To my knowledge, none of the women in this article have diabetes, but many of you do and are or are not attempting to lose weight to help control your diabetes. Whatever the circumstance, fat shaming is never okay.
Body language
Four of Canada’s most prominent TV personalities talk out loud about body shaming, in an effort to make a world where words can’t be used as weapons.
by Rani Sheen
Photography by Erin Leydon
Mar. 6, 2024
Fat. Flattering. Plus size. Petite. Big boned. Curvy.
The way we talk about women’s bodies is important, because as women, we have to live in them. And women in the public eye face direct body commentary that most of us receive subliminally — especially when their bodies don’t conform to the beauty ideals of the day. It serves to diminish and distract, but for a new wave of women on camera, talking loudly and proudly about their relationship to their bodies is proving a force for change.
As one of very few plus-size women at the forefront of national TV, “Breakfast Television” co-host Meredith Shaw is one of them — and she’s committed to making room for more. “Before, it was a sort of shadowed existence; the conversation wasn’t being had,” she said. “I do now have a voice that is heard, but there were many years when I didn’t. I think it’s important, when you do have that, that you’re not the only one having these conversations because the whole point of stepping into representation is to extend that forward.”
There’s power in numbers. “We’re no longer dealing with these feelings alone,” said Shaw. “There’s a group effort.” So let’s talk about it. Shaw, Cityline host Tracy Moore, Sports Illustrated model Lauren Chan and Great Canadian Baking Show host Ann Pornel join the chat.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
TRACY MOORE
In mid-January, a time when lifestyle media is often focusing on detoxes and self-improvement—usually code for getting thinner—daytime show “Cityline” took a different tack. Host Tracy Moore went on air and announced her weight, 185 pounds, as four other women with the same number joined her onstage. “We are all in the overweight and obese scale,” Moore said. “According to my BMI, I’m supposed to be between 118 and 156 pounds.” No weight-loss advice followed, just analysis of how that number makes women feel.
The term “obese” hit hard in this context. “Obese sounds like a dirty word, it has gravitas,” Moore told me a week later. “Like, we’ve looked in the annals of medicine and you are obese, and if you’re obese you’re going to die.”
Moore, a fitness fanatic, worried about saying her number on TV. “All of these things started to swirl around in my mind: Does it mean that I’m an unhealthy person because I’m at 185? Does it mean that I should not ever be talking about health?” she said. “I had to unpack all of that for myself and say, hold on a second. The message we’re trying to send to women here is that that number is actually irrelevant.”
“When I find my way back to my community and I’m outside of the television world, my body is not an issue.”
Countless viewers reached out to tell her how powerful the episode was. “I knew it was going to be impactful. I didn’t know it was going to be this impactful,” said Moore. “I was happy that people didn’t say, ‘Oh my gosh, 185, you’re a monster.’”
What some did and often do say is that they could help her “fix” this. “Some people say it out of love, like, ‘I love everything you represent, but if you could just have more protein and vegetables in your diet, it would be so much better for you.’ And it’s like, ‘Oh, you missed the whole plot, honey.’”
On Tracy Moore: Mugler jumpsuit, Alaïa shoes, thebay.com/the-room. Michelle Ross earrings, mnross.com. Birks ring, maisonbirks.com
Moore did spend many years actively trying to be thinner. “When I went into the television industry, I did not see myself represented in terms of race or body size,” she said. “I thought, I need to give myself the best chance possible. I cannot change my race, I can’t change my colour, nor do I want to, so let me try and fit into the box every way I can.”
She whittled herself from a size 14 during her Master of Journalism to a size 8. “I got myself all the way down to a size 4 at one point, and around that time I was getting the most offers. I was being flown out to New York to interview at ABC and NBC; I had a CNN recruiter interested in me.”
For Moore, the source of body pressure was always clear, and it wasn’t her upbringing. “I grew up in a culture where once a year we have a big parade and it doesn’t matter if you’re 26 or 60, you’re in a bikini outside at Caribana,” she said. “There’s something about growing up around that amount of nudity and body acceptance that I find is very healthy. When I find my way back to my community and I’m outside of the television world, my body is not an issue.”
Moore started at “Cityline” in 2008, when her first child was six months old, and stayed on top of her weight. With her second pregnancy, she gained more, and found herself consumed with thoughts of what and when she “could” eat.
