The Fat Psychologist Podcast

Transcript

TFP S1 E11 Happiness at Every Size

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[00:00:00]

Ninna: Hi, 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 would love everyone to love who they are. Fat or skinny, queer or straight, tall or short, whatever. Just be you.

And that's where this podcast comes in. I would like each of us to be able to accept who we are, and I'm there to support you in that journey.

I am very conscious and I want to have an inclusive environment. Hence, I edit this podcast and the captions. So those of you who need or want to have captions checked by a human, you will have them.

I'm thinking of [00:01:00] today on the title of our whole season, which is happiness at Every Size, and what does that mean to us. What does happiness mean to you?

[00:01:12] Episode structure

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Ninna: We will start the episode thinking about what levels of happiness we have, so having a little bit of a reflection and helping you think about if you're thriving in who you are. I will then talk about myself and think if I am thriving to then reflect on the idea of happiness at every size and contentment, I will move from that into thinking about self-acceptance and I will share a little bit more of my personal story. Then I will discuss the importance of social support and of challenging fat bias. That will lead to a summary of five myths about fatness and the risks of internalised fat bias and dieting. If [00:02:00] you just want to jump to a section, I have added a timeline.

[00:02:03] The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire

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Ninna: I was starting to look at how do we as psychologists measure happiness? It's very interesting because there are happiness questionnaires out there. There are very many, and one of the most used ones is called the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. There's a shortened version that has just eight items. I wonder what this means in terms of what happiness is.

So I thought a fun way to start today would be to think about each of those items. I will change them slightly so they're all in positive. So it's not exactly how the questionnaire that was defined by Peter Hills and Michael Argyle in 2002. However, it can give us an idea of our general happiness levels.

Another really important thing we need to know that these questionnaires were defined for research. So they don't really give any diagnostics. They're [00:03:00] not there for that. If when we are doing this, you feel that reflecting on how you're feeling in terms of happiness is in a level that you don't feel comfortable with, so you're not happy. I would super recommend that there are people you can go for support. We've been talking a lot in previous episodes about the importance of therapy and accessing support, and I think that's still very important.

[00:03:24] Are you thriving by being yourself?

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Ninna: So how about we start this episode with a little bit of self-reflection Because we're thinking of happiness at every size and what I value, which is thriving at being ourselves. Let's think about how much do we thrive by being ourselves at the moment. Really important that this can also change.

So the items are: I feel pleased with the way I am. How pleased do you feel about the way you are?; I feel that life is rewarding; [00:04:00] I am well satisfied about everything in my life; I think I look attractive; I find beauty in some things; I can fit in everything I want to; I feel fully mentally alert; I have happy memories of the past.

What I think is really interesting with this kind of questionnaire or this questionnaire in particular, is that the research shows that all of these items relate to this general idea of happiness. Also that I find it really hard looking at these questions or these statements to think about the difference or similarity between happiness, wellbeing, contentment, [00:05:00] and even self-esteem, which is another theme that we have discussed before, the value I give myself, whatever the circumstances.

[00:05:09] Am I thriving in being myself?

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Ninna: When I think of this as well, I actually think, oh, I'm actually doing quite well. Obviously, I'm not happy all the time 'cause that would be excessive. That wouldn't be truthful, but I think I'm at a state currently where I'm pleased with the way I am. I quite like it. I'm not perfect. There are things I might wanna change in time and that's quite healthy. I don't know if that's your experience?

Life is rewarding. There are things that are not going great. However, overall, yeah, I would say, yeah. I am satisfied with my life. There are things again, I want to change, I want to improve. I would love more listeners to the podcast, please, more followers, and I'm loving that there's some people live today. I love you, thanks for being here. I actually think I'm attractive to some people, and as I was saying, today to a dear friend, I just need one [00:06:00] person to find me attractive, and that's all that I need, that's enough for me. I find beauty in things definitely. I cannot fit everything I want to. I have so many things I wanna do and there's not enough time for that.

