36: "Oh, That's Not Cool" - Protecting Kids From Diet Culture with Vicky Bellman

Today I'm talking to therapist Vicky Bellman from Concentric Counselling and Fat Bubble about protecting our kids' from the weird diet culture things people say that can rupture their embodiment. I loved talking to Vicky and think you'll get so much from this conversation.

In this episode we discuss:

👉 The 'hot potato' of disordered eating and disembodiment that gets transmitted through families
👉 How to shut down body shaming conversations in their tracks
👉 How we can transmit healing back up the line, as well as protect our kids
👉 How every day we protect our kids against diet culture is a day we
👉 Why body positivity and food neutrality are not the whole story

You can follow Vicky on Instagram here.

Episode Transcript

Laura: Vicki, can you please start by telling us a bit about you and your work? 

Vicky: Sure. So I work in private practice from my little garden studio here in Kent in the UK, and I work with clients around the world who are wanting to incorporate fat positive viewpoint into their therapeutic work. I'm a counsellor and I work predominantly with people who experience eating disorders or disordered eating. Often people who are in bigger bodies themselves. 

I'm a fat woman and I think that that is a really important aspect of our work, that I have a lived experience and a viewpoint that centres a fat experience. It's what I know, personally and professionally. So that forms the, the real core. 

Laura: And what brought you to this work in the first place?

Vicky: So, I did train as a chef. I was a chef. 

Laura: I feel like I have that information stored somewhere deep in the back of my brain. Because like, it felt like it rang a bell. But then to, when you, to hear you say that now, it's like, oh yeah, of course. But I had forgotten. 

Vicky: Yes, it does occasionally come up. Yes, so I was a chef.

And I just long term for, for a few reasons just did not, couldn't make that work, didn't want to make it work and the kind of long hours… 

Laura: It's such a tough career. 

Vicky: Very tough career, physically and in terms of gender. As a woman in kitchens, and this was, you know, this was in the noughties. So it was not, it was not easy. I don't think it's particularly easy now either. 

So I was thinking around what I wanted to do and saw an advert for counselling and I thought, oh my goodness, this is it. This links up with my – what we didn't call social justice back then, but do now – just wanting to make a contribution, a social contribution and being in community.

And so that was the start of it. And I was originally…predominantly worked in trauma therapy. So that's still a big part of my work and underpins all of my work in terms of making my work very safe, I hope, because that's at its core. And then eating disorder work really laid itself on top of the trauma work as a focus because of course there can be so much overlap and again it was an area of passion for me and an area that I really thought that I would have good insight, particularly again as a fat person, as fat people experiencing eating disorders. It's a very particular experience 

Laura: Yeah, we recently did a we did like a movie club based on Your Fat Friend movie by Jeanie Finlay, which is just such a brilliant and moving story and just captured so brilliantly, in the sense that it's not pitying Aubrey in any way, which I think we tend to see portrayals of fatness on screen as being like, you know, falling into one of a very few genres and pity is, is a big one, I think. That's how we're meant to feel about the, the fat characters anyway. 

But anyway, why I bring that up is because Aubrey talks about her experience with eating disorders in that film. And how, 1) she's not believed. And 2) when she seeks treatment out, it often reinforces the eating disorder simply because she lives in a, in a fat body and we think that in order to treat her eating disorder, that means shrink her body.

Vicky: Yes, absolutely. That's one of the parts that spoke to me as well when I went to see the film. Yeah, that is the experience of so many of my clients who either will not have recognised their own experiences of eating disorder because they've never conceptualised that eating disorder. 

Laura: Or they're just told that it's binge eating disorder, right?

Vicky: Urgh! Yeah. Oh, God. Oh, God. Yes, absolutely. So that was a visceral response. Yes. 

Laura: You felt that, didn't you?

Vicky: I sure did! Just a complete lack of awareness from systems and structures down to individuals of how central, restriction experiences within binge eating disorder. It is wild. It's just wild to me that we're still having to belabour that point.

Laura: It is so interesting in that you're reminding me of a conversation, conversations I've had with multiple fat clients where I am the first person who has said to them, you're not eating enough food. And they, like, laugh at me. They're like, what the fuck are you talking about? I'm a fat person. Of course I'm eating enough food.

And I'm like, of course, you know, that is what you have been told over and over and over again. And so I get that reaction and I'm telling you… 

Vicky: Absolutely. And of course, you know, through your role, you're so able to say that. And it comes up within my work as well to say to clients, are you sure you're eating enough?

And it's not something anyone has ever said before. Because the only message they've received is: ‘you're eating too much’. And so that's so anti that understanding of what an eating disorder might look like. They just can't imagine themselves experiencing that. 

Which is just so invalidating, of course, for clients in bigger bodies who experience eating disorders, they're either gonna never have been able to conceptualise it for themselves. Or they have an inkling that they might be experiencing an eating disorder, but they could never imagine safely going to a doctor and having that conversation.Or they go to a doctor, have that conversation and they're not believed. Or double down and told to lose weight. 

