Beyond BMI: A New Book Embodies Fat Liberation

The United States' obsession with thinness has resulted in YES! Magazine executive editor Evette Dionne calls a “culture that hates fat people and [that] uses institutions, including media, medicine, and marriage, to reinforce that repulsion.”

In her new book Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul, Dionne takes readers on a personal and political journey that begins with her own health issues and her resultant encounters with fatphobia in the medical establishment.

Although the medical industry has, for decades, warned about an “obesity epidemic,” the real health hazard, as Dionne points out, is systemic fat shaming that can have deadly consequences for children and adults.

But there is a shift, as a growing fat liberation movement has begun pushing government, medical, and cultural institutions to begin dismantling biases against fat people.

 

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bmi fatphobia Health health hazards Media Medical weight