Original subtitles

This programme contains strong language

Just say fat.

Not "curvy", or "chubby", or "chunky", "or fluffy",

or "more to love", or "big guy", or "full-figured", or "big-boned",

or "queen-size", or "husky", or "obese", or "overweight".

Just say fat.

The very first piece was called, "A request from your fat friend."

I wrote this as an actual letter to a friend.

I wanted her to understand the ways in which her experience,

as a thin woman, differed from my experiences as a fat woman.

And another friend proofread it to make sure I wasn't being a jerk.

And he asked if I would be willing to put it up online,

and I said, sure, as long as we did it anonymously.

I don't want it tracked back to me.

I just sort of pulled the name, Your Fat Friend, out of a hat.

And, like, 30,000 people read it in about a week.

And I sort of figured out, oh, people are willing to listen

to this. I should probably write more things.

I need you to listen closely.

I need you to believe me when I tell you what happens.

I'm a size 26.

Fat enough that some stores for fat people don't carry my size.

Fat enough that some doctors will refuse to see me.

Fat enough that getting on an aeroplane makes my blood run cold,

because they might kick me off without a refund for my ticket.

And then, I will have to explain to my friends, job, family

why I can't make it on that trip.

When I talk about fat, I'm not talking about feelings,

or self-esteem, or body image issues.

I'm talking about the way that individuals and institutions

treat people who look like me.

Every discussion about bodies is about how to avoid

the horrible fate of looking like me.

When you announce your New Year's resolution to lose five,

ten, 25 pounds, you are saying that you don't want your body

to end up like mine.

Your feelings are real and true and valid,

and you should still not say them to the fattest person you know.

Try to learn to love the lush overgrowth of your body.

Let it grow wild and untamed as a garden you loved as a child.

Love it for the way it sustains you, keeps you warm,

goes to such lengths not to let you get hurt.

I need less empathy, and more solidarity.

Less pity, and more anger.

I need you to know that, even with good intentions,

you can still do harm.

I need an ally.

When you ask me what I need, and I tell you, I need you to try.

I was on the swim team growing up.

I used to be, like, a competitive grade school, middle school...

Would go to, like, swim meets.

Oh, there she goes.

Go, Aubrey!

It makes me so happy to be in the water and swimming.

Just, like, actually, the best.

Like, freedom.

PRODUCER: So, do you swim now?

No. No.

There's just too... It's, like, more work than it's worth.

The way that people look at you, the way that people talk to you,

all of that kind of stuff, uh...

..makes it hard to feel unleashed in that kind of way.

When I describe myself as fat, my favourite and least favourite

reaction is people going, "Sweetie, no, you are not.

"Don't say that about yourself."

And I'm like...!

Hey, guys. Have we met?

Because I think they think I'm saying I'm...

..lazy, or stupid, or unlovable.

I don't feel any of those things.

I'm like, I just am fat, the end.

What are we going to do about it? Not much to do.

Tried everything. Well, here we are.

I run a nonprofit that helps people register to vote.

Before that, I spent nine or ten years working on trans health care

and LGBT rights.

So, when people are, like, "Well, you can't change the way

the world works," I'm like, oh, you, for sure, can.

Fat activism is a way of disrupting ideas

that we've held on to for so long.

It's about turning them on their head.

My aim is to provoke people to question the things

that they always thought were true.

I want them to change the way that they treat the fat people

in their lives, and that starts with recognising that all of

their judgments are based on faulty and cruel ideas.

Anti-fatness is everywhere.

It's on every screen.

It's in so many conversations.

It's just the water we all swim in every day.

The belief that someone can assess your health simply by looking at you

is deeply ingrained in our society.

Fat is seen as unhealthy, and it's our duty

to be as healthy as possible.

Many, many people believe all of this without question,

despite all of the scientific evidence to the contrary,

and they hate fat people for it.

As a fat person, most physical spaces never anticipated your size,

or the weight of you, or the breadth of you.

Theatre seats can be tough, bus seats can be tough.

All around Portland, there are these rental bikes,

and I'd love to ride one, but I'm over the weight limit.

The biggest threat to fat people's health

is often health care providers' profound biases.

I was treated so poorly for so long that I stopped seeing doctors

for about eight years.

Instead of just treating what you came in for,

every visit turns into a weight loss lecture.

You get on an exam table which might not hold you.

The blood pressure cuff doesn't fit your arm.

And then, the MRI machine is too small.

In a moment of crisis, you need the morning-after pill,

and you discover that it's not guaranteed to be effective

over 155lb.

Many medications are never tested on someone my size.

Nothing is made for us.

We are never expected.

I used to work to make change in government

by talking to voters and elected officials,

and now I make that change through my writing.

When I was pregnant, we found out you were a girl.

I said, "What should we call this baby?"

And he said, "Mo."

So, we call you Momo, and I found out later that that is -

at least, I was told - Japanese for "little peach".

Oh, I love that. I kind of do, too.

Did you also find out later that it was short for homosexual?

No. What?!

Yeah. Do you not know that? No.

Yeah. Weird.

My mom was, like, a Weight Watchers mom.

You know, cantaloupe and cottage cheese for breakfast.

Just, like, real '80s diet foods.

I remember the first time I went to Weight Watchers,

and there was a requirement that you had to have so much liver,

for the protein.

And...seriously, cannot eat liver.

It would make me gag.

So, I devised this wonderful approach, where I'd cut it up

into little tiny pieces and cook it,

and then I'd freeze it, so I could swallow them like pills.

And you wouldn't have to taste any? I wouldn't have to taste it.

And I thought, well, this is bright.

You did Weight Watchers. You and I did Atkins.

We did fen-phen.

Fen-phen went off the market shortly after we did it.

That's probably why I quit.

And I remember you being like, "Well, what's the big deal?

"It worked really well for a lot of us."

And you were like, "What was the problem it was causing?"

And I was like, "Heart valve failure?"

And you were like, "Come on!"

"How many people?!"

THEY LAUGH

I think you were the one who sent me that research that was, like,

the strongest bonding amongst women happens when people are talking

about how much they hate their bodies. Oh, God.

So, my question for you...

I've been doing all this writing, right?

