Madalin Giorgetta

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Perth, WA
Madalin Giorgetta

My vision for my "Work It with MG" App is to disrupt the oppressive diet culture that is rife within the health and fitness industry. Ahh those were the days!

I come from an Italian family and food has always been a big part of my life. I grew up with my Nonna's gnocchi, my Mum's tiramisu and also no ability of my own to cook! This is why they say don't marry an Italian boy, their Mumma's do everything for them. Maybe it's also a reason not to marry Italian girls as well though! Lucky I also had a fast metabolism so when I moved out of home at the age

of 21 it wasn't too much of a stress for me deciding what to eat. Pizza, ice cream and lollies made up most of my diet and I managed to burn it all off running off my feet working as a waitress. I was one of those people that you hated, I could eat anything I wanted and it made no dent in my weight. But gradually, time took it's course and things changed. My job changed to a sedentary job (I work from home) and my diet stayed the same. I started feeling sluggish but was un-motivated to actually do anything about my current lifestyle. Every year, I'd make the same resolution, "this year I'm going to get fit and start eating healthy" and every year, it didn't happen. Then things changed. FINDING BBG

I had been following an Instagram account for a while, run by personal trainer and owner of probs the most envy inducing abs on the planet: Kayla Itsines. I kept seeing all her amazing transformation photos from fans that had completed her Bikini Body Guide. When she released her App, Sweat with Kayla at the end of 2015, there was no better reason to actually stick to my New Years resolution. I downloaded the app and completed my first workout (abs and arms, I still remember complaining through the whole 28 minutes!) on January 13th 2016 and I've never looked back! WHERE TO NEXT

At the moment, I'm loving using the Sweat with Kayla app, and I also incorporate Bikram yoga into my workouts. I've actually learnt to cook and am going to share some of my favourite recipes on my blog as well as my workout routine and food diary. I'm going to be using this blog as a way to answer all the questions I receive through my Instagram account, so if you have a question send me a DM on my Instagram and I'll endeavorer to answer it via my bog.

13/10/2020

me not currently in Greece but quite happily isolating from the rest of the country (and world) in Perth 🙃
I was so blessed to travel and see the world last year and I am so grateful for the experiences I had... but I am really happy being back home surrounded by friends and family🏡☺️

07/10/2020

I just eye rolled my way through one of my tutorials as we were shown an episode of Four Corners (which I usually like), “Tipping The Scales”, spoiler alert, don’t watch it.

It’s rife with prejudice, bias and fatphobia and after I finish posting this I’ll be writing to my lecturer to hopefully ensure that it doesn’t get shown again.

What a s**t-show.

It’s made me feel angry and sad and a bit hopeless.

Some of my classes have been amazing, acknowledging the role weight stigma plays in health, but others not so much.

Weight bias is dominant in weight science and among health professionals, and I am aware of this, but it still hurts to be confronted with it, I can’t imagine how it would feel in a larger body.

I sometimes feel like a flat-earther, that my weight-neutral approach makes me the odd one out. But I am convinced of its validity and the support science lends to it. It’t not woo-woo, and there are more health professionals who support a weight-neutral approach - lol I just need to meet them 😅

It’s why I’m so passionate about being back at uni and studying science - I still haven’t decided what I’m majoring in yet... I want to choose a pathway that will make the largest impact within my field.

Anyway, I am still really enjoying uni, just had a tough day today but it made me more resolved to create a positive impact and help to change the status quo 👊🏼

06/10/2020

Thanks for the beautiful blooms 🌷 imma sucka for flowers 💐 I have a whole NIOD, Hylamide, The Ordinary favs saved to my highlights under “skin” go check it out and DM if you need some help 😘 I love everything about this brand and started using them after Liz recommended them to me. I’ve since got both Sid and his mum onto to their products and have yet to be disappointed
Whats your fav Deceim product?
Mine is the NIOD MMHC for the ultimate hydrated skin 💦

05/10/2020

Part of the work of breaking down weight stigma involves destroying the idea that diets work.

Why is this idea even up for debate in 2020? Why is it so impossible to believe that diet’s are actually a massive scam?

I’m not just spouting my own opinion. The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia has acknowledged this years ago, and there are a multitude of studies and research that report this same information, but… “diet’s don’t work and we don’t know what the solution is but we can only keep recommending diets because we refuse to believe that it’s that hard to like, eat less food and move more”.

All the reports say the same thing, diet’s don’t work, but the rampant fatphobia and weight stigma present within these organisations means they refuse to seek another viable solution that doesn’t involve recommending weight loss. It’s a real face palm moment. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

As long as we are sold the idea that diets work, we continue to believe that it is completely possible, manageable and even easy, to lose weight, when this is not true.

Once we accept that the failure rates of diets is impossibly high, and the chances of somebody maintaining long term weight loss, unlikely, then we can move on from weight loss advice as the solution to health.

We can focus on health without weight loss, we can suggest health behaviours without linking them to BMI, and we can encourage the pursuit of health at every size. We can focus on health outside of physical health, and give importance to mental, emotional and social well-being. Establishing health promoting eating habits and enjoyable forms of movement is a more viable goal, and one I hope more health professionals will begin to encourage.

02/10/2020

I often get asked this, that if you care about somebodie’s health than you should tell them to lose weight. Did you ever stop to think that these words may do more harm than good?

“Self-perceived overweight is a risk factor for increased weight gain, both for adults and adolescents with normal weight and overweight status, while weight status misperception among adolescents with overweight seems to be protective against weight gain.” (Romano et al., 2018)

How does that make any sense?

We are taught that if someone is overweight and we care about their health, particularly a loved one, it is our duty to let them know our concerns, to help them “get healthy”.

But what does this result in?

Weight loss?

No.

Actually, weight gain.

This may be partly explained by overeating.

A study found self-perceived overweight to be associated with binge eating among adults with normal weight and overweight, and a recent systematic review found evidence that self-perception of overweight tends to be associated with disordered eating.

You know what also increases overeating? Stigma. Exposing participants to stigmatizing information about larger body sizes has been shown to PROMOTE increased food intake in women.

In other words, if you need to make somebody believe that they are overweight and need to lose weight, that person will believe that they need to lose weight, and that in itself is a risk factor for INCREASED weight gain, not DECREASED weight gain.

Individuals who self-identify as overweight may overeat as a way of coping with their concerns of being stigmatized by others because of their perceived body size.

Essentially, for all our helpful intentions, we are causing more harm than good.

P.S This is not to say that it is harmful or bad to be overweight. This is to do with binge eating, a disordered eating behaviour which is harmful, not body size. Your weight loss advice is useless 🤷🏼‍♀️

30/09/2020

When I first changed my messaging last year to anti-diet, a well-meaning fitness influencer, with 1 million followers, slide into my DMs.

It started off friendly enough, but eventually it turned sour, a lot of snarky voice messages were exchanged and then I think we both blocked each other and both of us ended up feeling more convinced of our own opinions. I’ve since come to believe she’s even more wrong. LMAO.

She was actually very concerned and wanted to share that concern with me, to plead with me to reconsider my change of message and see the harm I was causing.

Her main concern was for the children and teenagers who would hear my anti-diet message, believe that their current weight was acceptable and thus essentially die early due to health complications.

This is not a joke. She was extremely serious. She genuinely felt that teenagers should not be made to feel that they can accept their bodies, they MUST change to be healthy.

I don’t believe it’s presumptuous of me to believe that the overwhelming messaging in high school is that fat = bad. And that noise is loud.

That noise continues to be loud as we grow into adulthood. It continues to dominate every conversation, from diet talk at work, to late night dinners with friends, to the “ob*sity epidemic” on TV, to the numerous ways that fat people are excluded from their environments, from employment, from clothing…

Fat people are constantly told “you need to change to fit in”. So when somebody argues that fat people are not aware of their bodies, or how it impacts their experience in the world, I am skeptical to say the least.

I often get demanded to share both sides of the story, that it’s not always healthy to have a high BMI.

But that’s not the story I believe needs to be told. That story is old news. We all know that story. That story isn’t actually helping anyone. That story is contributing to eating disorders, bullying, low self esteem, weight stigma and fatphobia. The story that is ignored is the one I want to tell, and hopefully I can make a few teenagers believe that maybe their bodies are perfectly lovely, just as they are.

30/09/2020

Yup, read that again.

In the spirt of , I’ll be sharing information that aims to break the stigma. Part of this information relates to the “dangers” of ob*sity.

I saw an IG post the other day that provided the stats of hospital admissions attributed to ob*sity. I’m assuming this kind of information is shared to “prove” that being ob*se is unhealthy.

What does it mean to be “unhealthy”?

Regarding the “ob*sity epidemic” unhealthy is usually related to somebodies physical health, their mortality rate. Nothing is mentioned if that life is a happy life or not, but that’s another post.

Does ob*sity lead to a shorter lifespan? We’ve come to believe that it does, but this information has been proved to be misleading in this systematic review and meta-analysis: Association of all-cause mortality with overweight and ob*sity using standard body mass index categories (2013).

Flegal et al., analysed 97 studies covering nearly 3 million participants and found:
1️⃣ No relationship between Overweight or Grade 1 Ob*sity with higher rates of deaths
2️⃣ Overweight group had the lowest mortality
3️⃣ Highest mortality was found between underweight and morbidly o*ese

In other words, people classified as “overweight” and “ob*se” do not die earlier than those classified with a “normal” BMI.

This study does link higher mortality to Grade 2 and 3 ob*sity, but it also links higher mortality to an underweight BMI.

There is significant nuance that is often missed in the “ob*sity epidemic” debate.
The focus is always on the last point 3️⃣ (ignoring underweight mortality), without any focus given to point 1️⃣ and 2️⃣.

I personally don’t believe your rate of mortality should equate to the level of respect, care and compassion you receive (and if you don’t either, than why are we focusing and recommending weight loss when diets don’t work?), but facts are important in the fight against weight stigma.

17/09/2020

Black liberation is for everyone and I'm excited to announce that I'm joining the created by Monique Melton , anti-racism educator, author, international speaker and host of the Shine Brighter Together Podcast. The 21-day challenge officially starts on September 21st (but you can join anytime after that) and we will be focusing on doing the work to build a daily practice of anti-racism by pursuing Black liberation. The challenge is completely free and is designed in a way for you to take practical and sustainable anti-racism action everyday. There's much work to do and we must do this work together...will you join me in the challenge? Tag 3 others that you're inviting to join you in this challenge too. Let's do this work together 💓

14/09/2020

There’s a few statements about fat shaming that I see constantly repeated in the comments on my page, in varying forms:

1️⃣ “I don’t think fat shaming is very nice, but we can’t glorify o*esity can we?”
or
2️⃣ “I support body positivity but we shouldn’t encourage people to be fat and unhealthy.”

Both these comments perpetuate weight stigma which is harmful to health. Assuming someone’s health based on their body is a form of weight stigma and fat shaming.

Healthy comes in all shapes and sizes.

And PS, if somebody is unhealthy, they still deserve to be seen, to be heard, to be loved, to be represented, to have clothing made for them, to have medical issues listened to, and to feel comfortable and respected.

Research has shown that fat shaming for fat loss is not a beneficial public health tool for reducing o*esity or improving health. In fact researchers have concluded that the “stigmatization of o*ese individuals poses serious risks to their psychological and physical health and generates health disparities.” So if we *really* care about folx health, weight stigma needs to stop.
O*esity Stigma: Important Considerations for Public Health” (2019) Rebecca M. Puhl PhD and Chelsea A. Heuer, MPH for APAAA

We put so much onus on the individual to be “healthy” - the idea that their health and their weight is completely within their control. This is in spite of all of the research showing that there are a multitude of factors not within an individuals’ control. We need to be talking about the social determinants of health - and what we as a society are going to do to improve the health and wellbeing of ALL people, not just the privileged few.

People of all sizes deserve to celebrate their bodies, to gain the same equal rights and access as straight sized folx, and to accept themselves just as they are; and they certainly don’t need the “health concern” of a stranger on the internet.

👋🏼 And remember, the only time somebody wants your opinion on how to lose weight is when they ask for it 🙃

09/09/2020

Did you see the controversy behind the Gymshark post?

They chose to post an image of a model without abs and people went wild.

Here’s my thoughts.

Gymshark goes up to a size XL, which is a size US 10 or AU 14. Not exactly inclusive.

I used to feel really annoyed when I saw a brand or influencer capitalising on body positivity, but still promoting diet culture.
Selling an app that promotes fat loss, posting transformation photos, advertising tummy shredder workouts and selling fat burning shakes, consistently linking fitness to leanness, having a clothing range of only 5 sizes...

What is the intention of posting different size models?

Is it because they care about representation or do they simply want a piece of that body positive pie and don’t want to give up on the other aspects of diet culture that bring in the
$$$?

Or maybe they don’t truly understand the damage that diet culture causes. I mean, I used to have a fitness app that promoted fat loss and what I thought was an inclusive swimwear brand because we made XXL bikinis (we offer 7-10 sizes now), and I didn’t think I was causing harm, I really did think I was helping people and being inclusive, so sometimes we need to give people the benefit of the doubt.

But what is the impact?

People start to feel represented, other brands take notice, different body shapes and sizes are normalised in the media, conversation opens up about the lacking of diversity in fitness, and a push comes for extending sizes... lots of positives.

Think about how many brands had s**t diversity when it came to POC, and after their feeds changed... should they have changed earlier?

Yes.

Are they only diversifying their page now to avoid scrutiny and to appear ?

Maybe.

But at least it’s a change, and maybe the positive impact outweighs the sometimes capitalist intentions.

Though you can still be mad about it 🙃 😂

What do you think?

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http://www.madalingiorgetta.com/

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