The Fat Psychologist Podcast

Transcript

Diet culture with Amanda Martinez Beck

[00:00:00] Intro to The Fat Psychologist Podcast

[00:00:00]

Ninna: Hello again. I am Ninna Makrinov. I'm a psychologist, and yes, I am fat. I am The Fat Psychologist. I love who I am. In fact, I want everyone to love who they are. Queer or straight, fat or thin, whatever. Just be you. Saying this can sound easy, but doing it can be very hard. That's where this podcast comes in.

So welcome to the Fat Psychologist Podcast. In this season, I explore happiness at every size. I hope my journey can guide yours. I hope the journey of those guests who are coming in can help you in your journey.

You can contact me to work together. Visit my website if you want to know more. And please, please, please follow me on Instagram, Threads [00:01:00] or Blue Sky. I would really appreciate if you follow the podcast wherever you listen. Be in touch. If you have questions, send them through and we will discuss them too.

Inclusivity is at the heart of everything I do. Because of this, I capture every word with care and I edit the transcripts so everyone can access. You will find detailed transcripts on my website and wherever you're listening, I have checked them by hand, so hopefully that will be helpful to you.

[00:01:31] Today's Episode: Diet Culture as a Religion

Ninna: In today's episode, we will be thinking about diet culture, and particularly about diet culture as a religion.

This was an idea brought to me by Amanda Martinez Beck, who is an author. Amanda was one of these first people who, when I just started the podcast I put a note on Threads for people to come in and she put her name forward.

Just a little bit of background and why I was so interested when Amanda suggested thinking about diet culture as a religion.

[00:01:58] Ninna's Religious Journey

Ninna: I have not talked about [00:02:00] my religious beliefs so far in the podcast, but it might be worth knowing that I am a Catholic. Not very much a practicing Catholic. I value every religion and anyone from any beliefs.

If you want to talk about your own beliefs, spiritual beliefs, religions in the podcast, as long as it relates to the theme of happiness at every size, then you're very, very welcome.

I don't tend to go to church. I used to, when I was 18, I used to go to church every day except Saturdays 'cause that was party day. Although in the UK I have always been in a very inclusive church where genuinely everyone is accepted. I remember a long time ago, although I think the Catholic Church as a structure would frown upon this, I was giving communion, so being a minister of communion, while I was pregnant and not married, and the person next to me was a lesbian. I believe that God accepts us all as [00:03:00] we are. If you have ever felt excluded by the church, I'm really, really sorry. And that's not the church I believe in. Maybe I'll do another episode on that at some point.

[00:03:09] Pilgrimage and Community

Ninna: I go to a pilgrimage every year called Pilgrim Cross. It's in the UK and most of the groups or the people who go walk for seven days to get to this little, little town called Walsingham. If you've never heard of it, it's where in theory, the Virgin appeared.

And what I love about this pilgrimage and the town is that yes, it is Christian and it is very ecumenical. So people from Christian beliefs come. And I know many people who walk, who don't believe in God anymore or ever have believed in God.

I have been joining an online group for the pilgrimage, so I'm not even walking and I'm still welcome. And this group of people who join the Pilgrimage online, many of them are not able to [00:04:00] join the walking pilgrimage because we, they are chronically ill.

Being in this group of people who are amazing and many of them have very, very limited mobility because of their illnesses, has been a huge learning point for me. Every single person I have met in that group is amazing, just being. This has proven to me that I don't have to be anything. I don't have to achieve anything. I just have to be, and I value each of them individually so much. They're my rock. They're actually part of my life all the time. I studied theology in my first year of university in parallel to psychology. I couldn't make my mind up: theology, maths, or psychology. And I ended up going for psychology and theology. My mom was not a Catholic and my mom was very much, don't study theology. You'll just study Catholicism. She was [00:05:00] right. I still really, really enjoyed it and I only dropped it because it was too much on my plate. I couldn't do both, so I ended up choosing psychology.

I also really wanted to be a priest growing up. But being a Catholic and being in Chile, I never knew that being a priest could be possible for women in other Christian religions. Priesthood was one of the many things that I gave up because women were not allowed to do it. It's not my path anymore and I don't regret not doing it. But yeah. I also wanted to be a fighter pilot like my dad. And that didn't happen because again, women wouldn't be fighter pilots, fat women in particular. There's no way, I wouldn't fit in the plane probably, but I wasn't fat back then. I'm really, really pleased that currently there are women fighter pilots in Chile. But I digress.

I became a Catholic quite late in life. Looking back, it was like my teenage rebellion. It's the lamest teenage rebellion ever. Part of why I became a Catholic, besides being in a Catholic country, was because [00:06:00] I read The Chronicles of Narnia. I was a bit of a, a lot of a, bookworm growing up. I would read everything that came across, but these books were really special to me because we found them in the supermarket, the first one, and then my grandma bought each one of them, and I felt so lucky that I was being bought books because it wasn't something that a lot of people thought a young girl should have. So, Barbies, yes. Books not so much. And looking back, I realized that the Chronicles of Narnia are a parable of Christianity. My growth in Christianity has a lot to do with those books.

So the quote I'm going to start with today is from The Chronicles of Narnia. But any of you who are not super fans are unlikely to have read to the last book, which is called The Last Battle, and it's about, Spoiler alert, the end of Narnia. There are a lot of things that CS Lewis got wrong. I think he was such a [00:07:00] racist. However, it was quite nice that he had two kings and two queens, which is quite out of the time.

From the book it says, "Then he -Aslan- breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand up on my feet. And after that he said not much, but that we should meet again. ...And since then, oh Kings and ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great. That even weakens me like a wound. And this is a marvel of marvels that he calls me Beloved, me who I'm but as a dog-." And then, I will have to read the next bit because if we are thinking about inclusion, there are things he did get right. It continues. " Eh? What's that?" Said one of the Dogs. " Sir", said Emeth. " It is but a fashion of speech which we have in Calormen." " Well, I [00:08:00] can't say it's one I like very much," said the Dog. " He doesn't mean any harm," said an older Dog. "After all, we call our puppies boys when they don't behave properly." " So we do," said the first Dog, "or girls." "S-s-sh!" said the Old Dog. "That's not a nice word to use. Remember where you are".

I hope that we can start thinking about our language as well. if I say something that I need to correct because I didn't notice, let me know. I hope my language is inclusive and I will only learn that through keeping talking to people that are different to me, that have different experiences. It's super crazy how much Amanda and I have in common. Let's then listen to our conversation and think about how diet culture is religion.

[00:08:55] Interview with Amanda Martinez Beck

Ninna: It's so lovely to meet you Amanda. I'm new in the Fat Liberation [00:09:00] movement, although I should have got it much earlier. And I'm like, yes, I need to voice on this. 'cause it's really important. In the UK it's not something that is talked about a lot. Much more in the US, although I know it's bad times at any point.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I am excited. I'm really excited to talk with you. I love to be able to talk about the work that I'm doing and it's so nice to meet you.

Ninna: Yeah, likewise.

[00:09:25] Amanda's Background and Fat Liberation Work

Ninna: Would you like to start by introducing yourself to our audience?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Sure.

My name is Amanda Martinez Beck, and I am 40 years old. I am very proudly 40 years old. I have come through a lot, and 40 is going to be the beautiful decade. I can tell. I live in Texas and I don't sound like that because I grew up in a home where my dad is from Cuba and my mom grew up all over the world as a military [00:10:00] brat. So I don't have a strong East Texan accent.

My day job is teaching Spanish at a local university here part-time and raising four kids with my husband. We have four amazing kids and he is an English professor and I am about to start seminary. I came into Fat Liberation work about a decade ago when I wrote a blog called To All the Fat Girls and it got an incredible response.

Normally about 40 people viewed my blog, and over the course of two days, 1600 people viewed my blog.

Ninna: Oh my God.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): So I was like, oh my goodness, I think I'm hitting on something. I think people need to know the goodness of their bodies and that our weakness is not something [00:11:00] to be ashamed about. So started me on a writing career. I wrote several articles and got a book deal. Wrote my first book, which is called Lovely: How I Learned to Embrace the Body God Gave Me.

I was Catholic at the time, so it's a very Catholic approach to all bodies are good bodies. It's still a lovely book. No, pardon the pun, that's the name of the book, but I'm still really proud of it.

But I've deconverted from Catholicism since then. I'm still a Christian, but, I...

Ninna: Yeah, you would't be going to be ordained as a Catholic, would you?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): That is right.

Ninna: I am a Catholic too, for people who are hearing,

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes.

So I can say it, as

Ninna: a Catholic.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes. I'm pro women's ordination and I want to be a priest, so I can't be Catholic anymore.

Ninna: So what church are you?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): I'm in an Anglican church, which is like Church of England, episcopalian... they do [00:12:00] have women priests. My journey there has been really interesting, but I'm writing a lot about diet culture as religion and how we break free from that.

And my second book is more about that. It's called More of You: the Fat Girls Field Guide to the Modern World, and it's a very practical guide, whereas Lovely was a very much more theological dive. More of you is how to have conversations with your doctors. How to stop the shame spiral when you're having body shame, how to fight for fat liberation.

Now my third book that I'm working on is How Diet Culture is a Religion. I've been all over the place.

Ninna: yeah, I mean I love that. And, and it's not over over the place 'cause there's a theme

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): True.

Ninna: and also we're allowed to be all over the place. Someone told me when I said my career has been all over the place " no, you have a portfolio career". And I'm like, oh, that's a nice one.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Oh, I like that.

Ninna: it's a nice reframing, I think. What I really love, so for listeners, uh, that we've never met before, you were super kind When I put [00:13:00] a post out going, "who would like to come on my podcast? No one follows me yet." And you were like, "I will", and I super appreciate that. And as I've started reading around about what you do and now hearing what you do. It's crazy how much we have in common.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes. Say more about that. 'cause I am, I know a little bit. We're both Catholic. We're both fat.

Ninna: Both Catholic, I was born in Chile, so Latino mind ish there, the Spanish... I work at a university in my full-time job, I'm assistant professor in research methods.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Wonderful.

Ninna: I'm also a lapsed Catholic, so I still do mass, but I mostly do whatever. So either Catholic or Anglican or whatever's useful on the day.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Okay.

Ninna: 'cause I'm living in the UK currently, at the beginning I didn't know which was which. And then genuinely, I think we all follow the same God, even other religions. So I'm really happy to go to celebrations from other religions. So they're very different.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes.

Ninna: I became a Catholic when I was [00:14:00] around 16, that ritual of the Catholic Church, which is very similar in high Anglican churches,

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Mm-hmm.

Ninna: Still feels very much a healing space, although there's some.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yeah.

Ninna: Times when I just wanna go, ah, church. If that makes sense.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): absolutely. Absolutely.

Ninna: And something I've never shared on the podcast yet. I actually have a sister who lives in Texas.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Oh, where in Texas is she?

Ninna: that's a long story as well. 'cause it's a sister I've only met three times in my life.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Oh my goodness. Okay. Hey.

Ninna: So that's kind of load of things.

[00:14:35] Diet Culture and Body Positivity

Ninna: A lot of my life, I suppose it's a common story on fat people. I just fought my body and everyone told me I had to, and that's what I had to do. So this idea of diet culture and when you link it to religion, I've been reading some of the things you've written. It just makes so much sense to me. And then probably 10 years ago, so I'm 47 now, so I was much older than when you started on this [00:15:00] journey. I'm like, you know, I'm being stupid. I just need to enjoy the body I have and I'm there.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): That's wonderful.

Ninna: Also for our listeners, 'cause they won't be necessarily seeing you, would you describe yourself physically as well?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Sure. I am in a fat body, and I'm sure you've talked about this before, but I use the word fat as a neutral descriptor. Like, my hair is brown, it's cut in a short cut and I have a fat body. I wear glasses and I have cat eye glasses. I always wear lipstick. Today I am wearing like a raspberry color. And I'm also disabled, so I don't walk that great. I can walk, but a lot of times with the support of a cane or sitting down frequently. Today I am wearing my shirt that I made. It says, you are enough and you are not too much.

