Embrace Every Body: Uniting for Systemic Equity

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[00:00:45] Hello there and welcome to another episode of HIT Like a Girl podcast. My name is

[00:01:01] Joy Rios. I am this show's host. This is a show where we talk about how complicated the world of healthcare

[00:01:07] is. I liken it to a 30,000 piece puzzle and each one of our guests gets to bring on their area of

[00:01:13] expertise and share their puzzle piece so we get a better picture of the whole big thing. So I'm

[00:01:19] very excited for today's guest. I'm going to give you a minute to introduce yourself. Kate, please

[00:01:24] tell us all about you.

[00:01:25] Thank you, Joy. Hi everyone. My name is Kate Navarrete. I am a 19 year old college sophomore currently

[00:01:32] studying at Emory University originally from the DC area. I'm the founder and executive director of

[00:01:38] Body Positive Alliance, which is a nonprofit that I started back in 2020 to promote the fair

[00:01:44] treatment representation and systemic equity of all bodies regardless of background,

[00:01:53] appearance or other identity. And I'm a really passionate body positive advocate. I'm really

[00:02:00] committed to promoting greater inclusivity in pop culture. And otherwise, thank you, Joy, for

[00:02:05] having me. I'm excited to talk with you today.

[00:02:07] I am thrilled. So first of all, I can't believe how young you are and how much you have

[00:02:12] actually accomplished in your short time. I was thinking this morning, I'm like, I think I'm more

[00:02:16] than twice your age. Holy cow, you've done quite a bit in your life. Can you talk to me

[00:02:21] and our audience about how did you get involved in this? And what started you like, what gave you

[00:02:26] the impetus to start a Body Positivity Alliance? And it sounds like it was something that

[00:02:31] started when you were in high school. Is that accurate?

[00:02:34] I had a personal struggle with body image, which I think really motivated me to do this

[00:02:38] line of work, which for a lot of other people in this space feel find is a common thread

[00:02:43] between most of us. I entered high school and developed two eating disorders. And as an athlete,

[00:02:53] and as someone who had considered themselves an athlete their whole life in this being a

[00:02:57] really prominent fixture of my identity, when my eating disorder started to get in the way

[00:03:02] of my performance, I found myself at a loss for deciding between my sport or my recovery.

[00:03:11] And I also felt a lack of inspiration because when you've identified with one thing your

[00:03:17] whole life, it's pretty difficult to pivot to a different set of interests or a different

[00:03:21] set of beliefs. And so I really prioritized my recovery during this time and the pandemic

[00:03:27] sort of forced that anyways, you know, not being able to compete anymore. But I gave

[00:03:33] up swimming in a completely competitive capacity and still maintain the commitment

[00:03:39] otherwise and more the fun side of things, the team aspect. But I had previously started a

[00:03:45] body positive club at my high school when I was transitioning out of the sport. And I really

[00:03:50] wanted this to be a place where people could discuss what they thought about body

[00:03:56] positivity, how body image had affected their lives and just really be a safe space to

[00:04:01] convene and talk about it. This was something that I noticed that my peers alongside

[00:04:06] myself were struggling with and we really needed a space to talk about that. And so when

[00:04:11] the pandemic hit, I really wanted to be able to build upon the work that I was doing at my

[00:04:16] high school in some ways. And body positivity was becoming really prominent on social

[00:04:21] media, especially with platforms like TikTok, which really took off during the pandemic.

[00:04:26] And so I started doing some online advocacy work, ended up getting an article of mine

[00:04:32] published at 15 in a UK magazine. And after that, really, really became passionate about

[00:04:38] pop culture inclusivity. After a couple months working in the online space, I really

[00:04:44] wanted to latch onto something more substantive. And I ended up getting the idea

[00:04:50] to expand my club that I'd started at my high school to neighboring high schools and

[00:04:57] using my network as a swimmer who had friends from different schools and different parts of

[00:05:02] the country. I took it upon myself to reach out to these people, do some external

[00:05:07] sourcing and ended up gaining interest at a few neighboring high schools to launch

[00:05:12] these clubs. And once I realized that there was a demand, I think it was really easy

[00:05:16] to recruit team members and think of it more as an organization and an umbrella, if

[00:05:23] anything. And so at that point, it was probably around January of 2021 when I started

[00:05:29] bringing on team members. It was around that time also where I started my own podcast

[00:05:33] focused on the subject. And after that point, we've just continued to grow. And now

[00:05:38] being a sophomore in college, four years later, I'm still running the organization

[00:05:43] and it's now a 501 C3. And I am so proud of how much we've been able to spread

[00:05:50] our mission and now bringing it to the elementary school level through an

[00:05:53] anti-bias program. And yeah, that's a little bit more about how it's been.

