episode 170: is there something wrong with what you look like?
Friends. Today is an EPISODE.
I’m talking about the reasons why women choose to modify their appearance—whether its makeup, plastic surgery, hair coloring and anything in between.
I’m talking about the role of social media influencers on those reasons.
I’m talking about how you can get honest with yourself about why you’re doing what you’re doing when it comes to what you look like.
I share a lot of my own personal experience, including having plastic surgery at 16.
This conversation plays a huge role in the epidemic of disordered eating, body image issues and body confidence.
It took guts for me to share my point of view publicly on this. But I believe that this is a conversation we MUST be having. If we want anything to change around the cultural and societal expectations of women—this is what we need to be talking about.
Take a listen to episode 162 which is a great companion to today’s episode because it dives into whether making changes to our appearance actually makes happy or feel better about ourselves.
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[00:00:00] Hello friends, it's episode 170 of the Diet Diaries, and today, I'm going to kind of go for it today, so to speak. Um, I'm going to talk about something, let me move this mic closer to me, I'm going to talk about something that might be controversial that you may or may not agree with, that you will absolutely have your own opinions on as I encourage you to do so, and I'd love to hear from you on this.
[00:00:31] Like, I'd Send me an email, send me a DM, um, find me some way on the interwebs. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Um, it's going to be not really like a ranty episode, but just sharing some thoughts, some really personal thoughts based on my own experience and kind of about the work I do and work that I think we need collectively to do as a culture.
[00:00:54] So, and I, I, if you follow, um, Along with me on social media. I did like a little bit about this in stories at this point by the time this airs It's gonna be almost two weeks ago. So here's what happened. Um, There's a woman that I follow on social media. I'm just gonna share her name because like whatever it doesn't matter She's got a bajillion followers.
[00:01:11] Her name is Claire Tamarro She's like an influencer or whatever. I Started following her. I don't know a while ago a year ago year and a half ago She was kind of like a you know, a quote, mid size influencer, like a size 10, 12. She's petite. She's short. So we have similar body types and that carried weight in the belly.
[00:01:29] And it was just always, I love seeing people that have a body type somewhat similar to mine on social media. Um, helps, helps me like feel good. Um, it's actually a skill that I really recommend if you are on social media is not just to follow people whose bodies you wish you had or who you'd like to have.
[00:01:44] And that's a whole separate conversation. Um, and over like a period of time, You could see her body was changing, right? She was getting smaller. Um, and, you know, I'm like, okay, fine, whatever, like, who knows? And she had talked about, openly, her struggles with disordered eating and binge eating. And she said that she was, um, working with, I think, a nutritionist about it.
[00:02:06] And, you know, you know, that wasn't really much. She would share about that once in a while. She's like a, a clothing, like she like does like Abercrombie hauls and Old Navy hauls and like that kind of stuff. Um, and I followed her really not for the clothing stuff, but really more just for visually seeing a body that looked similar to mine trying on clothes, right?
[00:02:23] Because sometimes we just need those reminders a lot. And then, I don't know, a couple months ago she did like a reel or whatever, like an Instagram live, um, that she was considering getting a tummy tuck and a breast lift. And I'm like, you know what, this at this point, actually, you know, isn't really helping me.
[00:02:41] I really don't really need to spend energy watching conversations around that. Like, if she wants to do that, like, cool. Um, and she talked about this whole idea around, well, if it makes me happy, I'm going to do it. And I actually did a podcast about that. At this point, it was probably a couple months ago, around this idea of like, what does that mean if it makes you happy?
[00:02:58] Is it really making you happy? Is that what it's doing? Um, and, and I, I, I'm going to couch this entire episode, not this entire episode, but like I had major plastic surgery as a teenager. I had a nose job when I was 16. So having plastic surgery at 16 is very different than having plastic surgery as an adult, a thousand percent.
[00:03:19] Um, but I also can speak about this from a very, from a lived experience of having had major plastic surgery to my face. Okay. Like to my face. Um, so I am speaking about all of this. With that lived experience, having gone through that, um, at a very young age, and the outcome of that and all the ways in which that kind of impacted me.
[00:03:45] So I stopped following her at that time. Um, I was just like, you know what, I don't really like care to like see her journey of like having a tummy tuck, whatever, like, um, and then, so I stopped following her months ago. And then, as Instagram loves to do, It put her into like my suggested posts, suggested people to follow.
