Dax Shepard argued with his podcast guest, author Cathy O’Neil over the idea of fat-shaming.
On Thursday’s episode of Armchair Expert, Shepard asked O’Neil, who recently published a book on shame titled, The Shame Machine, about a time when his fans accused him of perpetuating fat shaming.
Shepard said, “I’ve been criticized because we had a show called Race to 270. So one of my friends, recently sober, has not been paying attention to his health for fourteen years, two years sober. He’s got kids. He wants to live. He wants to lose weight. He started at 330.”
“My friend, Charlie (Curtis), he owns a CrossFit gym. He’s a gym nut. So I sat like a $10,000 prize. If Charlie could get to 270 first, he would get it. And Aaron (Weakley) could get down to 270 first. And it was this comedic 10 episode thing,” he continued. “And I got all these really angry comments from people going, ‘This is diet culture.’ ‘I have an eating disorder, you’re perpetuating.’ And just like all this rage and anger that this show with these two people who wanted to do this, did it. And me who wanted to observe it.”
Shepard asked, “What’s your take on that? Do you see their point of view?”
O’Neil said, “Oh sure.
O’Neil continued, “And the answer is it’s inappropriate. If the person that you’re shaming has no voice or no choice.”
“Well, that’s not the case,” Shepard argued. “So the person is on the show. They’ve expressed this interest. I’ve not told anyone they need to lose weight. So that right there, just your first criteria has not been met.”
O’Neil clarified, “Let me define choice. Everybody has a choice to go on a diet. You’re right. And many people can maintain a diet and even lose a lot of weight for some amount of time. The statistics on success of diets are nonexistent.”
She added, “And it’s just a fact, a statistical fact that almost nobody successfully diets long term, almost nobody.”
“Okay. So can I just push back on that? So I’m a raging addict, very openly raging addict. The success rate of people trying to recover is fucking abysmal. It’s very low,” Shepard said. “I’m not ever gonna say people can’t get sober. I’m not gonna ever
He added, “If someone wanted to have a drinking show, I would have to choose to think they’re shaming me somehow that they love drinking. Like I can’t drink, I can’t do it.”
“Right,” O’Neil agreed.
Shepard continued, “You could have any show you’d want about drinking.”
O’Neil said, “There are various levels of choice and I’m not claiming that there’s no choice ever at all with anything. Some people very, very few statistically can lose weight. Very few.”
After listing more examples like smoking being difficult to quit, she said, “If you make it seem like, hmmm, just a choice you’re making. And if you’re not making the right choice, it’s on you. That’s shaming to those people who can’t quit.”
O’Neil began to
Shepard chimed in to say, “See, that’s where we will fundamentally disagree. I’m not making a show about you, person who’s saying that. This isn’t a show about you. Not unlike. If you have a show that’s called, what do they do? They do, uh, Sober October. I’m not sitting at home going. You’re saying I could just quit in January. They’re not talking about me. I have nothing to do with that.”
Listen above via Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard.