Martin Zerrudo: When you wake up in the morning, and stand in front of the mirror, how do you feel about the image that you see? What do you say to your own reflection? Is it a positive, confident conversation with yourself? Or is it something else? Your mind, body, and soul, what are they saying about who you are? And how is it different from what the world is telling you? Are they all working together to create an image and lifestyle that you’re happy with? Let’s have a Heart and Soul conversation. 

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Martin: You’re listening to Heart & Soul, a podcast from the Iglesia Ni Cristo, Church Of Christ. I’m your host, Martin Zerrudo, and I’ll be interviewing young adults from across the world who are living Christian lives, but are also dealing with real world problems. This is Heart & Soul.

Welcome to Heart & Soul, my name is Martin Zerrudo. And today we’ll be talking about loving your body, and being healthy in mind, body, and soul. 

Our first guest today is Alison Pablo, an 18-year-old from San Francisco, California. 

Alison has struggled with acne and her weight since an early age, and has joined us today to talk about what she did to overcome some forms of bullying in her past, her self-esteem issues when it comes to her skin, and how a new diet and mindset has helped her, not only cope, but respect the body that God gave her. Hello Alison! How are you?

Alison: Hi, doing great, how about you? 

Martin: Very good! Now our second guest today is Dr. Darwin Buyson. 

Dr. Buyson is a psychologist from the United Kingdom, and is here today to provide insight on body image, the effects it has on the mental health of youth today, and how society has affected their perception of what it means to be healthy and beautiful. Hello Doctor Buyson! Or Darwin, how are you today? 

Dr. Buyson: I’m good thanks, how are you?

Martin: Very good Thank you again for joining us. I know the time delay, we’re in three different time zones right now and you’re kind of coping with the latest hour so thank you so much for joining us. And our third guest today is Lauren Famatigan. Lauren is a graduate of Dietetics and Food Administration with an option in Nutrition and Dietetics, from Irvine, California. She is here today to shed some light on diet, the food we eat, and how it can affect our bodies both in the short term, and in the long term. Hello Lauren! How are you?

Lauren: Hi, I’m good, thank you for having me!

Martin: We also have Jun Gopez, from California. He is 26 years old, an Assistant Lab Manager in a pharmaceutical research lab. As a young child, he struggled with his weight all his life, and has joined us today to talk about how he took control of his diet, his weight, and his life. Hello Jun, how are you?

Jun: Hi Martin, I’m good. Thank you for having me on here.

Martin: Last but not least, now that we have our body, and mind experts, onto the soul. We have joining us today, minister of the gospel Bro. Richie Juatco. A show favorite of ours. And it’s a perfect topic to explore a side of you Brother Richie that maybe not a lot of our audience know about unless they’ve met you first hand! Brother Richie actually lives a very healthy and active lifestyle and we can’t wait to hear how our faith and the teachings in the Bible contribute to a positive body image and a healthy way of life. Hello Brother Richie, how are you po?

Brother Richie: How are you Brother Martin? Thank you once again for having us all on this episode. And it seems like a very interesting topic this time.

Martin: Definitely. Let’s get right into it. A couple of weeks ago we posted something on our Instagram account, follow us #HeartAndSoulConversations and we asked our audience “How do you feel about your body? Do you love your body?” Here’s a clip from one of our listeners talking about how she feels.

“My body and I have a love hate relationship. It’s a struggle to maintain and it’s definitely something that needs lots of love. But not too much love. You know like, sweets. Because for me, that’s my weakness. Sweets. But you know, I know what I need to improve on, it’s just a matter to committing myself to making things happen in order to get to a healthier me.”

Martin: Now I’d like to start with Darwin. Doctor Buyson, when people say they have a love hate relationship with their bodies, what exactly are they saying about themselves?

Dr. Buyson: It’s probably useful at this point to remind ourselves that body image is defined as certainly from a psychological point of view about our thoughts and feelings about the way we look, the way our body functions. Which could include how we think and feel about our weight, shape, skin color, appearance. When I hear someone say they have a love hate relationship with their body, what that suggests is the person who gave that account, is highly pre-occupied and even anxious about their body image. And this level of preoccupation can become a problem as it leads us to constantly monitoring and evaluating our body image against standards that are difficult to attain for most of us normal human beings. So that’s something that I pick up from that statement of having a love hate relationship. Your body image is that critical and it’s that important to you that it elicits such strong feelings. 

Martin: Definitely. And it’s not limited to that one person. This study that you provided us: 60% of adults in the UK reported that they feel ashamed of the way that they look. Are you surprised at that number of people who are, have such negative views of their body?

Dr. Buyson: It’s a huge proportion isn’t it? I mean when you think 60% of people that’s more than half of the people we know. It does surprise me on one hand. On the other hand, I guess it’s something that is to be expected given the amount of scrutiny and the way the body is portrayed in the media as well. It’s very difficult to not pay attention to body image.

Martin: And to that scrutiny specifically with regards to women, a study from Dove Research Study: Only 4% of women around the world actually consider themselves beautiful. Now I want to go to Alison. Alison, as a young woman, when you hear those numbers, 60% in the UK they’re not happy, they’re ashamed with how they look, 4% around the world, that’s billions of women, only 4% of them feel beautiful. How does that make you feel when you hear that number? And have you ever, do you relate to that feeling of “you know what, I don’t think I’m beautiful.”

Alison: Yeah hearing that especially those numbers where 60%, that’s more than half of the population. It’s really really upsetting because no one really teaches you about how to love yourself. No one teaches you about this mental relationship that you have with yourself. So, no one really knows the right way or the wrong way, if there is the right or wrong way. But the fact that it affects billions of people or women like me, I can definitely relate to that. 

And I feel like I have my days. But definitely one part of my life I was a part of that 4% of the women around the world who don’t find themselves beautiful. Because there’s a lot of standards, beauty standards, especially in our society nowadays that contribute to that. And it’s unfortunate but that’s really just the truth and that’s what the world has come to unfortunately.

Martin: Definitely. Growing up, was there an instance either in the classroom, that feeling of standards, comparing yourselves with maybe the other girls in school. Is there an instance where you felt beside your peers “Oh man, am I supposed to look that way? Is there something wrong with me if we don’t’ look the same?”

Alison: Yeah definitely. When you brought that up, I immediately thought of, it wasn’t only in school but it was also outside of school like sometimes at Church. A lot of my friends they would borrow each others clothes because they were kind of around the same size. I couldn’t borrow any of their clothes. And it was hard for me to understand but at the same time I was like “Oh ok.” It was just something I had to accept in the moment. But, being I want to say 7 or 8, maybe even 6, you don’t really know much right? You just know that “Oh I can’t fit my friends clothes. But theirs are really really nice clothes that I can’t fit in them.” It was just a huge comparison game that I probably dealt with all throughout elementary school, middle school, and up until high school. And I think even still to this day, but definitely when I was younger it was whole, it was always competition of why can’t I fit my friends clothes, why can’t I fit this size, why can’t I fit these really really nice clothes? It was just always always just a game.

Martin: When it came to your teachers. Did you ever reach out to them, let them know how you were thinking? Did any of them maybe inadvertently reinforce that mentality that some of you guys don’t look the same?

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