Plus, we’re excited to share about our Spring cohort of the Body Image Coach Certification opening for enrolment on January 28th, 2025.

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Summer:
This is eat the rules, a podcast about body image self worth, anti dieting and intersectional feminism. I am your host. Summer innan, a professionally trained coach specializing in body image self worth and confidence, and the best selling author of body image remix, if you’re ready to break free of societal standards and stop living behind the number on your scale, then you have come to the right place. Welcome to the show.

This is episode 317 and I am with Danni amapoundcake Adams. And we are talking all about trends that are influencing our body image. We’re recapping some of the beauty and other related trends that we’ve seen over the past year. We’re talking about the quote, unquote, ballerina body, the soft voice, a face standard, Trad wives make America healthy again, and more, all the kinds of things that influence diet culture, wellness, culture and beauty standards. Plus, we’re excited to share that our spring cohort of the body image coach certification program is opening for enrollment on january 28 2025 get more details by going to body image coach certification.com you can find everything mentioned in this episode at summer Inn and in.com forward slash, 317,

I want to give a shout out to S, G, T, camo, who left this review. I’m a brand new listener to this podcast, and in the beginning stages of rejecting diet culture, finding this podcast has really struck a chord inside summer’s choice of words and phrases are those that make me feel as though she is one of my oldest friends and talking to me in a way that I don’t feel lectured. Love this so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate that review. It’s an easy way to help support the show. You can leave a review by going to Apple podcast. Search for eat the rules, then click ratings and reviews and leave a review if you have the means to do so. I would love you to support the show financially. You can do that by going to KO fi, that’s K O dash fi.com, forward slash summer in and in and for as little as $5 a month, you can help keep the show on the air for just maybe a few more episodes, a little bit longer, and you’ll get access to my mini course conquering negative Body Talk as well. And if you don’t have the financial means, subscribing, reviewing, sharing, those are always great ways to help out people who are providing you with valuable information. I also have free stuff at my website, including the body image roadmap for professionals who work with people who have body image struggles, as well as the 10 day body confidence makeover. Just go to the body image coach.com to find everything there.

My colleague, my friend, Danny, Emma pound cake, Adams is back on the show today. We love to get together every few months and talk about stuff that’s going on culturally that influences our body image. And if you don’t know Danny, she’s an influencer, a writer, an activist, a body image coach, a social justice teacher and speaker from Sanford, Florida, we co created the Institute for body image which runs the body image coach Foundations Program, as well as the body image coach certification program, which we’ll be talking about at the end of the episode. But if you want to learn more about that, you can go to body image coach certification.com.

All right, let’s get started with the show.

Summer:
Hi, Danni, welcome.

Danni:
Hey.

Summer:
We are gonna get into some stuff today. What is the theme? Are we? What are we? We’re talking about, like beauty cultural trends, like how beauty standards, like, what we’ve sort of noticed over the last year or so, and how that ties into, like, wellness, culture and capitalism and everything else.

Danni:
Call it what you need to call it, yes,

Summer:
yeah. I think when we were talking about collaborating on an episode, it sort of came from the discourse around that article that came out, around the ballerina body being the new standard of of beauty, like this idea that the body is really, really thin, but also Athletic, so kind of like you need to look emaciated while also looking, you know, like you have muscle development there. And it’s really kind of a progression of the ozempic era, like it’s just an evolution of that. And I think when we saw that, we thought, okay, let’s focus our. Episode around that, and then it started to trickle into all these other topics that we’ll get to.

Danni:
Yeah, honestly, I was thinking about, um, when we were discussing it Twiggy. Do you remember Twiggy, the model? Oh, yeah, yeah. This era reminds me of, like, all those photos I’ve seen of Twiggy at the time. Like, I don’t know what’s going on. Well, I do know what’s going on. But honestly, it’s just really dangerous, especially because so many young people and adults, just be honest, are being overexposed to this. It’s just not about question our bodies at this point, but participating unsafe. You know, weight loss, drugs, people doing anything to lose weight. I just think we’re gonna see a huge increase of people having by dysmorphia eating disorder. And it’s just it’s sad to see that we’re seeing a regression of body positivity.

