This book was so good in the worst way. Gordon is able to thoughtfully articulate some of the things I've dealt with my entire life - and all because I'm heavy. Definitely recommend to any person who has experienced prejudice, shame, and discrimination based on their weight, and I also recommend to folx who have heavier people in their life. It's important to understand what life feels like for these people.
We need intersectional fat activism NOW. Wonderful and necessary book. Anyone going into healthcare should be required to read this book. Also, anyone in media should absolutely read this book.
I was average size for 20+ years and then I was fat for about 10 years. I am, again, average sized. I used to refer to my heavier days as "my fat decade". I guess I felt like it was important to reassure folks that I was no longer that person, that it was a decade not worth remembering. That my existence during this time was better left unaccounted for. It is so strange that I consider my larger-body years as like a mistake or a bad place when so many wonderful things happened during that time: I began a relationship with my husband, I was married, I moved to different parts of the country and my fur babies came into my life. It's weird how nothing is really good unless you're skinny. Smaller. More toned. I didn't come up with this on my own, it was drilled into me by a media landscape that is violently anti-fat (anti-anything that is not THIN af).
Anyway - EVERYONE!!! DO BETTER! Hold people, industries, organizations, etc etc accountable.