Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1213 - Your Daughter Doesn't Need Another Mirror With Dr Renee Engeln

Transcript

#1213 - Your Daughter Doesn't Need Another Mirror With Dr Renee Engeln · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is doctor Justin Coulson, dad to six daughters,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: author of six books about raising happy families, and when
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I began researching for my book Misconnection, it became pretty clear,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: very quickly that body image was an enormous issue between
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and teen girls. In fact, for women generally. The anxiety
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the body image causes our daughters is a byproduct of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the world we live in, where women are judged on
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: their appearance in a way that men simply don't experience. Well,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: my guest today is doctor Renee Engeln. She's the author
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of one of my favorite books, Beauty Sick, How the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: cultural obsession with appearance hurts girls and women. Doctor Engeln
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University in Illinois,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: where she directs the Body and Media Lab. Renee's work
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: has been published in numerous academic journals, and she's a
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: regular contributor to The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and the Huffington Post. Her ted X talk from the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: University of Connecticut has racked up almost seven hundred thousand
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: views on YouTube. So when you finish this podcast, look
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: up that one as well. It's so worth watching and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: make sure you grab a copy of Beauty Sick, How
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the cultural obsession with appearance hurts girls and women. It's
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a fabulous book when it comes to psychology and how
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: girls and women view their physical appearance. I don't think
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: that there's anyone more qualified than Professor Renee Engeln. I
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: began by asking her what work in family life looks
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: like for her.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Well, let's see, I'm a psychologist, I'm a buddy image researcher,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: and I'm a professor at Northwestern University, which is in Evanston, Illinois,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: just just north of Chicago, Illinois. And what else am I?
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I'm an aunt to a wonderful niece and nephew who
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: came along kind of leader in my life, and that
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: has been an absolute joy.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: There four and almost two.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Oh so they're really little. They're little.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're little.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And I've never I have to say this is going
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: to be a horrible thing to say on a podcast
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: focused on parenting, but I've never really liked babies. I
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: find them kind of terrifying and sticky, and they don't
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: hold their heads up, and they've always been scary. And
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: when I knew my brother was you know, he and
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: his wife were having children, I thought, what if I
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: don't love them?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: But no I do.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I love them more than I thought it was possible
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: to love. So it's been full of joy and also
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: just interesting for me to learn how to connect with
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: these these little people that have been such a good
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: part of my life.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm totally with you on the floppy neck thing that, Yeah,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: that really bothers me. But for some reason, especially when
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: they you're blood. I mean babies generally, you know, you
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: see them in, they out, but when they blood, when
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: they related to you, there's something that happens, is there.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Everyone said it would feel different, and I didn't believe them,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: but yeah, there's something powerful there that they're an extension
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of my brother, my love so much and and you.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I've always been teased like I like tweens and teenagers.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: So about the time that children really start to drive
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: their parents crazy, I'm always like, send them to me.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: I got them, Like, I really like that.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I like their anger and their intensity and all that.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So you can say that. You can say that because
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: you're not the mum, right, The mums are like, ah,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: that'll be the cool artie, this will be fun.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, send them to me. I have a number of
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: friends who say, will you talk to my daughter?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, yeah, Sana, Yeah, game on, tut
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: talk about how terrible you are.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Well, well, Renee, We're going to cover in this conversation
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: body image because that's your area, this is your absolute fascination,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about how to fix the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: youngest children right through to tweens, teens, and even adults.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: The mums and dads who are participating in this conversation
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: and listen to what we have to say. So a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: little over a year ago, I read a book that
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: it just absolutely captured me. I wrote it on my list.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I keep a spreadsheet of all the books that I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: read each year. I'm a little bit. It's just because
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: my bookshelf's kind of full of books, and sometimes I
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: forget which ones that I loved and which ones I
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: didn't or what was in them. And so I've got
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: this spreadsheet where I title author, what did I give
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: it out of five, and a bit of a spiel
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: about how I enjoyed the book. I'm so glad you
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: think that's funny.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: So anyway, my dear, I'm getting a live book review,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: and the nerdiest way, ever, I like it.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: This is who I am. Your book was a five
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: star book. It was pretty much my book of the year.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I think that one and a book by Todd Rose
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: from Harvard called The End of Average Was that were
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: my two books of I think it was twenty eighteen.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I just loved Beauty Sick, which is the name of
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: your book, Beauty Sick, and I gained a sense of
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: perspective that I just can't describe. So I'm a male,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I've never had the kinds of questions about my body
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that you describe women experiencing. Now I haven't told you
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: something about me as well, and that is that my wife,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Kylie and I are the parents of six daughters.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Oh what are their age rangers?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Our eldest has moved out, she's married, she's in her
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: early twenties, and then we've got one who is finishing
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: her senior year of high school. She's about to be eighteen.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: We've got one who's sixteen in grade ten, and then
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: we've got one in grade seven, one in grade five,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and our baby is in her first year of school.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: So all girls. So as I was reading your book,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I saw things in a new light. I just didn't
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: know that females felt the way you described when it
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: comes to their bodies and the pressure that they feel
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: around their bodies. Even with my wife, I never saw that. Now.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: What's really interesting about that is when I first went
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: on a date with her, I think it was pretty
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: much our first proper date. We walked into a chicken
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and chip shop. You don't really have them so much
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: in the United States. I've found where you buy the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: barbecued chicken and a whole lot of hot you call
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: them fry, we call them chips. We've got these places everywhere.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: We call them things like charcoal chicken. And so you
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: go in and you order your chicken, your chips, and
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: your salad or your chicken fries and salad, and it's
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: all really fresh, and go out and sit on the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: beach and eat it or whatever it might be. So
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I've walked in and I've ordered a chicken and a
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: couple of dollars worth of chips, and then I looked
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: at Kylie and I said, what do you got to order?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And she thought that was funny because she thought I
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: was going to share my chicken and chips with her,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and I was like, no, no, no, I'm eating the chicken
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and the chips. What do you go to order? And
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: she said, for the first time in her life, she
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: was able to relax on a date because she could
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: see that I didn't care what she ate, because she
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: was never going to be able to eat even close
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to what I ate. In fact, she said, it was
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the first time she'd been on a date where she
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: ate more than a little bit of salad.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: I'll just have a salad, right.
