Join me and Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, Danika Munro as we have a very candid conversation about the societal standards of beauty and how they influence our perception of body image. We discuss body positivity and wellness and how they are not determined by size, shape, or ability level. We share our personal narratives, discuss the detrimental impact of unrealistic beauty standards, and uncover the truth about the lack of diverse body representation in the media.
Together, we dispel societal myths, encourage a stronger mind-body connection, and share insights on cultivating a healthier relationship with food. This episode is more than just a conversation; it's a call to action for anyone seeking a more positive self-perception and a healthier stance on body positivity.
The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
Join me and Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, Danika Munro as we have a very candid conversation about the societal standards of beauty and how they influence our perception of body image. We discuss body positivity and wellness and how they are not determined by size, shape, or ability level. We share our personal narratives, discuss the detrimental impact of unrealistic beauty standards, and uncover the truth about the lack of diverse body representation in the media.
Together, we dispel societal myths, encourage a stronger mind-body connection, and share insights on cultivating a healthier relationship with food. This episode is more than just a conversation; it's a call to action for anyone seeking a more positive self-perception and a healthier stance on body positivity.
The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
Welcome to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, Dana Jones. I am a certified personal trainer and I'm here to help you achieve your fitness goals without pain. In each episode, I'll share tips and strategies that will help you stay safe and pain free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness and pain management. So if you're ready to learn how to stay active and pain free, then subscribe to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast today. Welcome to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, Dana Jones, and I have a guest today. Her name is DoniDanikaca Munro and she's an associate marriage and family therapist. We're going to chat a little bit about all things body. How's that A little bit about all things body? Because there's a lot of things, so we're just going to go ahead and put that all together. So welcome, donica.
Danika Munro:
Thank you, Dana. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm so excited to talk about this issue. It's so near and dear to my heart, as it is, I think, for really everyone, because of how diet culture is. It is just so pervasive and I think, yeah, I'm just excited to be here.
Dana Jones:
Oh, we appreciate having you we, me and all my audience here, the cat and the dog, who are both sleeping and snoring, which is awesome, anyway. So you and I connected because we were having a conversation over food. We were at an event and there was food left over and we were trying to decide who's going to take food. And it was interesting because you watch, I think you see people's behaviors around what to take. I'll take this, oh, but I can't have that or whatever. And I think you and I were like, fuck, it Just took whatever. And I said Can I eat the pasta?
Dana Jones:
I'm going to eat it, I don't care, I'm like I'm going to eat the pasta, I'm all right with it. But everybody else, that stuff was like nuclear and you and I were like we're not having this conversation, food's food, we're taking it, we're not feeling guilty about it and everything else. And then it kind of sparked a budding friendship about what we like and what we do together. So how's that for you in that moment?
Danika Munro:
I gotta say I think I heard someone shout out I've never seen a carb I didn't like, but in, you know, with that intonation like ugh, why do I like carbs so much? And yeah, it just. You know. Every time I hear that now I'm hearing it with such different ears, after you know going starting on my journey toward body positivity what Sonya Renee Taylor called radical self love, yeah, I just hear it with like I hear all of the self hate and that I hear all of shame. It's shame is what it is.
Dana Jones:
Right, it is One of the things that I know. For me and we talked a little bit before we're doing this, just so you all know was the idea of not seeing me out in the world and that competing as a triathlete, even competing as a bodybuilder, back in the day, and I didn't even talk about that.
Danika Munro:
Right, we don't talk about that eventually, because I did read your bio, by the way, and I was like what she was a bodybuilder.
Dana Jones:
I was. I came in fifth out of five women in top five, right, well, there are only five people competing. But you know, of course that was one of the issues was that I'm five foot six and I had 130 pounds. I was a heavyweight and everybody who I was competing with was five foot nine and above, and so these women are absolutely strated. And then you know, here's my little, which is fairly fit body, you know for sure. You know there's no shame in how I looked or whatever.
