Great points. There’s so much overcorrecting for diet/beauty culture & we’re quick to forget that food & beauty exist outside of their cooptation too!!
Thanks for this. I had to unsubscribe from Burnt Toast because it got to be just TOO MUCH. I felt like I was being ignorant by disagreeing with some of her takes. Now I feel less alone!
The world is full of people who would take away your agency. You're not doing something because you want to but because some great social engine is forcing you to. The solution is to subjugate yourself to their regime instead. I think there is more than a bit of jealousy to it as well.
I am a guy, so maybe I have nothing to say that anyone wants to hear. But I think what I have to say is universal. Applies equally to all genders.
I've been fat. I've been trim and muscular. Perhaps not body builder lean or ripped, but lean enough. The latter is better for me. My life isn't filled with aches and pains. My knees are happier. My blood sugar is happier. I can touch my toes, tie my shoes, & trim my toe nails without making it a great effort. I can do the things I love to do without exhaustion. I can chase my granddaughter around and give her a piggyback ride. I can hike a 10% grade in the wilderness with a pack - albeit rather slowly. Forty pounds heavier and all these things would be difficult to impossible.
Some people lose weight because they like how they look. It is also why they style their hair, wear nice clothes, maybe some jewelry, and shave. Tattoos even. How is it different? Some people eat like a horse and never seem to put on weight and others seem to pack on pounds by just being near food. Mostly genes and metabolism. There's no good or bad about it. Welcome to true diversity.
Saying that couples exercise might lead to "mansplaining" is just assigning their own insecurities to everyone else. Wanna know what my wife does if she thinks I'm "mansplaining" something? (Hint: It doesn't involve refusal to interact.)
Maybe a person's life revolves around things where fitness and weight aren't relevant. That's fine too. You do you and I do me and we both accept each other's bodies and lifestyles.. It is your body to do with as you please and nobody has the right to try to take away your agency in this. That's true body positivity.
Their post was incredibly immature. Again, the obsession is alarming and also sadly obvious. Your last paragraph summed it up perfectly. I'll write here what I wrote on your note: They are really mad at the system and not Ballerina Farms. She is just the bystander (it’s okay to watch what you eat and care about your appearance, attacking her because she lives a certain way is absurd, which you’ve covered before) that deeply triggers their perceived inadequacy. Hyper focusing on one woman is far more damaging to everyone involved & just perpetuates what they think they’re fighting against. It’s sad at this point.
I like the phrase "perceived inadequacy," bc that's what this is -- perception. None of us are worse mothers or people or body-havers because we're not like her. Railing against her does nothing; changing how we think about ourselves will do something
Definitely agree that so much influencer "critique" is just misogyny (internalized or otherwise). It can be tricky, but there's absolutely a way to critique harmful cultural norms and toxic behavior without coming for a person with a mob and pitchforks. It's also much more effective--and better for your soul, as you mentioned--to stick to proven behaviors as a springboard for critique, instead of making wild assumptions about people you don't know. (I seriously wish people would understand that no matter how much someone shares on the internet, you don't know them. You've never met them. It is WEIRD to spend so much energy nitpicking their every action and searching for hidden meaning.) I also read Virginia Sole-Smith's substack, and while I like a lot of her writing, I thought this was a bizarre post. (So are the ones that compare everything to a diet--no matter how tenuous the connection. Particularly the anti-consumerism one, because, you guys, the vast majority of Americans need to stop buying so much shit because the planet is BURNING.) The hate on protein is particularly strange to me, since for so long, women have been encouraged to stay small--to have as little fat AND muscle as possible. Women upping their protein intake to get bigger is, if not revolutionary, a good step in the right direction (toward caring for your body is instead of about your body). We can certainly talk about how women are encouraged to still be the "right" kind of small (but muscular) in the fitness space, but to demonize a macronutrient group as some sign of disordered eating in someone you don't know and have never met is, frankly, out of pocket.
I was a paid subscriber to Virginia Sole-Smith’s Substack for a while, and I think it may have been the anti-consumerism one that got me to unsubscribe. Quite honestly all her shopping talk already had me on the fence. Shopping per se is not bad, we all need clothes, sometimes it is not feasible to buy them secondhand, but I really really hate fast fashion and it was turning me off.
I generally dislike the “x is a diet” posts - there are bad things that aren’t diets! I forget which interview it was but at some point she said “is that diet culture?” and her interviewee said “no, that’s white supremacy” and I was like THANK YOU.
Understandable--the anti-consumerism one along with the "Are capsule wardrobes only for thin people?" really rubbed me the wrong way. Same with the comparison of everything to diets--as you said, there are bad things that aren't diets. (Heterosexual marriage isn't a diet. It IS steeped in patriarchy, though.)
Exactly. I wrote in this piece how back in 2009, women didn't want/like muscles AT ALL. Yes, a lot of the muscle mommy stuff now is still steeped in beauty standards and aesthetics over athletics, but honestly I'm just glad they're eating more and doing something more positive for their bodies! Let's have this one little win!
I've been irrationally annoyed for weeks at the idea that heterosexual marriage is a diet (???), so reading this was very cathartic for me. Though as a lazy pescatarian and a hater of protein powder/drinks, I prefer to believe that .5-.7g protein/lb is sufficient for building strength lol
It's a real "bitch eating crackers" situation and I'm so tired of hearing about ballerina farm. I do not care what she is up to! Anyway I'll definitely follow the meg squats lady, I'm really focused on building glute strength this year for mountain biking
THIS!! This whole post!! I’ve been really unnerved but how much certain Substack writers pick on Ballerina Farm. Is Hannah making you stalk and judge her, folks?!? You are free to move on.
A few things your article prompted for me. A few times in my life I was VERY fit (and ate a lot, I might add), people commented on how my eating disorder must have come back. I had done so much healing work, it was truly disappointing.
Now that I’m 2 years post early menopause, protein is my best friend. It’s helps steady my blood sugar. It keeps the brain fog away. I’ve been trying to build muscle mass. That’s my journey, and I’m sure Hannah has her own journey. Leave the woman alone to bake her bread and let her kids run amok on her expensive farm.
This vitriol is not cool and it felt super toxic to me. We can criticize how women are expected to look a certain way and the pressure society puts on them without judging one woman’s choices without consulting her.
Thank you for speaking up on this one; you said exactly what needed to be said. I subscribe to BT, but her recent posts have struck me as a toxic brew of misogyny plus medical misinformation. For example,I know from science class that eating protein is so vitally important: proteins carry cell building enzymes that help to grow our muscles and proteins keep our vital organs alive. The human heart is a giant muscle; without protein intake, the heart would wither and perish. (Metaphorically speaking, has BT lost its ability to have empathy and show a little human heart?) I’m not okay with slamming other women for what they eat or don’t eat; let people be free! Admittedly, I am not a big fan of the trad wife stuff, but I do not think it’s helpful or justifiable to basically troll some stranger and shame her for her eating choices. Another red flag I noticed was a BT interview about ultra processed foods; there was very little discussion of the harmful environmental impacts of mass factory food, over processed with synthetic chemicals and pesticides (wake up BT, the world is on fire!) At one point, BT suggested eating UPF would help ward off scurvy??? That statement is scientifically false; scurvy comes from vitamin C deficiency. Most UPFs do not have high vitamin C, therefore they are unlikely to prevent scurvy. I understand not shaming anyone for their food choices, but why actively promote medical misinformation? That is negligent AF. The Ballerina farm attacks strike me as misogynistic mean girl gossip, masquerading as “body positivity.” I don’t think body positivity is supposed to involve mocking and ridiculing some lady for drinking her protein shakes? WTAF?! Anyway thank you for writing this critique, because it made me feel less alone. Women need to defend their sisters!