Like, it's getting sort of more and more of a profile,

and it's all about being fat.

And I'm curious about... just how that hits you.

Well, I don't read all of them. Yeah.

Cos it is hard on my heart, you know. Yeah.

And when you write about something that happened

when you were living at home, and the family was breaking up,

it makes me wish that I had been more fully aware of...

Those things make me sad.

I think I took more from how you looked at yourself...

Yes. ..than how you looked at me.

Yes.

Like, you would look at pictures of yourself and go,

"I don't even recognise that person. Look at my thighs.

"I don't want to be in the picture."

Especially as I got fatter than you, where I was like, oh, shit.

"Now what?"

Well, if you feel that way about your body,

how am I supposed to feel about mine? Yes.

But I think that's how it gets passed along. Yeah.

At the tender age of 11, I had already attended

kids' weight loss programmes and fat day camps.

But despite my best efforts, my stubborn body clung to its fat.

So I was at Weight Watchers.

I learned how many calories were in a half cup of blueberries,

a slice of cheese, a piece of toast.

I learned to keep a food journal - a skill that I kept

as an eating disorder flourished in me later in life.

I learned to fear food over time, coming to resent needing it at all.

More or less, my whole life.

I went away for college, and then came right back.

It's great and it's garbage.

And I love it.

So I stick around, you know?

The hardest part about writing is changing the channel in your brain.

So, you spend all this time writing about hard stuff,

and I'll usually get on the freeway for a while

and just drive so that my brain can sort of mull it over,

and then I will pull over and do some writing.

I love being a great big fat lady...

..with a little tiny car.

I'm doing all of this anonymously.

There are people who, like, say really horrible things.

And wish really horrible things upon me.

I can't remember what the title of the piece was.

Embracing Your Fat Friend, or something like that.

And they said, "Embrace you? I don't even want to look at you.

"It disgusts me to see you cross the room."

"Why would I want to touch you?"

"You're going to die, and you might as well hasten it."

Stuff like that. Like, it's such a no-go area for people.

No. I mean, there's four million people in Oregon, you know.

I'm one of them.

LAUGHING: Find a fat lady in Oregon.

Is it her? Who knows?

Yeah!

The flip side is...

..hearing from people who feel really validated.

Like, VERY validated by the things that I write about.

There are parts of the world of dieting that -

having some distance from them - I now find absolutely hilarious.

I found this compilation from years ago of, like, '60s girl groups

that didn't quite make it.

And it is a song called Try the Worryin' Way.

Like, I can't tell you how much I love it.

MUSIC PLAYS

# So if you wanna lose weight too

# Here's all you gotta do

# Fall in love with a man that you can't trust

# One who won't treat you right

# And while he's out messin' round

# Worry 'bout him every night

# Shap-doo-bap

# Yeah, yeah Shap-doo-bap

# And when you think about... #

I'm a fat activist, and I collect vintage diet books.

# If you wanna lose a pound a day

# Try the worryin' way

# I don't count calories Don't count calories

# Said I don't exercise

# Don't exercise

# I just wonder what woman my man's been with

# When he tells me he was out with the guys

# Fall in love with a man... #

What Would Jesus Eat?

If your answer is bread and wine, you are correct.

How To Take 20 Pounds Off Your Man.

Oh, she's hugging him, but she's also measuring him.

What an absolute creep.

Oh, Elizabeth.

America's foremost astrologian tells you how to stay healthy...

..through the stars!

Oh!

This one's written by a sociologist.

Get a load of this author photo.

He hired one of The Strokes...

..to stab a doughnut with a switchblade!

Diet A = Boy! Diet B = Girl!

It is written by actual,

honest to God, health care providers,

which is a real mind blower.

This one.

First, you'll learn how the devil is able to influence our eating!

But it's the same thing as, like, Weight Watchers or Slimming World,

or any of those, right? Just, like, straight-up calorie counting.

This whole book is focused on the idea of carbo cals.

That is functionally identical to Atkins, keto,

any of your low carb diets.

We're repackaging the same four or five diets

over and over and over again.

And they didn't fucking work in 1943,

so why would they start magically working?

So, when people diet, a few things happen, right?

One is they lose a little bit of weight in the short term,

they stop losing weight, and then they start gaining weight back

after three or five years.

Pretty much all of the available data we have shows us that

upwards of 90% gain back even more than when they started.

This is, like, on the order of Big Tobacco levels

of truly just lying to people.

It is a real paradigm shift to look at someone my size, or larger,

and rather than thinking, boy,

I wish that person would put in some effort, thinking,

that person may have put in a great deal of effort.

And that might have been what got them here.

I was a pilot for United Airlines.

I flew to Sydney three times a month.

So, I have somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 hours of flying time,

which is about the same as...

ABRUPT HISSING NOISE

Shit...! Excuse me.

What the earthly hell is that?

That's an automatic water drain on my air compressor.

My name is Rusty. I'm Aubrey's father.

AUBREY LAUGHS

And I'm delighted to be Aubrey's father.

I'll take that.

I've never been to this hangar before.

And the last time I was up in that plane, I was 15.

The big change, I would say, is our relationship now

is really different than it was.

Yeah, no kidding.

PRODUCER: Have you read Aubrey's writing?

Uh, very little.

But I have read some.

Oh, just her blog about, you know...

..how she interacts with...

I read some of her things about airline travel and...

Yeah, did you read the one about flying? Yeah, yeah.

I haven't read, uh, a lot of it.

Oh, I thought it was great, cos I see that all the time...

..being a pilot. And my partner, Zack, is a flight attendant.

So, it's... Yeah, it was... it was very interesting.

I guess I should... I should read more of her stuff.

That's up to you. But I don't, you know...

I do appreciate it.

My breath tightens immediately when the call comes.

It's my boss's boss telling me

that there's an important meeting in another city.

Or maybe it's a friend inviting me to her wedding.

Sometimes it's a family member whose health is failing,

and the time has come to say goodbye.

I will have to get on a plane.

And I am fat.

Fat people are shown on planes all the time - loud, obnoxious,

elbowing people, taking up space,

getting Cheetos crumbs all over ourselves and you.

Our whole existence designed to make you miserable.

It couldn't be further from my experience.