Dana Jones:
But then I kind of was looking down the stage and going, holy shit, I don't look like everybody else and you know, that kind of created some stuff. And so for me there's always been that comparison piece and it's not I know it's not right, you know, and but or, and that's unfortunate, and I don't know if it's because of self-esteem stuff I'm sure there's a sprinkle of every little bit in that kind of thing but the reality is like I just can't help not to look and go well, they don't look like me and they're running faster, so they must be better than me. Maybe if I lost you know X amount of pounds, then I would look like them or perform like them or do whatever.
Danika Munro:
Well, the social justice warrior in me wants to say sure, it might be self-esteem, and it's created by our social systems and specifically, diet, culture and a lack of representation of BIPOC bodies, of large bodies, of disabled bodies. You know, like we, we just have a very narrow view of what humans are supposed to look like, based on what we see in media every day, and we get so much more exposure of whatever that image is now because we're constantly being faced with it on our phones and whatever media we're consuming. I think there's actually. I think it just cements and I don't have any research on this, but I can say that I believe that it cements all of these body images use way more so than if we didn't have that much information to compute all the time.
Dana Jones:
Yeah, and I know, like I also listened to another podcast and the host is Lisa Schlossberg, who also works with the pain-free area, because she had some stuff and she's learned how to migrate it into body image and, you know, healthy weight and all those things. And you know, one of the things she said was like, dump the social media stuff, like who are you following? And I realized that I'm stuck in this weird world because I'm a fitness instructor and so for me, I'm thinking I need to get good information or ideas or whatever from other fitness people. So I was looking at my you know, social media, mostly Instagram, and all the people are following were ridiculous. Right, they're like 3% body fat or some stupid crap like that.
Danika Munro:
Which means that they're in the gym all day. Let's just be clear how much time it takes to you know, look like that, let alone whether you actually can, genetically or not.
Dana Jones:
Right, and probably not eating. You know, let's be fair about that too. Right there's probably. You know, I'm going to end up living a lot longer than they are because I'm not in starvation mode, you know, 95% of my day. But I started to unfollow those people and that was the big thing, was that I? Just I was like you're not who I want to look at, you know, and I this isn't good for me, you know. Mental health wise, I don't feel supported or secure because I'm looking at you and I'm constantly feeling like you know, like back on the stage right doing my little posing routine and going oh crap, I don't look like you, you know. And then I'm getting this right. You know in the morning when you hop on, you know in the afternoons when you're on, or you know different times, and it's like okay. So you know 60, 70 times a day. I'm getting that reinforcement that this is not what my body looks like.
Danika Munro:
Yeah, yeah, I know exactly. I actually found a lot of comfort. Not only did I unfollow people that I felt were giving me more of that message, but I started to look or maybe I just happened to accidentally come across, I don't know how it really happened, but I started finding folks in the body positivity movement online, specifically starting with TikTok, where I found so much acceptance and love. And, you know, I like was able to see myself. There was one woman there were essentially just a lot of fat women who went online in bikinis and, you know, would sort of show their cellulite, show their stretch marks, show any discoloration on their skin and, like, actively say positive things about themselves and offer an invitation for me to do the same. And it was such a I mean, I can't even describe what that experience was like for me. I feel like, you know, it turned something new on my brain. I didn't know it was a possibility that you could love yourself in all of that, like you could love your actually actively love your cellulite.
Dana Jones:
Right, well, that's not that.
Dana Jones:
I mean, I was watching today, I was scanning because I have like a friend of my daughter who's doing a lot of stuff around racial justice, and there was this video of this woman who had her daughter on. I think it was like on Merrigar round, like the you know the playground ones were. They have the bars and then the spins, and they were talking about her daughter being I can't remember what the term was. It was something really inappropriate and she was trying, the mom was trying to get the kids to identify. Like why are you calling this child something? And I can't remember if it was alien or something like that, and it was because she was. And finally one of the girls was like you know, I guess I'm just going to fess up now. We're talking like you know, five, six, seven year olds, and they're like because she's brown, you know she's, she's got a different color of skin from us. And then the woman came, you know, because it was like stitching, coming, you know, and was like you know, this is when we learned stuff and I, as a very young age, learned it.
