"You Just Need to Lose Weight" and 19 Other Myths About Fat People

Author Aubrey Gordon (Your Fat Friend, co-host of kickass podcast Maintenance Phase, and all-around-delightful-human-being) breaks down and debunks all of the (still) socially acceptable, pervasive, and oppressive myths about body size and fatness.

Her writing is deeply researched, as well as rooted in her experience in social justice advocacy work – she somehow writes and speaks with an amazing mix of no-B.S. and compassion, a balance that is rare and also, I believe, such an effective communication approach when advocating for human beings to be valued and treated with basic care and respect.

Bonus: When you “read” this book as… show more.

This book was a powerful unlearning of everything I thought I knew about body size.

Aubrey Gordon busts common myths of fatness— losing weight is easy, fat people are unhealthy, we’re in the middle of an obesity epidemic, etc.—with data-driven evidence. While other types of identity-based bias have decreased in the past decade, anti-fat bias has shot up. Many people believe they are simply promoting good health when they are critical of fat people, but in reality, they are participating in a social system that labels thin people as “good” and fat people as “bad.”

This book opened my eyes… show more.