Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne

I had feelings reading Unshrinking. Lots and lots of feelings, feelings which made me reflect and assess, then reassess again.

Some part of my reaction is due to the particular place I am at in my life where I am actively trying to lose weight and return to a body shape and size that I used to be, and the fact that I, like Manne, am a woman in higher education, in the humanities to boot. This book hit on many levels for me. YMMV, of course, but I think most readers, regardless of their gender, occupation, and size will find that some part or whole of this book mirrors an experience they have had themselves, witnessed, or been party to.

Manne’s Unshrinking focuses on fatness and the fear and loathing around that subject as an oppressive force; an unrecognized and often invisible loci on the intersectional matrix dominated by Race, Class, and Gender. Fat, says Manne, ought to figure up there, alongside the big three — or at the very least, Fatness ought to be taken into account as one of the newer cohort of (though no less inferior) factors like Disability/Ability, Age, Education, etc.

Some chapters address what readers might expect in a conversation about fatness and size: the FDA approved Food Pyramid, the faulty application of Body Mass Index (BMI) to any and all, the near global obsession with “dieting,” and what constitutes — in many societies — the Ideal Body Figure for men, women, everyone. But Manne also devotes pages to the philosophical and ideological fallout of Fatphobic culture, and the effects of fatphobia and prejudice in academia and professional settings. What it comes down to, according to Manne, is the moral leverage thinness, paired with the moral condemnation of fatness, has to shape not only individual experiences, but society on a larger scale.

Unshrinking also offers the reader — and readers like me — a certain, if narrow, avenue of hope and empowerment. I felt seen, even though my fatness is not especially fat and more a reflection of my own fatphobia and internalization of what size I ought to be. Manne suggests that fatphobia can be acknowledged, addressed, and the situation ameliorated. We can and should change the way we see fatness; it shouldn’t be a moral yardstick, it isn’t a signal of health, and it isn’t up for public policing. Instead, fatness is another facet of our human diversity, a thing worth embracing and including.

Still, today I counted my calories.