The anxiety doesn't subside once I buy a ticket - it distils,

intensifying for weeks leading up to the flight.

I practise how I will sit on the plane,

pushing my body against the cabin wall,

one arm holding the other firmly over my chest,

so that I will make no physical contact

with the person sitting next to me.

I bring mints so I won't need anything to drink,

and so the flight attendant won't have to reach across the row

for the fat person.

I understand why all of my fellow passengers are on edge,

because everyone is uncomfortable in aeroplanes.

Rather than being a compatriot stuck in the same frustrating,

uncomfortable situation, I become a scapegoat.

I am watched and judged harshly as I try, and fail,

to fit into a into a space made for someone else.

An agent got in touch with me and was like,

"Do you want to write a book? Cos you could write a book."

Which is the wildest Cinderella story of a thing to have happen.

So, it is December 11.

Uh...

I normally don't know the date, but today I know the date,

because today is the day I'm supposed to hear back

from the publisher.

I am...

..a lifelong anxious person.

And I am a fucking mess.

And I sort of have had the illusion of staying...

of being able to decide to stay anonymous.

You don't get to anonymously write a book.

Erm...

So, it's both a lot of excitement over the possibility

of writing a book - it's a thing I really, really, really,

really want to do -

combined with the thing I'm most afraid of.

I'm in my office.

I...think my co-worker is gone.

Erm...

Cos no-one that I work with knows about my writing.

I have been in meetings all day,

and have been sitting on an email.

I saw...

..the subject line, which is just "response"...

..from the publisher.

And I'm not sure if I want to open this email.

Like, I know I do, but...

I'm going to give it a go. Here we go.

Email from the publisher.

Um...

SHE SNIFFS

Holy shit.

I'm going to write a book.

It's so surreal to be in a moment where your whole life is changing.

So what do you have to do today?

I'm getting my headshots done for my book.

It's going to be the first-time people see my face.

So, here we go.

I'm not normally much of a make-up person,

but it kind of seemed like if ever there was a day for it, you know?

Does it look ridiculous?

Like, a little bit but I'm into it.

Woo!

What?!

SHE LAUGHS

I thought about that for today and I was like,

that's not what you do for the first time.

I'd had my headshots taken once before, for work.

The photographer just kept taking pictures of me,

looking at the screen, frowning, being like,

"Let's go again," and take some more.

And like, I don't know for sure what was underneath that, but I do

know I was the fattest person there.

And finally I was just like,

"I mean, these are all what I look like."

"Like, I don't... It's fine. That's my face."

INDISTINCT SPEECH

There are some people who are like, "Oh, my God, your skin is amazing,"

which is one of the coded,

"I can't really say you look good because you ARE fat,

"but I CAN say that you have good skin."

What do you want people to know about you

without a doubt when they see your photo?

I think it's important to me that people think of me

as like a thoughtful person with some level of power,

because truly, as soon as I start talking, it's just like...

SHE LAUGHS

It's full Muppet City.

So, like a little balance for that could be a helpful thing.

Something happened last night...

..that was a mixture of very sweet and very frustrating.

My dad and his girlfriend invited me over to dinner at their house.

They invited a number of family friends.

It was incredibly sweet and it was sort of informally

was like a "congratulations, you got a book deal. Yay!"

And we talked about the book for a little while,

and folks wanted to know what it was about and what the title is.

And then we all sat down to eat,

and the entire rest of the evening's conversation

was about what diet really works.

Whether keto or paleo is better.

And, you know, if low-fat diets really got the short end

of the stick and we should revisit those.

And, like, any time there was not results, someone would say something

like, "I just haven't tried hard enough. That's what it is."

It was just weird to see all these people who I've known for years,

who have all been the same size for the whole time I've known them,

talking about getting rid of, like, "those last 10 lbs."

The irony of that book about how we need to rethink fat and fatness

and diets, and how we treat fat people,

and how we think about the fat on our own bodies,

right up against...

..a whole conversation about how to get less fat...

..made me really sad at first,

and now I'm actually just really angry about it.

Doesn't seem to matter what angle I take,

and it just doesn't ever land.

Oh, there you go - you want Pete Portland.

This lady's from Portland.

Just a sensible haircut and a nice raincoat.

Foraging for mushrooms, like you do(!)

I wanted to start getting excited about foods

instead of feeling shitty around truly every food.

Oh!

Like, I would eat the shit out of that.

Sweet and sour soup with lobster mushrooms?

I love a cookbook.

This one is a cookbook of mushroom recipes.

I'm very excited.

I'm a mushroom fiend.

Can I do a pound of the shrimp?

And you know what, can I also get a crab?

How's your day treating you?

Not bad. All right, I'll take it.

Yeah, sure. Why not?

And your Sunday? It's going all right.

I'm going to go make a bunch of soup,

and then I'm just going to eat a crab.

Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Everything about dieting puts you in this headspace of, like...

"..that's not for you and that's not for you, and that's not for you."

There's just, like, so much judgment

around fat people and food.

Other people are telling you not to eat.

Your doctor is telling you to eat 500 calories a day.

The same things that are cause for concern in thin people

are like required social performances of fat people.

I had a woman take a melon out of my cart at the grocery store

at one point and she went, "It's got too much sugar for you.

"It's not good for you."

And I was like, "It's a melon. What do you want from me?"

I would say the default assumption is if a fat person says

they have an eating disorder, it must be binge eating disorder.

You have to have a BMI of under 17 to be diagnosed with anorexia.

Um...

And if you don't, you can be diagnosed with something called

atypical anorexia, which is basically like, you're fat,

but also..

SHE LAUGHS

..you are doing the things that an anorexic person does.

SHE SIGHS

Um...

I am a person who has an eating disorder.

Uh, many days I would make it almost the whole day without eating...

..and then feel just a real crushing sense of failure

when I had to eat something.

I didn't really talk to anybody about it for a long time.

Uh, because I knew...

..how many fat people genuinely, like, go in to seek treatment

for an eating disorder and get told

they don't look like they've missed a meal in a while,

or get laughed at by health care staff.

So...

It's hard to talk about because I would like to...

I would like to have treatment that doesn't make it worse.

And I don't know that there's a place to get that treatment.

