Fat: The Owners Manual by Ragen Chastain

Fat: The Owners Manual Reviews

• 
  M.M. Strawberry Library & Reviews

  Ragen Chastain has been proven to be a liar and a fraud. She has NOT won multiple dance championships - she only won one thing and that was because she was the only competitor in that category! Despite being in school for over 6 years, she has no degree and yet calls herself a "professional researcher" The marathon she likes to brag about finishing, a 90 year old man beat her to the finish line because she took so long to finish. She has tried to set up several businesses, and failed/abandoned them, and I have seen her dance videos. There is nothing impressive about them, her dancing is amateurish. This is not meant as a personal insult, it is just an observation from one who has seen dancers of all skill levels perform.
  
  She also pushes the idea of HAES despite the fact that she is obviously not healthy (her athletic record shows that) and intuitive eating (which has caused her to gain weight) HAES/Fat Acceptance might have been a fine idea at first, but people like this author use it as a platform to share and spread lies and destructive ideas. You know that '95 percent of diets fail' thing that Ragen (and other Fat Acceptance/HAES advocates) loves to use as an argument? That study was done over half a century ago, and was flawed from the start because once the people in the study were done with it, most of them went back to their old heating habits and the scientist who did the study has since acknowledged it and no longer supports the results of that particular experiment. This book is harmful because it pushes harmful ideas and lies.
• 
  Ariel

  This is a book everyone should read. Everyone with body issues, be they too be or too small. Everyone who knows a fat person, everyone who IS a fat person, just everybody.
  Chastain says everything that SHOULD be said about fat culture without getting bitchy or mean. She doesn't make excuses. She emphasizes that people should be healthy, but that everyone's healthy look is different.
  I love, love, love this book, and want everyone to read it. RIGHT NOW.
• 
  Graceann

  I realize that I'm often prone to hyperbole, but for reasons that will become clear I find that it's justified here. This book is life-changing. Ragen Chastain takes 193 pages to help me look at my life in a whole new way, and I feel that in the days, months and years to come, I will have reason to thank her over and over again.
  
  She takes the revolutionary approach that we are entitled to respect in the bodies that we have right now, simply because we are human beings who live in the World. Fat, thin, anywhere in between or beyond those parameters. She also takes the completely "out there" stance that, if there are people in the World who don't like her choice, that would be their problem and not hers. For this, she gets death threats. Apparently, not hating yourself leads to others hating you in a big, big way.
  
  Ragen Chastain is an athlete, a championship dancer, and a fat person. She places in this book the results of the research that the rest of us (and I include myself here) are too busy or non-detail-oriented or just plain bored to do - she reviews, researches and reveals the pseudo-science (paid for by weight loss product manufacturers) that pushes us to be thin (at all costs) and, as a result, supposedly, healthy. And don't get her started on the abomination/abuse-fest that is The Biggest Loser. I've always agreed that this was a scarily dangerous show (no show where a contestant loses 34 lbs in ONE WEEK is promoting health). She then explains why weight and health are separate issues, and why she has chosen, for herself, an approach of living her life using healthy behaviors, and not bothering with numbers on the scale.
  
  Did you know that BMI was created as a statistical tool and was never intended to assess a person's health? Since height and weight only tell you how tall you are and how much you weigh, and using a mathematical formula based on those two numbers only gives you a third number, this should be a no-brainer, but no, I thought that BMI had a basis in medical science. I was wrong.
  
  Did you know that three diet-drug pharmaceutical companies and a high-up in Weight Watchers were four of the "experts" who determined that the BMI valuation should change, thus making 25 million Americans overweight, literally overnight?
  
  Did you know that it's a perfectly valid choice to love yourself as you are, right at this very moment, and not accept the stigma and shaming that outsiders want to throw on you? This is huge to me. I have spent quite literally my entire life seeing people in magazines who just don't look like me. Being told that my injury-inducing workouts and starvation diets would work for me if I just "tried harder." Never hearing from anyone, including myself, that I was beautiful, just as I was, but that I *would be* beautiful if I just lost 50 lbs.
  
