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amandajinut's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
nat_sanchez's review
medium-paced
4.0
What I liked most about this book is its exploration of fatness as an overlooked oppressed class.
bookph1le's review
5.0
This is only the second book I've read so far this year, but it's one of my top books of 2024. How can I make such a bold pronouncement? Because there are just some books that rewire your brain in profound ways, so that you're never going to be the same person you were before you read them. This book is one such book, and I'm grateful that I read it because the change it's caused in me is crucial.
I've been reading a great deal over the last few years about diet and beauty culture in an effort to make sense of what got me to this point in my life. I'm a middle-aged, white woman, and I've spent the majority of my life deeply mired in both diet and beauty culture. Every pound I gained or lost, every hairstyle I tried, every bit of makeup I've ever worn, and every outfit I've ever put on were scrutinized and questioned by me because I worried deeply what other people might think. It didn't matter if I liked how I looked or if I felt comfortable, I was afraid how I looked wouldn't be good enough for other people. This is no accident. This is the purposeful design of our white heteropatriarchy, established to maintain power structures and to continually persuade us that the solution is just before us, as long as we spend, spend, spend to attain it.
I'm not really sure what made me finally see what was right before me all along. I would guess it was probably a combination of factors that included having a chronic illness and reaching middle age and realizing that no matter how hard I've striven or how close I've come to attaining my "ideal" weight and appearance, I've always, always, always been dissatisfied. No sooner would I reach one goal than I would find another perceived flaw I needed to fix. And, of course, I always had my choice of a plethora of products and services that promised to help me fix that flaw. I've spent most of my life hungry and feeling uncomfortable in my skin, and I reached a point where I couldn't do it any longer.
So I'm very much taken with Manne's idea of body reflexivity and only wish I would have found it when I was much younger. I wish I would always have known that my body is for me. My body wasn't meant to serve other people, which means I'm free to dress, eat, style my hair, etc. however I like because the whole point is for me to feel wholly myself in my own skin. I can't express how liberating this is.
This book is meticulously researched and extremely well-reasoned. In lucid, compelling prose, Manne takes on the current discourse around weight and makes it dissolve and disappear. After all, if people were genuinely concerned about the health and well-being of others, we'd have things like universal health care and access to food and clean water for all. We wouldn't live in a society where the governor of Iowa rejects feeding children over the summer because "childhood obesity has become an epidemic". What kind of country is this when it's deemed acceptable to allow children to starve rather than risk them becoming fat? It's a little hard to continue to believe the illusion that any of this is about health when people are all but admitting they think it's better to eradicate fat kids than it is to ensure they have access to food.
Disturbing as this is, her reasons for denying funding for food programs aren't even based on rigorous science. Reams and reams of research prove that there is no healthy way for people to lose weight, and that the chances of maintaining weight loss over the long term are vanishingly small. It's entirely possible that any negative health effects people suffer as a result of their weight are due to facing relentless weight stigma, but I don't see anyone rushing to fund research on this topic. Instead, we're being bombarded with messages--even from medical professionals--that we should resort to ever more drastic and potentially dangerous measures in order to shrink ourselves. Worse yet, these measures are also being recommended for children, long before their bodies even have a chance to mature.
Moreover, even if losing weight did make a person healthier, why have we, as a society, decided anyone is obligated to do so? As Manne points out, you don't see this same level of concern with regard to other high-risk activities. This is a country that thinks it's in favor of bodily autonomy and people's right to do what they want as long as they don't harm others--and that's true, as long as those activities involve things like riding motorcycles without helmets or participating in extreme sports. The minute you start talking about providing trans kids with gender-affirming care or women with safe and legal abortions or leaving fat people alone to live their lives, that fierce advocacy for bodily autonomy disappears like so much smoke.
I'm done playing this rigged game. I refuse to continue to deny myself the pleasure of eating and enjoying the foods that are the most appealing to me. I refuse to continue to deny myself the full human experience of living in my own, flawed body, regardless of its size. From now on, I'm going to live the way I wish I'd always lived: in a body that is mine and is for me and me alone.
