Author, activist and podcaster Aubrey Gordon talks to us today about her brand new second book – “You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths about Fat People. She addresses the challenge of writing a book for both fat and thin people, and explains why she was initially apprehensive about “myth-busting.” We also discuss what’s wrong with how we frame fatness, why BMI is unreliable, and the problem with body positivity.
The Stacks Book Club selection for January is The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis. We will discuss the book on January 25th with Chelsea Devantez.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.
- “You Just Need to Lose Weight” by Aubrey Gordon
- What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
- Maintenance Phase podcast
- Your Fat Friend
- Beacon Press
- Myths Made in America series (Beacon Press)
- You Can’t Fire the Bad Ones by Rick Ayers and William Ayers
- They Take Our Jobs! by Aviva Chomsky
- Body Mass Index (BMI)
- The Body Mass Index (Maintenance Phase)
- Weightless by Evette Dionne
- The Fragility of Body Positivity (Evette Dionne, Bitch Media)
- Johnnie Tillmon
- Ann Atwater
- Dove Campaign for Real Beauty
- RuPaul’s Drag Race (VH1/MTV)
- Woman kicked off plane for fat-shaming passengers (CBS News)
- The Whale (Darren Aronofsky, 2022)
- The Biggest Loser (NBC)
- My 600 Pound Life (TLC)
- Nicolas Cage
- Trolls World Tour (Walt Dohrn, 2020)
- Jason Reynolds
- “Ep. 89 Staying True to Yourself with Jason Reynolds” (The Stacks)
- “Ep. 193 Betting on the Kids with Angelina Jolie and Tokata Iron Eyes” (The Stacks)
- “Ep. 172 The Art vs. The Artist with Quentin Tarantino” (The Stacks)
- Happy Fat by Sofie Hagen
- The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
- Belly of the Beast by Da’shaun L. Harrison
- Hunger by Roxane Gay
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