In What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon unearths the cultural attitudes and social systems that have led to people being denied basic needs because they are fat and calls for social justice movements to be inclusive of plus-sized people's experiences. Unlike the recent wave of memoirs and quasi self-help books that encourage readers to love and accept themselves, Gordon pushes the discussion further towards authentic fat activism, which includes ending legal weight discrimination, giving equal access to health care for large people, increased access to public spaces, and ending anti-fat violence. As she argues, I did not come to body positivity for self-esteem. I came to it for social justice.By sharing her experiences as well as those of others--from smaller fat to very fat people--she concludes that to be fat in our society is to be seen as an undeniable failure, unlovable, unforgivable, and morally condemnable. Fatness is an open invitation for others to express disgust, fear, and insidious concern. To be fat is to be denied humanity and empathy. Studies show that fat survivors of sexual assault are less likely to be believed and less likely than their thin counterparts to report various crimes; 27% of very fat women and 13% of very fat men attempt suicide; over 50% of doctors describe their fat patients as awkward, unattractive, ugly and noncompliant; and in 48 states, it's legal--even routine--to deny employment because of an applicant's size.Advancing fat justice and changing prejudicial structures and attitudes will require work from all people. What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat is a crucial tool to create a tectonic shift in the way we see, talk about, and treat our bodies, fat and thin alike.

    Foregrounding the state-sanctioned murder of Eric Garner in a historical analysis of the policing, disenfranchisement, and invisibilizing of fat Black men and trans and nonbinary AMAB people, Harrison discusses the pervasive, insidious ways that anti-fat anti-Blackness shows up in everyday life. Fat people can be legally fired in 49 states for being fat; they’re more likely to be houseless. Fat people die at higher rates from misdiagnosis or non-treatment; fat women are more likely to be sexually assaulted. And at the intersections of fatness, race, disability, and gender identity, these abuses are exacerbated.Taking on desirability politics, f*ckability, healthism, hyper-sexualization, invisibility, and the connections between anti-fatness and police violence, Harrison viscerally and vividly illustrates the myriad harms of anti-fat anti-Blackness–and offers strategies for dismantling denial, unlearning the cultural programming that says “fat is bad,” and moving beyond the world we have now toward one that makes space for the fat and Black.

    There wasn't any room for imperfection. Good Muslim girls listened more than they spoke. They didn't have a missing father or a mother with mental illness. They didn't have fat bodies or grow up wishing they could be like the white characters they saw on TV. They didn't have husbands who abused and cheated on them. They certainly didn't have secret abortions. In Unashamed, Vernon takes to task the myth of the perfect Muslim woman with frank dispatches on her love-hate relationship with her hijab and her faith, race, weight, mental illness, domestic violence, sexuality, the millennial world of dating, and the process of finding her voice.She opens up about her tumultuous adolescence living at the poverty line with her fiercely loving but troubled mother, her deadbeat dad, and her siblings, and the violent dissolution of her 10-year marriage. Tired of the constant policing of her clothing in the name of Islam and Western beauty standards, Vernon reflects on her experiences with hustling paycheck to paycheck, body-shaming, and redefining what it means to be a "good" Muslim.Irreverent, youthful, and funny, Unashamed gives anyone who is marginalized permission to live unapologetic, confident lives.

    In this surprising collection of pieces, almost half of which are original to this anthology, some of our most lively, provocative writers explore the many folds of fat that make up reality.From David Sedaris's hilarious assessment of his father's fat prejudices in "A Shiner Like A Diamond" to Anne Lamott's self-prescribed cathartic weight loss remedies in "Hunger", Pam Houston's rich literary panorama in "Out of Habit I Start Apologizing," and psychiatrist Irving Yalom's deeply moving confrontation of his own biases in "Fat Lady," each piece in its unique way deals with fat as a matter of fact.Sometimes funny, sometimes angry, often illuminating and always engaging, these writers make a new and compelling case for why we should make room for a bigger behind.