  Nobody has ever suggested to me that it might be a good idea to eat a balanced diet, find movement that I enjoy and engage in that movement, and love myself as I am, without waiting for some magical "later" that would come when I joined the elusive 5% of dieters who succeed in their weight loss goals. Instead, no matter what I'm eating, there are food police right there who are more than willing to invade my space in order to tell me that those choices are wrong. No matter how I'm moving, there's always some dimwit who wants to shout "encouragement" like "we all have to start somewhere!" when I'm on the 9th mile of a 10-mile power walk.
  
  Ragen tries to shine her light, hard-won through years of difficult work. She tries to give those of us who have been stigmatized (and educate those with privilege) the information we need to navigate this life.
  
  There are practical and very helpful discussions of how to handle Flying While Fat, how to engage (or not) in useful discussions/teachable moments when someone, either well-intentioned or not, invades our space, and describes how her journey is going and what she faces on a daily basis.
  
  I am keeping this book. I will use this book as a reference and a tool in my own journey. I will recommend this book to everyone I love. If you have body issues, you need to read it because it could help you love your life, learn how to choose what you need for health and happiness, and retain your lunch money when dealing with bullies. For those with privilege and with minds and hearts open to the experience of the 67% of us who have been classed as overweight or obese, this will be an education in what we deal with every day of the week, as shared by someone with wit, intelligence and a no-BS style of writing. I wish this book, and Ragen, had been around when my mother was suffering for being born with a large body, and I wish it had been written and given to me when I was a teen. I might have avoided an enormous amount of pain and heartache, and my mother might still be alive.
  
  Paste my face on Ragen's as you read her words, and you'll know the negative experiences I receive on a daily basis. Unfortunately, at least not right this moment, you can't paste my face on Ragen's as you read about how she's succeeded in her life. I'm not there. Yet. At this moment, however, I know that I am worthy of respect, and even love, just because I am. I will always be grateful to this book and to Ragen Chastain for helping me see this.
• 
  Brittany

  I have a special connection to this book because of what the author has done for my life. I struggled and still struggle with an eating disorder that severely restricted my health and happiness. One of the doctors whom I sought help from told me about Ragen and talked about her regularly during our group sessions. When I finally gained the courage to change my perspective, I looked up Ragen's blog and began reading and reading. I followed her on twitter and added her on facebook. Through connecting to her, I have connected with so many other Health at Every Size activists, health professionals, advocates, etc.
  
  Learning about Ragen's struggles and her success completely changed my life for the better. I truly believe that she saved my life and I will be forever grateful. Her positivity, especially her body positivity, was so refreshing and it just made sense. She is incredibly accomplished and well-established in the size acceptance community and I greatly look up to her.
  
  Now, I am trying to pass on my experiences to others through fitness. I am now a personal trainer certified through the National Academy of Sports Medicine and am working on my Corrective Exercise Specialization. I started my own Health at Every Size personal fitness training business that grows a little more each and every day. I am incredibly proud of it because of what I have been through, but I am more concerned with how I can help others. Ragen has set an amazing example of this, and I only wish that I can help someone to the extent that she has helped me.
  
  This is an excellent book for anyone who has felt a shred of body insecurity. As she stresses, our bodies are something we have to live with 100% of the time, therefore they deserve the utmost respect and gratitude. Life is a miracle, and I am so happy to still be living it.
  
  If you are interested in connecting with me check out
  My website:
  www.SuitableWellness.com
  My twitter:
  www.twitter.com/suitablewellnes
  My facebook:
  www.facebook.com/suitablewellness
• 
  Tristy

  
  Ragen Chastain is a treasure in the world of Health at Every Size (HAES), Size Acceptance, and in general as a funny, smart, supportive woman who writes regularly about life as a fit, fat woman on her excellent blog
  Dances with Fat. This self-published book (her first, I believe) has the feel of a collection of her best blog posts. She covers a vastly wide range of topics, from how western culture continues to view and shame fat people, to scientific research about "obesity," to flying while fat, to self-esteem issues and more. This truly is an owner's manual! She in fact covers SO much material, that she really could have broken it down and expanded on each topic, writing several books! And while she fell into a few of my most hated self-publishing mistakes (lots of typos and grammatical errors, as well as a clunky layout without a lot of graphic design), the content is priceless. Reading it is like having a really chatty, supportive friend who has got your back, no matter what. I think this is a must-read for anyone trying to live fat and free and unashamed in this world, as well as those who really aspire to live a life of true Size Acceptance.
• 
  Emma

  Ragen Chastain is an amazing woman. She is a blogger, rather than an author, and it shows in the book. I read the electronic version, and I don't know if I got sent a draft copy when I ordered it, but it was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, minor inconsistencies and structural issues.
  
  However, I still rate it 5/5 because this book changed my life. I'm not the kind to make sweeping judgement calls like that, but this book really made a difference to the way I think and see the world.
  
  Hating your body is a miserable way of living. You are literally stuck in your body 24/7, and you cannot get away from it, even if you avoid mirrors. I not only avoided mirrors; I was so ashamed of my body I avoided people all together. I stayed in bed for days at a time, avoided people for weeks at a time, stopped taking phone calls even from my mum. Yeah, phone calls! Where people can't even see you! I had internalised the messages we are all bombarded with about fat people to the extent that I believed that I was of no value and was ashamed to face the world. I even tried to avoid myself. I filled my days with escapist books and movies, watching multiple seasons of more than one television series back to back so that I didn't have to think about myself.
  
  I thought that my beliefs were based on fact. I believed that if I wasn't so lazy, I wouldn't be so fat. I believed that if I wasn't so greedy, I wouldn't be so fat. I believed what the weight loss industry wants us to think: that anyone can lose weight if they try hard enough. That I couldn't be healthy until I was thinner.
  
  I never had unrealistic notions of being slim and athletic-looking - I knew my body would never look like this or that celebrity, and I thought that because I was realistic about that, that I was thinking clearly and critically.
  
  This book throws open a lot of what it calls 'everyone knows' myths. It is thoughtful, clever, passionate and funny. So funny, and also heartbreaking, because it's so necessary.
  
  I would love for the book to be properly referenced, at least with footnotes to say where all her facts and figures come from, because as much as I want to believe what Chastain says, I am still skeptical of some claims. But this book blew my mind. It opened me up to alternatives to the status quo train of thought when it comes to weight and health, for which I will forever be grateful.
  
  I still sometimes catch my reflection and think, 'ugh,' but now I recognise that for what it is: an internalisation of the pervasive messages used by industry to keep people unhappy so they will spend more money. I remind myself daily that I love my body, even when I sometimes don't quite believe it.
  
  Reading this book has not only improved my mental and physical health, it has also made me less judgemental. The Underpants Rule is a wonderful rule to live by, and I have found I am more compassionate and understanding than before.
  
  Every person who has ever worried about their weight, shape or size, or their food, exercise and other health choices should read this, along with every person who has ever worried about anyone else's weight, shape, size, food, exercise of other health choices. I think it could actually make the world a better place.
• 
  Cara

  Ragen Chastian combines real statistical data with humor. I really enjoyed this.
  
  Read this if you've thought about questions like, "if everybody is on a diet all the time, how come there aren't more thin people?" and "why is the person next to me angry at *me*, instead of at the people who designed these seats to be too small for most of their customers?"
  
  The ebook is "name your own price" at
  http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/bu...
• 
  Kelly

  Ragen's book is a gem, full of witty essays on size acceptance and living in a fat body. I really appreciate her sense of humor throughout the book and she strikes a lovely balance between sarcasm and facts.
  
• 
  Sarah Rigg

  I really dig Ragen's blog,
  http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/blog/, so I wanted to like this book, but I was hugely disappointed. The content is really good, and Ragen has obviously done her research. However, I was really looking for something above and beyond a collection of her blog essays. I highly recommend the blog, and I will definitely give anything she writes in the future a chance, but this was not the book it could have been.
• 
  Lenny Husen

  This was fine, but forgettable. Ragen Chastain is an amazing Fat Activist with EXTREMELY HIGH Self-Esteem (code for Big Ego). Her book could also be on my Narcissistic Disturbance Book List.
  This is full of criticism of other people who have annoyed/bothered dared to have a different opinion from Ragen. And much of what she says is probably true and very reasonable.
  Don't get me wrong--I think Ragen is beautiful and admirable--just not terribly likable.
• 
  Valerie

  This book was excellent, but I had to subtract a star from my rating because it was so poorly edited. There were spelling, grammar, punctuation errors. Sometimes words were missing, or the wrong word was used. It detracted from the awesome message of the book. I really enjoyed the book and am glad that I read it, but it was at times difficult to read due to the poor editing.
• 
  Tequila

  I've had this book for awhile now, but I have finally gotten around to reading it and I'm really glad I did. It's given me a lot to think about with dealing with my own body issues and being fat. This book is definitely worth the read.
• 
  Raven Black

  Problem is people who should read this won't. The shamers won't believe her. And those who are "fat" are too ashamed to read it. But don't be. She has great self-love points.
• 
  Joss

  It is clear that Ragen is not a literacy author, but a blogger. The book is riddled with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes; but simply put, it conveys the points that should be addressed.
  Reading these collections of essays, its heart warming to know thats its just not me that experiences the "public suggestions of health"
  
  I recommend this book to any person who is struggling with size acceptance, loves a bigger person, are friends with a person who is not in the "normal" size zone.
  
  You can take something from most chapters:
  The hypocrisy of getting healthy when you are a bigger person.
  
  "If you dont work out, we will complain that you are sedentary, if you do work out, we will make fun of you for how you look working out. Now, go out there and exercise because its good for your health!"
  
  The realistic portrayal of what every woman is drummed into body confidence:
  
  We say " These jeans dont look good on me because my ass is too big"
  We say "These jeans make my ass look good."
  Why do we blame our bodies when clothes don't fit well, but turn around and give credit to the clothes when they do?
  
  
  All in all, it was refreshing to read these essays, to focus on "Health At Every Size", to read and disseminate the research that is shoved in fat peoples faces and the complete hypocrisy of how people judge a book by its cover/ or a person by their size.
• 
  Jendi

  Five-star content, but could be better organized. Feels more like a collection of blog posts than a book-length argument. That said, it is an essential read for any feminist activist because it draws deep connections between fat-shaming and many other ways that society oppresses bodies deemed non-normative.
• 
  Vanessa Werkelwut

  It is fun but also stays true to scientific facts. It is Ragen's point of view but she doesn't get tired to remind her readers she could be wrong and everybody has a right to live on his or her body. You begin to realise how much constant social harassment and psychological pressure is put on people of size.
  I really like her message of radically loving your body no matter what.
• 
  Eve

  Based on content, I'd give this four stars. Her message is clear, but I don't find Chastain as compelling as Kate Harding. On the other hand, maybe I'm just older than I was when I read Harding. The numerous proof reading mistakes were very distracting, however.
• 
  Alana Muir

  This is a must-read for all humans. If you are fat or thin or somewhere in between, this book will help you to understand the actual truth behind the media obsession with fatness, and how to live outside it. This book is potentially life-changing.
• 
  Jenna

  I highly recommend this book for anybody with a body!
  
  The only fault I could find was repetitious themes within her writing. (But to be fair the mean and hateful things that she has dealt with are pretty repetitious as well so I get where that comes from.)
• 
  Tara

  It was more of a collection of essays and ideas, than a flowing, cohesive work. However, the ideas involved were sound and thought-provoking. I enjoyed reading it.
• 
  Zoe Obstkuchen

  if you are fat, have ever been fat or know someone who is fat, this is the book for you!
• 
  Hope

  A breath of fresh air :)