Burnt Toast by Virginia Sole-Smith

Virginia Sole-Smith
Burnt Toast by Virginia Sole-Smith

Weekly conversations about how we dismantle diet culture and fatphobia, especially through parenting, health and fashion. (But non-parents like it too!) Hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith, journalist and author of THE EATING INSTINCT. virginiasolesmith.substack.com

  1. 2D AGO

    Can Fat People Do Pilates?

    You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my conversation is with Lauren Leavell. Lauren is a weight neutral fitness professional and content creator. She focuses on creating inclusive environments for movement and exercise to help clients feel strong and confident, and previously joined us on the podcast back in 2023. Lauren is an oasis in a sea of toxic online fitness and wellness culture. And it has been super toxic lately! So I asked Lauren to come on and chat with us about the recent dramas happening on Tiktok and Instagram. Yes, we get into the girl who said nobody over 200 pounds should take Pilates. We also talk about how to stay grounded when this noise is happening online, and how to seek out inclusive movement spaces—whatever that looks like for you. Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you. PS. You can always listen to this pod right here in your email, where you’ll also receive full transcripts (edited and condensed for clarity). But please also follow us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and/or Pocket Casts! And if you enjoy today’s conversation, please tap the heart on this post — likes are one of the biggest drivers of traffic from Substack’s Notes, so that’s a super easy, free way to support the show! Episode 197 Virginia Lauren, it’s so great to have you back on the podcast! It was one of my favorite conversations. It was two years ago that you were here before, I think. Lauren I know! Honestly, we could have a conversation once a month about toxic fitness stuff. Virginia There’s always something. For anyone who missed your first appearance and has missed the 72,000 times I say “I love Lauren’s workouts,” can you introduce yourself? Lauren I am Lauren Leavell. I am a certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor. I’ve been doing that for almost a decade at this point, which is so wild. I’m not tired of it yet, which is amazing for me. I have a virtual program online, and Virginia is a member of tat community. Virginia A groupie. Lauren Honestly, yes. Love that. I teach live classes and on demand classes. All of them are body neutral, and most of them are lower impact, because we’re here for a good time and a long time. And I also have private training clients who I program Stronger Together workouts for. When I’m not doing that, I’m apparently complaining on the Internet. Well, I try not to complain too much on the Internet. And stalking cats in my neighborhood. Virginia You are my favorite Internet cat lady. Lauren Huge, huge accolades here. Virginia Favorite Internet cat lady. That should be in your bio. And you are talking to us from France right now! Do you want to talk about that? Lauren I’m really leaning into my Sagittarius lifestyle. I just picked up my life in Philadelphia and decided to move to France. People keep asking me, why? And my answer is, why not? My partner and I are child-free except for our two beautiful cat daughters. But they’re pretty easy to move. So we packed up our lives and moved to France. We are still really new here, really getting into it. And I’m genuinely just so excited for all the new stimuli. Virginia Of course for folks listening to this episode, it is now mid-June, so we’re going to talk about something that happened a month ago, and it is forgotten in the attention span of the Internet. But I still think it’s very important to record for posterity that this happened. So Lauren, can you walk us through what I’m going to call Pilatesgate. Lauren Pilatesgate occurred when a woman decided to come on TikTok, and really just rant. You can tell that she was a little bit amped up. She was talking about how she did not believe that people in larger bodies—specifically, if you are over 200 pounds—you should not be in a Pilates level two class. She was really insistent, and talked about how you should be doing cardio or just going to the gym. And then she followed up with: “You also shouldn’t be a fitness instructor if you have a gut.” Like, what’s going on? The overall tone of it was she was extremely agitated. Virginia She felt this deeply. Lauren She was very bothered. Mind you, the person saying this, obviously, is not in a fat body. She’s not in a larger body. I think the tone of her video and how agitated she was is what really sparked the conversation around size inclusivity and fitness and blatant fatphobia and anti-fat bias. But it all started with someone having a very agitated car rant that I’m sure she didn’t think would go the way that it went. Virginia I think she thought people were going to be like, Hell yeah! Thanks for saying the truth. I think she thought there was going to be this moment of recognition that she had spoken something. But I would love to even just know the backstory. I assume she just walked into a Pilates class and saw a fat person and lost her mind? I can’t quite understand what series of events triggered the car rant, because I can’t imagine having really any experience in my daily life that I would be like, “That was so terrible I need to take to the internet and say my piece about it,” and to have the experience be…I observed another human being. Lauren Right? I think that from from her follow up video it seems like she’s been doing Pilates for a while, and maybe was agitated that someone was either getting more attention or she just maybe felt some type of way in general. Virginia I wonder if the fat person was better at Pilates than her, and that made her feel bad. Lauren It could be anything. Just like you said, like the presence of being there, maybe even having a conversation with a teacher—something triggered her. It could have even be been seeing something online of like a fat person doing Pilates as an instructor. I know plenty of fat Pilates instructors. And the apology videos were really like, “I need to work on myself.” And also, you know…you could have worked on yourself before releasing that rant into the internet space. Virginia I give her one tiny point for how it is a very full apology video. So often an apology video is like, “I’m sorry people were upset,” you know? Like, “I’m sorry that this bothered you.” And she is like, I truly apologize. I have to work on myself. This is bad. She does own it to a certain degree. Lauren I think it’s also because she experienced consequences. Her membership was revoked and she either lost her job, or at least is on punishment from her job. Virginia Which is correct! She should experience consequences. Plus there was a tidal wave of of videos coming out in response to her first one being like, what is wrong with you? This is a terrible thing. The backlash was quick and universal. I didn’t see a lot of support content for her. I saw just a tidal wave of people being like, what the fuck? Lauren I think the people who would have maybe supported that kept their mouths shut because they saw what was happening. There are people who support that message and feel exactly the same. It was almost like she was like, channeling that type of rage. And I think, again, the agitation is what sets this video apart from every other video that’s released 500 times a day on my FYP somewhere about people expressing anti-fat bias in fitness spaces, right? Virginia She said the thing that is often implied, and she said it very loudly. She also said it so righteously. It was a righteous anger in the first video. That, I think, was what was startling about it, I was glad to see the backlash—although, yes, as you’re saying, there is so much more out there. And really she looks like she is 12 years old. I think she’s like 23 or something. So this is a literal child who has had a tantrum. That happens every day, that some young 20 somethings says a fatphobic thing, right? Lauren I mean, actually, I was, at one point, a young 20 something saying fatphobic things to myself and out in the ether. Virginia From my esteemed wisdom as a 44 year old, I try to be like, Thank God Tiktok didn’t exist when I was 23! Thank God there’s no record of the things I said and thought as a 23 year old. So, okay, babygirl, you did this and we hope you really do do the work. But as you’re saying, she said something that is frequently echoed and reinforced by fitness influencers all over Al Gore’s internet. You sent me a Tiktok by a fitness influencer Melania Antuchas, who posts as FitByMa. We see her leaning into the camera at a very uncomfortable-looking angle, saying, “If you don’t like the way I train or instruct, don’t come to my class because I’m going to push you to be your best self and you just need to take it,” basically. Can we unpack the toxicity of this kind of messaging? Because I do think this kind of messaging is what begets the angsty 23-year-old being appalled that there’s a fat person in her Pilates class. Lauren Yes, totally. I think that that person may actually be like an Internet predecessor to the rant, if I’m going to be honest. This person’s content, against my own will, has been showing up frequently. Virginia Thank you for your service, by the way, that you have to consume all this fitness content, and see all of this. Lauren I’ve been seeing a lot of this person’s videos, and a lot of Pilates instructors have actually had a lot to say about it, because what she’s pitching as Pilates is not traditional Pilates, either mat or reformer. It’s inspired by, but we really shouldn’t be calling it that. And some people were like, “It seems like more of a barre class.” And I’m like, get my name out of your mouth. What are you talking about? Virginia You’re like, don’t you make me take her! I don’t want her! Lauren Yes, please don’t come over here with

    44 min
  2. JUN 5

    Is Giving Up Your Furniture a Diet?

