Speaker 1: I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
Speaker 1: science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 1: Today we're having a conversation that hits close to home
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. We're talking about weight, body image, identity,
Speaker 1: and self acceptance. Our guest is Ronald Young Junior, who's
Speaker 1: the host of Wait for It, which is a podcast
Speaker 1: that unpacks the complicated feelings we carry around in our bodies.
Speaker 1: And it's not just weight, but waiting, the idea that
Speaker 1: we're constantly postponing life until we hit a goal weight
Speaker 1: or fit a certain look.
Speaker 2: This conversation is going to be a little different from
Speaker 2: what you're used to here on Dope Labs. It's a
Speaker 2: lot more intimate, it's more personal, and then we'll jump
Speaker 2: into the science because there's a lot of that too
Speaker 2: with this topic.
Speaker 1: That's right, So let's go ahead and get into the recitation.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what do we know? While we know that people,
Speaker 2: especially in the US, are constantly bombarded with messages about weight,
Speaker 2: from TV to TikTok to the doctor's offices.
Speaker 1: Yes, and we also know that those messages tend to
Speaker 1: kind of frame body size as a moral issue, right,
Speaker 1: Like thenness gets tied to discipline, and then fatness is
Speaker 1: anchored to laziness. And that's just not what the science
Speaker 1: tells us. So let's talk about what we want to
Speaker 1: know in this lab. Well, for one, outside of how
Speaker 1: we physically our bodies are built, what are the forces
Speaker 1: that shape how we feel about our bodies?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And I have an inkling, But I also want to
Speaker 2: talk more about how gender plays a role in all
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 1: Yes, and not just gender tt but where you live
Speaker 1: and what do people in your family look like? How
Speaker 1: all of that plays a role. So that makes me
Speaker 1: think more about the science. And I want to know
Speaker 1: what the science actually say about health, metabolism, and weight.
Speaker 1: I think we're ready. Let's jump into the dissection. Today.
Speaker 2: We're talking to someone who has brought the conversation about
Speaker 2: weight front and center. He's done it in a beautiful way,
Speaker 2: and his work has earned multiple awards.
Speaker 4: My name is Ronald Young Junior. I'm an audio producer, storyteller,
Speaker 4: and host of the podcast Wait for It Spelled Weight.
Speaker 4: I also cover pop culture and television and film on
Speaker 4: some of my other work, including Leaving the Theater.
Speaker 1: Podcast Yes thank you for being here. Let's start with
Speaker 1: the inspiration for Wait for It? How did the show start?
Speaker 4: So like it's funny. I've recently had a breakthrough with
Speaker 4: my therapist a couple of weeks ago where I said,
Speaker 4: I think that I feel like I lived my entire
Speaker 4: life as if this box is going to open, and
Speaker 4: once the box opens, I'll then be happy. And she
Speaker 4: said to me, what if the box is already opened,
Speaker 4: which kind of like blew my mind and really started
Speaker 4: to be like, well, if the box is already opened,
Speaker 4: then I have a I guess I'm responsible for my
Speaker 4: own happiness in a lot of ways. And what I
Speaker 4: realized is that interaction that I had with my therapist
Speaker 4: is really the origin story of Wait for It, because
Speaker 4: it's a play on words obviously weight weight and weight
Speaker 4: wait and the way our relationship with our body evolves
Speaker 4: and also causes us to wait to start fully living
Speaker 4: life until we lose the weight.
Speaker 2: That whole idea of putting life on pause shows up
Speaker 2: in the research too. Studies have found that many people
Speaker 2: delay everything from dating to job applications until they've lost weight.
Speaker 2: So everything you're saying rings true. You've talked about looking
Speaker 2: in the mirror and seeing a version of yourself that
Speaker 2: isn't quite real, so not thin and not fat, just
Speaker 2: not now the gap between how we feel and what's
Speaker 2: reflected back.
Speaker 3: How do you think that gap is shaped?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's a lot of what we
Speaker 4: consume in media, like whether it's television, movies, magazines. Now
Speaker 4: social media plays a huge role into it. I've been
Speaker 4: making wait for it since twenty twenty three, but I've
Speaker 4: been I've conceived weight for it, probably in like twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one, but I've been you know, fat and or
Speaker 4: overweight for some portion of my life, like I would
Speaker 4: say the majority of my adult life. But even there
Speaker 4: were times when I was much smaller than I am
Speaker 4: now as a child and teenager, that I still wondered
Speaker 4: if my body could be or look better. And that
Speaker 4: was all based on messaging I was getting from outside
Speaker 4: of myself. And I feel like now with what social
Speaker 4: media is doing in the ways in which the body
Speaker 4: positive movement has kind of like begin to get a
Speaker 4: lot quieter, and with the onset of GLP one drugs,
Speaker 4: it feels like that gap between reality and our self
Speaker 4: actualized image just continues to get wider and wider in
Speaker 4: a way that's like completely unhealthy.
Speaker 1: When I first listened to your podcast, I thought this
Speaker 1: is very interesting for a man to be having this conversation. Now,
Speaker 1: I am a TT probably knows what this is going.
Speaker 1: I am from the South, okay, And the messages I've
Speaker 1: always received is that men are supposed to be big,
Speaker 1: Like that's just what you're supposed to be. But it's
Speaker 1: a thought. I inherit it. I never stopped to consider it,
Speaker 1: you know, And I'm curious about how you think gender
Speaker 1: plays a role into our self image.
Speaker 4: The way that I always look at this is there's
Speaker 4: this saying that came from the body positive movement that
Speaker 4: was it's okay to be bigger than your partner. And
Speaker 4: I remember I looked at that and I was like,
Speaker 4: that is that's obviously talking to women, Like it doesn't
Speaker 4: say anything about it, but like you can look at
Speaker 4: that and say, yeah, it's okay to be bigger your partners,
Speaker 4: Like yeah, they're talking about women, they're not talking about men.
Speaker 4: Because I feel like the idea that is like kind
Speaker 4: of crystallizing society is that men are supposed to be
Speaker 4: in some form, larger than the women that they love
Speaker 4: or like are in relationship with. Even if you think
Speaker 4: about in terms of the type of men that women
Speaker 4: will universally flock to or consider attractive, they're going to
Speaker 4: be over six feet.
Speaker 3: It's short kings.
Speaker 2: We know that isn't right, but that's what society tells us.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, I am partial to a short can.
Speaker 4: They're going to be like tall, broad shoulder. They always
Speaker 4: say tall, dark, and handsome. And I feel like, as
Speaker 4: a result, there is this kind of idea that this
Speaker 4: idealized form of man is always going to be large
Speaker 4: in some form, and that women are supposed to be
Speaker 4: small in some form. But also there is grace given
Speaker 4: to the ways in which your propotions work out if
Speaker 4: they are air quote curvy, like if you have the
Speaker 4: ideal shape, you know what I mean. And I feel
Speaker 4: like it's more about what the shape is for women
Speaker 4: than it is necessarily being fat or thin. Now, I
Speaker 4: want to be clear, You're still marginalized in a very
Speaker 4: specific way, and there's still like ways in which even
Speaker 4: if you have the ideal shape, there's still going to
Speaker 4: be ways in which you're not represented in media or
Speaker 4: you're not going to be seen by the people that
Speaker 4: you want to be seen by as anything other than
Speaker 4: an object of desire or something extremely sexual or whatever.
Speaker 4: You know. Like, I feel like there's all of this
Speaker 4: like nonsense that gets fed into what we think we're
Speaker 4: supposed to be with or supposed to look like. Very specifically,
Speaker 4: that is one hundred percent related to gender, but it
Speaker 4: doesn't really preclude kind of like those base levels of
Speaker 4: the ways in which we are kind of all generally
Speaker 4: fat phobic.
Speaker 1: This is so true, And all this stuff changes really quickly.
Speaker 1: I can remember the Calvin Klient ads in the nineties
Speaker 1: and early two thousands, rail thin people, and then Kirby
Speaker 1: was in in the twenty tens, okay, and now we're
Speaker 1: seeing less of the body positive movement and more of
Speaker 1: that thin, thin, thin messaging, and it feels like it's
Speaker 1: coming from every direction.
Speaker 2: I think that's such a great point. And I remember
Speaker 2: it was a few summers ago that I was talking
Speaker 2: to my father in law and I was trying to
Speaker 2: explain to him, like how social media can really impact
Speaker 2: your the way you view yourself, and he just didn't
Speaker 2: get it. You know, he grew up with you know,
Speaker 2: the Telegraph. He's not really on social media, so he
Speaker 2: doesn't really understand like how these things play a role
Speaker 2: and why it works the way that it does, like
Speaker 2: seeing someone look a certain way, how it can, you know,
Speaker 2: impact how you view yourself. And it's really hard for
Speaker 2: someone from his generation or generations who didn't have social
Speaker 2: media to understand the impact of media and cultural norms
Speaker 2: and the shame that comes from not fitting into these
Speaker 2: boxes that are constantly being put in our face saying
Speaker 2: this is the way you're supposed to look, this is
Speaker 2: how you're suposed to act, this is how you're supposed
Speaker 2: to sound. What messages did you grow up with around
Speaker 2: the whole idea of health and how have those stayed
Speaker 2: with you?
Speaker 4: First, I want to talk about your father in law.
Speaker 4: He may not have grown up with social media, but
Speaker 4: he did grow up with Jet magazine, Ebony magazine, and
Speaker 4: black spotation films, And so if he doesn't see the
Speaker 4: role that media plays in public image, especially as I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: is your father in law black?
Speaker 1: He is not?
Speaker 4: Okay? All right? So my assumption was that they were black.
Speaker 4: But my thing is, you can take any of the
Speaker 4: things that I've said and apply them to whatever the
Speaker 4: white culture was growing up in those times. So like,
Speaker 4: if you look at any of the magazines, films, and
Speaker 4: movies that were showing women back then, it's the same
Speaker 4: role that media was playing in those days. This was
Speaker 4: my bad for making that assumption. By the way, I
Speaker 4: think for me growing up, you know, I grew up
Speaker 4: I was born in the eighties, grew up in the nineties,
Speaker 4: and so I grew up with music videos, MTV, beet
Speaker 4: and not just music videos, but also television and films.
Speaker 4: And there was always there's this idea that you in
Speaker 4: television mostly there's always like some schlubby man generally that
Speaker 4: was like married to a woman who was conventionally attractive.
Speaker 4: Like there was always like, oh hot wife type thing.
Speaker 4: That messaging always was incongruent to what I actually saw
Speaker 4: in life, Like I rarely saw like I'm like, I
Speaker 4: don't really see a bunch of like fat men out
Speaker 4: here with like conventionally attractive wives in the way that
Speaker 4: it's presented to me on television. Also, it felt like
Speaker 4: in movies, I saw less fat men in movies unless
Speaker 4: they were specifically being funny or had a lot of money,
Speaker 4: Like if those two circumstances weren't there. I just saw
Speaker 4: less of them generally. And I grew up straight sized
Speaker 4: for the most part. Like I always thought I was fat,
Speaker 4: but like, if you go back, I'll show you pictures,
Speaker 4: you'll be like Ronald, you were not fat. You were
Speaker 4: definitely a straight sized child and teenager. So but I
Speaker 4: feel like I was always kind of fighting this constant
Speaker 4: battle of the bulge in my head or thinking that
Speaker 4: I needed to have a barrel chest and be like
Speaker 4: very like like have abs. All of that. That was
Speaker 4: the types of messaging I was growing up with, because
Speaker 4: alongside not seeing fat men, I grew up with Morris
Speaker 4: Chestnut and Tay Diggs and you know, Shamar Moore, like
Speaker 4: all of these folks that if you go into, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, the barbershop where I was reading Jet magazine magazine,
Speaker 4: like I was just like, well, obviously, this is what
Speaker 4: we're supposed to be going towards. And you mixed that
Speaker 4: with music videos. It all gave this idea of like, ideally,
Speaker 4: this is what women want and this is what a
Speaker 4: man is supposed to be. So my relationship with media
Speaker 4: was like based on the information. Again that was just
Speaker 4: constantly being a fantom me.
Speaker 1: Growing up, all the women around me were curvier women,
Speaker 1: and that's like my grandma, her sisters, all of that.
Speaker 1: But then I distinctively remember seeing Aliyah modeling and a
Speaker 1: Tommy Hill figure tube top, and when I took my
Speaker 1: tank top up, I said, one of these things is
Speaker 1: not like the other. Okay, And Ronald, you said something
Speaker 1: that was really interesting when you said how men show
Speaker 1: up in movies that are overweight and having a lot
Speaker 1: of money because there is a sthetic labor and that's
Speaker 1: a thing where people are being hired to look apart,
Speaker 1: and we use that to justify a lot of things.
Speaker 1: So we use it to justify not hiring people who
Speaker 1: are overweight or who are not the right weight, whatever
Speaker 1: that means to somebody who are not the race you
Speaker 1: are desiring, who don't speak the same as you. All
Speaker 1: of this stuff shows up. A meta analysis looked at
Speaker 1: studies from twenty ten to twenty twenty three, and they
Speaker 1: found that higher body weight was associated with lower hiring
Speaker 1: rates and lower pay, even when the qualifications were identical.
Speaker 2: And this was serving white women with a sess weight,
Speaker 2: so not considering other factors that they might be discriminated against.
Speaker 2: Like their race, or their abilities, their physical abilities.
Speaker 1: Yes, but the interesting thing is that for men, there
Speaker 1: was no effect on excess weight overall over time. You know,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but the trend was that
Speaker 1: there was no effect on excess weight on employment outcomes,
Speaker 1: or the magnitude of the effect is smaller, and in
Speaker 1: some cases it's positive. And Ronald, for you, I'm curious
Speaker 1: of if you've ever felt like your body disqualified you
Speaker 1: before you got the chance to get in the room
Speaker 1: or speak.
Speaker 4: Yes. I mean. There was a job I had at
Speaker 4: an IT company. It was a management consulting firm, and
Speaker 4: I remember I got the job and I was very excited,
Speaker 4: and I was working there at the support desk, and
Speaker 4: I remember looking around me and seeing all the people
Speaker 4: that working in the support desk. They were kind of diverse.
Speaker 4: Most people had college educations there. I would look at them,
Speaker 4: and I would look at the people who are high
Speaker 4: up in the company. I rarely ever saw an overweight
Speaker 4: person in any of those ranks. I would see then
Speaker 4: sporadically spread out across the company doing other jobs, but
Speaker 4: I rarely saw them being in positions of authority over
Speaker 4: everyone else, which I always was like, I wonder what
Speaker 4: that says about me and my abilities to rise up
Speaker 4: the rankings. Another example I'll give is one of my
Speaker 4: managers had a beard, and I remember he was talking
Speaker 4: to his mentor, who was one of the higher ups
Speaker 4: at the company, and he relayed this conversation back to me,
Speaker 4: who also has a beard, and he said he looked
Speaker 4: at me and says, hey, do you know any managing
Speaker 4: directors at this company that have a beard? And he
Speaker 4: said no, and he goes, do you think you're going
Speaker 4: to be the first? And I remember at that time
Speaker 4: being like, wow, okay, so like you are already talking
Speaker 4: about image and basically disqualifying someone for what they look like. Well,
Speaker 4: what you're never going to say out loud is do
Speaker 4: you see any managing directors here who are fat? Do
Speaker 4: you think you're going to be the first? You would
Speaker 4: never say that out loud, But what you what do
Speaker 4: is find ways to marginalize them in other ways. So
Speaker 4: for me one, being like one of the few black
Speaker 4: people it felt like on this particular project, also finding
Speaker 4: out later that I was underpaid, and then also being
Speaker 4: fatter than everyone else, it often felt like I just
Speaker 4: didn't fit in in that space. So when I left
Speaker 4: there and started going full time audio production, the thing
Speaker 4: that echoes in my mind over and over again is
Speaker 4: looking around the room and saying, am I the fattest
Speaker 4: one here? And is that going to prohibit me from
Speaker 4: going where I want to go and whatever this career is?
Speaker 4: Which I wish I could be like, yeah, nah, I
Speaker 4: don't let that stop me. And it doesn't, you know,
Speaker 4: get side of my head all that, But really I
Speaker 4: think about it all the time, like it's always like, man,
Speaker 4: I hope me being fat doesn't overshadow the other ways
Speaker 4: in which I am talented and qualified for whatever this
Speaker 4: is position that I'm in. But that's something that's constantly
Speaker 4: running in my head all the time.
Speaker 3: That is exhausting.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm tired.
Speaker 3: It's like.
Speaker 2: All of the marginalized groups a layered on top of
Speaker 2: one another. You feel the weight of that, yeah, constantly.
Speaker 2: And that's a way that I feel like a lot
Speaker 2: of people. You talked about the body positivity movement, which
Speaker 2: I want to talk about a little bit more about now,
Speaker 2: Like folks are trying to shift the way that our
Speaker 2: culture views size where it's like wherever you are, we're
Speaker 2: just glad that you're here.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: That's what I always try and tell folks. I'm like,
Speaker 2: whatever you are, I'm happy that you're here with me
Speaker 2: right now in this moment. You're perfect because you're alive,
Speaker 2: and we've kind of like lost the plot a little bit.
Speaker 2: On the body positivity movement, you talked about the GLP
Speaker 2: ones and things like that.
Speaker 3: Can you just talk about the efforts that people that.
Speaker 2: Aren't in the overweight community, or or that don't identify
Speaker 2: themselves as overweight, what they can do in their day
Speaker 2: to day to help get us back on the right track.
Speaker 4: I think part of it is being aware of the
Speaker 4: ways you, as a straight sized person, are able to
Speaker 4: navigate places that a fat person may have trouble navigating.
Speaker 4: I think one time I had a friend who asked
Speaker 4: me to dinner, and he looked up the restaurant and
Speaker 4: then also looked up the chairs and just been like,
Speaker 4: look a little bit, the chairs are Now. I'm not
Speaker 4: a super fat person. I'm fat. I'm not a super
Speaker 4: fat or infinitive fat, which is like much much fatter
Speaker 4: than I am. And a lot of those folks have
Speaker 4: even bigger struggles when it comes to just sitting down
Speaker 4: in a restaurant to eat. But for me, I'm thinking
Speaker 4: about what it takes to sit on a plane. What
Speaker 4: are these chairs that you ordered at your wedding, you know,
Speaker 4: like you know those little flipsy real nice in the
Speaker 4: picture chairs where you sit on one of those and
Speaker 4: you hear that little crack, Yes, like the clear ones
Speaker 4: and the wooden ones where you hear that crack and
Speaker 4: you immediately stand up be like nah, nah na, I'm
Speaker 4: not welcome here. I feel like what we could be
Speaker 4: doing is like looking at like why are we not
Speaker 4: making chairs that like fit the largest of us, because
Speaker 4: if they do, then they're also going to fit the
Speaker 4: smallest of us, you know what I mean. There's lots
Speaker 4: of ways in which we're thinking about design and disability
Speaker 4: advocates will say this, like, if we design for disability,
Speaker 4: everybody that who is not disabled can still use whatever
Speaker 4: like we're using. Like if you put ramps on everything
Speaker 4: instead of stairs, everyone can use a ramp. There's no
Speaker 4: one out there who's it's easier for me to use
Speaker 4: the stairs, that is for me to use this ramp,
Speaker 4: And like it's really not like it's an equalizer for
Speaker 4: all of us so I think for straight sized folks,
Speaker 4: I think it's a matter of saying, like, what ways
Speaker 4: can I make the world a better place for everyone?
Speaker 4: If you're thinking with an equity mindset, then it won't
Speaker 4: just be about weight, It'll be about everything. And I
Speaker 4: think that's kind of like what like most fat advocates
Speaker 4: and people within fat community are trying to say, which
Speaker 4: is like, if you're thinking about the most disabled of us,
Speaker 4: then everyone else is going to be fine. There's not
Speaker 4: one person that's going to suffer if we're trying to
Speaker 4: look out for the most disabled among us.
Speaker 1: I think this is something It feels like a conversation
Speaker 1: that even in my friendship with T T that I
Speaker 1: am sometimes talking to t T about especially I'll say,
Speaker 1: when people want you to show up, it's like they
Speaker 1: haven't considered any of these things. Or when you have
Speaker 1: to be on video, or when you have to sit
Speaker 1: on the stage, nobody, I'm like, first of all, doesn't
Speaker 1: everybody need some back support? I don't know who designed
Speaker 1: those little chairs with the two inch little lip on
Speaker 1: the back.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm busy.
Speaker 1: I can't even focus on what I'm saying. I'm squinching
Speaker 1: my butt cheeks, Yes, trying to stay up right, you know,
Speaker 1: So there's that. I think there is so much hidden
Speaker 1: load that you have to kind of experience to know.
Speaker 1: And I'm also curious, you know. T T touched on this.
Speaker 1: She talked about body positivity. I want to t T,
Speaker 1: did you have anything else you wanted to do before
Speaker 1: I move us.
Speaker 2: I feel like if I start talking, I'm going to
Speaker 2: start crying because the kid is always like, you're making
Speaker 2: shit weird. But with what she just said, I feel
Speaker 2: awful because there's a lot of stuff that I don't
Speaker 2: think about. Like I'm always just like, yeah, my friend
Speaker 2: she's here, look at her. She's so beautiful, she's so smart,
Speaker 2: and I'm not considering those things. And like you said,
Speaker 2: we have to start thinking more inclusive. And I mean
Speaker 2: it starts with your bestie, like it starts with the
Speaker 2: people closest to you, because we just move and you
Speaker 2: think you're moving with love, but you have this huge
Speaker 2: blind spot that you really have to pay attention to
Speaker 2: because there's real hurt in those instances.
Speaker 4: I went to dinner with a friend recently, and she
Speaker 4: doesn't move around so well because she has like and
Speaker 4: joint issues, and I remember we walked up to the
Speaker 4: restaurant and it was a place that we wanted to
Speaker 4: get ram in specifically. So we walked up to the
Speaker 4: restaurant and I opened the doors, and as soon as
Speaker 4: I opened the door, there's a straight stairways up before
Speaker 4: we can get in, and I remember this is i'll
Speaker 4: be one of the first times and I was like,
Speaker 4: oh no, because I'm like, I knew that she was
Speaker 4: going to struggle to make it up those stairs, and
Speaker 4: so I'd like, first of all, look to the side
Speaker 4: to see if there was Oh, maybe this isn't a restaurant,
Speaker 4: because you know, you walk into those like fancy like
Speaker 4: New York at DC places where it's like yep, and
Speaker 4: the split level and we're upstairs all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: and you're like immediately confronted with the staircase. And I
Speaker 4: think that moment t T was when I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I should have been thinking about this, Like this is
Speaker 4: something that I did not even consider. What level is
Speaker 4: the restaurant on and is there an elevator? You know
Speaker 4: what I mean? And there wasn't. So I helped her
Speaker 4: up the stairs and she was perfectly fine, But it
Speaker 4: was something that I knew that I'm like in the
Speaker 4: future if we do this again, I need to be
Speaker 4: thinking about about this. So it's really not about looking
Speaker 4: in the past with regret. It's really about looking forward
Speaker 4: to the future and saying, what are the opportunities that
Speaker 4: I have to like make it easier or more equitable
Speaker 4: for everyone. So don't beat yourself up.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ronald heal me, please, thank you. I like
Speaker 1: this idea of looking to the future. And you've talked
Speaker 1: about the idea of a future self right, and I
Speaker 1: think even if it's stuffed down, I think there are
Speaker 1: so many people that live there waiting for this version
Speaker 1: of them that deserves a thing. I'm wondering for you,
Speaker 1: what does it mean to accept yourself like now, the
Speaker 1: now self, even if you still know there's work ahead,
Speaker 1: Because I think the work ahead always exists, And so
Speaker 1: what does it mean to you to accept Ronald?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 4: I think for me and I'll just tell you what
Speaker 4: it's been happening because of therapy is I've been looking
Speaker 4: at the circumstances of my life right now and saying,
Speaker 4: which of these are ingredients to happiness today? Like I'm
Speaker 4: sure all of us have opened our refrigerators in our
Speaker 4: pantry and been like what can I make right now?
Speaker 4: I'm hungry right now? What do I have? And it's
Speaker 4: basically looking at what you have and saying do I
Speaker 4: have something to do with today? And if I needed
Speaker 4: to get something, what do I need to get that
Speaker 4: I can get immediately? So I feel like the ways
Speaker 4: in which I try to accept myself now was say like, well,
Speaker 4: what is making me happy right now in this moment?
Speaker 4: Not what will make me happy, not what I imagine
Speaker 4: will make me happy, not the goals that are on
Speaker 4: my checklist that I know i'll be happy once I
Speaker 4: achieve them, but like, what's making me happy now? And
Speaker 4: how can I insert more of that into my life
Speaker 4: right now? And I feel like if more of us
Speaker 4: operated like that, we find ourselves happier in the moment
Speaker 4: than just feeling like we're waiting to get there. And
Speaker 4: I feel like we're trained in that way too, because
Speaker 4: you finish the first grade, you go to the second grade,
Speaker 4: you finished sixth grade, you to go to middle school,
Speaker 4: so on and so forth, and we like spend the
Speaker 4: rest of our lives just like operating on the If
Speaker 4: I just get a little bit further then I'll actually
Speaker 4: be happy.
Speaker 3: I feel like that is everyone. Everyone. We are all
Speaker 3: just saying, you know, once this happens, oh my.
Speaker 2: Gosh, and once I get on and I'm gonna be happy,
Speaker 2: or oh the trend on TikTok was once I like
Speaker 2: attain this thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fill in the blank.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, if I'm a millionaire, you won't know,
Speaker 2: but there will be signs like okay, like oh it's
Speaker 2: gonna change and all this stuff like that. And I'm
Speaker 2: just like what you're saying is so true. Like we're
Speaker 2: always delaying our happiness. It's like such a big part
Speaker 2: of our culture where it's just like suffer now, enjoy later,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you look back and what you thought was
Speaker 1: suffering was when you should have been enjoying, because the
Speaker 1: real suffering is upon us.
Speaker 4: And did Bernard said it on the office He's like,
Speaker 4: I wish somebody had told me that the good old
Speaker 4: days were actually the days that we were living in essentially,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, because we always look back
Speaker 4: and say, oh man, that was so great, but we
Speaker 4: don't even really to enjoy it the way we could
Speaker 4: if we knew that what was happening right now would
Speaker 4: be one of the best things that was happening to us,
Speaker 4: and then we spend the rest of our time trying
Speaker 4: to be in the future to be like, well, that
Speaker 4: was good, and I'm going to make it happen again
Speaker 4: in the future, instead of saying what could I be
Speaker 4: doing right now in the moment to make that happy.
Speaker 4: So that's the mindset them living in. And I want
Speaker 4: to be clear, I know it sounds like man Ronald's
Speaker 4: got this down, Pat I'm still figuring this out, Like
Speaker 4: I know the elements, but I'm still trying to figure
Speaker 4: out how to do that in my own life. So
Speaker 4: it is a work in progress, is the shorter answer
Speaker 4: to my very long winded response.
Speaker 1: No, I love that because I feel like that's part
Speaker 1: of the dangling carrot that we're constantly chasing. It's like,
Speaker 1: I will be happy when this happens and I will
Speaker 1: have it all figured out.
Speaker 3: Going back to my.
Speaker 2: Father in law who's eighty, yeah, yeah, I was talking
Speaker 2: to him once and I was like, when did you
Speaker 2: have it all figured out? Like he was a very
Speaker 2: successful lawyer, he has two great kids, he did really
Speaker 2: well for himself and he's retired.
Speaker 3: Now, chilling.
Speaker 2: I was like, when did you feel like you had
Speaker 2: it figured out? He was like, I'll let you know.
Speaker 2: And I was like wow, he was like, yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: let you know. There was literally no point where I
Speaker 2: felt like I had it figured out. He's like, I'm
Speaker 2: still trying to figure out how to be, you know,
Speaker 2: like a better father, a better partner, a better uncle.
Speaker 2: And so then that like cued me to be like, wow,
Speaker 2: maybe that's what life is about, is just about not
Speaker 2: being the best, but just trying to be better, yes,
Speaker 2: and just trying to figure it out. And that's the
Speaker 2: beauty of it. It's really it really is hard. It's
Speaker 2: easier said than done, because I mean I could think
Speaker 2: of a million things about myself that I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: if this was different, you wouldn't be able to tell me.
Speaker 1: Well, we can't tell you right now, so that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, you would tell me if I had
Speaker 1: and that it really discredits where I'm at right now
Speaker 1: and what it took to get here and the miracle
Speaker 1: that is this life and being able to be here
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, if I had this, it would
Speaker 1: be better. It's not fair to me it's not fair
Speaker 1: to pass me, present me, or future me. So I
Speaker 1: mean everything that you're saying really just rings true for
Speaker 1: me and gives me a lot to think about. I
Speaker 1: think because we're all struggling. I think everybody is struggling.
Speaker 2: And being able to just love yourself now is just
Speaker 2: so important.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about so many things based on what the
Speaker 1: two of you just said. And it felt like Ronald,
Speaker 1: when you were saying, like when you talked about the
Speaker 1: great thing, I was like, yes, you just keep trying
Speaker 1: to graduate. So really, what you're saying is treat every
Speaker 1: day like graduation, And so I think every night should
Speaker 1: be a graduation party if you're doing it right, a
Speaker 1: celebration of the day and what has happened, and meeting
Speaker 1: tomorrow with excitement. I want to know a little bit
Speaker 1: more about like what's coming up on wait for it,
Speaker 1: because I think you have done such a beautiful job
Speaker 1: talking about weight at all these intersections. I love. I
Speaker 1: never remember how to say his name from Very Smart
Speaker 1: Brothers Damon and the piece he had done this piece
Speaker 1: on teeth and we had just done an episode on teeth.
Speaker 1: Teeth with a teeth is a thing.
Speaker 4: Teeth are.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm using that too, And you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like society has fixated on weight, and weight
Speaker 1: has had different meanings at different times. But similar to weight,
Speaker 1: we've also seen this kind of pressure attached to the
Speaker 1: aesthetics of teeth, like having really straight teeth, and we
Speaker 1: see it in movie stars, but now we're seeing any
Speaker 1: common people on the street. I mean I'm seeing people.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's Hollywood teeth, like very straight, ultra violet,
Speaker 1: very white. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like when it comes to teeth women, it
Speaker 2: is never okay for a woman to have crooked teeth
Speaker 2: like men will have gaps. We see famous men that
Speaker 2: have gaps or spaces in their teeth, their crooked teeth,
Speaker 2: and they're like, ooh, how that gives them so much
Speaker 2: character or whatever. Michael Strahan, I feel like if that
Speaker 2: was a woman with that gap, that woman would not
Speaker 2: be front and center. In the most recent season of
Speaker 2: White Lotus, I love that show. There is this actress
Speaker 2: named Amy lou Wood and she has a very distinct smile.
Speaker 2: I actually really loved her smile. I thought it made
Speaker 2: her so beautiful, and I was like, I love seeing
Speaker 2: this on television. SNL did a spoof of White Lotus
Speaker 2: and they really portrayed her teeth really negatively and made
Speaker 2: fun of the way that her teeth look and she
Speaker 2: posted about it and was like, you know, that's really
Speaker 2: hurtful and it just wasn't funny. And these are the
Speaker 2: things that I see where it's like, okay, now she
Speaker 2: was on SNL being made fun of for her teeth,
Speaker 2: and these are things that reinforce, you know, my negative
Speaker 2: like feelings about having slightly crooked teeth or teeth that
Speaker 2: are like different and not that Hollywood white, Hollywood straight.
Speaker 2: I grew up with a I pulled up a picture
Speaker 2: just for proof with a very big gap in my teeth,
Speaker 2: and I went through hell.
Speaker 1: Hell, hell, hell, that's what you learned how to fight?
Speaker 4: You were very cute child t teeth.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I went through hell.
Speaker 2: They I felt like the ugliest girl in the world
Speaker 2: for a very very long time, and I was like,
Speaker 2: as soon as my teeth are straight, I'm gonna be happy.
Speaker 2: And even to this day, I've had braces three times
Speaker 2: three because of losing retainers and teeth shifting and just
Speaker 2: not feeling comfortable with the teeth that I have in
Speaker 2: my mouth. People be like, you have a great smile,
Speaker 2: and I'd be like, no, I don't. I have a
Speaker 2: little space here, a little space there. And so like
Speaker 2: three times, it's kind of a lot. And when I
Speaker 2: think about it, when I say it out loud, it
Speaker 2: sounds crazy, But there was a lot of shame tied
Speaker 2: up in these teeth and they're still not perfect. I
Speaker 2: still have like a little space here, and it really
Speaker 2: can shift, just like how you're moving in this world.
Speaker 2: And it's like you're like, oh, why wouldn't it be
Speaker 2: about women, And I'm like, oh, because it's never And
Speaker 2: maybe that's something that's in my mind that I put there,
Speaker 2: like I'm like, oh, no, no one will ever accept
Speaker 2: a woman with a gap in her teeth. But that's
Speaker 2: because that's what I told myself.
Speaker 1: That's such a good point and similar to social media
Speaker 1: and society telling us things, I feel like for me
Speaker 1: when it comes to straight teeth, I inherited that from
Speaker 1: my parents and what they said to me about getting braces.
Speaker 2: And my parents were the opposite where that when I
Speaker 2: wanted to get braces, they were like, why I really
Speaker 2: love your.
Speaker 3: Gap and I was like, clothes it please.
Speaker 2: And now my son, it looks like he's going to
Speaker 2: have a gap, and I'm like trying, I'm like trying
Speaker 2: not to let it. Let whatever I was dealing with,
Speaker 2: still dealing with, trickle down to him. And he's self
Speaker 2: conscious about it. My parents like, it's don't let him
Speaker 2: close his gap. I'm like, if he wants to, he can't.
Speaker 2: And but it's all these things.
Speaker 1: Okay. So we talked about weight, We talked about teeth. Ronald,
Speaker 1: do you have a thing in your family that is
Speaker 1: like a no no, or a thing that you inherited
Speaker 1: that there's some shame around.
Speaker 4: No, I feel like, yes, well no, okay. I mean
Speaker 4: it's weight, but it's not like it's still like my parents,
Speaker 4: both my dad and mom have both on different occasions,
Speaker 4: made comments about me gaining weight as an adult, right, so,
Speaker 4: and it's always from the place of like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: you know, you got to get in that gym and
Speaker 4: walk in a little bit. And it's never made me
Speaker 4: feel good, right But they've never held on to it,
Speaker 4: and I think that's the good thing about us. But
Speaker 4: my mom also struggled with her body image for a
Speaker 4: long time until she died. You know, like she started
Speaker 4: rapidly losing weight because she had cancer and she got
Speaker 4: real small and that was like an indication of fear.
Speaker 4: And we talk about that on Waight for it just
Speaker 4: being like all of a sudden, This is when the
Speaker 4: fluctuation of weight also has like real stakes attached to it,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, as opposed to like when
Speaker 4: we think about it in this more aesthetic way, as
Speaker 4: to say, like, you, losing weight is a good thing
Speaker 4: because like look about before and after pictures and all.
Speaker 4: That's all of that. So that really kind of changed
Speaker 4: my relationship about how I feel when I see people
Speaker 4: have lost a great amount of weight, because now my
Speaker 4: new question is I wonder if they're okay.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting because we tie weight in
Speaker 1: health together and behavior in a way that doesn't really
Speaker 1: line up. I just read an article that came out
Speaker 1: in Science a few weeks ago where this group was
Speaker 1: studying this phenomenon they see in mice, and you know,
Speaker 1: we use mice as a proxy to understand health in humans.
Speaker 1: But they were seeing middle aged mice gain a lot
Speaker 1: of weight no matter what they fed them, even if
Speaker 1: they were on a strict diet, and reduce the amount
Speaker 1: of food that they gave them. They're gaining weight every time.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, that is crazy.
Speaker 1: And so this team actually discovered that in mice, particularly
Speaker 1: in male mice, and so they were saying, is this
Speaker 1: like the dad bod phenomenon, but in mail mice that
Speaker 1: they are having a subset of cells. Usually the way
Speaker 1: you can expand fat tissue is to make the cells bigger.
Speaker 1: So adipocites fat cells get bigger. They're very big compared
Speaker 1: to other cells in our body. Or you can make
Speaker 1: new fat cells, and there's this subpopulation. They're basically like
Speaker 1: fat stem cells. So and they are the precursor. All
Speaker 1: these stem cells activate at a certain time and in
Speaker 1: visceral fatness, like in the fat around our organs, which
Speaker 1: is tied to different types of metabolic health, no matter
Speaker 1: what your diet is, no matter how much exercise you do.
Speaker 1: And so I think so often we use wait as
Speaker 1: a proxy for discipline or for all these things that
Speaker 1: scientifically we know is not the case. And I just
Speaker 1: think it's so interesting how we know these things, which
Speaker 1: is like a lot of stuff. We know these things,
Speaker 1: but we have these generalizations that we make that are
Speaker 1: completely opposite. And I'm hopeful and curious if that's just
Speaker 1: being naive to think that one day will resolve those
Speaker 1: two and our opinions will catch up with what the
Speaker 1: science is telling us.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think so, like I don't like,
Speaker 4: actually you're wrong. No, I just I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 4: optimistic towards the future. Like look at the look at
Speaker 4: where we are right now, Like in terms of politics,
Speaker 4: we are we're being dragged back to pre civil rights
Speaker 4: type of policy in this country, and we all thought
Speaker 4: we knew better, Like we were all tricked in the nineties,
Speaker 4: two thousands of teens about where we we're going in
Speaker 4: terms of progress, and you know, the arc of the
Speaker 4: future bids towards progress. This is the first time I've
Speaker 4: been fearful about what it does it actually been towards progress,
Speaker 4: doctor King, because I don't know if it does based
Speaker 4: on what I'm seeing and what they're undoing. And I'm
Speaker 4: saying all that to say is like I would hope
Speaker 4: that we would be moving towards a more progressive future,
Speaker 4: especially when it comes to body size and body image,
Speaker 4: but we would have to reconcile with the ways in
Speaker 4: which we've been terrible right now, And I don't think
Speaker 4: we're ready to do that as a society yet, based
Speaker 4: on the existence of GLP one drugs and the ways
Speaker 4: in which they're being rampantly applied to everyone, despite the
Speaker 4: very the lack of studies that talk about the long
Speaker 4: term benefits and or risks of using said drugs. And
Speaker 4: this isn't to go against anyone who's choosing to use them.
Speaker 4: I understand, like I have friends who have used the
Speaker 4: drugs that have buryactic surgery. Your choice is your choice.
Speaker 4: But it's really the ways in which, all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I'm watching television and now I'm seeing commercials about it
Speaker 4: in a way that just feels icky to me, especially
Speaker 4: about the ways in which we're talking about what does
Speaker 4: this look like for us in the future. I just
Speaker 4: my instinct is to say it's going to look like
Speaker 4: more of this in the future, because there's always going
Speaker 4: to be some hip way to lose weight that just
Speaker 4: always exists. It always has existed, and it feels like
Speaker 4: it just always will. All I can hope for is
Speaker 4: that we all individually heal ourselves and try to do
Speaker 4: the best we can moving forward. And because I just
Speaker 4: don't think we're going to get a societal solution.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's fair. So you basically say, yes, naive.
Speaker 4: I don't think you're naive. I just I'm concerned, Like,
Speaker 4: if you're right, I'd rather you be right. I'd rather
Speaker 4: you be right. I don't want to be right.
Speaker 2: It's getting spooky ooky out here. I don't know because
Speaker 2: even I mean the way that celebrities whatever you want
Speaker 2: to call them, are using GLP ones, celebrities that are
Speaker 2: on like not overweight by anyone's.
Speaker 3: Metric, using it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, We're like, it's getting dangerous out here, and I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure like how we right the ship at
Speaker 2: this point, because I mean, when I think back to
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, when Ali McBeal came out,
Speaker 2: and it was like everybody was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: she's so thin, she's so thin. But then you had
Speaker 2: the birth of the Almond Mom, and it just became
Speaker 2: a thing where, you know, everybody wanted to be super
Speaker 2: super thin. And then you see this this slight shift
Speaker 2: when you have the Kardashians and their body enhancements that
Speaker 2: they've done via surgery, and so then everybody was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now I want a little bit of curve. But then
Speaker 2: now they're reducing their curves, getting you know, their their butts, reduce,
Speaker 2: their breast reduced to get a more slimmer size. And
Speaker 2: so now people are trying to course correct.
Speaker 3: To fit that too. I'm like, this is too much.
Speaker 1: Ronald, thank you for being here and sharing all of this. Yes,
Speaker 1: and we have touched on so many things. We see,
Speaker 1: all the long tentacles of weight and body image and acceptance,
Speaker 1: you know, just touching all.
Speaker 3: These other areas things.
Speaker 2: And just like you know in any science or critical thinking,
Speaker 2: even though we answered some questions for ourselves and we're
Speaker 2: able to move through some of these things and come
Speaker 2: to a resolution, it does bring up more questions like
Speaker 2: will things change?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe I think it starts with each of us and
Speaker 2: on learning a lot of things, on learning tying our
Speaker 2: self acceptance, our self worth to our weight and the
Speaker 2: way that we look. And you know, it's easier said
Speaker 2: than done. I'm not saying that like, Okay today I
Speaker 2: no longer care about these things. No, but we have
Speaker 2: to be willing to put in the work, not just
Speaker 2: for ourselves but for everyone around us, because when we
Speaker 2: start to change our way of thinking and unlearned some
Speaker 2: of these things that our society has placed on us
Speaker 2: and carry a weight of that. It reverberates. People feel
Speaker 2: that and then they are more likely to start accepting themselves.
Speaker 1: So so true. If you like this lab, I think
Speaker 1: you will also enjoy our lab that's called Jiggly that
Speaker 1: talks about shapewear and how society told women what they
Speaker 1: should be shaped and looked like. Yes, and I think
Speaker 1: you also enjoy our lab with Doctor Montioid Hairs called
Speaker 1: Edges Snatched, where we talk about the kind of same
Speaker 1: thing but with hair and all the procedures people are
Speaker 1: doing because of the value society has placed on hair. Huh.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I want to be hopeful. But also
Speaker 1: today's graduation day TT is graduation day for us, so
Speaker 1: we will celebrate and we will not look ahead and
Speaker 1: think the better times are coming, but we will accept
Speaker 1: that the better times are right here, are here, right
Speaker 1: now with us.
Speaker 3: I love you, friend, I.
Speaker 1: Love you too.
Speaker 2: You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Speaker 2: Labs podcast.
Speaker 1: TT is on X and Instagram at d R Underscore
Speaker 1: t Sho.
Speaker 3: And you can find Takiya at Z said.
Speaker 1: So Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Speaker 2: Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate
Speaker 2: producer is Issara Sives.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is sound design, edited and mixed by James Farber.
Speaker 1: Lamanada Media is Vice President of Partnerships and Production is
Speaker 1: Jackie dan Siger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina.
Speaker 1: Marketing lead is Alison Kanter. Original music composed and produced
Speaker 1: by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex sudi Ura, with additional music
Speaker 1: by Elijah Harvey. Dope Lab is executive produced by us
Speaker 1: T T Show Dia and Kia Wattley.