In her new book, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, philosopher Kate Manne dissects arguments about personal (and interpersonal) health risks.
In her new book Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, philosopher Kate Manne identifies the multiple biases that intersect with fatphobia, and deconstructs the numerous fallacies and offensive cliches society regularly deploys to stigmatize fatness. Below, we’ve excerpted a section of her chapter on the way cultures moralize overweight bodies.
As Eaton puts it, in making a related argument: “Modern life, especially modern urban life, is built around this kind of trade-off which, in most cases, does not suffer from any de-aestheticization, stigmatization, discrimination, or other negative social consequences”—unlike fatness. This highlights a major problem with the idea of a moral obligation not to be fat: We regularly accept as much or more risk when it is carried by presumptively thinner bodies.