 8 week olds. “oh, she’s just been eating SO much, like 4 oz per feed, we’ve been worried it’s too much so we’ve only been offering 3 oz.” It’s especially hard when they do this despite there being worries around a baby’s weight gain!! It’s sooooo hard as a provider to see these ways that diet culture and fears around weight gain and “eating too much” crop up, when all I see are hungry, growing babies who need food. I do a LOT of messaging around the idea that babies are following their innate hunger / satiety cues, and about how important it is to honor that, and how those cues vary over time. And a lot of messaging around the idea that babies aren’t machines who eat the same number of ounces/calories at each feed, just like grownups aren’t - sometimes we want, you know, just a banana, and sometimes we want a cheeseburger and fries and a milkshake. It’s like that for babies, too. There are a lot of families who track and monitor everything their kid does: ounces in, diapers out, weights every time they feed…and they try to use the data to “maximize efficiency” or “optimize” things (I’ve had parents say that) and I’m just like…it’s a human baby? It is, by its very nature, neither efficient nor optimizable. :-/ The other place I see this come up is with postpartum parents, where they’re restricting calories, or working out at 5 days postpartum (!!!!!!) or just claiming they’re “forgetting to eat.” I’ve started asking the birthing parent in every consult whether they’re remembering to eat, and reminding them that their body needs extra fuel right now, and telling them they should eat a snack every time they feed or pump. It boggles my mind how often this comes up.

Thanks Mike and Aubrey. Love the mail bag episodes.

I related to Aubrey’s frustration with people cherry-picking aspects of a person’s appearance to give compliments (“you have great skin/hair/eyes”). As someone who sees people holistically, it is a big red flag to me when folks break others down to their constituent parts. My mother (and friends who are echoes of my mother) would say these things to me all the time and it suuuucked. Thank you A and M, always grateful for your work :)

It would be such a nightmare, but I would love to cackle at you actually taking up a PR person’s offer to have their influencer client on the show. I loved this episode. The only thing getting me through Monday.

And for sure I have witnessed fat patrons being treated unfairly from staff, usually in the way of not being given the same courtesy as other patrons for their questions. And on the flip side, I have heard at least one horror story of a colleague being told to read a diet book by a patron who felt it was their responsibility to inform them of their bad health choices. It's really gross.

I want to offer a perspective that one of the actual fatphobic narratives around semaglutide and tirzepatide is that fat people are taking something lifesaving away from diabetics by using these medications and I was surprised to hear that talking point come up in this episode. Once again, fat people are being accused of draining resources from people who actually need them when it’s possible to just simply work harder, eat less, and move more. No one is just going and buying these drugs off the shelf and causing a shortage, it’s an ongoing decision process between a patient and a doctor, just like WLS, and it’s frustrating to hear a legitimate medical treatment framed as grotesque.

The prompting of "educators" has me writing- not an educator, but also a person in library-world. Firstly, HOLY SHIT about the violation of those students' privacy! But in library world, at least at my location (but I've heard it happening other places), there is a push to help promote "healthy living" by our health and wellness teams...and usually the example listed is "lose 5 lbs." The reward is a 10 dollar gift card to amazon or something. It's such bullshit. I think they recently stopped the "lose 5 lbs" example, but that doesn't prevent the stigma regardless.

I haven't started listening yet but this dog is adorable and exactly what I needed this morning, so A+ work (I'm sure I'll love this but PUPPY 🐶)

Two days ago a friend (who sells Mlm shampoo and is all about the toxins and such) posted a list of things to check if you can’t figure out what’s hurting you and mold was definitely #1!

This is what I needed after hearing my husband's uncle discuss his "eat like a bear" diet.

I straight up yelled at a class last year for being fatphobic to a girl. I’d told the victim that it’s not ok for people to comment on her body, she’s fine exactly how she is, and that I’m there to support her, and Iet her go to the bathroom to calm down and collect herself. I yelled at the class and they were like 👁👁. I told them other peoples bodies are not ok to comment on, you don’t know peoples home lives/health/food security/etc and even if all of that is fine and good that people are built differently from one another and that most of our body build comes from our parents. I also told them they should feel bad for humiliating her at school. Some kids cried. I also called the bully’s mom and wrote the girl up. I called the victim’s mom and let her know this had happened and she was thankful bc she didn’t know (her daughter never shared this stuff). Oh yeah, this was 6th graders. They never commented on peoples bodies in front of me for the rest of the year. I used my “chill teacher” privilege to lose my shit at them in this specific way lol. I also wanna be clear: I always tell kids that adults shouldn’t yell at them, and I did apologize for that aspect, but not for the message I said.