Ninna: Yay. Very important messages for everyone who's listening. 'cause I think those are [00:16:00] two things that particularly women were told, either You're not enough, you need to change, or you're too much, you need to make yourself tiny.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Exactly, and I found the you need to make yourself small message, growing up in Southern Bell culture. So in the United States, the South, has a specific culture where women are supposed to be demure and small, small wasted, quiet, submissive. And I just was never any of those things. Also I growing up in religious household, women were supposed to be quieter and not lead, men were supposed to be the leaders . I'm breaking through with that. I am enough and I'm not too much.

Ninna: Super. I was reading some of your entries in your substack, I wonder if it's okay with you if I read you a little quote and you can tell us a bit about that.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Absolutely.

Ninna: I really like this one.

[00:16:55] Sinners in the Hands of a Skinny God

Ninna: So you have a post called Sinners in the Hands of a Skinny God, a [00:17:00] parable for today. And you start that one saying "In the beginning there was a God and this God had the sleekest, trimmest body of all time. God created humans with bodies and while they lived in God's organic garden, their bodies were perfect- no extra fat, just lean muscle, no pain or disease, just bodily bliss. God had just one rule: don't eat wrong."

I mean, I loved it because it really resonates with the story in the Bible, which, not only Catholics or Christians, but other religions we share in the Old Testament, although obviously not every religion.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Right.

Ninna: what brought you to that retelling of the creation, I suppose.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): I came up with this parable because there's a sermon from the 17 hundreds in the American Great Awakening, called sinners in the hand of an angry God. And it's about God dangling sinners over the fires of hell because of their actions. And so I thought, [00:18:00] what if that God were skinny?

Because I think a lot of people turn all of their efforts in their life towards thinness or ability. And they must have some sort of conception that God is pleased with them when they are skinny or able bodied. But I don't think many people have ever actually thought about God having a body. Um, and right in the Old Testament, in the Jewish scriptures, that story, God doesn't really have a body in the same way we think about bodies, but as a Christian believing that Jesus died and rose again and ascended into heaven. Jesus has a body.

And so I'm kind of just playing....

Ninna: And not only Jesus 'cause it's also the Father. So again, there's a body, a father has a body.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yeah.

Ninna: It's not just a, like the Holy Spirit doesn't, but yeah.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Right, right. This, this idea of incorporated flesh, just playing with those ideas. I think religion is about playing and [00:19:00] thoughtfulness and humor as much as it is about serious things. So I wanted to play with the idea of God having a body and getting mad at the humans for eating bread and getting chubby. So that's where that idea came from.

Ninna: And that's where the parable takes you, doesn't it? Rather than eating the apple, you're eating something that wasn't allowed. And then we are going out onto this world where we go fat and we're bad, we're sinners because we're fat.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Exactly. You know, my friend Nicole Morgan, she wrote a great book called Fat and Faithful: Learning to Love our Neighbors our Bodies, and Ourselves. she talks about how the first sin is dealing with food and that the results of that sin is body shame, right? When Adam and Eve eat the apple and God says, where are you?

And they're like, we were hiding because we were naked and ashamed. There's such a connection in religion between eating and body [00:20:00] shame, and so how do we dis untangle those things?

Ninna: yeah. In Judeo Christian Religions

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): right.

Ninna: Yeah, definitely. And then also I think the fact that... I mean, we know it's a parable.

[00:20:11] Challenging Body Stereotypes

Ninna: It's not like really how God created the world or how this happened, but if you think of the world now, that's exactly what people think.

They might not tell the same story, but they look at me and they go, you're fat so you must be bad, or you must be disorganized, or you must... there are all of these assumptions people make about people based on the fact that we're fat.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Right, as opposed to just having natural body diversity.

[00:20:35] Poodle Science and Body Diversity

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Stacey Bias is a creator. She's American, but she's based in the UK, in Scotland. She has this amazing video called Poodle Science that she illustrated. Have you ever seen it?

Ninna: No. No, no.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): It's the idea that it would be absurd if we treated all dogs like poodles, because poodles have a very specific body type and the way they cough their hair. so if we just [00:21:00] focused on making every dog look like a poodle, that would be absurd. Why do we focus on making every human body a poodle, right? Why do we focus on that, instead of embracing body diversity, like in trees, there are so many different kinds and widths and thicknesses of trees. the natural world really reflects this diversity of bodies. How can we embrace that in our thinking about bodies ourselves?

Ninna: Yes. Very important. I'm sure that's where you're going 'cause I've read some of your work, you have so much more out there that I haven't read. When you say value diversity, yes, we're focusing on fatness, but it's not just that, it's every kind of disability visible in particular, it's about gender diversity, it's

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Absolutely.

Ninna: color and race diversity and whatever we look like. We are all loved children of God. If we're talking religion or just

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Absolutely.

Ninna: lovable in ourselves, like there's nothing that makes us less

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Exactly.

[00:21:58] Unlearning Anti-Fat Bias

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): I think what you were talking about earlier, [00:22:00] the stereotyping of fat bodies, whether we be lazy, disorganized, unhygienic, unmotivated. All of those are biases that we have against fat bodies that we have to unlearn even when we live in a fat body. Those don't just go away when you become fat, you still have all this anti-fat inside of you.

Ninna: Because we are part of that diet culture, aren't we?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Exactly. So how do we unlearn it? That's my big push. I think all of us in fat liberation, we' re trying to deal with unlearning the negative stereotypes and learning the truth about bodies.

Ninna: And in d oing that and showing ourselves, hoping that others will learn it before we did, 'cause I have years of suffering that I could have not had if I'd come across these ideas earlier. And I wish others do.

[00:22:49] Diet Culture as Religion

Ninna: You have another post that you called Diet Culture is a religion, are you its disciple? or you it's disciple or you it's disciple. " To give some examples of how diet culture functions as a religion, it [00:23:00] binds people together in a moral community around the fitness of bodies. Everyone is expected to participate in its imperatives, going to church- the gym, following its dietary code- dieting, abiding by its values- the endless pursuit of thinness and more. It even has its own mantras: nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, and sacraments, diet and exercise."

What I take from there is that we are talking about diet as religion, which I think is a really important theme that you bring in. But even if we're not, diet culture is this belief that we culturally share and we're challenging today, that we owe ourselves thinness, and we do that through control over what we eat. Calories in, calories out. Exercise.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): When, and it becomes this all consuming endeavor, right? Where we can't even sleep without thinking [00:24:00] about what our bodies are going to do.

[00:24:02] Personal Experiences with Dieting

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but when I was dieting, I would dream that I overate, you know, quote overate, because my body was so hungry, it was trying to get through my psyche to tell me, you need to eat more.

But I just thought I was sabotaging myself in my sleep.

Ninna: I didn't remember dreams when I was younger, although now with the perimenopause, it's crazy. I remember them all. It's annoying. But I did have behaviors that I'm like, genuinely not good. I got really depressed when I dieted.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Mm-hmm.

Ninna: I would start really well and then it'd get to a point when I just didn't wanna eat anything. 'Cause I wasn't hungry anymore and I was crying all the time. And I'm like, that's not healthy. I'd rather eat,

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes.

Ninna: uh, or hiding food. So when I wasn't dieting, I wouldn't want anyone to see me eat, so I would go to uni and I would buy chocolate and leave the wrappers in the car so my family wouldn't see that I was eating or, a friend of mine was in hospital for like a week and [00:25:00] she lost so much weight and I spent like five years of my life really wishing I had had that illness. And that's just wrong, isn't it?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): we long for disorder to create results. I was hospitalized for 40 days with COVID five years ago, almost five years ago, and I was on a feeding tube for 30 days and I lost a lot of weight. But I was still fat because a lot of weight from fat is still fat. A nurse as I was getting moved out of the ICU and starting to eat again, said, oh my gosh, 30 days on a feeding tube, can you imagine how much weight you could lose?

