0:00

This episode of Food Psych is brought to you by

0:02

my intuitive eating Fundamentals online

0:04

course. If you're ready to break free

0:06

from diet culture and reclaim the life it

0:09

stole from you, learn more and sign

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up at christy harrison dot com slash

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course. That's christy harrison dot

0:15

com slash course. Welcome

0:17

to Food Psych, a podcast dedicated to

0:19

critiquing diet and wellness culture, and

0:22

answering your questions about intuitive eating

0:24

and the anti diet approach. I'm

0:26

your host, Christie Harrison, and I'm a registered

0:28

dietitian, certified intuitive eating

0:31

counselor, journalist and author of the

0:33

book's anti it, which is available now,

0:35

and the wellness trap, which will be out in

0:37

early twenty twenty three. And

0:39

by the way, on this show, I avoid saying

0:42

diet culture stuff like weight and calorie

0:44

numbers, but we don't censor swear

0:46

words or other adult language, so listener

0:48

discretion is advised. Hey

1:15

there. Welcome to this episode of Food Psych.

1:18

I'm your host, Christy Harrison, and we've got

1:20

a great show for you today. I'm talking

1:23

with a guest for the first time in a long

1:25

time. People who just started listening

1:27

to this podcast this season might be

1:29

surprised to know that this was an interview show

1:31

for its first eight years. And I've

1:33

only been doing it solo this season because

1:36

I now have a baby or really a

1:38

toddler now and I've had to juggle work

1:40

in childcare. But I've really

1:42

missed doing interviews and so

1:44

I've started working on a new series of conversations

1:46

about wellness culture that I'm calling

1:49

rethinking wellness. It's

1:51

with some people that I interviewed for my upcoming

1:53

book, The Mehlman Trap, and some folks that

1:55

I just wanted to talk to about these topics,

1:57

and I knew how interesting things to

1:59

say. And I'm really excited to be sharing

2:01

the first interview in the series with you here

2:03

today. It's with Fitness and

2:05

Wellness historian, Natalia Mehlman

2:07

Petrzela, and we talk about her

2:10

new book, Fit Nation. The historical

2:12

shifts that made fitness go from being

2:14

viewed as a narcissistic prick

2:16

this and even quote unquote deviant to

2:19

being seen as a good thing really across the

2:21

board and across the political Petrzela.

2:24

Why so many people are disillusioned with

2:26

our medical system and looking for answers

2:28

and validation in the alternative

2:30

medicine space and sort of the

2:33

harms that that exposes people to,

2:35

how people can be critical consumers

2:37

of online wellness content and

2:39

lots more. I can't wait to share

2:41

it with you in just a bit. Just a content

2:44

warning for this one that it includes discussion

2:46

of fitness and the food environment, so

2:49

you know, take care of yourself if those topics

2:51

are apt to trigger you. Before

2:53

the interview, just a few quick announcements. This

2:57

episode of Food Psych is brought to you by my intuitive

2:59

eating Fundamentals online course, which

3:01

is a three month immersion in intuitive eating.

3:04

With dozens of hours of content helping you

3:06

learn this anti diet approach, troubleshoot

3:09

common sticking points, and get to a

3:11

place of greater peace with food. It

3:13

also has a huge library of q and a's

3:15

from me and my team to help answer all

3:17

the frequently and not so frequently asked

3:19

questions that come up when you're learning

3:21

or relearning intuitive eating. If

3:24

you're ready to break free from diet culture and

3:26

reclaim your right to a peaceful, easy

3:28

relationship with food, learn more and

3:30

sign up at christy harrison dot com

3:32

slash course. That's christy harrison

3:34

dot com slash course. This

3:36

episode is also brought to you by my second

3:38

book, The Wellness Trap. Break

3:40

free from diet culture, disinformation, and

3:43

dubious diagnoses, and find your

3:45

true well-being. Which is available

3:47

for pre order now. The

3:49

book explores the connections between diet

3:51

culture and wellness culture, how

3:53

the wellness space became a hotbed of

3:56

scams, misinformation, and conspiracy

3:58

theories. Why many popular

4:00

alternative and integrative medicine diagnoses

4:03

are misleading and harmful and

4:05

deeply entangled with disordered eating.

4:08

How well this culture targets vulnerable

4:10

people and ignores social determinants of

4:12

health and what we can do instead to

4:14

promote true well-being at the individual

4:17

and collective levels. Just

4:19

go to christy harrison dot com slash the

4:21

wellness trap to learn more and preorder

4:23

the book for its April twenty fifth release.

4:26

That's christy harrison dot com slash

4:28

the wellness trap. Now

4:30

without any further ado, let's go to my

4:32

conversation with Natalia Mehlman Petruzella.

4:35

Natalia, welcome to the

4:36

show. I'm so glad to be talking with you again.

4:39

I'm so happy to be here. Yeah.

4:42

I'm really excited to talk with you. So

4:44

the genesis of this conversation and kind

4:46

of of this podcast is that when

4:48

I was interviewing people for my new

4:50

book, The Wellness Trap. I kept

4:52

having these conversations that I wish I could release

4:54

just the whole interview of and, you

4:56

know, have it be a pod cast and you were one of those

4:58

conversations. I loved everything

5:01

we talked about and wished I could have used

5:03

it all in the book and just wasn't able to.

5:05

So hoping to sort of

5:07

recreate that in part here and also talk

5:09

about your new

5:09

book, which is Out Now Fit So

5:12

we have a lot to discuss. We do.

5:14

And I should say that I've been a listener of

5:16

your podcast for a while and your voice

5:19

transports me back to when I was living in

5:20

Paris. And walking through the streets listening

5:23

to you. So

5:24

it's much more romantic than

5:26

my current office situation. But,

5:28

yes, I excited to talk to you again

5:29

too. Oh, that's lovely. I lived in Paris

5:32

when my junior year of college,

5:34

and I miss it so

5:35

much. Oh, cool. Yeah.

5:37

Well, so the first thing I would love to talk

5:39

with you about today is just kind of your

5:41

own relationship with wellness culture, you

5:43

know, how your own work intersects

5:46

with your personal relationship

5:48

with with wellness and with fitness?

5:50

Yeah. So first, you know, what is my work?

5:52

I mean, I think I'm talking to you mostly

5:54

as Historia, and I have this book

5:56

about the history of fitness culture,

5:58

how fitness became wellness. And I've been a

6:00

kind of, you know, critical observer

6:03

and scholar of wellness culture in

6:05

America. And my training is as a historian.

6:07

I'm a history professor. But the

6:09

way that I came to this work

6:12

was really being a kind of

6:14

passionate but somewhat skeptical

6:17

consumer and participant in wellness

6:19

culture. And I came

6:21

to write this book fit niche and then to

6:23

kind of spend the better part of the last decade.

6:25

Thank you critically about wellness culture.

6:27

Because I was

6:29

really not an athlete at all

6:31

growing but then I found

6:33

the gym and fitness culture

6:35

in the night, like, late mid nineteen

6:37

nineties. And once I walked and

6:39

honestly it's like a stepper aerobics

6:41

class and found that kind of movement

6:43

environment. I was totally hooked.

6:45

I felt green in my body. I

6:48

was just like, wanted to be in

6:50

this all the time. That being

6:52

said, as I developed my kind

6:54

of scholarly and critical thinking tools

6:56

and really became a feminist, I

6:58

realized the thing this thing that I loved

7:00

so much was also, like,

7:02

deeply problematic. And so that's

7:04

a very sort of quick synopsis of

7:06

the kind of you know, life

7:09

events, but also mindset that

7:11

brought me to be like, hey, I really wanna

7:13

think deeply about this world of

7:15

wellness, which is in many ways very

7:17

empowering and, you know, very powerful

7:19

in our lives and good and bad ways,

7:21

but I think it's like not so

7:23

well understood. And so that's kinda

7:25

how I got here

7:26

today. Yeah. I feel like that resonates so

7:28

much with me and probably with many of our

7:30

listeners too that this thing that you

7:32

loved and that brought you so much

7:34

was also deeply problematic. And

7:36

for me, it was it was deeply problematic

7:38

in terms of, like, creating disordered

7:41

eating and a really orthorexic relationship

7:43

with fitness and food and

7:45

all the things. But I think for

7:47

for everyone, there's probably some problematic

7:49

elements even if it doesn't go to that degree.

7:52

Absolutely. And I should say some of them were

7:54

personal. Like, you know, when I discovered

7:57

the gym and high school, I

7:59

found myself, like, thinking

8:01

I was quote unquote like being

8:03

good by skipping a meal

8:05

to exercise more and that obviously

8:07

can turn and to something really damaging.

8:09

Luckily for me, I didn't go too far in

8:11

that direction. But I already kind of felt

8:13

that that would there was that disconnect personally

8:16

of this thing that our society, like,

8:18

only sees as positive in most ways

8:20

that can become kind of obsessive,

8:22

but then also, like, as I kinda

8:24

grew up and was in graduate school

8:26

and still very much working out, working

8:28

at gyms, got certified as an instructor.

8:31

A lot of the

8:33

language, not only around

8:35

body image, you know, you have to

8:37

lose weight, you have to earn this,

8:39

you know, earn your dessert and all of

8:41

that kind of moralizing. But

8:43

also just like the total

8:45

individualism of it all.