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiasolesmith.substack.com/subscribe Thank you so much to everyone who donated to the Me Little Me Virtual Food Pantry! We raised $13,991 with your help — more than double our original goal of $6,000!! These funds, plus the Burnt Toast match, will cover over 3,600 home-cooked meals for multiply marginalized folks in need. Learn more about this project here. You can continue to support Me Little Me by becoming a recurring donor and following their work on Instagram. Thanks so much! So proud of how this community shows up and does the work! xx Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark. This month we asked our favorite question—IS IT A DIET?— about… ⭐️ Electrolytes! (Corinne is mad) ⭐️ Journaling! ⭐️ That viral sweet potato/ground beef/cottage cheese bowl! ⭐️ Living without furniture (yes really)! ⭐️ And so much more… To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier. Extra Butter costs just $99 per year. (Regular paid subscribers, the remaining value of your subscription will be deducted from that total!) Extra Butter subscribers also get access to posts like: Dating While Fat What to do when you miss your smaller body Is Kids Eat In Color anti-diet? And did Virginia really get divorced over butter? And Extra Butters also get DM access and other perks. Plus Extra Butter ensures that the Burnt Toast community can always stay an ad- and sponsor-free space—which is crucial for body liberation journalism. Join us here! (Questions? Glitches? Email me all the details, and cc support@substack.com.) PS. If Extra Butter isn’t the right tier for you, remember that you still get access behind almost every other paywall with a regular paid subscription. The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off! The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Farideh. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

    2 min
  3. MAY 29

    "I've Thought About Unleashing Jennifer on MAGA."

