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Wisdom Wednesdays: The Unintended Consequences Of The Body Positivity Movement, And Why We need To Have A More Nuanced Conversation About Weight And Health · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays and
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Happy Birthday to me fifty three Today HW dedicated Am
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  Speaker 1: I doing a podcast on my birthday? The alternative explanation
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  Speaker 1: is how shit is my adminton that I'm doing a
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  Speaker 1: podcast on my birthday? But hey, whatever one you want
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  Speaker 1: to go with, we are here today. I want to
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  Speaker 1: talk about unintended consequences, and I'm going to talk particularly
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  Speaker 1: about the unintended consequences of the body positivity movement. So,
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  Speaker 1: for those who don't know, the body positivity movement is
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  Speaker 1: kind of the opposite of fat suming, and this movement
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  Speaker 1: is about celebrating everybody type and everybody ship and it's
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  Speaker 1: undoubtedly played a pretty crucial role in challenging unrealists the
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  Speaker 1: beauty standards and promoting self love for all body types. However,
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  Speaker 1: recent studies suggest that there is a potential downside and
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  Speaker 1: it's pretty big, and that's the unintended encouragement of weight gain,
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  Speaker 1: which has been now seen and established that people are
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  Speaker 1: because of this body positivity, they're occurring less so they're
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  Speaker 1: putting on weight and that is linked to arise in
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  Speaker 1: health issues, and that includes a concerning increase in certain
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  Speaker 1: cancers amongst younger people. So a twenty twenty two study
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  Speaker 1: that was published in the International Journal of Cancer found
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  Speaker 1: a significant association between weight gain in early adulthood that's
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  Speaker 1: ages of twenty to thirty five and an increased risk
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  Speaker 1: of cancers up to ten cancers in individuals under the
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  Speaker 1: age of fifty years. And that really highlights the importance
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  Speaker 1: of maintaining a healthy weight throughout life and not just
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  Speaker 1: focusing on body acceptance in and of the moment. And
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  Speaker 1: we know that for example, I'll give you some statistics
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  Speaker 1: coorective cancer has increased in people under the age of
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  Speaker 1: fifty by roughly two percent per year since the nineteen nineties.
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  Speaker 1: And we know that breast cancer in women has also
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  Speaker 1: increased two percent a year. And then there are also
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  Speaker 1: increases in young people of pancreatic cancer, uterine cancer, kidney cancer,
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  Speaker 1: thyroid cancer, and prostate cancer. And a research study of
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  Speaker 1: forty four and different countries find that more than ten
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  Speaker 1: types of cancer increased as I said earlier, amongst young
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  Speaker 1: people under the age of fifty, and it is being
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  Speaker 1: attributed to lifestyle diseases that cause people to gain weight.
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  Speaker 1: And that's things such as per diet and lack of
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  Speaker 1: exercise that are contributing to the cancer risk. And in
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  Speaker 1: Australia and I are whopping twelve point five million adults
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  Speaker 1: out of a population and I think it's twenty six
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  Speaker 1: or twenty seven million are now overweight or obese. And
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  Speaker 1: that's adults, right, so our population includes kids. But we
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  Speaker 1: got twelve and a half million adults who are overweight
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  Speaker 1: are overbease, and that is two thirds of the population.
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  Speaker 1: And not only does that bring an increased cancer burden,
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  Speaker 1: but we know that there's an increase in a risk
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  Speaker 1: of whole host of chronic lifestyle diseases. So the ones
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  Speaker 1: that have been identified and by the CDC and the
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  Speaker 1: United States is Center for Disease Control where there's overwhelming
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  Speaker 1: evidence of a contribution, a big contribution or cause of
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  Speaker 1: overweight and obesity include heart disease, which is the leading
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  Speaker 1: cause of death in most advanced economies, also stroke, type
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  Speaker 1: two diabetes, sleep apnea, and osteoarthritis, as well as all
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  Speaker 1: of those cancers. And the other thing is the economic impact,
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  Speaker 1: which is really quite staggering. So a twenty nineteen study
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  Speaker 1: in the National Institute of Health Journal estimated that the
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  Speaker 1: annual medical costs associated with overweight and obesity in the
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  Speaker 1: US is a staggering one hundred and seventy five billion
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  Speaker 1: dollars a year. And this it's not just the US.
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  Speaker 1: This burden is felt globally and the healthcare systems in
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  Speaker 1: countries like Australia, the UK, and many other developed nations
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  Speaker 1: are struggling under the weight unintended of obesity related illnesses.
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  Speaker 1: And it has been predicted that in the next twenty
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  Speaker 1: years the healthcare system is going to cause Western economies
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  Speaker 1: to collapse. So this is a big problem and it's growing.
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  Speaker 1: And the body positivity movement has unintended consequences because people
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  Speaker 1: are just accepting that they can be of any we
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  Speaker 1: it and this is actually driving a lack of positive
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  Speaker 1: lifestyle habits. So I get the tension here, but I
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  Speaker 1: think there needs to be a little bit of a balance.
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  Speaker 1: Rather than just saying hey, it's okay to be any
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  Speaker 1: type of body shit, we should be alerting people to
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  Speaker 1: the health risk and saying yes, there is a balance
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  Speaker 1: that has to be played here. We don't all have
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  Speaker 1: to be skinny, but you do need to be fit,
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  Speaker 1: so we know that you can be skinny and unfit,
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  Speaker 1: but you can be fat and fit or overweit and fit,
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  Speaker 1: and that is really really key because we know that
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  Speaker 1: people who are overwit but fit actually have a lot
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  Speaker 1: lot less risk of all of these different lifestyless diseases
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  Speaker 1: and are going to put a much less burden on
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  Speaker 1: the overall healthcare system which everybody is going to have
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  Speaker 1: to pay for. So I think that this body positivity, yes,
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  Speaker 1: it needs to encourage accepting your body for what it is,
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  Speaker 1: but not just willy nilly and actually saying well, I
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  Speaker 1: have to try to be fit as well, and I
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  Speaker 1: should be eating healthy foods because health is really important.
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  Speaker 1: And yes, not everybody can be skinny, and not everybody
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  Speaker 1: should be skinny, but we still should be having a
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  Speaker 1: big focus on health and healthy habits, which means good nutrition,
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  Speaker 1: regular exercise, and overall well being including sleep, hygen and
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  Speaker 1: all of those things, and obviously not just focusing on
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  Speaker 1: weight loss. And to bring home that point, we know
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  Speaker 1: that the guidelines for physical activity in Australia for young people,
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  Speaker 1: which is kids and teenagers, is sixty minutes a day,
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  Speaker 1: and only two percent of teenagers actually hit that sixty
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  Speaker 1: minutes a day. So I think there needs to be
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  Speaker 1: as well as as having a promotion of body positivity,
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  Speaker 1: doing it in tandem with saying we really need to
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  Speaker 1: be much more active, we need to stop eating ultra
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  Speaker 1: process shit, and yes, the focus shouldn't be on your way,
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  Speaker 1: but there should be a big focus on actually being
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  Speaker 1: fit and healthy because it also plays into mental health
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  Speaker 1: as well. And I haven't even talked about mental health
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  Speaker 1: uses because that is going to be another podcast. So
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  Speaker 1: in conclusion, I think the poly positivity movement has been
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  Speaker 1: a good thing, but it shouldn't come at the expense
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  Speaker 1: of our health, and we need to have a much
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  Speaker 1: more nuanced conversation that says, yes, we don't have to
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  Speaker 1: em for these unrealistic things, but we also shouldn't just
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  Speaker 1: give up, and we should be really focusing on being
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  Speaker 1: fit and eating a healthy diet and leading healthy lifestyles
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  Speaker 1: and because otherwise everybody's going to pay for it, and
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  Speaker 1: the entire developed nations around the world as well as
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  Speaker 1: some developing nations are actually going to go bust if
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  Speaker 1: we don't do something about it. So that's it for
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  Speaker 1: this week, folks, Catch you next time.