How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything

When Relatives Always Comment on Your Body

Episode Notes

Delainy is finally putting a stop to her family's frequent criticism of her weight and looks. And Lisa Jimenez, a mental health counselor who works with first-gens struggling with negative body image, busts health myths and shares tips to build resilience and speak up for ourselves.

Delainy Faña is the creator of La Bruja's Art.

Featured Expert:

Lisa Jimenez is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor based in South Florida who specializes in eating disorders, mood disorders, anxiety, trauma, and family dynamics. A Miami native, Lisa graduated from the University of Miami with a Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling. She has worked in a variety of settings including a residential eating disorder treatment center, a court-mandated outpatient substance abuse program, and outpatient services in a private practice setting. Through her clinical work and experience, Lisa has gained extensive knowledge in working with children, teens, adults, and families. Her technique blends evidence-based practices such as CBT, DBT, ACT, and psychodynamic theories. Learn more about her work here.

Lisa recommends this resource on intuitive eating, this book on anti-dieting, and this instagram community for resources and support.

If you loved this episode, listen to When Mom Body Shames Yous and This Mom is Decolonizing Her Parenting.

We’d love to hear your stories of triumph and frustration so send us a detailed voice memo to virginia@lwcstudios.com. You might be on a future episode! Let’s connect on Twitter and Instagram at @TalkToMamiPapi and email us at hello@talktomamipapi.com. And follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Episode Transcription

Juleyka Lantigua:

Hi, everybody. Today, we welcome Delainy. Delainy grew up hearing comments from her Dominican-American family about her body, her weight, and her physical appearance. As a child, she was hurt and confused by all of it. Now, as an adult, she has decided to confront her relatives and speak up for herself. Let's get into it.

Delainy: My name is Delainy Faña. I am the creator of La Bruja's Art. I am a visual artist, constant learner, and I am currently studying to become an art teacher for early childhood, which I am very excited about. Growing up, I called my mom, mamí, and my dad, papí. I grew up with my mom and my dad until I was eight years old.

When my mom and my dad both separated, I'd get picked up from my dad sometimes on weekends and go see his family. The older folks, mostly like grandmas, aunts, uncles would comment a lot on my weight, which really took a toll. Those "jokes" would be about your hair or your weight or anything physical that could be very harmful to a young child. In a way, you don't really think it's a joke. Like, "It's a joke? I just got greeted with a harmful comment about my weight. That's not really a joke."

First of all, that's not really how you greet someone, especially a child. Regardless of their age, they have feelings. So, when it would bother me, I'd always get the comments of [Spanish 00:01:50] or [Spanish 00:01:51], it's a joke, which gradually affected me as a child and then later down the line as well because you get programmed into thinking that when something bothers you, it's not something to talk about. And I started to actually believe the comments that they'd say about my weight, that I was either too thin, or they'd actually tell me that I'm not eating when I am.

But this is just how my body is, and this is how it always going to be. It just took a really big toll. I never actually appreciated my body the way that I do now. Latino culture, they hold up weight to be a beauty standard. In my opinion, I believe all bodies are beautiful. So, as I get older, I bring a lot of awareness to the words that we say in my family.

Recently, my dad made a comment about my weight. He held my shoulder and pointed out that he thought that I was getting skinnier in a way, and then said I'm not eating. I told him that, “this is not something that I want you to comment on. This is a boundary that I want to create now, just so that we're clear. I don't want you to speak on my weight. I don't want you to nothing, no comments on any of that because it makes me uncomfortable.” That was the first time that I can remember throughout my whole life actually saying something about it.

Honestly, I don't think that it's coming from a place of worry because the older folks would try to justify their comment, "Well, you did turn vegan." But it's not because I turned vegan because before I turned vegan, I was still getting those comments, so it doesn't really make a difference. I feel like they think it is normal because they had that experience when they were younger. They can put that onto the younger generations in their family as well.

I feel like me standing up for myself sometimes, even in front of my sister or in front of my younger cousins, would really play a huge role in how they can also stand up for themselves and not just sit there and not say anything. So, I will always be that motivator and that nudger to speak up because I've never had that when I was younger. Through time, I had to really unlearn a lot of things and know that if something does bother you, it's not disrespect to your parents or to your family. It's actually respect because respect should be reciprocal in both ways.

Lantigua: Delainy's story made me think about how easily hurtful and damaging behavior often gets normalized and passed down from one generation to the next. It also made me think about the impact comments about our bodies have on how we feel about ourselves and ultimately, the impact they have on the choices we make, especially if we're women. As first gens, how can we voice our discomfort with the way our family comments on what we look like, and what can we do to dismantle the underlying myths at the root of these comments? To help us figure it out, I called in an expert.

Lisa Jimenez: I'm Lisa Jimenez. I'm a therapist, technically, a licensed mental health counselor in Miami. I was born and raised in Miami. I specialize in eating disorders or disordered eating, body image work.

Lantigua: Same question I always ask, which is, what did you hear as you listen to Delainy's story?

Jimenez: I heard frustration. Maybe this is just a therapist in me, but I heard a lot of transgenerational trauma. I mean the obvious. The family's commenting on our bodies, which is ... I don't know about you guys, but this has been my life, family commenting on my body, even knowing what I do. It's almost like a compulsion a lot of times in Latin communities to make these comments. It's like they can't even help themselves, and from what I know in my both personal, but more so professional life, in Latin cultures, there's different than say the traditional American lifestyle.

It's not this individualized mindset. It's very much like the collective group. It's almost like your body is the whole family's body. It's like we all have a right to comment on your body, which obviously that's harmful and can do some serious damage on a person, but that sort of mentality that I heard in the interview. I also heard a lot of resilience. The fact that she set the boundary with, I believe it was her father-

Lantigua: Yes!

Jimenez: ... I was like, "You go girl."

Lantigua: I was giving her finger snaps all day.

Jimenez: I loved it. I was like, "Wow!"

Lantigua: Yeah. No, that's hard. So, let's separate the frustration and the resilience and talk about both because I think you nailed it with those two words. I'm Dominican. I have definitely experienced that from my mother, mostly, my entire life, where she comments positively and negatively on my body unprovoked, and if I have any kind of response, "You take everything so personal."

Jimenez: Oh, my God.

Lantigua: There's always some dismissive response coming from her. So, let's talk about the frustration because the frustration that you hear that is palpable has deeper psychological and emotional consequences. In your experience, what are some of these deeper consequences that the intergenerational trauma can cause, specifically when it targets what you look like, the body that you live in?

Jimenez: Well, there's pretty common beliefs that I hear over and over that people have internalized, which are my body's wrong, I can't trust my body, there's a certain way to have a body and this isn't it, and that I need to control my body, or that I'm not like other people, which I think is a big piece too with the Latin communities. Maybe our bodies show up differently than the Eurocentric body than the Black body than the Asian body. That's beautiful, but genetics are real.

Lantigua: So, let's walk through some of the decision-making that then gets influenced. How does someone who internalizes these false beliefs that are emphasized by their family, how do those internalized beliefs impact how they live their lives?

Jimenez: Their life oftentimes will become about food and weight and body image and the numbers, and then it totally takes away the person from what their life really truly is about, the values that they hold, the connections. You see people suffer. You see people suffer a lot and oftentimes, fall into disordered eating, fall into these diets, also fall into eating disorders. And that's not to blame the families because no person, place, thing, no one thing can cause that on somebody. But I think this is just part of the bigger picture and the trauma that goes way back.

Lantigua: All right, so now, let's talk about the other part, which is the resilience. How do you help your clients build the resilience? Because we know that our families are not going to change. So, how do we begin to build the resilience, to deal with it?

