Published at 12:43 am. Updated at 6:18 a.m.
Phil Roy meets us at a restaurant in Terrebonne, just a stone’s throw from his new home. “Sorry for the delay, I just got back from an ultrasound scan,” he apologizes, justifying this five minute delay.
Phil Roy and his lover Virginie left Montreal a month ago to settle in the Northern Crown. There they will raise their two-year-old daughter Billie and her little sister, who is due to be born in just three weeks. “I can’t wait, I can’t wait,” Phil confesses to Roy before sitting down.
So it’s a big time for the comedian and presenter, who has to reconcile this step, the arrival of a child, but also the culmination of a project he has been working on since the beginning of the year. In “The Weight of Appearance,” a 45-minute documentary airing September 28 on Crave, Phil Roy goes on a quest to feel good in his body and with food.
“It all started with a dinner with friends,” explains Phil Roy. A friend – Francesca [Gauthier], who produced the documentary, asked me about one of my armadillos,” he says, pointing to the armadillo in question on his arm. “I told him he was a big guy on his knees crying because I’m always the big guy crying. »
Phil Roy points out that in society we associate weight with health, physical appearance, exercise, the quality of food, control, willpower, in short, “the totality of ourselves, a person.”
If we do nothing, we will continue to maintain this connection in the society in which my children and your children grow up.
Phil Roy
Does this approach also apply to his daughters? “Certainly. It’s the record of courage in my fire,” says Phil Roy with a piercing gaze.
The myth of losing weight
The second in a family of three, Phil Roy grew up in Laval in a…thin family. The documentary begins with a meeting with his mother, who also demonstrates great authenticity. When Phil Roy was 14, his parents took him to a nutritionist. His mother admits that she was afraid that he would suffer under the eyes of others.
“We had a small 8-ounce jar at home. “I could drink this milk,” remembers Phil Roy, spreading his thumb and forefinger. My little brother studied sports. And he ate, he ate…”
In the documentary, psychologist Stéphanie Léonard, who specializes in the treatment of eating disorders, explains that people suffering from binge eating disorder have one thing in common: when they were young, they were forced into the myth that they needed to lose weight . “Being the chubby one in the gang, I didn’t think it was a big deal until the adults told me, ‘You’ve eaten enough,'” says Phil Roy, who remembers his teenage crisis with food I finally stopped training.
And what hurts him most, he admits in the documentary, is the realization that he would be willing to do the same to his daughters.
I don’t want my daughters to experience my body adventure, but most of all I don’t want them to have a father who is crazy about it.
Phil Roy
Parents are concerned with two discourses: that of the anti-fatphobia movement, which strives for the acceptance of fat bodies, but also that of observers such as triathlete Pierre Lavoie, who warns about the effects of lack of exercise and obesity. “I was less healthy when I was 307 pounds, and I’ll never deny that,” says Phil Roy, who lost weight so he could train standing. “I don’t want to deny the effects of being overweight; I just want to give it the space it should have. »
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Phil Roy
According to him, the two discourses can coexist. “I think we could tell young people to forget about losing weight, forget about the scales and look outside: maybe there’s something that interests them and gets them excited about sport,” says Phil Roy, who says we can’t do that In this case, overweight young people are to blame. He remembers the hand that his brother extended to him one day, inviting him to run (or rather, walk) with him. “I lived at 4760, we didn’t go to 4810.” But it was what he needed to rediscover the desire to move.
How will he treat his daughters? Phil Roy doesn’t have any answers yet, just food for thought. Psychologist Stéphanie Léonard advises parents to build a filter around their child to protect them from social prejudices and to value them. One thing is clear: Phil Roy wants to continue his psychological support so that his daughters will one day be ready to receive advice if necessary and to move forward. He knows it: the search he has undertaken is the search of his life.
“When I leave here soon, I will box for an hour and run five kilometers because we are getting food tonight. But now I’m aware of it, I admit it to myself and I’m trying to work on it. “This is a step forward,” says Phil Roy, who hopes to one day be able to do sports completely without weight.
“If I can close a few valves in the dam and there are only three or four leaks left, I’ll be super happy,” he concludes. Maybe my daughters will develop it, but I won’t have passed it on to them. »
On Crave on September 28th