Ep. 34 | Reclaiming Self-Care in a Fat Body

Self-care isn’t just for thin, white, able-bodied people—but it’s often marketed that way. In this episode, I’m exploring what weight-neutral self-care really looks like for those of us in larger bodies. I talk about how self-care spaces exclude fat folks, how wellness culture co-opts our care, and why self-care doesn’t need to be aesthetic to be valid. I also share my personal self-care menu—and invite you to reflect on what you need today, without guilt or performance.

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Transcript

Melanie Knights [she/they] (00:00)
Hello friends, hello my plus size pals, hello everybody. Welcome to episode number 34 of The Culture of It All. Welcome, welcome, welcome to today's episode. If you are new here, thank you so much for joining us this week. We are going to be talking about self care. And self care is so often a taboo topic, especially for folks in larger bodies or marginalized bodies.

because there are real barriers that prevent folks in larger bodies from being able to access even the most basic forms of self-care. Things like unbiased medical care, hygiene products. know, self-care is not just for smaller bodies, but like so many things, it's often marketed towards smaller bodies. And because of weight stigma and stereotypes and anti-fat bias, ⁓

it assumes that fat bodies are lazy and that we don't take care of ourselves because well if you did then why would you be fat? So we are often not even given the option of access to self-care spaces. And today I want to explore how we can take a weight-neutral approach to self-care, what that really means, what that potentially looks like, and how we can reclaim it for ourselves in our fat bodies.

So before we get into today's episode, a quick reminder that you can subscribe to the Culture for All on Substack by heading to cultureforallpod.substack.com forward slash subscribe. And you can choose between the free or the paid plan. Subscribers get early access to episodes, regular bonuses, including creative resources, blogs, videos, and more. And you can also join me over on TikTok where you'll find me at Melanie Nights.

where we explore what it really means to ditch diet culture whilst living life in a larger body. And I share the good, the bad and the fatphobia. You'll find fashion and style inspiration, casual outfits and all of my fat positive thoughts.

I think for many of us we have an individual understanding of what self-care potentially means or looks like for us. So when I googled what does self-care mean or the definition of self-care, I was presented with a specific definition as per the Oxford English Dictionary and also a lot of other answers. So self-care essentially is the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one's own health.

But as I said, if you Google self-care and especially blogs, there are so many different answers and so many different explanations for what self-care is or how we should be practising self-care. They're all slightly different from one another, but there were a number of key phrases that really stood out to me in my research. The first is that self-care is an individual practice. know, typically self-care is an individual practice. It's right there in the name.

It's looking after our mental, emotional and physical health, All three are important.

And self-care is also about decision-making, It's about making decisions for ourselves. And it can also be in collaboration with healthcare practitioners. So we see this a lot and this has been, unfortunately, it's come up a lot recently with GLP-1s and the new NHS guidelines, which is that, yes, even with healthcare practitioners, if they are providing a prescription,

or helping you to manage maybe a certain health condition, there are also usually expectations on the individual of how they can also collaborate with the healthcare practitioner and also support themselves. talking of GLP-1s, self-care and weight loss seem to come up a lot. And this is something that really I found really difficult to process is watching

more and more clinics, private clinics, private websites and companies use self-care as a weapon when it comes to marketing intentional weight loss. You know, if we're defining self-care as the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one's own health, then I do not consider intentional weight loss to be a form of self-care because we know that diet culture

dieting and intentional weight loss, well it promotes negative body image. this does not preserve or improve our mental emotional health and it doesn't improve long-term physical health either.

I'd also argue that just like the word health, self-care has been heavily weaponised by companies and individuals who don't have our best interests at heart. This is something that I often reflect on, it really apparent to me when I started a business in 2015, There appeared to be a rise in...