Summer:
Oh yeah. And I think it’s like, even more extreme than Twiggy, because Twiggy was extremely thin, and same with like, when you think about Kate Moss in the 90s, it was like that heroin chic, but there’s this added layer of having muscles now, in addition to that, which is obviously like, probably mostly achieved through, you know, unless your body’s kind of naturally like that, which some people are more naturally like that, but there’s more effort, right? It like it, I think it ties into this idea of putting in work, right? Like she worked hard for her body, and then layering that on with like most people probably have to get some sort of plastic surgery or be on some sort of weight loss drug in order to also achieve that level of thinness at the same time. So I feel like,

Danni:
and then, let’s be honest, some people will never achieve it, but we’ll go through the same unsafe measures to get there. Yeah,

Summer:
oh yeah. Most people, I think it’s like a very, very impossible standard on top of what was already like an impossible standard, it’s like, it’s made it even I think at least that’s my perception. Is it’s like, it’s not just like, super skinny. It’s like, skinny and muscles. And I think we saw that like I sent you, I didn’t watch the Golden Globes, but I sent you, like the article with just some of the images of the celebrities. And you can, kind of, you sort of see that being portrayed like you see those bodies now, and I don’t know if that’s new, maybe they sort of look like that before. I’m not sure you might know more, because you’re into that, into, like, pop culture, yeah,

Danni:
no. Honestly, people were talking about it with wicked like looking at Ariana Grande, looking at Cynthia, right? Like the the movie I hear is very beautiful, fans of both women. But however, there’s just been a conversations about, wow, their bodies look extremely different than they did before. Not only that, but let’s talk about voices are different, but they are really, really, really, really thin, and also, like you mentioned, with a little bit a little bit of added muscle. It’s just an entire rebrand happening. And it’s really, it’s just, it’s so concerning, um, and especially people, I think there was an interview with Ariana Grande, and she was, like, asked about it, and she’s like, I don’t want people talking about my body. Like, come on, guys. Like, be honest you you understand that you’re public or, anyways, let me just not let me because I was getting ready to drag but I’m not gonna go there.

Summer:
Well, it’s hard, right? Because there is this discourse around we, shouldn’t we, you know, we don’t want to be commenting on people’s bodies, and I, and I wholeheartedly agree with that. But you know, how do you promote, like, some, how do you not talk about it, right, like when it when it’s so incredibly harmful, and because it’s rooted in anti fatness and white supremacy, culture and patriarchy, which we’ll get to more of that as we sort of see how these things spiral into other trends that we’ve noticed. But I mean, it’s an important conversation, because we’re seeing more people facing weight stigma as a result of these, you know, these trends and weight loss, drugs, and so I don’t, you know it’s like, Is it bad to I don’t know if we’re talking about specifically like individuals bodies, or more like the the way that they’ve glamorized that appearance in the way that that’s like influencing, you know, just the dominant discourse.

Danni:
All right, this is probably going to be a problematic take, but you know what? Reach out to me, y’all, if y’all think this is too problematic, but, or, Oh, we want to talk further about it, but I deeply believe that we have to be honest about being what it means to be a celebrity. Sometimes you do forfeit you give up some things. And a part of being famous is you remain famous, if we talk about you, it is true and also because of the. High level of promotion like this is global. Wicked is promoted to young girls, and so we have to have honest conversations. And you know, there had to be some intentionality behind making sure that both women looked that small. And it’s not just them. I don’t want to, like, keep poking, poking, poking, but right like wicked is definitely gonna be one of the greatest movies of of the century right now. Let me just give them their credit. So we have to be honest about like, it’s not just them. We’re seeing it with other celebrities, even we, we’re seeing a reversal of the BBL, like people wanting to get closer to whiteness. And what is whiteness? It is thin. It is being really small, having this small voice, like Ariana Grande got a whole new voice. Okay? Is there is very clear that they’re saying, Okay, this is what femininity is, right now, this what it, what it what it means to be a girl. This is what it means to be soft, all the things. Because, if not, we would have got Ariana Grande from two years ago. Like, who was black fishing,

Summer:
yeah, yeah. Which, by the way, like, I don’t follow Arielle Grande, Ariana Grande at all, like I knew nothing about her at all because I’m older, like, you know, just not my demographic, but having then watched the video that you sent me, which was that Kimberly? Was it? Kimberly? Nicole Foster, was it okay? First thing, yeah, we can, okay, so we can link to it in the show notes, and it’s like a whole discourse about it, because I didn’t realize the change that had happened. But that sort of spirals into like, the other thing that we were talking about offline before this episode was the posts that Jamila Jamil has been posting about and about the use of, like, what she called, quote, unquote, the gentle voice, which then, upon a little bit of research, I it actually has a name, and it’s called the Fundy baby voice because it comes from the fundamentalist Christians and women like really having that sort of, like sweet, gentle, submissive voice. And that that term was coined by someone named Tia Levings, who wrote a book which I’ve just downloaded, called a well trained wife. And it’s about, I believe it’s about her story, kind of escaping from Christian fundamentalism, but it’s like, again, just feeds into this ideal of being like, more fragile, more submissive, more like, like, smaller in every way, shape and form.

