The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) has named August Fat Liberation Month to continue highlighting “how fat people are thriving despite society’s biases and prejudices.” Founded in 1969 by Bill Fabrey and Lew Louderbach, NAAFA seeks to empower fat people through support, advocacy, and education—but their tools and events aren’t just helpful for fat people; they’re helpful for everyone attempting to unlearn anti-fatness in the fight for fat liberation.
To celebrate, we’ve compiled a list of 10 books that should be on your fat studies TBR, especially during Fat Liberation Month. These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to writing on fatness, and we hope you’ll continue reading and learning after checking out these titles.
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness
Written by Black, fat, queer and trans theorist and abolitionist Da’Shaun L. Harrison, Belly of the Beast examines the intersections of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, as well as how this kind of bigotry fuels police violence, medical malfeasance, incarceration rates, and more. The 2022 Lammy Award-winning book in particular examines the violence aimed at fat, Black men and trans and non-binary masculine folks, as well as their erasure and subjugation.
The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love
Sonya Renee Taylor’s The Body Is Not an Apology asks its readers to love themselves radically, which means unlearning indoctrinated body shame and seeking to disrupt the structures that reinforce oppression based on anyone’s race, ethnicity, body size, body shape, ability level, gender, or sexuality. For those who want to dive deeper or journal their process, there is also a companion title, Your Body Is Not an Apology Workbook: Tools for Living Radical Self-Love.
Fat Activism: A Radical Social Movement
Charlotte Cooper’s Fat Activism (Second Edition) is an updated and revised version of her preeminent scholarly work on the history of fat liberation and body positivity through a feminist lens, including how her own activism has shifted in the context of the movement for fat acceptance.
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
Fearing the Black Body, written by celebrated academic Sabrina Strings, is a 2020 American Sociological Association award-winner examining how Black women have been sexualized and stigmatized for more than 200 years. Returning “the obesity epidemic” to its roots in the Enlightenment-era belief that fatness was a physical demarcation of “savagery” and racial inferiority, Strings examines how all anti-fatness is rooted in anti-Blackness and how the movement for fat liberation has still failed to center Black women. A must-read.
Heavy: An American Memoir
Kiese Laymon’s Heavy: An American Memoir is an award-winning, universally-lauded exploration of Laymon’s lifelong relationship to his body, his family, and his vices. Through deeply personal and beautifully written prose about his childhood, sexual violence and abuse, getting suspended from college, eating disorders, fatness, sex, and more, Laymon not only reflects on how his own life has been shaped but provides sharp, searing commentary on how American individualism has broken our ability to love, rather than supported it.
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Roxane Gay is often cited as a Fat, feminist hero. In Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, she articulates her complex and ever-changing relationship with her body and her fatness, both of which are inextricably linked to early sexual assault and how she climbed into her own skin as an act of self-preservation. This book is difficult to read, but necessary.
The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat & Fierce
Edited by Angie Manfredi, The (Other) F Word collects art, poetry, prose, and even fashion tips from a variety of fat creatives including Samantha Irby, Julie Murphy, and Jes Baker, celebrating fatness in all of its forms. Unlike the other books on this list, The (Other) F Word is a young adult anthology aimed at teenagers whose access to fat liberation resources may be limited.
Queering Fat Embodiment
Queering Fat Embodiment, edited by Jackie Wykes, Samantha Murray, and the late Cat Pausé, showcases scholarship about growing fatphobia in medical and cultural situations, as well as the pathologization and commodification of fatness. Fat people are people who deserve the same rights to care and safety as all other people, but the moral panic over “obesity” that’s taken Western culture by storm in the last several decades has made it so fat people are scapegoats for everything that’s wrong with society. This book seeks to undermine baseless assertions that have been bandied about for years, with peer-reviewed research and citations.
Thick: And Other Essays
Former Here to Slay co-host and celebrated academic Tressie McMillan Cottom provides biting commentary about the social stigma around Blackness, fatness, fashion, beauty, and more in her essay collection Thick. Intertwined with her social commentary, she dips into her own history and draws ties between personal experience and social expectations, arriving at conclusions more people could stand to consider.
“You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People
Maintenance Phase co-host and formerly anonymous blogger behind Your Fat Friend Aubrey Gordon breaks down 20 of the most popular myths about fat people in her latest title, “You Just Need To Lose Weight.” Gordon breaks down the racist history of the BMI, the actual success rates of extreme weight-loss programs and fad diets, and the mental and physical ramifications of fatphobia on individual people and communities, as well as the many and varied reasons behind why someone may be fat. This book provides an excellent introduction to some of the ugliest stereotypes about fatness and dismantles them one by one, making it a great read for anyone, regardless of prior knowledge.
(featured image: urbazon/Getty Images)