Laura: I was gonna say, yeah. They walk out of there with a Slimming World prescription or like a referral for bariatrics or…

Vicky: Oh yeah. So there are multiple pathways for a fat person experiencing an eating disorder result in more harm rather than receiving care.

And that is so often the experience by the time a client gets to me. And they may have experienced it in other therapy settings, having their experience not recognised, even having it supported. 

Laura: 100% I've, yeah, unfortunately heard of a lot of inappropriate advice from both therapists and nutritionists, dieticians that are, you know, effectively encouraging people to double down on their disordered eating behaviours because yeah, they're told that they need to lose weight and that's, that will ‘resolve their eating disorder’.

So I think we've established that weight loss is not the answer – surprise, surprise – to recovering when anyone has an eating disorder, despite that often being like, you know, the central kind of focus of the eating disorder or like the kind of the narrative, I suppose, of the eating disorder. 

We've talked about how you do a lot of work to support people who have a difficult relationship with food and a difficult relationship with their body. And I'm wondering if we could speak to…what are the things that cause the ruptures? 

In the relationship with food and our bodies in the first place, what are the biggest kind of causes or influences that you see in your practice that then may precipitate…whether it's a, you know, a clinically diagnosed eating disorder or just chronic dieting, chronic disordered eating, disembodiment, all of these things, these really painful experiences that people have.

Vicky: I think disembodiment is, is so key. You know, that kind of moment where your head just detaches from your body, too painful to stay attached. You know, the overwhelming answer that's in my head is that that is something that happens in childhood. It can happen later, but in my experience, that's rarely the case.

And I think the main answer is yes, it can come from peer interactions. It can come from being bullied or being labelled as fat as a negative thing from other children. But the pain that resonates and stays and gets talked about most often in my practice room is when it's come from adults. And it's come from trusted adults. It comes from parents, family members, teachers, religious leaders… 

Laura: PE teachers. Oh my god.

Vicky: PE teachers, gym club, swimming club, anything like that, where the person is in a position of authority, in a position of power, but fundamentally, what has been forgotten is that the person is also in a position of care.

And that care was not demonstrated and it, and that was the rupture. I thought I was going to be safe with this person, but they have taken me out of the immediacy of my experience and into a scrutiny of myself. I think the glorious thing that all children should experience and that is inherent to childhood is living in real time, you know, like being in the moment and being in your body and having a super embodied experience, you know, running and jumping and whatever, just being in the moment and that moment where they are taken, the child is taken outside of their experience and into their appearance. 

So they're not enjoying that internal experience, they are scrutinising their external appearance and that is such a shift in consciousness, you know. I don't think it's a door that you walk through back through. The other way through.  

Laura: Oh my god, my stomach did a flip when you said that. That it being a door that you walk through and not one that comes back and, I mean, I can't…like, as a, as a parent, that made me go, oh fuck.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh fuck. Because it can be one, like a really thoughtless comment from a teacher. I think it's really important that we're not blaming individuals here when I, when I'm using these examples, I'm, I'm not trying to call any specific person out because as, as I think you and I both are quite clear on Vicky, it's the systems, right?

It's not individual people and we are just people within these systems, but yeah, that, that point of it being like a caring adult. In a position of authority, in a position of power, and someone, yeah, fundamentally who's, who's meant to be there to look after you. 

Another one that I hear quite a lot is doctors.

Vicky: Oh, yeah. Yeah, why didn't I say that? Absolutely. 

Laura: No, but, yeah, because, yeah, I think, We think of them as being sort of, like, on the periphery of our children's lives, which often they are, unless, you know, a child has, you know, ongoing medical complexity that they are seeing doctors more regularly. For most of us with health privilege, you know, they're seeing them for vaccinations and checkups and things like that.

But yeah, coming back to this idea that, like, there can be just this moment of, you know, rupture that a lot of adults, even, you know, by the time that they've even identified what that initial rupture was, they spend, you know, hours and hours and hours in therapy with someone like you or doing nutrition work with me, like trying to, trying to piece that back together.

Vicky: Yes, absolutely. I think the problem is that we've become so used to body scrutiny as a culture that we are not shocked by it anymore. Actually, one of the healing things that I have done for myself, and then I've worked to do on my practice with my clients is make it shocking again, make it shocking when someone comments on body interference. 

Laura: Oh, so you mean to say like, you would actually say that if someone were to comment on one of your kids' bodies in front of you? 

Vicky: ‘Oh, that's not cool’, is my response.  

Laura: Oh, I love that. And keeping that in my back pocket. That's brilliant, ‘oh, that's not cool’. 

Vicky: Because I’m not wild on the term, like, microaggression, you know, like I think that underplays, that real aggression.

Laura: Yeah. Rupture. 

