Aubrey Gordon, co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast, discusses the myths about fatness in order to dismantle the anti-fat bias engrained in how we think about and treat overweight people. Oh, and BMI is completely made up.
This is a great, thought-provoking book that is well-researched with a lot of facts, evidence, and anecdotes. Gordon dives into 20 myths about fat people. My favorite chapter was about the origins of the BMI and how the loudest voices in favor of adopting the BMI as a standard of measuring a patient's weight were employees of pharmaceutical companies that sell weight-loss drugs.
Some parts of the book were kind of depressing, like the statistics that most people who lose weight gain it back plus more. And while she makes some excellent points about the reasons that people are overweight, including genetics, poverty, and other health conditions, there seemed to be an underlying theme of "It's not fat people's fault that they are fat," which may be true in some cases but is not true in all of them. It felt like there was a distinct lack of personal accountability.
I did find parts of the book to be kind of repetitive. A lot of the topics discussed tend to overlap with one another so there were times when I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over. Also, a lot of the topics in the book are touched on, at least a little bit, in Gordon's podcast so everything kind of had a faint "I've heard this all before" vibe.
That being said, if you like the Maintenance Phase podcast and you like Aubrey Gordon, you will probably like this book.
To check out other reviews, find this book on goodreads or amazon. Please note, all links are affiliate which gives a small portion of profit to Rainy Days and Clichés. Thank you so much for your continuous kindness!
No comments:
Post a Comment