Reviews - What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

2.62k reviews for:

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

Aubrey Gordon

4.46 AVERAGE

book_katy's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad

I learned a lot from this book! I appreciate Gordon’s candor and vulnerability and her meticulous research on every claim she makes. As someone just learning about the anti-diet, intuitive eating, health at every size lens, this was a really great introduction into seeing how immensely fatphobic our society is and challenging my own anti-fat bias.

I also really appreciated how intersectional Gordon is in showing how white supremacy and homophobia and misogyny also all play in to and worsen anti-fat bias. Her critique of the body positivity movement was particularly striking (“body positivity drowns out so many of us, reducing problems of social exclusion to issues of self-esteem and body image”), as was her critique about how media portrays fat people and their lives.

Gordon does not mince words or hold back on how the thin ideal and fatphobia is literally killing us, particularly fat people. She’s a really great teacher and writer and we are indebted to her brilliant work here. Definitely categorized as a required reading book for me!

feeling_queer's review

5.0

This is essential reading about the politics of anti-fatness and the emergent movement for fat justice. Aubrey starts every chapter with an anecdote drawing from her personal experience as a self-identified very fat woman and uses these narratives to construct a broader argument about anti-fatness as a systemic mode of oppression that negatively impacts the life chances and opportunities of fat people. Her chapters dive into sexual harassment and fat-calling; architectural barriers that stigmatize, humiliate, and exclude fat people; the scam of diet culture; the myth that the BMI is a predictor of health; food policing and how it gets masked under the banner of “concern”; and the ways that disgust and outright hatred of fat people are widely normalized and left unchallenged. Although Aubrey is a white queer woman, she does utilize an intersectional approach (to some extent), and analyzes how anti-fatness has unique consequences for people who are transgender and/or people of color. My only criticism is that Aubrey cites much of the same statistics and studies over and over throughout the chapters, which made it a bit repetitive at times, though it works if you approach the book as a series of stand-alone essays. I also thought it was strange, given how much research she was drawing on, that she didn’t spend more time debunking the idea of fatness as being bad for one’s health. While it is discussed, I did think she could have made a stronger argument. Regardless, I learned a lot reading this book and can see myself assigning it in classes.

4.5 stars

Content warnings: discussions of anti-fatness, body shaming, sexual harassment and assault, rape culture / victim blaming, medical violence, racism, trans antagonism

christine_lh's review against another edition

4.0

challenging hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

lisamac18's review

4.0

I'm a huge fan of the Maintenance Phase podcast so was looking forward to this book. It hits a lot of the same points with some anecdotes woven in. Would recommend, especially for someone who's trying to unlearn/unpack all of the wacky shit we've been taught about the "obesity epidemic," BMI, etc.