00:02:59.860Back to face Instagram, you know, that's the kind of where we are in.
00:03:04.580um i know this was such a chaotic start we are so excited to talk to you today and talk about
00:03:11.240your beautiful book which we've both read already you read it all yeah oh my god how does that how
00:03:17.260does that feel to finish a book that quickly so good my story graph i like i have an app where i
00:03:21.400like rate books and like say when i started and finished and i'm like oh four days like i love it
00:03:26.160were you like a scholastic book oh hell yeah yes you too victorian premier's reading challenge
00:03:32.280did you have that in primary school yeah i was like i had a year where i read over 100 books
00:03:37.720but again i was a child so there was short books 100 books yeah were you allowed to watch the
00:03:43.280simpsons i was actually okay so i wasn't like oh you weren't okay so you have an excuse i was the
00:03:48.560nerd um but yeah we both love the book so much you can see all my little saved points and like
00:03:57.300lines that I just adored. For listeners, Jazz has dog-eared like every 10th page. Yeah. Oh, Jazz,
00:04:03.400so nice. Before we get into your book, for those who aren't familiar with your work,
00:04:09.100can you please tell us a bit about yourself? Of course. So my name is Lucinda Price,
00:04:14.300otherwise known as Frooms, and I'm a comedian, writer, emcee, I say reformed podcast host.
00:04:21.240um and what else now i'm an author and i have been working in australian media for about a
00:04:28.440decade now started in 2015 and i've just kind of like done all different jobs producing video
00:04:34.540editing um and i've just kind of seen like digital media in australia grow so that's been really
00:04:39.940exciting from my perspective um and i just do stuff on my instagram under frumes three o's
00:04:46.040i was always always trying to figure out how to like explain it because when i talk to people
00:04:50.760and say what do you do I just say writer and then it'll eventually get to like I'll show me
00:04:55.080your Instagram and then they go oh but you do Instagram I don't know what to say what I do
00:04:58.360I guess I can just say influencer now but it doesn't nothing fits for me yeah I say I just
00:05:04.680notice things oh that's a good one does that make sense I observe I'm an observer the observant
00:05:10.320I guess that's where the term like creative comes in but I feel like that's been so overused that
00:05:14.920now it also feels a bit funny to say yeah I'm a creative it sounds like you living a bush week
00:05:20.020yeah in 2015 yeah no but yeah but so I'm trying to figure out how to label myself but yes I would
00:05:26.720say author now yeah well author totally now because this past week uh your book all I ever
00:05:33.260wanted was to be hot has been out on shelves uh how does it feel to have it out in the world
00:05:39.920it's so good the first day was kind of scary to be honest because like you just think oh my god
00:05:45.620there's like a handful of people who are reading it right now how weird they're reading my um
00:05:49.960diary of my insanity there's this really funny meme which is um like i think trisha paytas's
00:05:54.940book was called like a diary of my insanity or maybe just a meme but like i'm obsessed with her
00:05:59.860um it feels good it feels interesting like it's fun seeing everyone um tag me when they go to
00:06:06.180the bookstores and stuff that feels really fun i've gone to a few bookstores and like i haven't
00:06:09.680seen it so that's but i know it'll come i have faith it's doing well so far i think so we'll
00:06:15.220see maybe i think in another week i'll know how the sales are going and that'll probably make or
00:06:20.220break me we'll see how we go i did see a story you posted of um a dimmix employee saying that they
00:06:26.820are selling out so fast they're gonna have to order more like someone messaged you saying that
00:06:30.060so that's like must be so exciting and rewarding i think it's a good thing i'm also because i
00:06:35.380studied advertising and i love marketing and advertising i'm like i really feel like i need
00:06:38.880to crank it and not leave any stone unturned with promoting it because i've got friends who've
00:06:43.680written books and they're like I just wish I like cranked it like don't feel bad about posting
00:06:47.320every day posting posting posting because I think it does it's kind of annoying but like maybe it's
00:06:52.140annoying but whatever you just wrote a whole ass book like that is huge and it's a book that covers
00:06:57.020some very like heavy and points that are like the darkest points in your life0.96
00:07:02.300was it therapeutic and how did you sit down and essentially rehash your eating disorder
00:07:08.100yes so interestingly enough because in eating disorder recovery you kind of have to go through
00:07:14.920anything anyway with a fine-tooth comb and do all this rearranging of how you see yourself and
00:07:18.980how you see your habits I'd already done a lot of the work that would have been like I guess
00:07:23.860triggering so really it was just like a creative writing exercise at that point and it was just
00:07:27.880fun because also throughout the experience of having an eating disorder I would always write
00:07:33.040about it anyway never thinking I would share it with anyone but I would just want to get it out
00:07:37.140because it was obviously weighing so heavily on my mind like with my eating disorder I just thought
00:07:41.480about food my body and the disordered thoughts like I knew what was going on for a long time
00:07:46.880so I had a lot of time to ruminate and think about it um there's definitely like other parts
00:07:52.680of the book that were more that helped me work through things I didn't realize were going on
00:07:56.360under the surface and I like to think that I kept kind of like the working out of it on the page in
00:08:01.700the book which hopefully comes through but for the most part it feels like you know the title is
00:08:08.380kind of like the aha moment for me when I was writing I came up with the title about halfway
00:08:13.700through and that was when it all clicked and I was like oh that is so what I've been trying to do my
00:08:18.300whole life and like I think that's where a lot of the kind of like push and pull of my personality
00:08:23.880and my self-concept has come from this desire. I just I'm like trying to stop myself from gushing
00:08:31.520about yeah but maybe we should a little bit because i think the way i'm like shy the way
00:08:39.140that you are able to share so generously about your own experience but then speak to the culture
00:08:44.380at large and then the way you're able to distill like academic texts and big theories into something
00:08:51.000that's engaging fun like captivating is just extraordinary and i just have to say that yeah
00:08:56.740yeah like love it not the scholastic book fair i'll endorse it yeah the victoria premier reading
00:09:03.820challenge maybe grade six champion self-proclaimed no self-proclaimed self-proclaimed i said that
00:09:10.360and i and i brought i wanted to kind of give that mini review there as well because um
00:09:16.940the way you speak and write about eating disorders was really enlightening so around
00:09:22.960halfway through the book you use this analogy that compares developing an eating disorder to
00:09:27.780walking into the ocean and getting caught in a rip can you explain that to listeners of course
00:09:33.720so that was kind of like the one very um dramatic flourish that I allowed myself I tried to keep
00:09:38.200pulling myself back to the book to like not be like too earnest but yes because I found
00:09:45.180with my eating disorder I feel like it's just a habit like dieting becomes a habit and then it
00:09:54.760becomes more of a habit and a habit and the habits become smaller and more rigid is how I describe it
00:10:00.720and so it kind of felt like that it's felt like started to healthy eat started to not eat certain
00:10:06.580things started to exercise more I so I started doing all these things that have always been
00:10:11.900thought of as the right thing to do when I grew up I didn't exercise like you read the book I was
00:10:17.320like a real potato eating little like freak didn't really fat exactly so I never thought about food
00:10:24.240or dieting but then obviously when you become like in my early 20s I kind of decided oh no it's time
00:10:31.400to get my life together I'm moving to Sydney I've become an adult I'm a health and fitness editor
00:10:35.520actually um and that really like did my head in but I think it just the moment that I realized
00:10:42.100I was kind of like in a rip as I say in the analogy was just when I felt like the habits
00:10:48.380that I'd formed I couldn't let go of they weren't choices anymore the habits had become
00:10:52.280like they were controlling me I was no longer in control and in a lot of ways I think you I did
00:10:59.260kind of i don't know if i woke up one day and realized i had an eating disorder but
00:11:02.640it was i i knew what was happening while it was happening and i still couldn't get out0.97
00:11:08.400is i guess what i'm saying like when you're in a rip like you know i'm in a fucking rip0.86
00:11:11.360like i don't know what to do here i'm trying to i'd try and do a little swim sideways i'm not0.91
00:11:15.860getting anywhere um and then you yeah and in a rip as well you have to go with the rip like
00:11:21.740you have to almost yeah you get swept away by it like it's not you're out of control so yeah
00:11:27.500that um line as well was like so powerful actually made me tear up I was really on a plane like
00:11:34.160oh my god so stunning Maggie and I also both work in the media industry obviously so we
00:11:40.660know how image focused it can be and I actually felt very seen when you shared that your career
00:11:46.500was more successful when you were skinnier I feel like it's something that's always in the
00:11:52.260back of my head i'm like if i just lost 10 kilos five kilos like i would feel more confident and
00:11:59.040therefore i would look better on camera like the camera thing is so big as well you wrote in the
00:12:02.680book the job i had just lost was inextricably linked to the eating disorder for people who
00:12:07.740aren't within the media space or going to these events constantly networking and like your own
00:12:13.300brand can you please share what that experience is like with them so i always wanted to do this
00:12:17.580job i always wanted to be like a channel v presenter or rove live or any like i had always
00:12:21.800very australiana dreams which is funny and that probably comes through in the book and for me0.98
00:12:27.200when i grew up like i would look up to like um kate bush i think her name was like the blonde
00:12:32.960with the short hair like i loved all the presenters who were like really cool and quirky and like they
00:12:37.040were all skinny and so for me like being cool and being able to be chosen and be one of those people
00:12:42.620i was like that's just a requirement um and i couldn't see any way that wasn't that and i felt
00:12:48.960like especially trying to do the stuff that I do online and do stuff that um is more in the comedy
00:12:55.460space I do feel like and I know this through the comments that I've gotten for the last 10 years
00:13:01.040there's like a lot of people that don't think women are funny or rather when they see a woman
