Transcript: Welcome To Hearing Our Own Voice (Episode 1)

 The following is a transcript of Welcome To Hearing Our Own Voice, Episode 1 with Melissa Toler.

Melissa Toler: Welcome to hearing our own voice, an anti diet weight inclusive podcast that centers black stories and experiences. I'm Melissa Toler, a pharmacist, former health and wellness coach, speaker and writer. And for the past several years, I have spoken and written a lot about the ways that diet culture and the constant pursuit of thinness can be dehumanizing and can cause great harm to our physical, mental and emotional health. I became fed up and frustrated with the traditional wellness paradigm, once I realized that it was enforcing and reinforcing toxic body, and beauty standards all under the guise of health, I became hyper aware of how health and beauty are sold to us using young, thin and mostly white, able bodied women.

These are the bodies that we are told to aspire to. These are what we are told to be inspired by. We are bombarded with outside voices telling us how to eat, how to look and who to be. And the cultural obsession with weight and attaching weight to health and worthiness, I believe is damaging to us not only as individuals but as a collective. And I believe it's especially damaging for those of us who are constantly pushed out into the margins because of race or gender or ability, size or sexuality. And it can complicate our sense of identity, wholeness and belonging. And as a result, I've been searching for ways to redefine wellness through a process of unlearning, relearning, and telling our own stories.

One of the ways I hope to do this is through this podcast, I'm having conversations about all of these things with black health and wellness professionals and fat activists who have taken a weight inclusive approach to their work. And my goal is to uncover the lies and myths that get sold to us. But more importantly, I want us to explore how we can filter out the cultural noise and begin to hear our own voice. There are a couple things that are important for me to say before we get into the interviews, one, I and the guests that I've interviewed are not speaking for all black people. It's not just one story that's being told. There are as many experiences and perspectives as there are people. We primarily speak from our own lived experiences as professionals and as consumers. Second, this is not a how to podcasts, there's no step by step instructions here. This is a podcast that's about questioning about unlearning, and exploring. You may actually end up with more questions than answers after you listen to these conversations. And that's okay. We're not trying to have it all figured out. The people that I've invited to be a part of this have been important teachers and my own journey. When you listen you'll see that there's so much freedom and truth and joy and fun in these conversations. And I'm delighted to share them with you. This is Hearing Our Own Voice.