Danni:
The voice thing is really interesting. But I think the reason why I say that is because what is the I know you don’t follow pop culture, but I think her name is, like, Sabrina Carpenter, and she’s being market to Gen Z, and there’s this huge thing around, like, Oh, she doesn’t use, like, this soft voice. And I find that to be, like, interesting, because, like, it’s kind of like one of those things where we don’t want to take women seriously, and so we need women to empathize themselves, women to pretend that they’re pretend that they’re dumb, even in uncomfortable situations like, we want women to use, use a voice that kind of sounds like a baby because it presents as, like, non threatening, and at the end of the day, like, I really believe that at the core of it is that people hate women. I’m sorry. I just got to say it. I think at the core of it, people hate women and really want to package women into these into these boxes and and sometimes the way that we, like talk about this is just a quick pivot, like, sometimes, like the way that we put these messages out, like, women need to be submissive, women need to have smaller voices. Women need to be small. We kind of wrap it up in a bow, as if, like, it’s gonna give women some form of safety, and it’s not,

Summer:
yeah, and almost like power in a way, like desirability, and potentially, you know, financial stability as a result of that desirability. So it’s interesting how there’s that, like, you know that dynamic at play there with making yourself smaller, making yourself smaller and every way shape and form can afford you safety and security and potentially like more social currency,

Danni:
And you will get closer to whiteness, which is not true,

Summer:
yeah, but that’s exactly it, right? And I think so that’s one of the things that things that I asked. And by the way, I’ve never been known to have a soft voice like ever,

Danni:
and I’ll call switching right now.

Summer:
Some people do naturally, and I think it’s important to like, if that’s your voice, that’s your voice. But I think for a lot of these people, it’s, it’s like, it is for. It is like, it is like, it is like putting it on like this, like, as if I were to start talking to everybody like this, so like, breathy and whispery. And I don’t even remember where I was going with that, but I think that I forget the line of I forgot my line of thought there. But I think we have to think about, like, what it is, what it’s signaling. And I remember the first time I sort of heard about it or saw it, was in that documentary, keep sweet, pray and obey. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched that on Netflix, the fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. It’s, it’s like a documentary about how, like, just the the horrible abuse that that happened in that in that cult we’ll call it or church, and that’s where they condition girls to like, quote, unquote, keep sweet and like, in your voice, and you never raise your voice, and you submit to the man and, etc, etc. So it, it really is tied to Christian nationalism and, and, like you said, white supremacy. And this reminds me of what I was going to ask you, because the question I had for you was, like, is that a white woman thing? Like, are there, like, Are you noticing that in with with black women as well, or is this just more of like a I mean, I know it’s proximity to whiteness, but I’m just curious about whether that’s been you’ve noticed that any anywhere?

Danni:
Well, let me just say this. I’m not going to be using any, any voices, baby voices, because I already have it hard enough code switching between having a southern accent and trying to speak in a more American accent that people understand. So um, but yeah, I would say be honest. Yeah, there is a thing, and especially in like the femininity space and hypergamy space amongst black women, but it’s not that prominent, but it is a conversation happening online around how to make yourself seem small, sound sound more feminine. Get what you want from a man, get him to buy you things. And for some people, that may really work, but it’s just exhausting, because overall, what I’m really feeling is there’s all these messages about what women should be doing in order to be accepted by men, but there isn’t more conversations happening and more actual structural change happen around men making sure that women are safe, that women are taking care of, or that women are loved and appreciated for their labor, and that’s just a real problem for me. I’m not doing all those changes, but yeah, I’m seeing the messages,

Summer:
yeah, 100% and I think that ties into the whole like, child, wife trend that has been happening, which is like traditional wives, so people adopting these roles, where they are, you know, they’re the homemaker, which there’s nothing wrong with being the homemaker, but it’s like, it’s, it’s become, it’s like influencers who are doing This, and it’s really they’re being submissive to the husband. They talk about like serving the husband. Like, if you want to go down a rabbit hole, look up the hashtag Trad wife, and you’ll see some pretty horrifying things, like people posting like, my body his choice. And it’s all about serving the man. And conservative ideologies and values. And I think that ties into this whole thing about being smaller, being more submissive, and really that patriarchal dynamic of like men being higher on the hierarchy than than women, and like, continuing to, sort of, like, further that gap. And then, I don’t know what your thoughts are on it.

