SUMMERS: Gordon debunks all this and more in her new book ""You Just Need To Lose Weight": And 19 Other Myths About Fat People." When we talked, we started with the idea of an average body size and how it plays into everything in our environment, from the size of airplane seats to the distance between tables at a restaurant to the size of a blood pressure cuff at the doctor's office. It was developed by a mathematician, statistician and astronomer working exclusively with data from French and Scottish military conscripts in the 1800s. GORDON: The BMI was not developed by a health care provider. SUMMERS: Or that BMI, body mass index, is a reliable way to measure health. GORDON: Researchers have been clear for years that our body size isn't solely or even primarily the result of our own choices. SUMMERS: And along with that come myths, a whole lot of them about fat people - myths like being fat is a choice. And a lot of that pressure is rooted in what author and podcast host Aubrey Gordon describes as anti-fatness.ĪUBREY GORDON: Anti-fatness is a sort of web of beliefs, interpersonal practices, institutional policies that are designed to keep fat people sort of on the margins. This time of year, there's a lot of pressure to change the way you look.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |