Katriona O'Sullivan
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And that I think that we teach that to all women and all girls.
But then at 16, I went to Weight Watchers and Slimming World or the Slimming... I don't want to get sued by any Slimming Club, but I went to my first ever Slimming Club.
And I'm a girl who has no self-esteem, Brendan.
I really don't like myself.
I'm 16 years of age living in a hostel and I'm surrounded by these...
who are clapping me for a disordered eating.
Sorry if I said our ones, but like I walked into this club and there's this full blown image of the leader when she used to be fat.
And the message was, if you get to this destination, you will be happy.
And it taught me to commodify food, Brendan.
It didn't teach me about health.
It didn't teach me about nutrition.
It taught me to count everything.
It taught me to count food, but it also taught me to count exercise.
So prior to that, I loved running, jumping, shot put, all of these things.
And now it's like...
Everything that you move for is to reduce the size of your body.
Yeah, so my Topshop jeans, anybody who remembers Topshop, I had a size 12 Topshop jeans, which is quite small actually because Topshop are quite a small brand.
And I kept them for years and I would actually pull them out of the wardrobe, slide myself up into them, try my best.
It was like my measure of success if I fit into these jeans.
And the only time that I actually fitted in them when I was disordered eating to the extreme.