Danni:
Yeah, I think it’s also a piece to add. Also bearing children. Like a lot of the TRad with wives have multiple children. And like, I would say, they stay pregnant. And like, we’ve seen some, Trad wives come out and speak out about like, how uncomfortable it has been to keep up with this, or how they want out. You know, all these different things. But something I want people to really pay attention to about Trad wives is that they are influencers who are making 10s of 1000s, millions of dollars, NARS Smith that you know, is the only black Trad wife that I know of, and she’s one of the biggest creators and and what I find to be interesting is that people don’t really understand that a lot of what we’re seeing is well kept influencers who are either with men who are taking care of them, the some of the biggest Trad wives, if you look into their family, the person that they’re married to, the guy is also wealthy. And so this isn’t realistic. This is art. This is creativity. This isn’t real life at the same time for for most of. Them right, that they’re they’re artists, but for the girls who are living, um, living these experiences, like, are we ensuring that they are safe? Are we really talking about safety? I don’t know. I’m just super concerned about all the things that I’m seeing online,

Summer:
yeah. And I think one of the things you mentioned to me was that people who, who don’t have wealth, and who are, you know, at home with their children? Like, that’s a whole other different experience than what child wives are, sort of like, you know, illustrating online, right? Like, I think that’s one of the things, yeah,

Danni:
you think NARS Smith does not have childcare while she’s making cough drops for her from scratch for her kids. Yeah, she makes cough drops. I mean, most of the child trap wives, they’re like, Oh, my kid was sick today. Like, let’s be honest. You had, like, some you had dye the right color, dye in there. Like, this is curated content. Like, Oh, you know, some of the trap wives be like, Oh, my husband wasn’t feeling well today, or my husband desired bread from scratch just had all the ingredients. Girl Like, no, it’s not real. It’s very much so curated, the clothing is matching what they made. And that’s just a part problem with influencer culture in general. But the reality is, like, these messages keep being pushed to women, that this is what you should be doing. This is the way that you’re gonna get a soft life. And, you know, is the life really soft? Or is it perform softness? Because under capitalism, like the ideal is that we all work, that we all work, you know, I don’t know. It don’t seem soft. It seems like a prison to do what men say,

Summer:
Yeah, and it’s this filtered glamorized view, or like they’re projecting this filtered, glamorized view of emotional and physical labor, like that. It’s like effortless and that, it’s like easy and that, oh, it just takes, you know, 10 minutes to make this from scratch. And it’s like, it’s so it ties into this, like, white supremacist value of perfectionism, that it’s not only we have to, like, you know, look a certain way and we have to behave a certain way and make it look really effortless and easy and be happy while we’re performing this labor and like that is not the reality at all. And I think that that then makes people feel like they’re doing something wrong, like they’re not measuring up, like they’re not good enough. And so it’s just, yeah, furthering kind of like this, this overall ideal. Like, if we think about the ideal woman now, it’s that whole tribe wife movement, I think, like, pushes it to also glamorize this view of, like, emotional and physical labor that goes into, like, raising children and having a house and being in a in a relationship as well. I think,

Danni:
yeah, I’m not a mom, but I have a mom, right? And so living in a home with like a mom and a dad, like, thinking about, what would it have been like? My mom was making bread all day from scratch, raising my brother and I know no childcare, labor, then coming home and, you know, I mean, my dad comes home, she has to have dinner made for my dad, taking care of his clothes, all the thing is, like, it’s not gonna be that glamorous. She’s not gonna have a face full of makeup. She’s not gonna have time to be well rested, to curate all the content. Like, it’s unrealistic, yeah, 100%

Summer:
and so that’s obviously really rooted in conservative ideologies, like, you know, turning the clock back, and that sort of ties into some of the other trends that we’re seeing, especially related to health, which is, you know, with the Make America healthy again, RFK juniors, whole initiative to remove, you know, seed oils and, quote, unquote, like toxins, and how that’s influencing, you know, wellness culture and diet culture. What are your thoughts on what you’ve seen there? Oh, Lord, Lord,

