Speaker 1: Hey there, welcome to Healthy Ish. Thank you for joining
Speaker 1: us today on this Body and Soul podcast. I am
Speaker 1: Felicity Harley.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: A recent report published by Women's Health Victoria landed on
Speaker 1: our desks here at Healthy Ish and we were pretty
Speaker 1: worried about some of the findings. It is called the
Speaker 1: Labia Diversity Report, and overall it has found increased rates
Speaker 1: of labia and volver anxiety. To tell us more about
Speaker 1: the findings, I am joined today by Kate Johnston Utter Utter.
Speaker 1: She's a manager policy, health promotion and Advocacy at Women's
Speaker 1: Health Victoria. Now listening to our chat on extra Healthy
Speaker 1: Ish as well, where she shares more about the current
Speaker 1: state of women's health. That was a really interesting chat.
Speaker 1: You can search for that wherever you get your podcasts. Kate,
Speaker 1: nice to have you on Healthy Today. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited to hear more about this real Body report.
Speaker 1: Tell us about it. What were some of the highlights
Speaker 1: the findings for you?
Speaker 2: Sure? So, we at Women's Health Victoria, we did a
Speaker 2: survey with Yugov in April this year where we surveyed
Speaker 2: about one thousand women and people with laber between eighteen
Speaker 2: and fifty about their thoughts and feelings and knowledge about
Speaker 2: their laber. So what we found was that on the
Speaker 2: good news was it about a third of our respondents
Speaker 2: so happy and comfortable with their laber and had no
Speaker 2: concerns about the appearance or anything like that. However, about
Speaker 2: one in six had negative feelings unfortunately, so they were
Speaker 2: worried about the appearance. They felt ashamed or that there
Speaker 2: was something wrong with the way that they look. And
Speaker 2: when we drilled down into the findings a bit further,
Speaker 2: we found that this was particularly heightened among our younger
Speaker 2: women and people with laber, so the gen Z's or
Speaker 2: eighteen to twenty four, and about nearly a quarter of
Speaker 2: those young people had real concerns and associates of their
Speaker 2: labia with words like weird or disgustingly, which was really
Speaker 2: sad to hear.
Speaker 1: So I suppose the big question is why not just
Speaker 1: gen Zs but everyone else? Why the hang ups? I
Speaker 1: suppose is that hey, you call it with our labia?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I think that there's a couple of things.
Speaker 2: The first one is that we just actually as women,
Speaker 2: don't have good information about what labia should look like.
Speaker 2: It's not doesn't tend to be covered in sex ed
Speaker 2: at school. Many of our health professionals themselves don't get
Speaker 2: information when they're doing their training, so they are not
Speaker 2: aware unless they work specifically in women's health. And also,
Speaker 2: as you would know and your listeners, with no pornography
Speaker 2: and the online environment are really important influencers now in people,
Speaker 2: and that's what came out in the survey. We've found
Speaker 2: about one in five gen Z respondents get their information
Speaker 2: about what labia should look like from online pornography. So
Speaker 2: that's an environment where a lot of the laba that
Speaker 2: people see are either airbrushed or the performers have had surgery,
Speaker 2: and so there's a kind of very idealized appearance where
Speaker 2: it's very neat and tucked away like the barb you
Speaker 2: look as they say, but that's just one type of LaBier.
Speaker 2: In fact, over half of labia have the labia manora,
Speaker 2: which is the inner labia extend below the outer labia.
Speaker 2: So that's completely normal. But unfortunately, because we don't have
Speaker 2: good information and people awareness of what is normal, people
Speaker 2: wrongly think that there's something wrong with them.
Speaker 1: It's interesting when you were saying that I mean I
Speaker 1: worked in magazines for many years around women's health many
Speaker 1: of the years, and back in the Cosmo days, I
Speaker 1: remember running a sealed section on volvers and what we
Speaker 1: call them vaginas back then, and I think that helped
Speaker 1: normalize what a labor looks like for me because I
Speaker 1: was just exposed to all these different pictures of books,
Speaker 1: like which you've done with your fantastic labor library, which
Speaker 1: I love, love, love love listeners, go and have a look.
Speaker 1: Tell us about this and why it has been so successful.
