A review by han_reardonsmith
“You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People by Aubrey Gordon

5.0

Oof yup, this is a powerful read, and made me reckon further than I yet had with my own well-entrained anti-fat bias, and particularly with any delusion I’d held that I had managed to completely exorcise it. And as someone who has always been straight sized and in fact verifiably thin, I can attest to medical professionals nevertheless expressing far more concern over any weight gain I might have than weight loss, which for me is strongly correlated with chronic illnesses both physical and mental. I have been repeatedly praised by near strangers who have noticed when I have gotten smaller, with no prompting and who see no problems with unsolicited comments on my body. It’s extremely uncomfortable both that I am essentially most praised when I am most sick AND that this can actually give me a kind of grim satisfaction, as much as I might try to deny this to myself and anyone else. Anti-fat bias runs deep. After reading this I’m challenging myself to notice and expressly make room for fat folks, and to take a stand against anti-fat bias whenever and however I might come into contact with it.