I think where I am struggling with this questionnaire, personally, yes, I'm not always fully mentally alert. So I think I'm going through perimenopause, so it's a bit like, ah, my brain's all over the place lately, sometimes. And my memories of the past are, yes, I do have happy memories and I also have very sad ones. And sometimes those sad ones kind of take over.

[00:06:35] Happiness at Every Size

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Ninna: And when I'm thinking today about what happiness at every size means, I think that it's not about being happy necessarily, and if we mix all of those together, that's not what it really means, but it's about being content, it's being accepting of my current circumstances and having moments of joy. And when [00:07:00] those are not there, when there's moments of anger, when there's moments of sadness, leaving those too and being able to regain that contentment and experience joy once again, happiness once again.

When I'm looking at the research, some people are starting to question the pressure that some of our society feel for happiness. Do we really need to be happy all the time? Is this again, something beyond any of any person's reach?

And I did call my season happiness at every size, because I think that's what we want to look for, but I wonder if it's what we should be looking for.

[00:07:52] Contentment

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Ninna: One of the articles that I would like us to think about today and I thought was really interesting is an article by Danielle [00:08:00] Cordaro, Yang Bai, Christina Bradley, and other colleagues called Contentment and Self-Acceptance: Wellbeing Beyond Happiness.

I think that many people at every size experience that, and I think it shows that very, very well. So they conducted various studies. You can find this if you're interested. I will put the link on the show notes. But there's two that I found really interesting.

In one, they mapped how people perceived emotions and if you have listened before, there's an episode I did with Juan Pablo Kalawski where we talked about emotions and we talked about this idea of are there positive and negative emotions. I personally don't like the idea of positive and negative emotions, because I think all emotions are positive. So I'm repeating a bit of the content from the past 10 episodes today, and Juan Pablo agreed that it might be better to think about emotions that are pleasant and unpleasant.

When we look at the [00:09:00] mapping that Cordaro and colleagues did ,it's really interesting that there's a very clear distinction between these experiences that we have of certain emotions, and they claim that contentment is that key emotion that we should be aiming for. And when they map this, they do this visually. It's super fun, I think it shows things really well.

Contentment's kinda quite central and it's linked clearly to serenity, peace, gratitude, happiness, joy; and then a bit further out to triumph, pride, awe, amusement, tranquility, relief, and calm. I would totally agree that we want to go for contentment. That doesn't mean though, that we ignore the rest of the emotions.

In this same mapping that they did on the kind of opposite side on the [00:10:00] less pleasant emotions, I suppose, they have mapped very close together, despair, disgust, disappointment, embarrassment, anger, pain, and other emotions that I imagine whenever we've been in that space, we really don't necessarily want to be there long term.

However, I would love to know your opinions. Are these emotions you think that are helpful? 'cause I think they are. I think they give us information.

What we're thinking about then is this idea of happiness at every size. Is it happiness? And what I am posing is that it's actually not happiness we're going for is potentially contentment, which is this ability to experience emotions of all kinds and go back to ourselves.

[00:10:53] Self-acceptance and life satisfaction

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Ninna: Another aspect of the studies by Daniel Cordaro and colleagues that I really liked was that [00:11:00] they looked at how life satisfaction related to contentment, and what they found is that there is a relationship between contentment and life satisfaction. However, that relationship is mediated by self-acceptance.

What we mean by that is that being content, if that is a state of I accept myself for who I am, then that can lead to life satisfaction. Now, it's really important when we look at these relationships that it could be in a complete opposite direction because this is not a study that can prove causality.

So it might be that. Accepting ourselves can lead to contentment, and then that gives us satisfaction with our lives, et cetera. I wonder if it's more the opposite way around. Is it that if we are able to accept ourselves exactly as we are, we are then [00:12:00] able to be content with our lives even when things are not going right? Even when we are so overwhelmed that we're unable to function in the way we would like, even when we are ill and we might not be doing things we like, even when things are not going right and we're not finding the job we want, because life is not all positive, is it? It's not all easy, however. When we are happy, when we are okay, when we're not depressed, then we can go past those and continue to find ways of finding happiness again. What do you think of that?

