In this book, Aubrey highlights all the (many) ways our society is built to be fatphobic and thin-centered. We are conditioned from birth to be anti-fat, pro-thin. Throughout the book, Aubrey explains how this has happened. And that fatphobia is completely pointless and does no good. In case you are reading this and didn’t know, fat is not inherently bad. Every body is different - fat isn’t always a choice, some people are just fat! So much plays into it, including genetics. 

 

This book made me so angry at times - at the way fat people are treated. At some experiences I’ve shared with Aubrey. At the ignorance of people, especially medical professionals. 

 

I need everyone I know to read this book. Or at least listen to Aubrey’s podcast The Maintenance Phase if books aren’t your thing. We need more fat activists like Aubrey in the world. And - just as importantly - we need more people to read books like this. 

 

I wrote down so many quotes, but here are two  of my favorites: 

 

“We can build a world that doesn’t assume fat people are failed thin people, or that thin people are categorically healthy and virtuous.” 

 

“Fat hasn’t become a bad word because fatness is somehow inherently undesirable or bad – it has fallen out of public favor because of what we attach to it. We take fat to mean unlovable, unwanted, unattractive, unintelligent, unhealthy. But fatness itself is simply one aspect of our bodies – and a very small part of who each of us is. It deserves to be described as a simple and unimportant fact.”