[00:05:58] That is so impressive. I have a lot of questions and one is around social media.

[00:06:03] Like that I feel like that is a conversation that is in the general public when we

[00:06:07] talk about its effect on young people. And I imagine with filters and the way that

[00:06:14] people change their appearance and AI and how much of that is part of your guys'

[00:06:19] conversations. And is it something that you are cognizant and aware of the effect

[00:06:25] that it's having on you as it's happening?

[00:06:28] And I say that just because we're all influenced by technology and what we see

[00:06:35] on our small screens and big screens and whatnot.

[00:06:38] But like, it's hard to have the awareness that you're also being influenced

[00:06:43] by it and how it's affecting you in some way positive or negative.

[00:06:47] I would just love to know how that conversation shows up.

[00:06:50] Right. It's a huge conversation at our organization, especially since all of the team members.

[00:06:55] I was joking in our previous call.

[00:06:57] I think I'm the oldest team member and I'm 19.

[00:07:01] This conversation is something that's really, really important to our generation.

[00:07:05] And we understand how much of an impact social media has on each of our body images.

[00:07:10] I got on social media when I was nine and that was around 2014.

[00:07:16] And that's pretty much when social media started to blow up.

[00:07:19] But at that point, there was so little research on it.

[00:07:22] So I've really grown up in this guinea pig generation where we were too old

[00:07:30] to have so many regulations around social media, but too young to have avoided

[00:07:35] social media altogether.

[00:07:37] In a lot of ways, it feels like, you know, that screwed us over a little bit,

[00:07:40] but we make do.

[00:07:42] I think talking about social media and body image is incredibly important

[00:07:46] because it is something that can hinder not only our personal body image,

[00:07:53] but also our interpersonal relationships.

[00:07:55] We are seeing people who are in our lives or around our lives,

[00:08:00] whether it's our classmates or our friends from a sport

[00:08:04] or our friends from camp or whatever it may be.

[00:08:09] We're seeing them in this highlighted way that doesn't actually reflect

[00:08:12] the day to day interactions or happenings of that person's life.

[00:08:16] And so I know in my personal life, it occasionally leads to resentment

[00:08:21] in those personal relationships, right?

[00:08:23] I don't think it's necessarily the healthiest thing for maintaining

[00:08:27] relationships, even though it is supposed to be this source of connection.

[00:08:30] And technology as a whole has had a huge impact on the way

[00:08:33] our generation communicates and also the way that we communicate

[00:08:39] and express ourselves and what we hold to be sacred.

[00:08:44] And I think there's a huge lack of privacy that comes with that

[00:08:48] and also a huge lack of reality.

[00:08:51] There's this really harmful aspect of social media

[00:08:56] that can make things look so real and so authentic.

[00:09:01] But behind the scenes, that person's teeth is, you know, they've been whitened.

[00:09:05] Their skin has been smoothed.

[00:09:07] Their waist has been slimmed.

[00:09:08] And these are things that we're not necessarily always cognizant of.

[00:09:12] Right. Photoshop isn't always the obvious kind of face

[00:09:16] tune fails we mock like it is.

[00:09:18] It's everywhere.

[00:09:19] And I think this is something that when I was a young person, I engaged with.

[00:09:23] I was altering my physical appearance on social media

[00:09:27] because I felt like I had to.

[00:09:29] And now being a bit more of a veteran user of social media

[00:09:36] and still having a very complicated and complex relationship with these platforms

[00:09:41] and typically trying to avoid them altogether, even though that's impossible.

[00:09:45] But I don't use filters.

[00:09:47] I don't do any sort of alterations.

[00:09:51] I think I've noticed that it doesn't make me feel good about myself when I do that.

[00:09:56] And I also would prefer to put content out there that doesn't spread that.

[00:10:00] But at the same time, I understand that it's a really nuanced issue

[00:10:05] for a lot of people.

[00:10:06] And as someone who's really passionate about photography,

[00:10:09] I understand why someone may want to apply a filter to their photo.

