The state of fatphobia in 2023
Harmful AAP guidelines, fatsuits, and two incredible books you should buy
There’s a lot going on right now, both good and bad, in terms of the discourse around fat people and fatness. I thought it might be a good time for a newsletter on the topic.
The Bad
The American Academy of Pediatricians came out a few weeks ago with a terrible set of guidelines that advocate for a more interventionist approach with respect to fat kids. First of all, I just want to say that I purposefully don’t use the terms “obesity” or “obese” if at all possible because they are essentially categories created to stigmatize fat people, and based entirely on a bad, racist measurement of health, the BMI. Don’t take my word for it, please. Educate yourself: if you like podcasts, listen to Maintenance Phase, which debunks pretty much everything we know about the “obesity epidemic” and the notion that long-term weight loss is achievable for most people, as well as demystifying other bogus “wellness” trends. There are whole books written on the subject, like Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, by sociologist Sabrina Strings. At the very least, please read Michael Hobbes’ amazing deep dive Everything you know about obesity is wrong, documenting the harm of medical fatphobia (TL;DR: the stigma of fatphobia, particularly by the medical community, harms fat people far more than being fat does).
Now, back to the new AAP guidelines: they advocate for pharmacological treatments for kids as young as 12, for bariatric surgery for kids as young as 13, and despite mentioning the harm of stigma directed at fat kids, are essentially pathologizing them even further by pushing for more medical intervention. These drugs they want adolescents to take, like Ozempic and Wegovy? It’s well-documented that adults who stop taking them regain all the weight they’ve lost - so this is a drug you have to take for your entire life! Read Evette Dionne for more on this. And major surgery that will affect teens’ digestive systems for their entire lives even though they haven’t stopped growing and developing? Both of these recommendations sentence fat kids to a lifetime of limitations, even if they haven’t been diagnosed with any actual medical condition, like diabetes or asthma. We already have treatments for these medical conditions, which affect kids and adults of all body sizes. So why is the AAP suggesting a greater degree of medical intervention? Well, because we’ve all been brainwashed into believing there is an “epidemic” of obesity - which again, is not actually a disease, but is just the condition of being in a fat body.
, an expert on the subject, has broken down all the problems with these new guidelines (including the MANY conflicts of interest by the doctors who authored these recommendations) in a very comprehensive newsletter post that you can either read or listen to:
I just have to say that all of this is extremely disheartening for me, a fat parent who’s trying my best to counter all the fatphobic messages my two kids receive in our society and teach them that it is not a moral failure to be fat, that people just have differently sized bodies and it’s part of human diversity. Last year, my daughter (four going on five) had already internalized the message that being thin was something to aspire to. I have no idea where she got that message, but at some point she said, “I don’t want to be fat. I want to be thin.” Of course I pushed back on that and she seems to be unlearning that incredibly harmful message. But as a girl growing up in the social media age, I know the she’ll face so much more fatphobia as she gets older.
It’s infuriating to know that the professional organization representing our kids’ doctors made a conscious decision to perpetuate the mindset that being a fat kid is something to avoid at all costs, that your kid should be put on medication with nasty side effects (that they can’t ever stop taking) or have major surgery that will permanently alter their digestive system—instead of taking steps to de-stigmatize fatness by sending the message that there has always been body diversity and that it’s possible to be healthy in bodies of different sizes. By the way, several experts have noted that these recommendations are very likely to push more teens into disordered eating.
The medical community doesn’t appear to be ready to acknowledge the immense amount of harm it has done to fat people (through misdiagnosis and biased treatment) and move away from the “obesity epidemic” narrative (which by the way is also incredibly profitable for the pharmaceutical and wellness industries). That means parents are gonna have to advocate for their kids if pediatricians start suggesting pharmacological or surgical solutions. Needless to say, even more traditional weight loss recommendations, like putting kids on diets, is also a bad idea and unlikely to help their long-term health. Luckily I do have one book recommendation below that will be a crucial resource for parents.
Another trend that has shown me just how pervasive fatphobia still is in our society is the resurgence of fatsuits in Hollywood. I wrote an LA Times piece three years ago about the representation of fat women on TV in which I stated that fatsuits seemed to be on their way out. Sadly, I was wrong. In the past two years we’ve seen numerous examples of thin actors donning fatsuits to portray fat characters or more accurately depict real-life fat people.
Sarah Paulson (playing Linda Tripp), Viola Davis (Ma Rainey), Renee Zellweger (Pam Hupp, whoever that is!), Tom Hanks (Colonel Tom Parker) in the now Oscar-nominated movie Elvis (also arguably the worse performance Hanks has ever given), Emma Thompson (Matilda the Musical), and most famously in the past year: Brendan Fraser, who was just nominated for an Oscar for donning a fat suit to play a 600-lb man in The Whale (a movie I will never watch because of the reviews I’ve read noting how pathetic and miserable the character is).
I can’t believe how many actors and producers still think it’s ok to do this. We have many fantastic fat actors that could be hired to play these roles. There is no reason for thin actors to cosplay as fat (in a podcast I heard last week, one Black cultural critic even likened this trend to blackface). And there’s even LESS reason for Hollywood to praise/award these actors, or say that they’re brave, for doing it. It’s like, I know people love Brendan Fraser and want him to have a win, but why does it have to be for a role in which the character is trying to eat himself to death?? Thin actors donning fatsuits dehumanizes actual fat people by reducing us to our body size and magnifying this one aspect of us. How about creators just write fat characters to reflect the actual world and the reality of body diversity, and hire fat actors to play them?
I don’t know what it’s going to take to make Hollywood more size-inclusive, but I know that as long as A-list actors are still donning fatsuits, we’re going in the wrong direction.
The Good
There’s a lot to be discouraged about when it comes to where we are in de-stigmatizing fatness and fighting against fatphobia, but I have two book recommendations for you that I think could really change a lot of minds.
Aubrey Gordon, You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths about Fat People
This book just came out and is making a lot of noise - it’s actually out of stock in many places, which just makes me so optimistic about people wanting to unlearn their fatphobia. If you listen to Maintenance Phase or know her from Twitter as @yrfatfriend, you already know about Aubrey. She’s one of the smartest (and funniest) fat acceptance activists out there.
Here’s a recent NPR story about her book, which is gonna be a game-changer: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/19/1150091462/you-just-need-to-lose-weight-aims-to-change-your-thinking-about-being-fat
Virginia Sole-Smith, Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture
It’s not out yet but it will be this spring and you can pre-order it now: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250831217/fattalk
Virginia also has a great newsletter,
, all about parenting with a fat acceptance lens. I feel like this book is gonna be a really important one for parents to read.In general, I just want to encourage you to make a commitment in 2023 to fighting your own internalized fatphobia, which affects us all, no matter our body size. This doesn’t mean thin people face the discrimination and bias that fat people face within our society—please don’t take this to mean you are marginalized if you are thin. Thin privilege is very much a thing. What I mean is that all of us (regardless of our body size) have subjected ourselves to an immense amount of scrutiny and negative self-talk around our bodies, from a very young age, and unlearning that internalized fatphobia is a lifelong struggle. I talk a big game and own my fatness, but I’m not immune. I’m still unlearning 40 years of deeply entrenched body shaming.
It’s never too late to start.
If you liked this newsletter, please give it a heart (like) on the Substack platform, share it, and comment/give me feedback. All the engagement really helps.
Agree whole heartedly. I've also been working on putting my feeling on paper about this. Thank you for sharing.
Rebecca, thank you for this! I agree, all of this (gestures around at world) is a hugely discouraging start to 2023... but I do believe we can keep fighting to push this conversation in the right direction.