Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for Bonus Content

Writer Virginia Sole-Smith was a skinny teenager who became a fat adult. She now writes about and personally experiences anti-fat bias on a daily basis, from finding clothes to accessing medical care. On this episode, hear Ricki open up about her own weight journey as she and Virginia talk about how weight discrimination shows up across the fat spectrum, how to let your kids make their own decisions about what they put in their bodies, and whether or not Ricki herself has contributed to fatphobia. Get ready for one of the most open and honest conversations about weight you’ve ever heard.

Show Resources:

• Check out Virginia’s books, Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture and The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America
• Subscribe to Virginia’s Substack newsletter, Burnt Toast

Follow Ricki Lake @rickilake on Instagram. And stay up to date with us @LemonadaMedia on X, Facebook, and Instagram.

For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.

Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Ricki Lake, Virginia Sole-Smith

Ricki Lake  01:33

This is the high life with me, Ricki Lake, where we find out how my guests crack the code to living a full and vibrant life, so you can too. I am so excited to welcome Virginia Sole-Smith to the show. She is the best selling author of Fat Talk parenting in the age of diet culture. She is also an award winning journalist. She writes the amazing sub stack burnt toast, where she talks about anti fat bias, feminism and toxic body image, along with so many other fascinating topics, she’s been open about her recent divorce and how her experience as a mom has shaped her view of her own weight. Now you all know me. You grew up with me. You know that I have been famous for being fat at the age of 18 years of age, and I’ve struggled with my weight for years. And not only have I had to manage my weight, but even more so managed in the media, and it’s such a complicated topic for me, because I recognize that I am implicated in this. I have been open and honest, and I’ve shared my successes in this, in this area. And so I’m really excited to talk to Virginia, who writes so thoughtfully and personally about such a complicated topic. Virginia, welcome, thank you.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  02:42

Oh, absolutely, thank you, Ricki, this is such a thrill.

 

Ricki Lake  02:46

I’m really excited, and I would okay, we always start our show with this question, where are you getting your highs from right now? Like, what is bringing you joy? It could be anything big, small, anything.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  02:57

Oh, I mean, it’s 100% my garden. I am a crazy plant lady, and this time of year, I live in New York’s Hudson Valley, which is just beautiful in the summer, and I grow a lot of different flowers. And my dahlias are about to come into bloom. And it’s like.

 

Ricki Lake  03:11

Dahlias.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  03:12

I’m just, like, out there, like, at 6am in my pajamas, like, dahlia watch like.

 

Ricki Lake  03:18

I actually relate. And just just, you know, I’m from that area. I’m from Hastings on Hudson, you know, I feel like we’re from the same kind of hood. And I have an incredible garden here in Malibu that everything is planted with intention, whether it’s to attract butterflies over here, or hummingbirds here, or it’s really, it’s really something. So if you’re ever out in this area, you must come over and see what I have going here.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  03:42

I mean, Malibu, weather, you all can grow things that I just dream about.

 

Ricki Lake  03:46

I grow cannabis outside, anyway amazing. Can we talk about your childhood? Were you a heavy kid? How, what was that like for you?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  03:54

So I wasn’t, I was a thin kid who became a fat adult. So my entry point into all of this is a little bit different than a lot of you know, a more common story of growing up fat and living, you know, in that larger body. For me, what I was really aware of as a thin kid, though, was how important my thinness was to all the adults in my life. So I really understood this thinness as like it felt like a superpower, like all the grown ups around me were trying to make themselves smaller in all these different ways, and I got a free pass because my body was small, and so I was allowed to eat the cookies. But, like, my dad wouldn’t let himself have the cookies, that kind of thing. And then when I went to college, and my body started to change, and I know, because I can look at my mom and my grandma like I can look at the adult female bodies in my family and know that my body is doing exactly what it genetically was going to do.

 

Ricki Lake  04:51

And was that the freshman 15? Was that like the typical first year of college?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  04:55

Yeah, you know. And I think what we know now about stuff like the freshman 15 is the off. And kids that age aren’t done growing, like, you can reach your full height and not have reached your full body shape and size, because puberty goes on, you know, longer than we think it does. And I was, like, a little bit on the late side, starting all of that. So I think my body, I was just coming into my adult body, but I experienced that as this big failure, like, oh, I’ve lost this free pass to access all the things that thinness gave me.