Speaker 2: So the Laber Library has well, it's actually been around
Speaker 2: for ten years. We just didn't update to coincide with
Speaker 2: the Real Bodies Report, so we've expanded. Our Focio gallery
Speaker 2: now has one hundred and four images in there, so
Speaker 2: that's fifty six models, so there's a front and a
Speaker 2: below image from each one, and we also have extensive
Speaker 2: information on the site as well, so that's all been
Speaker 2: fully updated to be current with current research. So that
Speaker 2: tells you lots of information about like the anatomy of
Speaker 2: the volver and the laber functions. You know what's normal
Speaker 2: and what isn't in terms of health issues and things
Speaker 2: like that, and where to go for more information. It
Speaker 2: also has some fantastic resources for parents who might be
Speaker 2: concerned about their child or their childs come to them
Speaker 2: with a concern, as well as resources for health practitioners
Speaker 2: and sex ed providers. So it's a wealth. It's a
Speaker 2: treat to show of information.
Speaker 1: What if we are concerned about I mean, there's no normal.
Speaker 1: I think that's the main thing, the main message in
Speaker 1: its no nor It's comes in many different shapes and sizes,
Speaker 1: as we do as humans, exactly if we are suffering
Speaker 1: from hang ups, if we're questioning it, if we don't
Speaker 1: you know, if it comes to sex and we don't
Speaker 1: want to show it, and when we're embarrassed about it,
Speaker 1: what can we do?
Speaker 2: So I think that firstly, obviously go and visit the
Speaker 2: labybr just tup that into your browser, I think them
Speaker 2: and we get great responses from people. There's a little
Speaker 2: feedback form there and even since the update we've had,
Speaker 2: like you know, we gets over like eighty percent of
Speaker 2: respondents saying this really helped them with their knowledge and
Speaker 2: awareness and the way they feel about themselves. So that's
Speaker 2: a great place to start. So if you've visited the
Speaker 2: Laber Library and you still have concerns or you have
Speaker 2: any discomfort or anything like that, then obviously go and
Speaker 2: see a health practitioner. If you're feeling like your doctor
Speaker 2: isn't comfortable discussing this or doesn't have the knowledge that
Speaker 2: you're looking for. I feel I think you should be
Speaker 2: encouraged to shop around because you know, like any service
Speaker 2: provider doctors very until you find somebody who does really
Speaker 2: know what you talking about and is happy to have
Speaker 2: that conversation with you. And then the other piece of
Speaker 2: advice we give to people is that if you are
Speaker 2: of an age where you're consuming pornography, you know there
Speaker 2: is more diverse imagery out there. You just have to
Speaker 2: sometimes put a bit more effort into looking for it. Though. Yeah,
Speaker 2: be aware that there is imagery out there that is
Speaker 2: a bit more varied and realistic.
Speaker 1: What about changes? Can changes happen to your labia throughout
Speaker 1: your life? Tell us a bit about this.
Speaker 2: Yes, so when you go through adolescents and puberty, obviously
Speaker 2: your laby a change a lot, and so that can
Speaker 2: be an issue too sometimes because it's quite like there's
Speaker 2: a trend towards removing pubic care now. Often when people
Speaker 2: remove their pubic care in their teenage years, they might
Speaker 2: have a mental image of what they look like as
Speaker 2: a child, and their bodies look different because of all
Speaker 2: of the hormonal changes, So that's something to be aware of.
Speaker 2: Then obviously, pregnancy and birth can change your labia. So
Speaker 2: during pregnancy, your labia may increase in size and appear
Speaker 2: more swollen and darker in color because of the hormones,
Speaker 2: and then after birth they will generally return to their
Speaker 2: pre pregnancy state, but there can be permanent changes, like,
Speaker 2: for example, if you experience any injuries to your labor
Speaker 2: during birth that might leave some scarring. And then there's
Speaker 2: changes again later in life during the perimenopause in the
Speaker 2: sort of late forties for most people and after menopause
Speaker 2: where the inner laba may change color and become a
Speaker 2: bit thinner, And similarly the tissues of the vulva andlining
Speaker 2: of the vagina can become a bit thinner as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the big takeaway I think for me is
Speaker 1: just look at the labiers in the library and it
Speaker 1: will help will reassure you that it's all okay.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's right. I think when you look in the
Speaker 2: and yeah, everybody who guys they're basically is like, oh,
Speaker 2: I had no idea, so very much incare and it's
Speaker 2: a really it's presented in a very kind of like
Speaker 2: non sexualized way. It's very safe and you know, lots
Speaker 2: of really useful information as I said, that sits alongside it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Kate for coming on Healthy.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Folks. I highly recommend you go on and have a
Speaker 1: look at that Lavier library. I will leave a link
Speaker 1: to it in the show notes. If you did enjoy
Speaker 1: this chat, jump on tell Us rate and review this podcast,
Speaker 1: or of course you can subscribe anything else you know
Speaker 1: where to go. Bodyansoul dot com dot you follow us
Speaker 1: on socials. We have our print edition which is out
Speaker 1: in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow, stay healthy,