[00:04:03] So she showed up in my feed, and I clicked on it because I'm a human, and I saw like that she had just done like a few days before an update that she had scheduled. She has now booked her tummy tuck and her breast lift, and she's doing it, and she talks about the fact that she's lost a bunch of weight, now she's like a size eight.
[00:04:21] Um, Um, and I was scrolling through some of the comments because I was curious and it was a mix of people being like, yeah, good for you. If it makes you happy, this is great. Autonomy, do it. And then some people saying like, I don't feel like I can connect to you now. Like your body's gonna look really different.
[00:04:35] Like I feel kind of alienated, like. Kind of, you know, running the spectrum there. And what she said in the reel that really, really, was really hard to hear, was she was like, I accept my body and I love my body. And she's like, and I'm having plastic surgery. And to me, accepting your body and having plastic surgery don't go together.
[00:05:01] And this is not a criticism of her. So Because you can totally, this is, and this is, I'll be very clear, this is not me being against plastic surgery at all. This is me being very clear and honest about why you are doing it. To say publicly to your 300, 000 followers that you're getting a tummy tuck and a breast lift, uh, implants, whatever it is that she's doing, and you accept your body, it doesn't go together.
[00:05:31] If you accepted your body, And this isn't about, like, not wanting to change yourself, right? But, you know, When we go through such drastic changes, right, when I had plastic surgery on my nose, it's because I didn't accept what I looked like. I couldn't accept it. I couldn't, I didn't have that capacity, so I changed it instead.
[00:05:51] I changed my nose to look like something that would be accepted, that was considered pretty, that was attractive, that kids wouldn't make fun of. And so when we. change our physical appearance in drastic ways. And I'm going to call plastic surgery drastic. And again, that's not a judgment, but it is. It's very invasive.
[00:06:11] I mean, a tummy tuck is a major, major abdominal surgery. It sounds like cute and little. It is not. It's a massive recovery. You have drains. You're not allowed to move. You're not allowed to lift. Like you have to stay kind of bent over. I have friends who've had the surgery. Like I've heard about it firsthand.
[00:06:29] Um, And having breast surgery at the same time. Like, this is major, this is major stuff. It's a major recovery. So, you know, it's like, to me, to say that I accept my body and I'm having plastic surgery, It's just, it's really like, that's not, that's really hard to hear because I don't think it's true. And I think that when we go to such lengths to do something like that, it's because we don't accept what we look like.
[00:06:57] And we feel so uncomfortable and so upset about it that we have to do something to change it. We have to find relief from that discomfort so we have surgery to fix it. And you know what? I'm done. That I understand. That's like a real human experience. I get that. If she had gone on there and said, you guys, you know what?
[00:07:16] Like, I dislike how my body looks so much. I dislike how my stomach looks. I don't like my saggy boobs. It makes me so unhappy, makes me so upset. I've done a lot of work. I can't, I, I just can't accept it. I need to change it. I would respect that. I would get that. I would understand that. But to get up there and say in the way that she did, that like, I accept my body, like, it's like, you, you don't.
[00:07:42] Like, those things are at odds from each other. And this is not the same thing as saying like, as like body acceptance versus weight loss, right? Because plastic surgery is aesthetics. This plastic surgery, not all plastic surgery, this plastic surgery is about aesthetics. It is about the look. Whereas weight loss can encompass many things, health, mobility, um, you know, biomarkers, and um, like insulin, like so many things, right?
[00:08:08] So many things about your systemic health can be impacted by fat loss, if you are someone who's carrying around a lot of excess body fat, and as a byproduct of that, your appearance may also change. And again, this isn't me saying that you can't want to lose weight specifically for aesthetic reasons.
[00:08:25] This all comes back to values. All of it. What are your values? Are you truthfully and authentically and honestly living in alignment with them, right? So it was just I'm like, wow, like this is just not I can't like this is why I don't follow her anymore Like that was kind of the vibe I got I'm like there's something about this girl where I feel like she's just not being honest Like she's really unhappy in her body and she wants to change it and I a thousand percent get that but say that I think people would resonate with that so much and find so much like Feel so seen and find so much freedom in that and just like to call a spade a spade and be like, You know what?
[00:09:02] I really don't like how my stomach looks and I can't fucking deal with it. So I'm going to have plastic surgery. Okay, like I get it. So it's just like when you're and this gets into a whole really interesting conversation around social media influencers. Right? Who have hundreds of thousands, upwards of obviously many millions of followers.
[00:09:24] And what they are sharing with us, and what they are communicating, and then what we in turn internalize from that. Right? And we think that everything that they're sharing and saying is their complete reality. That they're sharing everything about their life, and their mental well being, and how they think about things, and their perspective, and all of this.
[00:09:40] And they're not. They're literally sharing one percent. But then we apply that to the hundred percent of our life. I've talked about this before, but it is super important here. Like, there is just no way, and I wouldn't expect her to, or really any influencer to share everything about the way that they make decisions on things for their bodies.
[00:09:59] Because it's very personal. It's very intimate. It's very complex and complicated. And people have so much like, Shame and all of this that goes along with that, to be able to share that publicly to hundreds of thousands to maybe millions of people, like, it's like, no, it's just not going to happen. And that's okay.
[00:10:15] But then it also becomes our responsibility to know that, and then to be very aware and mindful of how we are letting our consumption of that content then impact and influence how we think and feel about ourselves. Um, you know, I just think that's such a huge. part of this. Like, we need honesty. We need transparency.
[00:10:39] Even, even if like, even within that 1 percent that they're sharing, it needs to be honest and it needs to be transparent. And I just, like, maybe this is what she thinks. She might really think that she's accepting her body. But like, I can tell you, as someone who has been through this work, who's had plastic surgery and who does this work for a living, it's.
[00:11:04] That's accepting how you feel about your body, right? I am so uncomfortable and I dislike how I look so much that I'm either unwilling or have tried and I'm unable to really get myself there mentally and emotionally and psychologically to find that acceptance. So I'm going to physically change myself in order to close that gap, right?
[00:11:23] And I, I want to, I hope it's coming across like, I'm not judging that. What I'm trying to talk about here and shed light on is what we hear from influencers, why people do things, why we decide to do things, and what, like, what is acceptance? What does that look like? Does that mean never wanting to change yourself?
[00:11:42] No, I don't think it does, but it's also very nuanced and contextual, contextual. Um, Like, I have, my stomach looks very similar to this girl's, um, it's, mine has like stretch marks and it like bulges out, I mean, I've shown, you guys have all seen my stomach, I'm not, like, afraid to show it, um. And I have, I have accepted it.
[00:12:04] Like, for me, having a tummy tuck is not something that I would consider, um, again, not because I have a problem with it, again, I had a nose job, it's just not in alignment with what's important to me, like, I would rather, for me, doing the mental work of accepting it, to me, is where I'm gonna put my hard work, versus, like, going and spending a significant amount of money and having to go through, like, the physical recovery of that, and then Also, like, in some ways, like, never fully having, like, found that body acceptance.
[00:12:33] Because here's the thing, and this is, like, not the most important part, but maybe, sort of. The reason that we all, collectively, everyone listening, I include myself, I include this girl, everyone. struggle so much with this and feel the need to have plastic surgery and can't accept our bodies and, um, idealize certain body shapes and body types and whatnot is because of the pressure and the standards that have been put on us by culture and by society for decades and decades and decades because we have all grown up seeing this.
[00:13:07] And so, That discomfort, that feeling of I don't like how I look, I'm gross, I'm unattractive, I'm ugly, my stomach is gross, my boobs are saggy, whatever it is, is Because we have been told that that is unattractive. We've only seen one body type, flat stomachs, perky round boobs, a small waist, you know, hips, full lips, smooth glowing skin, all of these things.
[00:13:34] That's what's attractive. So when we do these things, when we get Botox, when we put on makeup, when we put on, uh, shapewear. When we get plastic surgery, and yes, that's a huge range of things we can do, but it is all around the same idea. And these are big concepts here, guys. Like, and I'm not claiming to be an expert.
[00:13:54] I'm just kind of like sharing my thoughts and things I've been thinking about. That is all so that we can Quote fit in to a standard of attractiveness and beauty that has been placed upon us, right? And there are probably professors and researchers out there who have studied anthropology and have written dissertations on this and I'm just you know, kind of You know running my thoughts off on my own podcast here There's a lot a lot a lot here, but I think it's really interesting and important to consider Um, you know, and so it's I, I, I made a bunch of notes about this last week when I was thinking about doing this and what I wanted to say.