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  Speaker 2: So many women they go home hungry and then they
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: eat in private afterwards.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And your book kind of opened up this world of
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: what it must be like to be female and to
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: be worried about body all the time. Now, as it happened,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: as I was reading your book, I was writing a
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: book about teen girls, and it influenced the questions that
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I asked them in the way that I was able
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to write about their answers. And I found it just
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: so helpful and so extraordinary. But in the introduction of
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: your book, you state, and I quote, so many young
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: women today are strikingly bold in important areas of their lives,
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  Speaker 1: but still crumble in front of the mirror. They fight
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: so hard to be treated with respect, but seem at
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: least at times, to be willing to trade it all
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: in an instant if they could only remake their physical appearance.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And then you give an answer to the question of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: why that is, And this is an image for one
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: of a better word, or maybe it's the perfect word
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: that really sticks throughout the entire book. You say, quote,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: we may no longer play dress ups and pose in
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: front of the mirror the way young girls do. But
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I worry that's only because we've internalized that mirror, we
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: never actually left it behind. I mean, that is so powerful.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about this idea that the mirror is
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: on the inside.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: This is a This is a big paradox that I
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: think a lot of people are not sure how to
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  Speaker 2: wrestle with because in many ways, we've been sold a
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  Speaker 2: bill of goods.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: We've got these generations of young women who are like,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: I can do anything and I can be anything.
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  Speaker 4: And what we've seen is a co optation of that
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  Speaker 4: sense of power to sell them on beauty products and
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  Speaker 4: diet plans and tutorials and this.
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  Speaker 3: World that is completely obsessed with how they look.
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  Speaker 2: And we've sold it as empowering, right, which is which
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: is insane and what happens is that we've gone from
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: having a culture that's always looking at women, that's always
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: commenting on how they look. We've gone from that, from
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: that coming from the outside to a point where we've
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: internalized it and we do that to ourselves. So I
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: try to stay away from academic jargon, but the there's
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: a term that I always need to use, even though
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: it's jargon, which is self objectification.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: So the idea is if the world treats you like
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: an object long enough and with enough intensity that eventually
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: you see yourself that way. Right, You don't need to
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: be looking in the mirror because it's in your head,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: and so you're always monitoring how you look. You're always aware.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: It's distracting. It's distressing, right. It crops up in inopportune times.
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  Speaker 2: It keeps you from living the life that's more consistent
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: with your values. So that's what I mean when I
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: say beauty sick, is that you've got that mirror stuck
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: in your head and it's causing you trouble and it's
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: not your fault. That's always the thing I want to say.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: This is not something wrong with individual girls and women.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: It's something wrong with our culture.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Well, let's start with the culture. In fact, no, we
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: might come to the cultural stuff in just a few seconds.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about this beauty sickness. First of all,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: let's talk about young children, young girls, because when I
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: was reading in Beauty sick you set the stage by
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: starting with the youngest about children. Let's say around age five,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and you cite some research that talks about how five
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: year olds feel about their bodies. Five year old girls.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: There's a pretty large survey found that about thirty five
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: percent of five year old girls are already saying that
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: they at least sometimes engage in dietary restraint. Now, I
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: want to be clear that five year olds don't understand
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: what dieting actually is, right, So when a five year
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: old tells you that she's dieting, what she's telling you
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: is that she's already learned that this is what women do, right,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: that this is part of being a grown up, this
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: is something you think about. All of these young girls
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: are already telling us close to third saying that they're
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: comparing their bodies to women and girls they see in
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: cartoons and movies and television programs. So they're at this
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: really young age where they're just learning to use their bodies.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I'm not a developmental psychologist by training. I focus mostly
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: on teenagers and adults. I don't I'm not super expert
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: about young children. So when I started writing this book,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I actually just did some basic research on the developmental
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: stages for children. And one of the things that really
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: threw me and I read about this in the book
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: is I asked, well, okay, well, what are five year
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: olds supposed to be doing? Like what marks where a
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: five year old is? And one of the things that
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: was listed was learning how to properly use utensils a
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: spoon and fork, And I thought, these are kids that
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: don't even necessarily know how to use a fork particularly well,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: and they're already worried about dieting, hasn't even gotten great
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: at getting the food into their mouth yet, and they're
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: already trying to keep it out.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: It's it's heartbreaking, right.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: It suggests that what's happening is that a lot of
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: families are transmitting values to their young daughters that they
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: don't mean to transmit.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: I think that's a lot of what's happening.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I appreciate what you've said there at the end,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: that parents will intentioned and they don't even know very
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: often that these values are being passed on to the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: next generation from that tiny, tiny age. I wonder how
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: much of it is children actually being unhappy with their
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: bodies versus just doing what they're seeing happen in the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: environ Mum's always talking about the diet or Dad's always
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: talking about the diet, and so therefore I'm supposed to
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: be on a diet. I don't even know what a
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: diet is, but I remember when my little ones, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: in fact, I've got some video footage of my sisters.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I've got twin sisters who are a few years younger
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: than me, and I've got some really great footage of
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: them at about the age of four or five, and
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: they're running around the swimming pool. And the way I
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: describe it is they're running around. They're not wearing any
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: tops because they're only four or five, you know, they're little.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: They've got their little bikini bottoms on or the little
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: you know, their little swimwear bottoms on, and they've got
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: what I would only describe as sticky addy tummies, because
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you know how little kids, they've got the sticky addy
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: tummy and they're completely uninterested in what they look because
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: they look like because they're so absorbed in the moment.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: They're so caught up in it, and I kind of think,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: isn't that what it's supposed to be?