    By telling her own story of how she stopped dieting, got off the couch, and unleashed her inner athlete—as well as showcasing similar stories from other women—Green inspires other plus-size women to do the same.Green also provides concrete advice, based on the latest research, about how to get started, how to establish a support team, how to choose an activity, what kind of clothing and gear work best for the plus-size athlete, how to set goals, and how to improve one’s relationship with food. And she stresses the importance of paying it forward—for it is only by seeing plus-size women in leadership roles that other plus-size women will be motivated to stop trying to lose weight and get fit instead.

    You can't be a woman or girl (or, increasingly, a man or boy) in America today and not grapple with the size and shape of your body, your daughter's body, other women's bodies. Even the most confident people have to find a way through a daily gauntlet of voices and images talking, admonishing, warning us about what size we should be, how much we should weigh, what we should eat and what we shouldn't. Obsessing about weight has become a ritual and a refrain, punctuating our every relationship, including the ones with ourselves. It's time to change the conversation around weight. Harriet Brown has explored the conundrums of weight and body image for more than a decade, as a science journalist, as a woman who has struggled with weight, as a mother, wife, and professor. In this book, she describes how biology, psychology, metabolism, media, and culture come together to shape our ongoing obsession with our bodies, and what we can learn from them to help us shift the way we think. Brown exposes some of the myths behind the rhetoric of obesity, gives historical and contemporary context for what it means to be "fat," and offers readers ways to set aside the hysteria and think about weight and health in more nuanced and accurate ways.

    But fat is not as straightforward-or even as uni-versally damned-as one might think. Enlisting thirteen anthropologists and a fat activist, editors and anthropologists Don Kulick and Anne Meneley have produced an unconventional-and unprecedented-examination of fat in various cultural and social contexts. In this anthology, these writers argue that fat is neither a mere physical state nor an inert concept. Instead, it is a construct built by culture and judged in courts of public opinion, courts whose laws vary from society to society.From the anthropology of "fat-talk" among teenage girls in Sweden to the veneration of Spam in Hawaii; from fear of the fat-sucking pishtaco vampire in the Andes to the underground allure of fat porn stars like Supersize Betsy-this anthology provides fresh perspectives on a subject more complex than love handles, and less easily understood than a number on a scale. Fat proves that fat can be beautiful, evil, pornographic, delicious, shameful, ugly, or magical. It all depends on who-and where-you are.

    of California, Irvine) explores the historical development of prothin, antifat ideologies deployed in support of Western, patriarchal white supremacy. Beginning in the aesthetic ideals circulated by Renaissance thinkers and artists and bringing her narrative up into the 1990s, Strings charts how white Europeans and Anglo-Americans developed ideals of race and beauty that both explicitly and figuratively juxtaposed slim, desirable white women against corpulent, seemingly monstrous black women. The work is divided into three sections. The two chapters in the first part consider how Renaissance white women and women of color were depicted as plump and feminine, separated by class, yet belonging to the same gender. The second part of the work charts the rise of modern racial ideologies that yoked feminine beauty to Protestant, Anglo-Saxon whiteness. Later chapters and the epilogue consider how Americans normalized the "scientific management" of white women's bodies for the purpose of racial uplift, a project that continued to situate black women as the embodied Other. The author does not address fat from the angle of health or previous attitudes white Europeans held towards corpulence.

    Dieting is the problem. A society that rejects anyone whose body shape or size doesn’t match an impossible ideal is the problem. A medical establishment that equates "thin" with "healthy" is the problem. Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon, PhD, presents a well-researched, healthy-living manual that debunks the weight myths and translates the latest science into practical advice to help readers forever end their battle with weight.

