Reddit Reddit reviews Fat: The Owner's Manual

We found 5 Reddit comments about Fat: The Owner's Manual. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Fat: The Owner's Manual
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5 Reddit comments about Fat: The Owner's Manual:

u/bob_mcbob · 39 pointsr/RagenChastain

OK, this was a fucking terrible interview. The host is into BBW and obviously totally enamoured. A lot of the interview had nothing to do with Ragen or her activism, and she mostly just parroted the usual sounding points from her blog. The most hilarious part is at the end where she claims she is intentionally not taking speaking engagements because she is training so hard for the IRONMAN.

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[4:05]

Host "GBev" introduces the show and special guest "Ragen Chinson".

[5:12]

Ragen has been "up to her usual shenanigans" speaking writing and blogging about size acceptance and HAES. 3rd annual Fat Activism Conference, IRONMAN training.

[8:55]

Host asks Ragen to "elaborate on the IRONMAN marathon". A few years ago Ragen did a marathon as part of a project to "do some athletic things outside of her comfort zone". She's always done sports and dance, but only things she was good at. If she wasn't immediately good, she just never did it again. She did a marathon and it was terrible, and wondered "what could I suck at more than this?". Ragen planned to be "done" in November but unfortunately she "just wasn't able to get fast enough" and has one more year of training. She will definitely be finishing and getting the medal in November 2017.

Hosts laughs at "get the medal" and wonders why she does it if she hates it. As we know, Ragen is doing it because she hates it. She is "pretty ready to be done with it".

[10:28]

Host directs people to www.dancewithfats.org, asks Ragen how she came up with her "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" slogan. Ragen corrects him (danceswithfat.org) and explains the "good fatty/bad fatty dichotomy", the hoops fat people need to jump through in society, etc.

[11:58]

Host relates the story of a fat person who said they "didn't want to live in a fat body" and "disrespect their body" and would "rather be healthy". Host asks Ragen "as a larger person" if it's hard to lose weight.

Ragen explains this person has clearly got a bunch of concepts muddled together. You can "respect and love your body" at any size, "fat and healthy are not opposites", and all research shows only a very very small percentage are able to maintain weight loss. Most people lose in the short term then gain back more than they lost. The most surprising thing to Ragen on her "journey through the research" is that there has never been a single study showing weight loss improves health, because so few people maintain weight it is impossible to conduct a study. All obesity science is based on the premise that looking thin is healthier, despite the fact there are unhealthy thin people. In any case it is all a great big conspiracy by the diet industry. Losing weight to reduce social stigma is the same as giving a bully your lunch money to stop beating you up. "The problem isn't my body, the problem is people say negative things about my body".

[14:50]

Host asks Ragen about fat shaming. A lot of people on his Facebook BBW communities are "big women" and he is mad when people steal their photos. Fat people are the brunt of the joke in movies.

"That's really really not ok". Ragen has had her head Photoshopped on a whale, and people in "various internet hate troll communities" make joke pictures of fat people.

[17:10]

Host mentions a disrespectful Trump quote about "400 lb person sitting behind a computer". Ragen is triggered by Trump and explains he is anti-fat in addition to racist etc. Calling someone fat in that context is "bigotry". "The definition of bigotry is making judgements about people based on unrelated characteristics".

Marilyn Wann quote: "The only two things you can tell from somebody's body size is what their body size and what your personal prejudices are about people that size."

[19:25]

Host asks Ragen about her "health coaching" and experiences when she does her "speeches to universities". Apparently when normal people give talks they charge a fee for a single talk, but Ragen charges a flat fee for "as many things as they want". Ragen "often" speaks to university health care providers about how to provide non-sizeist compassionate care to fat people who want "evidence-based care". Sometimes Ragen talks to the athletic staff about how to create a size acceptance environment. Sometimes she teaches dance classes. She has been "lucky to get a lot of chances".

[21:06]

Host apparently attended one of Ragen's "classes" at the University of Oregon with his wife. He complains about how people in Oregon expect you to be healthy and order salads, asks Ragen how she approached the student body to "think outside the box" that it's "ok to be overweight and still be healthy".

Ragen tells him it's ok to be fat and unhealthy as well. Apparently she asks people to examine their stereotypes about fat people, including their internalized stereotypes. Health is not an obligation, nobody owes anyone health. Health is not guaranteed: marathoners drop dead of heart attacks. Health isn't within our control. Ragen talks about how oppressed fat people are and that the stress of weight stigma may explain the health problems of obesity, compares it to to the stress of race stigma.