Now, at 49, her focus has shifted, and the show reflects it. “I’m starting to see the symptoms of perimenopause and the body is changing; it’s getting bigger and I’m caring less. Some days I wake up and think, ‘but I want to look how I looked back then.’ But other days I feel great,” she said. “It’s already taken so much energy. How much more energy is it going to take?”
MEREDITH SHAW
When Meredith Shaw landed in one of Canadian talk TV’s most prominent chairs last September, as co-host of “Breakfast Television,” she noticed that viewers who took issue with her stance on the topic of the day would often bring up her body. “It’s like this: ‘I disagree with you and I didn’t like your hair’ or ‘you need to lose weight,’ or way worse,” Shaw said. “It’s something people think they can hurt me with. I think before, when I was having a lot of trouble, it would have stopped me in my tracks. Now I can kind of remove who I am from what they think I look like.”
Body scrutiny has been a consistent theme throughout Shaw’s career. “This conversation seems to be something that follows me, because I show up in spaces that people might not expect someone who looks like me to show up in,” she said.
“I’ve worked hard to be in harmony with my body. I’m proud of this journey that we’ve been on together.”
In fact, Shaw has been working on camera since she was 14, as part of the early wave of plus-size models, alongside future stars like supermodel Ashley Graham. There were positive experiences, when body differences were genuinely celebrated, and times when it felt more like being othered.
It wasn’t an easy road. “I fell prey to a lot of pressures early on and really struggled with eating and eating disorders,” Shaw said. She remembers having to shop for clothes in plus-size stores as a teen, because mainstream retailers didn’t carry her size, and hiding the bags on the way home so the labels wouldn’t show. “Now I’m so proud to work with those brands, model and design for them,” she said. “It’s such a shift.”
On Meredith Shaw: Mugler dress, ssense.ca. H&M shoes, hm.com. Michelle Ross earrings, mnross.com
The term “plus size” used to be a difficult one for Shaw. “When I was growing up, ‘plus size’ made me feel different, like I was on the other side of size,” she said. She advocated to be referred to as a “curve” model instead. (Not “curvy”: “There’s something intrusive and intimate about ‘curvy’ that feels inappropriate at times. Curve is more of a category.”)
Much of the language around women’s bodies is loaded, and Shaw is keen to parse it. “‘Fat,’ that’s a tough one; I can’t say it doesn’t snap a little bit for me. But I love hearing other people claim that word,” she said. “‘Big boned’—I feel like that’s such a weird description. I don’t know what my bones are like; I think it’s the stuff on top of my bones you’re talking about. And ‘flattering,’ that’s code for thinner, framing weight loss as positive and weight gain as negative.”
A frequent line of commentary on conversations like this one is: She’s such a successful woman, why keep focusing on her body? “I love that you are bringing this up because this is something that I have heard as well: You are so much more than your body,” said Shaw. “For me, it comes down to this mantra: I am and I am not my body. Who I am and my purpose in life, why I’m in the job I’m in and why I’m in the relationship I’m in, has nothing to do with my body and its size. But on the other hand, I’ve worked hard to be in harmony with my body. I’m proud of this journey that we’ve been on together. And it is of note that a woman in a plus-size body is on national television every day. Because when a kid sees that, it feels like things are possible.”
LAUREN CHAN
Last April, Canadian model Lauren Chan became the first queer, plus-size woman to pose for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. How did she prep for it? Emotionally, mostly. “I can’t speak highly enough of talk therapy. It changed my life in so many ways and prepared me for a lot of the things that came my way — like being a public figure on Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, which is a platform largely focused on the ideal woman’s body,” she said.
Still, she was shocked by the response, particularly to a video the magazine posted, in which Chan spoke about how beauty ideals change every few years and thus aren’t real. The content was syndicated widely, beyond Chan’s “echo chamber” of friends and followers. “The comments ranged from what they thought were well-written comedic bits about going to the buffet to racist remarks and transphobic slurs.”
“Being gay on the internet, being in a bigger body on the internet, being a woman on the internet — with an opinion about that — puts you in the line of fire.”
Chan drew on her years spent processing body shame. “I was hurt and embarrassed and shameful. And I digested that. And then I moved through the comments from a place of curiosity, research and duty,” she said. Many of them appeared to come from middle-aged white men with Bible verses in their Instagram bio (“we all know the type.”) “It was important to me to find out how this type of person feels, thinks, behaves online, treats people.” Her theory: those who abide faithfully by social conventions become incensed when they see those who don’t being rewarded with opportunities. “Being gay on the internet, being in a bigger body on the internet, being a woman on the internet — with an opinion about that — puts you in the line of fire for those folks.”
On Lauren Chan: Dion Lee dress, ssense.ca. Giuseppe Zanotti shoes, thebay.com/the-room. Michelle Ross earrings, ring, mnross.com
A decade ago, those rewards and opportunities weren’t there. “When I started my career, there was still a very strong plus-size ideal — it was white, and it was an hourglass figure. Plus-size models were often padded so that they had wider hips and a smaller waist,” Chan said. Her modelling career didn’t take off until 2020, when conversations took place about anti-Asian hate and the need for more diversity in fashion. In the meantime, Chan focused on fashion editing, then founded the luxury workwear brand Henning in 2018, which was acquired by Universal Standard in 2023.
Henning’s offerings are available in sizes 12-26, and that’s how she chose to describe the brand, as opposed to using euphemistic descriptors for bigger bodies. “I as a rule say what I mean without judgment or morality,” she said. “I say I’m a size 14 model, because I don’t want to buy into the emotion that the industry places on size.”
Illustrating her point that beauty standards are arbitrary and changeable, in the past year a “thin but super curvy” size ideal embodied by the Kardashians has given way to an even thinner ideal that recalls the 1990s “waif,” alongside the rise of Ozempic in Hollywood. “Though there are a lot of conversations right now about body diversity taking a step back, I don’t believe that to be true,” said Chan. “The fact that we are saying, ‘Oh, red flag, let’s talk about that’ is not something that would have happened 10 years ago. We would have let it slide. We now have a better baseline to deal with those dips.”
ANN PORNEL
Ann Pornel did not dream of being the host of “The Great Canadian Baking Show,” a face on billboards and subway ads. “The fact that this is even my career, that I’m an on-camera person getting these opportunities—I never thought that existed,” she said. “And that’s because I live in a plus body.”
She did dream about making people laugh, though, about bringing “a little bit of joy” into the world. She set her sights on Second City. “Second City is all about point of view. It’s about satire, political and social opinions,” she said. At the time, she was one of very few, if any, plus-size women of colour at the comedy institution, and when she finally made it to the main stage, she wanted her material to reflect that. “As you grow and realize the things you do might have an impact for someone else, the more you’re willing to speak on different matters. And I can’t think of something more personal than body size.”
“You couldn’t possibly objectify me; I am too loud to be just an object. I am a person with a brain, a mouth, a heart. My body houses those things and I’ll talk about her as much as I want to.”
And talk about it she does. “As women, we are so used to objectification, especially plus women — there’s even more scrutiny on your body. Your body senses it, you can feel it,” she said. “That’s why I’m always talking about my body. You couldn’t possibly objectify me; I am too loud to be just an object. I am a person with a brain, a mouth, a heart. My body houses those things and I’ll talk about her as much as I want to.”
While Second City made Pornel a familiar face around Toronto, “The Great Canadian Baking Show” took her national.
On Ann Pornel: Jacquemus dress, ssense.ca. Saint Laurent shoes, vspconsignment.com. Birks earrings, ring, maisonbirks.com
“I never thought I would be the host of a food show,” Pornel said. “I wasn’t sure that the world was ready to accept a bigger body and not be like, ‘Oh, she’s eating all the cakes.” Happily, aside from the usual trolls on Twitter, which Pornel left with relief when it became X, she hasn’t seen much of that commentary. “Sometimes they’ll find me. But ultimately, I’ve always believed that’s a you problem, not a me problem. Call it delusion—I love to live in the delulu. I’ve always looked at my own face and body with a, ‘Hey, she’s pretty good. What’s everyone’s problem?’”
In fact, the feedback she receives most often focuses on her colourful wardrobe, her often-changing pastel hair. “My DMs are filled with moms and young women going, ‘I wish I could wear what you wear,’” she said. “And that’s why I’m trying to model what life could be if you weren’t so worried about, or rightfully afraid of, the opinions of other people.”
This approach isn’t just for TV; it extends to her personal community too. “I always point out that I’m fat and Filipina because for so long and still for so many people, being fat is a very negative thing in Filipino culture,” Pornel said. “As a kid, I had titas who would pinch the chub when hugging me, and remind me in all of the ways that I had extra body fat on me. I didn’t like those titas. I would say it’s true for a lot of Asian cultures: they want you to be skinny, small, demure, light-skinned. I am the opposite of all of that. So I like to take up space and be that person, for someone else to be like, ‘Well, she’s doing it and she’s fine.’”
