What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

by Aubrey Gordon

Few of us think of ourselves as hating any group of people. Still, our implicit biases often belie that self-image and the more comforting stories we tell ourselves. But acknowledging our biases isn’t a matter of making ourselves into villains, all black hearts and gleeful misdeeds. Acknowledging our biases is a matter of recognizing the social contexts that encourage them.

As diet culture disguises itself, shapeshifting into a more palatable “wellness” approach with the same old goals, orthorexia emerges as its corollary eating disorder. At a time when cleanses and detoxes are increasingly de rigueur, orthorexia often manages to fly under the radar, masquerading as an understandable and even laudable concern for health.

We deserve a new paradigm of health: one that acknowledges its multifaceted nature and holds t-cell counts and blood pressure alongside mental health and chronic illness management. We deserve a paradigm of personhood that does not make size or health a prerequisite for dignity and respect.