#Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

[hope-for-olicity]

“But the widespread idea that we should learn to live with chronic hunger can, and should, be challenged. Not only are we not obligated to lose weight, for reasons canvassed earlier in this book, but there is something deeply immoral about the dictates of diet culture that posit and impose on us these pseudo-obligations. They often leave us perpetually hungry, and thus experiencing bodily discomfort - and sometimes suffering, even torment. We all deserve to be free from this, since it serves no valid purpose.”

Kate Manne - Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

Like Kate Manne, the author of this book I have been on countless diets and developed an eating disorder all in the goal of being thin.

The only times I have successfully lost weight is through starvation. And I can't believe I have to say this but starvation is not healthy. Whether you starve yourself due an an eating disorder or trick you body into not eating food using a drug - you are starving your body.

Many people believe fat people should do ANYTHING to be thin. No matter the risks to their lives (bariatric surgery), well-being or activities of daily living. There is no action that is too much if a fat person can become thin.

Being fat is something that just cannot be abided.

I am fat. I have been thin through starving and purging. The praise given when thin was like a drug after the ridicule faced while being fat. You would think after losing 78lbs I would be "healthy." I was not.

I was never MORE unhealthy on every level. I was sick. My doctor worried I'd need to be hospitalized if I didn't start eating. My hair was falling out, I had brain fog and worse of all I was obsessed with food. All I could think was when could I eat next?

I now practice intuitive eating and I eat. I eat all the foods. Foods that you were never allowed to eat on diet, foods that are always in diets. I eat it all. I am fat.

I am fat, like I am short and I have green eyes. These are all descriptors of me.

I take medications for health conditions that add to my weight but they are needed. I exercise for joy. I actually like exercising when I'm not punishing myself to speed walk 5km a day.

I'm taking care of me.

But I know I am judged. These judgements could impact my employment, whether people think I'm intelligent and most important of all my healthcare.

But I know I'm doing what is best for my physical and mental health and that is most important.

[whilereadingandwalking]

Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne is an excellent book about fatphobia and all the ways it has us in a stranglehold. Manne pulls apart philosophical and moral arguments that being fat is intrinsically wrong or something that society has the right to condemn, all in an accessible, readable way. She proposes body reflexivity, an alternative to body positivity/neutrality that allows us to feel good and bad about our bodies at our own discretion without judgment.

Her philosophical arguments were powerful (and dare I say, healing). There are many arguments that there is something unhealthy and immoral about being fat, and that as such, society has a right if not a duty to help. She proves that this is not the case. A crucial part of her argument: there is no morally acceptable, safe, reliable way to get fat people thin. Because of this, society cannot demand change from fat people. She also argues that even if fat was bad for our health, society allows and accommodates plenty of mediated risks that people take despite it being bad for their health, from drinking to skydiving to motorcycles.

In addition, she shows that science has no definitive proof that being fat itself is bad for your health, showing that the causation links between weight and diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and much more are currently being debated. She shows that dieting and the weight cycling that comes with it, has been proven to be more unhealthy than simply being fat. She pulls apart related issues like what made our culture so disdainful of fatness, its intersections with rape culture, racism, and homophobia, and the horrid ways our culture discriminates against fat people, especially fat girls.

Unshrinking is a powerful and necessary book, and I recommend it to anyone who's felt uncomfortable about fatphobia but didn't know how to put it into words. It also gives helpful insights into how to raise children without them internalizing fatphobia, how to pull apart your own internalized fatphobia, and how to move forward.

Content warnings for discussions of suicidal ideation, fatphobia, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, sexual assault.

[maaarine]

Unshrinking: How to Fight Fatphobia (Kate Manne, 2024)

"Perhaps the most vital complication, when it comes to the relationship between health and weight, is stigma.

People in larger bodies routinely face social stigma, as we saw in the opening chapter.

And there is now considerable evidence of the adverse health effects of being subject to these biases.

One study divided people classified as obese into two groups: those who demonstrated strong forms of internalized fatphobia—for example, the idea that they were lazy or unattractive because of their weight—and those who did not.

The “high internalized weight stigma” participants were some three times more likely to have metabolic syndrome—a cluster of risk factors including high blood pressure, high blood glucose, abnormal cholesterol levels, and a high waist circumference—compared with “low internalized weight stigma” participants of the same age, race, gender, and so on.

Members of the “high internalized weight bias” group were also six times more likely to have high triglycerides than their “low internalized weight bias” counterparts.

“There is a common misconception that stigma might help motivate individuals with obesity to lose weight and improve their health,” noted the lead researcher, Rebecca Pearl.

“We are finding it has quite the opposite effect.”

And, as the writer and health reporter Virginia Sole-Smith summarizes in connection with this emerging body of research, researchers have found that the stress of stigma increases inflammation and cortisol levels, both of which are associated with negative health outcomes. 

Moreover, as we’ve seen, weight stigma causes fat people to avoid seeking medical care, and results in our getting inadequate care when we do seek it out."