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean, my four year old niece loves
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: to show me. We talk only on FaceTime now because
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: we are still locked down due to COVID, but she
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: loves to lift up her shirt show me her stomach,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: right and kind of like grab it and move it around.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: And I get kind of sad already for the day that.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: She's ashamed of her stomach.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: And you might think, oh, that day won't necessarily come,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: and I think, yeah, it will, right, We haven't.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: We haven't really found a way to prevent that for
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: our girls. Yet.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: It may not be all the time, and it may
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: that be that it may not be that bad, but
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: you can bet there's a really good shot that she's
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: going to become a tween, probably maybe not until a teen,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: who doesn't like her stomach anymore. And so that joy
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: she has in her body now, I wish she could
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: keep it longer. I think it's it's it's amazing. It's
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: important too. In learning how to use your body without fear,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: right and in learning how to really inhabit your body
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: as a doing thing instead of as an object. But
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: even parents who meanwhile are already tamping this down in
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: young girls that sort of bodily joy so partially with comments,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: right when we say things like sit like a lady.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Partially And this is my big beef lately, by dressing
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: girls and clothing that doesn't allow them to move. If
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: this is a thing parents do, and I don't think
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: it's it's it comes from poor intensions at all, right,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: But there's this temptation to put girls in in dresses
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: and tights and things that make it really hard to
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: crawl and jump. Are things that where you're more likely
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: to tell them to be careful, not to get dirty,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: to sit nicely.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Just on that there's a there's a movement increasing in Australia.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So we, unlike America, all of our schools, almost all
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of our schools insist that children wear a school uniform
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: to school. But what typically happens is the boys wearing
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: a shirt and shorts. The girls will in many cases
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: be wearing a dress, or they'll be wearing a skirt,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: or they'll be wearing some item of clothing that makes
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: movement a little bit more restrictive if they want to
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: be I feel uncomfortable even saying the word now that
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: we're having this conversation, I was going to say, if
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: they want to be more boisterous, but let's change that too.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: If they want to be more active, it's very, very
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: challenging for them to do that in a way that
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: would conserve a sense of modesty, because they're wearing dresses
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and they don't want to be flashing their undies all
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the backside to everybody. And so we've had this conversation
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: building in Australia over the last year two, maybe even
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: three years, where schools are now starting to recognize that
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: perhaps it's okay for girls to wear whatever they want,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: including comfortable shorts, so long as it's within the school
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: uniform set up like this.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: And why wouldn't it be okay the fact that we
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: have to have that.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Conversation, But so many are still saying, though, it's not okay.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: This is our uniform and this is how we want
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: our girls to be. We want them to be demure
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and lady like. Can you be lady like and wear shorts?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: That's my question. I mean, I think you can.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: What does lady like me?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: And I mean ladylike means like a lady, And there
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: are all kinds of ladies out there, So I find
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I find that whole phrase really problematic because what you're
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: teaching your girls when you say that is stay small, right,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: don't take up space, don't move, don't don't learn to
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: use your body, don't stretch it, don't trust it. Instead,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: from the beginning, think of your body in terms of
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: how it looks to other people. Does it look appropriate,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: does it look modest? If you want them to look modest,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: then put them in shorts so they can move however
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: they want. Right, And when you look at infants, I
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: guess when they're a little older they start to crawl.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: It's actually quite hard for a lot of babies to
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: crawl in skirts and dresses. Right, And even that is
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: something we don't think about. I mean, just imagine it.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Imagine now trying to crawl in a dress versus pair
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: pants or pair of shorts.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: So are how we dress girls in such a way
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: that requires constant and monitoring. It has a real impact
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: on how they grow up to feel about their bodies.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: I want to come back to you your bodies for
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: other people.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go back to the conversation
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: about children. Okay, So we started with five year olds
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and how a third of them or just over a
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: third of them females. I'm guessing it wasn't the males
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: that wanted to change their bodies, by the way, it
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: was just the females that we're talking about the diet.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: What happens as they get older? Can you talk me
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: through the next sort of ten to twelve years from
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: age five through to age seventeen eighteen.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: So I'd say there's two big changes, right that happen.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: One is the introduction to social media. Now, when that
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: happens depends on the kind of choices parents make and
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: what's going on with peers and things like that. But
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: it's often tweens we're looking at who are starting to
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: get into social media.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Which adds this additional mirror.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Right, you had the mirror in your head, and now
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: you have the mirror on your phone where you're taking
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: selfies and you're looking at yourself constantly, and you're editing them,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: and you're scrolling through hundreds thousands of images a day
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: of other people, right, So that's just really turning up
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: the focus on appearance. So that's the first sort of
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: challenge that girls are running into at this age. And
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: then puberty hits, right, and the research around puberty is
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: so clear that it tends to make boys like their
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: bodies more right, It brings boys bodies more in line
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: with the ideal, tends to make them more muscular, broad
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: on their shoulders, get taller, things like that. But with girls,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: because puberty tends to increase the amount of body fat
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: you have. Despite the fact that puberty is a sign
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: of them physically becoming adult women, it actually is moving
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: them farther from the body ideal for women. And there's
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: something really twisted and wrong about that. But this is
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: the time that we see a lot of girls start
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: to have very very significant struggles with body image, some
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: of which can turn.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Into eating disorders at this age.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: And I think one of the most important findings for
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: me that's come out of the clinical psychology literature is
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: it's a study that was trying to understand why it
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: is that we see the gender gap and depression show
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: up in this sort of early adolescent place. You know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: until that point, both girls and boys get depressed about
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: the same rates, but once the girls get a little older,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: it just starts to go up and up. Right, we
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: see this big gap, and there's pretty good evidence now
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: that part of where that gap comes from is girls worried.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Girls worries about their bodies, right, how their bodies look
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: to other people, how their faces look to other people.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: Their appearance.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: So it's really this time when body image concerns that
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: could have been a distraction can turn into something much bigger,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: and I think it's something to really be on the
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: lookout for as parents.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: The second most worried about issue in my study of girls,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: and now this was not a university study. It was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a survey with a handful of interviews and some focus
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: groups with girls from my book Misconnection. Number one was
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you can guess what do you think
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: teenage girls? Number one issue was.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I'm a little biased, but right, my sense is that
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest issues is.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Body and so body image was number two.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So besides that, I would say relationships and.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Parenting, relationships with friends It was yeah, yeah, I'm worried
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: about my friends and how they see me in whether
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I've got any. And what was fascinating about that was
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: so many of them linked their relationships with friends to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: issues with appearance or you know, they wanted to be popular,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: but to be popular, they had to be hot. You're like,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: there's this explicit, unmissible link when you look at the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: when you look at the comments from girls, it's it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: an undeniable link for so many of them that they
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: literally tie their value as a human being to their
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: physical appearance. And if I look good, then I'm a
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: valuable person. But if I don't look good, I'm worthless,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I'm nothing, and nobody will like me.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: It would be incredibly hard for them to tie their
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: value to their appearance because that's what every cultural message
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: they get tells them to do. Right, that's what they've
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: been sold since they were young. Right, that their prettiness
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: and then as they get older, their sex appeal. Right,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: that that is their source of worth. That that will
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: be the ticket to success in life. It will be
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: the ticket to a happy relationship, to good peer experiences. Right,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: this is a lesson that we learn over and over again.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: It's really hard not to internalize that.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And there's there's that halo effect where I mean there's
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: so much research on this. People who are attractive get
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: a on average, an easier ride in life. They're more
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: likely to escape speeding tickets when they get pulled over
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: by the police, They're more likely to be marked better
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: in an exam, they get a better ride. There's so
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: many studies in so many different contexts now that highlight
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: that physical appearance actually makes life easier.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I would never underestimate the sort of the goods you
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: get in exchange for being sort of consistent with our
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: culture's beauty ideals.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Right, you get a lot from that.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: It's not all good, though, right You also get assumptions
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: that you're arrogant or that you're dumb sometimes right, that
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: you can't be smart and pretty.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: And I've also talked to a lot of.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Young women who felt like, yeah, it was great to
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: be identified as pretty or beautiful, but over time you
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: start to wonder if that's not all you are. And
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: then I talk to women who are heading into their
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: thirties and forties who are terrified because they are well
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: aware of the power they got from being beautiful, and
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: they're also aware that it has an expiration date on it,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: and they head into middle age thinking what's left? Right,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: once this goes, what's left?
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: You should have quote from your grandpa.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, I always worry about this because I don't
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: know if he made this up or if he got
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: it somewhere.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: I couldn't find it online. But he always used to
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: tell me. He called me Nane, and he would say, Nana,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: never be too proud of your youth or your beauty.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: You did nothing to earn them, and you can do
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: nothing to keep them.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: And I know it sounds sort of brutal, but I
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: never experienced it that way, right, what I as a
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: child growing up like that was his way of telling
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: us that, hey, this this this game was rigged. Right.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: You might have gotten some privileges. You might have them now,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: you're not going to have them forever, and you didn't
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: deserve them, you didn't earn them. Right, Be proud of
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: the things that you work for and build foundations for
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: your life that you can keep.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Right. That's I think the most important lesson there.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit of tough love advance. But it's good.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's really good. What's driving this though? So
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: can we point the finger any one main culprit?
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: So I don't think so you know, I'm not I'm
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: not interested in sort of bashing any one target.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Here.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: What I see is this collection of forces.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: You know, it's create this toxic stew that girls and
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: women are swimming around in.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: And part of those forces we help a lot.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Right when we buy into the diet industry and the
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: beauty industry, Right when we follow people on Instagram who
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: do nothing but show us.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: How beautiful they are. Right, would we encourage this kind
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: of thing? Sometimes?
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, you know what you've just reminded me. I saw
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: a picture of a dinner plate set for sale in
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a store. I saw it was I couldn't believe what
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I was reading on the plate. There are three circles. Okay,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: so there's like an inner circle drawn on the plate.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Then there's a circle halfway along the plate, and then
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: there's a circle towards the outer rim of the plate.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And there was a name for each circle. The inner
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: circle which was you know, it was representative of the
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: smallest portion size you might put on that plate. The
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: inner circle said skinny jeans, the middle one said favorite jeans.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: And then the largest circle, which you know, was out
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: near the rim taking up the whole plate, said mum jeans.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, oh, what would way we treat mothers the way
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: we treat mothers?
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: I watched you know, since we've been sort of in
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: lockdown here, I've been watching maybe a little more Netflix
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: than I should.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: And I stumbled across this show that i've It's called
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: The Baker and the Beauty.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: It was just this little like families sitcom, and there's
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: a young woman in it who has this line because
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: she's pressuring her boyfriend to get married, and she said,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I'm a woman.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: This is what we do.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: We diet, we get married, we have children, and then
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: we diet again. And I was just oh, So there
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: was just a silly little show, right, But there was
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: something about that line. It's like, Yeah, for a lot
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: of women, that's their life, right. You become a mom
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: and then you diet because you're allowed to be a mom,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: but you're not.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: Allowed to look like a mom.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: This this pressure to have the body of a twenty
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: year old for the rest of your.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Life, It's it's insane, right, It's it's a pressure that
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: has gotten absolutely worse over the years. There's not great
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: data on it, but I've talked to a lot of
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: practitioners who treat women with eating disorders, and they said
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: they're seeing something kind of unusual, which is like the
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: onset of anorexia is showing up in the thirties and forties,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: just not something you typically see. Anorexia can last a
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: very long time, but it tends to start much earlier
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: than that.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: And some of that is tied to.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: The sense that that women are feeling this pressure to
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: do everything they can, right to not look like someone
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: who would wear mom jeans, right to have the skinny
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: jeans forever, to get botox, to get fillers, to color
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: your hair, to go to ten workout classes a week,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: to constantly watch what you eat.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: It's brutal. It's brutal.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: There's got to be more to life than diet. Do
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: some things and then diet again. Right, They're just has
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so curious. I know that I kind of
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: interrupted you when I asked that initial question of what's
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: creating it? What is the culprit? And now you say,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: there's no one thing. There's this toxic stew. But I
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: wonder if we could actually name them. So we've got
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: we've got dinner plates, the rainforce, this and We've always
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: think of the media and the social media, and but
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: but are they more insidious things as well? Are there
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: things that we don't even know.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: That it Well, there's the beauty industry and the diet industry,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: which are billions of dollars a year. They're incredibly powerful,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: and they only make money if you feel unattractive, right there.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: These are products like that you'll only keep buying if they.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Don't work, right. The power of.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: These industries to capitalize on women's vulnerability is really breathtaking.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I can't tell you how many smart, educated with it
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: women will still say things like I swear for just
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: a moment, I thought that mascara was going to change
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: my life, right, Like, you just really get sold this
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: bill of goods, that this next thing is going to
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: make it all okay, right, and that the only way
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: you're ever going to feel like enough is if you
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: can look like a fitness model or look like that
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: influencer on Instagram.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: It's it's it's hard to see several.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Generations of women now never feeling like they're going to
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: be enough.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: That's a really hard thing for me to look at,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: and it's really hard for me when I find out
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: that even some grown women who are my heroes still
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: feel that way. Right, that's a really hard thing to hear.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I have people ask all the time, like, where did
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: you find all these women with body image issues to
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: talk to you for your book? And I was like,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I don't understand the question, right, I just found women.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: I didn't look for women with body issues. Just found women,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: and I talked to them about their bodies. It's all
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: you need to do.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: So young girls, tween girls, teen girls, young women, moms,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: adult women, retirees. I'm guessing that this is just a
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: pervisive thing. And again, just to emphasize, it's not a
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: man thing. In fact, let me read something. I wish
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I could read your entire book to you so that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I could take now tell me about this now, but
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: let me just read this. This was in a chapter
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that you titled just Like a Woman, and I've underlined
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Neliber whole chapter. But I just want to read this
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: bit to you. You said, think about it in this way.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: If I told you that someone in the United States
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: was about to go under the knife in the hopes
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: of reshaping their appearance, you could bet it was a
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: woman and be correct. Around ninety percent of the time. Internationally,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: eighty five to ninety percent of surgical and non surgical
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: cosmetic procedures are performed on women. If you heard that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: a young person was suffering from anorexia or bolimia, I
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: guess it was a young woman. You'd be right nine
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: times out of ten. Eating disorders and plastic surgery of
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: both complex issues. But we can't ignore gender gaps like these.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: They forced us to acknowledge that men's and women's experience
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: in this culture are vastly different in important ways. Men
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: and women are living systematically different lives when it comes
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to beauty sickness. Read a couple more lines from this
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: particular area. I know it's probably boring to you because
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: you wrote it, but it just it's so compelling. Women
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: talk about how they look more than men do. They
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: think about how they look more than men do, and
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: they're more likely than men to engage in behaviors to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: alter or improve their appearance. There's a reason no one
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: in this culture would be surprised to overhear a woman
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: saying I feel so fat and ugly. Today, we accept
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: this type of unhappiness as part of being a woman.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Over thirty years ago, researchers coined the phrase normative discontent
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: to describe the phenomenon. The term suggests that we've gotten
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to a place where it's considered normal for girls or
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: women to be deeply disappointed when they look in the mirror.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: It's the girl version of boys will be boys.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Hey, this is the first question I always get. Right,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: if I go speak.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: To any kind of group about this topic, Almost always
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: the first question I get is what about men?
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: What about boys? And So I always want to be
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: clear that boys and men.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Can absolutely have these struggles too, Right, they can happen
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: to any gender, But that doesn't mean that boys and
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: girls and men and women are living in the same
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: world when it comes.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: To these issues.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: So it's different for me.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it can happen.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: And I also I'm not arguing that it's easy to
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: be a man either, Right. I think there are pressures
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: that hit men differentially. So, for example, the pressure to
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: make a lot of money, to be powerful, to have
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: high status. Right, that is a pressure, a burden that
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: men bear much more than women do.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I think in some ways women are given more freedom
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: in those respects. But I don't think we can argue
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: that that men and women are facing the same reality
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: when it comes to a parent's focus and so. But
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: part of the issue is I study women and girls.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: That's what I do, right, so that that is my focus.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: There are people who focus on body image and men
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: and boys who are doing excellent work. So I don't
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: mean to imply that that's not important and not out there.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: But what fascinates me is as a culture, this set
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: of rules that women are just by and large expected
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: to follow without question, that we would never ask men
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: to follow. Can you imagine if we ask men to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: wear high heels or something equally uncomfortable and you know,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: inefficient when it came to walking.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Or even to remove the hair from their bodies.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And people say, well some men wax, and I
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: say absolutely right. But if you look at waxing salons,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: they'll say here's our waxing menu, and then there'll be
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: a little part that says men's services, right, So they're
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: even telling you there there's a differentiation there. It's not
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: the norm for men the way it is for women,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: at least not for straight guys, right. I do think
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: that sexual minority men face a greater degree of pressure
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: on this front. But it's everywhere built into our culture, right.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: You hear it from the minute we start talking about infants,
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: when we say such a pretty girl, such a pretty girl.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Oh look at the strong boy.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Right. It starts very young that we think about women's bodies,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: about their physicality as existing to be looked at, right,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: instead of as existing to do things.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: You know, I just remembered the story one of the
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: guys that is a TV host for one of our
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: major breakfast programs nationwide around Australia. His name is Karl Stefanovic,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: and a few years ago there was a big media
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: storm when he stepped forward and said, guess what, I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: haven't changed my suit for a year. I've worn the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: same suit and tie every single day on the television
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: for an entire year, and nobody's noticed. I've not received
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: one single email. I've not received one single comment on
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: social media. Nobody's said a word about the fact that
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I've been wearing exactly the same suit and tie and
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: the white shirt for a year. But he stepped out
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: and said it that day, because that's same day his
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: co host, who at the time was a lady, called
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Lisa Wilkinson. That day, she had been absolutely slammed with
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: hundreds of comments because people didn't like the clothing that
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: she wore on the television that day. And this was
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: a this was a regular occurrence. This happens all the time.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Because I'm on the TV. I'm following a bunch of
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Instagram accounts for the TV hosts that I'm interviewed by
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: or that I work with from time to time, and
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: whenever they post any pictures of them, the threads are
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: full of comment after comment after comment of how beautiful
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: they are. Now, they're not posting anything about their looks,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: they're not trying to look snazzy. They're simply saying I'm
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: here doing this gig, or I'm at home with the kids,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: or here's what I cooked for dinner. And nevertheless, all
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: the comments are about their physical appearance. It's almost like
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: people feel compelled to say something they don't know what
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to say, and so they comment on their looks. But
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I can tell you I've never posted a picture, ever
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: posted a picture on my Instagram or on my Facebook
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: where people have chosen to make the majority of the
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: commentary about my physical appearance. Never happened. I mean, I
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: know that I'm not the most attractive guy in the world.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: It's never ever happened. And I don't care that I'm
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: not the most attractive going in the world. I don't
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: have to be brad Pit. People don't value me for
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: my appearents. They value me for the work that I do.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: It's a super awkward place to be.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: I have to tell you I can, I can go
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: somewhere to do a TV segment or give a talk
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: on this topic, and often the first thing people will
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: say to me is something about how I look, even
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: in that moment.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Right, it still happens.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: I have an author Instagram account, which I'm not particularly
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: good at. I don't know how to do stories, et cetera,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: et cetera. But I almost never post a picture of myself.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not interested. I'm not interested in people's commentary. I'm
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: not interested in those moments where I have to worry
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: about how I look as I'm taking that picture, and
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: what's my hair doing and should I filter it or
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: should I not filter it.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: I just don't do it right. But that's a power
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: I have to be able to opt out.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: There are many people in jobs that can't opt out right,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: like a woman working in news. It's an image focused profession.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: There are there's a journalist I wrote about her a
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: little bit in Beauty Sick, Heidi Stevens the Chicago Tribune locally,
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: who's got very curly hair, like, that's it, it's just
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: curly hair. And she could write a column every year
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: with a collection of little hate mail she gets about
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: her hair, right, like, how can you leave your hair
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: like that?