content and resources and businesses focusing their profit on mindset and self care and personal development. And I don't know whether it was a trend. I think it was. And also this was the first time that I was really a part of these conversations until I started my business in 2015 and hired a business coach. Mindset and personal development were not really even words that I would have used, but

every business and marketing coach that I knew and knew over a period of three or four years used mindset and personal development work as part of their sales techniques. It was incredibly manipulative and unethical. And it didn't matter that you wanted to learn about Instagram marketing, personal development would be a part of every course or program out there. And what I noticed is that it continually centered thin

white bodies and physical health aka thinness would consistently be brought up in these spaces. I even had a business coach who I paid a lot of money to once tell me on a group call that if I took care of myself more I'd probably have more clients. Like the blatant anti-fatness and stigma and stereotyping associated with the size of my body and

the impact that had on whether or not I was successful. Like I was being advised that my plus size body was preventing me from being successful. The implication being, why would somebody want to pay me money to help them if I couldn't even take care of myself? Because in the eyes of my coach, I wasn't the picture of health. I didn't look the way some of her other clients in that group program look.

Now, over the past decade, I know that self-care has become a really crunchy topic for a lot of folks because it has been taken and used against marginalised bodies and it continues to be a taboo topic because I think it lacks so much definition, right? We want to know what self-care is and a lot of people have an opinion, but the truth is just like health,

think it's really an individual experience. And a self-care practice is going to look different for each of us. It's going to depend on our own needs on any given day and, you know, the actions that we take to improve or preserve our own health are going to likely be a reflection of ourselves.

The reality is that self-care is a taboo topic for folks in larger bodies because we don't have the same access, or at least we're not welcomed into self-care spaces in the same way as folks in smaller bodies. This is evident in things like spas. If we take like that very stereotypical self-care activity of going to a spa for a day, well, are the robes going to fit our bodies?

what is the weight limit for a massage table? Are they used to massaging fat bodies?

Last year, last September, I went with my mum to a spa and I hadn't done this for a long long time. I bought my own robe because I inquired and their robes only went up to an extra large. That wasn't gonna fit me. So I found my own robe online. I bought one that would be appropriate for me to take to the spa and I booked in for a facial and part of that facial experience was that you could have a head and neck massage

whilst you wore one of those like LED mask things.

So I'm laying on the massage, table, I've got the LED mask on, I'm feeling very relaxed. And she's asked me like a couple of times during the beginning of the appointment if I wanted to have the head and neck massage. And I'm like, yeah. And as I'm laying there, suddenly becoming very aware of the fact that like, I don't know how she's gonna reach like my neck and shoulders. Like, you know, I don't really have a neck. There's a lot going on there. And I was like, how is?

hmm okay. And even though she'd asked me this twice and hadn't said anything, all of a sudden she starts massaging my shoulders and then my arms and my hands. My neck and head never got the massage. And I laugh because it didn't really bother me that much but it was so stunning to see how I think she was uncomfortable and instead of just acknowledging the fact that perhaps I'm in a larger body.

And saying, okay, I don't know that I, you know, even being able to like come up with some way of wording this without perceiving it being an insult, like, you know, I think it would be better for me to, you know, work on your shoulders and arms. Like, I get why the person would be uncomfortable. We live in a society that acts as though acknowledging someone's larger body is an insult. Obviously for me it's not, but it's like...

okay we're just not gonna talk about like the quote-unquote elephant in the room, like you just asked me twice what you're gonna do or you told me and then you didn't do it and it's like it's fine but it was wild. But it's things like that, right? If we have spaces that don't feel welcoming, you know, in order for me to go to a spa I have to buy my own robe or not have a robe at all, I cannot necessarily participate in the exact

like, spa experience that I've requested. And obviously that was a very small piece of the experience, but like, even the beds, you know? If somebody has mobility issues they're not gonna be able to get necessarily onto a bed like that. It's so many ways in which these spaces are not set up to cater or be fully inclusive, not just for people in larger bodies, but all people.

they're not fully inclusive, they're not designed to be inclusive. And that really sucks that also you have practitioners who don't understand how to work with all bodies. And so instead you end up with this kind of awkward moment of, I'm just not going to do that because I can't get to where you want me to massage. And, you know, we're expected to just move on, but...

These are just some of the ways in which self-care spaces are not always accessible. I think I've talked about this in a previous episode as well. I get my nails done very regularly. I would consider that to be a part of my self-care. And I needed to find a new salon last year. And I'd only ever previously been to like beauty salons, so to speak. I'd never been to like a nail bar in of itself.