And I just kind of looked at her. I just lived through that. It was hell. But she, in her capacity as a nurse, thought that was appropriate to say to someone. It's so all encompassing that we don't even notice it.

Ninna: That's the thing. It's [00:26:00] everywhere, isn't it? I think it's a lot more for women, but it's also there for men. It's like we need to be strong and thin or muscular, but nothing that's fat or, I hate the word fluffy, but fluffy

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Right.

Ninna: It's very much a western thing. It's not everywhere in the world, but for the culture we live in and the Puritan Christian view of the world that we need to be looking a specific way and we're buying it to it all the time.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): All the time.

[00:26:32] Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Body Image

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): there is a sociologist, Max Weber, who talks about Protestantism and capitalism and how the puritans took material blessing as a sign of God's favor. Our Protestant ish, puritanical culture have taken body size to reflect God's favor.

if you're thin naturally, or if you're thin by hard work, [00:27:00] you must be favored by God. And if you're fat naturally, or if you're fat just because you like to eat and it doesn't matter why you're fat, then you are cursed by God. And so there's this hierarchy of bodies that we all think about.

I had so much internalized anti-fat bias

Ninna: absolutely.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): that when my husband was thinner. I would look at us and say, people are gonna wonder why we're matched. No one's gonna think, oh, Amanda, she's got a great personality. She's really funny and smart, and they're just gonna be like, why is that thin man with that fat girl?

And it's so deeply entrenched.

My lived experience is I was always in a larger than average body. In my family, I was probably in an average body compared to the rest of the world. But larger than average for my family. And so at the age of seven, I was put on restrictive diets

Ninna: Um,

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): and [00:28:00] I wasn't getting enough to eat. most people would think if you're not getting enough to eat, then you lose weight.

But our bodies adapt and it made me actually get bigger because my body thought it was in starvation mode. So I learned how to navigate hunger and prize hunger as opposed to honoring it. Prizing hunger for me means, oh, I'm hungry, that must mean I'm losing weight; versus honoring hunger, which means I need to eat and feed my body.

My eating disorder really grew out of I'm a better person when I don't eat, and it's been really challenging to get over that internal messaging, even at the age of 40. I still feel better emotionally when I am not eating versus having to tell myself, no, it's important to eat because I actually do feel better physically, emotionally, spiritually when I do eat.

Ninna: I agree that there's that strong trying to be something we are not and all [00:29:00] our energy going into that rather than going into just being and loving ourselves. 'cause I'm sure God, he, she, them loves

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Mm-hmm.

Ninna: us exactly as we are.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Indeed.

Ninna: Our bodies being fat will not make Love not love us.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): I agree completely. And I also think there is this poetic reality of fat bodies that expresses the abundance of God's creation. That it's a, a positive thing like overflowing, packed down, spilling over the edges. Like that is God's provision.

Ninna: What reminded me of, I don't know if you've ever seen any Botero sculptures?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Absolutely.

Ninna: For those who have never, he makes these sculptures of very round people. They're not typically fat, they're just round and beautiful.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes.

Ninna: and I think that was one of my first experiences of seeing big bodies 'cause it's not a fat body really, but big bodies

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Right. They're stylized.

Ninna: as something [00:30:00] positive and, and beautiful. One thing that for me has been really difficult is to change my gaze as well,

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Hmm.

Ninna: because I was taught so much that fat was bad and fat was ugly, that for a long time looking at myself, but also looking at other fat people. I could not see past that belief.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Right.

Ninna: And now I can see me and I can see other fat people and go, you're beautiful. Fatness doesn't take that away, or we're ugly, whatever. 'cause we could be thin and ugly as well.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Right.

Ninna: but it doesn't have to do with our size.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes. And I think when I'm helping people come out of diet culture, I encourage them to diversify their viewing habits. So if for example, their Instagram algorithm is all thin bodied people, I say, you really need to follow fat creators who are doing interesting things, who are making podcasts like you are, who are [00:31:00] doing fashion, who are just documenting life in fat bodies.

My tastes changed from wanting everything to be thin, to being like, oh, I see this fat person has style. I want to be like that.

Ninna: And then the importance of representation, isn't it?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes.

[00:31:18] Fat Representation in Religion

Ninna: Because again, and I'm going back to the theme that we're talking about today, but when we are thinking even about religion, and particularly in terms of Christian religions, we also have very ridiculous ways of portraying Jesus or portraying saints like they all look the same, and they're probably very unlikely to be how they really look like.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes. So I have three fat saints that I love.

Ninna: Oh, I don't know of any, you'll have to send me a list.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Thomas Aquinas, doctor of the church, very well respected, , is described as being as fat as an ox. Like he's a very big man. They had to cut away part of his table, for him to be able to [00:32:00] sit, to write. It was ridiculed instead of honored. But Thomas Aquinas is probably the most respected theologian in the Catholic church, he is very fat.

And then Saint Theresa of Avila, she was fat. Um. Uh, there's a Rembrandt, I believe, painting of her based on an image of her near her death, and she lives in a larger body. All we know is the Bernini, Theresa in the alleyway, looking all svelte and very thin as in her younger years, which she may have been, but in her older years she was chubby and fat.

And then St. John the 23rd, he was a pope who started Vatican two. And he was jolly and very large.

St. Nicholas is also

Ninna: I was thinking when you were saying jolly, I went like, oh, Santa Claus.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Santa Claus.

Ninna: Is the only fat person that we have representation for.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Uh, yes. And so a fourth fat saint is Saint Nicholas. [00:33:00] Embracing his fat body as just part of who he is.

Ninna: And actually with women, there's very little representation. But now you've said that I'm thinking, Mrs. Santa.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Mrs. Santa indeed.

and who knows all of the people in history who would be considered Saints, if we knew what they did, I'm guessing a lot of them would be fat as well.

Ninna: And representation has changed. There's many books on this and I keep talking about...

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Sabrina Strings' Fearing the black body.

Ninna: yeah, which again gets to that story of in the past bigger bodies would've been represented and would've been considered beautiful.

So there's a history to what we believe now.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes.

Ninna: I don't know if you've seen this, but uh, I will find the video 'cause I think it's hilarious. There's a British researcher, she's an mathematician and she's super popular and she's just put a video out showing that the Victorian representation of the really thin waste is not real. And it was [00:34:00] like an illusion in terms of dress, but also they actually retouched the photos.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Really?

Ninna: Yeah, that needs to be shared with the world.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yes.

Ninna: So yeah. So this has happened throughout times. It's not just now. There's so many things in history that have been hidden in what our current beliefs are, and I suppose when we grew up, particularly me, but we don't have that many years difference. Again, it was ridiculous. Like a size eight was considered fat.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): It's so absurd.

Ninna: Can I read something else?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): please.

[00:34:35] Embracing Fatness and Disability

Ninna: You wrote another entry that says My Fat Vocation. And that links to what we were saying before we met, that diet culture and this religion does not lead to happiness.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yeah.

Ninna: And I don't think it leads to happiness, even for thin people 'cause everyone's just worried all the time about what we eat, how we look like, and it's just not healthy. You wrote "I am fat and [00:35:00] disabled, among other things- being white, female, educated and privileged. These two traits mediate how I see and experience the world. In my life I have had huge dreams of changing the world, making it more just and kind and inclusive. These huge dreams usually involve me in perfect fitness and health and ability, though. So what do I make of my vocation and my weakness?" Then you continue. " But in my fatness and my disability, I can see the margins better than my thin and able bodied peers. I can feel the pain of rejection because of my body. I can feel the isolation of being left out due to my disability, and I can use my voice and whatever platform I have to speak out against these injustices."