8:47

Right? Like, all that's standing

8:49

between you and the body you want is

8:51

your will power. Like, that whole

8:54

sense of, like, your body and your

8:56

health is only in your hands. On

8:58

the one hand, I felt It

9:00

was very empowering because, yeah, it's much

9:02

easier to do that than

9:03

to, like, solve

9:03

climate change or any of these bigger or

9:06

thornier issues. On the other hand,

9:08

come on, I like you enough from

9:10

reading some books and being a

9:12

citizen of the world to realize there's

9:14

so much more than individual

9:16

whales standing in the way of any

9:18

person and their

9:19

goals. And so I was, you know, grappling

9:21

with that, and I and I still do.

9:23

Mhmm.

9:24

And you're still a fitness instructor. Right? You still

9:26

do that on the side? Yeah. So

9:28

the workout that I teach is this wonderful

9:31

program called INTensate and

9:33

it combines affirmations and really

9:35

high energy I got

9:37

certified, like, back when I was in grad

9:39

school in two thousand seven, totted

9:41

Equinox for many years. And then I actually stopped

9:43

for a while when the brand left Equinox because

9:45

I'm a professor. I have two kids, etcetera,

9:47

who recently very sadly earlier

9:49

this year, The founder was

9:51

program for Trish Thermo, a wonderful

9:53

teacher and friend of mine, died

9:55

very early cancer. And so now I'm

9:57

teaching again. Intermittently doing kind of

9:59

resonancies. But if you're interested in that,

10:01

it's easy to find me on social

10:02

media. Yeah. That's great.

10:05

I'm so curious about how you came to realize

10:07

this sort of individualistic pursuit

10:10

of wellness was problematic

10:12

in the in the history of

10:13

Right? The roots of that in American culture.

10:16

Yeah. So okay. One of

10:18

the things that is really interesting

10:20

or weird about my positionality,

10:23

and this whole conversation is

10:25

that even though I live in the world

10:27

we all live in, we are kind of the

10:29

pursuit of wellness and health

10:31

and fitness and weight loss and you know,

10:33

physical beauty and all that is pretty

10:35

much uncritically celebrated.

10:38

My scholarly and intellectual

10:40

development has happened

10:42

almost entirely in a

10:44

field that actually looks

10:46

at kind of structural forces.

10:49

As, like, the driving force in society.

10:51

So this is a little in the weeds. Bear

10:53

with me. I think it is relevant

10:55

here. So, like, I think a lot of people have heard about, like,

10:57

the great man theory of

10:59

history. Right? That, like, there's, like, these individual

11:02

heroes and they're the reasons that, like, historical

11:04

progress happened. I came

11:06

into the field of studying history

11:08

in graduate school and even as an undergrad,

11:11

when there was so much pushback to that. And

11:13

write good pushback. And the pushback to

11:15

that was, no, it's not

11:17

individuals and these, like, hero

11:19

figures we should be looking at. It's

11:21

actually big structural forces

11:24

that actually shape how we

11:26

live and how social change does

11:28

or does not happen and how solutions

11:30

can come to to be. So in terms of,

11:32

like, wellness culture, I mean, a big thing

11:34

people were talking about when I started paying

11:36

attention to this stuff was around, like,

11:38

food justice and nutrition. Right?

11:40

And historically, if we look at or even

11:43

today, if we look at the

11:45

way that inequality

11:47

and kind of nutrition related

11:49

illnesses, are talked about is

11:51

they're often talked about as a kind of

11:53

failure of individual behavior

11:55

and individual choice. Right? Well,

11:57

these people don't care about health

11:59

or they don't want to eat good food or

12:02

sorry the kids throw out

12:04

the greens on their lunch plate.

12:06

And we tend to frame that. I know I'm preaching

12:08

an choir here, but we tend to frame

12:10

that as an individual choice. Well,

12:13

the scholars, etcetera, that I was

12:15

immersed in were saying, like, no,

12:18

let's look at the

12:20

federal subsidies corn. Let's look

12:22

at the rise of the fast food industry.

12:24

Let's look at which foods are

12:26

affordable, right, beyond these kind of

12:28

individualistic pieces. So conversation

12:30

around food was happening already when I

12:32

was in grad school and

12:34

literally about everything else. Like, I

12:36

would have failed if I had written a

12:38

paper that, like, centered in individual

12:40

and their decisions as, like,

12:42

a primary mover in history. So

12:44

that is relevant because then

12:46

when I'm in the gym and

12:48

I'm hearing and seeing all

12:50

of this talk and like all of this, you

12:53

know, tag Fit Spell about, like, all you

12:55

need is a pair of sneakers and some will

12:57

power. And I and, like, yeah.

12:59

And that stuff is everywhere. Right?

13:01

And we all have the same twenty four hours in

13:03

the day as, you know, Beyonce. No. We

13:05

don't because she was, like, almost half. Right? And

13:08

so my brain was already trying

13:10

to really have my hackles up

13:12

when I heard that kind

13:13

of, like, highly individualistic motivation

13:16

on thinking. That's really

13:18

interesting. And then looking at the

13:20

history too, it seems like American

13:22

individualism really started

13:24

to to intertwined with

13:26

thinking about fitness you talk

13:28

about in the book maybe around the

13:29

1800s. I'm not sure. I'm curious to

13:32

hear that story. Yeah.

13:34

Absolutely. So, fitness as

13:37

this kind of unqualified virtue,

13:39

that really doesn't exist in

13:41

American society in a mainstream way

13:43

until relatively be something like nineteen

13:45

sixties, seventies, it's happening. But you're

13:47

absolutely right that going back

13:49

to people who were kind of

13:51

boosters of fitness in the eighteen

13:53

hundreds or in the early part of the twentieth

13:55

century, they are connecting

13:58

exercise and to a

14:00

certain extent like control

14:02

of food to discipline.

14:04

Right? This is discipline of the flesh.

14:06

Like, it's no accident that there's a whole

14:09

movement called muscular Christianity,

14:11

and much of that

14:13

ethos there was saying

14:15

that the external appearance of your

14:17

body and how you care and

14:19

disciplined your body through exercise and

14:21

other means. That is a sign of

14:23

salvation. And it's funny because

14:25

that eat those and those folks.

14:27

We're speaking in very explicitly

14:30

Christian terms, but that's

14:32

exactly the ideology that's

14:34

just why much more wise

14:36

spread and kind of secularize today.

14:39

So that's happening in the

14:41

1800s, but it's still like sort of

14:43

niche. And one of the things that I

14:45

do it in the book, like, because I really I don't I

14:47

think it's hard for contemporary people

14:49

to kind of appreciate this. Is I try

14:51

to show how weird and

14:53

almost subverts it it was to work

14:55

out. And so you have people who

14:57

are kind of enthusiasts for strength

14:59

training really, like,

15:01

having to lay it on so thick to

15:03

say, like, no. No. No. Like,

15:05

disciplining and caring for

15:07

your body through exercise. This

15:09

is not like manual labor

15:11

that immigrants and black

15:13

people do. This is about civilization.

15:16

This is about channeling and disciplining

15:18

your strength to achieve some kind

15:20

of higher state. And they were doing

15:22

that because they had to say that. So

15:24

explicitly because it was

15:26

seen as kind of

15:28

shady or sketchy or seedy

15:31

for men to, like,

15:33

be so into their bodies. Like,

15:35

that must mean that you are not

15:37

straight. That must mean there's something wrong with

15:39

you. And for women, it was seen

15:41

as inappropriate too because why are you

15:43

trying to build strength? Like, don't you know that

15:45

could, you know, harm your fertility?

15:47

Don't you know that could cultivate unlady's

15:49

like sensibility's like being too

15:51

individualistic or competitive. So try

15:53

to kind of set up both exactly what

15:55

you're saying that there were these early

15:57

size enthusiasts who tied it to individual

16:00

virtue, but there really was

16:02

also this kind of dominant sense

16:04

to exercise, was kind

16:06

of

16:06

seedy, it was a waste time, it can even

16:08

harm your body. Howard Bauchner: And

16:09

also, the province of narcissists, right?

16:11

I even mentioned that in

16:12

the past as well, but, like, it was

16:14

seen as a very narcissistic pursuit. To

16:17

be exercising. Yeah. I

16:19

think that's so interesting in light of

16:21

how it's seen today as now

16:23

sort of this matter of personal

16:26

responsibility, but also in a way, like, responsibility

16:28

to others. You know, I think this is maybe more

16:30

common in places like that have nationalized

16:33

medicine like the UK or something where it's like you

16:35

owe it to your fellow countrymen to

16:37

exercise because otherwise you're a drain on the

16:39

NHS or something. But even in

16:41

the US, there's there's some of that, you

16:43

know, that you're like harming

16:45

society or something by not engaging

16:47

in quote unquote healthy

16:48

lifestyle. Know what? That's totally right.

16:51

And on your first point about narcissism,

16:53

that plays out differently for men and

16:55

women in kind of interesting ways.