Zack got this nutmeg in Singapore in 1980.

It's still good.

I'm making bourbon sweet potatoes.

Do you make this every year for Thanksgiving?

I just do it differently slightly every year.

Half a cup of butter.

That's why it tastes so good.

MICROWAVE WHIRS

Bourbon.

I'm supposed to beat that until it gets creamy?

I don't see that happening, do you?

This?

What is this? It's just the butter that's not cooperating.

I softened it in the microwave.

I hate it when things don't turn out the way I want them to.

Lucky for you, that rarely happens.

How long have you guys been together?

24 years, December 13th.

We're still dating.

He's my boyfriend.

Look how young we were!

We were never young.

Hey, I'm thinking 50 was pretty young.

I was a flight attendant for Pan Am.

Pan Am was first class all the way.

I was in my early 20s and I weighed like 98 lbs,

but I had to wear a girdle.

They come by and they would pinch your fanny to make sure

you were wearing a girdle.

So that was funny.

We had weight check once a month.

It didn't bother me the way it bothered some.

Back then, we all knew if we're going to have this job,

we have to do it.

Oh, yeah. Auby and I talk cosmetics,

and I got her into facials and really taking care of her skin.

And she does.

And she's got beautiful skin.

What do you make of the things that Aubrey's writing about?

I... I like, um, the way she describes...

.."fat" and big people.

She keeps me on my toes.

She keeps me educated as to what's going on.

How you doing?

I'm great.

Yeah? I am.

All right, I'll take it.

No, he's not.

He's not feeling well.

"I can't make it but I want to see you on Thanksgiving."

So, we're going to make up a plate for him and take it over to him.

Wow.

Well, you're next.

Cheers. Happy Thanksgiving Cheers. Happy Thanksgiving!

Yay!

There we go.

Thank you. Thank you.

And?

Mm.

Yeah.

LAUGHTER

OK, so I just had my first bite of the smoked turkey.

And you still only... Which is so smoky and so good.

Costco.

Just a Costco turkey and you smoked it or they smoked it?

They smoked it. What?!

Yeah, yeah, yeah! Oil change 10%.

Well, then I'll be texting you during draft day.

Oh, yeah.

"Before you comment on how much you've eaten, the weight

"of your regret, your fears for the body you might grow into,

"stay silent for a moment."

"We're here to care for each other.

"As imperfect as that love may be.

"Model the love you wish you saw around you."

KEYS TAP ON KEYBOARD

So, the book rewrites are due today

and I have ten pages to rewrite,

which is more than I wish, but, oh, well.

Dieting is rebranding as wellness.

So my editor, she was like, you should actually include

some numbers about like, how much is it worth?

According to the Global Wellness Institute,

Empowering Wellness Worldwide,

"the wellness industry" is worth $4.5 trillion.

It's so weird to me that it's like actually pulling folks in

where they're like, "it's not dieting,

"it's weight loss for wellness."

And I'm like, but what, how do you do that?

Do you change what you eat?

Are you not allowed to eat a lot of things?

Are you trying... Are you trying to lose weight?

Then it's a diet.

It's like they're trying to pull some Jedi mind trick.

Like, "It's not a diet."

Part of Weight Watchers rebrand,

they had offered free memberships to teenagers.

If teenagers engage in dieting,

they are 18 times more likely to develop an eating disorder.

"We need customers, where do we get them?"

Kids.

Let's call my mum Pam.

PHONE RINGING TONE

Hola, chica.

Hola, Pama.

I'm just calling to tell you that I just sent in the last

rewritten chapter of the book. God Bless America.

That's wonderful!

Good reinforcing answer!

It just seems like, how can that be true?

Somebody I know wrote a book.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

I love you too, Hammy.

Bye-bye. Bye.

For now, I'm just like, it's just a bunch of Word documents...

..sort of strung together.

So, we'll see when it's all...

..when it's all put together, when there's a cover design,

and all that kind of stuff.

And then we talk about marketing at some point soon.

Book tour.

Whoo!

Months of flying places.

RINGING TONE

Hello.

Hey, I'm very sorry to call you.

I know we have been strictly Marco Polo for a little bit.

Uh... No worries.

I am freaking out about a thing,

and I could use your help in figuring it out, buddy.

I don't know if you've been following this.

I feel like you follow celebrity stuff.

That Adele lost a bunch of weight,

and everybody lost their minds? Right!

So I wrote a piece that was like,

"She hasn't said anything about this,

"so we actually shouldn't either."

I was really nervous about a lot of blowback.

What I did not anticipate was a supportive note

that just came to me from Adele.

Oh, my God!

SHE LAUGHS

Oh, my God. What was the message?

She just said "Loved your article. Prayer hands emoji."

It was from her verified account.

Oh, my God. Of 37 million followers.

That is so rad. Congratulations.

This is just shocking and amazing and so fucking cool.

There's like this wave of praise that's happening now,

and it will be followed by a wave of, you know, negative attention.

You truly can't write or talk about people's body sizes

without somebody getting extremely upset,

and that's really frightening.

There are times when I'm like, working in the house at night,

you know, our house is on the corner.

I'm pretty diligent about turning out the lights when I leave a room,

and there are definitely times where I'm like,

"This is just a target. I'm sitting in front of a window.

"This is the only room in the house with the light on.

"Here I am, sitting duck."

DOG BARKS

Um...

I look like a mess...

..and I just got doxed.

It is so fucking surreal

to see my home address

and my full name and my fucking social security number.

And it's clear that all of this is for sport.

"I see why her thin friend makes more money than she does."

"Her big fat meatball head is punchable."

I don't know what's going to happen.

I don't know who's going to be waiting for me.

I don't know if they're going to kill me.

If you give them a reaction, they will go a hundred times harder.

They will call in false terrorist threats and send a Swat team.

There's no law against what they're doing.

It's out there and I can't take it down.

I've just been in lock-it-down emotional mode

pretty much since, like, a day or two after it happened.

You figure out how to make yourself useful.

You figure out ways to, like, build up a charm offensive.

You figure out how to just sort of disappear yourself.

That's the only way I have existed in the world.

Part of that is me stuff, and part of it is hard fucking signals

from a lot of people a lot of the time

that is like, "you are not wanted here.

"This is too much to make space for you.

"You're demanding too much.

"You're expecting too much.

"Why did you even show up to begin with?"

Like, walking down the aisle of a bus

and just watching every seat fill up with bags

because nobody wants to fucking sit next to you.

It's been about six months of Covid pandemic.

It's like a really isolating time,

even if you have the best support system in the world.

I had a little freak out.

So, as part of my freak out,

I got this guy who freshly rolled in a bunch of compost this morning,

so he's nice and dirty.

I talked to my brother and he was like, "So, when did you realise

"that the dog you got was you in dog form?"

I ended up with a real skittish guy.

Just a terrible guard dog.

Can you sit? Good boy.

Yeah. This is a sharp blade.

Not sharp enough.

Let's do it.

"As I write this, on the eve of publishing my first book

"and revealing my face to readers for the first time, I'm afraid.

"I'm afraid of what those trolls might do.

"I'm afraid of being hurt.

"Being killed.

"On some days, I remember the remoteness of this possibility.

"On others, the fear of it consumes me."

Good. There you go.

"I'm afraid of the response from fat people."

"Both baulking at ever having listened to me."

"Afraid that they will use their response to my body..."

"Some of those fears will come to pass.

"Some won't.

"So it's time to tell you who I am.

"I'm Aubrey Gordon.

"I'm 37 years old and I weigh 350 lbs.

"I've been waiting to meet you."

Oh, my God!

Whoa!

There you go.

Oh, God.

All right, people know what I look like.

I've been going to Powell's since I could pick out books.

It's where I got my first copy of

the Complete Works of William Shakespeare,

which I got every year for Christmas,

because I would wear it out.

And it's where my first girlfriend published her book.

There are so many milestones.

Almost as much as a childhood home.

To have it on that featured New Releases Shelf

was and is totally overwhelming.

Uh! Um...

Come to think about it, being there in Powell's

was one of the places that I checked this week,

and they were totally sold out.

Who in your family has read the book?

I don't know, and I will not ask.

I know everybody in my family has bought the book,

and I trust that they will take their own time in deciding...

..whether and when to read the book.

Love isn't the word.

I FELT this book.

Felt it in every inch of my fat body.

This is the actual time...

..for everyone to read Aubrey Gordon's

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat book.

Aubrey Gordon is a fantastic author.

And at some point when I wasn't paying attention, she stopped

being anonymous on that account and came out as the...

I love it, I love it.

I've been waiting for this book.

This is going to be life-changing for so many fat people.

Cheers. Cheers!

Congratulations. Cheers, Aubrey.

Hey, there's your whiskey.

What? I'm drinking, like, very fancy bourbon.

What a delight.

You fucking did it!

You wrote a book.

Thanks, bud.

It's very exciting.

And it's not just a book.

It's important.

And like, the world's going to be just, like, slightly better.

THEY CHEER

Whoa! Shit.

Jesus Christ on a cracker.

Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Um, I got a call...

..a little over a week ago from a colleague of mine

who I really like and admire.

Um, his name is Michael Hobbs, and he's a reporter.

He told me that he had pitched the idea of the two of us

co-hosting a podcast, and I said yes, which is really exciting

and weird and wild.

Mike and I decided to record six episodes,

and we thought we would just see how it goes.

There we go.

Record entire screen.

Hey.

Hey. How you doing?

Your make-up looks nice. Oh, thank you.

Whose make-up palette is this?

Nobody's make-up palette, it is one colour.

I thought you were, like, big into palettes.

I love a palette.

Uh, my move with a palette is to, um, like, have a lot of booze

and then be like, "I can experiment."

It's not great.

Uh, OK, I'm recording on my end.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Maintenance Phase.

We're going to explore the many rabbit holes, past and present

around health, wellness, bodies and weight loss.

My name is Aubrey Gordon and I am here with my co-host Michael Hobbs.

Hello. Yeah. Hi.

I was scrolling through the top 100 health podcasts.

Very, very few of them were subversive or in any way sceptical.

So I thought it would be a good idea to have a show that is curious

about this stuff.

# Make up a little song... #

This is a very special episode because Aubrey has a new book out

and it is called What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat.

It is a sort of primer on all of the ways that fat bias

affects fat people.

Sorry, I found my new favourite book.

What?

# Maybe I'll all get tired of chasing... #

One of the numbers I pulled out of your book was that 68%

of American women wear above a size 14 dress.

So we should actually be talking TO those people, as opposed

to talking to everyone else and saying,

here's how to prevent yourself

from becoming like the majority of Americans.

People really like to talk about weight loss

being a really simple thing that anybody can do,

and it actually really isn't.

We just don't know how to make fat people thin in the long term.

No country or American state has ever reduced its obesity rate.

# Make up a little song

# Make up little song.... #

Auby I made up... and I just cracked this pepper.

I made you up your own...

Oops - your own individual salt and peppers.

That's so sweet of you, Zack.

And, um...

That's it, that'll do it. Thanks, Zack.

It's so good.

Oh, my God, Zack, I didn't tell you.

We recorded the first episode of our podcast.

It was so fun.

It's like a whole world of, like, This American Life

and Science Friday.

There you go.

Come on, man.

So today, Mike, we are going to talk about the body mass index,

better known as the BMI. Dude, I'm so excited.

The first American life insurance company

creates height and weight tables for the purposes

of charging fat policyholders more.

So they're basing all of these charts on people with the wealth

and inclination to buy life insurance policies,

which means in 1942, that is white men, everybody.

It is not, and cannot be surprising that something that was designed

exclusively for white people and men

fucks up the health of people of colour and women, right?

Yeah. So what we have is one of the wildest, worst and most

ubiquitous pieces of science that we all hear about all the time.

And in many sort of medical systems around the country

and around the world, it has become central to accessing medical care.

In 1998, the National Institute of Health changed the definition

of overweight and obese,

and they substantially lowered the threshold

to be medically considered fat.

Oh! So, like, "How was your week? I became fat."

Yeah, that's right.

Now we're talking.

If you can make more people medically overweight or obese,

then you have a fuck ton more customers,

not only on an individual level, but you've got state contracts.