I really love that because I've named this season of the podcast Happiness at Every Size. And to me, happiness is not necessarily about being in laughter or in joy all the time, or it [00:36:00] depends on the definition of joy, but it's about knowing that we are doing what we are here to do and supporting others, and exactly what you wrote there. So I really love that.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Yeah, I was taking a class on vocation when I wrote that piece. I was in a doctoral program where I was studying leadership in higher education, and I was learning how to help students through vocational questions. And I realized while I was in that class, I don't think this is the program for me.

I discerned out of the program, which I don't think was their goal. But God works in mysterious ways, just to embrace that call as a woman priest, I feel called specifically as a disabled fat woman to be a priest. To bring that picture of weakness to the forefront in front of the people [00:37:00] where I'm sharing and breaking the bread of the Eucharist.

Strength is not where our solutions lie. It's weakness. We have to embrace our weakness in order to access wisdom, and to be able to see the world through what I call fat privilege. Being on the margins, seeing where I have been left behind makes me wonder, okay, who else has been left behind with me?

And how can we have a world that includes all of us?

[00:37:31] Finding Happiness and Acceptance

Ninna: What are your hopes in reaching whatever happiness means to you?

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): There's a theologian named Henry Nouwen. A Dutch theologian who spent a lot of his time in the US and Canada, and he wrote a book called Life of the Beloved. I think you would love it.

He's explaining how God loves us, but he says, just like Jesus chooses the bread, [00:38:00] blesses the bread, breaks the bread. And gives the bread. So are we called to be chosen, blessed, broken, and given. And so I am seeing my life, my hope is that I stand firm in my chosenness by God. God has chosen each person for a specific thing, to be blessed, given gifts and favor and, and joy. And in that comes brokenness, whether it's through my physical disability or my emotional situations that break me.

But the goal is so that I can be given to the world as a sign of hope and a sign of healing and inclusion. Out of that brokenness to be given, to be able to give and to speak healing to other people. That's really my hope.

Ninna: What I would add in terms of my personal experience is that to me it's keeping on that hope and also recognizing that nothing [00:39:00] needs to change

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Hmm.

Ninna: for me to be fully me.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Absolutely.

Ninna: So I can hope for better, especially for the world. 'cause I think the world's mad at the moment, and however, if nothing changes, if today is all I have. With pain 'cause I'm in massive pain for a few months now. With the body I have, with the messy family and messy home I have, then it would be okay. And that to me is a massive thing, 'cause I've been depressed so many times in my life and I'm like, oh I'm not, that's genuinely not depressed.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Hmm.

Ninna: And I hope people can find those times, but it's also fine, sometimes we will be depressed, and that's part of life. So to me, also happiness has to do with acceptance, and it has to do with recognizing that we don't have to do anything to be valuable.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Absolutely.

Ninna: We don't have to look anything to be valuable. We don't have to achieve, we don't have to... nothing. We're [00:40:00] valuable because we are. And I think that's been, to me, the teaching of the church that has been hardest for me to learn.

Amanda Martinez Beck (she/her): Hmm. That's connected with probably the main mantra of my life or touchstone of my life. The purpose of my body is not thinness, it's not perfection, it's not ability. The purpose of my body is relationship with myself, with others, and with the divine. And just being, not doing, but being is enough in those relationships.

Ninna: Oh my God. I love that. I think that's where this podcast's going to end.

[00:40:41] Outro

Ninna: I hope you loved this conversation as much as I did. It was so interesting and so deep. If you want to find Amanda, you can find her at her website, thefatdispatch.com on Instagram or Threads [00:41:00] @TheFatDispatch. She writes a Substack, the Fat Dispatch. You can find her books wherever books are sold online. I will put this on the show notes so you can find them there.

If you want to find me. I am on my website, thefatpsychologist.com. I am also on Instagram Threads, Facebook and Blue Sky @theFatPsychologist. Please like, share, comment, get in touch. I would love to continue building our community. If you'd like to be a guest in my podcast, do contact me. I want many voices to be heard.

I am actively looking for sponsors. So if you are someone who can sponsor or you know someone who might be interested, do please get in touch.

I look forward to next week and being there again together.

This episode of The Fat Psychologist Podcast was produced, [00:42:00] edited, and presented by Ninna Makrinov ​