Illuminating Fat Acceptance With ‘You Just Need to Lose Weight’
An informed guide to change how you see & hear anti-fat bias.
A year ago one of my friends made a post on Facebook about Maintenance Phase, a podcast Aubrey Gordon hosts with Vox contributor Michael Hobbes. I was intrigued, and I found it to be a funny and smart podcast determined to debunk popular and niche diet myths ranging from the food pyramid to B-list celebrity diet books. Then, another friend recommended intuitive eating to me after I posted about my body insecurities to close friends on Instagram. She said it wasn’t a diet and she started following it after recovering from an eating disorder exacerbated by the Noom Diet. Intuitive eating focuses on giving up food restrictions and listening to your natural hunger cues. This is part of a related movement called body neutrality, which encourages people to accept their bodies as neither good nor bad, even if they don’t like how they look.
Aubrey Gordon is also the author of “You Just Need to Lose Weight: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People.” This short book presents readers with common weight myths and misconceptions about fat people that they have likely believed or absorbed at some point. Chapters are named after myths like “The BMI is an Objective Measure of Size and Health” and “Accepting Fat People Glorifies Obesity” and readers can read from beginning to end or use it as a reference guide. Aubrey wants readers to “not make this the only book you read about fat people” and that the book doesn’t cover everything about the fat acceptance movement. She even recommends other books for people to read.
Early chapters focus on defining the fat acceptance movement and she tells readers about her experiences as a fat teenager, her adult experiences with people judging her body and the harmful attitudes people have had about her health since grade school. The Seattle Times characterizes Aubrey as having “a skillful analysis, acute understanding and a sense of humor to her work.” Early on she addresses the most prevalent myths about dieting, including exercise as a primary driver of weight loss and that burning more calories than you consume is the only way people lose weight. Gordon says
“Most of us have been told weight loss is a direct reflection of our effort, if we try hard enough we’ll lose weight. But the science of weight loss paints a much more complicated picture.”
Aubrey shows that medical research makes clear that there are many reasons why people are fat. She uses both quantitative and qualitative research that creates deeper conversations about fat activism. I like that she includes what she calls reflection questions which are at the end of chapters to help readers understand their personal biases and encourage them to apply their knowledge to their daily lives. Her prose is beautiful and thoughtful, and her authentic dedication to inclusivity and fat activism is seen through her writing. She points out that the majority of people in the US wear plus sizes, and despite this multiple systems of oppression are still at work to marginalize fat people.
Aubrey shares a 2016 study on “The Biggest Loser” contestants which shows people who are overweight and go on restrictive diets are more likely to gain back more than their starting weight. By the end of the book she forces readers to rethink how we traditionally view dieting when she says “much of what we think of as insufficient willpower in dieting is a biological response to food restrictions.” She also points out that our bodies seem geared at returning us to our highest weight and that pure calories in calories out was theorized in 1958 with limited research and has since been disproven.
Nearly all of us have stereotypes and have contributed to healthism, the stigmatization of people with chronic health problems. As a teenager, I viewed being fat as the worst thing that could happen to me, and it overlapped with my mental health issues. As a plus-size adult finally receiving the right treatment for my mental health I now realize that putting my weight before my depression was harmful. You Just Need to Lose Weight” challenges my beliefs while expanding my knowledge and understanding of fat activism. The book also addresses the idea that the last form of acceptable discrimination is fatness. Her dedication to intersectionality and fighting all forms of discrimination, even those that don’t affect her directly, is important. As Aubrey says,
“There is no last form of oppression. Many systems of oppression are at work all around us.”
I grew up during the early 2000s culture around weight. I saw my mom struggle to find stylish clothes in the plus sized section while shopping with her and I grew up with the tabloid news culture around weight loss. I was also on Tumblr as a teenager and would occasionally seek out “pro-ana” (short for pro anorexia) posts, which were disguised as thinspo content, because I was curious about it.
Even though I read about fat activism and intuitive eating, I still want to lose weight and feel hesitant to identify as fat because of that. I’m also part of the 38% of people Gordon cites in her book who are plus sized and disabled, and this affects how I interact with the movement. The truth is that I’m on mental health medications that affect my metabolism and increase my risk of type 2 diabetes, and I need to take them for the rest of my life. That’s a lot for any one human to fight in a world that doesn’t actually know how gaining or losing weight works.
Why do I still care about what other people think about my body? Was I so attached to the idea of being known as thin and attractive when I was young that I’ve decided to torture myself because now don’t think I am? And who’s to say my size 16 isn’t attractive and will I accept myself if I gain more weight? Society needs to stop shaming people over an impossible battle to win. Even though I’m not totally free of the expectations of diet culture, and even though I know there’s always going to be a part of me that wants to be thin, this book and intuitive eating as a whole have driven me to be kinder to myself and I plan to continue to explore fat activism and intuitive eating.
Join the conversation! Share your thoughts, favorite takeaways, or personal experiences in the comments. Let's build a community that celebrates diverse bodies and promotes a healthy relationship with ourselves. Comment below with your reflections and reactions, and subscribe for a regular dose of body positivity and empowering insights.