Danni:
Lord. You know, it’s, it’s so interesting the way that we start talking about food, like, oh, we’ll remove toxins. But you think about, like, lots of black and brown communities, local governments have passed legislation so people cannot grow in their own yards, or lots of people are living in food deserts, and we’re not talking about, how do we get people access to food? And I think something I was talking to you about, talking to you about summer earlier, was that oranges, like in Florida, obviously, I’m a Florida girl, we are producing less oranges in 2021 we were producing 41 million crates of oranges. This year, we’re going to only produce 12 million. You know, that huge decrease because of hurricane Ian or and also other economic impacts have limited how much oranges that we’re. Producing. So that means that we’re going to either see increase in how much increase in price, or we’re going to see less of it. And that’s just the oranges, right? Like, what about all the other produce that is coming from our border states? So, you know, I just think that people have an unrealistic expectation about what changes health and and our economy is going to have a huge impact on people’s well being, and just in general, with food,

Summer:
yeah, 100% Yeah. And like I was telling you, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole preparing for this by looking at some of the like, Make America healthy again, content online, like some of the influencers that really promote those and we’re really happy about that change, and they are. They truly believe that people just need to put in the effort and that everyone can reverse disease if they cut out toxins and chemicals and make all their food from scratch. And they just believe, they really believe that, like the upfront cost of, of like getting new cookware that doesn’t have certain toxins in it, which I didn’t even realize some cookware did, but apparently it does getting, like replacing all your cookware, and like going to, like a thrift store to do it, to save money that ultimately you just need to put in the effort and that will offset Your future healthcare costs. So it’s like this completely dolu view of health. Doesn’t look at any of the social determinants of health, doesn’t look at any of the systemic barriers to for people having health like they don’t talk about the fact that maybe we should just give people better access to health care as the first step to improving people’s health, and instead, look at it on this like individual level, that whole like individualism, which is really tied into, you know, white supremacy culture as well, which you and I talk a lot about in our course, but that’s it was i i had to stop looking at it. It was just too painful to keep reading these posts.

Danni:
At the end of the day, most of these people do not care about health care, because at the end of the day, there’s, there’s some things that we can really pull out. For example, they also want to ban Dei. Well, if you if you want the the ban of Dei, then you have to think about the impacts that it has on health care. We literally need research and studies and funding to go towards health care initiatives that look at different racial and ethnic groups, that look at different class structures, that look at gender difference. And if you don’t want to look at those things so you don’t think those things are of value, how can you really say that you care about health care? You really don’t? Yeah, 100%

Summer:
yeah, there’s, I mean, they’re looking at the world through this vacuum of privilege, you know, whiteness, classism. They’re just the they’re they’re not looking at it from any other viewpoint. I don’t think

Danni:
This what it sounds like to me. They’re saying, if you eat a salad and you go work out, you will live forever. And that’s a huge problem. I think I was telling you about this argument I was having with with a personal trainer, and he was like, people health is wealth. People who work out, they have the best mental health. And I said, But baby, you are depressed. What? What are you saying right now? I think that if I don’t, if you start asking people like the epistemology about what of what they believe, you’ll really understand that they don’t really know what they believe. It’s just like talking points that they have grown on us that we’ve attached ourselves to, and that we haven’t really sat and said, huh, does that really make sense? Like, how many of us, if we really sat down and said, I know people who have diabetes, who are not fat, I know people who have high cholesterol who are not fat. I know people who have cancer, who go to the gym every day. I know people who have had heart attacks, who you know, who have low BMI. If we really sit down and look at the things around us, we’ll realize that this isn’t about being small or or fat, that obviously some people are just going to get sick. It’s inevitable.

