Parenting In The Age Of Diet Culture

I recently finished reading Fat Talk by Virginia Sole-Smith. *POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT* Rating: 4/5 stars "By the time they reach kindergarten, most kids believe that “fat” is bad. By middle school, more than a quarter of them have gone on a diet. What are parents supposed to do?

Kids learn, as we’ve all learned, that thinness is a survival strategy in a world that equates body size and value. Parents worry if their kids care too much about being thin, but even more about the consequences if they aren’t. And multibillion-dollar industries thrive on this fear of fatness. We’ve fought the “war on obesity” for over forty years and Americans aren’t thinner or happier with their bodies. But it’s not our kids―or their weight―who need fixing.

In this illuminating narrative, journalist Virginia Sole-Smith exposes the daily onslaught of fatphobia and body shaming that kids face from school, sports, doctors, diet culture, and parents themselves―and offers strategies for how families can change the conversation around weight, health, and self-worth.

Fat Talk is a stirring, deeply researched, and groundbreaking book that will help parents learn to reckon with their own body biases, identify diet culture, and empower their kids to navigate this challenging landscape. Sole-Smith draws on her extensive reporting and interviews with dozens of parents and kids to offer a provocative new approach for thinking about food and bodies, and a way for us all to work toward a more weight-inclusive world." This was so good and so informative about the pressures kids face being raced in this diet culture fat-phobic society. There are so many influences on kids from their doctors, schools, sports, etc. it's scary. The discrimination and difference between kids in small bodies vs large bodies are heartbreaking. My complaint about this book is that it kind of heightened my anxiety. It didn't provide many solutions or ways for parents to combat the culture we live in in order to protect their kids. Instead, it made me scared to enroll them in sports, take them to the doctor, not have every food in the world in my house, etc. Check out Fat Talk, and engage in the conversation about changing our society's views on diet culture and fat-phobia. Happy Reading :)