[25:30]

Host asks Ragen about people who describe themselves as "thick in the waist and cute in the face". Apparently that is ok as long as you say "and" rather than "but". If you say you are fat but beautiful it is a problem.

Ragen sees beauty as a "skill set". If you look at someone and don't perceive beauty, there is something wrong with you, because everyone is beautiful. Fat people don't owe anyone a certain standard of beauty, just like trans people don't own anyone a certain presentation. We live in a society where the only way we can feel good about ourselves is by putting other people down. "This person has a self-esteem problem and they're trying to make it my problem, and I don't want their body image issue for Christmas, I want a Wii or whatever." [so hip and with it!]

[29:15]

"Do you think that we as a society dress or act or go to school for certain things to validate who we are as people?"

Yes, "huge corporations and industries make billions of dollars by making us believe we'll never be enough unless we're something other than we we are" [so close to sixty billion dollar weight loss industry] Ragen has a problem with "flattering" clothes. The stereotype of beauty is "very thin and very white" and heavily Photoshopped, "literally impossible to attain".

Host talks about MLK's activism in 1953, compares it to Ragen's ideas of making a "paradigm shift to the establishment".

[33:20]

Host asks Ragen about Fat: The Owner's Manual, her ridiculously poorly-edited ebook she self-published in 2012. She apparently wrote it to tell people they have "options" like not hating their fat bodies, "pursue health without pursing weight loss", etc. There is "good research" that attempting to lose weight with fitness is worthless. People read blogs like Ragen's and have "a-ha moments" but lose them because they are bombarded with anti-fat material elsewhere, so they need a manual to cement the ideas.

[37:12]

Ragen uses humour to deal with negative stuff in her life. It's super important to be able to laugh, and the internet has been really amazing for that. She went to school in Texas in the 90s as a queer woman, and it wasn't easy to find a queer community in Texas, but the internet helped. The fat community is amazing in terms of bloggers and BBW communities.

Host is shocked to discover "queer" is an acceptable term. Ragen explains she is reclaiming the term and prefers to LGBTQ+ because of inclusivity, like she uses "fat". Host compares it to his use of the n-word. He "believes in god and Sodom and Gomorra" but his job as a Christian isn't to judge people for what they do in the bedroom. Goes off on a tangent about religion and homophobia with awkward interjections by Ragen for a while.

[44:57]

"Why is ok that a gay male that is an intellectual can get farther and more attention than a woman like yourself?" [maybe because he graduated from college?]

"Oppression happens intersectionally". A white guy who's gay may be listened to more than a black gay man, or a woman or a queer trans man. People with multiple marginalized identities are oppressed individually for each identity and at the intersection of them.

[46:20]

Host likes Orange is the New Black because of diversity and female cast. More about homosexuality, fat actresses on the show. Ragen initially loved OITNB, but wishes there were a diverse show not set in a prison. Also the writing staff are apparently all white and huge racists.

[48:45]

Host applauds people like Ragen who are "making a difference", because people are "listening to the movement". Everyone is created equal and equal under the laws, but "should fat people have their own laws, should they be protected classes?"

Ragen talks about "fat as a protected class" with the example of Jill Andrews who does the Body Positive Awards in Canada who is petitioning the government of Manitoba to make weight a protected class. Ragen starts comparing fat oppression to the legalization of gay marriage. "It's not just about Reddit trolls emailing us and saying 'fatties gonna fat'" or shame, bullying, and oppression. Fat people face systemic oppression. Trump just appointed a known fat shamer to a major committee position. Fat people don't receive equal medical treatment or "transportation".

u/Mactonite · 3 pointsr/fatlogic

Based on the success of her previous book This will probably also be a HUGE hit.

u/hlkolaya · 2 pointsr/BodyAcceptance

I read! a lot! my favorite blog is http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com but i also read books- i highly highly recommend lessons from the fatosphere by kate harding and marianne kirby. I've also read Fat!So? by Marilyn Wann, The obesity Myth by Paul Campos. Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon PhD, and I'm currently reading Fat The Owner's Manual by Ragen Chastain and Fat Sex by Rebecca Jane Weinstein.

I also write... I write for three body positive blogs- my own, fierce freethinking fatties, and axis of fat. So I writ eout my insecurities and my strengths and I try my best to get back on track.

u/kinkydiver · 2 pointsr/fatlogic

Turns out that isn't her first book.

But I find it interesting that this one is priced such that no one who isn't already delusional will buy it.

u/estherfm · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

This book. (Or anything that fits on my book list. Used is great!)

Thank you Santa!