Unshrinking Quotes

“The body is not an object for correction or colonization or consumption.”
― Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

“All in all, body neutrality seems at best a precarious retreat from judgment, not a stable resting place. It’s like offering a zero instead of a positive or negative number, when what is needed is dispensing with numbers altogether.[26]”
― Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

“When body positivity is forced or feels controlling, it can thwart feelings of agency and autonomy and therefore backfire…. Placing emphasis on positivity while ignoring negative feelings and experiences exerts a cost to authenticity and self-integration—or, the need to feel true to (and congruent with) oneself.[24]”
― Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

“Philosophers routinely cite an “ought implies can” principle: the idea that you have a moral obligation to do something only if you can do it; or, equivalently, you are not obligated to do something that you cannot do. Under a plausible adaptation of this principle, someone’s near inability to do something also makes it moot and unfair to demand that she do so. Hence the fact that most fat people cannot realistically make ourselves thin in the long term through diet and exercise has far-reaching moral implications: we cannot then be blamed for not doing the near-impossible.”
― Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

“The example of Kardashian highlights the fact that it’s not really a matter of fatness being fashionable in any recent era. Rather, different forms of fat distribution on enduringly thin frames are favored. This makes it easier to objectify and control us, as well as to take our money.”
― Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

“When it comes to our health, then, there is considerable evidence that it is fitness, not fatness, that matters most, and that fitness mitigates many if not all of the health risks associated with living in a larger body. And yet many continue to mistake fatness for the biggest problem.”
― Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia