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Julie Duffy Dillon (00:00)

Welcome to episode 410 of the Find Your Food Voice podcast. We are breaking down the Gigi Hadid and hairspray controversy among many other things in this live recording of a diet culture IRL. Let’s get to it.

Hey there, fellow voice finder, Julie Duffy Dillon, registered dietitian and your host. Welcome to this very special episode because it is part one of a live episode that we recorded when the Find Your Food Voice book was released and we were celebrating. It actually has been out for exactly two weeks from when this episode is dropping. So Mom and book are doing very well. We are exhausted, but we’re doing very well. And honestly, I just want to tell you, thank you so much for the support as I have been birthing this book for the last two years.

So today’s episode again is this live recording where we did a Diet Culture IRL. And this first half we’re talking about all of the current conversation within the musical theater industry and really just about size diversity as a part of diversity. The team, Coleen Bremner, Rachel Popik and I, we discuss some of our favorite parts of the Find Your Food Voice book and what we are most excited about you connecting to.

If you have read the Find Your Food Voice book and that is how you found me, hey, it’s so nice to meet you. If you’re wanting more, definitely catch up on the past 400 plus episodes, but I also am going to continue to write what I was writing about in the Find Your Food Voice book, because There’s so much more to say. And you can get to that conversation by subscribing to my Substack. It’s Find Your Food Voice. That’s the name of the Substack newsletter. And you can do a free subscription or a paid option. I look forward to continue to break down all the different nuances of living a life without dieting. No matter what health condition you have, no matter what your size is, no matter what your age is, we all deserve to feel at home in our body and have a relationship with food that brings us satisfaction, pleasure and health. All right, enough of all that. We’re going to get to this live podcast episode after a very quick sponsor break.

Julie Duffy Dillon (02:19)

Hello, are we recording live or what? is it working? I’m afraid that I’m gonna break it like Netflix does whenever they do live things.

Rachel (02:23)

Woo, we are.

Coleen (02:24)

We’re live! Everyone’s streaming capability is solid.

Julie Duffy Dillon (02:33)

Okay, good. And I mean, this is not like a love is blind reunion. So I don’t think I need to worry about it. Welcome everybody to this celebration. We are so excited to be here and to do our very first like live podcast recording. The tech is kind of nerve wracking, but also it’s going smoothly. Thank you, Riverside. And welcome Coleen and Rachel. How’s the night going so far?

Coleen (03:00)

Hey.

Rachel (03:01)

Good, I’m excited to be here.

Julie Duffy Dillon (03:03)

I am so excited. And I am still on cloud nine from actually meeting the two of you in person. So everybody just know in the live in-person event, I got to meet Coleen and Rachel for the first time. So that was just so wonderful. So yes, welcome to the show.

Coleen (03:03)

Yes. So we would love to hear from you all as well. So please just let us know, pop it into the chat live wherever you’re streaming from. what snack or drink did you bring to join us? I am drinking this delightful little pineapple spin drift. Isn’t this what the influencers do? Pineapple spin drift. I don’t know. I think it’s supposed to like help with the backlighting, but honestly it’s not doing anything to help you see.

Julie Duffy Dillon (03:46)

What’s with the hand? I don’t get it.

Rachel (03:51)

I think so. But I was gonna say, don’t think it’s working, Coleen. It’s not really.

Coleen (03:55)

and I just really enjoy like bubbly water and I like this because it has like a fruity flavor. So yeah, that’s what I’m eating, drinking. I actually ate dinner already. I had grilled cheese sandwiches cause I needed to make something fast.

Julie Duffy Dillon (04:11)

love a grilled cheese. That’s like always my go to. Yes.

Rachel (04:13)

Yes.

Coleen (04:15)

Rachel, Julie, what do you have with you?

Rachel (04:19)

have a little bit of a piece of a cheesecake that I bought at Alex’s Cheesecakes in Greensboro.

Julie Duffy Dillon (04:28)

Oh, yay. I love that. Yes, you always have to hit up Alex. Cheesecakes by Alex is so, so good. And I was telling Rachel and Coleen before, I have two teenagers at home and I was like, dinner. I planned a live event right around dinner time. That was really smart. But whatever, this is when you leave time to have some like last minute DoorDash and so I just had a McDonald’s cheeseburger, one of my favorites. Don’t have it anymore. My kids are inside. I’m like, cannot use any of the Wi-Fi. I take it all tonight. I hoard it for this event, but that was my snack.

Coleen (05:12)

Yay. Well, we have some folks chiming in here. So I’m going to read out a couple of our listeners treats. We’ve got folks just hydrating, staying hydrated. We love to see it. So water. We have someone joining Kim from Washington and they are drinking a watermelon LMNT, which I don’t know what that is, but it sounds delightful.

Julie Duffy Dillon (05:23)

Yes. Yay! Hey Kim!

Coleen (05:42)

And yeah, getting some hearts, love the hearts, love the love. Thank you all so much. Well, we’re just so excited to be here with you all, everyone joining us or watching the replay. This is just like, it’s such a huge thing in the making. And like Julie said, you know, we all kind of met, but wanted to introduce ourselves a little bit too. You may have heard Rachel and myself on the Find Your Food Voice podcast. We host that segment called Diet Culture IRL alongside Julie, but want to give Rachel a chance to introduce herself a little bit more about what she does. And then of course, our main guest of honor who needs no introduction. I’d love to just introduce her as well. So Rachel.

Rachel (06:31)

Hi everyone, I am Rachel Popik I help behind the scenes, helping to get the Find Your Food Voice podcast up and online and scheduled out for you all every Tuesday morning. And just kind of help with a bunch of behind the scenes stuff. And in my day to day, I am a private chef and cooking instructor who is focused on helping folks heal their relationship with food after divorcing themselves from diet culture and I’m really, really glad to be here.

Julie Duffy Dillon (07:04)

Yay!

Coleen (07:04)

Yay. And you all met me slightly. I’m Coleen I’ll be our master of ceremonies for this event, just helping guide us along on this journey. And I really am a professional hype woman extraordinaire. I just love seeing people thrive and excel in their elements. So I’ve been working with Julie now for the past four years. And the person who really needs no introduction here. The reason we’re all here watching this live watching the recording, dietitian, mother, friend and now author Julie Duffy Dillon.

Julie Duffy Dillon (07:43)

If I had the little like clap sound, I would do it right now. But I don’t have it. Thank you so much. See, she is the hype woman extraordinaire.

Coleen (07:45)

Yes

Julie Duffy Dillon (07:57)

This is so exciting. thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Coleen (08:01)

since we all have our books handy, and Julie, I see yours behind you there too, I think a great way to kick things off would be just sharing why we’re each excited about the books. So I’m happy to start and then Rachel, maybe you can tack on to that. But I’m just really excited because when I first started working with Julie, she shared with me that she had a teacher who really encouraged her to write and she knew from the moment that, she kind of had this conversation and she just thought like this, this teacher really inspired her and that she would write and then publish a book. And now she’s done it. And I just love a story of encouragement and support and drive and like someone truly believing in someone else and, and making sure they knew that like others believed in them too, because that we know that goes such a long way. And I just, I, I feel like that’s a little behind the scenes on the book, but because of course I’m excited about the book itself, but I just really love that story. And I think it’s just a huge testament to your drive, Julie, and the work that you’ve done to kind of dismantle some of these systems and really share that with other people. So wanted to share that.

Julie Duffy Dillon (09:27)

Thank you. That’s so sweet. Yeah, you never know when you say a kind word to someone where they’ll take it. So yeah, thank you, Miss Mosconi I think most of all, I, the find your food voice podcast was instrumental in me unlearning diet culture many, many years before I started working with Julie. And it was like really important in my healing, and like my eating disorder recovery. And so I’m just so excited that there is now another format of Julie’s work out in the world. And I’m really excited to see the ripple effects of how it changes people’s lives. So, yeah.

Julie Duffy Dillon (10:07)

Awesome. I love that we were connecting before we even spoke. So that’s just so great. And like I said before, I’m most excited for people to have their hands on this book. And I hope when you read it, you feel the love that I was trying to put on the page for you and the hope also in your relationship with food. know it’s so complicated, especially in the world we’re living in this moment. It’s so complicated.

Rachel (10:11)

I know.

Julie Duffy Dillon (10:37)

So I hope it helps you to feel that unconditional permission to eat and feel a little bit more at home in your body. yeah, being so close to this for so long, it feels really surreal that other people are holding it too. So yeah.

Coleen (10:56)

Yes, and if you have the book already, or if you plan on ordering it, or if you plan on gifting it, please feel free to share some love in the live now, send some hearts in so we can just share and feel the love all across the board. But we are so, so excited. So first up on the docket, want to also open it up. If anyone out there has a diet culture IRL and let me do a little bit of explaining of what diet culture IRL is just in case you haven’t joined us before or heard Julie’s podcast yet. when you’re maybe out at the grocery store and you see a magazine that’s like, so-and-so lost a thousand pounds in two days. Obviously, I’m way over-exaggerating here because oftentimes they’re like headers or headlines like that. It’s really when we see those things in real life, that’s what IRL stands for, related to diet culture. And what we do in this segment is just talk, unpack, and share tools about how to cope with some of these things and just why we see them feel like it’s important to name, address, then kind of chat and maybe bring light, levity, and a little bit of good humor to situations related to diet culture. Rachel and Julie, anything else you want to add to that explanation?

Julie Duffy Dillon (12:22)

No, I think that’s great. mean, we’ve done some where it’s like advocating at the doctor, some random weird diets that are being promoted. I’m like trying to think of some other examples that we’ve had over the years. Maybe some comments people make about someone in your life, like a kid, you know, just like how we’re seeing it in real life and really let’s like dissect the heck out of it and support each other to navigate through it.

Coleen (12:48)

Yeah, awesome. So that’s really it. So if you have something that you noticed Diet Culture IRL, we’d love to address that as well in our live recording. So feel free to pop that into the chat. I see lots of great action in the chat. So feel free to chime in. But we’ll get started with a topic and then if something comes to you, feel free to type it in and we can start to address that as well. So this kind of came up, I feel like a couple weeks, three weeks ago, maybe, I don’t know, it’s pretty fresh still. Gigi Hadid and this hairspray representation. And this is something that like being a total musical theater nerd, like, I just was like, Whoa. So anyone want to give the background on this and like talk a little bit more about what exactly happened here?

Julie Duffy Dillon (13:50)

I can from someone who is very new to musical theater and know very little about it, but just have a teenager who’s into musical theater. And what I have appreciated about Hairspray, it’s something that is one of the very few types of theater or movies where a higher weight person plays the lead and is not the villain, not the one who is kind of like a person in the background just being made fun of all the time, like the actual lead. And what I’ve appreciated about musical theater is that it’s one of the roles that, what’s the lead’s name? I can’t remember.

Coleen (14:31)

Tracy Turnblad.

Julie Duffy Dillon (14:33)

Yeah, thank you. Tracy, like every time I’ve seen it or seen pictures of it, the lead is in a higher weight body. And there’s so few times in musical theater where that is a priority. And to see Gigi Hadid to be playing Tracy is really ridiculous. I don’t know. So that’s kind of the background that I think of in my very minimal amount of musical theater of education that I have, what did I miss?

Coleen (15:05)

That was a great overview. This is very near and dear to my heart because I have played Tracy in past musical theater life. And we don’t, as I’m saying, we as in plus size actors can rarely find opportunities in musical theater where we aren’t typecast as the villain, like you said, as the comedic relief. have like I feel like identifiably three roles that we can play that are supposed to be plus size characters. One of which is Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray. One of which is Madame Tenardier in Les Miserables. And the other is Effie White in Dreamgirls, which would also be, Effie White would also be a Black person needing to be plus size and play that role. So I think that, There’s just a lot of fat stigma in casting plus size bodies on Broadway and in plays. So to have someone who, we don’t have that many roles. Don’t take the roles from us.

Julie Duffy Dillon (16:16)

Yeah. Well, wasn’t the irony of it too, wasn’t the whole project, was it basically was like a commercial that Vogue put together, right? It was just like a snippet and it was supposed to be promoting some kind of diversity. Wasn’t that the point of it too? So.

Coleen (16:25)

Yes.Yeah.

Rachel (16:33)

Yeah, and there was, I mean, there was a lot of other representation in it. that’s part of, I mean, it’s always frustrating when, when there isn’t fat representation. But I think part of why it was like, even more frustrating is that the intentionality was supposed to be about diversity and there, you know, there was, but it still fell short.

Julie Duffy Dillon (16:39)

Couldn’t they have done any other theater number then? Why did they pick that? Why did they pick hairspray? It seems really, I don’t know, just poor taste. To be like, okay, now we’re gonna pick this person that doesn’t represent some of the diversity that this show is providing. Yeah, musical theater is a place that what I’ve witnessed is there’s places that are trying to do better, but especially with size, it’s still like represent, it’s like the rest of the world. And Katy Geraghty I mean, I’m assuming Coleen, know who she is, but Rachel, I know if you know who she is, but she’s a higher weight Broadway actor that has played, Red Riding Hood and Into the Woods and I don’t know, probably many other roles that I have no clue about. But she’s someone that’s talked about this and I think she talked about it even on Virginia Sole-Smith’s podcast, the Burnt Toast podcast. There’s a whole episode on higher weight representation in musical theater.

Coleen (18:05)

I’m curious too, to know, some, some language that’s been used around this has been this idea of skinny washing, which I feel like is also something that we can talk about a little bit more. this is something that’s been used to describe, you know, rather, this is typically a term that’s used in a different context, right? Usually we say white washing. and so to, interchangeably use the word skinny washing with that. I’m curious to know what your thoughts are on that.

Julie Duffy Dillon (18:40)

Hmm, this is a new to me term. And I have a hard time just replacing terms that are helping us understand the experience of a Black person and just switching it out. that just doesn’t feel like the right way to go. the experience of a Black person is going to be unique harder than anything else. So calling Skinnywashing to me is just like not the place that I would want to go. But I also appreciate I am very new to this term. I have never heard it in my life before. So thank you for bringing this Gen Xer to the conversation on like something that’s new. But yeah, like, what are your thoughts on it? What comes to mind for you?

Coleen (19:12)

I literally just brought it up in this moment. Totally fair.

Rachel (19:28)

So I too am just hearing this term for the first time. But yeah, thank you. But I had a very similar like gut reaction. Like I like kind of tensed up a little bit. It just feels like there are, there’s a whole world of language out there that we could come up with a new term for. We don’t need to co-op a term that exists to describe the experience of Black people.

Rachel (19:57)

Just feels unnecessary and a little icky.

Julie Duffy Dillon (20:01)

Yeah, yeah, because it’s not the same. Yeah, yeah.

Rachel (20:03)

Right, exactly.

Coleen (20:06)

Yeah, I totally am in alignment with both of you. And I feel what often happens in some marginalized spaces is people kind of trying to co-op language to identify or describe their experience. So that might be what’s happening here hairspray is meant to be like a defiant celebration of body diversity. And it now feels like it’s being watered down a little bit, like predictable with like certain types of aesthetics. And I think that, you know, there’s other ways to define like what might be happening with, you know, this cultural shift in wanting to portray, know, Tracy is described as like a perfectly plump teen or something, I think in like the actual like casting documents of this. So to bring that like back full circle here. So yeah, I just think it’s kind of interesting.

Julie Duffy Dillon (21:13)

Yeah, yeah, it just shows how much work still needs to be done. But I wanted to mention too, has there been any kind of official communication from Vogue about this or did they kind of just like drift off into the sunset and kind of like, you know, I’m picturing Bart’s, not Bart’s, Homer Simpson going back into the bush. Did they just do that?

Rachel (21:34)

in the bush. Probably my most commonly used meme in my day to The last I heard like multiple publications reached out to them for comment and they just didn’t respond. They exactly did the Homer Simpson thing.

Julie Duffy Dillon (21:41)

Yes, it’s perfect for some situations including this.

Julie Duffy Dillon (21:49)

Okay, they did the Homer Simpson thing, okay.

Coleen (21:56)

wondering to like, just to close out our conversation on this. I’m curious to know what both of you think about this, because I feel like I have thoughts and opinions, but want to hear your take to do you think like, say when Vogue approached Gigi about this opportunity, and like her agent was like, yeah, she’ll take it. Like, do you think the onus is on Vogue to have asked somebody else? Or do you think the onus should be on Gigi to be like, no, this obvious, I’m not the right person for this. Like, what are your thoughts on that?

Julie Duffy Dillon (22:33)

Well, there’s probably a lot of steps in there, right? There’s probably a chain of conversation. So many people were a part of this decision, because it’s not even just Vogue, but there was a whole meeting and many meetings probably to brainstorm this. And so someone could have spoken up before they even asked Gigi to be like, wait, we really shouldn’t have Gigi Hadid do the hairspray because she’s skinny.

So it could have been so many different people and all it would take was just one person to be like, no, you know, and so I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re like the onus is on all of us. Maybe is what I’m thinking about. And. Or just like even to choose a different show than Hairspray, there’s a many other musicals to choose from. They didn’t have to choose this one to show diversity, right? So.

Rachel (23:30)

And so I think if I remember correctly, she was the one who like proposed the project. so I completely agree that like there are, you know, this, doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not like, I want to do this. And then the next day they’re shooting it. There’s a ton of conversations and meetings that happen and take place along the way. And I would hope that someone at Vogue would be like, maybe let’s pick a different musical. I pulled up the, like that Vogue article and it talks about how she was like, I grew up doing musical theater. I love all things musical theater. And then it lists a bunch of musicals that she like had roles in in school that include like The Wizard of Oz, Grease, Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray. It’s like you had a menu to choose from.

Julie Duffy Dillon (24:29)

Yeah, there was a lot of them another thought. I know we need to move on, I have another thought. Maybe this was the point. Was it the point to do this? To piss people off and cause a ruckus? Which to me is like, that’s an a-hole. still, maybe that was… I’m sure someone along the line was like, this seems kind of controversial. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.

Julie Duffy Dillon (25:02)

Just a thought.

Coleen (25:05)

Yeah, I feel like it’s one of those things where sometimes you see like an ad on TV and you’re like, how did this get approved? Like by marketing, you know, or sometimes you see, yes, like sometimes I’m like, no one in the room thought like bad idea, red flag. Like, so Julie, I think I’m on the same page too. It’s like, oh, we could have just like one person in the room, but also

Julie Duffy Dillon (25:16)

Yes, yes. And you work in marketing, you know the process, yeah.

Coleen (25:35)

being that one person in the room, it’s really hard. So just like want to note that as well. Like if you are that person who does like say something and like stand up like that’s tough. It takes courage. So power to you the next time someone suggests something and you’re like not on board.

Julie Duffy Dillon (25:36).

Exactly. Yeah, it’s hard to do. the three of us all have compassion for anyone in the moment who sees an injustice about anything, including size, and just doesn’t feel safe or able to speak up like we have compassion. And we are just so thrilled when people are able to or take that risk because it does cause this ripple effect. That’s something I talk about in the book is how people have stood up for or just like spoken out about some injustice and how it ended up causing this ripple effect for so many other

Julie Duffy Dillon (26:30)

There you have it. I hope you enjoyed part one of our live podcast recording. Next week, we’re going to share with you part two, where we go behind the scenes on how the Find Your Food Voice book was made, as well as a live Q &A, where people just ask me questions and I answered on GLP-1s, gentle nutrition, and so much more. So again, check that out. It’ll be coming next week. Until then, be sure to subscribe to my new substack, Food Voice, and subscribe to the show. Thanks so much for the support and I look forward to being in your ears next week. Until next time, take care.