| Title | : | The Politics of Size: Perspectives from the Fat Acceptance Movement |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 498 |
| Publication | : | First published November 25, 2014 |
Our society is body-size obsessed. The result? An environment where "fat people" are consistently shunned and discussed disparagingly behind their backs. Although fat people typically bear the brunt of the institutionalized oppression around being oversized, pervasive closeminded attitudes about body size in America affect everyone of all sizes—from people who are shamed for being too thin to those whose lives revolve around the fear of becoming fat. This book talks about a topic that is important to all readers, regardless of their physical size, providing an anthology of first-person accounts of what it's like to be part of the fat-acceptance movement and on the front lines of activism in the "war on obesity."
The Politics of Size: Perspectives from the Fat Acceptance Movement supplies a frank discussion of the issues surrounding being fat and the associated health concerns—both physical and mental—and reframes the discussion about obesity from a medical issue to a social one. The essays serve to correct misinformation about obesity and fat people that is commonly accepted by the general public, such as the idea that "fat" and "healthy" are mutually exclusive. Subject matter covered includes fat-friendly workplace policies; fat dating experiences; and the intersections of being fat and also a person of color, a person with disabilities, a transgender person, or a member of another sub-group of society.
The Politics of Size: Perspectives from the Fat Acceptance Movement Reviews
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This book is FULL of delusion, as well as faulty research, and was clearly written with a biased/skewed view of the Fat Acceptance Movement and its encouragement of ignoring/denying the damaging effects that obesity has on the body.
Ragen Chastain has proven herself to cherry-pick research, and to lean heavily on faulty research - in essence, using anything to try to prove herself right, regardless of how wrong, or how cherry-picked the "source" is, and contributors to this book are as like-minded as she is, apparently. There are several names in this that I immediately recognized, like Cat Pause and Josephine Cranberry.
Some examples.
"Eighty to 90% of any person's weight is caused by genetics" - Daufin, chapter 16)
WROMG. This is an excellent example of cherry-picking/skewing information. The correct fact is that 80-90 percent of someone's weight DISTRIBUTION is caused by genetics - this is where some people are more apple-shaped, others pear-shaped, and so on. Calories/weight don't magically appear from nowhere, as many people in the FA movement want to believe.
There is also talk of celebrating one's body in here. I'm all for body acceptance and being ok with not looking like a Victoria's Secret Model, but having seen, in real life, obese people struggling with mobility - getting up from a seat or walking around - because of the excess fat on their bodies, I don't see any reason to celebrate obesity.
Cathy Miller (chapter 2) points out how much is spent on beauty (cosmetics) and the weight-loss industry. However, what she neglects to mention is how much is spent by the fast-food industry to market their products, and how much profit they make from said products - which is much more than is spent on cosmetics and weight loss products combined! This is a fine example of skewed data.
She also complains about the fashion industry and how harder it is to find nice clothing when you're obese. She conveniently neglects to mention that the fatter a body gets, the more difficult it is to design clothing that will fit everyone within a certain weight range. Fat is distributed differently along the body due to genetics, and this is something that the fashion industry has difficulty accommodating. It is easy to design a garment that can fit most if not all women who weight between say, 140-160 pounds, but not so easy when the weight range is 300-400 pounds. This is not the fashion industry's fault (though FA/HAES proponents will claim otherwise) When you move into the range of X (2X, 3X, 4X, and so on, considerably more material is required, yet I've also seen many FA supporters complain about how they have to pay more for said clothing. Pfft.
The next chapter is from Josephine Cranberry (chapter 3) who at the end of her life, weighed 350 pounds, and said that she constantly dieted in her youth to attain an ideal weight. She complained about how diets constantly failed her. What she obviously didn't understand (or refused to understand) was that to maintain a healthy weight requires a lifestyle commitment to a healthy diet, not a quick fix.
I've only touched upon 3 chapters of this book, but found PLENTY wrong with it.
Unfortunately, it is this kind of flaw3ed "logic" which feeds FA/HAES, and which do its proponents much more harm than good. Having struggled with weight myself in the past, I know exactly who to blame - myself. It is my choices regarding what I eat, and how much I exercise, that cause me to gain or lose weight, not the illusive, catch-all excuse of "genetics".
Fortunately, this book is not self-published, and Ragen is an editor, this book was made for a university. So there is a disclaimer at the beginning of this book that says it is not intended to substitute the advice of a medical professional, and so on. Thank goodness for small favors, because if this book was entirely under Ragen's control, you can bet this disclaimer would not be there!
![The Politics of Size [2 Volumes]: Perspectives from the Fat Acceptance Movement](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407707632i/22294700.jpg)
