Hey everybody, Michael here. Welcome to the liturgist podcast. The second to last one of the year.

And I can't wait to tell you about what's coming for season seven. It's big, audacious and crazy and exciting.

And we'll tell you about it at the top of the year. But these last two episodes of 2020 are this week, Fatphobia, which you may have remembered an episode that we put out earlier in the season that dealt with some issues of fatphobia.

And you know, sometimes we don't get things right around here. We do our best, but in that episode, there were, we felt like there were some things that didn't get covered as we're kind of starting to talk about that topic. And it was, frankly, it was just a small cast of characters, not of who were fat themselves.

So this episode delves more into that subject. I hope you'll enjoy it and hope some of the stuff that was not covered in the first episode will get to here.

One other final announcement for we launched into the episode. We've got a Christmas party, Advent holiday, Christmas celebration that we'd love to invite you to.

We're going to do it online and we're going to do it on Sunday, December 20th.

We're going to Hillary's going to share some stuff. William and I are going to be there and share some stuff. We'll have some music. Just a nice little liturgy just get together online holiday party for us for the community.

So we'd love you to join us. Go to the liturgist.com for more information. And we will see you there. All right. Enjoy today's episode.

Our world is built with stories. Sometimes these stories cause suffering by pulling us apart from ourselves and each other.

The liturgist podcast helps people love more and suffer less by pulling apart the stories that pull us apart.

So we're having a conversation today about fatness and that feels important for a few reasons to me. I'm becoming increasingly aware of the way that I have internalized fat phobia without even knowing it.

And I'm becoming increasingly aware about how even though I research body image and our relationships with our bodies, that that doesn't necessarily mean that I get to be the one to speak into this issue and know everything about it.

And while that might seem obvious off the top, the reason that we're doing this episode is because I think we've all learned a lot in the last year about how much we should or shouldn't say is people who have thin privilege about fatness.

So we want to have this conversation in such a way that allows us to position ourselves differently and recognize where we are as hosts, people who are learning and in process and understand the complexity of this conversation.

Because I think that the importance for me at least in this is not only getting it right, but continuing to pull back and see the layers of what I don't know about bodies based on the way that our culture shapes what we think is ideal or normal or healthy even.

So knowing that I want to disclose upfront are kind of not knowing. Dr. Joy Cox, we're having you on the podcast today because we trust your voice in this area and believe you have some really important things to say and some ways of understanding that that we can learn from.

And so I think to situate the conversation to start it is even just to ask what needs to be said about fatness like when we're having that conversation what's important to know what's important to name what needs to be said.

So first thank you so much for having me on the show and giving me some space to speak on this. I think that oftentimes when the conversation was brought up as it relates to fatness and what needs to be said.

I think first things first is that there needs to be a mindset about fatness as you come into this conversation understanding that fatness is normal.

Fatness is not demonized. It's not something that is abnormal. It's not something that is negative.

So kind of removing the negative connotations away from fatness as we have grown to know it. And that's everyone for the most part. If you live in the United States, you know that as a whole as it relates to society and messages about fatness that it is not welcomed.

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