Being a fat person saying into a microphone like,

here is what I researched and found,

it's easy to read as a very self-serving set of conclusions.

Yeah, I was just going to accuse you of glorifying obesity.

Thank you! I'm trying my best.

You saw my eyeliner today.

If that's not glorifying obesity, I don't know what is.

Part of the thing that really bugs me about this field

is that fat people are somehow seen as, like, compromised.

You can't talk about the science if you're a fat person.

But it's like, if a thin person is doing it, you're like,

"oh, there might be something here."

I get to be like the thin, unbiased one on the show,

which is so fucking stupid.

By the year 2000, truly, every night on the news,

there are these deeply fear-mongering stories

about obesity.

And then there are these shots of fat people

filmed from the neck down.

And I will say, during that time,

I spent a good ten to 15 years watching that B-roll,

and I would often tear up watching it, um,

because - oh, I might tear up now - because I was looking for myself.

RAGGED BREATHING

So somebody on Twitter has written, "Thank you to Your Fat Friend

"for sharing your vulnerability on this week's Maintenance Phase.

"I lost it a few years ago at a news crew who were obviously taking

"B-roll for a story, because I was absolutely terrified it would result

"in my headless body being shown as a cautionary tale."

Oh, somebody says "this pod has done more to change my relationship

"with food and how I view my own body, than all the myriad treatments

"for my eating disorder over the last utterly exhausting 40 years.

"Thank you."

Whoo!

"If you are into podcasts, this is such a great listen.

"Funny, well researched and honest.

"You will learn, get angry and have a good time."

Get angry and have a good time.

So we weren't really sure how folks were going to respond

and it really went like gangbusters.

We have just continually seen this hockey stick growth rate,

just a real sharp spike every month or two.

It's just truly, truly, truly wild.

Today is Covid vaccine shot.

There's all of this stuff out there about vaccines

are less effective in fat people.

And the current theory is that that is because the needles

are too short to achieve an intramuscular vaccine,

which is what you need.

The research that I've read has said that it can result

in half the antibodies.

So, like, it's a dramatic reduction in effectiveness.

Yeah.

So, today, I'm going ask if I get a longer needle.

I'll see.

How's your day treating you?

It's going great. How about you guys? Yeah.

You know, hanging tough. Right?

Oh, my God. You have a thing about needle length?

Yeah. The shorter needle, it could still get into the muscle.

Just not as far in. Yeah.

And then I will use a one-inch needle on you today.

Thank you.

All right. Ready?

Yep.

SKYPE RINGTONE

Hey! How is Germany life?

Good, we're doing boosters.

Hey, I just got mine yesterday, and holy shit, Mike.

I went into the pharmacy and the person already knew

about needle length, and it was, like, genuinely great.

Like, didn't even have to ask.

Great. They're listening to Maintenance Phase.

Lit. Lit. Got to be. Got to be.

Yeah.

LAUGHTER

So, whoop!

Here we go.

SHE LAUGHS

I just... I just got it.

And I was like, boy, it's like our paint samples,

our old fan and like an empty planter.

I was like, "Oh, what a scenic shot."

Mm.

That fan keeps wanting to come on in.

OK.

Treat fat people like people.

Our podcast won a Webby for Best Podcast Series for the Year,

which is very exciting.

I report back on this stuff to my family.

They responded in a way that is like,

"Oh, you got an award. That's great."

Neither one of them really knows what to do with a Webby,

which is fine.

I actually got recognised by voice at Starbucks.

Riley at Starbucks.

Thanks, Riley.

It's really interesting, I get feedback from people.

People are having this, like, very strong response

to hearing me laugh.

I feel like I'm in this weird moment where I'm like,

people treated me like shit for a long time because I was fat.

But now that I write about being fat,

it's like people are like nicer about...

I don't understand that.

And I feel like my whole life has just been like

"too loud, quiet down, too much laughing."

And now people are like, "No, that's good."

I feel like I'm just in a little, like, emotional whiplash

kind of moment about it.

Wow.

Want to see a picture of Aubrey when she was young?

I don't really have picture albums.

I just put them all on my bedroom door.

This is my favourite picture of her when she was little.

She just... It's... I love that one.

Was there a moment where you've noticed that Aubrey

was becoming fat?

Yeah. Not fat exactly, but something like,

"I'm concerned. This looks like something we should attend to."

She was in high school.

Her father has moved out, and we're going through this icky time

piling on all these things that are hard.

Did you think that there was a point where she would lose the weight

and become smaller?

No.

No, I never did think that.

It, uh...

No.

PLAYS PIANO TENTATIVELY

OK.

What?

Doing great. Yeah, so far, so good. You're welcome.

You're welcome for your house.

What?

Just this fucking weirdo, shut-in - a 21st century Miss Havisham.

Just hanging out in a closet, recording a podcast.

Uh.

Pam and I had a long conversation this morning, prompted by filming

yesterday about her regrets about parenting.

Like, something is, like cracking open.

WHISPERS: What was it that she was worried about?

The thing that she was having a moment about was she was like,

"I didn't ever think about whether or not it was working.

"I kept doing it, and I didn't think

!about whether or not it was working."

What was working? The weight loss stuff.

Yo, uh, how are you?

How's...? It looks really fun so far.

We're back to the hostage video.

This is the scale that I had growing up.

Yeah, it's like sort of a doctor's office scale

and sort of a person who's had the same scale since 1971.

Hi, everybody, and welcome to Maintenance Phase,

the podcast that already knows it's going to die.

You don't have to tell us. It's fine.

So, I've been painting for about two and a half years.

This is a yummy colour.

What is new for me is that I don't really care

if anybody else likes it.

I woke up this morning thinking about

our conversation yesterday and...

Well, this is a good start.

OK, I think I should just let this dry.

Um... And thinking about Aubrey being...

..13, 14, um...

..when she agreed to go with me to Weight Watchers.

And her thing with her failed attempts and wondering, you know,

what prompted me to do that?

Since you asked that wonderful question,

"Did you expect anything to change?"

No, actually. Uh, what the hell was I doing it for?

It was my responsibility.

Her size was my responsibility.

Very clearly.

That was the message from my husband.

And, um...

