"You Just Need to Lose Weight"

And 19 Other Myths About Fat People

De: Aubrey Gordon

Narrado por: Aubrey Gordon

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

AN INDIE BESTSELLER

“One of the great thinkers of our generation . . . I feel fresher and smarter and happier for sitting down with her.”—Jameela Jamil, iWeigh Podcast

The co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast and creator of Your Fat Friend equips you with the facts to debunk common anti-fat myths and with tools to take action for fat justice

The pushback that shows up in conversations about fat justice takes exceedingly predicable form. Losing weight is easy—calories in, calories out. Fat people are unhealthy. We’re in the midst of an obesity epidemic. Fat acceptance “glorifies obesity.” The BMI is an objective measure of size and health. Yet, these myths are as readily debunked as they are pervasive.

In “You Just Need to Lose Weight,” Aubrey Gordon equips listeners with the facts and figures to reframe myths about fatness in order to dismantle the anti-fat bias ingrained in how we think about and treat fat people. Bringing her dozen years of community organizing and training to bear, Gordon shares the rhetorical approaches she and other organizers employ to not only counter these pernicious myths, but to dismantle the anti-fat bias that so often underpin them.

As conversations about fat acceptance and fat justice continue to grow, “You Just Need to Lose Weight” will be essential to ensure that those conversations are informed, effective, and grounded in both research and history.

©2023 Aubrey Gordon (P)2023 Beacon Press

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Will appeal to anyone interested in discrimination based on body size and other similar forms of systemic oppression.”—Library Journal, Starred Review

“An excellent tool for those working to end anti-fat bias. Perfect for fat and thin readers alike, ‘You Just Need to Lose Weight’ is smart and informative—and will spur many important conversations.”—Shelf Awareness, Starred Review

“Gordon tackles pervasive myths about fatness and provides the truth about them and the people they impact…[the book] couldn't have come at a more apt time.”—Teen Vogue

Required Reading

I’d like to buy a copy for everyone who will provide me healthcare. Excellent points and powerful.

challenging but so worth it

Flew through this and it.was.so.good.

Aubrey takes on a bunch of myths and harmful things people say about fat people and breaks them down with facts and statistics. So many times I swore out loud and got mad. I've heard many of them before from people or from her podcast, @maintenancephase but that doesn't make it easier to hear again.

I recognized some of the hurtful and possible harmful things I've done in the past myself, and it made me want to call up friends who are fatter than me and apologize (but that would probably be weird). But now I know better and can do better, something Aubrey always makes me want to do.

I love the layout with the questions at the end of the chapters. Really helps with self reflection and actions going forward.

I may be returning to this one again and again.

Stunning

Beautifully written and articulated. I’ve learned so much and will continue to combat anti-fatness in my personal life.

Actionable, intersectional, relatable

This book was incredibly insightful, presenting a firm and educated overview of anti fat bias and discrimination. It opened my eyes to a lot of systems I current exist within and gave great framework for me to now take and continue educating myself. The language is very accessible and every detail is incredibly well sourced. I highly enjoyed it and recommend it for anyone looking to understand cultural biases and how different forms of discrimination shape our views.

Edit: returning to add that in the days following finishing this book I’ve used the action steps brought up SO MANY TIMES. I really appreciate how this topic is now seamlessly fitting into my daily life, both helping me feel empowered as a fat lady and helping me intervene and disrupt biased loved ones calmly and knowledgeably.

A must read!

A must read or listen for everyone! Very clear, concise, & well researched! (Like actually we’ll researched w citations to peer reviewed studies not blogs or sketchy sources!). Easy to listen to but also challenging. A great book club read for when you want to really dig in & learn something about the world & yourself. Would also be a great intro to anti-fat bias for folks who haven’t been introduced to the topic

MUST LISTEN

Aubrey Gordon offers accessible actionable points and reflections questions at the end of nearly every myth review.

The myths are commonplace. Listening to their dispelling is necessary work for anyone at any level of their own anti-fat work.

Further, Aubrey offers further reading and sources for additional work.

Somber, eye opening and 100% truth!!

Mandatory read for everyone!! Love you Aubrey for bringing your experience and knowledge to the public in hopes of making a difference in the lives of fat people and all marginalized communities.

great reference

loved it! You Just Need To Lose Weight will be a book I reference often. Thanks Aubrey!

Aubrey Gordon is a national treasure

This book should be mandatory reading, especially for all anti-fat bias activists. a beautiful combination of qualitative and quantitative data and anecdotes. you should also listen to her podcast, Maintenance Phase. She's brilliant.

Aubrey Gordon is a gift

If the title or description of this book make you uncomfortable, this book is for you. If you have ever bought into, and repeated, any of the phrases used as the framing structure of this narrative, this book is for you. If you have spent much of your life on the dieting merry-go-round, this book is for you. If you have jumped off that merry-go-round and sworn off diet culture, this book is for you. If you exist, or have existed, in a fat body, this book is for you. If you have never lived in a fat body, this book is for you.

Where Aubrey Gordon’s first book, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, focused on the widespread structural ways that anti-fat bias is engrained in health policy, public planning, commerce, transportation, and sanctioned in social interactions, this new book picks apart a number of the most common phrases that tend to be given as unsolicited advice to fat people or brought up to justify anti-fat bias in interpersonal and systemic contexts. Gordon writes with with keen insight and a strong grasp of the available scientific research on weight loss and weight stigma. For those who know her work on the podcast Maintenance Phase, her voice and compassion carry through her writing as well. She deftly cites the ideas and research of other scholars and activists who have written about weight stigma and lived fat experiences, particularly where they intersect with race, class, disability, and LGBTQ experiences; and she encourages readers to seek out those voices and writings for themselves. Gordon’s background as an organizer informs this book as well: each chapter concludes with suggestions of ways to interrupt or counter each titular myth when encountering it in everyday situations among family, friends, the workplace, or in public. Each array of suggestions spans a range of tones and strategies, offering options that are more or less confrontational, or that range between setting firm boundaries to shut down the immediate harm and engaging in dialogue to educate and change minds.