 

Ricki Lake  05:26

And you wrote about, I was reading some stories, some anecdotes about, you know, going back to school and seeing the nurse at the start of school. For me, I remember being probably like in fifth grade, and we had to get on a scale in front of everyone at gym class. It’s horrific like, it’s, it really, terrif, really messed me up. And I remember also, when I go to the doctor, I was, it was just mortifying, you know, knowing, because, you know, a bigger person knows they’re a bigger person, and so for you, so you did the diets. What were the diets you did in your 20s? Like, did you do the Weight Watchers and the I mean, I did Jenny Craig, I did them all.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  06:05

Yeah, I So, in my 20s, I was working in women’s magazines in New York City, which is a, this is early 2000s like late 90s, early 2000s it’s a real specific flavor of diet culture, like detoxing was very big cleanses were very big. A lot of carb phobia, for sure. And what was interesting about the diet culture at that time is, like, especially in New York City, you know, which is, like, women’s media and media in general. It’s like a very upper income world, like there was a kind of need to, like, separate from the Jenny Craig and the Weight Watchers pieces of things like, oh, that’s like, what our moms did or that’s like, not cool and hip now. So we could kind of convince ourselves we weren’t doing the same thing. Like, if you had asked me in my 20s, I would been like, oh, I’m not dieting. I’m not dieting at all. I don’t believe in dieting. Dieting is like, so like, I don’t want to do that, but I was subtly restricting myself constantly, but using this other language, like I was like, I’m clean eating, I’m eating whole foods, you know, all that kind of stuff. So it was really, that’s a very insidious form of it I think.

 

Ricki Lake  07:12

Yeah, and wait, can you explain what you mean by fat spectrum?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  07:17

Oh, sure so I identify as small fat. And the reason I use that term, so there’s a spectrum of fatness that was developed by many fat activists kind of been redefined over the years, but it’s an effort to recognize that the bigger you are, the more discrimination you face based on your size. So someone like me, who can you know I wear mostly plus sizes. Sometimes an XXL will work on a straight size brand, but I wear mostly plus sizes, but I can get clothes in my size right? Like, I can’t go to the local mall, but I can order online and get plenty of options. That’s a very different way of moving through the world. I can also fit in an airplane seat, and because I’m also multiply privileged in other ways, like white and educated, etc, I can go into a doctor’s office, and while I will experience anti fat bias, I can usually advocate my way through it. Whereas someone who is mid fat, up to super fat or infinity fat is what, like the folks at the highest end of the spectrum refer to themselves as, they’re going to experience so many more barriers. Because, again, we’re not just talking about how we feel about our bodies. We’re talking about a systemic form of bias that is baked into the world, in the way people get hired for jobs, in the way public spaces are built and designed. If you think about the average restaurant and how someone in a bigger body can access, you know, chairs with arms or boots, or nightmares, yeah, and so all of that. So the reason we talk about the fat spectrum is so that I’m not taking space when really what we want to be centering is like that, the fact that the bigger you are, the more discrimination you’re facing, and that’s what we’re working to fight.

 

Ricki Lake  08:58

And how has this anti fat bias personally affected you.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  09:03

I mean, clothing access is like, again, I have options online, but I do have to, like, order online. I have to order multiple sizes of things. I have to say, you know, that’s annoying, and it’s expensive, but it’s doable. I would say the arena it shows up the most for me is probably in accessing medical care. There are times where I hesitate going to the doctor, because I know if I go in with heartburn, which I’ve had since I was a skinny teenager, asthma, which I’ve had since I was a skinny child, those issues now that I’m presenting in a bigger body, they’re going to say, well, you need to lose weight before we can treat them in other ways. And I have to say, no, you know, I’ve had these conditions my whole life like, can you just refill my inhalers like it’s, you know? And you know, you can show up with a cold or an elbow pain, and it’ll still come around, back around to weight loss like, the medical system is so weight centric that anyone with a BMI. In the obese range.

 

Ricki Lake  10:01

I say that fucked up BMI.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  10:03

Fucked up. BMI, yeah, absolute trash of a system.

 

Ricki Lake  10:06

Where did that come from? Because those numbers are outrageous. And first of all, like, I’m a I’m a bigger bot, like, I’m a bigger boned person. Like, the fact that they don’t really take that into consideration, it makes me crazy.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  10:18

Oh, it’s completely useless. And it’s even more trash for children, like, it’s just a completely useless measurement, but because that’s going to be the first thing the doctor sees, any other health conversation you’re trying to have gets filtered through that, and you’re like, but I’m actually here to talk about my anxiety or something, you know, like, it’s like, can we actually get care for the symptoms I’m presenting with.