So I took action, but I didn't really...believe in it.

And so I sort of went through motions.

What I wish I had said or...

..done...

..was sort of bring Aubrey into the, you know,

just into the discussion

because she took away something that I didn't intend.

Of course she did.

But, um... Anyway, that's my regret about that.

I regret about that.

This looks crazy.

What about your... What is your sleep...

Like, what kind of sleeper are you?

Like, I'm a person with, uh, just a nice little array,

a little charcuterie platter of anxiety disorders.

Uh, so mostly it's like anxiety and sleep.

AUBREY IN BACKGROUND: ..that kind of stuff, which I think is not.

I'm not alone.

It seems like it's going along, the recording.

You know, there's something about saying things out loud

that make you see things anew, differently.

The process of having cameras going and having things recorded,

sort of makes things bubble up that might not otherwise bubble up.

Yeah.

And, you know, why didn't I do things?

SHE EXHALES SHAKILY

But, honestly, you do the best you can with what with what

you've got at the moment, you know?

SPEAKS ON PHONE

Yeah!

CONTINUES TALKING ON PHONE

Mama, want to?

It was my birthday the other day.

It was my mum's birthday gift to me.

She made me a painting with my favourite colours.

Lovely.

When did we make this last?

I don't know, like ten years ago.

It's been a long time since we did this one.

I got a very cute call from my dad and he was like,

"I tried saving your logo for your show.

"I need it as a jpeg."

And I was like, "What are you working on over there?"

And he went, "None of your business. Just tell me how to do it."

Water glasses.

I love that he's very clearly planning a surprise,

and that the only person he has to call

about how to do the tech stuff, is the person it's a surprise for!

All right.

Do you want it sprayed or no?

I would have gone the other direction

but I'm not telling you what to do or anything.

All right.

This is going to drive you bananas, huh?

Yeah. OK.

KNOCKING ON DOOR Oh, is that Vicky?

Yeah, probably.

Hello?

Oh, Finny, you're fine, buddy.

Sure does.

Thank you so, so much.

I think you might have had a surprise spoilt.

You think what? Nothing.

Nothing. I think... Oh, was that this?

That was who was at the door.

You're not allowed to look. I didn't look -

didn't look, wouldn't look.

Oh, my God.

Good "Oh, my God"?

I'm pretty happy. That's the extent of my Photoshop talents.

I expect she'll cry, but I'm...

It's just me wishing.

The gang's all here.

I'm going to start dishing things up.

Auby, this is yours.

No sugar in anything.

Thanks, Pop.

Is that enough? Beautiful.

Beautiful and gorgeous.

And I'm very excited.

Thanks for cooking, Pop.

So good.

Perfection. CORK POPS

Very good. Yeah. There you go, birthday girl.

I thought that was... Thanks, Pop. ..the ultimate.

All right, happy birthday to you.

AUBREY HUMS ALONG # Happy birthday, dear Auby. #

Ah!

Thanks, Vicky.

I didn't do it, your dad did.

I'm going to take a picture of this.

This is ridiculous and the best.

They tried to make this gluten-free and sugar free,

but the stuff on the top...

Sure! ..don't eat because they tried putting this print -

it's a print - on their regular, sugar-free...

Uh-huh. ..cool whip-based topping, and it just all bubbled up.

Gotcha. So I got the door and she saw the dog, and she looked at Finn

and she went, "You look like the face on the cake."

Oh!

Nice move!

Happy birthday. Aubrey.

Your first fiscally independent birthday.

Jesus fucking Christ!

Sorry. That's...

That's a dad's perspective.

So, we'll give you the nose.

Sure.

Thank you for dismembering my dog.

This is sugarless raspberry.

Great! Thank you.

But you're not supposed to eat this part cos it's got sugar in it.

She said, "Is this is a sugarless cake?"

She said, "This is not the best product we produce."

She says, "You come back and get one with sugar.

"It's hard to come up with a sugar free, gluten free."

Well, it didn't need to be...

Well, whatever. But...

You know, that was... That was where we started.

Well, Aubrey, that's not the response I thought I'd get

for that cake.

What was the response that you thought you would get

for that cake?

I was looking for something a little more emotional and not...

And not delighted at a knife slicing through my dog's face.

Yeah, right.

It's so good, Pop.

It's so good. It's really great.

It's your birthday.

You can cry if you want to.

That's all you're having.

It's a slab of cake, man.

I just want you to get a load of this haunting, haunting image.

One eye. One eye intact. You're taking that home, by the way.

And I don't care what you do with it. OK.

Woo!

Oh.

I'm not a candy eater much, but I'm definitely a candy enabler.

I enjoy for people who want candy to have candy.

Wait, wait. No! Coming.

Hi, guys. Yeah. Happy Halloween, guys.

Thank you.

Yeah, I remember me being a kid,

and we would get the, like, big bag of little fun-sized candy bars.

Yeah. Yeah.

Go for it. Thank you.

I'm going to be a cool adult.

And for me, one of the ways of being a cool adult

is you got to be the full-size candy house.

You got to be the "take a hand full" house.

Hey. Oh, my gosh, are you Bob Ross?

Yeah. This is amazing.

Thank you. You want to take two of those, Bob Ross?

Thank you. Thank you.

I sure got a dirty look when I said,

"Well, this is the first year she's fiscally independent."

I should have said, "This is the first year that we quit worrying

"about her and she starts worrying about us."

Which is more accurate.

Why was it important for you to throw her a birthday party?

Well, it's a big... This is a big year for her, a huge year.

And I haven't always had the opportunity

to throw her a birthday party, you know?

There was a time after the divorce that

she was living with her mum, and I didn't have much contact with her.

We've only been reunited in the last eight or ten years, so it's nice

to be able to do things for her.

I'd fly a trip and come home

and it would take all my days off to recover.

It was terrible.

Yeah, it's...it's...

It's not a lifestyle that's easy on your family.

I was big in high school, and I had a, a very demanding

and iron-fisted captain father.

You know, I was always, like my father,

worried about losing control.

Aubrey told me that she felt watched when she was eating sometimes.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure she did.

I'm sure she did.

So did I when I was growing up.

I didn't learn anything from it, obviously.

But, uh...