Vicky: Yeah, exactly. The real rupture. But in that rupture, rather than just allowing the rupture to exist. Just batting it back. Oh, that's not cool. So the problem is there. They are the one who has fucked up. The fucked up-ness doesn't kind of rest with the child, or with me, or you know, whoever has experienced it.

And so that is my, and I have to teach myself to…And it's not a big deal, you know, it's not a, Oh my goodness, I can't believe you were saying that, blah, blah, blah. You know, not a big rant, but I can probably do that to you. It's just a, Oh, that's not cool. Just, Oh, that is out of the ordinary and unusual and does not feel good that you said that.

Laura: Yeah. I love that so much because there's, first of all, it's just actionable, something tangible that, that parents can do that is just role modelling. Like, no, I, I'm, I'm not going to let anyone say anything weird about your body. It's kind of trying to reestablish new norms of how we talk about bodies and what is okay to say about bodies and, and not say about bodies.

And I think of just like the pervasive narrative that we have at the moment, which is a literal war on children's bodies, like a war on childhood ‘ob*sity’ – in inverted commas. That is, first of all, so violent. 

Vicky: Oh my gosh, yeah. 

Laura: But that is kind of like the soup that we're swimming through at the moment?

Vicky: Completely the soup that we're swimming through. And actually, you know, like, yes, you and I talk about systems and structures, but this is where I would like people to imagine the individual. And, you know, the ‘war on childhood obesity’ was, to just use myself as an example, war on my own body, and that is a violence, that is a systemic structural violence that was individualised and projected onto my body.

My body was just a body, a child's body. 

Laura: A child's body. And I think it is even more disturbing, that imagery is even more disturbing seeing the literal war being wielded on so many children's bodies around the world, currently. You know, coming back to this idea that you were saying about just like normalising how we talk about children's bodies, why is it okay that we're using the imagery of violence and war?

Vicky: You're so right. We use that word so indiscriminately. It's the sole problem, like it's a sole issue that we are just so numbed to everyday violence. I saw a really wonderful post yesterday on Instagram that was talking about, it was an indigenous woman and she was saying, well, we have been told that in the past our culture used human sacrifice and that was considered to be inhumane, but how many people have been sacrificed to the gods of capitalism?

And I was like, yes, thank you. You know, that's one of the reasons why my work is very political because, I don't know how long we've been talking to each other, not long.

Laura: 20 minutes, yeah. 

Vicky: And I will eventually begin to rant about capitalism because I don't know how to do this work without. 

Laura: No, please do, because, because I think it, like, all of this stuff, it is, it's tricky because, you know, like, like we were saying, There are things that we can do on an individual level to protect our children, to protect our inner child even, which is maybe something we can come back to.

You know, like you said before, where the war on childhood obesity has literally been projected onto our bodies and internalised into our bodies to the point that we wage war on ourselves, right? If that is not what an eating disorder and disordered eating is and disembodiment is, then I don't know what else it is, right?

Like, except waging war on ourselves. That piece of our own individual experience, but I think we always have to kind of bring it back to the political and the systems. 

Vicky: Yeah, absolutely. Because you and I, in our work, we're dealing with the individual implication and the family. But it is all an internalising of the air that we breathe, you know, just the air that we breathe.

And this is the air that our parents breathe. And their parents breathe, you know, it's so easy to see how it just comes down the generations. And actually to be the first one to say this is toxic and choosing a different environment for myself and for the line from now on, you know, that is just such, I think that's an honour.

Laura: You kind of, you're speaking to this idea, I think, of the intergenerational transmission of body shame, disembodiment, disordered eating. Do you think that that is something different from what we talked about before in terms of like it being a, a rupture, like one single rupture? And then I think like as an extension of that, you know, what happens as we become parents, if we maybe haven't unpacked some of that stuff? 

Vicky: Well, I have two things to say to that. One is a kind of analogy that I use, and then the second is, I think, a hopeful thing. 

So the analogy is, I see it as kind of a hot potato, and each generation receives it from the one above, you know, you've got the potato in your hands, you're, you know, you're tossing it from one hand to the other because it's so hot and it's so uncomfortable and it feels so like, ow, it's burning and so you throw it to the person who's closest and oh fuck it's your own children and so then their hands are being burned.

The way that I see therapy is clients coming in, putting their potato on the table between us and saying, what are we going to do about this? 

Laura: Let's let it cool down. 

Vicky: Exactly. And so this is the thing. There are two things. One is that you let it cool down. And that is the kind of regulation and the healing work.

And then one is that you get some oven mitts. Which is, of course, your resilience and your resilience practices, so that when you're in the vicinity of hot potatoes again, you have your mitts to protect you. So that's one thing. I think it's just a very human thing, you know, that we just pass down good and bad.

Laura: Yeah. Down the line. 

Vicky: Yeah. One thing that I don't know that I entirely have the words for yet, but I think it's a very experiential and very spiritual thing, is that I, I think we can also transmit healing back up the line. 

Laura: Oh, I love this. Say more about this.