Jimenez: A lot of ways. Even starting with getting help from a professional that operates from either ... I don't know if you guys are aware of health at every size or intuitive eating.

Lantigua: Tell us.

Jimenez: So, there's a whole movement. There are books written on it. There's been some controversy about the leaders of it or whatever, but the point is the content in it. There's a lot of good information showing and research to back up that changing our bodies and restricting intake and weight loss, all those things that generally either come as a result of some comments or that are promoted in this world, that those actually lead to worse health outcomes than maintaining the weight in the body that you're in and working on health-promoting behaviors like sleeping, connecting with people, moving your body because you actually want to and because you like it.

You went to go dance, not, "Oh, I went on this run that I felt like I had to." Having a variety of foods, eating consistently. There's a food philosophy called intuitive eating. It's all about honoring your hunger and fullness, but it's also about gentle nutrition. It talks about joyful movement and satisfaction, which a lot of this comes up in Latin homes too is ... I can go in so many directions.

Lantigua: Because food is love. So, let's start with this myth that food is love. You can't force-feed love.

Jimenez: I don't think it's totally a myth. I think we can show our love and that food is a form of connecting with your culture and your grandma and the tía abuela, and all the people, while just honoring your body. And that's where, a lot of times, the lines get crossed, and people comment on how much you should or shouldn't eat because of their own stuff and what they were taught to believe, whether healthcare providers that don't understand that they are in a curvy, Latin body and are going off of BMI, which BMI is bullshit, literally bullshit. I want you guys to know that. It was based off of a Euro man. So, how are you going to compare my curvy body to some European white guy?

And also-

Lantigua: Hear it first, ladies and gentlemen. BMI is bullshit.

Jimenez: No, it's straight-up bullshit. There's really minimal research to back it up. A lot of it has to do with the insurance industries, and it's money. It's just so much bullshit, but our relatives hear these things, and maybe they're concerned, or also they want to promote this sense of belonging. It's almost like they want to help family members assimilate, and the sad part is that there is some truth to showing up in a different body and almost being the outsider.

Oftentimes, the intentions, whether they're aware of that or not, are to protect their loved ones, but they're actually hurting them without recognizing that. Does that make any sense?

Lantigua: Wow. It definitely makes sense, and it definitely vibes with a lot of what we hear in terms of the disconnection between what our parents wish for us and want for us and how they think that those things can be achieved. And it sounds like this falls into one of those areas where the intent is for you to be happy, for you to be comfortable, for you to be accepted, but the way that they want to achieve that for you just doesn't make sense.

Jimenez: But they truly believe that it does. That's not coming from nowhere. That's what they've been taught. That's been their own trauma, and that's a lot of their own stuff. So, let me back up, though because I know ... I'm sorry. I'm all over the place today, but you said, how do-

Lantigua: How do we build this resilience?

Jimenez: Yeah.

Lantigua: What can we do?

Jimenez: Finding like-minded people, whether ... Even online communities are huge. I always give my clients a list of social media people that I like. But getting curious and trying to be compassionate for their parents or loved ones, whoever, while holding them accountable because if we just let somebody walk all over us and cross our boundaries, we just get resentful. We get angry, and we actually start to pull away from that person. And that doesn't promote resilience because there's a lot of strength in this collectivist mindset of coming from Latin communities that actually protects people in a lot of ways.

So, we're not trying to say, "Your parents suck. Don't talk to them." Far from it. Remember where this comes from, from your parents. That's not to say that they can make those comments. You can hold that line while still trying to be curious. I know it's easier said than done, so I don't want to oversimplify it for people. I've been that person that I'm like, "No, I hate them," and it's taken many years to get to a place that when my tia makes a comment, I'm like, "Deep breath." And I'm going to go call my safe friend that I know gets this and vent to her, and then let some of that go.

Lantigua: Actually, this is a great segue because I wanted to ask you because Delainy very intentionally, basically sets herself up as a protector in a way-

Jimenez: I saw that.

Lantigua: ... where she feels that she's empowered herself to set a boundary and that she's doing it for herself and on behalf of all the women in her family. What did you think about that?

Jimenez: I thought that was really cool. I think that it can actually really serve her. Advocating for others can actually be really empowering and healing and help somebody to stay in a positive head space to keep doing what they have to do to an extent, with the disclaimer of, do you have a person that you can go to just not have to be the strong one, to say, "I'm so sick of this," or, "I don't get it," and just be more raw with? My thought was, "That's super cool, and I hope she doesn't feel like she always has to do that. I hope she has somebody she can go to and just be like, 'I'm so not okay right now.'"

Lantigua: Yeah. That is so important. First, the acknowledgment of the hurt, just be like, "Wow. Okay, that was not cool." And then, the verbalizing it and sharing it.

Jimenez: Super.

Lantigua: All right, Lisa, so both of us are so proud of Delainy for standing up to her dad and setting up a clear boundary. How would you suggest we do that effectively and gently so that we don't explode the relationship?

Jimenez: There's no one phrase. Well, one that I like is, "I just got to tell you it's not really helpful," or, "I'm trying not to focus on that," or, "I'm learning that focusing on this isn't actually good for me, so if you want to talk about my school, my whatever, I'm happy for you to focus on that." You can also just keep it simple like, "Please, don't comment on my body." You don't have to explain. You don't really owe anyone an explanation.

Lantigua: It's true.

Jimenez: What I always tell people is to really ... I want people to protect their own energy, so take some time to consider is this person somebody that can hear it, and what is your relationship with them. If it's a tía abuela that you see once a year, it's up to you. Do you want to really go down that route and educate, or do you want to just redirect?

Sometimes I even kind of make light of it. It happens with friends. You'll be going out, or I don't know, people talking about diet. You're like, "Guys, is this what we're really talking about? I haven't seen you in months. I don't really want to talk about this." There's no right way to do it basically, but consider how much energy do you want to spend on this person.

Lantigua: Let's please mention a couple of resources that you would recommend for people to learn more about some of the things you've taught us today or to find a community where they can feel supported and seen.

Jimenez: I would encourage people to look into intuitive eating. The website is intuitiveeating.org. I would also look into Christy Harrison's anti-diet book. She talks about the history of diet culture and how it's rooted in racism and colonization. On social media, Your Latina Nutritionist. She's really cool. She has a really good message and talks about just, yeah, our food being part of our culture, and we don't need to limit that in any way.

Lantigua: Lisa, thank you so much for visiting with us today. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for your humor, and please, please come back.

Jimenez: Of course.

Lantigua: Okay, here's what we learned from Lisa. Honor your body. Instead of listening to your family's comments about your appearance, connect to your body. Focus on behaviors that promote your health and well-being, like sleeping more, eating well, and moving your body in ways that bring you joy. Be gentle and firm. It's completely possible to hold your relatives accountable by speaking up against their negative comments while also being compassionate and recognizing that they mean well. And remember, give and get support. Being an advocate for others helps build resilience, but make sure you also let yourself vent your frustrations and allow yourself to be vulnerable with those who support you.

Monica Lopez: Thank you for listening and sharing us. How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] About Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is our show's producer. Kojin Tashiro is our mixer. Elizabeth [Nakato 00:19:36] mixed this episode. Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead, and Juleyka Lantigua is the creator and host. I'm senior editor, Monica Lopez. On Twitter and Instagram, we're at talktomamipapi. Bye, everybody. Same place next week.

Monica Lopez:

Thank you for listening and sharing us. How to Talk to Mami and Papi About Anything is an original production of LWC studios. Virgnia Lora is our show's producer, Kojin Tashiro is our mixer, Elizabeth Nakano mixed this episode. Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead, and Juleyka Lantigua is the creator and host. I'm senior editor, Monica Lopez. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @talktomamipapi.