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Your hair is a rat nest? How could you do that?
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: That's so unprofessional? And she's not even on TV.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: This is all just based on that little thumbnail picture
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: that you see next to a columnist. Wow, So just
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: imagine how that get gets turned up, right, And when
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: you're a woman in the public eye, and I have
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: to wonder all the time how many women would seek
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: out jobs, careers, volunteer opportunities in the public eye but
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: choose not to because they don't want that kind of
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: scrutiny about their parents. I think that's happening more than
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: we talk about.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: And your research shows that the cost to women in
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: terms of opportunity, which is what you've just described, is huge.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: But it's not just that cost. It's the cost in
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: terms of the time. You know, when I've got to
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: go and do a TV spot. I walk in. They
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: throw a little bit of makeupy sort of stuff on
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: my face. It takes about a minute and a half. Yeah,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: they go. I don't know what it is, but they
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: put some stuff on my face, which I remove as
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: soon as I'm off the TV. I get those facial
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: wipes and get rid of it. But I'm in and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: out within about a minute and a half. They have
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: a look at my hair and say, oh, that's fine.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: They don't even sit me in the chair. Whereas the
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: women who I'm often appearing on the television with, they'll
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: have to be there at least an hour ahead of
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the segment. I stroll in fifteen minutes before the segment.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I'm in, I'm out, I'm done there at least an
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: hour before they're getting their head done. They're spending all
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: that time, that time that they could be reading a book,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: or that time that they could be responding to him,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: all that time that they could be building their strategic
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: plan for their business. And it's all of that money
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: that they've got to spend. I don't spend money on
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: my appearance, but women are expected to spend money on
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the mascara that's going to change their life that you
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: mentioned for.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Just the basics, just the basic grooming. Now you're supposed
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: to get eyelashes glued on to your eyelash is once
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: a month so that it can save you time and
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: not having to wear a mask.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: Here.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: I used to get my nails done, and not only
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: did I get my nails done, but I got them
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: done like clear, so it was you know, I'm spending
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: this time and money. It's not even a color, so
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: it would be pretty low maintenance then, and my feet too.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: And I enjoyed it. I found it.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: It's like, I know, it's such a privilege we will
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: go do something like that, but it's super relaxing. But
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I found that it got to this point where I
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: would think, like, oh no, I gotta like it's been
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: it's been three weeks, I gotta get my nails done,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: and it started to feel like this burden, and I thought,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: what would happen if I just stopped?
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: And you know what happened. It It felt weird. For
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: a few weeks.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: I learned, like any reasonable human can how to file
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: my own nails, and it's one lest thing I have
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: to worry about.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Now and talking must be so much easier.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: It's just it's nice, right, It's nothing now, A pedicure
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: still feels good. I won't lie.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: But the point is you doing it because it feels good.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: You're not doing it to impress somebody. So let's move
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: towards the final part of this conversation. It's been so
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: compelling to talk with you about this, but I really
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: want to talk about what we can do to help
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: our children, both boys and girls, to get past this
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: awful belief that ties self worth to appearance. I love
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: your suggestions in Beauty Sick. You've got the back end
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: of the book is full of suggestions, and something that
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you did was so consistent with what I've read in
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: the research and what I've understood, and that is there's
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: very little point talking to our kids about how everything's
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: photoshopped and saying, you know, I don't believe what you
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: see because it's all photo shopped. Because to them, whether
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: it's fake or not, and whether they know it's fake
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: or not doesn't stop it being aspirational. You know, you're
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: still focusing on the appearance, even if you're saying, look
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: at everything and be critical of it and highlight, you
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: know where the air brushing has happened, or the forty
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars that have spent on camera and lighting and
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: equipment and people, it's still in front of them, it's
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: still being noticed. So let's start with our little ones,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you know, our three, four, five, six year olds. What
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: can parents do to use the lo likelihood that they're
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: going to be beauty focused?
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: So the thing I love to say is that they're
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: actually a few pretty easy things you can do that
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: don't cost money, and they just take some practice. And
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: one of them is I'm encourage parents to consider making
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: their home and appearance commentary free zone, right where you
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: don't talk about the shape of other people's bodies or
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: who's gained or lost weight, or who's ugly or pretty.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And that means you, that means people on TV, that
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: means peers, That means even people you don't like, right,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: even the politician you don't like. It means you know,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: body shame that person either. And so you just give
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: this like continuous, gentle message that we leave space for
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: other conversations in this house. That's not how we think
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: about people. We don't think about them in terms of
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: whether they're beautiful or not. Now, I do think you
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: need to be careful there. You don't want to move
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: so far as to say how you look doesn't matter. Right.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Racism is real, anti fat bias is real. Right, Like,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: all of these things can still be wrestled with, but
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: it means that you don't send the message to your
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: children that a part of what determines if they're good
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: or not is whether they're appealing to look at. So
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: just practice it, right. And if you have guests to
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: your home and they start saying like, oh, did you
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: see so and so last weight, just say, oh, we're
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: working really hard not to talk about those things so
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: much in this house. Do you mind if we change
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the subject?