[00:10:14] I think overall, I tend to be pretty opposed to physical alterations,

[00:10:20] but it's a bit more of a blurry line when it comes to creative expression.

[00:10:24] That conversation comes up a lot.

[00:10:25] It's something that we talk about a lot on the team

[00:10:28] and we make a lot of content on our platforms about just because it is so relevant

[00:10:33] to our generation.

[00:10:35] I know it's something that our clubs talk about a lot.

[00:10:37] And even now, I just started a chapter of the organization on my campus.

[00:10:41] And that's been a topic of discussion that's come up very frequently, too,

[00:10:45] just because it is this unavoidable thing within the scope of Gen Z

[00:10:50] and life as a whole now.

[00:10:52] I mean, I can imagine being excited as a young person to get online

[00:10:57] and be part of this bigger social media conversation.

[00:11:00] But even over the last decade with your experience,

[00:11:03] I'm sure that that's ebbed and flowed of just like, OK,

[00:11:06] maybe you've been overexcited and just like want to get super involved

[00:11:10] and throw yourself out there.

[00:11:11] But, you know, in the best light, I'm curious about

[00:11:14] how do you frame those conversations because they will likely be different

[00:11:19] for elementary school kids, as you said.

[00:11:21] And then now university kids, you know, like they're all in different

[00:11:25] stages in their life.

[00:11:26] Their ability to participate and post is going to be different.

[00:11:30] And I'm sure the folks that they follow and what they're consuming

[00:11:34] is different. And those are big conversations for young people

[00:11:37] to be having. So share, please share.

[00:11:41] Yeah, at the university and high school level,

[00:11:45] we emphasize that social media is a really integral part of our lives.

[00:11:50] I know I use social media for club communication.

[00:11:53] Like it's something that is unavoidable at this point.

[00:11:57] You know, when I remember my parents are both Gen X through and through.

[00:12:02] And growing up, I would complain about social media and say, oh, like,

[00:12:08] it's so exhausting or it makes me feel bad.

[00:12:10] And my parents would just say, OK, then just get off of it.

[00:12:14] And I would say to them, well, that's not really how it works.

[00:12:18] Like I use social media to communicate.

[00:12:21] I use social media to feel in the loop.

[00:12:23] You know, there's different it meets different needs that

[00:12:26] for my generation is really, really, really important.

[00:12:31] And I have spent time off of social media before and enjoyed it.

[00:12:35] But I think the way that we frame conversations

[00:12:39] is that you may not be able to get off of social media,

[00:12:43] but there are ways that you can improve your experience on it,

[00:12:46] whether it's moderating the content you see, being a more cognizant consumer,

[00:12:51] following people who make you feel good.

[00:12:53] Again, just techniques to manage usage rather than eliminate it altogether.

[00:12:58] Because I think again, that all or nothing approach

[00:13:00] can be really detrimental and unhelpful in this circumstance.

[00:13:05] And at the elementary school level, it's interesting.

[00:13:07] We don't talk about that as much.

[00:13:10] We often talk more about like behaviors when engaging with media,

[00:13:14] as opposed to specifically social media.

[00:13:17] Our lesson plans incorporate a lot of techniques

[00:13:22] in order to be able to be a more conscious consumer.

[00:13:25] Like, what is this advertisement saying?

[00:13:27] You know, what does this make you think of?

[00:13:31] And we hope that by establishing those foundational

[00:13:34] mindsets, we're able to have them develop

[00:13:38] maybe when they're in leader elementary school or middle school

[00:13:41] and getting on social media, hopefully have better behaviors

[00:13:45] and techniques to be able to mitigate that.

[00:13:48] You said something to me when we talked a little bit ago,

[00:13:51] and it stuck with me.

[00:13:52] And I'm just like, wow, that is so kind of brilliant.

[00:13:55] And I'd love to hear more about it where you said scale is easy,

[00:14:00] but retention is the hard part because you have grown this,

[00:14:04] you know, like you had mentioned, it started at your school.

[00:14:06] And how many campuses now is the body positivity alliance

[00:14:11] and where are all you guys all having these conversations?

[00:14:15] It's it's quite extensive.

[00:14:18] We it's grown a lot.

[00:14:20] I want to say I don't have an exact number off the top of my head,

[00:14:24] but I'd say we're definitely at over 30 at this point campuses.

