Seeking essays/articles explaining fatness

May 28, 2022 1:36 PM

I’ve written here before about my parents inability to accept my weight gain, and in good faith I would like to take the emotional burden to explain what fat phobia is and how it really sucks to have it directed at you from your loved ones off of myself by giving them some articles or essays to read.

Personal essays preferred over anything very clinical. This is really more for my mother who was raised to believe that all her worth is tied up in her appearance; she gets visibly angry when pointing out my fatness and simply can’t get her head around the idea that I am indeed “healthy” as per my GP and that I’m not committing a huge moral failing by cooking pasta for dinner. But, she is indeed a person capable of empathy and I think if she could understand how hurtful this behavior is she might be able to grow.

Thanks in advance!

posted by nancynickerson to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

not an essay, a maintenance phase episode. if not for them, for you maybe. lots of debunking and head on commentary.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:52 PM on May 28, 2022 [7 favorites]

Maybe Aubrey Gordon's book? A lot of her work is online so you can sample it and see if it seems suitable for you.
posted by praemunire at 1:53 PM on May 28, 2022 [7 favorites]

Reading this HuffPo piece from a few years ago really changed how I, as a relatively thin person, had always thought about fatness. It does talk about the health/medicine perspective but also has personal stories. I just realized when I brought up the piece that the author is actually the co-host of Maintenance Phase.
posted by vanitas at 2:22 PM on May 28, 2022 [4 favorites]

Michael Hobbes (one of the Maintenance Phase hosts) is well known for Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong, which might be exactly what you're looking for.

I'll also add these Maintenance Phase episodes: Is Being Fat Bad For You?, The Body Mass Index and The Obesity Epidemic.
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:24 PM on May 28, 2022 [2 favorites]

Probably more for you than for your mom, but this topic is central to Virginia Sole-Smith's essay "The Grandparents Are Not Okay."
posted by Sweetie Darling at 2:51 PM on May 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

Samantha Irby writes a lot about this (with a good dose of sometimes dark humor) and Roxane Gay’s book, Hunger, is exactly about this. Both of their writing can be found in smaller article-sized bits on the internet if your family isn’t keen on a whole book.
posted by stillmoving at 3:45 PM on May 28, 2022

Any way to approach this as not about your weight but about your autonomy? Your mother's issue seems to be as much that she cannot wrap her head around you being a different person who can make her won choices.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 4:06 PM on May 28, 2022 [3 favorites]

First, I'm sorry this is happening--it sucks and I'm sending a hug. Second, I'll add to the great list above with a recommendation for Christy Harrison's book Anti-Diet. Longer than what you're looking for, but perhaps there's a chapter in there that will be good to excerpt.
posted by soonertbone at 5:01 PM on May 29, 2022