What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat ★★☆☆☆

I have never been fat enough to warrant comment from anyone outside of doctors and family but I do struggle a lot with self-image around my weight. I don’t have the same experiences as the author but the stories she relates throughout this book are nothing short of appalling. The casual disregard people can have for the humanity or autonomy of fat people is shocking and the books demands to be heard and treated as a person are important.

I do think it’s not a fantastic book, though. It’s fairly repetitive and could do with more structure to it and I would have appreciated diving into a bit more detail of the studies citied throughout the book, but this is not an academic literature review and to its credit it does provide citations to go look yourself. That I have not done so is perhaps hypocritical of me but I do not have the spoons for that right now.

I think that the author does have blind spots and makes some sometimes galling statements around her perception of how the world treats other people. One that stuck in my mind was a comment about how common refrains about queer people preying on children being a thing of the past. In 2020 it should have been clear to anyone just reading news headlines that this was wishful thinking.

The books is also very American, frequently referencing the particulars and policies as U.S. institutions and companies as well as popular culture. That’s not really a mark against it, the author is American and she is writing about her own life (and I at least am passingly familiar with these things through American culture hegemony), but it did make me feel that much more separated from the perspective of the book.