The term “obese” is derived from the Latin obesus, meaning “having eaten oneself fat,” inherently blaming fat people for their bodies.13 The term “overweight” implies that there is an objectively correct weight for every body. A growing number of fat activists consider obese to be a slur. Both terms are derived from a medical model that considers fat bodies as deviations that must be corrected, so both are used sparingly throughout this book.