 

Ricki Lake  10:41

My situation I mean, I don’t know if you’ve you’re aware of my journey. I was overweight as a pre adolescent. I was molested as a child. I was six years six, seven years old, and I turned to food. At that time, I was sneaking food. I was hiding the wrappers under, you know, the typical story, and then sure, you know, I got heavier, and my mom, you know, she did the best she could, but she wasn’t helpful. It actually made it worse. You know, I remember, you know, I wanted to be an actress and I wanted to be a singer and I wanted to audition for Annie. I’m a lot older than you. Annie was big when I was, you know, nine years old, at 10 years old, wanting to audition and be an orphan in that show. And my mother’s response was, you’re not the starving orphan type, which.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  11:27

Oh.

 

Ricki Lake  11:28

Yeah, I mean, I can recognize now as an adult and a mother that she was trying to protect me from rejection, but that really stung. And I you know, my mother had her own issues with with Body Dysmorphia and and as she was addicted to diet pills. And, I mean, it was, she was really challenged in this area, and I was basically her worst nightmare being being her fat daughter, you know, and I got bigger and bigger and bigger. And it’s the weirdest thing Virginia, because I got famous for being fat. Like it literally, if I wasn’t the size that I was, I would not have gotten the role that opened up every single door.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  12:06

Yeah, I mean, I remember feeling like you were this, like, great representation of, like, a joyful fat person, which we weren’t allowed to see and, you know, but I think hairspray is also a complicated story, right? Because there is a lot of anti fatness in it, in the script.

 

Ricki Lake  12:21

Yes.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  12:22

And you’re asking whoever’s playing Tracy to go to rehearsals, to be up on a stage having her body be scrutinized and eviscerated in that way, and even if she is the hero of the show, you’re also asking someone who’s probably experienced that in their own real life to experience that on stage in front of an audience, that’s a lot.

 

Ricki Lake  12:44

I agree with you, and yet, you know, she perseveres, she fights, you know, and wins and wins the guy. And you know, in the case of the original film, I mean, I look back on that, you know that experience, you know you believed that I won, like, it was believable. And I think, you know, it was groundbreaking in that, you know, was one of the first times, the only time I could think of where the ingenue was 200 pounds, you know, amazing. I wonder, like, what did you think, you know, because look the work you do, and how you you feel about this issue, like, did, am I like, not a failure? Am I like? Did I go against my audience by changing my physicality. And do you do look at it as like she was one of us, and now?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  13:29

No, definitely not, I mean, the way I think about it is it is so hard to have a body in this world. It is so hard, and to have a public body in this world is hard on a level most of us who don’t experience that can’t really fathom, and we what I’m really arguing for in my work is body liberation and body autonomy, which means my body belongs to me, and your body belongs to you and we don’t tell other people what their bodies need to be and do, and we don’t make body size, you know, a price of entry to anything, to access to health care, to, you know, jobs, to any of the things like. We can identify this as a systemic bias, and we can work on dismantling it as a bias, and we can make our own choices about what’s right for our own bodies. And I think that’s such a tricky tension and really important to hold together, that our own personal struggles to feel safe in our bodies, to love our bodies, if that’s the goal, like that isn’t even, I think, a realistic goal for everybody, to be honest, like that is quite separate from this is a bias that plays out in every arena of society. And so you can be standing up for fat people. You can be standing up against anti fat bias. And your own personal choices about your body are not my business and not interesting to I mean, you know, it’s interesting to me because, like, I’m a fan, and I’m glad you’re doing well. But, like. It’s not like, you know, the way our media system works, the way our celebrity culture works, women like you are asked to owe the world your body in a way that’s really not okay, and that trickles down, you know, all of us watching you experiencing our own, you know, our own bodies in the world feel like we owe the world our bodies, and we don’t we don’t owe anyone our bodies.

 

Ricki Lake  15:22

Yeah, okay, we’re gonna take a quick break. I can’t wait to ask Virginia more questions.

 

Ricki Lake  15:33

I look back at like, you know, there was so much attention made on my body, and I realize now, like it’s about, for me, it’s about control more than anything. You know, in the things I can’t control in the world, this is the one area that I’m able to have real success. Like I’m able to, I set my mind to something, and I do it. And you know you as a mom of your girls, and now writing this beautiful book, it’s so important, how has your feelings about your body affected you raising your daughters?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  18:47

Well, it’s interesting you bring up control, because, I mean, I think our number one parenthood is an exercise in realizing how little control we have right.