[00:14:37] And I want to, um, I'm going to read part of what I wrote because I'm trying to like capture it as I'm talking and I think, I think this is maybe just going to be better. So here's what I wrote. This is a much bigger conversation around beauty and diet culture and expectations of women. Every woman is expected to look a certain way.
[00:14:55] That's why we do all of this. Is it hard to sit in the discomfort of not following that? Hell yes, but I believe it is work that has to happen. Would you tell your daughter to get a tummy tuck and a boob job just so she didn't have to deal with the discomfort of not liking how she looks, which is driven by our culture?
[00:15:10] Why does everyone advocate for therapy to deal with relationships and stress and work and our kids, but then when it comes to our bodies, it's like, nope, just get surgery and fix it and never deal with it. Because I can promise you this, it doesn't fix anything. You may like how your body looks better because it looks more like what you've been told is attractive and what you saw growing up.
[00:15:28] So you feel like you fit in, but that's not true acceptance. That's not self worth. That's conformity. And I feel like I'm really putting myself out there by saying this because I'm very concerned that it's gonna come across as judgmental. So I want to be very clear that this is about a conversation. I'm saying this again as someone who's had plastic surgery, as someone who wears makeup, who currently has Invisalign in her mouth to straighten her teeth, okay?
[00:15:54] So, I am in this with you. I am a part of this. What I am trying, we are, we all are, um, It is okay to care about appearances. I care about my appearance. I go on and talk about getting dressed and putting on makeup and doing your hair all the time. That does play a part in body image. And yet we have to be honest with ourselves about why we're doing that, right?
[00:16:19] So, yes, do I think that getting dressed and putting on makeup and doing my hair Helps improve how I feel about myself. Yes, it does. I feel good. I actually enjoy the process of doing those things. I like how I look better when I do that. I'm still me though, right? Putting on makeup. And again, there are spectrums of this.
[00:16:38] Is, let's be honest, it's different than plastic surgery. It's different than getting injections. It's different than getting laser treatments. All these things exist on a spectrum, right? And nothing is inherently good or bad. It all comes down to why you're doing it and are you being honest with yourself about why you're doing it?
[00:16:55] And if you're an influencer on social media, are you being honest to the people that are basically supporting your business about why you're doing it? And that's what I think frustrates me is these influencers rely on us. Right? Like, we are their, we are their lifeline. Like, they have a business because of us as followers.
[00:17:12] And so, It's just hard to hear someone who's talked so much about like doing this work on her body and all of this to then suddenly be like, Oh yeah, I'm getting a tummy tuck because I accept my body. Like, it just doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't fit. And it's not the tummy tuck that's the problem. It's let's be honest about why we're doing it, right?
[00:17:31] I put on makeup because it makes my face look a certain way. The certain way that it looks is the way that I have been told looks pretty. Yeah. That's the truth. That is the honest truth. That's the truth for all of us. Um, I put on clothes that I think are cute because I've seen them on social media or by designers because I've been told, like, this is what's stylish.
[00:17:53] This is what looks good. Okay, I want to wear that too. And I'm sitting here and I'm saying that to you. And again, like, it all exists on a spectrum. Is that bad? Is it a problem? No, I think we just have to say, like, and be clear about why we're doing it and accept the fact that yes, we live, we, appearances matter.
[00:18:12] And I think part of that is biological, right? Like, I mean, I'm not certainly, I don't really know anything about this. Other than that, I know there is some science around the way that, like, people are physically attracted to each other. Um, and that certainly, like, some people find one type of person attractive and other people find other, you know, people attractive.
[00:18:32] But, like, there is some, science to that, right? But then there's also many like different tastes. Like, you know, I follow people who get dressed in clothes. I'm like, eh, I don't like that. I wouldn't wear that. But then there's people commenting, Oh my God, it looks so cute, right? And that's fine. Like, it's all, this is what we have different opinions and different interests and different likes.
[00:18:50] And so I feel like I'm going off on a bit of a tangent. You know, I really, my point in doing this podcast. And it may seem like I'm attacking this girl and I'm not, I just didn't want to like talk about her and then not share who it was because that just feels kind of like shitty and this is a super tiny podcast and like, you know, whatever.
[00:19:07] I'm just trying to be honest with you guys. Like if I can't be honest and like what am I even doing here? It's really to get you to think about why you do the things that you do to your appearance. Why are you doing them? Right? Why do you wear makeup? Why do you get your hair done? Why do you color your hair?
[00:19:19] Why do you get Botox? Why do you get fillers? Why do you get laser treatment? Why have you gotten plastic surgery? Why are you considering plastic surgery? Why are you considering plastic surgery? I include myself in this. Again, like, I hope that I've made that clear. Um, these are things I am thinking about, especially because I do this work for a living.
[00:19:37] I think it's so important for us to get honest with ourselves, and I think that if we are not acknowledging the role that conformity to a certain look is playing, then we are never going to really make any changes. Um, because we're not even having the conversation. We're not acknowledging. We're just falling in line and we're being silent.
[00:19:57] And that's where the shame comes from. So having conversations like this, to me, opens up. the conversation, which is what starts to bring down some of that shame, right? A feeling like you have to look a certain way to be attractive. And that certain way is what's been dictated by media and by culture over many, many decades.
[00:20:19] Um, And we just have to acknowledge that, you know, um, we have to have these conversations because I think then we will start to see where it's coming from. I think then it will make it easier to choose maybe not to do some of those things. Like there's a whole big movement now of women who are letting their hair go gray.
[00:20:37] I'm not doing that. I'm not there, right? I will. openly take responsibility. I am not ready to stop coloring my hair. I don't know if I will ever be, but I don't, I have no injections in my face, and I have no plan to get any injections, right? So it's all very personal, and one of those is not better or worse than the others.
[00:20:53] Other, they're different. It all comes from your values. I am, can I explain why I'm more accepting of, and I have a lot of lines in my forehead, like am I more accepting of that and the sunspots on my face? Then I am of gray hair. I don't know. Right? These are things that I am actively thinking through and trying to understand, and I'm trying to create and hold a space for you to do that for yourself.
[00:21:13] Maybe for you to have conversations about it with the women in your life that you love and feel close to. Because to me, that is how we start to create real change with this. This is how we start to create more acceptance of a more, a wider representation and more diversity of what it looks like to be a woman.
[00:21:32] Um, that it is not just the one way that we have all been told, right? In my brain, it's not just Jennifer Aniston. I've talked openly about how she's been like the person since I was 14 because of friends that has been in my head, right? There are so many ways to be a woman and be attractive and be beautiful, but we have to do work to get there.
[00:21:52] We have to have conversations. We have to talk about it. We have to question why we're doing the things we're doing. without judging them, right? And it may come across, you might be thinking, well Jordan, you're judging the shit out of this girl. Yes and no, right? I'm not going to say I'm not judging her. Um, I'm judging her not because of the plastic surgery though.
[00:22:10] That's not it. I'm, I'm, I'm frustrated that it feels disingenuous as to the way she's talking about why she's doing it. That's what, that's what's frustrating to me. It's not, it's never the thing, right? It's never the The food you eat, it's never the clothes you wear, it's never the workout that you do or don't do, those things are not good or bad.
[00:22:32] Just like a candy bar is inherently not good or bad, getting plastic surgery is not inherently good or bad. It's why are you doing it and are you being honest with yourself about that reason? Are you really being honest? Are you being like that scary fucking uncomfortable level of honest? That's what I'm talking about.
[00:22:47] I'm not talking about like brushing it over and saying, Oh yeah, I love my body, but I'd just be a little bit happier if my stomach looked like this. That's not real honesty. Like, to me, like, That's not, that's not, like, you're, you're not, you're not digging deep enough. That's like, I really hate how my stomach looks and it's making me so uncomfortable and I can't stand to live in this body, I have to fix it.
[00:23:07] That's being honest. That's honesty. And then it's like, okay, then go do it, right? Because maybe, maybe that will help your mental health, right? Who am I to say? Like, I'm not saying that it can't or that it won't, but until we dig underneath and get to the real underlying reason why we're doing these things.
[00:23:25] Nothing will ever change. Because if you don't get really honest with yourself about why you're doing this and then you do it, you're going to be kind of where you already were and you'll keep looking for more things to fix that. Because you were never honest with yourself about why you're doing it in the first place.
[00:23:41] And so then it's hard to know, like, is that thing that you're doing really going to address the thing that's wrong if you never really identify the thing that's wrong? I hope this is making sense. Um, you know, and I guess the last, the last piece of this, which is related and is about, like, the postpartum thing.
[00:24:03] By postpartum, I mean any woman who has carried And, or given birth to a baby, the expectation that a woman's body is supposed to look the same or go back to looking the way it did before you carried another human inside of you is so fucking preposterous. And yet so many of us, so many women, fall prey to that.
[00:24:29] And I'm not, like, because there's so much pressure and there's so many expectations and it's so fucking unfair. But again, like, we have to talk more and more about this. We need to see women who have carried babies with saggy boobs that you've nursed or not nursed from. With, you know, a tummy pooch that has stretched out because you carried a baby inside you and that's the normal human response to carrying a baby.
[00:24:53] Like, these are all normal things that have been made out to be not normal, that have been made out to be problems to be fixed. And that if we fix those problems and we look this way, we will be happy. Well, is there a way to find happiness by valuing what your body has done for you, by realizing the reality of what it is to live in a human body?
[00:25:17] And what is normal for that? And that requires a total recalibration of everything. It is like, blow your brain open, like, holy shit, can we even do this in our lifetime? I don't know. But I'm telling you this is like where it is at. These are the conversations that need to be had and I think they are happening in some places and I want to be having them more and so that is why I am recording this episode.
[00:25:45] Like we need to like start redefining what it means to live in a human body. And the diversity of that, and the representation of that, and how our bodies change, and shift, and grow, and expand, and contract over time, and that is normal. It is all fucking normal, and we have been told that it is not normal.
[00:26:08] And that is a big part of the root of this. It is infuriating as a woman. to live in a, in a world where we are expected to look away before we have gone through something, right? And I'm talking specifically about childbirth and whether, if you're listening and whether or not you have Carried a child or not.
[00:26:30] There's other life events too, right? Like we are humans. We are meant to adapt and change and grow and that's why our skin stretches and it's elastic. So it can expand and it contract and it can expand and it can contract. Um, like our adaptability is how we heal. It's how our immune system works. It's why we're able to survive injury and illness is because we are evolved to adapt and change.
[00:26:55] We're not machines. We're not supposed to look the fucking same every day for the however many years that we're alive on this planet. But yet somehow that has, that is the expectation, that is the norm that has been set forth and that is what we all believe and what we have internalized. And that is what drives beauty culture.
[00:27:14] That is what drives diet culture. Um, is that anything that doesn't look like this idealized form is a problem that needs to be fixed? right? And I don't need to list them off because I've done it a million times. So I just want you to think about this. These are just things we need to think about and talk about.
[00:27:34] Wear your makeup, get your Botox, get your plastic surgery, do what you're going to do, but think about this stuff. Have the conversations because I don't know, to me, like, what are we here for? Like, are we trying to leave a better place for the next generation, where maybe there's a little bit more acceptance, there is a little bit more representation, there's more freedom, there's more flexibility, there's more options?
[00:27:58] Um, that would be awesome. But it's not going to happen unless we have these conversations, unless we think about this really hard, uncomfortable shit. And I know how uncomfortable and hard this is to think about. I know you don't want to, I know you don't want to face it. I don't either. It's hard. That's why I hesitated.
[00:28:13] I wrote these notes over a week ago, about a week ago, and I'm like, Should I do it? Should I not do it? Should I do it? Should I not do it? I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. I gotta do it. Um, So this is a long one. Thank you for listening. I really, really, really would love to hear your thoughts. Please reach out if you have thoughts about this, and I know that you do.
[00:28:31] Um, I'd love to have a dialogue. If you disagree with me, great. If you agree with me, great. I'd love to hear it all. Um, If it's got you thinking about something, if it sparked a conversation between you and someone else, if it sparked a conversation between you and yourself, if it impacted a decision that you're making, I would love to hear about it and understand your lived experience of everything I talked about.
[00:28:51] Um, and that's it. Thanks for listening as always. I appreciate you and, um, I'll see you soon.