I've been reading a great deal over the last few years about diet and beauty culture in an effort to make sense of what got me to this point in my life. I'm a middle-aged, white woman, and I've spent the majority of my life deeply mired in both diet and beauty culture. Every pound I gained or lost, every hairstyle I tried, every bit of makeup I've ever worn, and every outfit I've ever put on were scrutinized and questioned by me because I worried deeply what other people might think. It didn't matter if I liked how I looked or if I felt comfortable, I was afraid how I looked wouldn't be good enough for other people. This is no accident. This is the purposeful design of our white heteropatriarchy, established to maintain power structures and to continually persuade us that the solution is just before us, as long as we spend, spend, spend to attain it.
I'm not really sure what made me finally see what was right before me all along. I would guess it was probably a combination of factors that included having a chronic illness and reaching middle age and realizing that no matter how hard I've striven or how close I've come to attaining my "ideal" weight and appearance, I've always, always, always been dissatisfied. No sooner would I reach one goal than I would find another perceived flaw I needed to fix. And, of course, I always had my choice of a plethora of products and services that promised to help me fix that flaw. I've spent most of my life hungry and feeling uncomfortable in my skin, and I reached a point where I couldn't do it any longer.
So I'm very much taken with Manne's idea of body reflexivity and only wish I would have found it when I was much younger. I wish I would always have known that my body is for me. My body wasn't meant to serve other people, which means I'm free to dress, eat, style my hair, etc. however I like because the whole point is for me to feel wholly myself in my own skin. I can't express how liberating this is.
This book is meticulously researched and extremely well-reasoned. In lucid, compelling prose, Manne takes on the current discourse around weight and makes it dissolve and disappear. After all, if people were genuinely concerned about the health and well-being of others, we'd have things like universal health care and access to food and clean water for all. We wouldn't live in a society where the governor of Iowa rejects feeding children over the summer because "childhood obesity has become an epidemic". What kind of country is this when it's deemed acceptable to allow children to starve rather than risk them becoming fat? It's a little hard to continue to believe the illusion that any of this is about health when people are all but admitting they think it's better to eradicate fat kids than it is to ensure they have access to food.
Disturbing as this is, her reasons for denying funding for food programs aren't even based on rigorous science. Reams and reams of research prove that there is no healthy way for people to lose weight, and that the chances of maintaining weight loss over the long term are vanishingly small. It's entirely possible that any negative health effects people suffer as a result of their weight are due to facing relentless weight stigma, but I don't see anyone rushing to fund research on this topic. Instead, we're being bombarded with messages--even from medical professionals--that we should resort to ever more drastic and potentially dangerous measures in order to shrink ourselves. Worse yet, these measures are also being recommended for children, long before their bodies even have a chance to mature.
Moreover, even if losing weight did make a person healthier, why have we, as a society, decided anyone is obligated to do so? As Manne points out, you don't see this same level of concern with regard to other high-risk activities. This is a country that thinks it's in favor of bodily autonomy and people's right to do what they want as long as they don't harm others--and that's true, as long as those activities involve things like riding motorcycles without helmets or participating in extreme sports. The minute you start talking about providing trans kids with gender-affirming care or women with safe and legal abortions or leaving fat people alone to live their lives, that fierce advocacy for bodily autonomy disappears like so much smoke.
I'm done playing this rigged game. I refuse to continue to deny myself the pleasure of eating and enjoying the foods that are the most appealing to me. I refuse to continue to deny myself the full human experience of living in my own, flawed body, regardless of its size. From now on, I'm going to live the way I wish I'd always lived: in a body that is mine and is for me and me alone.
magsnificentmils's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
abigailshupe's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
I wish I could give it more than 5 stars. Appealed to my academic brain with the arguments I’ve needed for a long time.
easemily's review
3.0
I listened to this book in a fever dream. I found it on a whim after finishing my last audiobook and it was short and seemed interesting. I don’t remember a ton from it, or I guess I already knew a lot from it. It was a helpful reminder and there were a few times where I was listening to it going to bed and initially thinking about all the unhelpful things I was gonna do the next day but then listening to this book kind of centered me. That being said it was still just meh. I didn’t take anything away from it.
madifran's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
4.5
i read this exactly when i needed to, thank you unshrinking <3