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Right? It's a pretty easy thing to do.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: And I love thinking about all the conversations that are
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: going to happen instead.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: Right to me, that's so fun. Right. So that means
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: as a parent, you have to stop body shaming yourself.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: And that's such a big one, isn't it. As a parent,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: how do we make sure that the comments that we
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: make about our own bodies, if we go to make
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: them at all, which so many of us do, How
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: do we make sure that those comments are either positive
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: or uplifting or focused. Something that you emphasized in your
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: book that I've adopted immediately. I thought, this is so perfect.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Is when we're going to talk about our bodies, we
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: don't talk about how they look. We talk about what
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: they do, right.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: I think especially for young children, because they're learning to
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: use their bodies. Right, So encourage them to think about
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: their bodies not from this objectified perspective, not from how
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: do they look to other people, but from the perspective
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: of what do they do for you? What do they
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: allow you to experience, what do they allow you to feel.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: I've had some people say to me, oh, that's ablest, right,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: because what if you're disabled. But that's I don't mean
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: that you have to be a marathon runner to appreciate
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: what your body does. Like, our bodies do all kinds
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: of things right there. They allow for creativity and communication,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: you know, they allow us to connect with other people.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: If you have children who are into athletics of any kind, right,
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: they allow that sort of thing. Bodies are super cool, right,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: so teach your children about how cool they are, like
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: all the amazing things they can do and how they
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: can care for their bodies so that they can keep
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: doing cool things and not so that they can look
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: good to other people. Right, the best advice is to
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: just keep those conversations off the table.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: I just don't have them.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: If you were to extend that developmental trajectory from our
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: younger children into the older children, everything that you've just
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: said would obviously apply. Is there anything additional that you
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: would add to what parents can be doing to reduce
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: the focus on appearance with the tweens and teens.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: It's gonna get really hard in those tween years, right,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: and I think you have to be very careful as
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: a parent not to Here's a psychological term you've probably
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: come across a lot in your work on parenting is reactants. Right, Like,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: the minute you tell a child don't do that thing,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: they're gonna want it more. And so I think you
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: have to step away from that temptation to say, like
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: you're being vain, you're being superficial, don't follow that Instagram account,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: don't post selfies, don't do that. Right, You can't really
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: do that. You have to give children some space to experiment.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: But I think one of the best gifts you can
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: give your child as they move into those years, no
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: matter what their gender is, is room to explore all
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: the different parts of themselves, right, So ask them questions
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: about what matters to them, what's inspiring to them, what
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: they're worried about lately, what they're thinking about. I don't
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: think we ask our children enough questions as they get
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: to that age. A lot of children that age are
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: quite willing to talk if you ask the right question,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: and if you show that you're willing to listen right
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: and not butt in and tell them they're wrong and
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: try to redirect them. And I think giving tween girls
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: space to be something other than beauty queens or other
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: than people who are constantly worried about the fact that
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: they're not beauty queens is one of the best things
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: you can do. So help them develop their interests, help
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: them develop their passions, and then when they move into
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: the teenyars, here is maybe And it sound like insane
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: advice that I told you I love teenagers, and I do.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: If your daughters, in particular are struggling with these issues,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: it's time to get them angry, right.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: It's time to talk with.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Them about what a sick injustice this world does to
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: girls and women when it makes girls and women hate
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: their bodies. Right, it's time to ask them questions about
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: who benefits from that hatred, who's making money off of it? Right?
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Whose life gets better when you don't like your body,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: and whose life gets worse?
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: And what does that mean? Right?
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Teenagers, as you know, are quite angry sometimes, so to me,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: that's an opportunity, right, harness that anger. Right, let them
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: see the ways that they don't like what the world
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: is doing and set them on the path to make
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: in a better world. Right, teenagers are ready to make
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: a difference. I think we see this all around us
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: right now. We see teenagers doing amazing work, work quite frankly,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: that we should have done right, and now they're taking.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: It upon themselves. And so I think you can.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Really give space for your teenagers to turn some of
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: that sadness and that despondency into appropriately targeted anger. Give
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: them a passion, give them a cause, let them make
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: their mark on the world. I think they're way more
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: ready to do that than we give them credit for
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: great answers.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Something that stands out to me from the earlier part
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: of what you were saying is just if I was
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to restate it, I guess and reemphasize a little bit
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: of it. What I'm actually hearing you say is make
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: their world and their lives so full that they don't
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: have the time or the space to be worried about
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: how they look. And that doesn't mean overcram their curriculum
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: and the shape, but it means give them, give them
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the capacity to be developing other things, other talents, other strengths,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: other capacities, so that they're not sitting there staring at
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: their image in Instagram and trying to make it look
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: that little bit better.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Many years ago, I am so sorry I interrupted you there,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: But many years ago I tried to do a study
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: of young women who weren't hurting in this way, like
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: who felt pretty good about their bodies.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: And weren't engaging and eating disordered behaviors.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: And we found this very tiny group of them, and
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: we just did this basic interview about like what did
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: your parents do growing up and how did this happen?
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: And what they told us is that it was nothing magic, right, Like, yeah,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: they were probably a little more likely to have these
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: sort of like feminist leaning parents who were like trying
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: to do some of this deliberately, but mostly what they
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: said is it's just not something we focused on in
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: my family.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: We focused on other things. Yeah, yeah, And I think
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: that's the key.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: A friend of mine, Rebecca Sparrow, she has a great
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: following here in Australia and one of the things that
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: she emphasizes is with your tween and teen girls, go
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: through their Instagram accounts with them, go through the people
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: that they're following and get rid of all of the
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: people who are focused on fashion and appearance and instead
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: fill up your feed with artists and poets and influences
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: and people who can offer something other than a view appearance.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: And it's such a simple thing to do, and I
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: wonder how often we've done it. The big question. We've
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: talked about little ones. We've talked about a tweens and teens,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: but what about the mom who's listening right now, or
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: her husband or partner who is saying this has been
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: my wife. How does she get past this and how
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: does she make sure that she doesn't pass it on
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: to her kids, and how does a husband or partner
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: support her as she tries to get past it.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: So I've talked to so many women who they.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Kind of come to this topic a little late, and
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: they realize I've struggled with this my whole life and
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: I didn't mean to, but I passed these struggles on
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: to my daughter, and it's too late, and I blew it.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: And my message is always like, it is not too.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Late, right, if you have a tween or a teen,
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: or a young adult or even an adult daughter, it
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: is not too late. And there is something I think
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: just really beautiful about sitting down with your daughter and saying,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: I realize that these are the messages I've been sending
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: to you, right, that I haven't been happy with my body,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: and these are the ways it came out, and these
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: are the ways it might have affected you. And I
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: wonder if you want to work together with me to
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: change that, Like, here's some things I'm going to try
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: to do differently now.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: I wonder what you would think about that.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: A lot of the daughters I know would just start
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: sobbing with relief, right, They would so appreciate that kind
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: of raw honesty it is. It's not too late, right,
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: It's never too late. And if your concerns are severe, right,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: if they're really affecting your well being and your mental health,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: then I would also say, seek some help.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: If part of how they're influencing your children is because
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: the intensity of those negative emotions is so big that's
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: leaking out, right, then get some professional support in there, right,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: so that you can learn how to you know, heal
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: yourself up a little and then create a better world
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: for your children too. But it's not too late, right,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: even if you have adult chal and it's not too late,
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: And it's not too late to call your friends out either,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: to say, like, I want to do things differently. I
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: don't want the first twenty minutes of every conversation we
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: have to be about weight gain or loss. I just
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: don't want to do that anymore. I have a friend
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: who she's a junior high teacher, and she said she'll
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: have these meetings with other teachers on zoom like we're
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: doing now.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: And at the first few minutes they all fuss with like, oh.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Do I have a double chin, showing I haven't been
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: able to call her my gray that it's like this
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: intro to their meeting. It's okay to just say no
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: to that, to say like, no, I've decided I want
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: a different psychological climate for myself, and it's going to
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: start with me creating it and with me inviting the
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: people I love to create it with me. Where We're
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: just not going to spend so much time on this.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: There's so many other cool things to spend your time
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: on and your energy on.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: This has just been such a brilliant conversation.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: I've i fear I've gone into lecture, my number one mode.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I've been as absorbed in this conversation as I was
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: with your book. The book is called Beauty Sick, How
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the cultural obsession with appearance hurts girls and women. It
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: is literally one of the best books I've read in years.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: It's definitely in my top five over the last handful
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: of years, and I just loved it. I can't recommend
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: it enough. Before we wrap up, can I ask you
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: a couple of quick questions about those that Nissan nephew
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: of yours? Okay, because I always love to ask a
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: handful of questions at the end of every podcast, everyone
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: gets the same ones, rapid fire questions just about what
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: it's like to have little ones in our midst. So
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: if we asked your niece and nephew their favorite thing
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: to do with the coolest auntie ever, what would they say? Ooh.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: So my niece's around four.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: She's super into crafts and so actually for Christmas, I
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: got her this giant bin full of craft supplies and
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: that is something she loves right now. And I can't
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: wait till our pandemic lockdown is over and she and
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I can make some mess with paints. And then I
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: really miss my he's just undertoo, and my nephew. I
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: miss him so much because one of my favorite things
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: to do with him is have him cuddle up next
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: to me on the couch and read a book to him,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: and then when you finish the book, he scooches down,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: goes and gets another book, brings it back, gets back up,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: and I miss that. I miss those moments with him,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: so I can't wait to do those things again.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Beautiful. Thank you. What's been your trickiest And I don't
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: know if you would have had too many with the
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: kids being so young, but what's been your trickiest auntie moment?
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: I will say that I made a pledge never to
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: talk to my niece about her appearance, that I'm just
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: not going to do it. Figure I'll leave that to
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: other people in her life, and I'll be a different
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: place for her. But she is into Disney princess culture,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: and it is very hard for me to sort of
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: maintain an openness around that when I really don't like it.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: I really don't like those elements of the culture. And
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: when she's very excited and wants to talk to me
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: about her new princess thing and her pink tiara and
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: all of those things, I really struggle with that.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, last question for you. If you could spend an
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: hour with this little niece and nephew at any age
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: at all. Let's say that isolation finishes and tomorrow afternoon
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: at three o'clock they're coming over to spend some time
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: with you, and they're walking into the living room at
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: whatever age you can choose. What age would you pick?
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: And why?
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, I can't wait until they're you know, like twelve thirteen.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: I know this this sounds bizarre, but I love kids.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: Once they get some angst, right once they're Once they're
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: a little angry and have that intensity, and to me,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: that's such a cool window into the adults they're going
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: to become, and into what they're going to care about
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: and what their passions are. I can't I can't wait
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: until until they get a little little adolescent moody. That's
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: the age I'm interested in, and that's.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: When parents say, Auntieu are the best. Please take them
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: for a week, two weeks a year.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: Yes, my brother jokes that I will be able to
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: do at that time.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Absolutely perfect. Well, Renee, if people want to know more
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: about you and your book, Beauty Sick, where can they
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: go to get more information about this incredibly important and
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: really really smart work that you've been doing.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for the kind words. People can
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: go to Beautyseick dot com or if you're interested more
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: in the academic research side of things, my lab has
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: a website as well, which is Bartianmedia dot com and
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: if you're into Instagram, it's Beauty Underscore Sick.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing this time with
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: me and with our audience. You've been wonderfully generous and
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: shared so much.
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: It's been my pleasure. Thank you.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I hope you've gotten some insight into doctor Renee Engeln
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: as a result of this podcast. I love the quote
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: from Renee's grandfather that she mentioned earlier in the podcast.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Here is again, don't be too proud of your youth
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: or your beauty. You did nothing to earn them, and
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: you can do nothing to keep them. Isn't that great?
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: If you'd like more info about how I can help
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: your family to thrive and flourish, please visit Happyfamilies dot
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: com dotu. And as always, thank you very much to
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Justin Royland for his work here in producing the podcast
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: making it sound absolutely fabulous, and thank you for listening
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: to a Happy Families podcast