 

Ricki Lake  18:56

Starting with childbirth, yeah, exactly.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  19:00

It’s not in your control in so many ways. So it’s an exercise in giving up some control. And I think you know, to circle back to that. So that thing that I experienced of like, oh, I have this body that everyone’s validating now I don’t have the body that everyone’s validating that experience, it was extremely motivating to try to get back to that thinner body, right? I spent most of my 20s doing a lot of things to get myself back to that thinner body. And there is a path for me where I live a certain kind of life that for me does not feel healthy or sustainable or safe, but that would result in me maintaining some degree of thinness, like more so than I have now. And you know, it was a constant push pull of, am I going to go that route, or am I going to make peace with where I am and focus on being, you know, being okay in this body and doing the work that I care about doing. And a real turning point for me was when my older daughter was about two years old and we were sitting at the dinner table one night. And I said something to my husband, like, I just really don’t like my body right now. And she started patting herself all over, going my body, my body, oh, my body. And I was like, oh, wait a second. I don’t want her to hear that from me. If there’s one thing I can control, because I actually don’t feel that body size is something we have total control over. I think the science shows that there’s a lot about body size that’s genetically determined. You know that there’s a lot of privilege that goes into being able to control it, but that’s not accessible for everybody. But the one thing I can control is that my daughters don’t hear me denigrating my body in front of them.

 

Ricki Lake  20:41

And this was the daughter, your older daughter is the one who had health issues that she actually found it fascinating. She couldn’t eat normally for a couple of years, correct?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  20:49

Yeah, I don’t talk as much about her story at this point, because she’s going into middle school and, you know, privacy got it. But what I can say is, yeah, you know, as a new parent, I was thinking so hard about how to feed my baby and wanting to do it quote, perfectly, right? There’s all this pressure on new moms that we have to exclusively breastfeed, that we have to make our own baby food, all organic etc. And I really went down some rabbit holes with that, where I realized I could be really obsessive about getting this quote right, or I could have a relationship with my child that felt connected and confident and like we had trust around food and trust at the family dinner table, and food could be this, like joyous thing that we shared and bonded over. But I couldn’t have that if I was so obsessed with getting her to, quote, be a good eater, I had to let go of some control. And that really comes back to that body autonomy concept. Her body is her body, my kids bodies belong to them too. So they have the right to say no to the broccoli. They have the right to say, you know, and often this gets misinterpreted, and people say like, oh, Virginia Sole-Smith  only feeds her children junk food. And, you know, there’s like, that interpretation of my work.

 

Ricki Lake  22:03

Yeah, I read The New York Times article, some of the comments, I mean, it’s like, it’s crazy. What this brings up, and we haven’t even gotten to ozempic yet.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  22:11

Yeah, no, it brings up a lot. So to be clear, there are vegetables and fruits in my house. My children are offered them frequently. Like, you can have a whole variety, but I don’t mandate that they eat in a certain way. I encourage more. Let’s listen to our bodies, let’s trust ourselves. And I see from that place of trust that they make all sorts of choice. You know, some days it is really all about the cookies, and some days it’s like, where did three pints of blueberries go? And how did I just spend $20 on blueberries in two minutes? Like that, uou all just inhaled, you know, like so it just depends. I think what it really comes down to, for me is my number one value is teaching body autonomy and teaching that around food and bodies. Our house is a safe place. Your body is safe and loved here, no matter what size it is, no matter what shape it is, no matter whether or not you ate the broccoli at dinner. Like my love is not contingent on any of that. And I think unfortunately, too many kids grow up in houses where that’s it is a little more contingent on, is your body good enough? And that’s what I’m trying to get us away from.

 

Ricki Lake  23:17

Yeah, I’m curious as to with your your births, were you considered high risk because of your size?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  23:26

So I was still wearing straight sizes with my first pregnancy, and I was not considered high risk to the detriment, because it turned out my daughter did have a medical issue that it would have been incredibly helpful to understand about before she was born, and it was completely missed, I think, so this is, like, the other flip side of it, right? Is sometimes thin folks can present with certain concerning things, and it’s like, oh, but she’s thin and young and healthy. It’s fine and not taken seriously in that flip side so that, you know, it was like, I was not recognized as high risk enough with that one. The second time I was high risk because I was going in with this, you know, history of my first child having a medical condition. I was also over 35 which is a whole.

 

Ricki Lake  24:08

Don’t get me started.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  24:09

And by over 35 I mean 35 and a half.

 

Ricki Lake  24:12

Like you’re geriatric.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  24:14

Yeah, and yes, at that point, my BMI was higher, so that got factored in, but I think it was a little of a mishmash, because there were these other legitimate things where I was like, I want you to take this seriously. I need all the prenatal screening because of these other issues. And so it was almost like, at that point, weight was an advantage, because it was like, and also this, like, I got them to focus, but I didn’t have the experiences that a lot of fat women have giving birth, where, you know, they’re told there’s no way you can have a healthy delivery. You’re going to be higher you know, like.

