Welcome to Radio West Films and PBS Utah.

Thanks for joining us.

So the short films we're going This is how the project works.

Each year, we partner and this time we're working with Delaney Plant.

The first three films Delaney made for us were inspired by her interest in bodie and how circumstance and culture can change them.

You'll see what I mean in this first film.

It's about what happens when the pressure to sac and obey gets out of hand.

- [Videographer] So if you could just start by telling me about like, deciding to go on a mission.

And what that was like.

- Okay, yeah.

It was s And if you like brushed it on anything when you had been out tracting, the words would just slough off.

And I had three that all slough I had one blank one where it just like came off, and I had to get a new tag.

I ran into my parents' room and was like, "I'm going on a m And I like, wasn't even 18 yet.

So I was like so excited and then I had to wait for a really long time.

My gigantic collection.

I need to downsize this.

This is so heavy for no reason.

Like, I have all of my journals.

I was raised in Idaho, but the youngest of a really big family.

We were generational LDS.

So we love, I loved going to church.

I was raised going to church, reading the scriptures before school every morning.

Like, just kind of the classi like, life experience.

Like this one says, "Can't move mountains I had a companion talk about what it She made this comment on, "I would bleed out for this mission That's how important this is to me."

There was definitely this idea of like, being exhausted a Not just like, know that you did everything that you could but actually physically push yourself to limits.

Food and eating and health, and health, and losing weight was a major part of that for me.

(light music) (light music) - Your girl gained about 60 pounds on her mission.

- There's this joke that the sisters are always fighting this losing battle against weight.

- I was literally cutting the insides of my shirts because I couldn't fit my arms through them.

- God made you ugly as a sister missionary.

And that you know, oh, you gain this much weight so that you weren't as attractive.

Then when you came back it would all come - I lost about 25 pounds before I came home doing wickedly - It's implied like, be healthy, AKA be skinny, and be fit and be beautiful.

- And then we just have to realize that like missionaries, especially now, are still girls in a lot of ways Like they, yes, they're legal adults, they're 19 years old at least.

But that's still so yo - There is that ingrained idea in them just in that higher pressure situation as well of, okay, my body has to look a certain way.

I have to sacrifice everything.

I have to make sure that I give And so then comes in, maybe an eating disorder to help cope.

- You want to work as hard as possible.

You don't wanna have any weaknesses and so you, if having food or want or any of those things are perceived as weaknesses, you want to cut them out.

I wasn't thinking about like what I as much as like how much.

This says, "I had a tortilla for lunch."

And I put a heart and said, "Healing is good."

I remember getting this journal specifically to tell myself that it was healthy "I am worthy of healthy choices.

I'm grateful for my Savior.

Today's health and beauty goals is rec And it was not healthy.

And I was, sorry, one sec.

I talk about this all the time.

- [Videographer] It's hard?

- Yeah.

- When you're going on there is this additional pressure to achieve because you want to get people baptized, you wanna teach them about Jesus.

- You know, they would if you wanted success in asking abo They would tell you to, you know, skip meals if it meant that you could work more.

- My mission president fo r us missionaries that he called lose 500, gain 500.

- I'm not eating and people are getting baptized and I'm not eating.

I look really skinny.

And that w - You're supposed to deny your own body for a higher spiritual cause.

- The pressure you feel to be perfect in every way is such an immense pressure because it's the pressure of, if I am not perfectly obedient, then someone else's salvation will be on the line.

- The challenge encouraged us to focus on losing weight and eating healthy while also working to find people to teach.

- If that's how you're receivin is based on how you look, then how you look becomes of paramount importance.

- I wrote a note that said I ate too much, and then below that was a reference to study obedience - It's just so harmful to say to women, if you're skinny, you will baptize X amount of people, if you lose X amount of weight.

- And then what does that mean when she doesn't lose weight in the way that something like this has pr Does that mean that she hasn't been faithful enough?

- [Videographer] I'm curious, did you write in your with the mission president' - I don't think I did.

I went to her and told her with eating a lot and worried about it.

"Well, let's not make this, like, I wanna support you, but let's not like, overturn any stones.

We don't want you to go home or get sent home for having an eating disorder."

Or we don't want, I don't know if she said, we don't want you to get sen or don't want people to think that you have an so that you get sent home.

So that was November.

That was like five, probably I was like, "I don't wanna go home."

You know, like.

So I was, I was more careful after that.

But you know, I was already using an appetite suppressant.

I was skipping meals, I was fasting to make up for time - [Videographer] What do you mean you were more careful after that?

- So I just never talked.

I By the end of that year, by the time it got up to 18 months, I w And was not, I pretty much stopped eating.

I think I only ate saltines and tuna packets.

- It's this idea of if I can just please God in the right way through my body, then I will be perfect.

- I would restrict these items and then of course, because no one can live in that restriction for a prolonged amount of time, I would binge.

- And so now to make it right, I need to suffer.

I need to hurt and I need to reverse this, make it right, purge.

- And I relied on food, both as a comfort, and I also relied on restriction as a comfort.

- You know, damaging your body becomes what God asks of you.

- In a healthier environment, suffering might be seen more as and a warning sign that something may be off.

Whereas within the church, and specifically within a mission, suffering can be worn as a badge of honor.

- And not only were we expected to track our weight, we also were expected to report that.

- His advice to me was to start counting my calories.

- We had to wait until we had not had a period for at least six months before they'd do anything about it.

- Whatever you're doing to say, to lose weight or to change your body is always going to be harmful.

- I still struggle to listen to my body cues because I was told not to trust them.

- I still have physical struggles that I deal with every single day.

- When I came home from m I felt like my body just didn't belong to me.

- That's your body telling you that something's off and something isn't right and it was something you're just supposed to ignore.

- I am still recovering.

- Why are resources, tools, suggesti Why is there nothing?

- We can't be doing Th at is so crazy.

- In general I just say don't Do n't talk about people's bodies.

Just leave their body al If we talk about it as the body, we're missing so much of the under - I always wonder if it was easier for me to get away with it because I didn't look like somebody who people would worry about dieting.

I don't know if I've ever been as ex as I was to go on my mission, and sometimes I have to mourn the missi that I was hoping for versus the mission that I had.

There's like a, there's a righteousness in being thin.

Like there's a level of, I don't even know, like.

(light music) There's a godliness to it, I think.

(light music) When the air is bad in the Salt Lake Valley, people think differently about this place.

And even if you love it here, like Marianne, the woman in this next film does, you wonder about the costs.

It was when Marianne became pregnant that she says she really started paying attention to the qua (no audio) - And I feel like one of the most beautiful things about living in this valley is being able to see the foothills, I don't know, it makes me just really bu t when that's kind of taken away, it's really depressing, and a reminder of, I don't know, kind of the health risks, because there was no obvious sign of why my son passed away, we were still waiting for autopsy results, and he and I were going to get some genetic testing d They asked if I could answer some questions regarding my birth because they're working on a study.

They're trying to see if there's a relationship between exposure to pollution and pr When the air is bad, I mean, you physically can see it.

It's like this blanket over the mountains.

You can kind of taste the bad air, so there's kind of this pressure in my lungs or chest, 'cause it just kind of feels like everything's settling.

When I first moved here, I didn't think about air quality at all.

Moving to Salt Lake or even moving down here in Rose Park, it wasn't a thing I thought about.

So we moved here in 2007.

We really just kind of focused our house search here in this neighborhood.

We had a friend that lived here and it seemed so incredibly charm The houses seemed like a decent size, so this felt very perfect for a first home.

But this ended up being still my first home, and I've been here for 17 years.

It was literally the day we moved in, we already had two or three visitors bringing and that's just kind of been sustained.

It kind of has set the tone over the 17 years we'v I mean, there's just so many sweet, idyl that living here has provided.

(somber music) So becoming pregnant for the fi felt exciting, amazing.

We had just bought our house in 2007.

We both graduated with our bachelor's degree.

We both had really good jobs and health insurance, and you know, check, check, check, checking all the boxes of things that we had prepped for, planned for.

And so when we finally decided to try to have a baby, and that happened so fast because that's what we planned, and that's how it works, it was an incredible, amazing, happy time for sure.

And so it was just really exciting to get the house ready, and think about what kind of stroller to get.

I remember coming back from a family party, and I had not felt my baby move in some time, and I decided to make a quick appointment.

I thought it was gonna be a quick appointment.

I went alone to the midwifes and they said that there's no heartbeat.

The one thing I didn't realize is you still have to give birth 'cau that's a substantial baby.

I remember sitting on this couch actually with my husband and just sort of kind of coming together, and realizing we have to go to t We have to go tonight.

This isn't something we can delay, and kind of making that choice, and making that drive all the way to the hospital was quite heavy.

And it was kind of literally probably the worst couple days Coming home from the hospital I had family members, I had and check on me or bring me meals, which is really quite sweet.

But really, I also just kind of wanted to be left alo reflect and think about what happened, and I mean, obviously feeling grief and sadness first and foremost, that was the number one thing I felt.

But I also remember feeling like I was embarrassed and I felt like a failure that somehow I wasn't able to do this.

It could have been a week or two weeks later, but getting a call from the University of Utah asking me if I could answer some questions about this survey.

They were potentially doing research on exposure to pol to see if there's a correlation.

And I don't remember what the questions were or anything like that, but after I felt really kind of unsettled knowing that, 'cause that wasn't something I thought was a thing.

It just kind of brought to attention that there are things out there that maybe could be impacting people's lives in other ways and their hea Yeah, I don't understand it.

I don't understand why maybe there isn't more concern.

(melancholic music) I love my neighborhood.

I love my neighborhood I love the people.

I love the house that I ha I love access to all the different environmental opportunities, the mountains, the reservoirs, the parks, the national park, state parks, but something else I've been thinking about is it doesn't matter, I mean, sure if I move I'd save myself, protect myself, my family, but there would just be another body that would come replace me.

It doesn't really answer the bigger issue, doesn't solve it if I leave, and not saying I'm going to change the world, but I would hope more people would be aware and concerned and even the people we elect, that they would be more aware and concerned about the place where we all live together.

And honestly, I don't think it would be fair for me to have to leave.

Like, it just do Like, why do I have to, and it doesn't help solve the issue 'cause it's bigger than that.

(melancholic music continues) This last film from Delaney Plant is about a computer engineer named and for years now he's been working on this technology that helps people with disabilities to write and communicate.

But Spiro has ALS.

It's also known as Lou Gehrig's dise So there's a sense of urgency that drives his work.

Soft Music