From the creator of Your Fat Friend, an explosive indictment of the systemic and cultural bias facing plus-size people that will move us toward creating an agenda for fat justice. Fat folks know concern trolls all too well. Gordon describes them as people who “position themselves as sympathetic supporters,” when they’re really just well-intentioned bullies. A concern troll might ask a fat person what diets they’ve tried before asking them if they even want to lose weight, or even ask for their consent to engage in what might be a sensitive topic. “The simple fact … is that concern harms fat people. It wrests our bodies from our control, insisting that thin people know our bodies best and that, like a car accident or child abuse, fatness requires a mandatory report,” Gordon writes. The dark underbelly of concern-trolling is our cultural obsession with thinness. Because of fatphobia’s history as a structural means of body policing, Gordon says, “all of the ways that we level our bad behaviors at fat people are absolutely entrenched in oppressive systems, in violent forms of communication. There’s no consent built into any of it. All of that is a direct outgrowth of what we’ve all learned from White supremacy. Well, certainly what White folks have learned from White supremacy.”

What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Fat - Harvard

As a full-time organizer with 12 years of experience, Gordon wanted her book to be accessible to folks who may not know much about anti-fatness, as well as being validating for other fat folks. “There are two entry points in: if you’ve never thought about this before, if you’ve never thought about fatness and fat people in this dignity- and justice-centered way, there will be plenty of user friendly entry points for you. And if you are a fat person who has thought about this a lot, my hope is to have created something that allows fat folks to see themselves reflected in a way that doesn’t usually happen.” The marginalization and public abuse of very fat people is so commonplace that it has become accepted, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.”

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Diet culture is insidious. You see it on TV, like when Miranda from Sex and the City joins Weight Watchers right after having a baby. You hear it from your co-worker who won’t stop talking about how they simply cannot eat another cookie at the holiday party. And I’d venture to guess you even hear it in your head, when your pants are suddenly fitting a little differently. Regardless of how normalized diet culture is, it’s harmful. Anti-fatness is everywhere. In What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon unearths the cultural attitudes and social systems that have led to people being denied basic needs because they are fat and calls for social justice movements to be inclusive of plus-sized people’s experiences. Unlike the recent wave of memoirs and quasi self-help books that encourage readers to love and accept themselves, Gordon pushes the discussion further towards authentic fat activism, which includes ending legal weight discrimination, giving equal access to health care for large people, increased access to public spaces, and ending anti-fat violence. As she argues, “I did not come to body positivity for self-esteem. I came to it for social justice.” When was the last time you spoke to a fat person about their experience being fat? Or, if you’re fat, when was the last time a thin person asked you about your experience of fatness? According to activist and writer Aubrey Gordon, our conversations about fatness are extremely one-sided: “We’re very good at talking about fat people without ever talking to fat people.”

What we don’t talk about when we talk about fat: by Aubrey

In a world where thinness reigns supreme and diet talk is as normal as talking about the weather, fat folks rarely have the opportunity to share their stories without fear of being bullied or berated. Gordon, also known as “Your Fat Friend,” (previously anonymously), has claimed her own space online where fat stories are welcome. She’s written essays about living as a fat person, as well as informative pieces about the harms of diet talk, how to examine your anti-fat bias, and the public health risks of fat-shaming. In her new book, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Gordon seamlessly threads a personal narrative with data and history. It’s a much-needed and accessible addition to fat discourse. Photo by Tara Moore/Getty Images.I find an immense sense of freedom and power in learning the histories behind this stuff and doing deep dives into the research. Because the further you get into it, the more I found that this stuff is not based on science. The ways that we treat fat people are not based on science. They are not based on outcome-driven ideas. The ways that we treat fat people are kind of terrible, and they don’t actually make fat people thinner, or healthier, or happier. None of the above. There’s something about peeking behind the curtain of all of this that feels immensely empowering,” Gordon says. Like men hearing about the pervasiveness of catcalling for the first time, thin people cannot quite reconcile the differences in our daily lives.” Gordon opens her book with a story about being put in a middle seat on a plane as a size 28, and the anger she received from the man sitting next to her. “Wherever I go, the message is clear: my body is too much for this world to bear. And it’s reinforced by the people around me. Like the man on the plane, strangers take it upon themselves to tell me what I already know: that I won’t fit and I’m not welcome,” she writes. She recommends some easy policy changes, like including body size as a protected class in schools where states have banned bullying. “The number one reason that kids are bullied in school is because of their weight. It’s above and beyond anything else. … We could make some serious strides to reduce the harm that is facing fat kids in schools.” All of the policy changes she proposes are pretty light lifts, but they would be strides toward dignity for fat people. Anti-fatness isn’t about saving fat people, expressing concern for our health, or even about hurting us. Hurting us is a byproduct of reinforcing the egos of the privileged thin.”