 

Ricki Lake  24:50

Don’t even get pregnant until you lose weight.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  24:52

Absolutely. I mean that you know, and that’s something I’ve reported on quite a bit over the years, is the fact that for fat women, um seeking fertility care. Over half the fertility clinics in the country use BMI as a cutoff point for who they’ll treat. So you you may not be able to access fertility care that you need unless you lose weight first, which when we know how important age and time are on fertility? Does it say to a 38 year old or a 40 year old, like, go spend a year losing weight and then come back to us like, It’s madness to me, it’s absolute madness.

 

Ricki Lake  25:28

Can we talk about ozempic and what your thoughts are on it? You know, I’m all about options, like I and I’m all about informed consent, and, you know, I think it’s a great tool, and there’s so many side effects, it scares the hell and putting children on this drug that you need to stay on for life anyway, I’m gonna let you. You’re the expert on this, not me, what do you have to say?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  25:51

I think What’s complicated about ozempic is that it’s an incredibly valuable diabetes medication. And I think if we had only ever talked about it as an incredibly valuable diabetes medication. That would have been fine, right? Diabetes is a really hard condition to manage. Folks with diabetes deserve all the tools in their toolbox. If this medication helps you manage your diabetes and, oh, sidebar, you lose some weight, whatever you know what I mean, like, I don’t care. I’m so glad your diabetes is better managed, and I think it has other metabolic health applications that seem really, really valuable. And instead, because of anti fat bias, because of the world we live in, when the pharmaceutical companies noticed that a main side effect of the drug was weight loss, they immediately pivoted and gave us Wigovi and Manjaro and et cetera, et cetera, and turned it into this huge weight loss drug frenzy. I am concerned about the side effects, particularly for children. I think the fact that we’re now studying it in kids as young and six is really, really disturbing. I’m less concerned about the physiological side effects because I just, I think so many drugs have various physiological side effects, and I never want to sound like I’m anti medication when so many of us need medication to live functional, daily lives, right? Like I don’t want people to feel scared to take a medication that might improve their health. But what I am concerned about when it comes to studying these drugs in kids is the fact that we have significant data showing that the number one risk for children developing future eating disorders is childhood experiences of weight stigma and dieting, and I don’t understand how you put a child on a weight loss drug without them experiencing weight stigma and dieting like those tooth it’s all part of it, and I don’t think because our anxiety is around the childhood obesity epidemic, because that fear is so so high. It’s like, we’ve taken this trench warfare approach to it, where it’s like, mental health doesn’t matter at all. Like, all that matters is getting people thin at any cost, and mental health does really matter. Like, this is going to have serious ripple effects. We are going to see, I think, rates of eating disorders and disordered eating rise, and they’re already on the rise among kids and teenagers and so that scares the hell out of me, because I don’t think the pharmaceutical companies are thinking enough about I mean, again, if this drug is beneficial to kids with diabetes, fantastic, but why can’t we treat kids metabolic health without bringing their weight into it? Why does the weight piece of the conversation need to be there at all when we know how detrimental that can be to their mental health?

 

Ricki Lake  28:45

Yeah, and the drug itself has a ramification of mental health issues like, you know?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  28:51

Yeah. I mean, there’s just a lot we don’t know, a lot we don’t know, and a lot of questions that they’re not answering.

 

Ricki Lake  28:56

And the money that is being made by these drug companies, it’s, it’s horrifying to me. I mean, and again, I am for choice, so I if someone does their research, and they want to, they’re not pre diabetic, but they want to take it because they want some help, they can’t. They people talk about this noise, this food, noise that I don’t know if you’ve experienced, I know friends who have, and they’ve taken the monjaro, and they’ve had incredible success on it. I wanted to ask about processed foods. Do you think what’s your feeling on so much of that food being available to us these days that maybe that’s contributing to our bodies being bigger?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  29:30