Yeah, I know she was.

I know she was, because I was the one watching.

Week after next is my first author event

and it's going to be at Powell's.

I feel nervous about a big event.

Fuck, man!

That's my first time...

..showing up to a place and being like,

"I'm going to be here in person.

"Whatever you want to do or say to me, come on down and fucking do

"or say to me."

And that...

..feels really...intense.

A lot of the work is exposing a bunch of traumas,

getting super vulnerable in super public ways.

It's like giving people a road map for how to hurt me.

And I spend a lot of time getting a lot of emails from a lot of people

being like, "How do I deal with this thing?"

And I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know because I'm also in it.

I picked a piece that I wrote a couple years ago called

Just Say Fat.

There are people who I know who will be there,

who are not OK with that word.

And I wanted to start from a place of like,

"you're going to hear this word a lot, and here is why."

I talked to my brother about this.

He was like, what are you even anxious about?

And I was like, it just feels like I'm standing on a cliff

and I'm about to jump and I can't see what's below.

And he corrected me and was like, "You already did the jumping.

"This is the falling.

"You're doing the falling."

EXCITED CHATTER

# I'm feeling guarded

# I woke up with a suit of armour on my body, and I know

# I put it on myself

# And only I can take it off. #

Thank you for coming out tonight.

Such a nice, big crowd.

Anti-fatness is everywhere.

And What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

Aubrey Gordon, the creator of Your Fat Friend

and co-host of the Maintenance Phase...

# Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

# Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

# Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

# Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake... #

Please welcome Aubrey Gordon and Dan Casey.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE CONTINUES

Hi, everybody. Thanks for coming out.

This is wild!

This is called Just Say Fat.

"Just say fat.

"Not curvy or chubby or chunky or fluffy or more to love

"or big guy or full-figured or big-boned or queen-size or husky

"or obese or overweight.

"Just say fat.

"If you're taking a stand for fat people

"take a stand for all of us -

"those of us who are disabled, diabetic, hypertensive -

"those of us who are too fat for your own comfort.

"Do not limit our humanity

"by limiting who among us you will accept.

"Just say fat.

"Do not rush to correct fat friends who name their own bodies

"for themselves using the words that fit their experience.

"You do not need to map the wilderness of their hearts,

"test the theories of their politics in order to respect

"their most basic wish, to say their own name.

"Do not shrink a vastness that you cannot comprehend.

"Just say fat."

APPLAUSE

When people talk about anti-fatness, it very quickly ends up being about

like, self-love, which is a wonderful goal.

And if that is the road that you are on, by all means, team,

come on down. Sounds great.

And anti-fatness is a different thing.

Part of that is this idea that you can love yourself

out of oppression...

GENTLE LAUGHTER

It doesn't go great.

I don't know if you guys have read this thing called history.

One of the big emails that I get is,

"How do I tell my fat friend that their diet isn't going to work

"and they're going to be fat forever?"

And I'm like, "You don't. You don't!"

Huh?!

"I love you, I hear where you're coming from. Don't do that."

If you want your fat friend to love themselves,

then work on all of the people telling them

that they can't or shouldn't.

You don't have to do everything.

Just do something so we can't be burning ourselves out

on consuming the crap that's getting coughed up...

Dan and I talked beforehand about how we're both

going to have a hard time not swearing.

LAUGHTER So that's what just happened here.

I was like, we're talking right next to the children's books.

The thing that moves people is not facts or figures or numbers.

The thing that moves people is personal connection

and personal stories, and that is it.

Which is why you talking to your mom is more effective

than me talking to your mom...

LAUGHTER

That change happens most effectively

when people don't feel super ashamed all the time.

All right, we're done.

Boop!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

I'm just blown away.

I can hardly hold it together.

It's the first time I've seen her in public.

She was so freaked out. Yeah. So freaked out.

Little Miss Anxiety, you know?

I think you should just sneak in.

You want a hug?

I know you are. I know you are.

I read your book in, like, the height of my eating disorder.

Oh, buddy. And it changed the way that I thought about everything.

Whoa. And I am doing a lot better now.

Hey. Hi. Thank you for doing what you do.

Oh, that's so kind of you.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God, that's incredible.

I'm a lady who's like, in her house a lot and walks her dog and wears

weird outfits around the neighbourhood.

And then I showed up to a book store,

and there were a ton of people

who had a ton of big, wonderful, intense feelings about me -

the lady who wears the weird outfits around the neighbourhood.

I'm blown away by the crowd.

I expected 50 people here, you know?

It's just amazing.

It's just a great experience for me, selfishly,

and for Aubrey, I'm sure it's just over the moon.

I hope it is.

I'll tell him when there's like a big marker.

"For the first-time ever, we got a million downloads this month,"

and I think that that is all abstract to him.

And I think there is something about being in the room.

I think he understood how big the work is and can be.

I think this was the first time that he was like,

"I get what's happening here."

He thought about it for a second and he went,

"I think it's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to ME."

And I was like...

"Whoa, OK."

Holy cow. I'm just amazed.

And then to find Rusty with tears in his eyes, that's like...

this is a new... This is new.

I've always been proud of her.

But... It's a very important thing for a mother to know

that my daughter has stepped out and gone public.

So, that means the world to me.

Aubrey. Aubrey.

I'm just amazed and proud and delighted and you made me proud.

You're my mom, and I love you.

It is a garbage world out there for fat people.

And I'll tell you what -

you don't do a whole lot better in this world than Pam and Rusty.

They're a couple of people who can do the thing.

Who can go, "Oh, wait a minute...

"I'm not sure I got this right. Is this what you need?

"How about this?"

For a lot of fat people,

they don't actually know one single person who they can go to

and be like, "I'm having a rough day.

"And it's because of the way someone treated me,

"not because I'm a fat person."

Fat people have spent our entire fucking lives changing

to fit the world around us.

You could be the one person that we don't have to change

in order to be with, right?

You could be the one person who's like,

"It's OK, I don't care.

"What can I do for you?"

Girls, I used to be a little heavy.

Say, I weighed about 184.

But, you know, I've become quite slim just recently,

and I don't have that problem any more.

# So if you want to lose weight, too, here's all you got to do

# Fall in love... #