- 294 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Only available on web
Why It's OK to Be Fat
About This Book
Officially, Western societies are waging a war on obesity. Unofficially, we are waging a war on fat people. Anti-fat sentiment is pervasive, and fat people suffer a host of harms as a result: workforce discrimination, inferior medical care, relentless teasing, and internalized shame. A significant proportion of the population endures such harms. Yet, that is not typically regarded as a serious problem. Most of us aren't quite sure: Is it really OK to be fat? This book argues that it is.
In Why It's OK to Be Fat, Rekha Nath convincingly argues that conventional views of fatness in Western societiesāas a pathology to be fixed or as a moral failingāare ill-conceived. Combining careful empirical investigation with rigorous moral argumentation, this book debunks popular narratives about weight, health, and lifestyle choices that underlie the dominant cultural aversion to fatness. It argues that we should view fatness through the lens of social equality, examining the wide-ranging ways that fat individuals fail to be treated as equals. According to Nath, it is high time that we recognize sizeism āthe systematic ways that our society penalizes fat individuals for their sizeāas a serious structural injustice, akin to racism, sexism, and homophobia.
For additional online material from the author, related to this book, please see rekhanath.net
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Half-Title Page
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- 1 Social Attitudes about Fatness
- Part I Promoting Public Health
- Part II Fat-blaming
- Part III Reconceiving Fatness
- Acknowledgments
- Additional Online Material
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index