Well, I think it actually kind of relates to the food noise piece of things, which is it is so hard to untangle, what is a physiological response that someone might have to a food or to certain types of food, and what is cultural and social conditioning, where we are told these foods are terrible and that we should never eat them and that we’re bad if we eat them, and if you want the third cookie, you’ve failed as a person, like all of that. That food noise is, I mean, we live in this world that’s like, just battering us with those messages all the time. And so I think it’s very difficult when people say, like, I can’t stop thinking about food. It’s like, yeah, no kidding, like you’re if you’re trying to not eat the foods that they’re constantly marketing to you, and that tastes good, and you’re hungry and like, of course, you’re stuck in this trap. Like, this is what dieting does to us, really, is. It puts us in the state of deprivation and restriction, where our bodies are biologically programmed to fight right? Because our bodies are like, we will get you through the famine. So here you’re going to think more about food. Here we’re going to dial up your hunger cues, like we’re gonna survive this, and that’s great, but that does not help when you live in our current food environment, and the famine is not, you know, like, due to, you know, historical circumstances, but due to diet culture. So my take on processed foods is they are a part of my family’s life, because especially now that I’m a single mom and I work, and I need to feed kids quickly and efficiently, and I need to feed myself quickly and efficiently, and these foods are affordable, and my kids like them, and I like them, they are a part of our life. I also can have a box of Oreos in my house for months and forget it’s here, and we don’t eat them like we’re it’s not like the Oreos arrive and we can’t stop eating them, and that is because we have permission to eat the Oreos when we want to eat them, and so we can actually tune in to whether we want them or not, and eat the number of Oreos that’s like, interesting and useful to us in the moment, and then move on with our lives. Like I don’t have food noise because I have access to eat any food I want. Now, this is my anecdotal experience. There’s a lot of nuance to this food noise conversation. There’s a lot of different iterations of it, and I don’t want to discount anyone’s lived experience if they’re saying, No, my food noise is different than that. I have full permission to eat, but I still can’t stop fixating like there’s a lot of this. There’s just a lot to this.

 

Ricki Lake  32:03

I get it, yeah.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  32:04

But I think at the core, there is something to we have made these foods forbidden, and so, of course, we want these foods.

 

Ricki Lake  32:11

Totally oh, yeah. I mean, I it’s my reality when I was a kid that the Halloween candy. I mean, I stashed it, took it my mother, because my mother, you know, didn’t want me to get bigger. It’s doing everything she can to control me. And I’m, you know, gonna get that Milky Way, and she’s not gonna know about it. Do you also grow your own food with your garden?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  32:33

We grow strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes and basil are the I really love growing flowers, so that’s like the most I’m willing to give over to growing food. I need the rest of the space for the dalios, you understand? But, yeah, I mean, we love and my kids love going out when the strawberries are ripe and, like, they barely make it in the house. They just, like, stand in the garden and eat them all. I love having those joyful food experiences. And I love going out for ice cream and having joyful food experiences like that. You know, I think, I don’t know why we’ve decided it’s an either or, I think it’s very much a both and, and again, this is what works for us. But I don’t see my kids overly fixated on any food, and often it is just a matter of making sure, you know, I do set limits. Like last night, at bedtime, my six year old was stalling bedtime endlessly, and was like, I’m just so hungry, I just need to eat a bunch of cookies. And I was like, no, I need you to be in bed. Now we’re done, like, I’m done with you. And so I was like, okay, I’m gonna put this bowl of cookies on the counter, and you can have it with breakfast tomorrow morning. So I set the limit, right? We’re not gonna eat cookies at 830 at night, when I really need you to go to sleep. But the cookies are not banned. You’re not bad for wanting the cookies. They’re still available. And she had like one with her breakfast this morning, and was very happy.

 

Ricki Lake  33:49

We’ll be right back in just a moment with more from Virginia Sole-Smith.

 

Ricki Lake  36:16

And now, I mean, I know you’re recently divorced, so you’re a single mom now, has it changed your routine, like, do you guys work together with, like, an eating regimen?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  36:27

I think we always co parented pretty well around food. I mean, we definitely had some disagreements, as every co parenting pair would I imagine. But you know, my kid’s dad has a lot of respect for my work and supports my work a lot, and so is like, happy to kind of take cues from me on this. There’s not a ton of difference. I mean, he had to go learn to cook, so that, I think, has been a fun journey for him. And the kids are like, daddy finally made pesto that tastes almost as good as yours, which is very cute and funny. I think the big thing for me is feeding families is so much labor, like, it’s so so much work. And it’s been really nice in the last year of doing it on my own to realize that, like, I could drop some of the standards that were more about me trying to perform a certain like, we’re the perfect, happy family. We have it all together, and much less about like, what creates community and connection at the dinner table. So, like, one thing that I’ve written about is that after the separation, my kids really didn’t want to come to the dinner table, you know, they were having feelings, understandably, and to kind of get the three of us back together. I was like, what if we read books at the table and we just all brought books and sat and read our books together, and it was like, this beautiful connection time. And, you know, for the little one, that meant an audiobook with her headphones on, but because she is who she is, she was like, taking her headphones off to, like, tell me what’s happening in the book every minute. You know.

 

Ricki Lake  37:55

Cute, I love that.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  37:57

Yeah, this way that it was like, okay, the pressure’s off. We’re re figuring out something new together. And I just really leaned into the fact that, like you guys, need your safe we all need our safe foods when we’re going through a big transition, right? It’s very typical for kids at the start of the school year to drop interest in new foods any big life transition. Like we want our food to be like, easy and comforting and reliable, and so this hasn’t been the year for me to be like, what about bok choy? Like, our whole lives to get there like.

 

Ricki Lake  38:27

I read something you said about like, like, planning for the divorce is hell, but being divorced is amazing.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  38:34

Yeah, pretty much.

 

Ricki Lake  38:35

I relate to that. I mean, with, you know, the father of my kids, they were very little when I made the decision this wasn’t going to work, and they were like, six and two, same thing. Divorce can be a beautiful thing to have that free time, that guilt free time to yourself, and the time you do have your kids, I found I was a better mom, because those times I just treated with such more, more reverence, you know?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  38:58

Yeah, we both feel that way that we’re getting more connected time with them. And, you know, because we’re we’re still friends, and it’s a very, you know, I’m very grateful I have a lot of privilege in this situation, but it’s, yeah, I really feel like my connection with my kids is stronger than ever, and a lot of that is because I do get breaks so I can come back and be really focused and present with them, and because I’ve let myself off some hooks that I think was more about me trying to just live up to certain ideals than was what any of us really needed.

 

Ricki Lake  39:30

Right.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  39:30

And now we can just kind of be more real together, I guess.

 

Ricki Lake  39:34

Yeah, are you worried about as your kids get older? I mean, does your older daughter have a phone? Does she have social media? So are you, I mean, because what we see, I mean, I feel like I’m just poisoned by I mean, I love it, and I recognize that it’s just killing us. All you know, how do you feel about that?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  39:51

I mean, I’m trying really hard to make Instagram uncool to them because I’m on it. So I’m really hoping that that’s like, ruin it for them.

 

Ricki Lake  40:01

I’m loving you, I’m just discovering you really and you’re like, yeah, I love what you’re putting out, the content you’re putting out.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  40:07

Yeah. I mean, I’m actually doing less with it now that I’m not like, in book promotion mode, which is nice. I needed a break, but yeah, I mean, I think, I think, to me, the conversation around social media is somewhat similar to the conversation around processed foods, which is, we need to have, like, clear communication with our kids. We need to have trust. We need to be figuring out the boundaries they do need, but also, like giving them space to figure some of this out themselves. And so we are proceeding as a family very slowly with bringing like we aren’t using social media at these ages, but you know, when my kids bring it up, we have a lot of really open conversations. You know, as a semi public fat woman on the internet, I hear a lot from men who don’t say the kindest things, and I show my kids some of that, like, not the really horrific stuff, obviously but like, if there’s a funny troll or a weird troll, I’ll be like, this is what it’s like out here, guys, you know. And like, let’s talk about this like, this is misogyny in action. This is anti fatness in action. So my hope, I mean, again, I’m not there yet, and I have so much respect to parents of older kids who are already in the trenches on this, but my hope is I’m giving them some tools, and like to know that they can bring this stuff to me and we can start to figure it out together. And I do see and I hear this from readers as well, you know that, like, once you start giving your kids these tools, like your kids will amaze you with how quickly they spot the anti fatness. You know, my older kid and I were watching, we’re re watching scrubs right now, which, you know, it was a hilarious sitcom, but it’s from the early 2000s so it doesn’t all age well. And there was one scene recently where she turns to me and she goes, okay, that was anti fat and racist, and I was like, okay, I’m doing okay.

 

Ricki Lake  41:56

Proud moment for you.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  41:57

Like, she’s like, just like, what was that? I was like, yeah. I mean, it was a it was a different time, 2002 but yeah so I think that kind of thing gives me hope and I, believe me, I am not trying to sound like too Pollyannaish about, like, oh, it’s all going to be fine. I think it’s going to be terrifying. But I also think like, how do we foster this connection? How do we foster the sense of body autonomy, where they know that their no needs to be heard and trusted. I mean, that’s another piece of this. Is like letting your kids say no to the broccoli is a great practice run for letting them say no in other situations where you want them to know that there are no matters and needs to be heard. And I think about raising two kids who are gonna, you know, be dating and in relationships, and like, I want them to know that if their nose not being respected, they get the fuck out and call me, and if I have to practice that with respecting the no around broccoli, that seems worth it.

 

Ricki Lake  42:52

Right, it starts with broccoli. So do you do have hope about the future, particularly of young daughters and young women? I mean, I’m so glad I don’t have a young children. My sons are 23 and 27 and that they’re sons, you know, I don’t know if I would have been up for it, you know, because I would have, you know, parent. I mean, I fear I would have parented my like my mother parented me. And again, she did the best she could, but man, it was a number on me for sure.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  43:20

Yeah, I mean, I think that is so real. And I mean, that’s the number one thing I hear from readers and listeners all the time, is like what I went through with my mom around food and bodies. And I think we have to hold compassion for what that generation of women were up against in terms of diet, culture and bodies and misogyny and all of it. And also say like some real harm was perpetuated, and it was not okay, and it was not okay, what happened to our generation as kids. I do have hope. I think we’re in a really I have hope and anxiety. I think we’re in a very messy middle time where we’ve made some real progress. I see Gen Z and Tiktok talking about anti fatness, talking, you know, naming it like having this language that’s so powerful that we did not have at all. And I think that’s great. And then on the other hand, you have the ozempic frenzy.

 

Ricki Lake  44:12

And the Kardashians and these, these women that are, like, putting out there the unattainable, you know, the Photoshopped images. I mean, these people that are look, you know, quote, unquote, physically perfect size, and yet they’re making themselves smaller.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  44:24

Yeah, so it’s a messy time, and I think, I think that we have to just be really clear on what our values are and what we’re fighting for, and not give up, because I do think change is possible. I think there are ways in which we’ve made huge progress, and there’s a lot at stake. And I think, you know, my biggest concern about the whole ozempic conversation is that there’s this misconception about it, that if we finally have a so called Silver Bullet drug, right, that can make anyone thin, then anti fatness would disappear, that is terrifying. That is not what would happen. That’s just called erasure. Like the goal is not a world with no fat people. Human body diversity is important, and we’ve always had it. There have always been fat people. There always will be fat people. There’s no way to make ozempic like accessible and available enough that it would be the right fit and the right choice for everybody, unless we are taking away body autonomy. And so that’s what really scares me, is like, again, I whatever people are deciding to do for their own personal bodies is their business. And if that makes sense for you, great. But to talk about it as if, like, oh, the potential for this to like, change the food industry and change the world. That’s really scary stuff.

 

Ricki Lake  45:42

That’s the claim they’re making. I mean, that’s what they’re saying. Yeah, that like, and with these new foods that are coming out that are catered to people that are on these drugs.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  45:51

I mean, it makes sense, and I hate it.

 

Ricki Lake  45:53

Yeah, I agree, I am so glad I got to have this conversation with you. You’re awesome, your book is awesome. And I have to be honest, I was afraid you were like, gonna be mad at me like, I was afraid, does she hate me because I’ve been so, you know, out there and open about my successes with changing my body in ways, you know?

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  46:15

I mean, if I had could ask a favor, it would be that, you know, because you have this amazing platform, because you are you Ricki, like, when you talk about your own struggles, like, make sure you’re holding space for the fact that this isn’t going to be the right choice for everybody. And to look for ways to keep standing up against anti fatness. You can fight anti fatness from a thin body. That’s fine we will take it. You are welcome to keep doing that thing.

 

Ricki Lake  46:40

I pledge to do just that. You know, I’m not a perfect person, and I really share my own life experience. And I come from a place of, don’t I’m not telling people to do what I did. I want to share my journey for people that are interested, and yes, I want to support all sizes, all bodies and full body autonomy. Thank you so much, Virginia, it’s such a pleasure.

 

Virginia Sole-Smith  47:00

Thank you for having me.

 

CREDITS  47:06

Damn Virginia gave me a lot to chew on, both literally and metaphorically. It’s making me rethink the way I talk about my own weight journey in terms of successes and failures. Even though I feel great at the size I am now calling losing weight a success feeds into a bias that I do not want to perpetuate. I totally get that, and I’m not saying that I’m going to get it right all the time. I am still very much a work in progress, but it’s definitely something I’m going to try to be more mindful of. Virginia’s book is called Fat Talk parenting in the age of diet culture. She also has an amazing sub stack column called Burnt Toast that I highly recommend. Thank you so much for listening, and there’s more of The High Life with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like rapid fire questions with Virginia herself, we’ll find out what her ultimate indulgence is. Subscribe now in Apple podcasts, The High Life is a production of Lemonada Media. Isabella Kulkarni and Katherine Barnes, producer show our mixes by James Barber. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Additional Lemonada support from Rachel Neal and Steve Nelson. You can find me @rickilake on Instagram. Follow The High Life with Ricki Lake, wherever you get your podcasts, or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.