    Before we start the show today… Have you donated to the Me Little Me Virtual Food Pantry? This amazing organization works to get low-income folks (many of whom are in eating disorder recovery) fed — and with the food of their choosing. Meaning yes, ultra processed foods that bring comfort and convenience, and yes to beloved cultural foods…and yes to trusting folks in need to know what they need. We’re trying to raise $12,000 and add 50 recurring donors to their rosters by June 1 AND WE ARE SO CLOSE TO OUR GOAL. But we need your help to crush it! Thank you! You’re listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my conversation is with the iconic Sarai Walker. Sarai is the author of The Cherry Robbers and Dietland, which came out in May 2015—and is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month. Dietland is one of those books that means so much to me, it’s hard to put into words. I consider it a foundational text of the body liberation movement of the past decade. It was adapted as a television series starring Joy Nash for AMC in 2018. It’s just one of those books—that inducted so many of us into conversations about fatness, feminism, radical social action. Sarai has also lectured on feminism and body image internationally. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and elsewhere, and she worked as a writer and editor on an updated version of Our Bodies, Ourselves. I asked Sarai to join me today to reflect on what 10 years of Dietland has meant to her. We also talk a lot about the very mixed experience of being a public fat person, as well as being a woman, and a writer, in midlife. You will love this conversation. And! If you order Dietland and Fat Talk together from Split Rock Books, you can take 20% off the combo with the code FATLAND. If you’ve already bought fat talk from Split Rock, you can still take 10% off Dietland or any book we talk about on the podcast, using the code FATTALK. Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you. Episode 195 Transcript Virginia This is really a big thrill for me. Dietland came out in 2015, we’re here to celebrate its 10th anniversary. I read it pretty soon after it came out, and I remember reading about Plum and Calliope House and the Jennifer vigilantes who were killing all the evil men, and just thinking, how is she in my brain? How is she writing my whole heart in this story? So to start us off with what is probably an impossible question: How does that feel, to have contributed something that is so important to the canon? And by canon, I mean the fat feminist literary canon. Sarai It’s funny, as an author, I don’t know if I feel it the way you’re describing it. Man, I hope that that’s the case! I guess it’s for other people to decide what a book’s legacy is, whether it’s important or not. What I can say—you know, the book turns 10 this month, and it has really meant a lot to me over the years that people have just connected with it in such a positive way. People related to Plum’s story, they really felt that I put into words something that only they had felt, which was one of the things that I really had to work hard on in the book, because I had all these feelings about my own experience with my own body. And I was like, how do I put that into words? So that was the struggle of writing the book and being able to do that. I was so happy when people really felt that the book could speak for them in certain ways, that it gave them a voice. I still hear from people! I heard from somebody just yesterday who said the book changed their life. We live in an age where so many things just seem disposable, and people forget about things and move on really quickly. Dietland, whatever its legacy may be, it has had a long life. Virginia We should say, for folks who don’t know publishing: For a book to still be in print 10 years later is incredible. The vast majority of books have a year, two years, and then they’re done. It is a huge accomplishment, and a huge contribution. Sarai It means a lot to me. It’s getting a new French publication and a new translation over there. So, you know, my girl keeps on going. And it’s funny, because I think one of the things that people enjoyed about the book was the anger and the rage in it, and the revenge fantasy narrative about Jennifer. At the same time, some people were like, oh, well, things aren’t that bad. You’re exaggerating. Fast forward from 2015 to 2025, and things are worse than I could have ever imagined back then. Virginia You downplayed it a little bit. Sarai Exactly. So I feel in this weird way, kind of vindicated? That’s not a great feeling. But it’s just so weird that the 10th anniversary is coming at a time when there’s this huge backlash against feminism, against fat. Even something as watered down as body positivity is under attack, you know? It just tells you how bad things are. So in that sense, it’s sort of bittersweet to have the anniversary at this time, because things are really just heartbreaking and scary right now. Virginia But also: We need the book more than ever. We need the Dietland story more than ever, because things are so scary right now. It gives us a way of articulating that. It gives us a place to put those feelings. Sarai I hope that new readers find the book now in this new climate that we’re in and people who read it before might revisit it. I’ve actually thought of writing some new Jennifer stories. I feel like they would have to be so, so violent and so filled with rage, I don’t know if they would be healthy for me, but I’ve thought about unleashing Jennifer on MAGA. Virginia I personally am very here for this and yery, very supportive of this idea. I think there would be an audience. I would really love to see Jennifer take on MAGA and MAHA and RFK Jr. in particular. Sarai If I end up in prison, though, I don’t know. Virginia I’m hearing that concern, as we’re saying it out loud. Fictionalized versions of these things, perhaps. Sarai Names changed. Virginia I mean, you’re busy, you’re doing lots of things, but it would be a public service. Many more folks discovered Dietland after it became a TV show, which aired in 2018. It was created by Marti Noxon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. And it starred the incredible Joy Nash. And we only got 10 magic episodes. It’s a really great season, but we only got the one season. I would love to hear how you felt about the show? I’ve always wondered what that feels like, to have a novel go into on the screen. It’s got to be such a strange experience. Sarai It is strange and surreal. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that it happened. I think so many writers do get their book optioned, but to actually have it not just optioned, but then go into production and become a television series is pretty rare. So I feel lucky that I had that. The show premiered three years after the book was published, which is so fast, but that was kind of the golden age of TV, I think. It was a great experience. Marti really welcomed me in. I went out to the writer’s room, and I worked as a consultant. I got to visit the set in New York. And basically the the 10 episodes that we got were the whole book. So, I’m really sad that it didn’t go on, that we didn’t get at least a season two, preferably five seasons would have been great. But AMC just kind of bailed out on it. There was a lot of drama there going on behind the scenes that had nothing to do with the show that contributed to that. When the show was canceled, one of the cast members posted something on social media saying, “I’m so tired of shows about women that try and do interesting and groundbreaking things just being canceled and not given a chance to grow.” It’s very hard to build an audience in one ten episode season. So I just felt like the show wasn’t given that chance. And so that makes it a little bit bittersweet. But I treasure the ten episodes that we did get. It’s an incredible privilege that we got that. Amd the show was pretty faithful to the book, actually, I thought. When I got there to the writer’s room, they were already at work and they were using it as their Bible and I was this kind of like goddess of this world. It was really weird. Virginia That’s amazing. Sarai All these people working on something that came from my head. It was surreal. Virginia And Joy as Plum—she’s amazing and really embodies the character. Sarai She is so great. I just love Joy. When I was living out in LA we used to go out to lunch, and she’s so fun and just so sweet. And, yeah, I really loved working with her, and having her play Plum. Virginia So you mentioned feeling like a goddess in the writers room. But putting this out there did launch you as a Public Facing Fat Person, which I put in capital letters. It’s an experience that that I’ve had, a little bit as well. And it is a real mixed bag. It’s just really a weird experience to be professionally fat, especially because, in your case, your subsequent work has had nothing to do with fatness. And yet, I’m sure this is still something that comes up. Sarai Yeah, I mean, you know what it’s like to be publicly fat. Everyone reacts to it differently. I’m a novelist, so I’m very introverted. The book was published in 2015 and then the paperback in 2016 and the British edition, which was a whole wild ride with the media over there. Virginia Oh god, I am sorry. I know and I’m sorry. Sarai Yeah. It made our media look okay! Virginia No, it’s terrible. The British media is so awful in general, and it’s so specifically fatphobic. Anytime I’ve done anything with the British media, it’s been a deeply scarring experience. Sarai It was awful. I