[00:14:30] And a lot of them are concentrated in that DC, Maryland, Virginia area

[00:14:34] where I'm originally from.

[00:14:35] But we also have chapters in most of the United States,

[00:14:40] I'd say, and we've begun expanding internationally to shout out

[00:14:45] to our programming team. They're awesome.

[00:14:47] I need to update our little map on the website that's on me.

[00:14:49] But yeah, it's the retention aspect is difficult, right?

[00:14:53] Managing managing chapters is difficult.

[00:14:56] You don't want to be overbearing.

[00:14:58] You want to allow for some aspect of autonomy when you're letting,

[00:15:02] especially people who are around your age operate their own thing.

[00:15:06] Like, I know these people are capable and they're passionate.

[00:15:08] And I want to give them that that privilege.

[00:15:12] But it's also, you know, you want people to be engaged

[00:15:14] members of a community and that requires levels of accountability

[00:15:17] that we're still working to establish.

[00:15:20] Again, those are conversations we have really frequently on the team.

[00:15:23] Like, what criteria do we need to set in order to retain chapters?

[00:15:27] You know, what does it look like for them to be engaged with us?

[00:15:30] We've had we've had fundraisers through chapters before.

[00:15:33] We've done special chapter community events.

[00:15:37] And, you know, those are things that can be incentives

[00:15:40] for people to join our community on a deeper level beyond just,

[00:15:42] you know, the follow on Instagram.

[00:15:44] And so I think it kind of goes hand in hand,

[00:15:47] like being able to incentivize while also holding people accountable.

[00:15:51] Well, you're also giving young people quite a bit of responsibility, right?

[00:15:55] They I would imagine it's similar to a job or even sort of just club.

[00:15:59] Would you consider it? It's called an alliance.

[00:16:02] But is it does it function as a club meeting?

[00:16:05] How often do you guys all meet and have these conversations?

[00:16:09] Like, what is the cadence?

[00:16:10] The team meets very often.

[00:16:11] We have like a couple of meetings per week at the organization level.

[00:16:16] And then our chapters operate independently from us,

[00:16:19] but they may meet on a weekly or biweekly basis similar to like

[00:16:23] any other university or high school club.

[00:16:26] I know the chapter that I lead now at Emory meets on a biweekly basis.

[00:16:31] There may be a couple more meetings if there's a special event of some sort.

[00:16:34] But at the organization, again, we're meeting pretty,

[00:16:37] pretty regularly and always on Slack, communicating back and forth.

[00:16:41] There's just a lot to get done, as you can imagine.

[00:16:43] I can imagine. And so what are the like you said tools

[00:16:47] and I guess like defining success, right?

[00:16:49] What would that look like?

[00:16:50] What does it look like when you're like, OK,

[00:16:53] everybody has a better understanding of what it means to have a better

[00:16:57] image of bodies and what they look like

[00:17:01] and that they're not just one shape and size that we should consider beautiful.

[00:17:05] Right. I think something that I always interpret as a measure of success

[00:17:09] is when someone may say a self-deprecating comment,

[00:17:12] but they kind of immediately like snap out of it and correct themselves.

[00:17:16] I notice that a lot.

[00:17:18] And that's when I really notice a mental shift for people.

[00:17:21] It could be, oh, you know, my hair looks so bad today.

[00:17:26] But you know what?

[00:17:27] It doesn't matter if my hair looks bad today because,

[00:17:29] you know, it's kind of that da da da da.

[00:17:31] After the fact, you know, there's always that saying that your first thought

[00:17:35] is what comes to mind, but your second thought really represents

[00:17:39] who you are and your values.

[00:17:41] And I think that corrective mentality is something that I always look for

[00:17:44] when I'm, you know, trying to categorize or characterize rather progress.

[00:17:50] I also think having competencies

[00:17:53] around social justice issues that we discuss is really, really important,

[00:17:58] whether that's concepts relating to fat phobia,

[00:18:01] the interpolation of fat phobia and racism,

[00:18:05] concepts related to maybe issues in the medical field

[00:18:10] that can get a little bit more dicey when it comes to this,

[00:18:12] you know, thinking about the history of the body mass index and,

[00:18:16] you know, that sort of thing.

[00:18:17] Tell me about that.

[00:18:18] What do you know about the history of the body mass index?

[00:18:20] Oh, OK.

[00:18:22] So the VMI, as far as I am concerned, was created.

[00:18:27] I would have to pull up one of our blogs about this,

[00:18:30] but created in the late 19th century by a Belgian astronomer

[00:18:35] and originally used as a bell curve measure

[00:18:40] for weight and height distribution among white men

[00:18:42] and then was later adopted in the 70s by,

[00:18:46] I want to say, the World Health Organization to establish

[00:18:50] a correlation between height and weight among all people.

[00:18:54] And that's kind of been used as an indicator of health ever since.

[00:18:58] I take issue with the lack of changes being made

[00:19:02] to the system that don't account for people of color or women, especially.

[00:19:07] I take issue with the lack of consideration

[00:19:12] for body fat versus muscle mass,

[00:19:15] for general weight fluctuations,

[00:19:18] for the fact that everyone weighs something different

[00:19:22] and your blood work is probably a better indicator of how healthy you are.

[00:19:26] It's a very Western way of thinking about health.

[00:19:30] And I think that it's perpetuated a lot of bias.

[00:19:33] And I would like to deconstruct it.

[00:19:36] What happens when you see things in the like, even in the institutions?

[00:19:40] Because thinking about systems in place, when you're like

[00:19:43] when you go to the doctor and they're looking at your BMI,

[00:19:46] do you have opinions?

[00:19:47] Do you talk to your medical staff about that too?

[00:19:50] Or where does that conversation fit in?

[00:19:53] Yeah, no, it's interesting because since I'm in eating disorder recovery now,

[00:19:57] they don't tell me my weight like we don't have conversations about weight anymore,

[00:20:02] which is awesome.

[00:20:03] But it's actually if you are listening to this and you don't know this,

[00:20:07] you don't have to get weighed at the doctor's office.

[00:20:09] That's not, you know, this legal requirement.

[00:20:13] You can choose to opt out of it.

[00:20:15] And there is some privilege being said that if you exist in a smaller body,

[00:20:19] they may be much more flexible with that decision that you're making.

[00:20:23] When I started in this line of work,

[00:20:25] I was very much still struggling with body image and with food.

[00:20:28] But I was still very vocal at the doctor's office about my thoughts on this,

[00:20:33] which I'm sure you know, I was seeing a pediatrician at the time.

[00:20:36] I was probably 16 or 17 years old.

[00:20:38] So I you can imagine this was a little annoying for them.

[00:20:41] But I was always considered more in like the quote, like healthy BMI range.

[00:20:47] And then as I got older and I just began developing as human women do,

[00:20:52] that changes.

[00:20:53] And I think that what's really interesting is that when I was

[00:20:58] at a very low point with my relationship with food in my body,

[00:21:02] I was considered, quote, healthier on the BMI scale than I am now.

[00:21:07] And I have a very healthy relationship with food and with my body.

[00:21:10] And I'm very active.

[00:21:12] And so for me, I've stopped measuring my health in terms of BMI,

[00:21:19] because I know that that's just not something that as a Hispanic woman

[00:21:23] is going to reflect my health.

[00:21:25] And I don't think again, it can be a measure of health for most people.

[00:21:30] I just don't I don't see that being viable.

[00:21:33] You brought up something that just kind of ring a bell for me, where I'm like,

[00:21:37] I can think of four people on my hand right now that have

[00:21:40] were told that when they were sickest because they had lost a lot of weight

[00:21:45] and that they in generic terms looked great,

[00:21:50] but they were like it looked their best every day.

[00:21:52] We're probably getting more compliments than they'd ever gotten before.

[00:21:55] But was it was actually when they were the least healthy. Right.

[00:21:59] That was going on with them.

[00:22:00] And it's just interesting that that dichotomy of like what we experience

[00:22:05] or what we're told to think of that looks like a healthy

[00:22:08] human being is often very different.

[00:22:10] Totally. I think this idea that thinness and health are automatically

[00:22:15] associated with one another is really problematic, because again,

[00:22:19] you can't look at a thin person and know they're healthy.

[00:22:23] That's not you don't know anything about their life, their medical history,

[00:22:27] whatever. You can't make that assumption.

[00:22:29] You can't make that assumption about people in general. Right.

[00:22:33] Someone could be the most active, perfect.

[00:22:37] I don't know if you've seen Parks and Rec, but Chris Traeger

[00:22:40] ask human being ever and may just look different

[00:22:44] than what you consider to be the quote picture of health.

[00:22:48] Our idea of health is really skewed by again, this Western ideal

[00:22:52] of someone who is thin and able bodied and white.

[00:22:55] And this often leads to again, not only bias in the medical field,

[00:23:00] but also interpersonal bias and can then lead to internalized

[00:23:05] prejudice toward people with particular bodies or, you know,

[00:23:09] self-deprecation of your own if it's not meeting this ideal.

[00:23:14] So in what ways do you feel like the

[00:23:17] I'm going to say kids, but young people that are part of the Alliance,

[00:23:21] how are you seeing their behavior change or attitudes change?

[00:23:24] Do you see them being empowered to move through the world differently?

[00:23:28] I think so. I can really only speak to the chapters that

[00:23:31] I would hope that everyone is, you know, this is working and all that great stuff.

[00:23:36] But I would say in the chapters that I've led, it's been really,

[00:23:40] really rewarding to see that progress among people.

[00:23:43] I we did a collaboration the other day with my campus's chapter

[00:23:47] with an all female fitness group and having conversations with them

[00:23:52] about what body image looks like in the fitness space

[00:23:55] and in exercise was so fascinating because they have

[00:24:00] all these feelings and all these ideas

[00:24:05] and they know what the right beliefs are and they're getting there.

[00:24:07] And if you can just fill in those last little information gaps,

[00:24:12] it can completely change someone's mentality.

[00:24:14] Like you discussed this puzzle piece earlier,

[00:24:16] and I think it's the same way with body positivity on an individual

[00:24:20] and an interpersonal and systemic level, because when you give people

[00:24:24] the access to information, it won't automatically cure

[00:24:28] what they're going through.

[00:24:29] But having knowledge is the foundation for whether it's recovery,

[00:24:34] whether it's existing in the world in a better way,

[00:24:38] that's more tolerant and accepting of all bodies or whatever the case may be, really.

[00:24:43] And I think that, again, like seeing people be able to talk out loud

[00:24:48] about this and think about things that they maybe kind of it just

[00:24:52] it's the way of the world, so to speak, is what they're thinking before.

[00:24:57] It's really cool to watch those pieces come together

[00:25:00] because it happened for me at one point.

[00:25:02] It continues to happen for me.

[00:25:05] And I love seeing it happen for other people

[00:25:08] because it can really be a weight off your shoulders.

[00:25:10] And just to know that it's not your fault.

[00:25:13] Right. Like this idea that I'm the only person struggling with body image.

[00:25:18] I'm the only one who thinks about this.

[00:25:20] This person is perfect.

[00:25:21] This person, you know, they couldn't possibly go through this.

[00:25:26] Right. And you realize that that's just not the case.

[00:25:29] Like, you don't you don't know what someone is going through

[00:25:33] and giving people the access again to that information

[00:25:35] in that community is really, really valuable.

[00:25:37] There's one last piece that I want to touch on.

[00:25:39] And I feel like you are in a unique position

[00:25:43] with this experience that you have had, that you now have evidence,

[00:25:46] real evidence that your efforts and what you do matters and makes a difference.

[00:25:52] Do you ever feel like what you do

[00:25:56] can have a much bigger impact?

[00:25:58] I think a lot of people as individuals feel like, oh, what does it matter?

[00:26:01] What do like my participation or lack of participation?

[00:26:05] Me showing up or not showing up.

[00:26:07] Like, who cares? Right.

[00:26:08] It's just I'm just a drop in the bucket.

[00:26:11] But you have evidence that your drop in the bucket

[00:26:13] is actually creating a pretty big ripple.

[00:26:16] How does that make you feel?

[00:26:17] Well, I appreciate that. First of all, I like to think that it is.

[00:26:21] Sometimes, you know, I am in college.

[00:26:24] I'm living the very normal life of a 19 year old,

[00:26:28] while also living a very not normal life as a 19 year old.

[00:26:31] And so it's a balance between the two and being so involved

[00:26:35] on my university's campus.

[00:26:36] Also, it's a matter of balancing.

[00:26:39] OK, I have this thing that I love and it's my baby

[00:26:42] and I've been with it forever.

[00:26:44] But then I also, you know, want to get involved at my school

[00:26:46] and I want to make friendships and do all these things.