16:57

Like, for men and men

16:59

contend with this well into the

17:01

nineteen seventies. Even today, I

17:03

honestly see this in some environments

17:05

where men are not as frequently

17:07

seen, like, in some boutique fitness

17:09

environments, the idea that a man

17:11

who's so into, like, his appearance,

17:13

and through working out

17:15

or certain form of working out that, he's inherently

17:18

suspicious. Women, interestingly,

17:20

sometimes get mocked for that stuff,

17:22

especially, like, expensive workouts

17:24

or ones that seem have like a lot of

17:26

sort of bells and whistles. But

17:29

because we've always sort of

17:31

accepted that, of course, women should

17:33

spend time and money on

17:35

looking pretty to the extent

17:37

that exercise is tied not to

17:39

building strength or to building

17:41

community or all these other great things that

17:43

can happen. But to losing weight or

17:45

getting prettier skin or being

17:47

attractive to men, it actually becomes

17:49

much more palatable for women

17:51

to

17:51

exercise. That's so interesting. And so

17:53

it makes me think of something you mentioned in the book too

17:55

about how, like, in the nineteen

17:57

seventies and eighties, I think, like, feminists, like,

18:00

Gloria Steinham were extolling

18:02

the virtues of exercise and talking about

18:05

exercises, this like feminist act.

18:07

And that seems to sort of fly in

18:09

the face of this idea that women

18:11

shouldn't be too strong because it will

18:13

take away from their prettiness and

18:15

their ability to be good

18:18

mothers or whatever it is, be fertile. But then

18:20

also, as you trace in the book,

18:22

there's this interesting sort of

18:24

individualism that comes into play

18:26

on the left as well, right, where it it

18:28

becomes this pursuit

18:30

of individual fitness become sort

18:32

of tied up with projects on the left

18:34

as well as on the right and makes

18:36

this kind of a universal pursuit

18:39

of

18:39

fitness, like this ideal across the political spectrum. Howard

18:41

Bauchner: Yeah, and thank you for reading

18:43

so closely. But when we're talking,

18:45

it's not out yet. I'm like,

18:47

my god. These smart people are actually reading

18:49

my words. I appreciate that. Yeah. So to

18:52

kind of elaborate on that a little bit, so how do we

18:54

get from that we that moment when

18:56

exercise was, like, weird and fish

18:58

as to where we are today,

19:00

yeah, you you you hit it on the head.

19:02

Right? And so the argument that I make is

19:04

that middle of the twentieth century

19:07

starting with some federal projects that

19:09

connect being fit to, like, civic duty,

19:11

a little bit of what you were talking about before

19:13

you owed to other people. Mentality was not so

19:15

much you owe it to other people, but more you owe it to

19:17

your country. So there was this big move to

19:20

an it was a very splashy PR

19:22

campaign, not so much investment in

19:24

infrastructure, but this big move to

19:26

kind of boost up physical

19:28

education programs, public recreation.

19:30

It was this whole campaign. It said,

19:33

like, No one gets cut from squad of fitness.

19:35

Like, this is not like sports. Everybody

19:37

should be fit because if the cold

19:39

war gets hot, you're gonna

19:41

have a responsibility to go fight. And

19:44

JFK is like a perfect influenza

19:46

for this because he takes

19:49

Eisenhowever, who came before I have,

19:51

he takes his kind of, like, military

19:54

preparedness thing, and then, like, makes it,

19:56

like, sexy, glamorous, and fun because

19:58

he's JF k. And so, you know, he

20:00

gets reamed for this by his

20:02

opponents who talk talk about like JFK's

20:04

silly fits at fitness, but he does a

20:06

really good job of saying this is not about

20:08

preparing now soldiers. This is about

20:10

fun and being with your family and

20:12

like challenging each other to like

20:14

healthy hikes and all the rasp But

20:16

if so that's likely is the foundation

20:19

for, like, fitness is a civic Mehlman.

20:21

But then, yeah, in the sixties and

20:23

seventies, you have this, like, while

20:26

intellectual shift that happens

20:28

where the notions that

20:30

I think actually underpin modern

20:32

wellness kind of come to gather. And those are ideas

20:34

really. And one is that

20:36

mind and body are connected and

20:38

that you can't be a kind of

20:40

fully actualized self unless

20:43

you're working on your body, that kind

20:45

of gets widespread traction.

20:47

And two, that

20:49

it is up to an

20:52

individual to kind of

20:54

take control and steer that

20:56

process of achieving wellness or

20:58

achieving health. That

21:00

set of ideas is very attractive

21:03

across the political spectrum. So

21:05

on the left, you have

21:07

people who've been marginalized by

21:10

medical communities, whether they're

21:12

feminists, whether they're people of color

21:14

who are like, yes, I

21:16

want to be trusted to

21:18

have agency over my body and my

21:20

health. I'm sick of these dudes

21:22

in white coats telling

21:24

me I'm thick or I don't feel

21:26

pain or that this is what I should put in my

21:28

body or my body is not good enough.

21:30

And that's very, very empowering.

21:32

On the right, this fits in perfectly

21:34

with all of this language

21:36

and personal responsibility that

21:39

is kind of conservative and libertarian

21:42

ideology. And so, you know,

21:44

I'm a a historian of ideas

21:46

to a certain extent and so that's like

21:48

an interesting shift I saw, but

21:50

what's so cool is to see how it plays

21:52

out literally on the ground. Like, with

21:54

something like jogging, you both have

21:56

these like happy environmentalists, like, back to the

21:58

land joggers, you have women, who are

22:00

feminists, who are, like, claiming their

22:02

right to run long distances. And

22:04

then you also have like conservative

22:07

Christian campuses celebrating

22:09

these cardio and aerobics programs

22:11

and talking about how Jesus

22:14

wants you saved body and mind, and

22:16

it's such a convergent discourse,

22:18

and I think really accounts for

22:20

why this stuff remains so

22:23

popular across the

22:23

Petrzela. fitness, wellness is

22:26

malleable to many different ideologies.

22:29

There's so much there that I wanna unpack,

22:31

like, this shift that happens in the

22:33

sixties and seventies because we talked about that for my

22:35

book too. Right? The idea

22:37

that wellness culture was sort of

22:39

born out of that shift in many ways

22:41

and that people seeking out like

22:43

alternative medicine, alternative

22:45

points of view about health and

22:47

well-being kind of out that some ways, you

22:49

know, the the disillusionment that so many people

22:51

were feeling, which people are still feeling today. And

22:53

I think has driven

22:56

wellness culture to become such big business,

22:58

right, and and alternative medicine to become

23:00

such big business. Because justifiably,

23:02

I think many people feel abandoned

23:05

or ignored or

23:07

unserved by the medical system in many

23:09

ways, especially marginalized people,

23:11

people of color, women, LGBTQ

23:13

people, all kinds of folks don't feel really

23:15

served by the medical system and

23:17

feel increasingly like the

23:20

alternatives might be more helpful

23:22

and that self care is

23:24

perhaps an alternative to

23:25

that. Howard Bauchner: I think that's totally right. And

23:27

I just went to visit a class

23:29

yesterday. That is talking about wellness

23:32

and culture. And one of the things I think

23:34

is really hard, and I don't have the answer

23:36

to it, is that everything that you just said

23:38

is right, that this kind of resistance

23:40

to authority and skepticism of

23:43

expertise comes out of real

23:45

pain and real exclusion and

23:47

marginalization and and it comes

23:49

from a culture that often has like

23:51

uncritically elevated certain

23:53

forms of expertise over

23:56

others, right, in a way that can be really

23:58

damaging, and I like appreciate

24:00

that. On the other hand, and we are

24:02

seeing this play out right now in the wellness

24:04

world around like COVID response,

24:06

what can sometimes feel like

24:08

a nice compromise of how we resolve that,

24:10

which is like, well, everybody can

24:12

just define wellness for themselves, like,

24:14

yes, I agree with that, but then I'm so

24:17

troubled to see, you

24:19

know, among many prominent wellness

24:22

influencers. That that gets kind of distorted into,

24:24

you know, the government's line

24:26

to you, like you, they might tell you

24:28

to take this vaccine, but I

24:31

believe in this temperature over here

24:33

or in a less controversial mode, the

24:35

kind of overall unquestioned

24:39

authority of the personal journey

24:41

as, like, as legitimate as, like,

24:43

the peer reviewed study. And I

24:45

have a really hard time saying, like, who to

24:47

trust when my students ask me? Because I'm

24:49

like, no. One person who,

24:51

I don't know, cured themselves of

24:53

a chronic illness or lost weight or,

24:55

like, has great skin

24:57

and wants to share their journey. I'm

24:59

not telling you that's not valid, but I also in

25:01

the sort of hierarchy of evidence and

25:04

authority, cannot say that that is the same

25:06

validity as a peer reviewed, you

25:08

know, set a double blind study.

25:10

Even though I know that the

25:12

medical institutions and the

25:14

medical profession in pharma and all the

25:16

rest are hardly actors

25:19

without checkered pasts and present. So

25:21

it's super, super hard to

25:23

know how to navigate that. And I think the

25:25

wellness industry culture is like

25:27

and all of our cultures against

25:29

a little bit of crisis because of

25:30

that. Howard Bauchner: Agreed, completely. It's it

25:33

I mean, that was one thing I kept thinking

25:35

about when I was writing the book and

25:37

was so troubled by as well. Like,

25:39

how do you know who to

25:41

trust? How do you discern? How do you

25:43

discern what's useful and what's

25:45

not? And I've been thinking a

25:47

lot about the placebo effect and

25:49

kind of the family of placebo effects

25:51

that are related effects

25:53

in wellness spaces and

25:55

how how powerful that is. Right?