    33 min
  4. MAY 22

    RFK Has a Vision Board for Food Dye Bans

    Before we start the show today… Have you donated to the Me Little Me Virtual Food Pantry? No, it won’t prevent any of the MAHA shenanigans we’re about to discuss. But it will get low-income folks (many of whom are in eating disorder recovery) fed — and with the food of their choosing. Meaning yes, ultra processed foods that bring comfort and convenience, and yes to beloved cultural foods…and yes to trusting folks in need to know what they need. We’re trying to raise $12,000 and add 50 recurring donors to their rosters by June 1. And we can only do that with your help! Thank you! You are listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Jessica Wilson, MS, RD. Jessica is a clinical dietitian and host of the podcast Making It Awkward. Her critiques of American food hysteria have been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets, and Jessica’s ultra processed food experiment received coverage in Time Magazine last fall. Jessica was last on the podcast to celebrate the release of her book, It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies, which explores how marginalized bodies, especially black women’s bodies, are policed by society in ways that impact body autonomy and health. Jessica is one of the most incisive thinkers I know about wellness and diet culture, as well as food policy and nutrition. So I asked her to come back on the podcast today just to help us make sense of what is happening right now in public health. We’re going to get into RFK. We’re going to get into MAHA, we’re going to get into processed foods. I know you will find this conversation both hilarious and helpful. Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you. And don’t forget, you can take 10 percent off It’s Always Been Ours, or any book we talk about on the podcast, if you order it from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, along with a copy of Fat Talk! (This also applies if you’ve previously bought Fat Talk from them. Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.) The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Farideh. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiasolesmith.substack.com/subscribe

    28 min
  5. MAY 15

    The Episode Corinne Has Been WAITING For!

    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiasolesmith.substack.com/subscribe Welcome to Indulgence Gospel After Dark. This month we are talking about… seasonal color analysis! We’ll be getting into: ⭐️ The complicated legacy of Color Me Beautiful ⭐️ Is color analysis a little bit racist? ⭐️ Is color analysis…a diet? ⭐️ What colors can Virginia wear, and why are there so many shades of taupe? To hear the whole thing, read the full transcript, and join us in the comments, you’ll need to join Extra Butter, our premium subscription tier. Extra Butter costs just $99 per year. (Regular paid subscribers, the remaining value of your subscription will be deducted from that total!) Extra Butter subscribers also get access to posts like: Dating While Fat What to do when you miss your smaller body Is Kids Eat In Color anti-diet? And did Virginia really get divorced over butter? And Extra Butters also get DM access and other perks. Plus Extra Butter ensures that the Burnt Toast community can always stay an ad- and sponsor-free space—which is crucial for body liberation journalism. Join us here! (Questions? Glitches? Email me all the details, and cc support@substack.com.) PS. If Extra Butter isn’t the right tier for you, remember that you still get access behind almost every other paywall with a regular paid subscription. The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies—subscribe for 20% off! The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe. Our theme music is by Farideh. Tommy Harron is our audio engineer. Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

    2 min
  6. MAY 8

    Let's Fund a Virtual Food Pantry!

