What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat
Ratings21
Average rating4.4
15
Ratings21
Average rating4.4
From the creator of Your Fat Friend and co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast, an explosive indictment of the systemic and cultural bias facing plus-size people. Anti-fatness is everywhere. In What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon unearths the cultural attitudes and social systems that have led to people being denied basic needs because they are fat and calls for social justice movements to be inclusive of plus-sized people’s experiences. Unlike the recent wave of memoirs and quasi self-help books that encourage readers to love and accept themselves, Gordon pushes the discussion further towards authentic fat activism, which includes ending legal weight discrimination, giving equal access to health care for large people, increased access to public spaces, and ending anti-fat violence. As she argues, “I did not come to body positivity for self-esteem. I came to it for social justice.” By sharing her experiences as well as those of others—from smaller fat to very fat people—she concludes that to be fat in our society is to be seen as an undeniable failure, unlovable, unforgivable, and morally condemnable. Fatness is an open invitation for others to express disgust, fear, and insidious concern. To be fat is to be denied humanity and empathy. Studies show that fat survivors of sexual assault are less likely to be believed and less likely than their thin counterparts to report various crimes; 27% of very fat women and 13% of very fat men attempt suicide; over 50% of doctors describe their fat patients as “awkward, unattractive, ugly and noncompliant”; and in 48 states, it’s legal—even routine—to deny employment because of an applicant’s size. Advancing fat justice and changing prejudicial structures and attitudes will require work from all people. What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat is a crucial tool to create a tectonic shift in the way we see, talk about, and treat our bodies, fat and thin alike.
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This is such a good overview of all the ways being fat in the world can be harmful. Gordon talks about how the world isn't equipped for fat people, how they're characterized on tv, how relationships work (or don't), how even doctors don't take it seriously. (I should be saying we, not they, as I am a small fat - I can find clothes in nearly any store, but I am fat.)
Anti-fat biases hurt us all and working for true body liberation will benefit us all. (Much like how feminism benefits men too.) The last chapter talks about all the ways we can all work towards ending anti-fat bias.
Also, go listen to the podcast Maintenance Phase, hosted by Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes. It's a must listen if you care about true health and wellness, not how they've been co-opted and marketed and skewed. As of this writing the most recent episode is on fat camps (also discussed in the book!) and is heartbreaking in how these literal children are treated.
A lot of this are things I have already heard from listening to Gordon's podcast. However, I enjoyed hearing it again. There is good research and data, not to mention her personal experience, that help to clarify that fat bias is a thing and is not a good thing. Her work has helped me to be more comfortable in my own skin as well as to think differently about ‘what everyone knows' about health and eating.
Everyone needs to read this book. I learned quite a lot of new information and terms that will be very helpful. I could relate A LOT to Aubrey and what she has gone through as a fat person. I knew very little about the history of BMI and how doctors use it today and let me just say fuck BMI! Going to the doctor has always been a fear of mine even as a young kid. I remember being A CHILD and the doctor telling me I should keep a notebook and write down all the foods I ate in a day, thankfully I never listened to her because I thought that was way too much work to do. Hearing Aubrey and other fat people's stories about going to the doctors and telling them that something is wrong and being told that the problem is your weight HIT ME HARD! I still have a lot of work to do mentally but this book was a great start.
The way society treats fat people is one of the most outwardly accepted bigotries of present day. This book has some autobiographical pieces with Aubrey Gordon talking about her experience living in the world as a fat woman, but also many hard-hitting pieces of research that expose the medical industry and our own internal biases alike.
Some key takeaways:
- Anti-fat bias goes up during medical school, creating medical providers who perpetuate health risks by overlooking unrelated symptoms
- The most cited studies on health risks of “obesity” are blatantly biased to remove health problems associated with thin people and skew the truth dramatically
- Many health risks associated with being fat are likely health risks of experiencing discrimination
- Diets don't work 95% of the time and weight cycling causes health issues on its own
- Health aside, everyone should just treat people kindly and think about what small ways we're perpetuating anti-fat bias in the things we say and the way we treat others!
