asiporaspoonful 's review for:

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

5.0

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This is a book that I think probably most people should read. Gordon describes her own and other fat people’s experiences in the world and the way that bias and judgment interfere with their health and well-being. She also addresses the intersections of disability, race, and queerness, and especially how literally damaging shaming is to our bodies. There’s discussion of the myriad ways the world is built for lighter, able bodies, from plane seats, job discrimination, and medical bias to limited drug studies, ineffective medication, and even the body positivity movement. As someone who possesses a disabled body that at its lightest still didn’t meet what’s considered a “healthy” BMI, as well as having lived through my own fair share of gaslighting by doctors, I identified with many of her experiences. I’m sad to say that the explicit and public shaming she’s been the target of did not surprise me even if much of it was completely awful because, well, people can be terrible. With all of that said, this didn’t strike me as a hopeless book. She discusses the impact of education on medical students toward the end and proves again that exposure to different types of people and bodies creates—say it with me—empathy! This was a common theme in my teaching practice and one that I’ve read quite a bit about. We are more likely to treat people as human when we see and meet more types of humans. My only other point is in response to one of the top reviews of this book that criticizes, basically, how she doesn’t use her platform to encourage people to be healthier. This book is literally called “what we don’t talk about when we talk about fat.” It’s a pretty safe bet that there are few fat people who haven’t been lectured about how their health is entirely dependent on losing weight; that would be an apt subject for a book called “what we DO talk about when we talk about fat.” I, for one, am grateful for this book and for the large amount of both subjective experience and objective science covered within.