Fat teacher here. As we started hybrid education during the pandemic (after distance learning), all our tables were replaced by those atrocious chair-desk combos that squeeze you so hard you lose the ability to focus. I would describe myself as superfat, and at the time I had a student about my same size. I had to challenge my admin and demand a chair to put next to my printer table so he would have somewhere comfortable to sit. The response was "well, he's never complained about the desks"... yes, I said. Neither did I in high school, but they still hurt me and I hated them. I have a system for students to request seating changes if they're not comfortable, and I often discreetly ask students with larger bodies where they would prefer to sit when I'm making seating charts. I also have to be super mindful about spacing my tables with enough room for me to walk between them, knowing how it might make students uncomfortable for the fat teacher's stomach to brush them as she walks past... it sucks. I have been unable to make change to the system, though, which bums me out even more. I have tried talking with the health teacher about obesity stuff, but she's on her way to being a med student and isn't really receptive. My workplace has a wellness program and many women I work with talk about diets constantly, and compliment perceived weight loss in me, which really hurts. I also asked (repeatedly and specifically) to be on the hiring committee for the new PE teacher, as a representative of fat and queer students. I really thought they were going to include me... they did not. So yeah. It's bleak out here. I think often about something Michael said in an old episode, about how thinness is as much of a force shaping someone's perception of the world as fatness, but to most thin people it's invisible. Thanks for all you do to bring it into the light.

I love when Mike and Aubrey talk about academia and peer review lol. As a PhD candidate, I have to say the weirdest part of peer review is when I submitted an article and in addition to submitting a list of possible suggested reviewers, I could request certain people *not* be reviewers, which amounted to asking my advisor and other coauthor for a list of people they knew held grudges against them.

i really would love an ep about the spectre of mold. in the coffee world you hear it a lot -- most coffee has nasty mold in it! buy ours, it's clean!

This child BMI thing is so weird! I took my almost 3 year old for a checkup a few weeks ago. His pediatrician handed me his visit summary packet and walked me through the info in it. He is in the 95th percentile for both height and weight. She flipped to the last page which I assumed was going to be the head circumference, and she said "He's also in the 95th percentile for BMI." I laughed, and she told me not to worry about it because he's "obviously" a very fit little kid. I honestly don't think she would've mentioned it if she didn't have to. She seemed just as uncomfortable saying it as I did hearing it... I wonder if it's a new policy thing or something. It was so awkward.. Anyway, thanks for another great episode.

My body surprised me by bursting into tears during the librarian/deputy safeguard person letter. It’s really important to share the bullshit that kids are being subjected to, especially for someone like me who doesn’t have or want kids, but my god. I just wanna go to that school and give those kids a hug and tell them they’re enough and that sometimes it’s vital to not listen to authority figures. I think the mental image that got me was the posting of their photos and the description of surveillance of their food intake. After the tears came the white-hot rage.

Really looking forward to a BMI report card episode. My kiddo started Kindergarten this year and I need all the info/sources to back up my own white hot rage over “health fairs” and bmi checks in school.

Thanks for another great episode...and another fantastic descriptor 😁 'dangerously overconfident' . Combined with 'fat lady about town' ... unreal!

Think mold! I’m howling!

Just got to the skalar part and I'm dying. I used to use one in my last job and they're PERFECT science props for tricking people with all the tubes and colorimetric stuff. The software puts out a little graph. Most labs don't even use them in my non-medical field anymore because they're a pain in the ass-- the tubes can leak or clog, the software bugs, I had to turn on all the parts in a very specific order or the sampler wouldn't work. Dr. X is an amazing grifter lol

So I'm a research librarian working at a place that publishes healthcare information. "Weight loss" is one of my topic areas, and a new guideline from the American Gastroenterological Association about the pharmacological treatment of overweight and obesity https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(22)01026-5/fulltext They recommend semaglutide, but their criteria for recommendation of anything was THREE PERCENT total body weight loss over lifestyle interventions alone or five overall. True, semaglutide exceeded those criteria but in trials that had really weird caveats like vs this other pharm product or placebo or with 30 counseling sessions over 68 weeks. Certainly there were no long term (post discontinuation) studies. This paper fits our criteria for a "preferred source." As a researcher I do my best to evaluate information quality, but ultimately I have little control of what's being published.

Hearing that health care providers and government folks are listening to you two makes me so happy. I'm an EMT and feel like I am constantly challenging my coworkers' comments and fat bias. It's tricky to navigate in the field.

Yay you guys made my Monday! Here's a couple of topics for you. F factor diet and it's scandal. Herbalife and the liver failure scandal.

Thank you so much for this one! ❤️

I would love to hear y'all's meetcute and how you decided to start up the show