25:57

How powerful the mind body connection is

25:59

and the way that, you know, taking

26:02

something maybe when you're at the

26:04

height of sort of a natural history of disease where

26:06

there's ebbs and flows. And oftentimes

26:08

people end up seeking out alternative

26:10

medicine or really any kind of medicine

26:13

or care. At the height of one of

26:15

those ebbs, you know. And then

26:17

the natural history of disease ends up that,

26:19

you know, they go into a

26:21

dip and symptoms are mitigated kind of naturally with

26:23

the ebb and flow of the disease. And I have

26:25

multiple chronic illnesses that very

26:27

much have cycles like that.

26:30

And so, you know, when reaching for

26:32

an alternative or a

26:34

cure, purported cure at the height

26:36

of the disease, it's going to very much look

26:38

like, you know, something to something

26:41

works, whatever you take at the at that

26:44

height, at that peak works because you end

26:46

up getting better on your own. Right?

26:48

But then Yeah. What

26:50

how do we discern, like, what

26:52

really has an effect over and above that?

26:54

You know, that's where, I think, peer reviewed

26:57

randomized controlled, double blind, placebo

26:59

controlled, you know, studies come in.

27:01

But those can be really problematic too.

27:03

You know, there's a really interesting book called

27:05

snake oil science that goes into the

27:08

issues with alternative medicine research

27:11

and why it's almost impossible to do

27:13

really good studies on a lot of alternative

27:15

medicine approaches. So

27:18

I think it can be really confusing for

27:20

people who don't know how to you

27:21

know, the average consumer. Right?

27:24

Right. And yet at in the other than the average

27:26

consumer, I mean, when I think about the stuff, like,

27:28

for a living, and it's really hard.

27:30

Right. Right. And I think that, like, the

27:32

go to, like, you know, whatever

27:34

feels right for you, that

27:36

is not really enough right now, but

27:38

it's not all we've got, but

27:40

it's hard to give sort of

27:42

more conclusive evidence than that. And, yeah,

27:44

your point about like the natural ebbs

27:46

and flows of certain conditions they

27:48

need to sort of laugh. I was, like, almost forty one weeks

27:51

pregnant with my second child. And

27:53

I I had a very sort of, like,

27:55

western and wonderful OB,

27:57

but very much in western medicine. And

27:59

I was like, oh my god, you know, get this baby

28:01

out of me already. And I was like, what do you

28:03

think about me going and doing some, like, aggressive AccuPont

28:06

insurance? She's like, okay, go for it. And she's and I was like, do you think it's

28:08

gonna work? And she's like, listen, you're like forty one

28:10

weeks pregnant. This baby's gonna come out in the next

28:12

couple of days. If you go and do acupuncture, or

28:14

now, you know, maybe you can, like, tie that cause of a

28:16

bag or it's just because it's time for the baby to be

28:18

born, you know. And I thought that was kind of

28:21

interesting and not every

28:23

situation obviously fits into that. But

28:25

I do one of the things I try to see

28:27

when I'm talking about this is, like, the notion

28:29

of, like, complementary techniques or

28:32

complimentary cures. Like, who am I to

28:34

say? Accuparture didn't work or

28:36

didn't hasten it or that another

28:39

complimentary and alternative intervention

28:41

doesn't work. I do not have the hubris to

28:43

say that, but, you know, I

28:45

do think scientific expertise counts

28:47

for something as imperfect as it is, but it

28:49

is hard and more in a tough moment, I think,

28:51

especially with the pandemic and

28:53

public health system on

28:55

that

28:55

point. Right, in the ways that a lot

28:58

of public health institutions have

29:01

had very big missteps and

29:03

and failings and admittedly

29:05

so. Right? The CDC has done its own kind

29:07

of internal investigation and found, like,

29:09

yeah, we really screwed up in terms

29:12

of communication and

29:14

some of the guidance to people and

29:16

stuff like that and and, you know, so it's

29:18

it's it definitely feels like it's enough to make

29:20

a lot of people lose trust. think there's

29:22

this interesting. I know we touched on this in our interview

29:24

for the book a little bit too. Like, the

29:27

way the role that the Internet plays

29:29

and social media plays in

29:32

sort of fostering that. Right? There's maybe a

29:34

little spark of doubt for a lot of people

29:36

or a sense of, you know,

29:38

justified skepticism that many people

29:40

have when they see kind of issues like the

29:42

CDC's pandemic response

29:44

being somewhat botched in some ways

29:46

or the OxyContin

29:48

scandal or things like that, right,

29:50

where the the medical establishment

29:52

really is has messed up and

29:54

and does the Tuskegee experiment, you know, these

29:56

things that are just, like, really,

29:58

really problematic and

30:00

create a health, you know, justified skepticism in

30:02

people, but then the Internet and

30:04

social media and and these, in

30:06

some cases, bad actors just

30:09

disinformation purveyors kind of

30:11

jump on that and, you know, fan

30:13

this flame of skepticism into a

30:15

raging fire that wants to burn down

30:17

everything about the established

30:19

medical system and make

30:21

you mistrust and have, you know, this conspiracy

30:24

sort of thinking toward everything

30:26

in the system and then a a sort of

30:29

attendant openness to these

30:31

really wild things that

30:33

maybe would be skeptical about. Otherwise, if

30:35

you hadn't had, you know, the sort of faith

30:37

in mainstream institutions and

30:39

science just completely burned down

30:42

by the social media environment

30:44

that we're

30:44

in. Yeah. No, I think that's

30:47

absolutely right. And I think

30:49

that, you know, I was talking before

30:51

about that kind of training that I came up in

30:53

that emphasized kind of structural critique

30:55

and institutional critique. And

30:57

in some ways, I think what you're describing

31:00

is in like, an assault from what

31:02

from a sensibility that generally exists on

31:04

the right. Right? It's like an attack on,

31:06

you know, COVID, it's a hoax, this like

31:09

Biden's pandemic, etcetera.

31:11

But I think that that

31:13

kind of attack on institutions,

31:15

whether it's medical profession or the CDC,

31:17

is helped along in a big

31:20

way from decades of

31:22

scholars and a kind of progressive

31:24

tradition, which has been

31:26

very critical of institutions for some

31:28

really good ways, but for some really good

31:30

reasons. But those two things kind of come

31:33

together. And I actually that

31:35

that was so weird and that's been it. So,

31:37

like, brought out so much weirdness in our

31:39

culture, but I was really surprised

31:41

when the bank stands for came out, which is a great

31:43

moment. I mean, I'm I'm

31:45

vaccinated, and I'm, like, very happy about

31:47

that. But when the vaccines came

31:49

out and holidays kind of,

31:51

like, lefty progressive people who are people I agree with

31:53

them a lot of things. We're, like, wearing these

31:55

t shirts. Like, how's the Pfizer

31:58

oh, we're modernity and Moderna. And I'm like,

32:00

are you guys really, like, pharma

32:03

shells right now? Like, what happened to

32:05

you? Like, it's just so weird. Right?

32:07

I'm, like, through the people who have

32:09

been crafting really thoughtful

32:11

critiques about big pharma and, like,

32:13

you know, the medical industrial complex or

32:15

whatever. And, like, great. This vaccine

32:17

seems like a good

32:17

thing. I trust it and everything. But,

32:20

like, this is not what I

32:22

would expect. You know? Right.

32:24

The sort of like, uncritical

32:27

embrace of I mean and

32:29

again, I'm also vaccinated,

32:31

boosted twice, you know, like, love

32:33

it. Really grateful for it. My daughter is

32:34

vaccinated, you know. But Same.

32:36

Same. All the caveats. Yeah. All the

32:39

caveats. And and I think, yeah, it's

32:41

been just truly incredible, the

32:43

speed with which these companies were able to

32:45

develop vaccines that are safe and

32:47

effective and, you know, helping blunt the

32:49

pandemic. But Yeah.

32:51

Like, the pharmaceutical industry certainly

32:53

has its own issues. And, you

32:55

know, I think, as I talk about in

32:57

the book, the supplement industry has

33:00

in some ways even more issues because

33:02

it's very, barely regulated, at

33:04

least with pharmaceuticals you

33:06

have you know, strict regulation and the necessity

33:08

to prove safety and efficacy before something

33:10

goes to market, not that that's,

33:12

again, OxyContin scandal is sort

33:14

of a big example of how

33:16

that failed, right, in one case, but also

33:19

or how that could potentially fail. But, you

33:21

know, I think in most cases, the system

33:23

works well for establishing

33:26

safety and efficacy of drugs before they go to market

33:28

whereas with the supplement industry, you have none of

33:30

that. Right? You don't have to there's

33:33

no no necessity establishing safety and efficacy

33:35

before going to market. There's a lot

33:37

of adult duration that happens in the

33:39

supplement industry that isn't found

33:41

sometimes for years. But

33:43

the pharmaceutical industry certainly has

33:45

its own problems. But, yeah, the

33:47

pandemic has just been so

33:49

has sort of upended a lot of the

33:52

usual lines of because

33:54

also you see people really

33:56

embracing uncritically embracing supplements

33:58

and going, like, the full I've

34:00

even seen people, and this is, again,

34:02

I think, somewhat on the left and on

34:04

the right, actually, where they're

34:06

embracing all other kinds of vaccines, but the COVID vaccine

34:08

somehow is bad or wrong and, you

34:10

know, developed too quickly and blah blah

34:12

blah. And so they're going you

34:15

know, full alternative medicine on the

34:17

pandemic, which is just so

34:20

troubling. I have seen that too. Yeah,

34:22

that we can probably stay on the pandemic forever. The

34:24

one other pandemic piece that has put me a little bit maybe at at

34:26

odds is maybe either not starting up or

34:28

too strong over word with, like, some of my

34:30

usual, like, fellow travelers

34:32

is, like, now at

34:34

this stage in the pandemic. I've

34:36

and I'm keep in mind, I'm in classrooms

34:38

all day. And I'm in classrooms

34:42

that still even with Vax and Booster requirements and

34:44

until very recently weekly PCR

34:46

tests, where we're a hundred percent

34:48

masked. And

34:50

don't think this is okay. I've been really vocal

34:52

about the fact that, like, starting with

34:54

my college students who aren't even getting a brunt

34:56

of it because little kids cabin

34:58

worse than a lot of ways. They haven't seen each other's faces for four

35:00

years. Like, I have seniors saying to me,

35:02

like, I just want to hear my

35:06

professor talk, like, properly, not muffled. Like, I want

35:08

that kind of engagement of faces

35:10

and I feel in that

35:13

environment that's actually a totally

35:16

legitimate position, and actually,

35:18

to this point of wellness, but I'm you know, I

35:20

don't want your listeners to be like, what is this, like, COVID

35:22

ramp thing that I signed up for

35:24

at this episode. But I think from the

35:26

perspective of broader wellness and

35:28

like situating our health in social

35:31

context, to me, that's the key

35:33

piece here. Like, you know, it is

35:35

debatable and it's not my excuse to say whether like the cloth or

35:37

surgical masks that most people are wearing

35:39

and there are actually preventing

35:42

to COVID transmission, among one hundred percent vaccinated people,

35:44

maybe they are, maybe they are not.

35:46

But there's something broader in

35:48

terms of our social health that

35:51

I think is pretty clearly being lost. And

35:54

so in that protected environment with

35:56

our vaccines and our weekly testing, it

35:58

seems like we should be able to see each

36:00

other spaces. This is I'm

36:02

not saying you necessarily agree with me or or

36:04

not, and we don't have to get into that. But I think

36:06

one of the positive things about

36:08

our wellness culture is that

36:10

it does kind of at least position as an

36:12

ideal a kind of holistic set of

36:15

a holistic definition of

36:18

health. Which incorporates, like, various things beyond just

36:20

the absence of illness. And I think

36:22

in some emerging and

36:26

educational institutions, in certain

36:28

regions, we've really lost that

36:30

in a really unfortunate and I think

36:32

surprising way. My

36:34

students are and my colleagues and like

36:36

everyone is kind of losing out when our only goal is preventing COVID

36:38

transmission and not thinking about other

36:40

health implications. Yeah, that's interesting.

36:44

Mehlman, and that makes me think too, we talked

36:46

about for my book and that is in

36:48

your book about how wellness culture

36:52

and fitness culture as well, embrace this, like, lofty

36:55

ideal about holism as

36:57

this ideal. Right? Holism as

36:59

the goal and with

37:02

fitness culture, it was with yoga. Yoga sort

37:04

of drove that shift, right, of thinking

37:07

about enlightenment and exercises

37:09

more than just physical and vanity. It's this

37:12

mind body connection. Right? But

37:14

then in practice, the way that the

37:16

sort of holistic ideal

37:18

gets translated is not always

37:21

so holistic. Curious to hear

37:23

you talk about the history of

37:25

that and how you see playing out today as

37:27

well? Totally. So I think first, just like

37:29

taking it further back to that mid century

37:31

moment. We were talking about kind of

37:33

post world war two. So in

37:35

the fifties and sixties, there are a

37:38

lot of advances in biomedicine

37:40

and there's a kind of general boost in

37:42

American prosperity, not across the board.

37:44

You still have a lot of inequality. But, you know, middle

37:46

class people can own a home like

37:48

all of those nineteen fifties images that

37:50

you see did not apply to everybody, but

37:52

they did

37:54

reflect kind of broader prosperity and growth in

37:56

middle class, largely white middle class.

37:58

Think of in terms of bodily

38:00

health, what we are coming out of,

38:03

to world wars, to depression. The

38:05

thing we don't always remember about

38:07

world war one and two is not only the lots of

38:09

American soldiers die, Many came back

38:12

like disfigure. Right? And with

38:14

disabilities, same effects of the

38:16

depression as well.

38:18

You have advances in vaccines, polio, gets

38:20

eradicated, advances in buying

38:22

medicine, greater access to

38:24

medical care, in those years

38:26

after World War two. And

38:28

you have the rise of

38:30

not the rise, but, like, more mainstreaming.

38:33

Of the therapeutic profession. So

38:35

all of that kind of converges in

38:37

our culture to kind of ways the

38:40

standard of like how people should

38:42

expect to feel and live. And

38:44

so there's this idea that

38:46

now we don't need to

38:48

worry about starving. We can, like, start thinking about what kinds of

38:50

foods we put in our body and

38:52

nutrition and seeing, you know, and understanding

38:54

where they where they

38:56

come from. We don't need to worry

38:58

about being sent off to war quite yet. We can worry about heart health

39:00

than, like, these kind of, more elevated

39:02

things. We if you feel

39:05

you know, alienated or depressed

39:08

or etcetera. There's a doctor

39:10

for that because you deserve to be happy.

39:12

And now some of the remediations were

39:15

like pretty terrible. Like all sorts of

39:17

chemical interventions, a lot of the food that

39:19

was considered healthy, bad, was actually

39:22

totally processed. So the solutions were

39:24

not perfect. But there is

39:26

this kind of like rise

39:28

in standard of expectation

39:30

around how to live that really

39:32

takes hold in that period. That

39:34

sort of is evolving and you have particularly in the

39:37

nineteen sixties and seventies counter

39:39

culture that really

39:42

is embracing kind of the pursuit

39:44

of enlightenment for lack of a better term. Some of that,

39:46

ironically, is rejecting aspects

39:49

of American prosperity. So

39:52

you imagine, like, generationally, like, a kid who grows up in the suburbs

39:55

that is told to, like, jog

39:57

daily around the block protect

40:00

their heart health and they have, like, you know, don't worry

40:02

about lack of food and and

40:04

all the rest. There's a whole bunch of

40:06

kids that grew up like that who were,

40:09

like, this, like, suburban,

40:12

American, western ideal is

40:14

very stultifying. It's inauthentic.

40:16

I wanna find real in my admit.

40:18

What's interesting is they're positioning that so called real enlightenment in

40:22

contrast to this inauthentic kind of

40:24

mainstream suburbia, but they could only kind of

40:26

have that

40:28

level of expectation because of that prosperity. Right?

40:30

And that gets to some of the class dynamics.

40:32

So then you have folks, and not all

40:34

of them were sort of middle class and white,

40:37

But getting into experimenting with,

40:40

you know, so called eastern

40:42

traditions, with rejecting kind

40:44

of industrial food, you have the

40:46

beginning of the organic food movement in this

40:48

period, you have acupuncture,

40:50

yoga, all of these kind of

40:52

like bodily practices, that are embraced by what

40:54

is mostly like a counter culture.

40:57

That's happening throughout the kind of

40:59

sixties and seventies and

41:02

this still seeing us a little bit sort of like out there.

41:04

I think by by a lot of folks,

41:06

like, there's this broadcast in nineteen

41:08

seventy nine on six sixty

41:11

minutes. We're a very young man, rather it's

41:13

like, wellness. There's a word you don't hear

41:15

every day. And I'm like, no, because

41:18

I hear it all the time. Now, and

41:20

he goes out to this clinic and

41:22

I think more in and he interviews these

41:24

folks who are saying things that today

41:26

sound like totally run-in the mail. Like, I just believe

41:28

body and mind are connected. You know, I

41:30

couldn't get relief

41:32

from my elbow

41:34

injury, and so I tried this, like, non western

41:36

position, and now everyone thinks

41:38

I'm crazy. Like, things that now

41:41

really, really in the mainstream. And then at

41:43

the same time, have this burgeoning

41:45

fitness culture, which is expanding

41:47

as cardio, which was then called a

41:49

robotics be like expands the definition of what's considered

41:51

exercise beyond weightlifting in calisthenics.

41:54

We have the kind of eighties aerobics

41:56

thing going on, which

41:58

is not connected to that

42:00

counter culture, like, at all. It's

42:02

very, like, hard driving,

42:04

get skinny, dance party,

42:07

like, it's I think people describe having

42:09

transcendent experiences in those classes, but

42:11

it's not connected to, like, a

42:13

broader social critique for sure

42:15

or anything like that. Intense

42:18

bodily experience. In the nineteen

42:20

nineties and then the two

42:22

thousands, these really

42:24

come together in mainstream yoga culture. And

42:26

a lot of people who write about this, write about it

42:28

from the perspective of

42:30

yoga, this

42:32

like pure spiritual practice being corrupted by

42:34

this houté fitness industry, which

42:36

is all about thinner thighs and kind

42:38

of like strips out the spirituality and

42:42

just tries to make it into essentially like a weight loss.

42:44

That is not untrue in

42:46

certain aspects, but what I look at in the

42:48

book and I think is really, really a

42:51

important in understanding where we are today is the

42:53

way that yoga culture

42:56

actually shapes fitness culture in these

42:58

years and that

43:00

you have a workout industry, which is much bigger than the

43:02

yoga industry ever was,

43:04

a fitness industry, which was very

43:06

like physical and about the body.

43:09

And for that reason, still, even as many people were doing

43:11

it, considered kind of narcissistic or

43:14

kind of silly,

43:16

it adopts and

43:18

incorporates this kind of language

43:20

of spirituality,

43:22

enlightenment. It's not an

43:24

instructor. It's my guru. This

43:27

is about self care, and that

43:29

really serves to elevate

43:32

exercise to a practice,

43:34

you know, not just like quick

43:36

burn and then you get out of there. And I think that that

43:39

integration is really important in

43:41

understanding, like, why exercise

43:44

has really

43:46

virtuous cast today and then more

43:48

concretely, like the result of all of that

43:50

and part of how it's happened was things

43:53

that are still with us today. Like,

43:55

yoga, fusion bootcamp, power, yoga,

43:57

you know, all of these kind of,

43:59

like, fusion formats which I think

44:01

are not only a result of the so called

44:04

corruption of yoga by fitness,

44:06

but actually part of, in some ways, a

44:08

very willing embrace. On both

44:10

sides. Like, there are I read, like,

44:12

every every issue of yoga

44:14

journal for, like, twenty years or something,

44:16

and there there's a debate that's

44:18

constantly happening. There are plenty of

44:20

people in the yoga community who are like, this is great. We're finally shedding this like esoteric

44:22

cast that we're like this weird

44:25

spiritual thing. Like, Great. We should

44:27

be in every sports medicine clinic in

44:30

America. And so there are people who

44:32

are excited about that. But whether you

44:34

think it's good or not, that

44:36

influence went both ways and is so

44:38

crucial to the way that

44:40

today we invest working

44:42

out as this, like, elevated,

44:44

worthy pursuit that, like, I don't

44:46

think most people are sort of apologizing

44:48

for

44:48

anymore. Yeah. Well, so non apologizing

44:51

that you said in the book,

44:53

like, you're one of the first responses

44:55

that people would have when you said you were writing

44:57

a book about fitness

44:58

culture. It was like, oh, I don't exercise

45:00

enough. I'm so terrible. Like,

45:02

yeah. That

45:02

we now have taken this on as like a mantle of

45:05

morality. Right. And that is

45:07

such a relatively new expectation.

45:09

It really, really

45:12

is. Like, oh, I'm so mad and work out today

45:14

or I should work out more. I'm like, I'm not the

45:16

workout police. I don't know. You're a special

45:20

kind of food expert, but I would imagine that, like,

45:22

some folks who work in your field, like, go

45:24

out to dinner with friends and their friends, like,

45:26

apologize for the food on their plate in front of

45:28

them

45:29

or, like, it's so bad. Like, I'm sure. It's part of the reason I

45:32

started saying I'm an anti dietitian

45:34

is to try to foreground,

45:36

like, the anti

45:38

diet part and say, I'm not gonna judge you about what you're eating otherwise,

45:40

if I say I'm a dietitian, that's always

45:42

the first response. Oh, I need to eat

45:44

better or like, oh, I'm trying this

45:46

new keto thing, which you think

45:49

of it or really thorny conversations

45:51

that I wanna sort of not have

45:53

to go down that

45:55

road. Yeah. It does. I

45:57

think pertinent to both that point that you make

45:59

and also actually this thing we were just talking

46:02

about, which is the kind of rise of

46:04

this wellness talk around

46:06

exercise and about too.

46:08

In some ways, I mean, they're good

46:10

aspects to that. I think it's great that

46:12

we talk more about going to exercise or

46:14

eating because that's how it makes me

46:16

feel. And I go for other reasons that

46:18

are not just about the physical

46:21

transformation or for women often the shrinking

46:23

of our bodies. I think that's really

46:25

good. The thing that worries me, and I'm curious to

46:27

know what you think because I think it was

46:29

probably almost even more apparent in the

46:31

food world, is that

46:33

I think there's been this kind of

46:36

silencing among certain circles

46:39

around, like, weight loss

46:41

talk or kind of honest talk

46:44

about how you feel about your body or

46:46

how you want to look such

46:48

that we have this new language

46:50

which dresses up in some ways the

46:52

same old sentiments, you

46:54

know. And I think that

46:56

I'm really divided on that.

46:58

Like, you know, so I have converse

47:01

I'm turning forty four next week. I have two kids. So, you know, my

47:03

look, I think, my age and all that. But, like,

47:05

I have some conversations with friends who

47:07

might or like

47:10

me are seventy's, right, our forty's, most lesser moms or whatever.

47:12

And there's almost, like, this furtive

47:14

thing if we feel, like, oh,

47:16

there's, like, my pants to fit a little

47:18

differently. And I

47:20

don't wanna I don't think that's good or bad, but it is strange that

47:22

when the dominant discourse in our

47:24

culture for so long has actually

47:26

been like you should

47:28

announce you wanna lose weight and post your

47:30

transformation pictures and all of that. I still think

47:32

that actually that feeling is very much

47:34

with us. But at least in

47:36

certain circles, you almost can't talk about it,

47:38

and so it's harder to

47:40

move past it. So I'm

47:42

dealing with this too. So I'm not

47:44

offering solutions, but I think it's

47:46

a historical phenomenon that we'd be remiss to not kind

47:47

of, you know, think worth thinking

47:49

about. I agree. I think it's

47:51

really interesting because you

47:55

know, in my perspective and and definitely in the food world, I

47:57

think there's a lot of this couching the desire

47:59

to lose weight or the desire to eat

48:01

a certain way

48:04

for like perceived moral reasons like that you're

48:06

you're bad if you eat quote unquote

48:08

bad food or whatever. I think

48:10

now with the

48:12

rise of the anti diet

48:14

movement Mehlman I've certainly been a part of that

48:16

and my first book is called anti diet and

48:18

stuff like I think with

48:20

the rise of that, I think there are a lot of

48:22

people now who think

48:24

it's bad to express

48:26

those sentiments and yet

48:28

still want that. And so there's

48:30

some market there's a lot more marketing I now to language

48:32

of anti diet culture

48:35

and talk about you

48:38

know, the other reasons or the other benefits people might get from

48:40

eating a certain way or from exercising a

48:42

certain way or whatever it is. It's

48:44

like coated language. No. It's not

48:48

shrink your body or lose x pounds or whatever,

48:50

but it's like, you know, feel good in your

48:52

skin or glow from within

48:54

or something like that. You know? And

48:57

what does that actually mean? You know? I think

48:59

it still means the same

49:00

thing, but it's it's got this, like,

49:03

slightly loftier framing to it.

49:05

Right. And it's so hard. I mean, I

49:07

think we should never really be judging history

49:09

of, like, purely, like, is this better or

49:11

is this worse? But it's, you know, it

49:13

is, like, I read, so many historical advertisements for

49:15

different, what they call it, used to call it, reducing

49:18

products and different exercise products. And I

49:20

mean, they literally,

49:22

there are record sold

49:24

in the sat in the sixties that are,

49:26

like, how to please your husband,

49:28

be whistle bait after thirty?

49:30

Like, it's literally, like, that I talk

49:32

about it. It looked like it's so

49:34

you should exercise so that

49:36

you continue to merit nail

49:38

attention. Like, full stop, no questioning.

49:40

End of story. It is very good

49:42

that we have moved on past this. Right. And

49:44

I think I like it's great because those

49:46

kind of ads, like, there are little girls

49:48

out there and boys, by the way, on their

49:50

mom's shelf and that was their first

49:52

inclination that this is how they should think. And so I

49:54

think it is a huge improvement that

49:56

we've passed that. But I

49:58

think we haven't moved

50:00

past the underlying emotions

50:02

that, like, drive that kind of marketing,

50:04

but we just have or, like, dressed

50:06

up way of talking about that. And I think that

50:09

that's really hard. And I've been really kind

50:11

of inspired and thought a

50:14

lot about some of the pushback on the, like, love your body language.

50:16

Right? That, like, it kind of wrapped

50:18

up in that. It's like, oh, you don't love

50:20

your body. Oh, you're not, you

50:22

know, enlightened or, like, what's wrong with

50:24

you? Are you all this internalized

50:26

oppression? And I'm, like, oh, my god. That's you don't

50:28

need to feel guilty, not only maybe

50:30

for not looking like you want to, but they're not loving, how do you like,

50:32

that doesn't seem like progress. So

50:34

I know it's really challenging and

50:37

coversation you're talking about, I think, is right of

50:39

this new language. And then

50:42

maybe this is too far into the food industry

50:44

for for me to comment, John, but I

50:46

was following you know, one of

50:48

these internet controversies where there was a nutritionist who was kind of talking,

50:50

what sounded great? Like, a very, like, anti

50:54

diet lying about their no dad or good foods. And it out

50:56

she was, like, paid by some, like, chips

50:58

or fast food company. And I'm, like,

51:02

that to me undermine such important work

51:05

in anti diet culture because

51:07

I don't think Nutritionist

51:09

or not would

51:12

say that, you know, bags of chips are the same as

51:14

eating fresh food. Right? And that

51:16

totally just I don't know.

51:20

It's just so it's it's really hard. I feel like I'm saying that a lot in

51:22

this interview because you're asking really good questions.

51:24

But how to navigate this? All I can

51:26

tend to say

51:28

is, like, you know, not just do your own research, but, like,

51:30

think about how everything we're experiencing

51:32

is constructive. Right? And it's

51:34

not every

51:36

food or every workout is exactly of

51:38

the same quality or will be the same effectiveness or

51:40

is right for everyone and also

51:43

try and consult research and

51:45

you're making your decisions beyond that

51:48

uncredentialed influencer who, like,

51:50

looks pretty and has a lot of followers. And

51:52

so it tells you that it makes because her

51:54

journey more that out. And I think

51:56

that, you know, as we're talking

51:58

about sort of hierarchies of authority,

52:00

it felt like, you know, there there

52:02

are very little checks on people getting

52:04

online and issuing health

52:05

advice. And, yeah, something we

52:07

gotta look out for. Completely. And,

52:09

I mean, the do

52:11

your own research is so interesting. We talked about that in our book interview

52:13

to you about how this phrase has

52:16

become so loaded and what does it even mean

52:18

to do your own research

52:20

and with you know, the anti

52:22

Vax sort of take on do your own

52:24

research. It's basically do your research

52:26

in these particular ways, in

52:28

this particular look at these memes that

52:30

have been curated for you by the algorithm that amplifies

52:34

Discord and moral outrage,

52:36

and so it's gonna drive you further and further

52:38

down this anti box rabbit hole because that's what

52:40

drives engagement. Like, look at these. This is your

52:42

research. You know, don't

52:44

look at you know, the scientific studies and journals that have been

52:46

published for decades and decades that, you know, that

52:48

that's somehow invalid and that

52:50

only this particular type of

52:52

research is

52:53

is the valid form of doing

52:55

your research? No. Absolutely. I think

52:57

that's right. And I said, you know, as a historian, like,

52:59

what do I do? I research methods. It's been

53:01

very dizzying from me that to your own research has

53:03

been weaponized. Right? Because now

53:06

I feel

53:08

like this is the conversation I have. I'm teaching a research seminar this

53:10

semester, and we talk about that

53:12

in this sort of, like, a personalized

53:15

flow crisis that we're in. But usually,

53:17

my answer would have always been like, go to

53:19

the primary sources. Right? And now we have to have,

53:21

I think, a more sophisticated conversation

53:24

about that. Empowered because of this weaponization of do your own

53:26

research, but also just the sheer

53:28

barrage of information that we have available

53:30

to us. Even if you're

53:32

going in in

53:34

a good faith way to do your own research. It's harder

53:36

and harder, I think, to get

53:38

something close to a three sixty view

53:41

of what's going on. And so

53:44

when I that, and maybe this is just good life advice even beyond writing a

53:46

history of these as is,

53:48

like, constantly, like, be

53:50

humble in

53:52

your knowledge. What am I not seeing? What are the blinders? Like, what would

53:54

someone not with my positionality think?

53:56

And, like, that

53:58

pushes me certainly in writing

54:00

the book, but also just in making, you know,

54:02

decisions about, like, how to live life,

54:04

right, and how to do well, to

54:06

kind of reach for perspectives that may not be intuitive to mine,

54:08

realize I probably don't have the whole

54:10

picture. And,

54:12

yeah, it is a form

54:14

of doing your own research, but I think in a more good way than that

54:17

term has often

54:18

used. Howard Bauchner: Yeah, I mean, I think that's

54:22

really well said and so valuable to think about

54:24

humility as as an aspect of this

54:26

because we see a lot of and

54:28

again, you know, this has become my bugbear

54:32

as I researched my book and looked at, you know, what are

54:34

the drivers of missing disinformation

54:36

about wellness? How do we even, you know,

54:38

define missing disinformation first of all?

54:40

But then

54:42

what has driven those to be so prominent in the wellness

54:44

space and really seeing the role that social

54:46

media and algorithms have played

54:48

in driving that. You know, like,

54:51

I think my own, you know, I talk about

54:53

this in the book like that my

54:55

own discourse and rhetoric became

54:58

more polarized

55:00

and more black and white by virtue of the

55:02

algorithms rewarding that, you know, just

55:04

seeing what worked on social media and thinking,

55:06

okay. Like, these more

55:08

nuanced memes don't try get as

55:10

much traction. These ones that are much

55:12

more black and white, and this wasn't even really

55:14

a conscious decision, you know. It was just

55:16

something that happened over the years. Right? That

55:18

the the stuff with fewer filler

55:20

words and more concrete

55:22

sort of black and white language tends to get

55:24

more likes and more shares, more traction,

55:26

and more angry comments as

55:28

well. Right? And there's this notion of,

55:30

like, if you're provoking angry comments

55:32

or if you're creating controversy, then you're doing something right. And it's

55:35

like, I'm not that kind of person,

55:37

actually. I don't like creating controversy.

55:39

That's not my personality

55:42

and so to feel at the center of that a lot

55:44

of times has been just like

55:46

very overwhelming and scary

55:48

for me in some cases. And, you know, looking

55:50

at the ways in which the platforms

55:52

actually drove me to this sort

55:54

of way of relating that maybe wasn't

55:56

what I had intended or what I

55:59

really stand for and, you know, trying

56:01

to figure out how to be more nuanced and

56:03

thinking about these issues and step away

56:06

from social

56:08

media. And not let that influence my writing or my speaking

56:10

as much has been really helpful to me, I

56:12

think, and is an ongoing

56:13

project, of course. I think that's such a

56:16

good point and you have a bigger social

56:18

media following than I do, but I feel

56:20

like I've noticed that in the same way.

56:22

And that's also, like, I don't separate from

56:24

controversy, but, like, I feel like if I have

56:26

a brand, it's Nuance.

56:28

Right? And so I

56:30

am not

56:32

my thoughts that I feel are most

56:34

worth sharing or, like, could actually add something are not best articulating.

56:36

And then, like, can you believe

56:40

it, outraged, tweet or etcetera or some, like,

56:42

you know, on Instagram, more some,

56:44

like, receptor instruction

56:46

on, like, how to live

56:48

or how to feel, which I feel like do

56:50

do really well in that way.

56:52

And I see people honestly who I

56:54

respect. I feel though sort of off the

56:56

rails in this way. And I'm like, you actually this

56:58

way? Or are you just, like, courting

57:00

likes, you know? And I think that's

57:02

kind of pathetic. And it's actually made

57:05

me I it's in part it's because I I

57:07

was done with this book, and so I have a little

57:09

bit more writing space, but I have

57:11

been writing a lot

57:14

more, like, in real outlets in order to

57:16

have a thousand words or two thousand words

57:18

to actually make a point. And I

57:20

feel like for me,

57:22

that is and I'm lucky to have that

57:24

access, but, like, that

57:26

is a more effective way to make

57:28

a good

57:30

contribution because I don't know. I mean,

57:32

I tweet a lot and I share things on Instagram, but I find, like, on Instagram,

57:34

I share very just, like,

57:37

Hi. I'm doing this thing. Come to this event or, like, here are my kids

57:40

or in stories. I'll share articles and

57:42

stuff. But, like, on Twitter, I

57:44

share things, but it's not the

57:46

best place

57:47

kind of have nuanced conversation in part because

57:50

people are so out for blood. Oh,

57:52

totally. It's so it's so

57:54

hard. It's not a place for

57:56

Nuance conversation at all in my experience and

57:58

that, you know, I think the the

58:00

platform generates that too because I

58:02

definitely know people in real life who

58:04

I'm like, you're not like that in in your offline

58:06

persona. You know, this persona that you have

58:08

online is like this heightened

58:10

version of you know, maybe you're a

58:12

little bit edgy or something in real life, but

58:14

you're like this edge lord on

58:16

Twitter or you're much more

58:18

nuanced in conversation when we have time to

58:20

like really flesh out an

58:22

idea. And then on social media, it's just

58:24

very black and white. And I've

58:26

also seen people sort of driven to

58:28

the edge by you know, driven kind of up a wall by

58:30

this, by the way that the algorithms

58:32

push controversy and push people

58:34

into sort

58:36

of debates and and not even just debates but flame

58:38

wars with each other and getting so obsessed

58:40

with kind of like the Internet fight

58:42

that they're in of the day. And

58:45

not being able to step away from it. And I've had

58:47

little moments like that myself. I've never really,

58:49

like I've certainly been sucked

58:52

into, like, unwinnable debates and things

58:54

like that. I've I've tried to

58:56

avoid anything majorly controversial,

58:58

but still it's it's happened and it's made

59:00

me feel awful and, you know, really

59:02

impacted my mental health in a negative way.

59:04

And I've started to feel like, okay, what's

59:07

the common denominator here? Every time

59:09

I open this app is I start to feel

59:11

this way, you know. And that is where

59:13

I think this sort of, like, idea of a mind body connection and thinking

59:16

about -- Mhmm. -- you know, well-being

59:18

holistically really can come into play.

59:20

It's like, how am I feeling my

59:22

body right now? What is this triggering

59:24

for me? You know? And and is

59:26

this the best environment for me? Is this

59:28

something maybe I could do well to step

59:31

away from? Absolutely. I think if we

59:33

read more books than tweets and have

59:35

more in person conversations than

59:37

like Facebook, social

59:40

media, changes, we'd probably be in a much better place. Yes. Yes.

59:42

And it's hard. It's hard in

59:43

this, you know, modern era, especially

59:46

with COVID, right, having disconnected so

59:48

many of us

59:50

from in person communities and for people still who are,

59:52

you know, immunocompromised and things like

59:54

that, having to still be really

59:56

careful and avoid a lot of in person

59:58

interaction. And

1:00:00

so online has become such a more important

1:00:02

part of so many people's social lives. So

1:00:04

I get why social media

1:00:07

use kind of exploded around the

1:00:08

pandemic. And yet, I think it's really

1:00:11

had so many negative impacts on us

1:00:13

as well. I grew and one

1:00:15

other piece that I think exacerbates especially in the wellness industry, like

1:00:17

certainly in Mehlman, I would say in

1:00:20

food and

1:00:22

in this role

1:00:24

of which didn't exist, like,

1:00:26

much thirty years ago, the life coach.

1:00:28

Mhmm. All of those things, I

1:00:31

think, are really important to think

1:00:33

about in terms of the rise of social media

1:00:35

and some of its harms in

1:00:37

that it's such an

1:00:40

unregulated space Right? Like, people can rise to have such

1:00:42

influence there because all

1:00:44

they need is their media savvy. And

1:00:46

like I said before, they're kind of like

1:00:49

personal journey to impart

1:00:52

advice. And I'm not saying that we should crack

1:00:54

down with, like, you need a

1:00:56

credential to, like, tell people what you ate for

1:00:58

breakfast or, like, how many push

1:01:00

ups did that you did today or

1:01:02

whatever. I think his credential over

1:01:04

credentialing can be a real problem too

1:01:06

in connection shut out, marginalized people as it has throughout all

1:01:08

of history, especially women in

1:01:10

the care

1:01:12

industries. But I do think

1:01:14

we need to see those as

1:01:16

interconnected phenomenon. Like, you

1:01:18

would not have

1:01:22

wellness influencers for good and bad online having so

1:01:24

much influence if we had a more

1:01:26

rigorous kind of definition

1:01:28

or credentialing or process

1:01:30

of

1:01:31

some sort. For who could impart this advice. Such a

1:01:34

great point. And, yeah, I agree with the

1:01:36

overcredentialing piece. It's really tricky

1:01:38

and problematic

1:01:40

and you know, and also I see

1:01:42

so many people who do have credentials, who are getting sucked into these

1:01:44

really extreme versions of

1:01:48

their views, online and

1:01:50

in social media or views that they maybe

1:01:52

wouldn't even, you know, that didn't

1:01:54

come from the credentialing process or

1:01:56

the what they learned, but, you know, going

1:01:58

And, you know, I mean, I I didn't learn health at

1:02:00

every size or intuitive eating in school either. So I I get

1:02:03

it, you know, I think we discover

1:02:06

things and might find a niche that works

1:02:09

for us after school and sort

1:02:11

of beyond the credentialing process. And some of that

1:02:13

is good. You know, I

1:02:16

do think intuitive eating is really a

1:02:18

wonderful practice. I still really stand by

1:02:20

it, but I also think, like,

1:02:22

because lack

1:02:24

of regulation, there can be even credentialed

1:02:26

people who, you know, have views that

1:02:28

are very

1:02:29

polarizing, very extreme, and not

1:02:31

necessarily evidence based. Yeah.

1:02:34

No. I absolutely agree. It's it's

1:02:36

thorny, but yeah, I absolutely agree that,

1:02:38

you know, not all knowledge needs

1:02:41

being premature of like, you know, a peer reviewed study

1:02:43

or a university credential, but that does

1:02:46

count for something too. Yeah. I think it

1:02:48

counts for a lot, especially, you

1:02:49

know, just in thinking

1:02:52

about, like, how do we separate out these sort of

1:02:54

other phenomena that are so unique or

1:02:56

so so universal to humans,

1:02:58

I think, of, like, you

1:03:01

know, the placebo effect or the natural history of disease or all those

1:03:03

sort of related things, you know,

1:03:05

I think giving individual's

1:03:08

journey that they're sharing on social media,

1:03:10

like more credence in some cases

1:03:12

than scientific studies. You know, I I

1:03:14

know that I've definitely heard people say

1:03:17

that they believe thing more because they think it's

1:03:19

less influenced, it's less bought, it's

1:03:22

less embedded with the pharma

1:03:24

industry, the medical industry that they want nothing to

1:03:26

do with. Not realizing

1:03:28

how individuals can also be

1:03:30

influenced and pushed in certain directions and

1:03:32

maybe not necessarily by a huge industry like

1:03:34

that, although in some cases. Yes, if

1:03:36

it's the food industry paying you to say

1:03:38

anti diet stuff, which is just

1:03:40

horrifying. But, you know, it it just all makes

1:03:42

me think like, we need to

1:03:44

take everything we see

1:03:46

online, especially on social media with a

1:03:48

huge grain of salt and

1:03:50

maybe not not base our life decisions around that, you know, which is

1:03:52

so much easier said than done, and I know so

1:03:54

many people lack access to a good healthcare

1:03:56

team that

1:03:58

could advise them in a better way.

1:04:00

And, you know, there's all the issues around around that. But

1:04:02

to whatever extent, I think it's

1:04:05

possible for you if you can have more in

1:04:08

person support or, like, even

1:04:10

virtual online support that's one on one

1:04:12

versus, public

1:04:14

context of social media where, you

1:04:16

know, the algorithms are really influencing and

1:04:18

shaping what you see and what people

1:04:19

say, I think that would be to

1:04:22

the good. Absolutely. I

1:04:24

mean, this is how I just think, like,

1:04:26

sustained human contact. And again, not

1:04:28

everyone can have it ever or

1:04:30

right now, but especially around

1:04:32

making really important intimate decisions

1:04:34

about your body and your health and

1:04:36

your mind. Like, you know, we were talking

1:04:38

narcissism early on. And I think sometimes like personal

1:04:41

care for lack of a

1:04:43

better overarching term, can

1:04:46

be sort of dismissed as just like a leisure

1:04:48

pursuit. And of course, it's a luxury to

1:04:50

think about the way you move your body and

1:04:52

the way nourish your body. But, like,

1:04:54

this stuff is really important, you know,

1:04:57

and they think that we should

1:04:59

not be shy about saying

1:05:01

that and really encourage, you know,

1:05:03

our certainly, our policy makers

1:05:05

to make create policies that

1:05:07

may get more accessible to get good

1:05:09

advice in this regard. But so

1:05:11

people, like, yeah, it's worth talking to a few

1:05:14

people about the health decisions you make. It's probably

1:05:16

worth getting out of your house and going to an

1:05:18

appointment if

1:05:20

you can. And I think that that can sometimes fall by the wayside. We're

1:05:22

all busy and or

1:05:24

constrained in various

1:05:25

ways. Mhmm. And it's again,

1:05:28

so messy and tricky as we've said in this

1:05:30

-- Yeah. -- this conversation many

1:05:32

times. Right? That there's so many systemic

1:05:34

barriers to that as well. Mhmm.

1:05:36

And so

1:05:37

Well, Natalia, I could talk to you forever

1:05:39

about this stuff.

1:05:39

No. No. It's

1:05:40

really been fun. Can you tell us

1:05:43

about your book and where people can find

1:05:45

it and learn more about you? Absolutely. So my book

1:05:47

is Fit Nation, the gains in pants

1:05:49

of America's exercise obsession.

1:05:51

It is out anywhere

1:05:53

books are sold. So you can get it at that

1:05:56

big retailer. I know you know, but also

1:05:58

your independent booksellers or

1:06:00

directly from the press at University of

1:06:02

Chicago press. You follow

1:06:04

me on Twitter or

1:06:06

Instagram or any of the other platforms too.

1:06:08

And if you're in New York, come take

1:06:10

class with me. I do speaking all over the country too, so you can find

1:06:12

me on those

1:06:13

platforms. You wanna talk more about that? Thank you

1:06:15

so much. It's been such a pleasure

1:06:17

talking with you. Likewise,

1:06:21

thank you. So that's

1:06:23

our show. Thanks again so much to

1:06:25

Natalia Mailman Mehlman for that

1:06:28

great conversation. And thanks to you

1:06:30

for listening. This episode was brought to you by my upcoming book The Wellness Trap.

1:06:32

Break free from diet culture, disinformation,

1:06:34

and dubious diagnoses, and

1:06:38

find your through well-being, which is available for pre order now

1:06:40

and comes out on April twenty five

1:06:42

and features some quotes

1:06:44

from Natalia So you can go to

1:06:46

christy harrison dot com slash the wellness

1:06:48

trap to learn more and preorder the

1:06:50

book. That's christy harrison dot com

1:06:52

slash the

1:06:54

wellness trap. If you're looking for help healing your own relationship with

1:06:56

food, grab my free audio guide,

1:06:58

seven simple strategies for finding

1:07:00

peace and freedom

1:07:02

with food, which is available at christy harrison dot com slash

1:07:04

strategies. If you want full show

1:07:06

notes and a transcript of this episode,

1:07:08

just go to christy harrison dot com slash

1:07:10

three ten.

1:07:12

And to get the

1:07:13

transcript, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page enter your email address.

1:07:16

Big thanks as always

1:07:16

to our editor and sound engineer,

1:07:19

Mike La Land. Community and

1:07:22

content associate, Vinci Chuay, an

1:07:24

administrative assistant, Wojtaszek,

1:07:26

for helping me out with all the moving parts

1:07:28

that go into producing this show. Our album

1:07:30

art was photographed by Abby Moore

1:07:32

Photography, and logo was designed by Melissa

1:07:34

Alam. Our theme song was written and performed by

1:07:36

Carolyn Penny

1:07:38

Packer Rigs. And I'm your host and

1:07:40

producer, Christie Harrison. Thanks again for listening and until next time,

1:07:44

stay site.