    You are listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Elizabeth Ayiku. Elizabeth is a food justice organizer and founder of the Me Little Me Foundation, a nonprofit committed to advancing food equity and providing free, culturally competent support services for marginalized communities. Based in Los Angeles, Elizabeth works to dismantle the systemic barriers that affect mental health and wellbeing, emphasizing the importance of meeting basic needs first. Elizabeth’s foundation draws its name from her debut feature film Me Little Me. The Me Little Me Foundation offers a free virtual food pantry for folks in need—with a focus on helping people with multiple marginalized identities, folks of color and folks in eating disorder recovery. And Burnt Toast, we have a challenge for you! We want to raise $6,000 to support the Me Little Me Foundation. Burnt Toast will match every dollar we raise, up to another $6000, by June 1. You’re going to hear more from Elizabeth in this episode about why this work is so important. Please share this episode widely, and donate if you can! Today’s episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can’t do this without you. Episode 192 Transcript Elizabeth So I was born in the prairies of Canada to a Caribbean mother and West African father. I’m currently Los Angeles based. And I’m a filmmaker, a food justice organizer and a nonprofit founder. Virginia That is a lot of very hard jobs that you have! You sound extremely busy. Elizabeth I am. It’s a lot. Virginia Well, we’ll start with the film, because that’s how we first got connected, when you were looking for sponsors for your really incredible film called Me Little Me. It came out in 2022, and it is available to stream on Amazon Prime and Apple TV. You were working on this for quite a long time. It was a the labor of love project for sure. Elizabeth Oh my goodness, 100 percent. It’s based on my own lived experience. So, in 2009 I went to treatment for eating disorder recovery. I went to IOP—an intensive outpatient program—and I was also working full time while I did it. Being in eating disorder treatment became this kind of double life, and this big secret I had to hide. Because life couldn’t stop, you know? And I guess that’s something that I just never saw portrayed in any mainstream media, film, TV. It was always the person checked into inpatient. They had unlimited resources. Virginia Thousands and thousands of dollars per day for treatment. Elizabeth And no mention of where this money was coming from. It was just this really nicely packaged perception of what recovery is. And I was just waiting and waiting to see something that had any semblance of what I’d gone through. And I just couldn’t wait anymore! One day, I was like, “Okay, they’re not doing it. I’m going to have to be the one to make it.” And that’s what I did. Like you said, it was a labor of love. This is an indie film, 100 percent. We didn’t have a studio backing us or anything like that. I just literally went to as many organizations as I could, and was like, “Look, I’m trying to make this. Can we have some money?” And it took a long time. We started shooting maybe the end of 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic. We started shooting principal photography, just getting the shots in. We ran out of money multiple times. There were so many challenges. So when I reached out to you, I was looking for finishing funds. I took a shot and submitted to South by Southwest as my work in progress. That means the sound wasn’t done, the color wasn’t finalized. It was 2021, by this time. And I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to shoot my shot and say I did it.” I was 100 percent sure nothing was going to come of it. But just to say that I did it. So end of 2021 I submitted and January 2022 is when they told me we were accepted. Still, I have to remind myself—I’m like, Oh my gosh, that happened. Virginia Yeah, you did it! You did the thing. Elizabeth I did the thing! And then there were a whole bunch of other expenses that came with that. They needed a digital cinema package as a way to show the movie professionally, which was like a minimum $1500+. Plus, it still wasn’t finished. So I just needed someone to do a quick color and sound pass. Because, my God, I couldn’t just show the the work in progress. So we just did a quick, rough color and sound pass. And I had to hire someone to do that. I was grasping at straws. So when I reached out to you, I was just like, “This is what’s happening. This is what the my need is. Any help would be so so appreciated,” and you were like, absolutely, let’s do this. Virginia The story really resonated with me. As a journalist who’s written about eating disorder recovery for two decades now, I’m very aware of that mainstream narrative that you were talking about and just how many people it doesn’t represent. There is this whole eating disorder industrial complex that’s built to sell a certain kind of recovery and center a certain thin, white girl