Summer:
Yeah, 100% and that, I think, is like a fear that people don’t want to talk about, which I think ties into one of the last things we were going to mention, although there’s another Jamil Jameel post we didn’t get to, which we can throw in at the end, but is just the guy who the whole like, because a lot of the stuff we’re talking about is really related to people who identify as women, but we to bring in, like, the conversation around, okay, what are the trends for men? Like, what are we noticing? And I think it’s like this idea of trying to live longer, like, longevity, you know, and like, they’re disordered. Habits come from this mindset of, like, trying to, like, biohack themselves to better performance and better longevity. And there’s that guy, Brian Johnson, who is that, like, super wealthy guy who does all those wild things to himself too, because he wants to, like, stay a certain age and, like, I don’t, you know, whatever To each his own. I think he’s probably pretty disordered. But anyways, I think that that’s the other thing, like, that’s another piece of this that’s coming in and, like, feeding into this idea that, like, we have, we have control, and we can get control. And I think so many people are honestly just afraid of getting sick and dying. Yeah, any other thoughts on him

Danni:
to say something? I want your viewers to come back, because what I have to say might not be too nice. It might not be too nice. You know, part of me is like, this is nothing. I just black. People don’t think about stuff like this seriously. We just don’t. And also, there’s some kind of, like, class dynamic we have to some people are too rich for their own good, because this guy is, like, extremely wealthy. It’s not like you know, to be able to put money into research to find pills that you believe will help you live a long time and be in to be able to promote those medications. He just has money to waste. That’s all I have to say.

Summer:
Yeah, if I had that much money to waste, I wouldn’t be doing that. I’d be like on an island somewhere. I would be I would be giving back to other communities and people, and I certainly would not be taking 100 supplements every day.

Danni:
I told my grandma about this story, and she said, some people are just afraid to go to hell.

Summer:
I love your grandma.

I love it. So the only other thing that we were going to talk about we didn’t talk about we didn’t talk about, is like, so Jamil. Jamil also made this post about how there’s this trend of, like, everyone’s face, particularly when people who identify as as women looking exactly the same. And I’ve talked a lot on this podcast about, you know, anti aging culture, and it was just interesting because so she made this post, and I can link it in the show notes. It’s quite I thought it was a good post. She got attacked a bit for, like, criticizing or judging, judging women. And I think she was pretty clear that she’s not. She was more just like, is this? Like, are we all okay with this? Like, why are we doing this? Why are we like, why is there, like, an ideal face now, because I don’t think that existed before, like before, there was always kind of an ideal body, but there was a variety in the way people’s faces looked, and we see variety in men’s faces. Like men are allowed to have different faces. They’re allowed to have wrinkles between their eyebrows. And were that variety is like slowly going away.

Danni:
When you look at female women’s celebrities, I just said in the face, trend just is gonna constantly change. But I don’t know I saw Jamil. Jamil saying I was like, I have mixed feelings, because I think one of the pictures was chosen was like Michael B Jordan, and in many cases, like Michael B Jordan’s features are black features that have not been mostly except, like accepted. I think Michael B Jordan is like a beauty. Appreciation is really new, because people who look like him, like Jonathan majors, despite the story of his life, people like Michael B Jordan and Jonathan majors have been called ugly and having traditionally been, I forget this. This woman’s name, she’s Ghanaian, but I think she’s from the you can’t think her name is like Michelle. She’s a part of, oh my gosh, I can’t think. But chewing gum. I think the show was called, like chewing gum, Obama bubble gum. But anyway, she has similar features, and they haven’t really been accepted. Anyways, I wanted this tangent to say that is overall, she’s right. I think white features, or whatever is most like, the most like normalized features of white people in this moment will always be the standard for everybody, and black people, no matter what, unless they do some type of face altering, will always have to adjust. So I don’t even know if it’s just like, strictly gender for me, because I have to think about, like, Afrocentric features would just never be the beauty standard unless white women are paying for and put it on. Like, remember, like big lips. Kylie Jenner was put on the big lips, but you black got big lips. It’s a problem, you know, like the slim and thin nose, I haven’t seen big nose become a train yet, but like the slim nose, it always gets slimmer and slimmer and slimmer. And it’s always, like, pretty obvious when people of color do it, because our nose is traditionally like a lot of our noses aren’t really smaller anyway. I don’t know what are your thoughts? Yeah, I 100% agree with you. I think it’s like it’s I was rambling, sorry, but has so many things to say.

Summer:
I know. No, it’s just like, it’s interesting discourse, right? Because I think the overarching issue I see is that, like the pendulum has swung, like we had the body positivity little heyday where we had some diversity, not no systemic changes, but now the pendulum has, like really swung opposite that, and now we have more rigid, more unrealistic standards that require more labor, physical, financial, especially when you think about changing your face or investing in anti aging procedures. And so I hate to say it’s like a grim outlook, but I perhaps wonder if maybe the pendulum will swing back eventually, and maybe things will change. But I think overall, none of this changes.

