Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I was looking for the new book from the American Heart Association, No Fad Diet, on my library’s website. Of course, it’s too new to be in their system. The search brought me to where the book would have been in the list, had they attained it. Instead of finding the latest health information from the American Heart Association, I looked at an unrelated list of titles that start with the word “No”. The book titled “No Fat Chicks: How Big Business Profits Making Women Hate Their Bodies and How to Fight Back” caught my eye.

Released in 1997, it is a little out of date. Fen-Phen is off the market. Plus-size clothing is a lot easier to find now. Even Karl Lagerfield has lost weight and published a horrible and degrading diet book. The author would have been livid at that one.

The book spends most of its time convincing the reader that overweight people encounter prejudice from employers, physicians and even the fashion industry. Anyone who has ever been fat knows this. We all have our stories of doctors that have insulted and demeaned us. We all have a list of stores that we will never step into, even though we’ve long ago lost the weight. We all have those dark suspicions about promotions and pay increases that we never received. We all have unrequited loves who rejected us strictly because of our girth. Most readers of this book don’t need to be convinced that we have been victims of prejudice. We’ve experienced it first hand.

The second half of the title, “And How to Fight Back” comprises only a couple of pages. I would have liked to see a section at the end of each chapter telling me how to talk to my doctor, which companies are the worst offenders and should be boycotted, and how to be a luscious and delectable woman that men fall for. The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life was much better at that than No Fat Chicks.

All in all, this is a really good book to read when you feel like you’re going crazy about your weight. It really helped me to realize that I’m not going crazy, I’m living in a crazy world where thinness is a religion.