“You Just Need to Lose Weight” summary

One of the most pervasive myths surrounding fat people is that they choose to be fat and could lose weight if they really wanted to. After all, diet culture suggests that this should be simple, right? Calories in, calories out. If only it were that easy.

We often learn from a young age that our bodies are the direct result of the work we’re willing to put in. If someone is thin, it means they’re hard-working and motivated. If someone is fat, it means they’re lazy.

Even if you’ve never tried to lose weight, odds are you’ve been exposed in some way to the body mass index. Although it's been regarded as a gold standard measurement for years, the cloudy history of the BMI is uneven at best. 

The body mass index is a formula for measuring weight to height ratio, created around 200 years ago by a Belgian academic named Adolphe Quetelet. You might be surprised to learn that Quetelet was not a physician. In fact, he didn’t study medicine at all. His specialties were mathematics, statistics, astronomy, and sociology. 

In the early 2000s, the beginning of a new century brought with it a host of new questions and possibilities. This was also the time when Americans were suddenly and dramatically informed that they were in the midst of an “obesity epidemic.”

Average body weight in America had been steadily rising in the previous decades, but the issue wasn't considered an immediate concern. This began to change in 1995, when the World Health Organization decided to simultaneously adopt the body mass index as its preferred measurement of body size and lower the threshold for what was considered “overweight” and “obese.”

When Aubrey Gordon was eighteen years old, she posted a picture of herself in a bathing suit on a blogging platform called LiveJournal. The one-piece was modest, but it was the first time that Gordon had found a swimsuit that she actually liked on her body. 

Having less than a hundred followers, she didn’t expect much of a response. Unfortunately, leagues of angry commenters found their way onto the site to harass her. Most left negative comments about her appearance, but some accused her of “glorifying obesity.”

Shaming anyone for how they look is wrong – no matter which way, shape, or form it’s presented. Our bodies are our own. They are not something to be judged by other people. This simple fact should be obvious, but body shaming is a very real and unfortunate part of modern life.

Under the banner of body shaming, there are two categories that often get the most attention – skinny shaming and fat shaming. Neither is fair or appropriate, but one is significantly more harmful than the other.

Myths about weight are deeply ingrained in nearly every part of our society. These harmful ideas stem from a long history of anti-fat bias and are used to isolate anyone who doesn’t fit the perceived social norms for appearance. 

Every day fat people are forced to defend their own bodies – trying to make their way in a world that was never designed to include them. From the idea that they should easily be able to lose weight to the concept of the “obesity epidemic,” our conversations about weight are deeply flawed.