00:13:05.700trying to be funny and some people you know they see people enjoy it they go oh like oh but you're
00:13:11.520not funny and often the one way that they try and um tear women down is by saying that they're fat0.66
00:13:16.180fat is always the insult that i see online when a woman who is funny or isn't fully straight sized
00:13:22.100and dares make a joke or dare say something fat is the first insult i also see it just when people1.00
00:13:27.180bag each other and like when we were growing up it's like your mom is so fat like fat has always0.99
00:13:30.800just been this word that's like the one thing to make a woman shut the fuck up it feels like yeah0.95
00:13:36.280and so for me trying to have no fat on my body was like a protection mechanism um and i also think0.99
00:13:43.880yeah you are treated preferentially when you are a certain size and I think there's also this like
00:13:49.020status like I was talking about the coolness of being thin and not having to you know being
00:13:54.540effortlessly like the cool girl thing it all comes back to that god yeah and I think like being
00:13:59.900on camera obviously is a vulnerable thing I love it it's my favorite thing I want to do it forever
00:14:04.600but I think I think even people who watch it expect people to be a certain size because they
00:14:12.780had been for so long and I reckon they think oh if I was on camera you know I couldn't do what you
00:14:17.260would do I would totally be on a diet and I think as well like for me growing up the one kind of0.96
00:14:22.820pop culture icon that I looked up to who wasn't um a size six was Nigella yeah I fucking love her
00:14:29.280but she's you know she's still I guess sexualized and still seen as this very like still an ideal1.00
00:14:34.700kind of shape so I just do think there's a long way to go for us to have women in the media who0.90
00:14:41.340are seen as aspirational who aren't you know a size that's very hard to achieve and I don't think
00:14:47.040it's the women's fault either is all I'm saying yeah no so true so as you just mentioned there
00:14:51.700being in front of the camera and being part of the entertainment industry is something that you1.00
00:14:56.940had always like aspired to so how even now you said that it's still such a like a love of yours
00:15:04.440how do you kind of reckon with those two kind of forces when when perhaps like one contributed
00:15:14.420so much to your eating disorder but you still love it now well I see it as like there's an
00:15:19.360opportunity to like be confident I struggle even saying this because I know that I am still
00:15:27.600a standard size and I'm still considered I think an ideal body to people I had a really good chat
00:15:33.380with my friend about this because I kind of bring this up in the chapter about fat phobia
00:15:37.060and this friend of mine was saying to me you know Lucinda like as much as you feel like you were
00:15:43.080kind of discriminated against in your own head pretty much like you still walk around in the
00:15:46.720world and you're like a size xyz like you're not um discriminated against and I think I don't know
00:15:53.420I think it would be unlikely that I wouldn't get a job because of my size the size I am now
00:15:57.400but definitely when I was recovering from an eating disorder and drastically um my body was
00:16:02.660drastically changing I felt like I was not going to be getting opportunities and it did impact my
00:16:08.400confidence because I had to relearn my style and relearn like confidence in myself that I had lost
00:16:16.360because I had for so long attributed style to size in my own head but I think yeah I think
00:16:21.760being someone and who can like advocate for the no diet mentality is something good to do if I'm
00:16:30.140going to work in this space because I think there is always like you were saying like there's always
00:16:33.440this kind of thought in a lot of people's heads of oh but like you know only five kilos if I was
00:16:39.000five kilos lighter I'd be delivered to this like beautiful space where I get everything I want
00:16:43.580I find um and I've been thinking about this recently I haven't said it before
00:16:47.640but I think as well there can be a thing about being thin for dating as well and I know before
00:16:54.400I was um developed an eating disorder that was very restrictive where I lost a lot of weight
00:16:58.760if I you know had a had a relationship with someone I was dating someone it didn't work out
00:17:04.760I would always think it wasn't because I was really really skinny like I think it was because
00:17:08.640of something to do with my body or my appearance and what was actually freeing and what I keep
00:17:13.560reminding myself now is that even when I was this really small weight that I thought would deliver
00:17:18.520me to I'd still have the exact same experiences and that was a really good light bulb moment for
00:17:23.780me to be like the five kilo theory like doesn't exist babe it actually doesn't exist so yeah does
00:17:31.720that make sense I don't know if I really answered the question there but no it did okay thank you
00:17:36.480yeah one thing that I got from your book is that you essentially confirm that pretty privilege is
00:17:43.660very real and very tangible even though you're saying the five kilo theory it's it's in your head
00:17:49.440But I was wondering, do you think that we're at a new phase of the body positivity movement where we're kind of acknowledging the inequities around beauty standards and particularly the money that goes into women like, you know, plastic surgery and Botox and stuff rather than the 2020 iteration of like everybody is beautiful, like blanket rule, body like shaming is over, that kind of energy.
00:18:15.140it feels like there's this new one of like oh no I do for the standard and like um pretty privilege
00:18:19.980actually is very real and we're finally recognizing that I think there's a few different things going
00:18:25.700on sorry it's a big question yeah it is a big question but it's it's good it's like I think
00:18:32.180that with body positivity which is how it started that was really radical and I think in a lot of
00:18:36.300ways it was really good like it was better than the alternative I do think because it was so
00:18:42.020radical to some people now that we're shifting back to the middle I don't think actually the
00:18:46.020work was done to make bigger bodies acceptable and you know part of pop culture I keep bringing
00:18:52.380up my someone who I quote in the book Rebecca Shaw a writer for the Guardian she writes you
00:18:57.780guys know right funniest person alive and she writes often about how there needs to be more
00:19:05.360representation in like movies and tv and stuff about um people in larger bodies because I think
00:19:11.940when they're just used as like a punchline or like the sad person in the tv show it does flatten the0.52
00:19:17.800experience and it does perpetuate fat phobia so i think i agree with beck that representation on
00:19:25.120screen and stuff and giving people who are fat like interior worlds that straight size characters
00:19:31.100given i think that will really make a difference because i think like so much of fat phobia and
00:19:37.120the reason why the standard size is seen as like godly is because these pop culture artifacts have
00:19:44.200made fatness like something to be so afraid of and I think it does impact everyone of every size
00:19:49.420when we're demonizing something that is normal I also have a follow-up question and that is in
00:19:56.200this book you talk about how you now don't allow yourself to like partake or contribute to
00:20:02.600conversations that your friends might have about using like fat as a negative word like I feel so
00:20:07.520fat or blah blah how do you actually act in these moments because I come up against this so much in
00:20:13.700my everyday life whether like let's say it's a work context or it's a friendship context or
00:20:17.900whatever or acquaintances and sometimes it's hard to know what to say you can kind of like say no
00:20:26.200no that's not true like don't say that or i just have you found a way to grapple with this
00:20:32.120that's the one thing that's so hard and that i kind of admit in the book like i i don't know
00:20:37.560how to do it like i love the idea of not doing it i personally can commit to not doing it myself
00:20:41.860yeah um but it is really hard yeah because i've got friends who say it as a joke
00:20:46.660even though it's kind of laced with some truth but i know they don't have an eating disorder
00:20:51.860so it's kind of confusing um it's also hard because sometimes people who say it like are
00:20:57.820actually really struggling yeah and they haven't accepted that they're struggling yet so me going
00:21:02.880up and saying you know starting this conversation they're not ready for it and it would actually be
00:21:07.280like quite harmful for them I think so it's really hard I think not partaking is a really big thing
00:21:16.440and just like moving the conversation onto something else is also good like I for me I've
00:21:21.260always been like someone who seeks reassurance so when I was coming out of the eating disorder
00:21:25.440or moments where I'd felt not comfortable comfortable in my body I would say to my
00:21:29.520friends oh I feel xyz and the best ones would be like wouldn't reassure me one way or another
00:21:34.920they'd just be like no no no but it wouldn't make me feel shut down yeah it's a real art it's like
00:21:40.980any kind of art of trying to you know figure out how to go from an angle when someone's kind of in
00:21:46.900a vulnerable spot because you don't want to hit them with like the hard facts you know it's kind
00:21:52.540of hard yeah and I've sadly actually noticed an increase in that kind of talk again I remember it
00:21:58.400when I was a teenager obviously so vividly and then it feels like it faded out now it's come
00:22:02.420back again of people like talking about their bodies or tweaking things and another part of
00:22:09.800your book that really stood out to me was actually how many people in Australia are participating in
00:22:15.480both plastic surgery and then weight loss drugs like Ozempic why did you want to be so transparent
00:22:22.340on these topics when they're often shrouded in so much shame and mystery yes so I had a nose job
00:22:31.000when I was 17 and then I had a breast augmentation when I was 19 started getting fillers at 19 started
00:22:37.500getting preventative Botox at 23 like the amount of money that I've sunk into this through nefarious0.94
00:22:42.520means or otherwise is like it's not good looking back and now as a 29 year old I'm like damn that0.51
00:22:48.380money would have been good for something else but you know it has had its perks at the time no doubt
00:22:52.600I think that I wanted to write about it because like for my whole since I got it when I was 17
00:23:00.620I kind of was ashamed of the fact that I got a nose job like if I'm dating someone or meet new
00:23:06.180people especially in the dating context like I don't like telling people that I had a nose job
00:23:10.560because I instantly think oh you must think I'm so ugly naturally you must then not like me because
00:23:15.120I'm ugly naturally and there's still that like girl inside me that doesn't have all this work
00:23:20.800done and it does make me think oh like that's she's always like kind in the back of my mind
00:23:26.360being like am I actually like when I do get treated preferentially like oh I know what it would be
00:23:32.900like to not get it because I actually look like this and whether or not it's in my head I don't
00:23:36.000know if I really looked better or worse I think the nose thing for me was something that was so
00:23:39.900like I wanted it since I since pre-puberty really so that one's hard to kind of extract myself from
00:23:48.760I think I wanted to write about plastic surgery because I feel like there's not much
00:23:52.700that goes into the nuance of it you know I think when we talk about plastic surgery we talk about
00:23:57.580how harmful it is to women and how young women are doing it and we bring up Kylie Jenner
00:24:01.460we bring up all these like cultural touchstones of plastic surgery being this really scary terrible
00:24:06.820thing for women when it's just not the reality. There's so many people getting plastic surgery
00:24:11.040every day for better or worse. There's people making money off it. There's people who get a
00:24:14.880lot of satisfaction out of it. I'm friends with a nurse who works in recovery at a breast
00:24:20.060augmentation clinic. She says so many of these people come in and they walk out and they're so
00:24:24.680happy. They're like, I've got my boobs. They're just stoked. And I've got friends who had breast0.97
00:24:28.560augmentations that are happy as Larry and they just love them. I wrote about it because I have
00:24:33.420a complicated feeling towards mine I think I got a breast orientation when I was 19 because
00:24:38.420I was really um self-conscious about something that I shouldn't have been self-conscious about
00:24:43.340which is breast asymmetry because I got up when I was 19 I don't think I was for instance like
00:24:47.480financially literate enough to understand what I was going through with like I'm looking into
00:24:54.080getting my breast implants removed now I don't know how much it's going to cost I was under the
00:24:58.820impression it could be three to seven three to seven thousand dollars but I've got a friend who's
00:25:02.400looking at a reduction and she says it's thirty thousand dollars so I don't know what I'm staring
00:25:06.640down the barrel of but it's something that my 19 year old self didn't think of because I was like
00:25:11.580I'm going to be um living in like I'm going to have three holiday houses and like be rich and
00:25:17.320famous and it just doesn't necessarily work out that way I've got a book so that was definitely
00:25:21.580so yeah I think I wanted to write about it because I think it's complicated and I'm also
00:25:28.100it was that was very cathartic for me to come out and talk about that stuff I also don't want it to
00:25:33.180be like I'm brave because I talked about it because I don't think you know I'm quite neutral towards
00:25:37.520it I just found it interesting to kind of place that within this broader story I do feel like a
00:25:43.800lot of our conversations around plastic surgery can be quite flattening it's I think that like
00:25:48.980the conversation I see time and time again is is it feminist like yes or no and then that's kind
00:25:53.460of the end of it where there are so many complexities in it and when you're mentioning
00:25:58.000what your friend said your friend that's a nurse and how people leave the clinic feeling like I
00:26:02.440feel so good I've got my boobs it did remind me of people who have like gender affirmation surgery
00:26:07.520and we know that surgery can be so powerful in how we see ourselves as well and of course it's
00:26:14.260not a black and white issue but I'm so happy that like you've mentioned this stuff this stuff and
00:26:21.220this side of it in the book yeah I'm so glad you mentioned that um I haven't made that link really
00:26:27.680that obviously and that's such a thing that's how I felt after I had a nose job like I walked out
00:26:31.840and I was like I'm me again this feels like me which sounds naff but I I think many people who've
00:26:38.260had a surgery that they're really happy with and the research backs it up and the experts that I
00:26:43.040spoke to when you're the correct candidate for something like a nose job or some kind of plastic
00:26:48.660surgery it can be really freeing it can give you back that brain space that you that is soaked up0.98
00:26:54.000with thinking about my god yeah my roman empire is getting my boobs reduced yes i'm like a fg cup
00:26:59.900and again it plays into the skinny fashion media industry thing where i'm like i'm actually very
00:27:07.000straight size but because my boobs i look so top heavy it makes me look bigger on camera i'm cut
00:27:12.080off here you know so I 100% get that um that brain space thing and like how freeing it would be
00:27:19.100so to continue on that in the chapter almond mum yes you write people don't generally think of
00:27:26.460other serious mental health disorders like depression or bipolar as a put-on because the
00:27:32.080results are not as valorized and rewarded in our culture it is difficult to extract the cultural
00:27:37.380demand for thinness from the illness like the inability to see the forest for the trees
00:27:42.020to be thin is to be good and pious but to be too thin is to be narcissistic which is evil
00:27:47.980i'm meant like relating that to um the plastic surgery and like the kind of narcissism that we1.00
00:27:57.600place on women who partake in these things like i think your reference to pink's um stupid girls0.98
00:28:03.720oh my god i was like 10 when that came out i remember that music video so vividly like so0.98
00:28:09.120many of your references in the book I was like I remember exactly where I was at that point
00:28:12.520um so to go back to the question I think a lot of women can relate to the feeling of
00:28:19.740losing weight and feeling like they've been a good girl do you think that this will ever change
00:28:26.020in western society oh I think like what you were saying Maggie it's just so like there's so many
00:28:33.840different factors like when I see a question like that or even when I see the plastic surgery
00:28:37.980I see all these like tangents up here they're like on top of it that I'm like okay take that
00:28:43.300away then that away that away that away like you're like pulling weeds I don't know how we
00:28:46.800do it I think it's like all related to capitalism maybe I'm not saying capitalism is necessarily a
00:28:50.900bad thing because I've got my beautiful $190 water bottle that I love hello um not really
00:28:57.540running for the socialist alternative yet guys um but I don't know I'd like to think so
00:29:06.000I think little baby steps I think so long as like we can all find individual freedom within the
00:29:12.140constraints like for me when I was for instance like recovering from the binge eating disorder
00:29:16.740and I went and had to get some psychology lessons because I was so worried about like
00:29:20.700being intimate with someone else in a body that was foreign to me and once I had kind of worked
00:29:28.180through that and could find my personal freedom again I just felt so happy and it didn't matter
00:29:32.160whether or not I really fit into that particular like category of good or bad anymore because I was
00:29:38.520experiencing desire and excitement and living in my body and I thought I'd rather live in my body
00:29:45.300like that than be five kilos lighter not interested anymore don't want to feel like I've got something