re. gym couples... i credit my boyfriend for getting me into strength training. and when i asked him to help me, he 'mansplained' everything very helpfully to me. he even took the time to 'mansplain' how to do each exercise! we talk about exercise often now and often mansplain to each other about what we're working on right now. help i'm being oppressed!!!
right? like ohh nooo husband please don't advise me how to do that movement correctly since you've been doing it way longer than me with great results and no injuries nooooo i am in danger
The assumption that a man must be mansplaining fitness is misogynistic in itself. Do all men know more about fitness than women? No. Are all men asshole mansplainers? No. I have my MS in Exercise Science and is someone watching us at the gym and cringing because they assume my husband is telling me what to do? That speaks more to their own internalized misogyny than anything else.
I do like it when people blatantly explain what is acceptable as in-group behavior and what is not acceptable as out-group behavior and unacceptable. Some people will fold into the pack and other people will bounce. I’m happy to bounce.
people really feel able to say whatever they want about influencers imho… i get that it's a weird relationship because the influencer cultivates your attention (and, to some extent, envy) but also like… they are people, you know? i've been vaguely aware of people accusing an influencer of faking a personal loss because her posts don't present her as grieving correctly, or something along those lines, and it's like, uhhh that's kind of a wild thing to say about anybody maybe dial it back
As just some random person on the internet who happens to be a life-long feminist AND a Protein Girlie (1g+/- per lb) who also eats six meals a day in order to "eat and train for growth without inadvertently harming [herself]", does strength training and HIIT regularly, and is thin/lean/muscular (no small feat for a fully menopausal 50-something yr old woman), I couldn't appreciate this post more. I'm well aware of the added privilege my physique provides me. But the fact that within some of the circles intended to be supportive of women that I participate in I've felt it better to keep those things to myself is messed up. Thank you for affirming that my paranoia in this respect isn't entirely unfounded.
I have been wrestling with the “everything is a diet’ theme for quite some time now. The one that really got me was that wanting to drink more water was diet culture. I live in the High Desert of Albuquerque, New Mexico and water is scarce here in terms of Nature, and literally life giving, so nope not going to extremely examine keeping myself hydrated so I don’t die. It’s refreshing to hear so many opinions around this, I was really trying to convince myself I just needed to unlearn more, and was wrong to question that viewpoint when it was coming from someone so unlike me who must understand it better.
It feels very mean girls to me. I do not understand making tons of assumptions and running with them as facts. You can cackle at whoever you want and it feels mean AF to me.
I find it odd that we frame obesity as a complex disease linked to socioeconomic factors out of a person's control but ALSO Hannah must have an eating disorder to be thin? She has no risk factors for obesity and it makes sense she is thin based on that world view. Then there is the fixation on her being driven into the ground by her pregnancies and overwork, but when she wants to eat more protein and build muscle after having a baby, that's bad too? It doesn't track. She might have Daniel "training" her (we don't know what that means, maybe just support or reminders) but she was a serious ballerina, so a serious athlete. I don't think she ever has hidden how she has her body. She shares her exercise, food, beauty, births, postpartum, even access to her genetics when she links her family, but somehow there is still some nasty, lurking secret. The nasty secret is that she is beautiful even after her pile of kids and lives a lovely, privileged life. If you wouldn't say it to her face, leave it off the internet.
Three cheers for more protein! Upping my protein intake over the last couple of months, total game changer for energy management during the day and endurance throughout workouts- I don’t lift that heavy either!
Great points. There’s so much overcorrecting for diet/beauty culture & we’re quick to forget that food & beauty exist outside of their cooptation too!!
Thank you! xo
Perfectly said.
Thanks for this. I had to unsubscribe from Burnt Toast because it got to be just TOO MUCH. I felt like I was being ignorant by disagreeing with some of her takes. Now I feel less alone!
Also Sara Peterson’s obsession with Ballerina Farm is unhealthy.
I felt the same. I did wonder if her divorce was getting intense and she was getting stressed—there has been a change.
The world is full of people who would take away your agency. You're not doing something because you want to but because some great social engine is forcing you to. The solution is to subjugate yourself to their regime instead. I think there is more than a bit of jealousy to it as well.
I am a guy, so maybe I have nothing to say that anyone wants to hear. But I think what I have to say is universal. Applies equally to all genders.
I've been fat. I've been trim and muscular. Perhaps not body builder lean or ripped, but lean enough. The latter is better for me. My life isn't filled with aches and pains. My knees are happier. My blood sugar is happier. I can touch my toes, tie my shoes, & trim my toe nails without making it a great effort. I can do the things I love to do without exhaustion. I can chase my granddaughter around and give her a piggyback ride. I can hike a 10% grade in the wilderness with a pack - albeit rather slowly. Forty pounds heavier and all these things would be difficult to impossible.
Some people lose weight because they like how they look. It is also why they style their hair, wear nice clothes, maybe some jewelry, and shave. Tattoos even. How is it different? Some people eat like a horse and never seem to put on weight and others seem to pack on pounds by just being near food. Mostly genes and metabolism. There's no good or bad about it. Welcome to true diversity.
Saying that couples exercise might lead to "mansplaining" is just assigning their own insecurities to everyone else. Wanna know what my wife does if she thinks I'm "mansplaining" something? (Hint: It doesn't involve refusal to interact.)
Maybe a person's life revolves around things where fitness and weight aren't relevant. That's fine too. You do you and I do me and we both accept each other's bodies and lifestyles.. It is your body to do with as you please and nobody has the right to try to take away your agency in this. That's true body positivity.
Their post was incredibly immature. Again, the obsession is alarming and also sadly obvious. Your last paragraph summed it up perfectly. I'll write here what I wrote on your note: They are really mad at the system and not Ballerina Farms. She is just the bystander (it’s okay to watch what you eat and care about your appearance, attacking her because she lives a certain way is absurd, which you’ve covered before) that deeply triggers their perceived inadequacy. Hyper focusing on one woman is far more damaging to everyone involved & just perpetuates what they think they’re fighting against. It’s sad at this point.
I like the phrase "perceived inadequacy," bc that's what this is -- perception. None of us are worse mothers or people or body-havers because we're not like her. Railing against her does nothing; changing how we think about ourselves will do something
🎯 exactly! It’s maddening and such a time waste.
Definitely agree that so much influencer "critique" is just misogyny (internalized or otherwise). It can be tricky, but there's absolutely a way to critique harmful cultural norms and toxic behavior without coming for a person with a mob and pitchforks. It's also much more effective--and better for your soul, as you mentioned--to stick to proven behaviors as a springboard for critique, instead of making wild assumptions about people you don't know. (I seriously wish people would understand that no matter how much someone shares on the internet, you don't know them. You've never met them. It is WEIRD to spend so much energy nitpicking their every action and searching for hidden meaning.) I also read Virginia Sole-Smith's substack, and while I like a lot of her writing, I thought this was a bizarre post. (So are the ones that compare everything to a diet--no matter how tenuous the connection. Particularly the anti-consumerism one, because, you guys, the vast majority of Americans need to stop buying so much shit because the planet is BURNING.) The hate on protein is particularly strange to me, since for so long, women have been encouraged to stay small--to have as little fat AND muscle as possible. Women upping their protein intake to get bigger is, if not revolutionary, a good step in the right direction (toward caring for your body is instead of about your body). We can certainly talk about how women are encouraged to still be the "right" kind of small (but muscular) in the fitness space, but to demonize a macronutrient group as some sign of disordered eating in someone you don't know and have never met is, frankly, out of pocket.
I was a paid subscriber to Virginia Sole-Smith’s Substack for a while, and I think it may have been the anti-consumerism one that got me to unsubscribe. Quite honestly all her shopping talk already had me on the fence. Shopping per se is not bad, we all need clothes, sometimes it is not feasible to buy them secondhand, but I really really hate fast fashion and it was turning me off.
I generally dislike the “x is a diet” posts - there are bad things that aren’t diets! I forget which interview it was but at some point she said “is that diet culture?” and her interviewee said “no, that’s white supremacy” and I was like THANK YOU.
Understandable--the anti-consumerism one along with the "Are capsule wardrobes only for thin people?" really rubbed me the wrong way. Same with the comparison of everything to diets--as you said, there are bad things that aren't diets. (Heterosexual marriage isn't a diet. It IS steeped in patriarchy, though.)
Exactly. I wrote in this piece how back in 2009, women didn't want/like muscles AT ALL. Yes, a lot of the muscle mommy stuff now is still steeped in beauty standards and aesthetics over athletics, but honestly I'm just glad they're eating more and doing something more positive for their bodies! Let's have this one little win!
https://bodytype.substack.com/p/i-cannot-stop-thinking-about-this
I've been irrationally annoyed for weeks at the idea that heterosexual marriage is a diet (???), so reading this was very cathartic for me. Though as a lazy pescatarian and a hater of protein powder/drinks, I prefer to believe that .5-.7g protein/lb is sufficient for building strength lol
that is sufficient!!! you're so good.
It's a real "bitch eating crackers" situation and I'm so tired of hearing about ballerina farm. I do not care what she is up to! Anyway I'll definitely follow the meg squats lady, I'm really focused on building glute strength this year for mountain biking
This, absolutely. The conversation reads like a comment thread on GOMI rather than a thoughtful critique.
"bitch eating crackers" and "GOMI" ... you both have taught me so much today
Meg Squats is great and her postpartum program is THE reason I keep lifting through motherhood.
AMAZING!
THIS!! This whole post!! I’ve been really unnerved but how much certain Substack writers pick on Ballerina Farm. Is Hannah making you stalk and judge her, folks?!? You are free to move on.
A few things your article prompted for me. A few times in my life I was VERY fit (and ate a lot, I might add), people commented on how my eating disorder must have come back. I had done so much healing work, it was truly disappointing.
Now that I’m 2 years post early menopause, protein is my best friend. It’s helps steady my blood sugar. It keeps the brain fog away. I’ve been trying to build muscle mass. That’s my journey, and I’m sure Hannah has her own journey. Leave the woman alone to bake her bread and let her kids run amok on her expensive farm.
This vitriol is not cool and it felt super toxic to me. We can criticize how women are expected to look a certain way and the pressure society puts on them without judging one woman’s choices without consulting her.
Thank you for speaking up on this one; you said exactly what needed to be said. I subscribe to BT, but her recent posts have struck me as a toxic brew of misogyny plus medical misinformation. For example,I know from science class that eating protein is so vitally important: proteins carry cell building enzymes that help to grow our muscles and proteins keep our vital organs alive. The human heart is a giant muscle; without protein intake, the heart would wither and perish. (Metaphorically speaking, has BT lost its ability to have empathy and show a little human heart?) I’m not okay with slamming other women for what they eat or don’t eat; let people be free! Admittedly, I am not a big fan of the trad wife stuff, but I do not think it’s helpful or justifiable to basically troll some stranger and shame her for her eating choices. Another red flag I noticed was a BT interview about ultra processed foods; there was very little discussion of the harmful environmental impacts of mass factory food, over processed with synthetic chemicals and pesticides (wake up BT, the world is on fire!) At one point, BT suggested eating UPF would help ward off scurvy??? That statement is scientifically false; scurvy comes from vitamin C deficiency. Most UPFs do not have high vitamin C, therefore they are unlikely to prevent scurvy. I understand not shaming anyone for their food choices, but why actively promote medical misinformation? That is negligent AF. The Ballerina farm attacks strike me as misogynistic mean girl gossip, masquerading as “body positivity.” I don’t think body positivity is supposed to involve mocking and ridiculing some lady for drinking her protein shakes? WTAF?! Anyway thank you for writing this critique, because it made me feel less alone. Women need to defend their sisters!
Her refusal to acknowledge basic science about UPFs is what got me to unsubscribe, too.
Me too! Glad I wasn’t alone in finding how UPFs were addressed quite odd.
re. gym couples... i credit my boyfriend for getting me into strength training. and when i asked him to help me, he 'mansplained' everything very helpfully to me. he even took the time to 'mansplain' how to do each exercise! we talk about exercise often now and often mansplain to each other about what we're working on right now. help i'm being oppressed!!!
LOL
right? like ohh nooo husband please don't advise me how to do that movement correctly since you've been doing it way longer than me with great results and no injuries nooooo i am in danger
The assumption that a man must be mansplaining fitness is misogynistic in itself. Do all men know more about fitness than women? No. Are all men asshole mansplainers? No. I have my MS in Exercise Science and is someone watching us at the gym and cringing because they assume my husband is telling me what to do? That speaks more to their own internalized misogyny than anything else.
I do like it when people blatantly explain what is acceptable as in-group behavior and what is not acceptable as out-group behavior and unacceptable. Some people will fold into the pack and other people will bounce. I’m happy to bounce.
people really feel able to say whatever they want about influencers imho… i get that it's a weird relationship because the influencer cultivates your attention (and, to some extent, envy) but also like… they are people, you know? i've been vaguely aware of people accusing an influencer of faking a personal loss because her posts don't present her as grieving correctly, or something along those lines, and it's like, uhhh that's kind of a wild thing to say about anybody maybe dial it back
As just some random person on the internet who happens to be a life-long feminist AND a Protein Girlie (1g+/- per lb) who also eats six meals a day in order to "eat and train for growth without inadvertently harming [herself]", does strength training and HIIT regularly, and is thin/lean/muscular (no small feat for a fully menopausal 50-something yr old woman), I couldn't appreciate this post more. I'm well aware of the added privilege my physique provides me. But the fact that within some of the circles intended to be supportive of women that I participate in I've felt it better to keep those things to myself is messed up. Thank you for affirming that my paranoia in this respect isn't entirely unfounded.
Thank you! I'm so impressed by your commitment to your training!
Appreciate the kind words :)
I have been wrestling with the “everything is a diet’ theme for quite some time now. The one that really got me was that wanting to drink more water was diet culture. I live in the High Desert of Albuquerque, New Mexico and water is scarce here in terms of Nature, and literally life giving, so nope not going to extremely examine keeping myself hydrated so I don’t die. It’s refreshing to hear so many opinions around this, I was really trying to convince myself I just needed to unlearn more, and was wrong to question that viewpoint when it was coming from someone so unlike me who must understand it better.
<3
It feels very mean girls to me. I do not understand making tons of assumptions and running with them as facts. You can cackle at whoever you want and it feels mean AF to me.
It's giving 2000s gossip blogs honestly
I find it odd that we frame obesity as a complex disease linked to socioeconomic factors out of a person's control but ALSO Hannah must have an eating disorder to be thin? She has no risk factors for obesity and it makes sense she is thin based on that world view. Then there is the fixation on her being driven into the ground by her pregnancies and overwork, but when she wants to eat more protein and build muscle after having a baby, that's bad too? It doesn't track. She might have Daniel "training" her (we don't know what that means, maybe just support or reminders) but she was a serious ballerina, so a serious athlete. I don't think she ever has hidden how she has her body. She shares her exercise, food, beauty, births, postpartum, even access to her genetics when she links her family, but somehow there is still some nasty, lurking secret. The nasty secret is that she is beautiful even after her pile of kids and lives a lovely, privileged life. If you wouldn't say it to her face, leave it off the internet.
Three cheers for more protein! Upping my protein intake over the last couple of months, total game changer for energy management during the day and endurance throughout workouts- I don’t lift that heavy either!