A Perpetually Evolving List of FAT TALK Resources
Discover more from Burnt Toast by Virginia Sole-Smith
A Perpetually Evolving List of FAT TALK Resources
Every book, every study, every podcast. Plus: The FAT TALK Book Club Kit!
Attention Book Clubs!
Several of you have reached out about this, so I am delighted to report: YES, we have a reading group discussion guide! I wrote these questions myself, so I hope they are useful and thought-provoking and offer a place to start your conversations, though I know they won’t end there.
I’d also love to know who on this list is reading FAT TALK for a book club (whether you host one, are a member of one, or it’s really just you and two friends planning to go to dinner because that totally counts). If you’ve got something planned, drop the info here. (I know, I know, another week, another Google Form.)
(That’s a pic of me with a bunch of lady friends at one of the events last week. We are not a book club but we went for drinks afterwards and there were strong book club vibes, if your book club also involves guacamole and I think it probably should?)
FAT TALK: Notes & Sources
As I’m talking to readers on the FAT TALK book tour and reading your (many! amazing!) emails and DMs, I’m not surprised that a lot of you are asking some version of “what else can I read/listen to/watch about…” Once you start to unravel a thread in the whole diet culture/anti-fatness tapestry, you realize, you have a hell of a lot more work to do. So today I’m sharing my enormous list of resources on everything FAT TALK-adjacent.
If you’re reading FAT TALK in hardcover, this is the same list that appears in the back of your copy. Plus a few new ones because of course I’ve found even more since those pages were locked.
If you’re listening to the audiobook or reading the UK paperback edition, this is the list I mention at the end but couldn’t include for logistical reasons.This book is the culmination of a decade of reporting on diet culture and anti-fat bias, including a year writing a monthly column on kids’ food and body image for the New York Times’s Parenting section, and almost two years (so far) writing this newsletter and hosting the Burnt Toast Podcast. In researching this book, I drew on that body of work, as well as on the conversations I’ve had with readers in our comment section, or via email and Instagram DMs. I also interviewed over a hundred parents, kids, researchers, doctors, scientists, dietitians, and advocates specifically for the book. And I read and analyzed hundreds of studies, articles, books, blogs, and social media posts and listened to so many podcasts.
This PDF contains around 50 pages, organized by chapter, of the published materials that provided the quotes, statistics, and research details referenced throughout the book, or that more generally informed my thinking on these issues.
FAT TALK: Resources
And here’s a linked-up, slightly updated version of the same Resources list that appears in that PDF. We will keep adding to this list as we go (and if you think of something I missed, shout it out in the comments!).
I’m linking to Split Rock Books for all of the books, because they are the hosts of the Burnt Toast Bookshop. If you order FAT TALK from them (or have ordered it!), you can take 10 percent off any of these titles with the code FATTALK at checkout. (Yes, I’ll sign your copy and they ship anywhere in the United States!)
PICTURE BOOKS
Beautifully Me by Nabela Noor, illustrated Nabi H. Ali
Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder (And here’s Tyler on the BT Podcast!)
Consent (For Kids!) by Rachel Brian
Dino-Gro by Matt Myers
Don’t Touch My Hair! by Sharee Miller
Her Body Can by Katie Crenshaw and Ady Meschka
I Am Enough by Grace Byers, illustrated by Keturah A. Bobo
I Love My Body Because by Shelly Anand and Nomi Ellenson (here they are on the pod!)
Our Little Kitchen by Jillian Tamaki
We’re All Works of Art by Mark Sperring, illustrated by Rose Blake
Your Body Is Awesome: Body Respect for Children by Sigrun Daníelsdóttir
Every Body: A First Conversations Book About Bodies — the first kids book I’ve seen that names white men as the reason for anti-fat bias!
MIDDLE GRADE BOOKS
All of Me by Chris Baron
Chunky by Yehudi Mercado
Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone
Good Enough by Jen Petro-Roy
Some Places More than Others by Renee Watson
Starfish by Lisa Fipps
Taking Up Space by Alyson Gerber (on the pod here!)
PUBERTY AND BODY IMAGE BOOKS
Celebrate Your Body (And Its Changes, Too!): The Ultimate Puberty Book for Girls by Sonya Renee Taylor
The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens by Elyse Resch
Love Your Body by Jessica Sanders and Carol Rossetti
No Weigh! A Teen’s Guide to Positive Body Image, Food, and Emotional Wisdom by Signe Darpinian, Wendy Sterling, and Shelley Aggarwal (here’s Signe on the pod!)
