The Fat Studies Reader

This is an excellent point of entry if you are not familiar with research in the area of fat studies. The essays cover a great breadth of topics relevant to many traditional academic disciplines (medicine, public health, history, rhetoric, political science/sociology/anthropology, education, literature, etc). Although the chapters are brief, they provide citations to previous work that you can easily track down if you want to explore any particular topic in greater depth. Some of the essays serve primarily as literature reviews, while others seek to make research contributions of their own. Methodologically, the essays either used or cited research involving a wide range of methods from medical/health science, social science (qualitative, quantitative, and experimental), and the humanities (Foucaultian analysis, queer theory, feminist theory, critical race theory, critiques of neoliberalism, etc.). I am particularly interested in the topics of bodies and imagination, both of which were themes of several of the essays. Overall, this volume falls squarely into the tradition of socially conscious academic research that performs both a scholarly and activist function. As always in an edited volume, some of the chapters are stronger than others. Which ones you assess to be the better ones will likely depend on the perspective you're coming from.Some potential readers may wish to take note that this is primarily an academic volume, although there are also several chapters written by activists and other practitioners (e.g. people in the fat burlesque and fat exercise movements). While it is clear to me that most of the authors have a serious attempt to write in a relatively accessible fashion, the primary audience is other academic researchers. I think college-educated adults or even college students should be capable of reading at least many of the chapters in this book without too much difficulty, although you may want to look at some of the popular books on this topic if you are not looking for academic research. I will say that Deb Burgard's essay on Heath At Any Size is very important reading for everyone, especially for healthcare providers and fat people who wish to advocate for themselves in medical contexts, even though it uses some technical language language (none of which I think is too difficult to follow, but YMMV).

What an amazing book. I read every single page and every essay and loved it start to finish.In some ways I've always felt like a late-comer to Fat Studies, though the pursuit is still in its nascence, but the Fat Studies Reader caught me up to speed on a variety of topics.I love that this book is out there and I only hope that it will get into more classrooms so that students can start to understand that there's so much more dimension to a fat life than the medicalized view of "obesity" allows.Congratulations to all of those involved in this amazing project.

Good Survey of the issue

This is a text book made up of chapters which appear to be a bunch of senior thesis projects. The "chapters" really are truly research papers that the writers were hoping to publish in some sort of journal, probably one related to sociology. The "chapters" even have sections such as "methodology", "results" etc. I'm telling you, the editors grabbed a bunch of senior research papers and stuck them together calling them a "book". So, this is excruciating to read, really very very horrible to read for a person who enjoys fiction writing. I have a BA in sociology and an MA in clinical psychology. So, I do actually understand the writing and I know why it's written as it is. However, I cannot over-emphasize how painfully dull, academic, and un-enjoyable this is to read. The topic is interesting and I learned quite a bit about the movement for the civil rights of fat people (including that they prefer to be called "fat") and about the "health at any size" argument. I'm glad to know more about this subject and what I've read will definitely stay with me and inform my thinking about fat people. However, I STRONGLY encourage the authors to consider writing a book that people might actually enjoy reading. It's difficult to persuade people to your point of view by by expecting them to slog through painfully dull academic writing. This subject could be really full of emotion and humor. It could be a captivating topic but they just fail miserably at making it readable. One bright spot, however was the chapter written by S. Bear Bergman called "Sometimes I'm Fat, and Sometimes I'm Not". It's written in a narrative style instead of a research paper style. It's easily the best and most readable chapter in the book. However, I'm not sure the book is worth the asking price just for that one chapter.

this was not put together very well. I understand fat studies is a new area of study, but the organization was strange, some of the articles were not as relevant as they could have been and the kindle version did not have page numbers or a systematic way to jump from article to article. it was very difficult to work with when writing academic papers.

:)

It's hard to get into this one. I'm still trying to read it. So, I can't give it an honest review.

Excellent book. Great information

Excellent collection of essays, great start point for anyone interested in Fat Studies