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A review by capyval
You Are Not a Before Picture: How to Finally Make Peace with Your Body, for Good by Alex Light
3.25
An OK read if you are really struggling with the way you see your body, and if you know next to nothing about fatphobia and body neutrality. This is not my case, so the book was often boring, and I don't think I learned anything from it.
In fact, I disagreed with the book often, for example saying fat men don't suffer much discrimination from being fat, unlike women. The author even mentions Homer Simpson as an example of positive representation of a fat man! Do I need to explain that Homer Simpson is a very fatphobic character? He is dumb and uncultured, exactly the popular representation of fat people.
Then, the author proposes that we shouldn't use the words "overweight" and "obese", and apparently you can only call yourself fat if you are what now is considered "obese", meaning, people that struggle a lot in life because of the size of their bodies (for example: not being able to buy clothes in most shops, or not fitting in aeroplane seats). I don't agree with this, and I do see sense in saying "overweight" for people over the weight that is currently accepted by the majority as "healthy" or "beautiful" (or whatever nonsense the majority thinks), fat is for the ones of us much far away from this, but that we still can manage a life without many issues/discrimination, and obese is for people much further from that, who face discrimination practically daily, and constantly struggle in living their life because things are not made with them in mind.
The fact the author then considers herself thin also made me uncomfortable. She made me think that, after all, she does have a problem with saying she is overweight or fat. I decided to read this book after googling her and seeing her body was not thin, and hence I was not going to be lectured by a person that doesn't even know what is to live as a fat person.... But because according to her fat people are only the ones that can't fit in the clothes of your shop next door, then she is not fat, and I am not fat... and she made me feel confused and even angry. She does end up saying she was treated as a fat person many times, and that it was often a critique for her (from doctors to random men mentioning her body was bigger than what they saw as healthy or beautiful), so I don't know what is the point to say: no, no, no, I am thin. I do agree in an ideal world people shouldn't be so categorised by their body size, but in the world we live now, we are obviously judged and the more your body doesn't fit in a certain size, the more discrimination you suffer, so let's use more words to describe all that, not less.
I also had issues with the format of the book, and the tone of the author in general. I'm not a person who loves social media (I find it boring), I don't pay attention to models, singers, or celebrities in general... I felt the author was being too personal in the bad way, talking too much about her personal case, using often a tone of anger, as if she were venting through her book, and repeating again and again the same ideas, and the same examples... And using a format for the book which was clearly the one of a magazine, with full pages highlighting a short quote in big font. The book is much shorter than it seems, and could be shorter if you edit it so it would be less repetitive, and also a bit less personal.
In fact, I disagreed with the book often, for example saying fat men don't suffer much discrimination from being fat, unlike women. The author even mentions Homer Simpson as an example of positive representation of a fat man! Do I need to explain that Homer Simpson is a very fatphobic character? He is dumb and uncultured, exactly the popular representation of fat people.
Then, the author proposes that we shouldn't use the words "overweight" and "obese", and apparently you can only call yourself fat if you are what now is considered "obese", meaning, people that struggle a lot in life because of the size of their bodies (for example: not being able to buy clothes in most shops, or not fitting in aeroplane seats). I don't agree with this, and I do see sense in saying "overweight" for people over the weight that is currently accepted by the majority as "healthy" or "beautiful" (or whatever nonsense the majority thinks), fat is for the ones of us much far away from this, but that we still can manage a life without many issues/discrimination, and obese is for people much further from that, who face discrimination practically daily, and constantly struggle in living their life because things are not made with them in mind.
The fact the author then considers herself thin also made me uncomfortable. She made me think that, after all, she does have a problem with saying she is overweight or fat. I decided to read this book after googling her and seeing her body was not thin, and hence I was not going to be lectured by a person that doesn't even know what is to live as a fat person.... But because according to her fat people are only the ones that can't fit in the clothes of your shop next door, then she is not fat, and I am not fat... and she made me feel confused and even angry. She does end up saying she was treated as a fat person many times, and that it was often a critique for her (from doctors to random men mentioning her body was bigger than what they saw as healthy or beautiful), so I don't know what is the point to say: no, no, no, I am thin. I do agree in an ideal world people shouldn't be so categorised by their body size, but in the world we live now, we are obviously judged and the more your body doesn't fit in a certain size, the more discrimination you suffer, so let's use more words to describe all that, not less.
I also had issues with the format of the book, and the tone of the author in general. I'm not a person who loves social media (I find it boring), I don't pay attention to models, singers, or celebrities in general... I felt the author was being too personal in the bad way, talking too much about her personal case, using often a tone of anger, as if she were venting through her book, and repeating again and again the same ideas, and the same examples... And using a format for the book which was clearly the one of a magazine, with full pages highlighting a short quote in big font. The book is much shorter than it seems, and could be shorter if you edit it so it would be less repetitive, and also a bit less personal.