this is so radical (while not actually saying anything that shouldn't be mainstream) that i'm going to have to read it over and over again before the ideas fully sink in. i'm far too steeped in anti-fat bias and the culture of thinness = good to be able to just read this once.

i wish it didn't have "parenting" in the title because the ways she's talking about advocating for children are just as important (and lacking) with adults, and even though it's always better to start fighting bias as children, most of us have this bias, and so could benefit from this book. not just parents. most of it isn't parent-specific and what i take from this book (at this point, on this reading) is just as important for myself and how i view the world as it is for what i'm teaching my kid.

this is so important, so vital, and sadly so radical and i will read it again and again until these lessons are more ingrained.

"...in 2021 a British case made international headlines when a judge ordered two teenagers into foster care because their parents had failed to wear their Fitbits and go to Weight Watchers meetings."

"We want our kids to love their bodies but we also continue to take it for granted that fat kids can't do that. A child's high body weight is still a problem to solve, a barrier to their ability to be a happy, healthy child. This thinking is the result of a nearly forty year old public heath crusade against the rising tide of children't weight. We've been told by our families, our doctors, and voices of authority including First Lady Michelle Obama, that raising a child at a so-called healthy body weight is an essential part of being a good parent."

"The real danger to a child in a larger body is how we treat them for having that body." ( )

Our society is absolutely oozing with fatphobia. Everyone takes for granted that being fat is exactly the same as being unhealthy, that taking up less space is better, that eating less is virtuous, and that dieting and weight loss are desirable and achievable. It’s drilled into us as soon as we’re conscious, from the media and our parents and our doctors. Even if we, as adults, realize how awful all of this has been to us, and put in the work that it takes to unlearn, how do we fix this cycle?

The first third of this book breaks down all of the things that are assumed to be true when it comes to kids (and other humans) and fat. No, being fat is not unhealthy. Healthy kids come in all shapes and sizes, and so do unhealthy kids. “Lose weight” is not a valid medical treatment or advice, since 1) it does not improve health and 2) there is no universally or consistently effective method for weight loss, and the vast majority of weight loss attempts fail, so telling someone to lose weight is only marginally more realistic than telling them to grow a second head. A lot of adults understand these things on some level, or at least have experience dealing with them, but that’s not true for kids. Kids can pick up on fatphobic comments but don’t know how to deal with them, which teaches kids that they can’t trust their own bodies, which turns into eating disorders that can cause life-long physical and mental health problems. Particularly notable is that while food restriction in thin kids is a concerning eating disorder, the same food restriction in fat kids is encouraged as “dieting” despite resulting in the exact same health problems.

The middle section of this book is very intimate discussions with families about their struggles with unlearning internalized fatphobia and the aftermath of disordered eating in their families. I really applaud these families for their candor, especially the ones that are so open about things they have done wrong (e.g. literally locking up food in the parents’ bedroom to try to keep kids from binge eating). Families provide examples of different ways to approach a healthy relationship with food for kids, and the up-sides and down-sides of each.

The final third gets into more specific topics relating to kids and fatphobia and eating disorders, such as youth sports, puberty, and social media. At the end is the section I cherished the most - how to have conversations about bodies and fatphobia with various people, from co-parents to grandparents to thin kids and fat kids.

I cannot overstate how cathartic reading this book felt. A lot of the individual bits and pieces I had absorbed elsewhere but to see them all laid out plainly with backing evidence is really validating. I feel more prepared now to deal with my own internalized biases and to support the children in my life.

At the end is a list of suggested media, mostly books, which I have made into a list here: https://www.librarything.com/list/44921/all/Featured-in-Fat-Talk-by-Virginia-Sol... ( )