![]() Some random person on a talk show-I think she was, like, 19-said it's fat phobic to do CrossFit or something like that. As soon as you start talking about this stuff publicly, what you get is somebody will say, “well, what about the fat activists who think it's fat-phobic to go to the gym?” This actually happened a couple of weeks ago. I think that most of the messages that people have gotten about this issue have been so misrepresented to them. ![]() MH: So much of this is about who has power in a situation. Over Zoom from their respective homes in Portland and Berlin, Gordon and Hobbes talked to GQ about falling for fad diets, why health myths spread and the limits of the body positivity movement. The idea is to encourage us to question these dizzying institutional narratives that we’ve absorbed as fact, and then, says Gordon, “do whatever you wanna do, man.” In other words, mocking someone for trying the Master Cleanse isn’t the point. Ultimately, when it comes to our health, logic and science are no match for myth and narrative. ![]() But by rigorously fact-checking quackery, they reveal that wellness is a cultural construct often exploited by profit-driven grifters and upheld by well-meaning, health-conscious consumers. (It turns out, for example, that celery juice is not a cure-all elixir, but simply a glass of water.)īut there’s no moralistic finger-wagging here Hobbes and Gordon don’t care if you’re vegan or whether you do CrossFit. Gordon, who writes under the moniker Your Fat Friend, is referring to the revelatory moments that tend to punctuate episodes of Maintenance Phase, the podcast she co-hosts with the journalist Michael Hobbes, formerly of You’re Wrong About, where they methodically dismantle health myths churned out by the “wellness-industrial complex.” Sometimes these moments are sensational-an Australian wellness influencer named Belle Gibson faking cancer-but more often the duo is bringing overstated wellness claims back to earth. If you don’t want to listen to the whole episode (which I think would be a mistake, but you do you), the narrative convos happen at 17:17 and 53:10.“It's so fun to get your mind blown,” says the author and activist Aubrey Gordon over Zoom. James Hamblin for The AtlanticĪmazing how our perception of the world impacts our experience of the world. Most importantly, the immune system is also modulated by stress, which tends to be a by-product of a perceived lack of control or order. It is well documented that the immune system (and, so, autoimmune diseases) are modulated by our lifestyles-from how much we sleep and move to how well we eat and how much we drink. The beneficial effects of a compelling personal narrative that helps explain and give order to the world can be absolutely physiologically real. I also loved this quote below from the Atlantic article that was referenced in the episode: It was fun to hear that reiterated through the lens of dietary choices, of all things. I believe storytelling is the most powerful force in our lives, collectively and individually. Maintenance Phase is primarily about the junk science behind fad diets and the toxicity of the weight loss industry, but this episode had an unexpected through line about personal narrative, a topic that’s really interesting and important to me. ![]() (Sarah once said in a You’re Wrong About bonus episode that this was something that she loved about cohosting the show with Michael and I’ve never forgotten it.) Especially when it’s a man and a woman taking turns listening to each other. I’m not a big fan of the “aimless conversation between friends” genre of podcasting, but I love dropping in on structured conversations between two smart people who like and respect each other. The host who’s coming in cold on the topic serves as the audience proxy and there’s a clear conversational driver. Maintenance Phase uses the same format deployed in his first podcast ( You’re Wrong About cohosted with Sarah Marshall) where one of the hosts tells the other about a topic they researched. I am a superfan of Michael Hobbes, cohost of Maintenance Phase (with Aubrey Gorman).
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