Danni:
Systemically, I think it’s going to take 10 years, I think because of the political climate that we’re in, also like, people are trying economically. Like, this is why body positivity was never just about, like, we have to feel confident about the our bodies. It has always been socially, politically and economically. It all like works together and how we liberate women and people who are in larger like, in larger bodies and other marginalized bodies, because we can’t just think about it as like. I want to feel good about myself. Okay, now, so what is that? Do I have the means to also like, really survive these structures? So for example, if we go back to like, thin is in like, what does that mean under structure? Um, that thin is, like, the smart people. We stay there. If we stay there right, then it’s the smart people. Thin women with small voice, with small voices are the women that you know really should get the jobs. I don’t know. Let’s just say that, but like, what structural protections are there? And in the context of the United States, there won’t be any under conservative leadership. And so we’ll be seeing for quite some time that we’ll be cycling in this thinness, until people also recognize that it’s going to take more of more than us taking pictures with our stretch marks, or we’re gonna have to really get activated.

Summer:
Yeah, yeah. And you can’t get activated if you’re hungry. Okay, let’s pin it there, because I feel like we could go on, and I want to make sure that we talk about our audio image coach certification, which will be opening for enrollment on January, 28 the class, the first class is on March 11, so doors close on March 7, we do have early bird pricing for just over two weeks until february 14, you can save $500 which makes it about $200 a month if You do a year long payment plan to join our body image coach certification, which which gives you all the tools and resources to be a go to expert to support clients with body image. So whether you this is an area that you want to get into, or if you are a dietitian or a therapist or a personal trainer, and you want to add this to your repertoire of services, or be able to be to more confidently help clients, then definitely check out our course. What do you want to do? You want to say anything about it? Danny, I kind of just took over there.

Danni:
Yeah, no, it’s okay. I think that if you are a practitioner and you want to work with people who are struggling with body image overall, like our class, is just an amalgamation of of tools that can help you really get people to to a place where they are okay and they feel they feel okay in their bodies. We also spend a little bit of time talking about the inner critic, self care, asking really critical questions, all the things. And then if you’re not doing the self study and doing like the group class, you have the opportunity to learn from different professionals from around the globe. Like our course is very diverse. We’ve had students from Thailand, we have students from Canada. We had students in Mexico. We’ve even had, I believe, a student it wasn’t Kenya at one point, or, I don’t know, I forget the name which country, but we’ve had quite a bit of students from around the globe. And so it’s just a great opportunity, and you get some time to spend with summer and I you always you get all of the recap videos from from the courses. So this thing is a great opportunity, and check us out.

Summer:
Yeah, and I think, to your point, like one some of the feedback that we’ve received that people have found so valuable compared to any other course that they’ve taken, is the. The way that we talk about power and privilege and bias, and we set that foundation up front, and then that’s woven through all the conversations that we have. So whenever we talk about, you know, implementing tools, we’re always looking at it from a social justice informed perspective as well as a trauma informed perspective. I feel like those two things go hand in hand, and that lens and and, you know, when other people talk about courses that they’ve taken, they’re like no one ever taught talked about bias, like no one even mentioned white supremacy culture, and like, how that can show up when you’re working with people. And so I think that’s what makes our course so special and so powerful is that you’re walking away with this really solid foundation to support clients with body image, and it’s through the social justice lens. So we’re looking at it. We’re looking at how systems inform our body image, and we’re looking at how do we improve people’s body image knowing that they’re still living inside these systems? And how do we recognize our own privilege and bias to better show up for clients if they hold different identities than our own? So check it out, body image coach certification.com and we’ll link it in the show notes. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. So follow the Institute for body image on Instagram, and that’s what we post a lot of updates, and hopefully we’ll be more active on there in 2025 right? New Year’s resolutions. Yes, all right.

Where can people find more of you? Danni, just in case they don’t know.

Danni:
Oh yes, you can follow me on a pound cake on all social media platforms as ama pound cake,

Summer:
amazing. Thank you so much. Great conversation. Always fun to catch up with you. Yes, Rock on. That was a fun conversation. I hope it didn’t come off too judgy. Anyways, you can find the links mentioned at summer innan.com, forward, slash, 317, thank you so much for being here today. Rock on. I’m Summer innan, and I want to thank you for listening today. You can follow me on Instagram and Facebook at summer innan, and if you haven’t yet, go to Apple podcasts. Search, eat the rules and subscribe, rate and review this show I would be so grateful until next time rock on you.