We will have things that happen in our lives that are hard, things that we need to go past. That's a another term that comes a lot in psychology and it comes a lot on people from every area, that's resilience. When we are thinking of resilience, we are thinking of the ability to bounce back when [00:13:00] things go wrong. Now again, I discussed this in a previous episode. I think it was episode two, because to me resilience has been overused as a term. I would talk more about bouncing back. And that's because original research on resilience was done with very adverse childhood experiences. And that's very different to, I don't know, getting a bad score in a test, or having a bad day at work. So there are levels as well when we think of these things. However, whatever negative effects and whatever failure means to us. Can we go back then and start again? Can we go back and continue?

[00:13:39] Ninna's story: privilege and adverse childhood experiences

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Ninna: It might be interesting for you to, rather than hear only about research, also hearing about me and my life. And that's partly why I am doing this podcast, because I think it's important that we share our stories when we think about all of these issues. Also how all of these things relate to weight, because [00:14:00] obviously that's where I am coming from.

To be fair, I'm quite privileged in many ways. I grew up in a middle class family in Chile. I, came to the UK when I was 23 to study here and my family supported me with that. I am white, that gives me a lot of privilege too. I am very educated.

And then there are many things that take away some of that privilege. I'm fat, that's something that I'm centering in this podcast. I have also many things that are not as obvious because you wouldn't know them unless I discuss them and I share them. A couple weeks ago I came across another podcast, that was talking about adverse childhood experiences and there was a questionnaire of how many had we gone through of at least of 10, and I counted I'd gone through seven. I'm not going to talk about them all. Some of them could be quite complex, but I am going to talk about some of my experiences today, particularly those that relate to something I watched today and I [00:15:00] thought it was really lovely and also very triggering for me.

I watched a series on Netflix called North of North, which I wasn't expecting to cover so many mental health issues, in a very positive way. It's about this young woman, 26-year-old in an Inuit community north of Canada, her experiences. And obviously there's many things that I don't experience. But there were two experiences that shared with my life.

One was that her mom, I don't wanna spoil the show for you, had been an alcoholic at some point. My mom was an amazing woman. I loved her dearly, and she was also an alcoholic. It was quite tough for me growing up. She was super successful with many things, and I took a parenting role a bit with her. I think I went to university and I studied psychology because I wanted her to heal. I never managed that, and it took me a long time to know that it wasn't my role as a daughter to [00:16:00] do that healing for her. And it still pains me that I couldn't. I also moved houses quite a lot. My parents divorced when I was 12. By the time I was 18, I had lived in 18 houses. And that's just part of the story.

But weirdly enough, even with all of that, still now, what probably hurt me the most was that I felt I did not necessarily belong in my family because I was not thin as they wanted me to be.

[00:16:29] Social Support

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Ninna: Looking back, I wasn't fat really as a child, but that brings me again to other piece of research that to me is really important and that we can never forget, and it's social support. Having others who believe in us, however we are, whatever we're doing, can be really, really important in this journey to self-acceptance and then life satisfaction, happiness and joy.

Having you here today is part of that to me. And I hope that me [00:17:00] doing this podcast can be part of the journey for others as well. I want us to think about what our lives have been, whatever those have been, whatever has happened in our lives, can we find spaces for healing? Can we find others to hold us in those spaces? And if we haven't found them, I really hope that you can go out there and find those places where we belong. That can be an online community, it can be a friend, it can be our family, hopefully, for some... I always find my relationship with my family, even now, a bit complicated.... although I have an excellent relationship with my sister and with some of my aunts and uncles.

My mom sadly passed away when I was eight months pregnant of my son and I was living in Mexico at the time, so I couldn't see her. Hence I said I couldn't save her 'cause I couldn't, she died because of her alcoholism when she was just 56.

