Reviews - Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture

565 reviews for:

Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture

Virginia Sole-Smith

4.43 AVERAGE

amaranthpalmer's review against another edition

4.0

informative medium-paced

doilyglove13's review against another edition

5.0

informative inspiring medium-paced

One of the best and most important books I have ever read. I highly recommend for absolutely any parent, teacher or coach.

Content Warnings

ktbentsen9's review against another edition

5.0

If you’re well versed in the anti-diet space, a lot of the info in this book will be review. But the way it’s applied is something I’ve not read before and is invaluable. For me it highlighted that as much work as I like to think I’ve done in this space there are still a lot of parenting practices I subconsciously participate in that are rooted in fatphobia and that there is always and forever more work to be done. I’m so grateful she put this book out into the world.

emmaonthursday's review against another edition

3.0

I agree so wholeheartedly with most of the premise of this book, and I found the first two-thirds very well written. The majority of this book is not about solutions; instead, it investigates how fatphobia manifests in different areas of a kid's life, in order to inspire parents to interrogate the messages they're giving their kids, or exposing their kids to. I appreciated her last chapter, which provides some straightforward guidance about how to protect kids from fatphobia no matter their size, and how smaller-sized kids can become allies.

However I found the author's use of scientific research to be pretty sloppy, and I believe this undermines large chunks of her work. She does not include information about the quality of the studies she cites that support her points. When research does not support her points, she will basically say, ".... but this study was done by people with biases!". While that's true, unfortunately literally all research is performed by people with biases, and talking more specifically about study quality and outcomes would be a better way to investigate those biases and still respect some of the science.