[00:00:00] Hello my friends and welcome back to not another mindset show. Today we are talking about a seemingly somewhat touchy subject and I say that and understand why it’s touchy, especially for some individuals. But man, whenever I bring this study up that we’re going to talk about and this concept just in general around The American Medical Association labeling obesity as a disease officially in 2013 and some of the negative implications of that.

Which there are negative implications that we’re going to talk about from a mindset perspective. People don’t love hearing that. They just don’t. And the frustrating part for me is when I share this stuff, um, on [00:01:00] Instagram. And I guess it’s, it’s probably technically on TikTok too, since we move everything from Instagram to TikTok.

Which now I’m curious to see because I feel like the people on TikTok are vastly different than the people on Instagram. Although it may not be that they’re actually that different, it’s just that maybe they don’t know me as well. I think that that’s probably the, the more accurate depiction of what’s going on between the TikTok.

audience and the Instagram audience. It’s just like TikTok’s fucking ruthless, man. But I think that’s why. I think a lot of you who are following me on Instagram may have been doing that for a long time. Like, I know for a fact I have a lot of longtime followers who have been around and seen me go through many different life transitions and things over the years.

And TikTok’s just, like, not that way. It’s obviously newer in general. Like, those of you who maybe have been following me on Instagram, I don’t know, since I started posting in 2011? 2012? [00:02:00] Holy hell. I have, like, 3, 100 posts on Instagram. Um, been doing that a long time. Long time. But TikTok’s obviously not.

That old and I also just feel like it’s a little bit harder and obviously this is like partially my own fault, right? If I’m just repurposing my reels as tik toks people on tik tok don’t actually get to know who I am Whereas on Instagram I feel like with stories and I’ve done you know, I do like more personal posts every once in a while Obviously the podcast is a big place where I’m trying to connect with you all more and you really get to know like who I am as a person and you’re seeing me like sit here and chat with you for like a longer period of time.

Not just like 60 to 90 seconds, you know? Um, anyway, I’m totally getting off topic and this is, this is why I need notes. For these. This is exactly why, but it’s just so fun. I just want to like hang out, you know? Don’t have to talk about like serious stuff all the time where people get mad at me on the internet Okay, so with this topic [00:03:00] people do get mad at me on the internet and It’s because they think it’s an opinion when I’m really just, like, don’t shoot the messenger, okay?

I’m just sharing research results. I’m just sharing research results. Um, and obviously because I am a mindset researcher, again, I don’t know, do I get to call myself a mindset researcher if I’m not actively doing mindset research anymore? Um, I have published research. Um, in fact, this study that we’re going to talk about came from, The Mindset Lab at NC State, which is where I got my PhD, and this study was actually what drew me in to the Mindset Lab, made me interested in checking out the PhD program there in the first place.

And I didn’t know that mindset science was even a thing. I just knew that I wanted to study health behavior change and better understand why. People know they should exercise and eat healthy, but they weren’t doing it. And so this study, like, blew my mind and was like, I need to look into this place. They had an [00:04:00] amazing PhD program.

So on and so forth, I, you know, ended up there and graduated with a PhD from the Mindset Lab. But! Okay, touchy subject because we’re talking about obesity, and we’re talking about labeling things as a disease, and we’re talking about taking responsibility for things. Big one, right? Oof, yeah, mm hmm.

Especially when you put obesity and personal responsibility in the same sentence. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I get it. Those of you on YouTube, you get to see my facial expressions. Those of you who are listening, you just have to imagine them whenever I’m pausing for a period of time. Um, okay, so this is the very research, like I said, that got me interested in working at the Mindset Lab at NC State.

And my PhD advisor was, uh, one of the leaders of this research study. And What they essentially found was that this disease label, labeling obesity as a disease [00:05:00] per this huge governing body, the American Medical Association, really doesn’t do you any favors from a mindset perspective, which then has a negative impact on your actual health behaviors.

If you haven’t been around This podcast, my content, just know, the long story short of pretty much every everything that I do is that your mindset is so freaking important. And that it does impact how you actually end up showing up in the world and what you end up doing, the the behaviors, the actions that you take, which therefore impact your life as a whole.

So, mindset is sort of the foundation of a lot of everything. And that’s kind of what we’re seeing here. So 2013 was the year that the AMA formally recognized obesity. as a disease. And this research study that we’re going to talk about, and then we’ll talk about another couple or so as well, [00:06:00] related to this.

The, the goal was to examine this impact of the disease label on weight management processes. So essentially like how you go about managing your weight and those behaviors that are associated with it. Think, think, think, healthy eating exercise. When we decide obesity is a disease and we’re telling people that, and that’s how we’re quote unquote treating it, right?

What does that mean for these weight management practices, we’ll say. Um, there’s pros and cons to labeling obesity as a disease. First and foremost, once something is a disease and it’s labeled as such, It’s way easier to get funding for research. So, we’re, it’s going, this is where people get mad at me on the internet because they think that I’m sitting here saying we should not have labeled obesity as a [00:07:00] disease, it’s, that was the wrong thing to do, and that’s not what I’m saying.

I’m literally, again, I’m just, don’t shoot the messenger, um, I’m just sharing things and we also know that once thing is, something is a disease, you know, there’s different codes for insurance. So, you could get help, get insurance coverage. If you are battling things related to obesity because it is now classified as a disease, it reduces blame in a way because now it becomes, okay, this is a disease that you have, you know, it’s sort of like a malfunctioning of your body.

And it can feel like there’s an offset of responsibility on the person who is now, who now has obesity, right? So that can feel better that it kind of feels like, okay, a weight is lifted. Oh my God. No pun intended. Um, for that person. And according to this research study that was examining [00:08:00] people’s belief systems, their mindsets, once there was this classification of obesity as a disease, also recognized that this can help increase body satisfaction through that reduced blame that I was just talking about.

So really interesting that we’re seeing, okay, reduce blame, increase body satisfaction. Like those are really good things. Um, and that happens because you’re just overall reducing concerns about weight and removing some of the responsibility from that person. So that all sounds really good. Right? Like just think of like.

How different the diet industry would be if there was less concern about weight in general, like, whoa, right? And more body satisfaction in general, like, holy shit, like, good things, right? So these are good things that this, this research study [00:09:00] was able to find. However, when we reduce concerns about weight, and we reduce the personal responsibility potentially placed on the person who has obesity, and Now they’re in this place of like, okay, this isn’t fully my responsibility.

My body is malfunctioning in some sort of way. I have this disease, this illness. That’s good. However, again, it, there’s, there’s negative implications because this can really start to cultivate a fixed mindset about everything. Because now this reduced concern about weight means that there’s this belief that it can’t really change as much.

And I’m not, um, Making this stuff up, right? This is, this is directly from this research study, this is what they found when they were examining, you know, people who heard about this, the, [00:10:00] the change in classification of obesity becoming a disease, and what that meant for their mindsets, so that was something that was, you know, assessed and therefore their health behaviors and specifically eating behaviors is what we’re looking at in this study.

So these reduced concerns about weight and beliefs that it can’t change very much predicted ultimately higher calorie food choices. And the super unfortunate part is that this effect was highest amongst those who had higher BMIs. So really, truly, the people who this disease classification was meant to help the most are the ones who are most affected negatively as well.

So, what, like, what do we do with this? Like, what does this all mean? And I think something to really, really take away is that [00:11:00] words matter. It’s not just semantics. My friends, when we say something is an illness, when something is a disease, that really changes the perception that people have of that thing.

That rather than seeing it as maybe lifestyle factors more than anything, right? And people feeling responsible and in control of obesity, of weight management in general. That now if we’re saying it’s a disease, your body is. Is malfunctioning in some way. It’s something that’s happening to you rather than something that you’re doing to yourself.

That, that can then lead to essentially throwing your hands up in the air and going, well, then it’s not my problem. Right? It’s not something that I really have control over. It’s not something that I can change very much, so why try? Which, like, I wouldn’t blame anyone, right? Like, if, if a disease is simply something you have, [00:12:00] It’s something you have to deal with.