[00:18:00] This is a huge issue with psychology, sometimes we tend to forget the environment and the others when we think about healing and we think about happiness. Happiness becomes this very much a personal pursuit. However, we are never aside from the environment we're in, we are always part of that environment we're in. That's why also as a fat psychologist, it's so important for me that we understand the expectations of the environments we function in, and what we actually believe of that, how we internalize those expectations and those biases, how we challenge them when they're worth challenging , and how we can use evidence both from personal stories, so this is important part of evidence, and also from larger research studies, to think about what does wellbeing and happiness mean to each of [00:19:00] us based on our life experiences, so we can then challenge those beliefs.

[00:19:06] Challenging Fatphobia

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Ninna: Another theme that's been coming through in the podcast on these past 10 weeks is the importance of, coming from the perspective as a fat person, as a fat woman, and how the lived experience of being fat in the Western world has permeated the way I see the world and the way I experience the world.

There's an accepted way of interpreting the research that would say that being fat is horrible. It's something that we all need to change, about the fatness epidemic and how that's something that we need to completely change. In fat activism, we would challenge that, or I would, and I'm going to talk about myself rather than the movement because I'm new to the movement. To me, each of us has the right, I think that's the word, each of us has the right to be [00:20:00] exactly who we want to be in our weight, in our size. And I think my experience as a fat person has hopefully helped me see other experiences, although I'm still learning, I still get things wrong.

One of the key challenges we need to do together, especially when it comes to wellbeing, is to challenge the beliefs that are out there and that don't necessarily stand the test. One of those is the relationship between dieting and health.

Much of research, loads of the research shows and supports the fact that weight loss should be a key action for people who are fat. So we have huge pressure to become not fat. However, from my lived experience and also from research I have read, a lot of this research is done in short periods of time, so in around three years where it's feasible [00:21:00] for fat people to lose weight for a short period of time. Those people like me who've been dieting all our lives, I mean I don't do it anymore, but who dieted all our lives... I've heard these stories over and over again as we do this podcast, have gone through these ups and downs of losing weight, putting it up, losing weight, putting it up.

This yo-yo dieting has a huge negative effect on health. And also, interestingly enough, the internalized bias has a huge effect on mental health. So if we believe that being fat is bad and it's morally wrong, which is something that again, our society strongly believes, we are, then more likely to be depressed, for example. A hundred percent of studies found a correlation. I talked about that in a previous episode too. I found the opposite in a really interesting study by Felix Bittmmann in Germany, where he analyzed some data from [00:22:00] Germany , I don't like the word overweight, so I would say fat. I'm going to read from the paper, and this is from this abstract, from the summary. It says: "I estimate the causal effect of body mass index as a measure of overweight and happiness. The results indicate that being overweight, whether BMI is treated as a continuous or categorical variable, does not have a negative impact on happiness. These findings hold across both genders and all age groups". I find it really interesting that in Germany there's a study that shows that there's no correlation. I don't know what's different in Germany than elsewhere. Is it something that has to do with the place? Is it something that I have a different experience than other people who are fat?

I would say that hopefully if we challenge those biases and we genuinely are able to go beyond and believe in our value, so we come back to this idea of acceptance of ourselves, then we can be happy, [00:23:00] whatever.

I think there's a part of that, but there's also the need to change the world. We need to change what the world has done.

[00:23:11] 5 Myths about weight and health -debunked by science

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Ninna: So just to finish this episode, I am going to go through some of the key learnings from previous episodes, some of the myths about weight and health.

One: higher weight equals poor health. So there is a correlation. However, the truth is that we cannot use body size to determine health. It's not a reliable indicator. Many people who are in larger bodies have very good health. Many thin people don't. Although there is a correlation, it's not a direct relationship.

The second myth, which I hope I already covered, is that weight loss is always good for you. The truth is that for some people it can be, especially if you've never dieted before, I'm not going to get there. It's a different field of research that for those who have been [00:24:00] dieting lifelong. However, what we have found in research is that intentional weight loss, and I hate the word weight loss because I think it's intentional weight shedding or I don't know how to put it 'cause it's not just losing my keys. Often leads them to weight cycling or yo-yo dieting, and that is linked to worse health outcomes than maintaining a stable weight, whatever that is, so a higher size.

A third myth that is really important that we challenge is: you can tell someone if they're healthy just by looking at them. And the fact is that the definition of health and wellbeing is really complex, 'cause this health as a state of complete wellbeing, mental and physical, I don't know if anyone ever has been in that state, in our lives. By looking at a person, we cannot know their lived experience. We cannot know what they're dealing with. We cannot know their mental health. We cannot even know what their markers of traditional health [00:25:00] are, so we need to go beyond that.

Myth four, fat people need more willpower. We're told once and again us people who are fat, that if only we tried better, if only we go on better, but actually that's a stigma. There are many things that influence our size, yoyo dieting is one of those, so if we have been in these processes before, we're more likely to be in a higher weight than if we hadn't tried. So it's possible that it's that willpower or trying too hard that has us in the position we are, but also weight can be influenced by genetics, environments, trauma, many other things as well.

And then , that dieting that's myth five is the only way to be healthy. No, and this is, again, for all of us, whatever our size, rather than focusing on size and weight loss, it's much better to focus on health behaviors, things that we can do to be both mentally and physically better. As long as we can, [00:26:00] move. Movement can be really good. And there's something that we call joyful movement. We've discussed before. Getting good sleep, getting connection with others, self-compassion, eating nutritious foods if we can, can be really good.

If you wanna know any of these things, go again and look at previous episodes.

[00:26:21] The Risks of Intentional Weight Loss

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Ninna: And just from my personal experience, this is a very important lesson. Because before I learned all this, even at some point. When I did lose weight, this did not lead me to happiness.

For example the last time I went on a weight loss diet, I mean, I've done it so many times, but this was the last one, it was a really good time in my life. I had come to the UK for the first time where I discovered that I was, when I arrived, the smallest of the large sizes, I was probably a size 18 UK, so small [00:27:00] fat, and I was super excited because in Chile, where I'm from, I couldn't find clothes in my size. I had a great opportunity to be a researcher at a university, I was quite young. I was around 24 and I had a great job. I was doing a part-time PhD. And while all of those really positive things happened, I started exercising a lot. I was exercising like four hours a day, not what I do at now at all. I Also went in a calorie restricted diet, which I would never recommend to anyone again, but I was doing like 800 calories per day and I put a lot of weight down that time. I went to a size 14 UK and that's the smallest I've been in a really long time.

However, what my worry is for others, and it is what happened to me, was that because I didn't then think about or heal my hurts in relation [00:28:00] to believing that being fat was bad then during all that period when I was in a smaller body, I was terrified of what would happen when I put weight on.

And then I got pregnant and I put a lot of weight on during my pregnancy. I had a massive postnatal depression, I also moved countries, I left my job, I did loads of changes , all of this happened at one time, and I strongly believe that that was partly because I hadn't really challenged these beliefs that I had.

So I'm now challenging my fat bias for myself and for others. And I hope that these conversations are helpful to you, whatever your size. So it might be that you're not struggling with weight. It might be that what you want to be yourself as or you are yourself and want to accept and want to be content for is something different. But maybe those life stories will help us [00:29:00] all.

[00:29:00] Outro

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Ninna: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Fat Psychologist. If you like my podcast, please follow, like and rate. You can also find me on Instagram, BlueSky and Threads and Facebook. Please connect. Let's have a conversation. You can know more about my work at thefatpsychologist.com.

If you want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. You are always welcome to come and discuss, talk with me during an episode as well.

I am actively looking for a sponsor, so if you know someone who might be willing to sponsor this podcast, let me know.

It's been great to have you, and next week on the next episode, I'll be talking with The Fat Counsellors on how to challenge fat bias in ourselves. Thank you very much for being here. Bye-bye.