Fat Talk
Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Book Riot best book of 2023
A Science Friday best book of 2023
An Audible best well-being audiobook of 2023
By the time they reach kindergarten, most kids believe that “fat” is bad. By middle school, more than a quarter of them have gone on a diet. What are parents supposed to do?
Kids learn, as we’ve all learned, that thinness is a survival strategy in a world that equates body size and value. Parents worry if their kids care too much about being thin, but even more about the consequences if they aren’t. And multibillion-dollar industries thrive on this fear of fatness. We’ve fought the “war on obesity” for over forty years and Americans aren’t thinner or happier with their bodies. But it’s not our kids—or their weight—who need fixing.
In this illuminating narrative, journalist Virginia Sole-Smith exposes the daily onslaught of fatphobia and body shaming that kids face from school, sports, doctors, diet culture, and parents themselves—and offers strategies for how families can change the conversation around weight, health, and self-worth.
Fat Talk is a stirring, deeply researched, and groundbreaking book that will help parents learn to reckon with their own body biases, identify diet culture, and empower their kids to navigate this challenging landscape. Sole-Smith draws on her extensive reporting and interviews with dozens of parents and kids to offer a provocative new approach for thinking about food and bodies, and a way for us all to work toward a more weight-inclusive world.
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This compassionate manual by journalist Sole-Smith (The Eating Instinct) suggests ways parents can help their children "recognize and reject" anti-fat bias. She explores how messaging that devalues fat bodies damages children's health, self-esteem, and sense of bodily autonomy through accounts of parents and their kids. "We need to separate weight and health," she contends, telling the story of an eight-year-old girl who received compliments from strangers about the weight she lost due to undiagnosed type 1 diabetes while her heavier and healthier younger sister received only disapproving comments. Critiquing the overlooked environmental factors that contribute to fatness, Sole-Smith reports on research that found childhood asthma to be associated with adolescent weight gain and calls for public health strategies to focus on alleviating poverty, which leaves many families unable to afford healthy food. She urges parents to talk with teachers, doctors, and their kids about pushing back on anti-fat stigma and encourages parents to tell their children that their value isn't tied to their weight: "Your body is never the problem." The eye-opening research upends conventional assumptions about what a healthy body looks like, and readers will appreciate the affirming tone. The result is a striking challenge to fatphobia.
