Before You Talk to Your Child About Their Weight, Ask Yourself This

Wendy Schofer, MD: welcome back everyone. Today have a very special gift, and I'm gonna say that it's a gift for you, and it's a gift for me. Okay. So today I am welcoming my friend, author Lisa Phipps. So if you've been around for a hot minute, you have probably heard me talk about the book Starfish and how very much it has influenced my my role, my approach, the work that I do as a mom, as a pediatrician, as you know, really the founder of Family and Focus, Starfish has such an integral role. And so I want to be able to share my dear friend Lisa with you. Because without her, none of this would be possible.

Dr. Wendy: Welcome to Family in Focus. I'm Dr. Wendy Schofer, the pediatrician helping parents lead meaningful change without harm. Here we focus on the connection and practical shifts that help families thrive at every size. Let's get started.

Wendy Schofer, MD: So Lisa, welcome. It is wonderful to have you here today.

Lisa Fipps: It is an honor to be invited and you know, that was very touching. Thank you very much for the intro.

Wendy Schofer, MD: my goodness, you you mean so very much to me. Let let's go back. So, you know, you and I met I think it was like twenty twenty three was the time maybe. W was that the time frame? Am I making that up at this point? Hmm.

Lisa Fipps: That sounds about right,

Wendy Schofer, MD: I had reached out to you because I had been introduced to to Starfish and I was just like going out on a whim. I just reached out to you I said, Hey, I wanna learn so much more. Thank you for the work that you do and can we talk about what this work looks like with parents and children and really being able to share the story.

Lisa Fipps: yeah, yeah. And I love it when people want to know more about it. You know, not just to read it but also just understand who I am, why I wrote it, what my mission, goal, hope is are. and so I I will talk about it all day. Talk about it all day.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Well, how about this? I would love to hear how you describe the the book. So for parents that are not familiar with Starfish, like how do you describe what it's about?

Lisa Fipps: Well, Starfish is a technically a a middle grade novel, so for kids. But I have so many adult readers, it's unbelievable. I never expected to have adult readers. I mean, you know, obviously teachers, librarians, parents who are looking for reads for their kids, but people who read it for themselves who are adults. And it's basically an autobiography of my life growing up as a kid. And I was bullied relentlessly at home, at school, everywhere, by everybody, especially my mom. My mom was my biggest bully and she turned me into my own biggest bully. because all those thoughts get in your head and stay and you hear them all the time. And and so I wanted to address that because I know that I was not the only one who was raised like that, who was affected by constant diet talk and constant do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that, this is bad. You're bad if you eat this, all those things. And I wanted to be able to reach children let them know that they weren't alone in that. let them know that there was a way out, that they could, you know, defend themselves without attacking others. But most of all, that they had every right in the world to just be who they are and to starfish, which in my mind is, you know, you think of is it I never could say her name, the rugby player who's the Olympian. Yes, I

Wendy Schofer, MD: Yes. And I'm gonna mess up her name. Illona Meyer, I believe is how we say it.

Lisa Fipps: Yes, yes. I can never I can never remember how to say it and I don't want to say anybody's name wrong. I feel like that's sort of disrespectful, but but you know, you see her and she gets all this flack for being, quote, a big woman and I'm like, She's all muscle. Like she's tall and she's, you know, all muscle. How is that a bad thing? And I mean, she can outrun anybody, you know what I mean? Like and I think, you know, we are so in a society And I'm especially worried about the GLP ones that they just make everybody think, now you don't have an excuse to be fat. You don't have a reason to be fat. It's not it's even more unacceptable to be fat in an area of GLPs. And, you know, you see all the movie stars, all the influencers losing tons of weight on it, you know, and no one's talking about some of the bad side effects. I mean, not that it can't be a good thing, but I don't know, all of that together just puts so much pressure on children and I wanted them to know you can just be you and you can be the best you and that's okay. And you don't have to change to fix yourself. You're not broken as a human just because you weigh more on the scale.

Wendy Schofer, MD: The way that you describe that because I mean it's kind of like taking the journey. I'm I'm coming back to different scenes in the book and seeing how you were taking those lessons and really being able to share it in the context of you know Ellie, the the main character, and her interactions with her family and with her best friends, and how it's all woven in together and including. starfish, I mean starfish is becoming a a verb for taking up space.

Lisa Fipps: And I love that. I love that. Because as a writer, I love taking nouns and making them into verbs or verbs and making it into a noun because you can. You know, there there's all this, you know, the English teacher inside of you, not diss and English teachers by any stretch, but you know, that say, you know, you have to be, you know, ain't not a word. But when you're writing someone who uses ain't, you know, it's okay to put ain't in the the language they're speaking, you know, their quotes. So I love being able to bend and break writing rules and

Wendy Schofer, MD: Love that.

Lisa Fipps: Yeah, I do too.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Own it. Own it because that's what makes it so real. Yeah.

Lisa Fipps: Right. It's something you do. It's it's not just who you are. it is what you do. And Starfish is just being you and being unashamedly you.

Wendy Schofer, MD: It's so real and and so powerful because that is the story that you tell. You know, the way that you're able to to share Ellie's story, your story. And, you know, I I describe the story to others, they're like, you know, what's going on when I'm talking about these different books that really influence my perspective and have been really critical for me to develop my approach. right here, right now. And I always started off by saying, know, that Ellie is a middle schooler who's really just trying to navigate life in a larger body and all of the different forms of quite honestly, weight stigma and bias that she is experiencing from all these different aspects of her life, with at school, with her siblings, with her parents, with her doctor, like all along the way, everywhere she turns, she's experiencing weight stigma. And it all looks a little bit different.

Lisa Fipps: Yeah, it is proli it's it's profound. It's it's pervasive. you know, you can't get away from it. And I am grateful that I'm old enough that I didn't grow up in a social media world because I can't imagine how much bullying goes on in the instant messages and just in the posts, the comments. you know, you wanna have a social media page, but if you're a fat child or fat teenager, God only knows what you're gonna get response wise when you post a picture of you just at a party, you know. and it's just everywhere and I unless you've lived the life, I don't think you can fully grasp how pervasive anti fat bias is and how much intense Constant pressure to fix yourself. Like there's something morally wrong with you, or you wouldn't look this way. You wouldn't be in this body, you know, there are just so many reasons why people are fat. Everybody think looks at a someone who's fat. And I use the word fat by the way. comfortable with that word because to me it's just an adjective. It's like tall or brunette. I have a problem when people add connotation to it. Like you're fat, you know what I mean? And And there that's a huge difference for me. But I do use that word, because it just is what it is. But there you know, for every fat person there's probably eighteen different reasons why they're fat, you know. Mine was genetics. I mean, I have my mom's side of the family, ironically considering she was my bully, was you know, I have an aunt who was six two. I have well, I have more than one aunt who's six two. And built like football players, big broad shoulders, you know. And they weren't as fat as I am, but they they had extra weight on their bodies or whatever amount was what their bodies created. But, you know, you part of it is genetic, part of it was a response to my mom's constant bullying about my weight. Part of it was because I was I'm an ab an abuse survivor. And so when, you feel like so empty inside after abuse that you want to fill it, right? Or you feel so gross inside you don't want to eat. You like just want to get everything out, you know. So I cycled until like three or four years ago, I cycled my whole life between all three eating disorders. I would be overeating, I would be anorexic, I would be bulimic, and of course I people be like, How can the fat girl be anorexic? And I'm like, an anorexic means you're just not eating. Like, you know what mean? Like so yes, you know, for example, like before I started treatment, I had it was right after my mom had died and know, I was eating forty calories a day because I ate a yogurt, right? And that was it. And, you know, they were thinking of like putting me in in treatment because of it. It was pretty bad. But, you know, people would look at me and go, You? You know, and but all of that though, all of that is, raised in this culture where my mom, she was from Appalachia, she was dirt thin because she was so poor. She had a nineteen inch waist when she got married because she basically was starving at home. And so she had this thing that that's what you have to be, I'm like, You were starving, literally starving. and then when my dad died when I was thirteen months old, she was terrified that one of her children would die because she couldn't even handle my dad dying, let alone her children dying. So she wanted us in perfect health all the time. And to her, fat meant unhealthy, you know, or a higher weight meant unhealthy. So all these things go into it. And so But when you look at a fat person walking down the street in a car, you know, at the restaurant, a movie theater, whatever, you just go, they need to go on a diet. They need to lose weight. How unhealthy. How like they have no willpower. And if you understood all the dynamics that went into my body, maybe you would shut your mouth. You know what I mean? It's like, quite frankly, because you know, we can't you think of people who are drug addicts or who are alcoholics and people who have been abused and people who have been through wars and all this stuff does things to you and sets up patterns in your life that can can contribute to that. And that's on top of whatever your genetics were meant to be in the first place. You know, I'm fairly tall for a woman. I'm five nine and You know, that's from that genetics of having an several aunts who are six two and a cousin who's six seven. So it's like, it's this thing though, that it doesn't matter. You can be an Olympian and a gold and silver star Olympian medal Olympian and get flack for being quote too big, too fat. It's you know, it's it's this pervasive in our culture to say we want cookie cutter people. You have to be this height, this or you're too tall, or you're too short, or you have to be this weight, or you're too fat, or you're too thin. You have to be this age, right? Because once you get a certain age you they call you invisible, right? You you know, the waitress or the server is always going to look at the younger people and they're not gonna pay attention to the people who are seventy and eighty and sixty and and what the heck we this is what blows my mind and I talk about it when I do author visits at schools is there are eight billion people on the planet and less than less than one percent of the entire population has the genetic ability to look like the runway models we think we all should look like. What the heck? W in what other realm does ninety-nine point five percent of the p of the world kowtow to the half of a person about anything. Politics, social construct, everything. And yet we do. We think, my gosh, I need to look like those people when you genetically cannot. You know, and I mean and I d I see people even teens like having surgeries to lengthen their bones because they're short. I mean, we have gone to this place and it's and it's just gotten worse by social media where you are required to look to a certain way, to be accepted and acceptable and to be loved and lovable in this world and it is a very dangerous and sad place to be.

Wendy Schofer, MD: So many things get inwoven in there because I heard the words hidden in plain sight as

Lisa Fipps: Yeah.

Wendy Schofer, MD: you were describing about, you know, the struggles with eating, you know, with struggling with anorexia and bulimia and not being seen because all that's being seen is well, I'm living in a larger body.

Lisa Fipps: Right.

Wendy Schofer, MD: And I think that so much of that from experiences I've had, the conversations I'm having with parents, and you know, we were talking ahead of time about how we're a military family, and so there's a lot of weight bias and stigma and assumptions that are made about bodies in the military. I keep on saying that, you know, we are not missing what's actually going on underneath the surface, but it's hidden right there in plain sight that we're struggling with relationships with, you know, food and body. And yes, relationship excuse me, we're struggling with eating disorders, but we're not even like it's not even occurring to us that that could be possible when you're just looking the outside or when you're having on these filters of what it needs to look like both to say a body is healthy or to be able to say if a body a person by the way, not just a body, if a person is struggling.

Lisa Fipps: Exactly. you know, I think I think if my mom had not been struggling so much with, you know, the death of my father, because he died when I was thirteen months old and she was clinically depressed from the time I was thirteen months old I was seventeen. And I pretty much raised myself and if she hadn't been so in her zone, I think she might have figured out that I was being abused for three and a half years of my childhood. And I think she would have realized that her other two siblings are severely mentally ill and were doing things like that I don't even wanna mention. very abusive physically and in other ways. it's just a very dangerous unsafe, dysfunctional home in every realm possible. And, survival kinks in, right? Survival literally kicks in. I mean, you will do things. When you're on a mountaintop in the jungle after a plane crash, you will do things you thought you would never do before because your brain is set on survival. and so, you know, you you have to take that into a account. But also just the fact that, okay, You think of women who have babies and then they're like, Well, when are you gonna lose that baby weight? I think she's a little bit busy right now, feeding the baby, doing diapers, not getting any sleep You know, it's like where does this come from? I really wish I could find out. And you know, I mean, there's some who trace it back to, you know, like the twiggy era back in the fifties and sixties, I think it was, it especially sixties, where, you know, all of a sudden we had all these thin models and so then, we gotta be thin. Whereas back years ago the big women were in vogue because that meant you were wealthy, that you were healthier, you know, when so many people were in such poverty that they were starving literally and dying from it. But I'm like, where d where do we get this? Where do we get you know, that cookie cutterness that we have? And see how I use that word? Cookie cutterness. I it's a word that I just created. Yeah. I

Wendy Schofer, MD: See what you did there.

Lisa Fipps: do that all the time because that's really what you wanna say. It's the the the being of being like a cookie cutter world is you you know, and it's not and it's just pervasive. It's not just, you know, how tall you are, how short you are, how fat you are, how skinny you are, it's what does your hair look like? What color is your hair? What's the color of your skin? you know, and it just it's it's frightening to me that somehow we're all supposed to be cookie cutter shaped and sized and colors and all of this when we're not like it's impossible. It's impossible possible for you know for us to look all the same and who wants that anyway right if if every time you looked in the mirror you could baby basically be looking at your neighbor that would be freaky right where where did we go to where you know I I wonder like 200 years ago 300 years ago did they did they face the same thing? I think back then it was more class like poverty versus, you know, have and not have nots. So but where did it get to be that we had to look a certain way, be a certain way, to be acceptable? And and why is it such a focus on your weight? You know, and here's the thing that and I'm sure you're aware of this, th that I can't remember who did the study, but the more you're quote, on to somebody about their weight, the bigger they get. Literally. The bigger they get. And I don't really I didn't read all the whole study I found on that, but I'm not sure why that happens, but I have found it to be true. you know, every person 'cause when I started to r work on this book, Starfish, I was like, did other people have the same fat experience? Because I didn't want to assume, you know, all the all skinny people have the same experience or all tall people or whatever. And so I started asking people, you know, in my life who were also fat, you know, did you have fat girl rules when you were grown up? heck yeah. I didn't even have to explain what that meant. I didn't even have to explain the term fat girl rules. heck yeah. And they would give me some that I hadn't lived by. And I and and and the but most of them we all lived by. you know, I said, you know, did you find that the people who were supposed to love you most and the people who said they love you most were some of your biggest bullies. yeah. My mom said, my uncle said, my brother said, you know, my best friend said. when I find these commonalities, then you know it's not just you. And I think one of the biggest problems, you know, whether you have cancer, whether you have you're d struggling because of our anti-fat society, whatever it is, you feel alone in it. It just feels like because it's so overwhelming and you know all-encompassing that you feel like no one else feels this way. No one else is experiencing this. And then you find out yeah they are. And

Wendy Schofer, MD: Which is why it's so important that you're sharing y you know, the the story in

Lisa Fipps: Yes, we don't talk about it.

Wendy Schofer, MD: the book.

Lisa Fipps: You know what we talk about? Diet recipes. How to cut carbs, how to add protein, how to get out sodium, how to get anti anti inflammatory 'cause your weight's all about anti inf is about in you know inf inflammatory responses. Drink more, get the fluid going, move more. That's what we share. We don't share, you You know, we don't share stuff like my mom said, When are you gonna lose that weight so I'm to be ashamed of you anymore? We don't share those things, right? First of all because they're so incredibly painful to s to even hear, let alone share with others. But we don't talk about that. and one of the things that I love about today's generation compared to when I was growing up is we do talk more than we did. And that's great. When I was little nobody

Wendy Schofer, MD: Really?

Lisa Fipps: talked about anything, you know. You didn't talk about mental illness. You didn't talk about grieving. You didn't talk about anything. You just survived And we don't need to be that way anymore. You know, we have all these ways to communicate. We can get better at communicating.

Wendy Schofer, MD: We can get better at communicating. Ooh, yeah. You know, because I I hear you as you're being very specific. When, you know, I was talking about weight stigma, and you're like, hold on a minute, we're talking about bullying. How, you know, it wasn't your description is this is what I actually experienced in bullying from all these different places. And very specifically within your own home. Which is gonna tell you exactly why I'm sharing the story of, you know, starfish with so many people. I was just recently okay, this is pretty cool. there was a podcast that is starting up that's all about physicians and their favorite books. like, What book do you want to talk about? I'm like, you know, Lisa, you know exactly what I did. I said, We need to talk about starfish because I need Every single physician to be able to read this story, every single parent, because we need to know what bullying looks like, what weight stigma looks like, and how each and every one of us will see ourselves in your book. Each and every one of us, whether it's identifying with Ellie. Or identifying with, know what? think I'm the mom. I think I'm the doctor. I think I'm the sibling. There's

Lisa Fipps: Hmm. Right.

Wendy Schofer, MD: so many different characters that we can see ourselves and different aspects, maybe different things that you've, know, the way that you've approached conversations about weight and bodies and what is healthy within your home, within your practice, even for yourself. We can all see ourselves within the characters in your beautiful book. And that is why I I think it's imperative that we all read it to be able to say, okay, I see this here, I see myself here, and I also see different possibility.

Lisa Fipps: You know, one thing I wanna mention is and I talk to the I talk about this when I do school visits. I tell kids, do you know because I'm very real with them. I I'm very real with them. I say, you know, some of the things my my mom said to me, siblings, whatever. And which aren't even in the book, you know, 'cause I had to tone down the book to make it, you know, palatable. But One of the things I tell them is I get so many emails from readers. It's overwhelming sometimes. And they pour out their hearts because they finally found someone that will hear them, right? Not just listen, but hear them. And one day I'd done an author visit, and I don't know there's like a thousand kids between all the different school grades. And so I got tons of emails because I always say, if you didn't get an answer, ask your question, you know, feel free to email me. But I also say that 'cause there's kids who aren't gonna talk in front of others. And so I got these emails and they literally were like in this format. First email. Thank you for Starfish, I'm bullied because I'm short. Next one. Thank you for starfish. I'm bullied because I'm tall. Next one. Thank you for starfish. I'm bullied because I'm fat. Next one. Thank you for starfish because I'm bullied because I'm too thin. The next one. Thank you for starfish because I wear glasses and I'm bullied. The next one, braces. The next one. Thank you for starfish because I have cancer and I'm bullied for losing my hair. Thank you for starfish because, you know, I'm a boy and I like the color pink. I'm not gay, but I like the color pink. But everybody makes fun of me and says I'm gay because I like the color pink. And it went on and on and on. But I was like, okay, what are we learning? We're learning you can't be short, but you can't be tall, you can't be fat, but you can't be thin. You can't right? And it was astounding to me. And then I tell I tell so I tell him that. And I said, but here's what else I get. I get emails from people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and even eighties who f somehow stumbled on Starfish. I think quite frankly, because of the cover, it got put in the Barnes and Nopol summer reads. because of some of the feedback I I I don't know, but for whatever reason it's gotten in the hands of all kinds of generations and they say that I mean it's pretty much the same thing. Thank you for writing Starfish. It healed parts of me I didn't realize were still broken. When I was eight, my uncle said this to me. When I was four, when I was twelve, when I was seventeen, so and so, you know, it could be a stranger said this to me on the sidewalk. It could be grandma, grandpa, any relative, friends, kids at school, strangers, whatever, doctors, what doctors said. And I ha and I have carried that my whole life. And when I read your book, I realized I gotta let this go. And I'm starting to tear up because it's like I I love those letters and I hate those letters. Because I don't want today's kids, today's third and fourth and fifth graders to live that life of those 70 and 80 year olds. I don't want them being so hurt. by such cruel words that are so unnecessary and are just, you know, w w just cutting them to the core and then reshaping who they are and how they see themselves for life. Because of one word that an aunt said, uncle said, brother said, mom said, friend said, strangers said. And I tell the kids when I do the author visits, I don't want that for you. You know, because they said, you know, how hard was this book to write? And I was like, it horrible. It was horrible to relive all those moments. But I said I was willing to do it for you. Because I wish I had had someone who did it for me. Because when I I was an avid reader and I would be reading books and I would always go to the librarian, Mrs. Pochon. And I and I was always looking for a book about a girl like me who was being bullied relentlessly because of her weight. And I wanted to know how how to cope with my emotions and how to make the bullying stop and how to be okay. Because deep inside I thought Okay, yeah, I weigh more than some people, you know, and my weight has fluctuated over the years. There have been times I've been, quote, normal weight and fat and anything in between. And it's like I just I wanted to know and it wasn't there. And once I grew up and I was a journalist for twenty years and then I started writing my books, I was like, It's still not on the shelves. And look at how many people are fat in this world. Like f I think forty some percent of America. And then it was like, What? So I had to write it. But that's what gets me. It's when I think of those emails of I can't be s skinny, I can't be fat, I can't be short, I can't be tall, I can't have cancer without being bullied. And then the letters. Especially from, you know, the older they get. It's it's bad enough to read it from, you know, twenty year olds in college, but from sixty, seventy and eighty year olds who have lived their whole life around one comment that I guarantee you people don't even remember making. Because it's so commonplace for us to make comments about other people's bodies that we'll say something to someone in a grocery store or whatever and we walk away, we never think about again, but that person's life just changed forever and they're going to change what they do and what they think about themselves because of what you said.

Wendy Schofer, MD: That's why adults need to read this book because it is about seeing ourselves and the healing that we still get to do now. Right. And then also

Lisa Fipps: 'Cause you're never too old to heal from it. But you're also never too young to learn to not do it.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Mmm. And to be able to create the changes that you needed for your children, for all of the children in your lives, because let's be honest, they're all our children. So they're okay, that's another hill I'm gonna die on. But they are all our children, and we are creating the changes. And so that's why, no matter if you are a parent, if you are an educator, if you are a physician, if you are a neighbor who just really gives a rip. Like Starfish is for you. Okay, I I am gonna go around. I'm gonna be on your billboards. Like we need some billboards to be able to say yes, yes. This is so very relevant. And just because it's written, how did you say it in middle age? It how did you say that for

Lisa Fipps: it's for middle grade novel and verse, which means poetry, free verse poetry. but yeah, it's technically for like fourth through eighth graders. But whew. Nope. and here's the other thing, we were talking about you were talking about children. We're all kids. There's a little girl in me that still gets excited about crayons, right? We are all kids. So that's there's a part of us that is always the child is always inside of us. So when you wound a child, you carry it forever. But when you heal a child, you carry it forever. Right? When you help a child, you help them forever. You don't just help them for one moment. Because the child stays in all adults. You see ninety year old out there like, you know, trying to catch a butterfly or whatever, you see there's children are stay in us. So you wound a child, you've wound a a person for life. And but if you heal a person, a child, you've healed a person for life. And and I think that's the beauty of it, is that we don't have to live this way as a society, as a world. We don't. We choose it. Partly out of ignorance, we don't get it, partly out of arrogance, you know, like, well I'm skinny and I've always been skinny. I don't understand why they have to be that way. Well that's called privilege, my dear. Because you know, you've got the right genes and you've got the right upbringing or you've you've you've not had some of the trauma that they've had or you've responded differently to your trauma. Maybe instead of turning to food with your traumas, you have turned to being an overachiever. but you know it's it it is what it is. It's it's you can't Can't as a child if you're traumatized, you can't choose, I'm gonna choose the healthier way. It's much better if I become obsessive about achieving than if I eat a little more. Right? So it's the judgmentalness of it. That you can that you are better than someone and you can sit outside of them and say, You are bad because you know, you are from this echo socio economic region or because, you know, you are this education level. For any reason that you sit outside and you are this, you know, that famous now point from, you know, the WNBA player where she pointed, you know. But it's it's that judgmentalness and that criticalness and it does more damage than you will ever know. And, you know, I don't know what people's different religious beliefs are, but I happen to believe that there's an afterlife and I think that if you had to sit back and say, I I really feel like we get a movie at the afterlife of like, here's all you did great and here's where you screwed up the big time, right? And I think if we could see that as children if you don't change who you are, if you don't rethink who you are, if you don't do this, this is what you're gonna do in life. Because I think when we see that we've hurt people, unless we are mentally ill and can't under have any empathy, you know, like narcissists, you can't help but go, Ooh, I wish I would have done that. I shouldn't have done it. I'm not gonna do that again. And I wish we could see that like life recap from the start. So that we don't do those things.

Wendy Schofer, MD: So glad you brought up the word empathy, because that's what you're tapping into by writing a book and to be able to share with other people. I mean, empathy is where we get to see ourselves in someone else's shoes, where we get to kind of try it on and see from different perspectives and see how they are feeling. And that's why, okay, here's my pitch. Reading is so important for kids, okay? Can we just put that out there? It's so important for each and every one of us because you get to experience someone else's experience, you know, kind of try on their perspectives, look at it in different ways. And it's not about someone coming in and saying, This is the way you need to do it differently. This is what you're, you know, messing up, what you have to change. Which of course we get a lot of friction and pushback on that. But through reading, we get to experience lives and get to see for ourselves where do I see myself in this? Where is this character a part of me? Where are perspectives similar or different? And what do I want to do differently going forward? Without somebody necessarily asking them all of those points and But that's the process of of what's happening as we're reading literature.

Lisa Fipps: Empathy, I think, is something that is sorely needed. and somehow I felt like that there was this shift in the world during COVID where we lost a lot of it. Because isolation, you know, when you're in your home, you're isolated, you're not at work, you're not at school, whatever. You get to be your most base self. And you forget how to filter your eyes, your judgments, your words to be around other people, right? We all meet those people that you see on the news, you know, like that are cause of flight to have to turn around or whatever. The people who have lost their filters, if they ever had any. you know, people, you know, on the streets who just like smack somebody in the head, whatever. The people who have lost their filters. And we lost so many. When we put on those masks, we changed. And, you know, it was how do we get it back? How do we get back at least the empathy we lost? And that that's a big concern. And the other thing that that I I'd like to mention when I can is there's no one worse to judge a fat person than a person who used to be fat. They're brutal. They're brutal. Well, I lost the weight. You have no excuse now. Right? If I can do it, you can do it. Right? And and it's so funny to me to see people who have lived my life, who have struggled with their weight, who have been bullied for their weight, whatever, to lose the weight and then go, hmm. I'm better than you. Right? You of all people should know what damag how damaging it is to be so judgmental and so critical and so cruel. and I know that they thought, I'm just doing it for my health or I'm just doing it for a wedding or whatever reasons they lose weight. they become the worst because then they they throw it at you, right? Which I think is why, you know, bariatric surgeries and GLP ones and things I'm not saying you shouldn't have them. that's a personal and health decision. But I'm saying that because of this huge trend of it, there's more and more people who are fat who are now thin and they get disgusted because I think they see themselves and they get angry at themselves that they wasted their life on this or that and and they they throw all that vitriol right at you, right? And I've always said, I can tell someone who's been fat and lost weight and because of the way they way they frame what they say. And it's it would be, you know, like a rich person saying to a rich person, Pheff, you need to change, right? It's like or a poor person to another it's it what? What? You live this life You of all people should have the empathy, but they have the least amount. They do.

Wendy Schofer, MD: I thank you so very much. You know, as I think about, you know, with your verb, starfishing and and taking up space. It's something where I keep on thinking about, you know, how your ideas are growing in the world, your characters. And it's because you're putting yourself out there, Lisa. Like l let's be honest, where you're putting yourself out there with starfish. And then your second book, and let me make sure I'm saying this correctly, and then boom, correct?

Lisa Fipps: Right. Yeah.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Yay! Okay. And then you have another book that's coming.

Lisa Fipps: Yeah, I'm not sure. The current working title is Life as a Turtle. but it's about Alzheimer's and Alzheimer's is huge. my mom died of it. but it's about young onset Alzheimer's, which is for anyone thirty and over. And both Young Onset, which has in the past been very statistically not very common is becoming a thing. And Alzheimer's itself is becoming more common. And people who have never experienced that are the most fortunate people in the world because it's a horrible way to die. And it's a horrible way to have to live. And it's just growing in in a lot of ways. And people, you know, are trying to brain it on processed foods. Could that be part of it? Maybe. But you know, there are people who eat perfectly their whole lives and they're active and they get it. And there are people who drink whiskey every day and eat their cheeseburgers and hot dogs and they never get it. So it so there's so much more to it, I think. we haven't figured it out, but everybody wants to blame this or that or the other thing. I just say we need to learn how to care for them, the people who have it, until we figure out how to cure them or to prevent it. and so it's about that. Yeah. More empathy.

Wendy Schofer, MD: And there's so many different aspects where you get to write these books about your experiences and being able to bring in empathy in so many different ways, you know, because let's be honest, we all have different experiences. And it's a full rich one. It's not something that's saved to one topic, to one

Lisa Fipps: Yeah.

Wendy Schofer, MD: area. So I thank you so very much for all the work that you're doing and also the we could just get to hang out and we get to like collaborate and to be able to weave this all together and just honestly be here together. This is so so valuable.

Lisa Fipps: enjoyed it thoroughly. I really have and I am so honored, like I said, to be here with you today.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Absolutely. Well, I wanna acknowledge something. I've been staring at Starfish the entire time that we were looking. I was like, I need to show the beautiful cover. as you were talking about how it was put out on the summer reads placement at a bookstore or something. Yeah.

Lisa Fipps: Yeah, I think so. Because I had this onslaught from Barnes and Noble readers. And so I think they put it in the summer reads, but you know, whatever. don't care. It got in the hands of people who needed it. That's all I care.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Absolutely. Well, that's awesome. thank you so much for joining us today. I'm wondering i is there anything else that you want to be able to share with parents, you know, because they they're my audience here, parents who are really leading the changes that they want to see for their whole family.

Lisa Fipps: can only say I'll say it two different ways. So first of all, if you've never struggled with your weight, and yet you have a child who does, that can be very disconnected for you. I'm and I can't I I empathize with you because you're like, I have no that would be like me having a child who did math, right? Because I don't do math. I'd be like, I don't understand this child. and so it could be very hard for you and very scary for you. I totally understand that. But I beg of you on behalf of your child to not be reactionary and and do the the quote almond mom thing where you're like, No, you can't have candy, you know, you need to lose that weight or whatever, because you will make a bigger problem and a lifelong problem if you're not careful. And I'm not saying that to judge you. I'm saying that as someone who has lived that life, who wished that my mother did not do that to me. The second thing I think is if you have been had any weight issues or been bullied for your weight, you're gonna be terrified that they're gonna have the same experience as you. And so you on the same level can become an almond mom because you don't want them to have the life you had. And I totally get that. I totally get that. But the only way that any parent keeps their kid from having that life is to first examine their selves and say, Why am I scared of my child's weight and body? And not until you have the answers to that should you even start to figure out what to do about your child. Because often we just reflect our own mirror onto them, right? Our own image. And and we think, well, I was fat. I can't let my kid be fat. Look, they're gonna be bullied. Or I've never been fat. I remember all the kids who got teased before, you know, all that. You there's something in you that you need to address before you address your kid. And then I think you need help in doing it. Look, you know, we all need help. We need help to do our hair. You know, we go to hairdressers, we need help to keep our teeth healthy, we go to dentists. So what's wrong with going to someone like Wendy or turning to someone like Wendy and saying, How should I do this? Because there are people out there who have the knowledge and the experience and the compassion and the empathy who can help you do the right thing at the right way. So that's what I say.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Thank you.

Lisa Fipps: Thank you. You do great work.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Well, and and I thank you, and I'm gonna say I'm not paying Lisa, but maybe I should. so but I mean it it's so powerful to be able to say that there are other options that are available. And so we are bombarded as individuals, as parents, I'm gonna say as doctors, as there's a right way to be able to have conversations to raise a healthy family, to be able to think about like what's within standards, all the different layers that we have here. And there is help available to be able to say, you know what, this isn't working for me. It's not working for my family. It's not working for my patients. It's time to really kind of broaden out and say what what else is possible here? And so that that's what I hear in what you're sharing. And so thank Thank you. So very much.

Lisa Fipps: Thank you. You gave me an opportunity to reach some more people, so thank you.

Wendy Schofer, MD: Doggone it. There we go. Absolutely. Hey, so by the way, can we just talk about this for a minute? while I'm a doctor, I am most definitely not your doctor. This is my disclaimer that I get to add to all of my episodes. Our conversation here is for fun, for connection, for being able to amplify stories and perspectives. It is not medical advice. So please keep your doctor. Tell them I said hi. Tell them about family focus and absolutely positively tell them to go read Starfish by Lisa Phipps. This is gonna be the best disclaimer I've ever done on any episode ever. So thank you so very much. And to all of the parents that are joining us today, thank you so much for being here with us. you are leading the change that you want to see for yourself and for your entire family. Mm, so much love to you.