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Extra Session
Dr. Danielle Shelov is a clinical psychologist who has worked in the field of eating disorders for 20 years. She and her long-time patient (& newly minted psychologist) Dr. Rose Miller discuss eating disorders, body image, psychotherapy, and the social forces that impact everyone living in a diet-obsessed culture. This is not a therapy session, but it's not NOT a therapy session, either. It's an extra session.
Extra Session
1: "Everybody has an Eating Disorder"
Dr. Danielle Shelov and Dr. Rose Miller introduce themselves, talk a little about how they first met and why they decided to start a podcast together.
Danielle shares about trying to publish a book on eating disorders, and what it's like for people to recognize themselves in the cultural conversation about food noise and GLP-1 medications. Rose talks about her frustrations with weight stigma in eating disorder treatment, and how GLP-1s have changed her own experience of the "food noise pie chart." "The Giver," "Keeping up with the Kardashians" and the anti-diet GLP-1 subreddit all make guest appearances.
NYTimes Opinion: Why the Right is Obsessed with Thinness
Diabolical Lies: The Womanosphere Claims its Winning Young Women-- But Is It?
Dr. Danielle Shelov: Website, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn
Where's
Rose:the cloud? Yeah,
Danielle:so... How do I know you're in a grumpy mood? Because I know you.
Rose:Why am I so grumpy all of a sudden? I don't know. I don't know either. No, you know why? Because I literally was thinking today and I was like, I don't know if I have it in me.
Danielle:I know, I was too.
Rose:Like two recordings was great. And then I'm like, you've got to be fucking kidding me.
Danielle:I know. I think podcasts are a commitment.
Rose:It's annoying. Like, I'm like, why are we doing this a third time?
Danielle:Well, so... Maybe this is how we like start this whole thing, which is like, why, why are we doing this? Like, why do we think us doing a podcast is important and relevant?
Rose:I think, yeah, that's a good question. So I think, well, I think we bring a couple perspectives to the table that are interesting and maybe helpful. So, you
Danielle:know, so before we launch, actually,
Rose:who are we? I was thinking that we should start with like intros. Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle:I
Rose:was thinking we could do, you know, welcome to Extra Session. I'm Rose Miller. And... I'm Danielle Shaloff. And do you want to talk a little bit about who you are?
Danielle:Yeah. So... I'm a clinical psychologist for almost 20 years. And I have been working in the field of eating for that long, which is kind of crazy. And Rose was one of my very first patients. And we have sort of lived a lifetime together. And our relationship has evolved. But she, as my patient, has really been a constant in my life as a clinician and as a human. And I think that our perspective on the world of eating is so unique because not only was her treatment provider, but also Rose is somebody that knows the pulse of the world. So as she's recovered and stayed recovered, and I've continued to be her therapist, and then in many ways become a mentor and now about to become a colleague, Right. I think that our perspective on food and eating and bodies. Right. And also the difference in our generations is a very unique combination of information and insight.
Rose:Beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I completely agree with that. I think. You know, you have so much experience working in this field. I will be a clinical psychologist and. Five days, officially. But more than that, I think my experience of having an eating disorder has always been really tied up in my tendency to consume a lot of information, be really, like you said, on the pulse of social pressures and really interested in the way that bodies and food and beauty and health are kind of politicized and interwoven into a kind of broader cultural context. So it's been a really big part of my own personal eating disorder and recovery journey is thinking about those things as they apply to me and my own eating and behaviors and also just kind of more broadly. I was really inspired by how life-changing my work with you was to kind of pursue clinical psychology as a career path. And I think that, like you said, our conversations can hopefully be helpful because not only do we have sort of a dual perspective in terms of the provider and the patient, but we also have you know, different angles that we come at it with personally, uh, because of, you know, our generations and like the different things that we care about as people. Um, I remember when you and I first started working together, um, I remember I knew you as like the yoga person. Cause I, you know, when I met you, you were really into yoga. You were teaching yoga at the place where I was getting treated and, uh, you had done your dissertation. Um, having to do with mindfulness and yoga and so you know that's like one perspective that i know you bring to the table that is totally different than the perspective that i had which is like for a later conversation but of someone who like didn't exercise for 20 years and like really had a hard time approaching exercise because of how intertwined it was my disordered eating so i think that hopefully we can have today at least a conversation about eating disorders and some GLP-1s and food noise that can be helpful for people who are either kind of thinking about these topics, maybe for people who are considering getting treatment, considering going on a GLP-1 or anyone kind of related to that intersection of things.
Danielle:Right. And the other piece is that, you know, not everybody has access to therapy. Sometimes people are hesitant to go into it. So the more that we can normalize and validate this entire process without contaminating the process, which just shows all the ways in which therapy can be used, I think, and to just make it accessible, that could be a huge thing for us to do here. Yeah, absolutely. I
Rose:was thinking, I was wondering kind of... How would you describe, you know, someone, I'm sure you get this a lot, but how would you describe your approach to treating eating? I get it all the time.
Danielle:You know, and I really, I shy away from saying like, I have an eclectic way of treating eating because I think that says nothing sort of. Well, like, you know, but I, I would say that my perspective is nutrition forward and is what I've landed on, which is that I don't think you can treat eating disorders without simultaneously treating the food. And so as, as much as some people don't want to hear that and don't want to do that, like they just want to, they think they can just come in and talk about their feelings about food. If they're not eating and their brain is not being nourished simultaneously, then therapy is sort of impossible. And once I sort of made that determination for me as a clinician, it sort of made things very straightforward because somebody that is actively starving and not working on starving is not really going to be able to do very much dynamic work. Yeah. And so I would say I'm a nutrition forward therapist, you know, and then I use whatever I think is going to work. Right. If I think they need some things to take home with them at the end of the session, they can do that. Right. If I think they need some homework, if I think they need to see the nutritionist more than me for a little while, they can do that. So but my goal is to make sure that someone is no longer alone with their eating disorder, that they have a teammate in the fight and they have somebody who empathizes with the fight.
Unknown:Yeah. Yeah.
Rose:Yeah, absolutely. I think the nutrition forward piece is huge, because I think for a long time, there was a, you know, I think it's huge because I think it plays into something that I've struggled with a lot in terms of how eating disorders are approached, which is they're you know, used to be this idea that nutrition forward was really important for someone who came into, let's say an inpatient situation, very underweight, very like with an AN diet, with an anorexia nervosa diagnosis, right? So the idea was there had to be some kind of stabilization. You had to be on a certain number of calorie meal plan in order to be able to access that treatment. But for anybody else, anybody with a bulimia diagnosis, with a binge eating diagnosis, whose primary presenting concern wasn't being underweight, nutrition was more of an afterthought or it wasn't as important. And it really like, you know, I know we used to talk about this a lot when I was younger, but like, I think that really plays into a weight biased kind of approach to eating disorder treatment that I think that you've done a really good job of neutralizing in your practice, but that not Not everybody does. And so I'm sure I don't know what it's like right now because I don't currently treat eating disorders, but I have a feeling that there is still a lot of that where there's kind of an idea that nutrition matters more for some people than others. And it sort of perpetuates a stigma in eating disorder treatment that mirrors fat stigma in the broader culture.
Danielle:Yeah, I think it's funny because as you said, it was such an unconscious thing. thing for me to do to treat from this perspective and it was really just the realization that if we are going to continue to practice something it's going to get stronger and stronger right so if we are going to practice restriction and binging right and if we're just going to keep doing that i don't care what your weight is Right, that is an eating pattern that needs to be broken. And the only way it can be broken is by eating in a more normalized way. And so the weight really isn't important. It's the rituals, it's the patterns, right? And it really is like what we teach ourselves to do and how we teach ourselves to behave. And that's what needs to get treated. So like, I mean, you worked with me forever, like, I don't have a scale in my office, right? I don't even want one. I do need you followed by a nutritionist because I need to make sure you're healthy and that what you report to me is accurate, right? If someone is telling me that they're eating three meals a day and two snacks, the only way to know that is so they get weighed. But I just don't, I'm so not weight focused. Yeah.
Rose:Yeah.
Danielle:Right, which
Rose:I think is unique. incorporation of new approaches to the substance of food in order for someone to recover. But there's really such a huge piece about weight stigma and like what role weight plays in our culture that is really, you know, I think Carolyn Koston, like one of the OG eating disorder treatment people referred to people with eating disorders as the canaries in the coal mine. And I always think about that, because there is an element of truth to people with eating disorders being sort of reflective of something wrong with our culture and how we approach weight and how we are so focused on thinness and appearance and tie that so much in with health and this idea of kind of like what you need to do to be healthy is being in a body of this number BMI or whatever. And eating disorders take that to an extreme with an obsessive kind of level of focus on those kinds of metrics. And I think, yeah, It can be challenging for the providers who work in a medical model to kind of stray from that or to push back against the framework that kind of made the eating disorders possible, which is this focus on weight.
Danielle:So when you say canary in the coal mine, was it like these are just the people that are getting attention for our weight focus culture? Yeah.
Rose:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, these are the people who are showing us that there's something wrong because they are taking the, the kind of status quo of thin, good, fat, bad, and just bringing it to its logical extreme. But everyone else is playing a role in this culture. It's just that the people that even sort of happen to have the genetics and the environment and the, you know, psychological makeup to kind of get to a place where they might die because of it.
Danielle:Right, so I'm so happy you said that because working in the field, and I feel like you know this too, but for me, I'm like, Everybody's got an eating disorder, people. Right. And so, you know, well, you know, I wrote a book. Right. And the first time I was like shopping this book around trying to find an agent because that's what you have to do is like get an agent or whatever. And I remember I was kind of far down the road with these two male agents and they were just like, I just don't think this is that relevant to everybody. Like, how do you make this more salient to everybody? And I was like, everybody has disordered eating. Right. Like maybe 5% of people don't. Right. Like it's wild, you know? And so, but I was like, but the issue is that it's so normalized that in fact, disordered eating has become normal eating. Right. Like not eating anything until dinner is what people do when they're having a big dinner without the idea that like, that's not what we're supposed to do. Right. We shouldn't starve so that we can binge at dinner. Right. We should just eat in regular amount. And it was really, and it was, and not to like take in too many things at once, but. That's my job. But in order to like, sort of bring it back full circle and full culture, which is like only when this like sort of food noise term went viral is everybody like, Oh yeah, I do. I do have an issue with food. And I'm like, I think you and I are both like, no kidding.
Rose:So did you notice, I'm so curious about that. So you mentioned the food noise term kind of gaining traction in the mainstream. Do you have an example? Are there ways that you noticed that kind of coming up in, you know, for people who are not your patients maybe, or. Well,
Danielle:first of all, I started seeing it in the paper. Sure. Like in the, in the times, right? And like, you know, in every op-ed, in every article, all of a sudden it was like, you know, scientists are discovering this thing called food noise, right? Which seems to be, you know, which is, and like definition of non-defined food noise, which is basically just like a, it's like your inner critic. We know what food noise is. It's somebody telling you what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, when not to eat, like, Anybody with an identified eating disorder is familiar with their food noise. And all of a sudden people were sort of like, I think I have that. You know, like friends of mine would just say like, is that what you're talking about? Is food noise like what eating disorders are? And I was like, kind of, yeah.
Rose:I mean, it's a really, actually, it's a good question, right? Is what differentiates like garden variety food noise from an eating disorder? What would you say, you know, if someone's listening and thinking like, I think I do have that. Does that mean I have an eating disorder? Where do you draw a line?
Danielle:First of all, I always go to preoccupation. And so again, I don't care about your weight. What I really care about is how much time do you spend thinking about, obsessing about food, exercise, behaviors, your body. And so literally I'll say, as you've seen me do, I'm sure like get out a pie chart, section off your life, how much of the theme of that life is like perseverating and thinking about food and bodies. And the higher that percentage is, the more I would say you have an eating disorder. So most people in my office that are in real treatment are somewhere around 90% and up.
Rose:Wow. Right. So they're spending 90% of your time thinking about
Danielle:eating while doing other activities. That's not, they're not just sitting in a room thinking about it. And so if you are listening to this, think about it, right? Like how many times do you make a plan to go out for dinner and think about like, What am I going to be able to eat there? Let me look at the menu. I should go to the gym if I'm going to go out for dinner. Even that sort of gentle negotiation is negotiation. It's noise. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It's
Rose:so funny because I don't remember that. I love for me that I had amnesia about how much time you could spend thinking about that. It's funny.
Danielle:Yeah. But so you're a great example. You're the perfect example of how when we stop practicing something, it can disappear. You stopped practicing your food noise and it no longer exists.
Rose:I mean, and maybe this is a good time to talk about the GLP-1 because I actually think now that I'm thinking about it in your pie chart way, I do actually think that since I've been on a GLP-1, it's been... like maybe 14 months now. It's been like maybe a little bit over a year. I think that my percentage has probably gone down even more. Like I think probably when I started the GLP-1, I would have put my, how much time I spent thinking about my body or food or whatever, probably like 20%. Yeah, maybe like 20%. I think now it's probably like between five and 10.
Danielle:You
Rose:know, like a really, a pretty manageable percentage. And it's not distressing. And I think that's another key piece. I think I would add to your kind of conceptualization of it, like how much distress are you having about how much time you're thinking about it? Because when I, even in the past, you know, before the GLP-1, when I was at like 20%, it wasn't distressing. Like I wasn't upset thinking about it. It was more like, I would think, Oh, like, I'm excited to try this new recipe that I saw on TikTok. And I'm gonna go to the gym because like, I feel sluggish and want to get a workout, right? Like, there's a difference between having thoughts about food, because I love food, and it's a big part of my life. And, you know, had an eating disorder for a very long time. And I'm just very used to spending a lot of time thinking about it versus I think thinking about it in a way where I'm like upset about it and fretting.
Danielle:Right. I think there's a difference between interest and compulsion.
Rose:Yeah.
Danielle:Right. And so being interested in food is, is a great thing, right? We need food to live and eating healthy and well is really good for us. But when we can't stop thinking about it or when it interferes with us doing what we want to do that's when we cross the line yeah right like we never wanted to organize our life we wanted to be a part of our life
Rose:yeah totally it's it's i completely agree i mean i am called to think of how one of my favorite things about my relationship with will is that we have the same taste in food
Danielle:and
Rose:so whenever we go out to eat we don't have to choose we can get like two things and split them so you have to decide which one we want um and this weekend he we were uh we were traveling we were about to drive home when there's screaming happening outside my window and
Danielle:we can't
Rose:hear it i feel like this is good because it's very loud for me um and he said he was like we're about to leave boston he looked at me he was like yesterday was a really good food day and i was like yeah it was and i was like i think today can be better and he was like yeah And so then we were like, okay, we're going to go, we're going to drive through New Haven. We're going to get Frank Pepe's and then we're going to go home and we're going to get a Caesar salad and fries. Like this was, you know, and it was like, we did organize our day around food is my point, but it was in a fun, pleasurable way and not. And so I think it is possible to, you know, like you said, interest versus compulsion.
Danielle:Yeah. Like all due respect to foodies.
Rose:Right. How can we make this the best Saturday food day possible? It's like mission accomplished.
Danielle:Right. Exactly. It's just like, is it, is it like fucking you up? Right. Like we don't want something to dominate us. We want to dominate it.
Rose:Yeah. Right. We should talk about the New York times article.
Danielle:Okay. Yes, we should.
Rose:So I guess technically there's a podcast, but I think we both read it. Yeah. But let me pull it up. Yeah. Let me pull it up too. Why the right is obsessed with thinness.
Danielle:It's
Rose:the title of this opinion piece. And so we have two New York Times opinion columnists kind of talking about the way that Finness and whiteness also, but have really become weaponized by conservative Christian American culture to kind of push a narrative of morality I'm glad you sent it. I definitely had heard about a lot of these different like touch points before. What did, what was your reaction to this?
Danielle:Well, I just feel like this is like an old horse that's bringing back. It's like being like, you know, shined up and rubbed down, you know, it's like, oh, right. This was the OG everybody.
Rose:Let's not forget. Like you can still, make everyone be obsessed with Kate Moss. Like, let's go.
Danielle:Like, Hey guys, guess what? Like, and also let's attach it to religion, piety and morality, which is what we did in the good old days when it really took off. Right. Like, and throw in some racism, right. And body difference. And like, that is how eating disorders took hold in our country. Yeah. Right. They're just dusting off an old theme here.
Rose:They are. And it's so wild too, because it's like, it's also such a last ditch effort. It feels like to, to, it's like the gender roles of it all. You know, I think that dusting off the thinness ideal and the obsession with women in particular being thin and having, you know, being good because they're eating well or whatever that means like is, um, It's so insidious because it also is very much aiming at traditional gender roles in a way that, you know, I think is really on message for the conservative right. Absolutely.
Danielle:There's a line I want to read, right? Yeah. Like, less Prozac, more protein, I think is in here. Did
Rose:you, had you heard of that girl? Because I had, and it was, I think that I had, it might have
Danielle:been from- Yeah.
Rose:It might have been from a different Diabolical Lies episode. It was from that one? Okay. Yes.
Danielle:But I had heard of her even before.
Rose:You had? I've been lucky enough to never have heard about her until Diabolical
Danielle:Lies. I have heard of her because this is my business. And I... I just think that this, and, and, you know, there is some controversy over if this convention was even as big as they're saying
Rose:it was. Right. Diabolicalized at a pretty good, like debunking. It seemed like they paid a lot of the women to be there. Yeah. It wasn't like a real, yeah. The New York times sort of on, I have to say, they sort of like uncritically talked about it as a, or it's a real thing. And I'm just like, Oh my God, you know, like a
Danielle:massive thing. Like they made it seem like it was a UN summit. I feel like.
Rose:Right. And it seems like it was like 500, like, homeschooled high schoolers who were shipped in from across the country. But
Danielle:I do think, I do think thin, you know, it's interesting this weekend. I was my, like one of my close friends has, has a 20 year old and a 23 year old daughter. Right. And like, they had like a bunch of friends out and I, I had some access. So I was like talking to them and just, and they were totally talking about that. Thin being thin is like very, very in. It is way back. And so is food morality is back. Not that it ever left, but this whole idea that when they're in the dining hall at school or in the cafeteria, they feel funny if they're sitting with a big group going to get a burger. They don't. They will once in a while, but they think about it and it's not sort of reflexive. Much easier for them to get a salad with chicken.
Rose:I hate that.
Danielle:But so true. So true. So real. So real. And it's like, am I a better person because I got the salad with chicken? Right? Or are people going to think I'm gross because I got the burger? Even though I want the burger. Right? You know, it's really... So this article for me is just literally... digging in the archives of eating disorder history and finding some real goodies
Rose:yeah i agree and i think um i think something they say that's so accurate is it's very obvious like once you've been around the block a little bit to see how um you know the thin is in thing right now is such a direct response to the body positive fat acceptance movement of like, you know, that I think they said peaked in like 2016 or so, which I think is about right. An interesting, an interesting year to have things peak before they go back down, but right. Not, not necessarily surprising. That's funny. Because yeah, there really was a moment in culture and I remember really feeling like, so happy to be part like a young person during that time when it finally felt like there was a movement towards a more inclusive size range towards like shaming people for using like body negative language, right? Shaming people for policing other people's food choices. Like, I think that was great. You know, I think, I think it was so lovely as someone who had recently recovered from an eating disorder around that time to be like, okay, cool. The culture is actually catching up. Like we're getting a little bit, you know, a little bit more with it and there's not going to be fat talk everywhere. And, you know, maybe, um, you know, I can buy a size 16 pair of jeans at Abercrombie, right? But it's so sad and also predictable to kind of like see how the right will of course have grabbed onto this kind of like thin idealization because it's such a good tool for suppressing women, making people feel inferior about their bodies. If you're hungry, you are not hungry. able to do good therapy but also probably not able to do good activism right
Danielle:i think that's true i think that's true and even like just more like yes that is like sort of the the the crushing soul of being a woman right which is like stay thin and stay quiet right but But if we can really, I mean, I completely blame the Kardashians for the swing in both directions. I was so grateful to them for their body positivity and their curves. Like Kim's curves were critical in shifting the needle towards like curves being in and like a good booty and like all that talk that was... I was so happy. And then the second she started injectables and like cranked herself in that Marilyn Monroe dress. I was like, we're dead. It's over.
Rose:Well, they were an interesting case too. And like, I would need to like really think about it to have a conversation. Cause it's been so long since I thought about them. Cause I really try not to. But there was a moment where I watched a lot of their shows. I think back during COVID, I think I told you, I was like, I watched like all, I had never watched it before. And I was like, oh, this is fun. And I got really into it, but they did have this interesting kind of arc because they had one, right? Chloe was so clearly, the one of the girls who had a weight problem, right? She was always changing her body. She obviously had very low self-esteem. She was also always dating men who were treating her poorly publicly in a way that like really fit with this kind of like archetype of woman, right? Who really struggled with her self-image. And yeah, the Kardashians like,
Danielle:like i didn't really watch the show um i just could never get hooked even though i definitely do my fair share of bad tv but um or reality tv but like kim what was kim's body type in that show considered was it just like she was sort of like you know the ring
Rose:she was the archetype
Danielle:she was the one
Rose:right so what happened
Danielle:when she lost the weight on the show right
Rose:she
Danielle:do we know i
Rose:don't know I don't know. I don't remember really. I think it was just like, I don't know. They were such an interesting thing. Cause they were also just like, they were so, it was a matriarchal family, right? It was very women focused, but it's so interesting how they actually evolved to this place that makes so much sense and is so much worse than it had to be. But like where they, um, the way that they kind of presented was actually like I think they ended up being pretty gross in a way that we should have been able to clock. You know, they kind of have this like racially ambiguous thing going, but they still really benefit from white privilege. A lot of them like date black men and then kind of discard them when they're done. So they sort of have like proximity to blackness and in what like cool factor that gives them until they no longer want it. Like all their babies are mixed race, but then like, you know, Kim's X is a Nazi. So, you know, there's like, there's a lot. And then, and then of course, like, I remember this year, I really don't look at their stuff anymore because it makes me sick. Like, I'm not even being like exaggerating, but they, you know, she's sort of posting, she posted like in front of a cyber truck back when the cyber truck came out. And we were like, okay, like, it's very clear, you know, and now she posts all these selfies of like Ivanka Trump. It's like very clear, like what, what they've decided to do.
Unknown:Yeah.
Rose:But it's interesting how, for a moment, she did have this like curvaceous body and that became popular. And as soon as that was popularized, it's like the classic, you know, the royal move of once the common people can achieve a certain aesthetic, you must do the other one, the one that's more unachievable. Because you know, that's how you elevate yourself above the masses. Right. And so like, and so it may, I mean, it does make you wonder, and then we can kind of talk about GLP-1s, but it makes you wonder like what's going to happen now that, people are going to have access to GLP-1s and it's going to be more common for people to be able to be at a lower body weight. Like I wonder what will happen to the thin ideal over time, right? Because the conservative right, I think is grasping at straws. Like I think this is a really important article and they are definitely- Grasping at what kind of straws? What do you mean? I think they're grasping at straws to try to maintain some kind of power and control over, you know, like they need the gender binary to stay, right? Like they, even though it's very clear that like, I think that it's not, they're not gonna ultimately be successful with that, right? Like good luck getting Gen Z to go back into a gender binary in any like real way. We as a culture have, have moved past that in so many different ways that it's not going to be that easy, I think. I think they're grasping at straws to try to, you know, like the whole Hannah Nealman, ballerina farm shit thing. Like they really want women back in the home. They really want us to not have credit cards and not have jobs. And like, they're going to do their absolute best. And obviously they are doing a pretty good job, right, by restricting abortion access. But I do think that culturally speaking, the right is ultimately losing. And I think that the grasping of thinness is going to be another aspect of them losing because of GLP ones, which actually might be like a, a nice thing about GLP ones is that like, it's actually not, I don't think it's going to be, although we should talk about the morality around.
Danielle:And also like, I just want to, I want to point out another reason why I think this meeting is so important of you and me, which is that like, I don't know what they're losing. You seem so different perspectives. And like, I think, you know, I'm worried that they're not losing as much. I hope you're right. Right. But I worry that like, I got sort of fooled into thinking that like they were not winning. Yeah, they won. So, you know, I, I don't, I hope you're right. And time.
Rose:I hope I'm right too. I mean, I think it's a bigger conversation about like why I think they're losing and we can absolutely table it.
Danielle:Let's flag that for
Rose:flag it for a different time. I think it's actually a really important conversation that we can have, but
Danielle:a really important conversation also is, am I getting targeted with different shit than you are? Like, why do
Rose:I, you are all on a different internet is another thing that's real, but that's part of why I think that the right is ultimately going to lose that battle because the the kind of fascist, like Christian nationalist ideology really requires a very, very small lane. It requires a really small worldview. And for better or for worse, the internet exists and we are all able to be exposed to really different things. And I think that ultimately in order to keep people small and not knowing what other options are, they can't have access to information. I was
Danielle:about to say, then they would have to eliminate.
Rose:I just think there's, there's, I, I have faith that they are losing because at the very least it's too much information, too much internet for them to tamp down.
Danielle:Yeah. Okay. Let's put a placehold in that. Cause I, I hope you're right. And I am sort of like going with the millennial. But I, but I do want to say that I have for years said that, GLP ones are going to be taken right along with the daily vitamin. I think it's going to be like that old school book, the giver. Remember, it's been
Rose:so long. Okay,
Danielle:I'll remind you. So basically, the giver is like a little, you know, utopian community where everybody, you know, take certain types of drugs that like tamp down their sex drive, all the colors are muted, there's no extreme weather, right? Because the like, when the people came into power, they were sort of like, oh, it's these extremes and these differences and passion that causes war. Right. That's sort of the premise of the giver. And so but there's one person in the community that holds the memories of of old times. And that person is called the giver, the giver and the receiver. Right. And so Every generation of this community, this utopian community has a giver, right? Who has received the memories of generations past, right? And finally, this like, you know, spoiler alert or whatever, but like this- Spoiler
Rose:alert for this book you read in eighth grade. I did
Danielle:read it to my children and like, we were all obsessed with The Giver.
Rose:It was a great book.
Danielle:I have fond memories. Right. And there's a movie. So, but, and basically he was like, people- Like we are not living our real lives. And he sort of escapes this utopia, this dystopia with the memories and like sort of gets out of this bubble and sort of stops taking all the medications and we don't really know what happens. But I think that this is sort of in that context, which is like finding a body weight that becomes achievable to all people by just popping a pill Right. And so it will no longer sort of like separate the haves from the have nots.
Rose:Yeah. There's going to be something else. It will, they'll find, we'll find something else. Right. Because that's the thing is like, I actually think that from that perspective, GLP ones could be a real foil in, in the kind of landscape of, um, oppressing people for their body weight, right? Like, you know, and the haves and the have-nots. Obviously, there's pharmaceutical industry and, like, how much are they going to charge for this and all that kind of stuff. Like, there's a lot there. You know, most people's insurances don't cover it right now. Right. And even, you know, if they do, it can be expensive.
Danielle:Right. And will the Christian right want everybody– to be thin or will they only want people with access and privilege to be thin?
Rose:Probably that, right? Because there was part of it where it's like this idea that if you're, and it's funny, I've so, I think I told you that I am on this subreddit that's anti-diet GLP ones, which I found really incredibly helpful because when I first started taking it, I felt very alone and I felt like, um, conflicted about taking it because it kind of, you know, I have a lot of thoughts about thinness and all that kind of stuff came up for me when I decided to start taking this medication. I was like, wow, I'm really going to lose weight. Like what's that going to actually feel like? And do I need to take this forever and all this kind of stuff. And then I also was having like normal side effects and things like that, that I was trying to learn how to manage. And I felt very alone. I didn't know who to talk to about it because a lot of the internet on, you know, talking about GLP ones is a lot of people like, without an eating disorder history or without kind of like the language that I like to use to talk about my eating. And so I found this community of people who mostly have eating disorder histories and like have taken kind of an anti-diet approach and health at every size and have also started GLP-1s. And so they kind of have a shared language that I find very helpful. And so I started reading a lot of their posts and like things they do to combat nausea or whatever, X, Y, Z. But there are still people who post there and talk about how others have said to them, like, what does it feel like to be cheating? You know, like this idea that taking a GLP-1 to lose weight means that you're cheating. And I was like so perplexed by that. I genuinely don't understand, but I think it really falls in line with this kind of like that Christian morality, right? Of like, if you're doing something without suffering, we talked a little bit about it in the article. If you're doing it without suffering, it's not real. It doesn't count. The suffering is part of it. You should be suffering because you are fat and that's bad. And I think there's also this really like make America healthy again, right? RFK stuff of like medication is bad period, right? Pharmaceuticals are the devil.
Danielle:And I
Rose:think that's a really interesting thing that's probably gonna come up more and more with the GLP-1s and this kind of like conservative right approach to things.
Danielle:And I think, and I just, I know we're gonna have to stop in a minute or two, but I also think Like the other piece of it is that, I mean, if you put on your old eating disorder, disordered hat, that's such eating disorder language to say you're cheating. If you know, you're taking a GLP-1 because you're not like a really good anorexic. Yeah. You know, like, like, you know, it's like when people, you know, in residential treatment or in, you know, day treatment would say like, you look so healthy. Right. Like that was like the biggest, like, cloaked criticism of all time it was basically like oh you're fat and I'm still thin that was you're so healthy and so it's it's just again been appropriated right like it's cheating it's it's like why because my body's actually healthier now
Rose:right it's like I'm not suffering through uh you know the kind of like haywire hunger cues that i normally have right so there's this sort of idea that like you should be suffering for what you're doing right and there's always been that kind of thing it's punitive very punitive yeah that's right yeah um i wanted to ask you or say one more thing um but i'm i'm blanking okay what are we is there anything else we need to like touch on for this i feel like i feel like this is a good start it was good it was a good start is there anything should we end with something let's
Danielle:see um also like we want to talk about what other people are thinking about right so right it'll be good to get feedback yeah yeah 100 let's get feedback and like let's if you're watching this like what do you want to hear us talk about
Rose:yeah yeah totally 100% we'll take questions
Danielle:you know give us like we we are here to talk about what's going on and whatever people want to hear about because we can talk all day um that's that is true
Rose:that is true uh shoot I did have one more thing though um no it doesn't matter rfk Oh, no, you know, my only other thing was just that I was thinking about the GOP ones is like, um, just how rampant the kind of anti medication sentiment is for people in psychology more generally, you know, like, I can't tell you how many patients I've had, who are just like, so depressed or so depressed. anxious. And I've said to them, like, can I refer you to psychiatry? And they're like, absolutely not. I know. And sometimes they'll come back after, you know, like a little while of working together and be like, I think I'm ready, right? Like, I think I don't need to suffer this much anymore. And that's always really love a great moment. I love that. But it's really, it's gotten into people's brains a lot, like how wrong it is to be, you know, using something that's not natural to kind of like help yourself. And I hope that like, you know, if anything, like, sort of like to go back to what your approach is, like, let's do what works to help people feel better, right? Even if it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that, right? Maybe it's a little bit of medication. Maybe it's a little bit of something else, but like kind of like being willing to be flexible in how you're approaching feeling better and changing your brain because it is possible to change it. But if we're stuck in the rigidity of doing things the old way, then we're not going to be able to change.
Danielle:Exactly. And the parallels between GLP-1s and psychiatric meds are huge, right? It's just like, it doesn't matter if it's helping, let's use it. Right. Let's use it, you know, and keep you safe in the process. Exactly. All right. Perfect. All right. I'll see you soon. Bye.