[00:26:49] And so I definitely feel as though

[00:26:53] what keeps me going is that because these chapters run independently,

[00:26:58] I have the privilege of knowing that the work that I've done

[00:27:03] is helping someone who doesn't know who I am.

[00:27:07] And I think that is rewarding in and of itself. Right.

[00:27:10] There is a chapter in a state thousands of miles away from me

[00:27:14] that I don't personally know the leaders of.

[00:27:19] I don't personally know the members of.

[00:27:21] They may have no idea who I am and just be thinking to themselves,

[00:27:25] hey, this nonprofit school, I'm going to start a chapter of this. Right.

[00:27:29] No. Who you know, who cares?

[00:27:30] Who's at the face of it? Whatever.

[00:27:32] I think it's really rewarding knowing that again,

[00:27:35] I don't have to position myself in the center of something

[00:27:39] to make a positive impact,

[00:27:42] because I think I'm only one person with one story.

[00:27:46] And although that may be a story that I perceive to be worth sharing,

[00:27:52] it doesn't mean that it's everyone's story.

[00:27:55] And it doesn't mean that I can represent everyone's experiences.

[00:27:58] But being able to cultivate a diverse community

[00:28:02] will accomplish what I want it to accomplish.

[00:28:06] And it really takes a village to be able to do that.

[00:28:10] And I'm so grateful for our chapter leaders and our team

[00:28:14] and really the collective effort that goes into making this possible.

[00:28:18] And again, knowing that like there was that foundation

[00:28:22] and now someone in California could be benefiting from something

[00:28:26] that I'm doing is really, really cool.

[00:28:28] I love that so much.

[00:28:29] And it's so it rings very, very true to me as well.

[00:28:32] I just think you don't have to be at the center of it.

[00:28:34] And it's almost better if you're not like if you get to leave a legacy

[00:28:39] and you have been somebody who started really great conversations

[00:28:43] that continue on even when you're not part of it.

[00:28:46] Like I would define that as success.

[00:28:48] That's that's legendary.

[00:28:51] Definitely. And I again, I appreciate all your kindness there.

[00:28:54] Yeah, my pleasure.

[00:28:55] I mean, I'm genuinely impressed with what you're doing

[00:28:58] and would love to be able to send people your way.

[00:29:01] So on that note, if somebody wanted to start a chapter

[00:29:04] or get involved with you or just connect with you and follow your work,

[00:29:08] where would you send them?

[00:29:10] I am Kate Navarrete on LinkedIn.

[00:29:14] I'm definitely an active LinkedIn user.

[00:29:16] If you would like to connect with me personally, feel free to do it there.

[00:29:19] Otherwise, Body Positive Alliance, we're on pretty much

[00:29:22] every social media platform you can think of.

[00:29:25] We're at Body Positive Alliance on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tiktok.

[00:29:30] And we're also on Twitter slash X, not as active there, though.

[00:29:35] And yeah, we also have a website

[00:29:38] with all of this information that I've talked about and more.

[00:29:41] Body Positive Alliance dot org.

[00:29:43] If you're interested in starting a chapter or implementing

[00:29:45] the anti bias curriculum in your community,

[00:29:48] there is more information on that website.

[00:29:51] And otherwise, yeah, that's about it.

[00:29:53] Awesome, awesome, awesome.

[00:29:54] Thank you so much for everything that you're doing

[00:29:56] and the good work that you're putting out into the world

[00:29:58] and inspiring others to do the same and more of that.

[00:30:01] So I commend you and thank you for being here with me.

[00:30:05] Thank you. And thank you so much for listening, everyone.

[00:30:07] Joy, thanks for having me again.

[00:30:10] Thanks for listening.

[00:30:11] You can learn more about us or this guest by going to our website

[00:30:14] or visiting us on any of the socials with the handle Hit Like a Girl Pod.

[00:30:19] Thanks again. See you soon.

[00:30:20] Again, thank you so much for listening to the Hit Like a Girl podcast.

[00:30:24] I am truly grateful for you.

[00:30:26] And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor.

[00:30:28] Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast?

[00:30:31] Or maybe leave us a rating or review?

[00:30:33] Or if you're feeling extra generous,

[00:30:35] would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend?

[00:30:39] All those things help us podcasters out so much.

[00:30:42] I'm the show's host, Joy Rios, and I'll see you next time.