What I'm Consuming
/It’s been a while since I’ve shared a roundup of the content I’m currently consuming, so here you go!
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I’m infuriated and horrified by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new guidelines for higher-weight children that include prescribing “intensive health behavior and lifestyle treatment” for kids as young as two, weight-loss drugs for kids ages 12 and up, and bariatric surgery starting at age 13. Yes, you read that right!
Not only do these guidelines further stigmatize larger-bodied kids and put them at risk for life-threatening complications, they are also potentially setting them up for a lifetime of weight cycling, disordered eating and exercise, eating disorders, body dissatisfaction and more adverse outcomes.
Journalist Virginia Sole-Smith shares her thoughts on this here:
Why the New Obesity Guidelines for Kids Terrify Me [New York Times, gift link]
And, in her Weight and Healthcare newsletter, researcher Ragen Chastain digs deep into the guidelines to reveal undisclosed conflicts of interest, unsupportive claims, inadequate research and more:
Dangerous New American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines for Higher-Weight Children [Substack]
Testing the Claim That Pediatric Weight Management Interventions Decrease Eating Disorders [Substack]
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Every Single Diet (Even When You Don’t Use That Word) is About These 15 Awful Things [Medium]
Writer Savala Nolan nails it in this article regarding many of the ways dieting is so very problematic, including some you may not even be aware of.
“My Weight Watchers memberships didn’t come with a pamphlet explaining that there is no data showing that weight suppression works beyond a brief time except on the rarest of occasions, or that food restriction often leads to binging, or that dieting might cause all types of physical and emotional harm, or that fatness was fine and I was terrific as-is, or that the whole shebang was rooted in anti-Blackness and, hey, being Black myself I might want to think twice about that. Like the dark side of all industries, the dark side of dieting isn’t advertised.”
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It’s a Big Fat Deal: How Schools Teach Contempt for Fat People—and What We Can Do About It [Rethinking Schools]
This article by teacher and writer Katy Alexander is essential reading for anyone who works with kids, has fat kids, was a fat kid, or just plain loves kids. Don’t miss their “For My Fatties” poem at the end.
“Fat kids don’t need you to save them from being fat. They need you to save them from your own feelings about fat and our fatphobic culture.”
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You Just Need to Lose Weight: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People
Aubrey Gordon’s second book is just as powerful as her first one and both should be required reading for everyone. And if you aren’t listening to her Maintenance Phase podcast yet, I highly recommend you start today.
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Big Girl: A Novel
I’m wrapping up with this tender, hilarious and heartbreaking novel by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan about a fat Black girl coming of age in gentrifying 1990s Harlem who dares to take up space in a world that relentlessly tries to shrink her.
Note: In alliance with the fat-acceptance community, I use fat as a neutral descriptor.