And what I was stunned by is I started going to this nail bar and I suddenly had this thought like, oh shit, like, what if the space is not particularly size inclusive? And I was like, well, yeah, we'll go, we'll just see. The chairs are really wide. They're so comfortable compared to like all the previous places I've been before. And so that was a way in which it kind of worked out for me. Like it was, I was actually really happy that I chose to go to this particular place because their chairs are actually really comfortable.

fairly size inclusive, even though they have arms on them. Like that's what's quite surprising. ⁓ But it's also a case of like products not being accessible. Again, this is something I think I brought up last year during our summer series is that there are so many products that will be helpful and supportive for folks in larger bodies, but they're never marketed towards us. Products that are marketed towards people who are pregnant.

marketed towards folks who are perhaps older, people who have mobility issues, but they're not marketed specifically- or athletes as well, but they're not typically marketed towards folks in larger bodies. And, you know, we have to be honest that the reason being is because society doesn't want fat folks to be comfortable, That is why so many of these things are not marketed towards folks in larger bodies, is because if we are comfortable...

that just like destroys people's perception of folks in larger bodies. Like we're not supposed to be comfortable, right? That's how society speaks to us and speaks about us, is that we're not allowed to be comfortable, we should always be trying to make ourselves smaller and more acceptable. And for those of us who are like middle fingers up, fuck off, I'm not doing that. That's where so much of the negativity comes from. And that's why

I think when we start to divest from diet culture and look at our bodies through a different lens, that's why when we start to do that research and start to look at ways in which we can take care of our bodies, whether that's self-care or any other kind of care, we realise that there are things available and there are products that will work perfectly fine for us. And also there are plenty of businesses, usually small independent businesses,

who actually want to include us in their products and in their marketing and, you know, in their process. And I know that we only know what we know, you know? We only know what we know. So this is one of the reasons why I'm so fiercely loud about self-care and, you know, even the most basic forms of self-care like personal hygiene.

when it comes to folks in larger bodies because I can't believe I went so long not knowing certain things about how to take care of my fat body.

And whilst they will talk incessantly about physical self-care, self-care isn't always physical, It's not always about physical actions. Sometimes self-care is about saying boundaries, honoring boundaries, introspection and getting curious with our own feelings. And I think in particular, when it comes to, again, the practice of divesting from dark culture, self-care can look like creating boundaries around

diet talk or conversations about bodies, you know, whether that's with friends or family or having those conversations and they're not easy by any means. But that is also a form of self care because it is helping to improve and preserve our own health.

So I started to ask myself, what does weight neutral self-care look like? You know, what does it mean? What does it look like in practice? And I guess the most basic answer I came up with is self-care practices that aren't promoting weight loss, They're not focused on a goal of manipulating our body size. That to me is a weight neutral approach to self-care, It's practices that aren't promoting weight loss. And...

Really it connects back to the body appreciation spectrum. You know, we talked about this in a previous episode, but at one end of the kind of spectrum or scale you've got body hate and at the other end you have body liberation. And in between there are many other ways in which we can feel about our bodies. Tolerance, respect, acceptance, appreciation, neutrality, trust, confidence, compassion and love. There are so many different ways that we can feel about our body without

pacing our body. And obviously true body liberation is inevitably a goal for many of us, but there are lots of ways we can feel within that space. And I think a weight neutral approach is recognising that weight isn't indicative of health. I think that has to be a priority within weight neutral self care, Weight is not indicative of health. And...

It's also about promoting positive behaviours with self-esteem and confidence and body image, rather than problematic behaviours that are often connected to diets and restriction and weight loss. And I think this approach also requires us to recognise that even given the choice, some people may still choose to be fat. Even given the choice, some people may still choose to be fat.

I talk a lot about the fact that fatness isn't a choice, which is true, but it also needs to be understood and recognised that even given the choice, because bodies come in all different shapes and sizes, some people may actually still choose to be fat.

And even more so that we can feel positive or confident in our bodies even when we are not trying to make them smaller.

Because self-care isn't just saved for thin bodies. So we are allowed to also feel those positive feelings. We're also allowed to have those feelings and emotions connected to our bodies. They don't have to always be negative. The expectation that we should always be unhappy with our bodies It's unfair, it's outdated and it does harm.

to folks in larger bodies.

And think the beautiful thing about self-care is that it is expansive and it is individual. Which to be honest is probably how healthcare should be as well, right? Our health as individuals is also expansive.

So promised you that we could reclaim our self care for our fat bodies. And there are a number of ways we can do this. I will again link to the resource I created last year about personal hygiene routine. I also am planning to talk about this on social media as well. So if you are following me online on social media, you'll also see some videos where I'm talking about some of the products that I use.

⁓ I will make sure that I link to those in the show notes as well. But what I wanted to share with you in this episode is a suggestion that a dear friend of mine gave a few years ago, and that is to create a self-care menu.

And I know it sounds a little bit, a little bit woo, it sounds a little bit fluffy, but hear me out. This could be a list on your phone, a page in a journal or, you know, it could be a full color creative project if you want it to be, You get to do it how you want to do it. In of itself, it could be self-care, But the idea of the self-care menu is to create like a running list of practices.

or rituals that promote mental, emotional and physical self-care for yourself?

When you're in need of self-care you can refer to your menu and pick which items will meet your needs that day. Because asking yourself what do I need today is one of the most powerful tools that we can use. Because it's not about what we want or what we have to do but it's about what we need and just that shift is incredible.

We get to ask ourselves, what sounds good today? What will bring us a little extra joy that day? And I don't know about you, but those are questions I do not ask myself nearly often enough.

And it's also a great opportunity to remind ourselves of any boundaries that we've put in place. Maybe they need a little bit of reflection. Maybe we're not honouring them quite the way we need to. And...

I want to argue the point that self-care isn't supposed to be aesthetically pleasing. With the rise of social media, feel like self-care became something that we posted on these tiny little squares online and we talked about self-care incessantly and we showcased it as part of our highlight reel. But it doesn't need to look aesthetic. It doesn't ask us to be showy.

It's not expecting us to show up perfectly or look a certain way. It does not care what size our body is. Because self-care is all about you as an individual. It's literally there in the name.

So thought I'd share some of the things on my own self-care menu. Reading a physical book, because I typically read with Kindle, but I have many books rolling their eyes at me. Laying incense, playing records, journaling, pulling tarot or oracle cards, getting my nails done, baking something sweet, swimming, a gentle walk.

Playing board games with friends, stretching, taking a bath or a shower, doing my skincare, booking my medical appointments, flossing, as in my teeth, making Zoom coffee dates with friends and showing up to them, talking to someone about what I'm struggling with, communicating when I need help.

Those are just a few of the things on my own self-care menu and it's a really powerful reminder of the things that I can do on a regular basis, daily basis, and it's also a reminder of the things that perhaps I need to prioritise at certain times, like booking medical appointments, even though it's scary.

We need to recognise that self-care is about so much more than the way social media presents it to us. Now I'd love to know if you give the self-care menu a while and if you want to share what's on your menu please feel free to do so in the comments on Substack or head over to the chats on Substack and let me know what your self-care...

menu looks like. Next week on the show we will be heading back to the autumn of 2020. Now I know that sounds a little bit daunting but hear me out. I had just launched my very first podcast, Entrepreneurial Outlaws, and episode three of the show was titled Diet Culture, Body Image and Being a Plus Size Entrepreneur. Together we are going to listen back to this episode

and I will be sharing my thoughts about what's, if anything, has changed since I aired this episode five years ago. We're going to be looking at, I'm going to be looking at any language I use. I will be listening to it to ensure that I'm not saying anything completely wild. ⁓ I haven't heard this episode in five years. I do not even know what I talk about. So I'm really interested to hear back because as far as I'm aware at that time, I don't think I truly understood what diet culture was.

and I'm pretty certain I still had a lot of diet mentality. So it'll be interesting to see how my thoughts were starting to shift at that point because of course for me 2019-2020 was really the beginning of what became me divesting from diet culture. Be sure to follow the show over on sub stack and you can also find me over on TikTok at Melanie Nights. As said, I'm going to be sharing more of the personal hygiene products that I am loving and using at the moment.

and yeah be sure to follow along there and I will see you next time friends!