    Though our culture is obsessed with both, the two commingling are sometimes seen as offensive, obscene, or even grotesque. Fat people are not viewed as sexual beings. Of course, this perception is far from accurate. Fat people have normal and peculiar sex lives, just like everyone else.​A compilation of true stories, cultural references, and narrative commentary, Fat Sex: The Naked Truth, tells the honest, and often heroic, heartbreaking, and hilarious experiences of large-size women and men in their romantic, intimate, and sexual relationships.​​​​​Subjects touched on include heterosexual relationships, gay men and lesbian women, those who have gained and lost a great deal of weight, and the sexual “underground” such as fetishes. Although the people portrayed in Fat Sex: The Naked Truth sometimes face bigotry and experience shame – they are often valiant and live remarkably fulfilling lives. The stories are compelling and told with sensitivity and wit, connecting people on profoundly important aspects of their lives.​This book is not just for large-size people. The stories and issues discussed touch all of us, each and every person who has ever experienced the trials and tribulations, as well as the ecstasies, of intimate relationships.

    Experts in the media, medical science, and government alike are scrambling to find answers. What or who is responsiblefor this fat crisis, and what can we do to stop it?Abigail Saguy argues that these fraught and frantic debates obscure a more important question: How has fatness come to be understood as a public health crisis at all? Why, she asks, has the view of fat as a problem-a symptom of immorality, a medical pathology, a public health epidemic-come todominate more positive framings of weight-as consistent with health, beauty, or a legitimate rights claim-in public discourse? Why are heavy individuals singled out for blame? And what are the consequences of understanding weight in these ways?What's Wrong with Fat? presents each of the various ways in which fat is understood in America today, examining the implications of understanding fatness as a health risk, disease, and epidemic, and revealing why we've come to understand the issue in these terms, despite considerable scientificuncertainty and debate. Saguy shows how debates over the relationship between body size and health risk take place within a larger, though often invisible, contest over whether we should understand fatness as obesity at all. Moreover, she reveals that public discussions of the obesity crisis domore harm than good, leading to bullying, weight-based discrimination, and misdiagnoses.Showing that the medical framing of fat is literally making us sick, What's Wrong with Fat? provides a crucial corrective to our society's misplaced obsession with weight.

    Or rather, certain ways. Navigating Kimberly Dark’s experience of being fat since childhood—as well as queer, white-privileged, a gender-confirming “girl with a pretty face,” active then disabled, and inevitably aging—each piece blends storytelling and social analysis to deftly coax readers into a deeper understanding of how appearance privilege (and stigma) function in everyday life and how the architecture of this social world constrains us. At the same time, she provides a blueprint for how each of us can build a more just social world, one interaction at a time. Includes an afterword by Health at Every Size expert, Linda Bacon.

    Teaching Music with Passion is a one-of-a-kind, collective masterpiece of thoughts, ideas and suggestions about the noble profession of music education. Both inspirational and instructional, it will surely change the way you teach (and think) about music. Filled with personal experiences, anecdotes and wonderful quotations, this book is an easy-to-read, essential treasure! "One of the most 'real' writings I have read during my 35 years in music education." Mel Clayton, President, MENC: The National Association for Music Education Click here for a YouTube video on Teaching Music with Passion

    In Happy Fat, comedian Sofie Hagen shares how she removed fatphobic influences from her daily life and found self-acceptance in a world where judgement and discrimination are rife.From shame and sex to airplane seats, love and getting stuck in public toilets, Sofie provides practical tips for readers – drawing wisdom from other Fat Liberation champions along the way.Part memoir, part social commentary, Happy Fat is a funny, angry and impassioned look at taking up space in a culture that is desperate to reduce.

    Reflecting on our increasingly diet and body-obsessed society, Susie Orbach's new introduction explains how generations of women and girls are growing up absorbing the eating anxieties around them. In an age where women want to be sexy, nurturing, domestic goddesses, confident at work, and feminine too, the twenty-first-century woman is poorly armed for survival. Never before has the Fat Is A Feminist Issue revolution been more in need of revival.Exploring our love/hate relationship with food, Susie Orbach describes how fat is about so much more than food. It is a response to our social situation; the way we are seen by others and ourselves. Too often food is a source of anguish, as are our bodies. But Fat Is A Feminist Issue discusses how we can turn food into a friend and find ways to accept ourselves for who and how we are. Following the step-by-step guide, and you too can put an end to food anxieties and dieting.