narrative. And it just perpetually frustrates me, because everybody I know, whether personally in my own life, or people I’ve interviewed for work who has gone through recovery, is like, “Yeah, it doesn’t look anything like that.” Elizabeth Nope. Not even a little bit. Virginia And we’re doing such a disservice to people! So the fact that you were going to tell this much more complex story, centering a Black woman—I was like, yes, thank you so much. Elizabeth What you described is what I was up against, just this, all of those things. Trying to sell that story to the public, and if that’s all people are offered, that’s that’s what they think the reality is. Virginia And then that just pushes recovery so much further out of reach for people who wouldn’t have access to that kind of treatment. Meaning the expensive inpatient treatment options, which also aren’t even necessarily the best treatment! It doesn’t work for everybody! Okay. We could have a whole other show about that. Elizabeth We really could. Virginia The point is, the film’s incredible. It’s out. I want everyone to go stream it now that they can. And what we really want to talk about today is how working on that film then led you to launch the Me Little Me Foundation. Elizabeth While I was working on finishing the film, it was the middle of the pandemic. It was a hard time. The racial uprisings were happening all around us, and almost everyone I knew was traumatized by the world they were witnessing. And that combination — There was so much need, and people in my community and people I didn’t know, people online were like. “I need resources, I need assistance, but I don’t know where to turn.” It was too much to just ignore, you know? So that the subject matter of the film, plus the world that was happening at the time—I just knew there needed to be something in place that was different than the current resources out there. So I came up with the idea for a virtual food pantry where folks are approved up to a certain amount. They make a list of what they need. I shop for them online from a local grocery store that offers delivery, and the groceries are shipped to them for free. So you don’t need to have a vehicle, you don’t need to live in the correct zip code to get to the food pantry—because that’s a thing. And you also get to choose how you want to nourish yourself, because that was important to me, too. Because there’s dignity in being able to choose. Virginia Yes, and not just being handed a bag of food like, “This is what you get.” Elizabeth Yeah. “Be grateful, now move along.” So I wanted to help with the trauma, and the lack of resources. Cultural needs aren’t taken into account at any food pantry I’ve ever used. I’ve been to so many pantries in my life, and it’s a lot of white foods. Like, I don’t know how else to describe them. And when you’re having mental health issues because of trauma, because of the world around us, for whatever reason, just because you’re struggling to make it, your cultural foods can be so comforting. They can just be so so comforting, and just what you need. And I just wanted to take that into consideration. So that’s why I set it up the way I did, where folks tell me what they need, and that’s what they get. Virginia There’s such dignity in that, and empowerment for people. I think about the power of choice all the time, even just at the level of feeding my own kids. The idea that I would know what someone else needs to eat on any given day seems wild? I don’t know what you’re hungry for! I don’t know what what you need right now. You know what you need right now. The fact that so many of our aid systems are not set up to honor that is a huge problem. So I love that you built that into into how you’re doing this. You’re focusing on folks of color who need assistance, and you’re also focusing on folks in eating disorder recovery. Elizabeth Yeah, so basically folks who hold multiple marginalized identities are really who we serve the most. That’s just how it honestly just started happening because of the people I’m connected with onlin,e and the places I was advertising this pantry. So many folks in recovery struggle with food security. Because the recovery models we were talking about earlier really emphasize “You need to always have food available.” You need to have snacks. So Recovery has been hard for them because that. Recovery has been hard for me because of that. I don’t always have a cupboard full of snacks and multiple choices even though that’s something in recovery that we’re told to do. I’m laughing because they say, “Just make sure you fill your pantry.” Like ev

    28 min
4.7
out of 5
405 Ratings

About

Weekly conversations about how we dismantle diet culture and fatphobia, especially through parenting, health and fashion. (But non-parents like it too!) Hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith, journalist and author of THE EATING INSTINCT. virginiasolesmith.substack.com

You Might Also Like

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada