Body Image

(gentle music) Head Space Studios. Hey, hey, it's Dora and welcome back to the final episode of Sunday Scary Student Edition. I'm here with the one and only Gael. Gael, introduce yourself. Hi everyone, I'm Gael. I am one of the hosts of the podcast called Teenager Therapy. I'm so excited and also a little sad. That is our last episode. I know. How are you feeling though? How's it been? It's been wonderful. I've been really enjoying this. Oh well it's been so nice to have you here and to hear your perspective. Thank you. For this last episode today, we are exploring body image and I feel like when I was a teenager body image was such a weird thing, 'cause like, you would leave for summer and then come back and it's like your best friend's voice has completely changed or maybe you got taller and looked different and yeah. What have you experienced? I think it really all starts in childhood. I mean, when I was young I was kind of the fat kid and I remember entering middle school and I remember putting myself on a diet which wasn't the greatest, wasn't necessarily healthy. It was actually way too much, way too extreme. But at the time I didn't know any better. I had no clue that a lack of proper nutrition and vitamins in your body can be really detrimental. And even if you're trying to lose weight, that's not the proper way to do it. And so I lost weight and I, looking back now, I was not fat by any means. But at the time I felt that way. And ever since then I don't think there has been a time that I have actually still felt skinny or normal. Yeah. How has your relationship with your body changed and has social media affected you in any way? Yeah, so what I have realized recently that I've been trying to be really aware of, is how the algorithm has affected my own body image and the types of content that I'm seeing on the daily and how that is messing with my brain and my perception of myself, because that is not realistic at all. That is the top 0.01%. Yeah, that's so true and something that I have to remind myself. For me it feels like a never ending cycle because like you, I also was, this is a really bad what they used to say when I was younger but it'd be called the Designated Fat Friend and that was like the name that would be passed around, right, if you were like the bigger one in your friend's circles. And so I really internalized that and I started to work out and diet when I was like 15, 16 after a really bad breakup, and it just felt never ending. I'm like, I will never be good enough because the standard is always changing and I'm like, it feels so...