00:29:49.860to uphold I just want to feel sensations I want to eat things I want to like meet people and that
00:29:56.320was something that I was not able to do when I was restricting or even when I was just mentally
00:30:00.840restricting before an eating disorder and felt like oh no like people like me because i look
00:30:06.320like this or you know it was everything i had was conditional i think when it came to um things that
00:30:13.920i thought i deserved because i looked a certain way you know does something to your head to switch0.98
00:30:19.480gears a bit most people will know you from your instagram and you're so silly goofy there you like0.85
00:30:26.940dress up in different characters wait i'm trying to think about my one of my favorites you have to0.86
00:30:31.440enlighten me what you were you he was like it was like get ready with me oh it's pinned to your page
00:30:35.420pink pink going to the pink concert as crusty the clown that's right i was like in my head i kid you
00:30:41.120not i had pink in my head and i had clown in my head but i was like how do they go together but0.94
00:30:45.460of course in your brain like it makes perfect sense it makes perfect sense and you do silly like
00:30:49.160like i i love it because um you're so entertaining you are an entertainer but um on the flip side
00:30:55.840like in this in this book you talk about just like you really want to be hot as well and I love this
00:31:01.640quote that you had which was but I make an effort to counteract my grossness with hyper glam moments
00:31:07.440can you kind of talk about that that balancing act yeah absolutely I think like I bring it back
00:31:13.620to my parents that one I write about them in the book particularly in the arm and mum chapter
00:31:17.800my parents are pole opposite like my mum is this she's a nurse and she's very like good and sweet0.58
00:31:25.200and nice and quiet and shy my dad is like a car salesman the exact archetype of what that's like0.99
00:31:31.560big boyish brute funny quick-witted like cunty like they're just the complete opposite0.71
00:31:40.540and I definitely have like my dad's personality in terms of like the outgoingness0.99
00:31:44.880and the proclivity towards like funny stuff and physical comedy and like he loves to entertain
00:31:51.400loves to talk to people but then I like to think that I can be a bit more considered like my mum
00:31:56.060and I find that in order to be like my dad because I am a woman I still have to be like my mum which
00:32:03.140is this very like want to make everyone feel comfortable want to be very kind of like liked
00:32:08.500and um which is a very feminine trait yes the good girl oh my god girl yeah it's totally like
00:32:16.220i've got a full feminine figure and a full masculine figure and it's wanting what my dad
00:32:21.540has but a feeling like i have to make sacrifices that my mom has made so that's like a little bit
00:32:27.440confusing i think that's where that kind of like push and pull comes from and yeah i've just always
00:32:33.680found that like i'm not sure that i could get away with the stuff that my dad does um because
00:32:39.900yeah he doesn't think about the way he looks and like no one really yeah cares yeah I do
00:32:47.760also have a follow-up it's totally fine if you don't want to answer it because you've got a
00:32:51.560sister Olivia yes I'm wondering does do you think that she grapples with like your parents
00:32:56.280personalities and traits in a similar way you do um we're like very different but very the same
00:33:03.100she um doesn't work in the creative industries um she's very private like I couldn't really
00:33:10.880write about her in the book like she wouldn't let me which is fair enough
00:33:13.120um so I don't know yeah she'll be at one of my launches if someone wants to ask her a question0.98
00:33:18.380but I'm kind of scared of her yeah no she's my older sister and like she'll throw fucking down0.84
00:33:24.640on me yeah she will resort to violence so true my older sister's so private too like it's you get0.97
00:33:30.920nothing both your sisters are actually oh a little yeah I'd say she's private she posts on0.97
00:33:35.640Instagram a lot oh shit hi Katie yeah I guess in some ways it's just me as a middle child0.68
00:33:42.680um you speak about being made redundant during the pandemic we personally know many people who've0.98
00:33:52.780experienced that this year alone how did losing your dream job change you and your direction
00:33:58.380because in the moment like you can feel like the end of the world like and you're especially when
00:34:03.980your self-worth is so tied up in your job make it your identity like so many of us in media are
00:34:09.080taught that like you live and breathe this brand you're the face of this brand and then it can just
00:34:13.220be ripped away from you in a second like how you kind of touch on it in the book but how did that
00:34:19.660change your direction for the so for the night that it happened I was just like I remember when
00:34:24.220happen i i was like what how could this happen oh my god like what's going wrong in the world
00:34:32.200the world really is going to end with covid guys if i'm going through this it's all done for i
00:34:36.620remember the comments on that account being like this is the face of the publication like how could
00:34:43.220you do this it was huge news like in the australian like media scene wait i actually have to say i
00:34:48.440think this is my like 9-11 I remember the Nicole Kidman post that you posted like I literally
00:34:54.500remember like my feelings when you posted this this is like I totally remember this I'm being
00:35:00.520shocked yeah I was still at uni I think but I was like what the hell no I posted that like one hour
00:35:06.400after the redundancy meeting and it's literally how I felt one hour later I'm like you know what
00:35:10.780I ain't coming back I had I grovelled in the meeting like please like I'll take a pay cut
00:35:16.260like let me stay but it was the best thing ever and I was 25 at the time and it was time for me
00:35:21.620to like spread my wings I created this audience it was time to I was never gonna it's a really
00:35:26.380like good place to work there's so many people that will work there for 10 years and love it
00:35:30.660so I probably needed the push out of the door and I was ready so it was very serendipitous actually0.95
00:35:35.980but definitely that little ego you know it was a fucking ego hit and especially like you say like0.88
00:35:41.280everything was tied up with it was my dream job and I had put everything into it and I did a0.97
00:35:46.120attribute the eating disorder to the job in many ways so that was hard but ultimately probably
00:35:50.800good. So earlier in our chat you mentioned that at 17 you had your nose job and you had been
00:35:56.340thinking about it for a couple years before that is that right? Yes since I was 11. Since you were
00:36:01.24011 and I really enjoyed hearing about your relationship with your mum in your book and
00:36:06.540how she made a really concerted effort to not talk about like your body or food growing up and
00:36:11.440that's the way that mum inadvertently raised me too so I was like it's it was nice to see that
00:36:16.080anyway um that was just a tangent but your parents um did let you have your nose job as a teenager
00:36:24.460and they paid for it right yeah you know for your nose job yeah and I'm curious if you had a teen
00:36:31.100someone about the same age in your life whether that's a follower or like a family friend come up
00:36:35.580to you and say that they were wanting a nose job or something similar now what would you say to them
00:36:41.060um oh that's a great question no one's asked me that jazz's question oh well done jazz I love it
00:36:46.780it's so hard because when I tell people that I wanted a nose job I wanted to be affirmed but I
00:36:53.520didn't want anyone else to say that I had a big nose because I was so sensitive about it like it's
00:36:57.020really hard like I think if someone asks you you can't really say yeah like you should because it's0.95
00:37:01.420like oh shit it's probably gonna take another like six months for you to get an appointment
00:37:04.740and if you're anything like me you probably won't leave the house if you think you got something0.98
00:37:08.320really wrong with you um I think it would be so hard when people do um ask me I just talk about
00:37:16.260my experience and try and not make it about them because often it isn't like my nose I could have
00:37:20.760lived my life with the nose that I had it's just purely in my head like so many of the things that
00:37:25.140I talk about in the book they're things that just go on in my head um and like punish myself for but
00:37:31.140no one else in my life really is um discriminating against me but I guess I'd yeah like if it was a
00:37:38.260young person what would I say I don't know if you've got to think oh you know if I have a daughter
00:37:43.320she's probably gonna get the same nose as me um and I have thought about because my parents haven't
00:37:49.720had any plastic surgery um so I look like them I guess naturally I don't know how I'd feel if my
00:37:55.480mum had had a nose job and I had her nose like I wonder what that's going to be like um but for the
00:38:03.020most part I don't know I just listen I would try and just listen to every to the person's
00:38:07.780experience and ask some questions about it and give them space to talk about it without
00:38:12.040necessarily like agreeing with them because I definitely found like a lot of people say0.98
00:38:16.380out-of-pocket shit especially on the internet but even when you're a teenager like the stuff0.99
00:38:20.460that people said to me and I write about in the book about the nose and about my boobs0.99
00:38:24.020you know it's these little things that people say that sticks that stick with you so my whole thing
00:38:28.800is just like moving forward in my life i just don't ever comment on people's appearance because
00:38:33.140you could be someone's like i don't want to say 13th reason but like they're like roman empire
00:38:38.000without you even knowing so even when you were making well-meaning comments like i don't know
00:38:43.780be careful yeah you say like if you can't change or take it off yeah only compliment things you
00:38:48.380can take on and off and that you genuinely mean yeah so we're really quoting you back to you
00:38:54.160this whole episode i love it one of the things that we learned from um reading a book was that
00:39:01.620in australia you actually need a low enough bmi to qualify for an eating disorder plan which is so
00:39:07.780wild on the flip side i recently went to the doctor a random doctor because mine had gone
00:39:15.160left or whatever and i'm a size 12 to 14 average and she said my bmi was too high i need to lose
00:39:23.220weight in the year 2024 and I went do I really need to lose weight she's like well you've got
00:39:28.820PCOS so yeah you need to lose weight you need to get your BMI down and I walked out literally
00:39:34.180like pretty much in tears I don't have disordered eating um thoughts but you know there's always
00:39:41.060that thing from like the way we were raised and um yeah I think it was just crazy that like your
00:39:47.620BMI was even taken in the year 2024. We know scientifically it can be so inaccurate. So back
00:39:54.620to the question, how do you think that the healthcare industry can improve to help fight
00:39:59.800the eating disorder epidemic? I think research needs to go to a place called the Inside Out
00:40:05.780Institute of Eating Disorders. I'm very passionate about it because they helped me with my binge
00:40:09.680eating. And the only reason I got through to doing, to getting the correct help was because
00:40:15.720they had a clinical trial through the Sydney uni that was funded um I think like what I've really
00:40:22.180grappled with in the book was talking about the pitfalls of the medical system without um blaming
00:40:27.960doctors because um like I think if you put what I do for work compared to doctors like I think
00:40:33.480someone's got a bit more of a help to society like you know for real like I see my mum go to work0.85
00:40:40.120yeah every day and do like 12 hour shifts and I'm like this is fucking clocked on in a way that
00:40:44.340pr not ear pr not ear like a selfie sorry i've never heard that pr really i use it all the time0.50
00:40:53.220i can feel my cortisol rising at work and i'm like working on campaigns like oh my god the
00:40:57.320client's not happy and i'm like it's pr not ear it's not no one's dying babe that's genius consider
00:41:03.340that like banged in my brain i'm sorry i don't think i came up with it either i saw it somewhere0.86
00:41:08.140fuck um i do think like yeah there've been instances in my and i keep just trying to0.77
00:41:15.460bring it back to my experience there've been instances where i've been in medical situations0.98
00:41:19.140where things haven't been handled properly i did a campaign did you did you guys have something to
00:41:25.300do with this like the um women's health yeah i was yeah we worked on a similar campaign earlier
00:41:32.060about the inquiry into women's pain from the victorian government yeah exactly yeah and when
00:41:38.020that popped the fuck off on my instagram because people like yes like every time i go to the doctor
00:41:42.000it's the pcos stuff it's like they're not understanding cycles there's so much stuff0.96
00:41:46.040that is just not understood um because women's like pain and women's experience hasn't been0.97
00:41:50.920championed as we know bmi is based on a man um not with a girl with f-sized titties yeah literally0.84
00:41:58.160it's all there babe yeah you just got to get him out and say sis look at this um no i do think0.85
00:42:04.800that's even when I went to the doctor when I I would always get my blood test done for medication
00:42:10.160and when I was coming out of the eating disorder and had gained weight she said to me like you need0.97
00:42:14.500to start exercising and eating less I said babe look at my fucking notes please love get the notes0.97
00:42:20.260up love um because so they just and I guess they're seeing like so many people every day0.99
00:42:26.460but I just think that our culture is so clearly fat phobic it doesn't you can be a doctor you can
00:42:31.760still be that I think um I think some people would think that my approach is radical I guess
00:42:40.100I don't think it is but you know my belief in like what's healthy and what's not healthy I feel like
00:42:44.700people could have bones to pick in the medical industry if they read my book maybe I don't know
00:42:49.220but um no I think it's pretty shocking like if you are in a really vulnerable mindset that kind0.96
00:42:55.600of shit can tip you over the edge yeah so i'm sorry that happened yeah luckily yeah i had lots
00:43:02.180of good friends post my close friend story straight away like i can't believe a doctor0.99
00:43:05.880said that's obviously got like the that's ridiculous messages back but yeah those
00:43:10.880things that happen so often for women they do stick with you and that's where you get the
00:43:15.940maybe if i just lost five kilos ten kilos my life would be better and you know what i find funny
00:43:21.380about the pcos things i've got friends who got pcos and they do say that like losing weight is
00:43:25.220helpful for it I'm like yeah but then you've got the risk factor of developing an eating disorder
00:43:30.400which is I think way worse for you is it not like and then you might still have like PCOS
00:43:35.160yeah and now you just have this other like massive health problem so there's got to be a better way
00:43:42.980yeah going back to what you said about like a fat phobic society I felt so vindicated by you
00:43:50.180referencing lara bingle as like the australian um standard for women in like the 2000s that's still0.68
00:43:57.100what like plays in my head when i think of like australian women like the the tanned blonde hair
00:44:04.500like the goddessy thing so i don't have a question but i guess i just felt like yeah vindicated or0.90
00:44:11.440seen by um that being heralded as like the australian beauty standard i think it's gotten
00:44:16.560a bit better now i would say in the 2020s but yeah i just feels like yeah that's the thing we're all
00:44:24.420looking up to or trying to work towards she was such so interesting as a emblem of the early 2000s
00:44:30.720i think i may be perpetuating the idea that she's an object by discussing her this way but i hope
00:44:34.460you were just giving me some leniency with that one but um the way that the media just like became
00:44:40.420obsessed with her after she was in an ad for six seconds created this whole world around her
00:44:45.320and would track everything that she did comment when she gained weight when she lost weight
00:44:49.820sounds like hell yeah it sounds like hell and I think it did something to your brain because okay
00:44:54.060no she's the ideal now oh but you know the ideal is now being trashed and now this or that and I
00:45:00.700think the policing of her was very easy to then put in yourself as a young girl and be like oh0.90
00:45:05.180but Lara Bingle like look at how she's treated or like people calling her a slut like people this0.88
00:45:10.540people that she was shaming so tied up in fat phobia as well isn't it yeah yeah yeah so I found1.00
00:45:16.440that I was so I'd love like looking at the like blogs like I don't know if she had a blog like
00:45:23.100maybe love Lara Bingle or something I used to also read like Rebecca Judd loves like I loved
00:45:27.740all the like that generations all their blogs which is kind of a tangent but Lara Bingle I0.57
00:45:33.460find endlessly interesting the way that the media um and the way that she interacted with the media
00:45:39.920as well I thought was really interesting yeah I love it all that I said before but yeah it's such
00:45:44.820an Australian book of like it was a time capsule of that era do you ever wish that your parents
00:45:51.600had restricted your viewing a little um no because then I probably would have like I think it gave me
00:45:58.420like maybe street smarts or something like I was just able to do whatever I wanted as a kid eat
00:46:03.680whatever I want watch whatever I want like watch the filthiest stuff like listen to whatever I want
00:46:09.080go out whenever I want start drinking really young like I think ultimately it made me a bit
00:46:13.760more world wise um and cool yeah so that's like I had like an older cousin that I spent a lot of
00:46:25.160time with um which helped me kind of like I think I've got a lot of confidence to walk around the
00:46:30.540world probably from my dad as well because he's just such a shamelessly confident person
00:46:34.160I think that's helpful especially in this industry kind of like back yourself and he always says to
00:46:39.060me like people are more afraid of your approach than you are of them because he's a salesperson
00:46:44.100and you know you're like worried about approaching someone yeah you just got to do it so stuff like
00:46:48.480that has been helpful um but in terms of like yeah hope wishing I was restricted from things
00:46:54.960I don't think so because ultimately it's given me this um feeling of agency which I think has
00:47:00.580helped me build the career that I have now because I have always felt like I can do whatever I want
00:47:05.880and I'm in control, whether or not that's true, unsure,
00:47:08.740and whether or not it put me through the experience
00:47:11.520that I talk about in the book, I'm not sure,
00:47:13.400but I loved watching The Simpsons, I'm pretty sure.