It’s just sort of like an unlucky draw, right? And that perspective is going to reduce your perceived levels of control and responsibility, which again is great if we’re trying to reduce stigma, reduce blame, reduce shame. Really good. And we see that in this research. But it’s not so great if we want people to actually take action.

Because if you don’t think that you have control over something, You don’t have the ability to change something, it’s just the cards that you were dealt. Why would you ever try to change it? Like, it’s, that would be a fruitless endeavor, right? If you knew for sure that something was not possible for you, would you put in time and effort to try to achieve that thing?

No, of course not, like that would be silly. So that’s what we’re up against here, and that’s what we’re seeing in this research. If obesity is a disease, Meaning that it’s not very changeable. Why even try to be consistent with health behaviors if it’s not going to change anything? [00:13:00] That’s, that’s what we are seeing in this research.

And this is where people get mad at me. Because it, it can come off as me saying we should not have classified as a, as a disease. Or, um, that I am ignoring the fact that this is increasing body satisfaction, reducing blame, reducing stigma, reducing shame. Like, no. Those are good things, but now question becomes how do we keep those good things while also empowering people to eat healthy and exercise and keep doing all of the things that ultimately will help them from a health perspective, right?

Um, and you know, this is my, my truly biased opinion and just my belief system. Not related to the research. I mean, it’s really related to the research in so far as that. I’m talking about the same thing in [00:14:00] this moment, but, um, I’m not speaking to research results when I say I’ve been a health and fitness coach for almost a decade.

Um, I actually had a crazy realization yesterday that I started my PhD program almost a decade ago. So anytime I say, I’m like, oh yeah, I’ve been health and fitness coaching for almost a decade, it’s like, wow, that means I started my PhD program because it was, it was the same timeline. Anyway, wild time flies.

Um, My experience being a coach, like I have seen countless, countless times. So this is anecdotal evidence of people losing weight and keeping it off for long periods of time. I mean, I have, I have clients, I have a client, a health and fitness coaching client, Richard, if you’re listening to me, we’ve been working together, I think for like seven or eight years, I think seven, I think seven.

It would be crazy. Um, I’ve had clients previously that I, I recently off boarded that were working with me for five to six years. [00:15:00] And these are instances of losing weight, building muscle and maintaining an entirely new physique for years on end. Um, it’s hard to do that in research capacities because who’s going to go follow someone for a fricking decade, right?

Um, it happens, but it’s, it’s harder and it requires more funding. And um, anyway, I digress. So. I also know it’s possible. So, you know, the, the diets don’t work messages, the, anything that’s related to weight loss, body recomposition, health behaviors. Assuming that those things are not very changeable, especially for the long term, is only, only, only making it so.

It’s Making people believe that that’s not the case and therefore they won’t do the things in order to make it to be the case and that is the issue at hand. It’s not that it can’t happen, it’s that we’re believing that it can’t happen and therefore we won’t work towards it. [00:16:00] So, anyway, that is my um, large soapbox for that conversation.

But I wanted to touch on, I actually found this study, it’s more recent, from 2021. Um, that kind of, kind of adds to this conversation in general about how your mindset impacts your health behaviors. So I thought it was kind of interesting to share, so it was a two parter, two, two studies within one paper.

And in the first study, they were looking at healthy adolescents and reviewing their, their mindset about health. looking at their, their mindsets related to health is like, is it something that you can change? Can you change your health basically is what they’re assessing. Right. And then they would also read these fictional studies about people who are, are, I was going to say are ill.

They, that’s just sounds people who are ill. Like, that’s just sounds funny to me. Um, they’re like stories about illness and different people. And then we’re reviewing [00:17:00] how these adolescents in the study Based on their mindset, how they responded to these fictional stories, essentially. So, in this first study, they found that these healthy adolescents with a fixed mindset about health, so they believe that their health is not something that’s very changeable, were more likely to rate the people in the stories as being less healthy, less likely to recover from illness.

and more vulnerable to additional diseases. So I don’t know the full ins and outs of exactly what these stories were because that was not shared in the studies. Um, but for the most part it, it seems like these characters in the, in the stories were, were sick. And, um, the people who were reviewing these studies had to make commentary about those people in the studies.

And they were saying that the people in those stories were less, less healthy, less likely to recover from illness and [00:18:00] more vulnerable to additional diseases. But they were only saying that, making that commentary if their mindset was more fixed about health. So is that really interesting that if you believe that your health isn’t really something that you can change all that much, that you don’t have that much control over, like ultimately, like maybe these are people who are going down the rabbit hole of like, All of our food is poisoned and even when I work out consistently, I don’t lose weight.

So clearly it doesn’t work. You know, if you’re of this perspective that like, I don’t have a lot of control, it’s just not super changeable. That if you were to read a story about someone who is like sick, ill, whatever, that your assumption is that they are more likely to get more diseases. They’re not very likely to recover.

And they, uh, are like less healthy people. And like, that’s why they got sick. You know, it’s just like, it’s, it’s honestly a pretty negative outlook to begin with, but also it’s just a very uncontrollable outlook. Like, yep, you’re basically fucked. Right. And that’s the people who have more of a fixed mindset.

The, the second part of this study was looking at adolescents [00:19:00] with type one diabetes. So again, they’re measuring the health mindset of these people with type one. Diabetes, and what they found was that a growth mindset is associated with greater frequency of glucose monitoring. So this is that the behavior component that I was talking about and I wanted to loop this study in as another example, because monitoring your glucose is a health behavior, especially if you have diabetes, right?

Um, so having a growth mindset. Led to more frequent glucose monitoring and was associated overall with lower HbA1c levels, A1c, you know, whatever you call it, however you abbreviate it, which if you don’t know what that is, is, uh, a blood sugar measurement, um, that can kind of tell you if you’re in a pre diabetic range, if you are diabetic, etc.

Etc. So lower levels [00:20:00] of that for these adolescents with a growth mindset. Interesting, right? So obviously I think we can kind of like put two and two together here and if you were monitoring your glucose levels more, you’re probably better at managing it. And this actually comes back to like what I’ve said in previous episodes about just like how strong the research evidence is for self monitoring when it comes to actually making behavior changes and keeping up with that long term.

So like the conclusion of these couple studies combined is that your mindset about health shapes the views of the implications of illness. So what you think is actually Causing illness, what’s going to happen with future illnesses, how your, your mindset about health makes a difference on those things, and therefore impacts health related behaviors.

So, again, just another example of [00:21:00] how powerful your mind is and your belief systems around things related to health when it actually comes to pursuing health behaviors and getting healthier for the long term. And also just like crazy how. Something as small as a word can make a difference, you know, disease.

illness and like how you perceive that. And, and that’s it too. So you might be listening to this and go, yeah, but Casey, I, when you say disease or illness, I don’t automatically think that that’s something that’s not controllable for me. And that might be true. You know, people are going to be different.

We’re talking, please remember with research, we’re talking in the aggregate. We’re looking at averages of things and there’s usually like a bell curve right so most people fall in the middle of the averages and then there’s some people that fall on the the tail ends of the bell curve maybe more like outliers um that’s the case so if you’re really sitting here like no this is all bullshit because i would never assume that if i got diagnosed with a disease that [00:22:00] i was it was out of my control like i would immediately look for things that would it.

Um, put it back in my control, you know, actually talked about this originally. Originally, in one of the first couple episodes about my dad, because he had a tumor in his spinal cord, and the doctors told him that he would never walk again. And my dad, being who my dad is and having a very strong growth mindset, um, was basically like, you Fuck that.

Like watch me walk again. Like I think he actually, I told him that I shared this on the podcast and I was like asking a little bit more details about like the conversations with the doctors at that time and he, he said, No, I definitely said like, I will be walking out of here. And I’m like, Oh, that is, he’s, you’re so cool.

Like go dad. Um, but he walks, he walks really well. Um, still has some issues here or there. And like, that was like a major damage to his spinal cord. Um, but. [00:23:00] He didn’t take that information as like, okay, well, why even try then if this, this guy, this doctor in a white coat at the Mayo Clinic, one of the best surgeons in the world, right, is telling me that I’m probably not going to walk again?

Most people would take that and go like, okay, then like, what’s the point of PT? Why am I even trying if this is like a lost cause? And he said, uh uh. Like, probably not gonna walk again. Like, I, I definitely will. And I’m gonna do everything I can to, to prove you wrong, basically, to, like, do it anyway. And he was successful in doing so.

And just, like, think so many people who are of the opposite belief and just, like, okay, if, if I was told that my chances are slim or that I have this disease now or this is out of my control, then, like, I’m not gonna put the effort in. Like, most people would not. Because it seems silly to try if you can’t actually be successful.

So, anyway. Anyway, [00:24:00] anyway, the biggest takeaway here is that the words that we use matter. And it’s never just semantics. Um, it’s funny, I feel like I even, like, when I’m talking to, like, some girlfriends and stuff, how do I always bring these frickin episodes back to dating? You know, eventually I’m gonna be in a relationship and I’m not gonna have these types of stories to tell anymore, so.

And all of my beautiful single girlfriends will as well. Um, but. we will like exchange voice memos back and forth about like dates or like disappointments with boys and that sort of thing and i remember a girlfriend recently saying something like how she’s just it’s so hard to find someone and i i don’t know if like this is going to happen for me and things like that.

And she’s, it was this long voice memo and I responded and it was like, what do you mean? Like it’s, if you, if you think it’s going to be so hard, then it’s going to be so hard. And she’s like, you picked out the smallest, most trivial parts of that entire voice memo. And I was like, that the words you use are not trivial.

Like [00:25:00] you are going to continue to like, speak into existence what you believe to be true. Right. So anyway, again, this is sort of where like the woo woo, uh, law of attraction and growth mindset type of space do tend to intertwine. Um, but interesting to think about in general with like the obesity is a disease classification, how something really good, you know, reducing blame, shame, increasing body satisfaction can actually have some negative Implications as well, which again, that just begs the question, how do we have the best of both both worlds?

How do we make sure that people are still feeling like they can work towards a healthier lifestyle to manage their weight, to do all of these things that we’re discussing that are so good for you? But also not feel badly for where they’re currently at and is it, is there a world where we can improve body satisfaction and also help people stay consistent with health behaviors and feel like those [00:26:00] things are in their control?

Is there a world where we can reduce stigma of, of obese people? And. reduce shame for those struggling with obesity while also empowering them to take responsibility and control and know that they have the power to make changes in their lives and do so for the long term. Oh man. And that is, that is the question, my friends.

And I, a lot of it, um, not, not a lot of it, but we do know a piece of this comes down to just how the messaging is. It’s portrayed and that there is like that aspect of like, you’re just not there yet. You know, the power of that word yet. Um, and I’ve talked a bit about this on the episode about the double edged sword effect of a growth mindset.

I talk about this term compensatory messaging and how if you’re a health and fitness coach, if you’re a parent, if you’re someone who like has any hand in the lives of someone else, this is really important to understand when you’re cultivating a growth mindset that we. Hang on to that compensatory [00:27:00] messaging too, so that people are not feeling so terribly about where they’re currently at as they’re working towards.

this new outcome, this new lifestyle, whatever. In the next episode, I’m going to go into another study. I actually thought about putting it into this one, but I do truly want to try to keep these episodes short. Um, but we’re going to talk about how your mindset can actually affect portion control. This was a really, uh, really cool study that I recently came across.

Um, and it’s newer too. So I love when there’s new mindset research coming out. It’s just like, Oh my gosh, I’m like a kid in a candy store. Um, and also what’s really neat about this study is that they were looking at how this correlates to different parts of your brain as well. So mindset, portion control, and Um, like, neurology, basically, is what we’re getting into in the, in the next episode.

So jump into that one if you have access to it already. If you’re just listening to this one as it dropped today, you’re gonna have to [00:28:00] wait till next week. So be on the lookout for that one then. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being here, and I’ll see you next time.