Dana Jones:
It wasn't okay to be heavy, and that you know, and I don't know if everybody's getting that message. I mean, now it's about social media, but you know I existed before, socially right. So you know I was getting that message at home and you know, from my mother, either scooping out the inside of roles or not ever eating. I, you know, I remember calling my brother and saying like, do you remember mommy ever eating with us? And she never ate with us. You know, I grew up with watching. I guess, or, like you know, you're looking for your adults, right, your important adults in your life is to send you messages. And the message I got from my mother was that it was not okay to be a normal sized human, you know, not even like. You know, obviously, if you were heavy you were really a bad person, but even just like.
Dana Jones:
I remember I had mono and I was home and I was eating because you know, whatever, and I was like I don't know 150 pounds. And she was like, oh, you know, you're fat, I'm like I'm 150 pounds and I looked good, you know, and it was, and I thought I looked good, but then she kept telling me I didn't. So then I was like, well, I guess I don't look good, right, you know. So that became a thing. So you, you know, you work in different realms and you know. So what are you seeing in terms of research? What books are you reading? What are the things that are kind of you know, solidifying your position now that you have where you're accepting your body, you're loving your body, and how can we do the same?
Danika Munro:
Oh wow. Well, I don't. I have to say that I am not an expert on this. I feel like I need to say that out loud. I am on my own journey and have been exposed to some really great literature, so I think.
Danika Munro:
So one book I just have to talk about is the Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor. I think that she has become quite the leader in the body positivity movement and you know, I just want to give a little tidbit for folks who are not sure if they want to read the book. She starts it out by talking about her friend who's disabled and in a chair, I think, referencing that she's pregnant, that it was an accidental pregnancy. And you know, sonya asks her you know what happened Because she had I guess they had done some like outreach for, you know, say, for sex before. And she, you know she knew that her friend was very well versed in that. And her friend said you know, it's so hard to have sex with me because I'm in a chair anyway that I just don't think to bother with condoms because I don't want to burden the other person with that. And Sonya Renee Taylor's response was your body is not an apology. So I mean that piece was the intro to what it was how she frames, I think, her whole book.
Danika Munro:
She eventually wrote a poem about that interaction, I think, also called the Body is Not an Apology, which turned into her book, and one of the things that she talks about is how health and wellness in diet culture, in American culture, but really worldwide, or maybe we can say European culture too, like maybe I'm saying worldwide is too much, but health and wellness is equated with having a specific body, shape, size, color, you know, an ability level, and is thought of as if, if you don't have health and wellness, you also don't have value, which was, you know? I hadn't really thought about that. And she talks about how not all of us have access to health and wellness for various reasons, including, for example, being born with a congenital illness or, like you know, social determinants of health, growing up in a place where there are no green spaces, where it's unsafe to go exercise outside. So, she taught, she really points out so poignantly how us using health and wellness as a value system to decide who gets to be valued and who doesn't is just a fallacy.
Dana Jones:
And it's also a weird reality because we've always kind of danced on that, right. I mean, your health rates are different than my health rates. You can get health insurance, you know, or life insurance, and some people can't get life insurance because they may have some kind of condition that disqualifies them. So there's, you know, there's so many like weird things that really exclude people, and that circle the ones that are accepted is very small. When you look around the world, right, it's like everybody's got something, and if that's what you're choosing to do, then you're really leaving out a majority of the public, which may be great, right, but as a company, that may work for you, right. If you're an insurance carrier, then you know, if you have a BMI right which thank God, nobody uses anymore but if you had a BMI higher than whatever, then you'd be considered a health risk, right.
Dana Jones:
If you were diabetic, you you're not going to get the same coverage as somebody else. Or you know, like you said, if it's something congenital or you know something that you're born with that could possibly cause you to be a financial burden later down the line, then we're probably not going to cover you, right? I think my, my favorite was our health insurance carrier that we dumped with my teacher's union was that being pregnant was a what is it a condition like pre-existing condition? Oh, good lord. So they wouldn't cover it and I'm like seriously like we're like dump and we changed our carrier because Good for you. Why would you do that?
Danika Munro:
Right.
Danika Munro:
That's literally how we make more humans. I mean, unless they don't want us to make any more humans, which seems like in order for the human race to continue, we're going to need that to happen, right, yeah, oh, my gosh, don't even get me started. You also mentioned BMI in there, which I mean you know I don't. I'm sure we could go on and on about BMI forever. I just want to make sure that I say, like, how incredibly racist BMI is as a measure.
Danika Munro:
You know that it was formulated by a man who was following the. What was the move, the, the movement at the time, eugenics. He was part of the Eugenics movement and he created this measurement system, called, like, the normal man or something or whatever. You know I have to. You know I should probably look this up to get you the full information. We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. I'm stumbling over my words, but essentially he was a eugenicist and he formulated this idea about proportionality and weight based on white people.
Danika Munro:
And we know like, if you talk to eating disorder specialists, it is very well known that that is not an accurate measure of what health looks like, that BMI is actually a hugely a volatious measurement that doesn't measure health, and it tends to. Of course, part about it is that there are plenty of people, for example, who have an eating disorder let's say anorexia who don't meet the qualifications for in many health systems for being able to be identified as having an eating disorder based on their BMI. Well, it turns out, that's lovely, right. You can actually be totally depriving your body and having some really severe effects from depriving your body without losing all of the weight that some other people may lose. So we're basing all of this, our ability, or even the way that we allow people to access treatment for eating disorders, is based on this measure that was literally created by a racist man hundreds of years ago.
Dana Jones:
Well and it's funny because it didn't like I first started my fitness training journey I think I was about 18, 19 years old and I worked in a health club and that was not the indicator At the time.
Dana Jones:
We did because I've had such weird relationships with weight and all this other stuff and it's insane.
Dana Jones:
So the first thing was that so I'm a fitness trainer at this fitness club and so when new clients come in, they come and see me and I do their blood pressure and their pulse rate and then I take measurements of their body, which isn't horrifying at all for an 18 year old to be touching all these strange people. And then the best part was I pulled out the fat caliper and I would determine. I'd pull out the caliper and I would ask them to whatever turned around and I would get it from the section of their back to make a determination about how fit they were and whatever. And it just felt. I mean, it was just weird. And why I'm like cringing is because in the army, one of my first positions as the new officer, because I think it's like one of the shit jobs that nobody else wants and they're like oh, we'll give it to the new person, and so I was the weight control officer, and so oh, my goodness, what an interesting title.
Danika Munro:
I didn't even know that existed.
Dana Jones:
Yeah, well, it didn't. You know, the late 80s and early 90s. And so my job was to weigh and measure all of the soldiers within the unit. And so if you did not meet the guidelines because there was that lovely chart, right, your height and weight and where you're supposed to be and your age and if you did not meet the guidelines, then you needed to come to me and then I needed to measure you and make determinations whether or not the measurements would put you back into standard or whether or not we had to put you on a program so that you could lose weight to me.
Dana Jones:
You know, because it was, um, you were military, you know, you military standards, right, and that's what it had to be. So, and again, when I was doing this, I was, you know, you know, 19, 20 years old, still, you know, using tape to measure around strange people's bodies, you know, and I never like I didn't know right, you know, part of it was like I was just doing this because this is what you told me I had to do and I'm getting paid, you know whatever, it was a job, it was a job.
Dana Jones:
And you know, now I look back and I'm like I wonder how many spirits I broke, you know, with this whole concept of doing this. I mean, I'm sure I was who I am now. Right, you know, my personality hasn't changed tremendously, so hopefully I didn't damage anybody by, you know, anything that I said. I think a lot of times it was like this is freaking stupid, I can't believe I have to do this with you. And they were like, yeah, we think it's stupid too, you know, as opposed to like, wow, you're a fat bastard, you know, or something you know horrible, like that, and indicating but you know, it is a system that was set up to, I guess, shame people for not being or meeting the standard, you know, and the military was all about that. In terms of fitness, and you know the fitness industry is like that.
Dana Jones:
I mean, it's one of the largest growing industries, you know, still right, you know it's like you figured we'd reach a pinnacle at some point and it's like fitness is still growing and there's different aspects of it now you know. So there's a lot of different branches, but the reality is that we're still. You know, it's still there, and all these weird things pop up about body image and you know, just around all these things and that make people not feel the same or feel in community. And you know, I think the work that Sonny Rene is doing is important because of the fact that we're all getting the message that we don't look like other people, everybody right, whether it's the color of your skin, the texture of your hair, the shape of your body, you know, the way you perceive information, right, and how your brain, you know, computes, you know nobody's the same. And yet there's still the stigmatism that you're not like everybody else. And I'm like, what is everybody else like?
Danika Munro:
Oh my God, Thank you. Thank you for saying that you know. That actually really reminds me of this other book which I'm sure you're familiar with because you're in the, you know, fitness industry intuitive eating. I think we even talked about it. Yeah, I loved. I haven't finished the whole thing yet, but I there was one passage that I read about different body shapes, and the authors made this hilarious comparison and said basically what we're trying to do to folks is, let's say and I'm making this up, I'm kind of paraphrasing here but we're trying to make someone who is naturally supposed to be a Saint Bernard into a Chihuahua. Mm-hmm, makes sense, right, like we don't all look the same you know if you think about the?
Danika Munro:
diversity of how dogs look like. We tend we think that humans are just more similar to each other than dogs are and maybe we are, you know. But if you look at it as though you know, we really are different beings with different needs and and just a natural shape that is supposed to be there. It's so weird that we all are trying to look like a Chihuahua.
Dana Jones:
Yeah, no for sure, and that's, and you know, I don't know, I'm hoping that through different works and, you know, even through me, you know, and this is not something well, I didn't think it was something that I was going to be talking about a lot, but it's, it's, it's starting to come up. I'm noticing that it's coming up more and more conversations, you know, with my high school students. There's a lot of discussion about the. You know, I try to talk about the fuel you put on your body, and they are the ones that talk about weight. You know, and I tried to redirect them to how are you feeling like? You know, do you have energy throughout your day? Are you, you know, making sure your plate is colorful? You know, have you ever tried this vegetable?
Dana Jones:
You know, we've done things where I just went to the store and bought a bunch of different, you know, fruits and cut them all up and we did taste tests, because there's a lot of things they're just not exposed to. And with DoorDash, and you know, convenience everywhere. They're just, they're just, they're just, they're just, they're just, they're just, they're just, they're just, they're just. You know, there's a lot of discussion. You know, convenience everywhere. There seems to be almost like their food has become very I don't know. I want to say streamlined, but it's boring, right. They eat a lot of the same stuff because they have the ability to get it, and so they just keep eating all the same things over and over again and they're really not exposing them.
Dana Jones:
You know, I'm not about limiting, because I think that if you're listening to a body, you know when you're full, and sometimes you may not be full Like I. The other day I was like jamming and I'm like I'm full and I kept jamming and then I was like okay, let's take a moment, why are you trying to stuff yourself? And it was like totally avoidance, because if I'm doing this, then I'm not doing that and I don't want to do that. So I'm going to keep doing this. And I kind of ruined it for myself because it was something that was tasty, but then I over ate it and then I didn't like it All right afterwards you feel sick to your stomach, which I really appreciate.
Danika Munro:
About that book, you know intuitive eating. It's about they really frame, you know how to eat, as like paying attention to your body, which is something that we naturally do when we're little kids. So like they talk about how like little kids will go and they'll eat like three bags of chips one day, like all in a row, but then they won't eat a whole lot the next day because their bodies don't really feel the same kind of hunger. And so you know, I just, and we but we slowly learn to stop listening to the signals in our body, which then makes us completely disconnected from them. Some of us can't even and for also for other reasons, some of us can't perceive those things. There's something called interoception and proprioception, which is other. That's a whole other podcast.
Dana Jones:
Um, but we often ignore. I mean, you know and I don't know, yeah, I'm gonna go there, you know. So, like going to the bathroom, right, as a child, you know you just go. But then there's somebody who always says, can you wait, right, or not right now, or are you going to do that in public, right? And then, and then all of a sudden, that that little bell ringing for you to go to bathroom gets pushed off or delayed or whatever, and then it leads to, you know, bladder infections or constipation or all those other things.
Dana Jones:
So I think a lot of times, you know, especially with little ones, they're taught at a very early age to start ignoring those signals because either the adults have created some kind of boundary around it or not a boundary, but just made assertions essentially like you're not as valuable, right, your? Your potty time is not as valuable as my potty time, or you know just the fact that. You know. I think a lot of kids, like you know they have accidents because they're doing something and they're playing and they're doing whatever and they don't want to stop what they're doing, to have to go do that Right, and it starts that like passive ignorance of what's going on in my body and not knowing.
Dana Jones:
And I find that, even like the clients that I'm getting now, like they're not in touch with their body, they're not in their bodies at all. They're doing all these things but then they're not participating. You know, in this, I would say, like a conversation with your body you know of. Okay, my back hurts Could it be because work has been extremely stressful. I'm mad at my boss because I don't want to do XYZ, but I have to do it anyway, and I'm frustrated with myself for not having a boundary, you know, or something like that. So there's a lot of I think there's a lot of things that pop up for us, where we start to ignore who we are and our needs, and then it perpetuates as we get older and then, of course, depending on who you are if you're people, please, or whatever then a lot of needs get put ahead of yours and then, all of a sudden, you're sitting there and you're incredibly depressed and unfulfilled because of the fact that you don't have the ability to express your needs.
Danika Munro:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Danika Munro:
I love that you're talking about mind, body connectedness and lack thereof. That is such, I mean, really it's it's a trauma response. We often and it's you know, people think of trauma. It's like this big thing that it can. It can be seemingly small things that start to disconnect us with our own needs and then, over time, essentially erode our ability to even know what our needs are Right, like having to go to the bathroom or needing to eat. Yeah, it's, it's a it's a real problem that I think we're all really struggling with. So funny because it also makes me think of my.
Danika Munro:
I had a slightly traumatic thing. It's you brought up like you know potty time and growing up I had two older sisters and they, you know I, often had to pee whenever we went out. I just, you know, I was 10 years younger than them, actually 10 and 11 years, and so you know, I'm being a little kid. I didn't, I didn't always remember to go before leaving, or maybe I just had to go when we were out, and I remember that so often it was like you have to go again, you know we have to find a bathroom.
Danika Munro:
Now, this is such an issue and what I did, unconsciously, was stop drinking as much water. Oh yeah, Right. I stopped drinking as much water because I didn't want to be a burden on whoever I was with to have to go and relieve my bladder. And it became such an issue that my now partner always you know he always says I, I treated your headaches because I always I started getting these dehydration headaches all the time and he would always ask me well, did you drink water today?
Danika Munro:
And my answer was inevitably like maybe a little bit. I don't know, you know. And now I mean I drink all the time. Always I've got a tea, I've got a water, I've got a something you know. But he really, he really helped me out with that. Like you know, you deserve to drink water and fluids.
Dana Jones:
You should be caring for your body.
Danika Munro:
Yeah.
Dana Jones:
That was part one of my interview with Donica. Stay tuned for next week's episode where we conclude our conversation. Have a good one.