You Are Enough: Your Guide to Body Image and Eating Disorder Recovery by Jen Petro-Roy
YOUNG ADULT BOOKS
Disability Visibility (Adapted for Young Adults), edited by Alice Wong
Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy (also VERY excited for her picture book, Chubby Bunny, out October 2023!)
Every Body Shines, edited by Cassandra Newbold
Faith Taking Flight by Julie Murphy
Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado (Also all of Crystal’s books, also here she is on the podcast, and come see us in conversation together in Connecticut on May 9!)
Fat Girl on a Plane by Kelly deVos
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian
Love is a Revolution by Renee Watson
My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant by Laura Dockrill
The New David Espinoza by Fred Aceves
The Other F Word: A Celebration of the Fat and Fierce, edited by Angie Manfredi
BOOKS FOR PARENTS
Body Happy Kids by Molly Frasier
Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity by Peggy Orenstein
Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape by Peggy Orenstein
Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating by Katja Rowell and Jenny McGlothlin
How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body
Confidence by Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson (here’s Amee on the podcast!)
Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy
by
(here’s Angela on the podcast talking about her second book, Essential Labor, which I didn’t read till I’d written this book but is also required reading!!)Raising Body Positive Teens: A Parent’s Guide to Diet-Free Living, Exercise and Body Image by Signe Darpinian, Wendy Sterling, and Shelley Aggarwal (here’s Signe on the pod!)
Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood, from Birth to Tween by Melissa Atkins Wardy
When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder by Lauren Mulheim, PsyD
All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership by Darcy Lockman
BOOKS ON EATING
Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison (here’s
on the pod and check out her new book, The Wellness Trap!)Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia by Harriet Brown
Conquer Picky Eating for Teens and Adults by Jenny McGlothlin and Katja Rowell
The Diet Survivor’s Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance and Self-Care by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel
The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America by Virginia Sole-Smith
The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat by Alan Levinovitz
Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch (make sure it’s the 4th edition!)
Pressure Cooker by Sarah Bowen, Joslyn Brenton, and Sinikka Elliott
Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders by Jennifer L. Gaudiani, MD
Simply Julia by Julia Turshen (and here’s
on the pod!)What’s Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety by Cole Kazdin
BOOKS ON FATNESS, BODIES, AND BIAS
Bad, Fat, Black Girl: Notes From a Trap Feminist by Sesali Bowen
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun Harrison
The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight—and What We Can Do About It by Harriet Brown
Disability Visibility, edited by Alice Wong
The End of Bias: A Beginning by Jessica Nordell
Every Body Yoga by Jessamyn Stanley
Fat and Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives, edited by Bruce Owens Grimm, Miguel M. Morales, and Tiff Joshua TJ Ferentini
Fat Girls in Black Bodies: Creating Communities of Our Own by Joy Arlene Renee Cox, PhD
(here's Ragen on the podcast!)Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood by Anna Kirkland
Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture by Amy Erdman Farrell
Fat! So? by Marilyn Wann
The Fat Studies Reader by Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay
Fearing the Black Body: The Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
More than a Body by Lindsay and Lexie Kite
Reclaiming Body Trust: A Path to Healing and Liberation by Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant (listen to Hilary and Dana on the pod!)
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination by Sondra Solovay
Train Happy: An Intuitive Exercise Plan for Every Body by Tally Rye
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon (here’s Aubrey’s first Burnt Toast Podcast episode!)
“You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People by Aubrey Gordon (here’s her second!)
It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies by Jessica Wilson
The Body Liberation Project: How Understanding Racism and Diet Culture Helps Cultivate Joy and Build Collective Freedom by Chrissy King
MEMOIR
Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life by Kelsey Miller
Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You by Sofie Hagen
Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by
Kitchen Medicine: How I Fed My Daughter Out of Failure to Thrive by Debi Lewis (Debi on the podcast!)
Meaty by
More of You: The Fat Girl’s Guide to the Modern World by Amanda Martinez Beck (on the podcast here!)
Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by
Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker
Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
FICTION
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
Dietland by Sarai Walker
If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy
PODCASTS
withEat the Rules Podcast with Summer Innanen
Sunny Side Up Nutrition Podcast
Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back
NEWSLETTERS
by by byEmiko’s Newsletter by
by by by by by byMOVIES AND TELEVISION SHOWS
Thanks to Caleb Luna’s Twitter (@dr_chairbreaker) for help in compiling this list.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (starring Melissa McCarthy)
Dietland (starring Joy Nash)
Ghostbusters (2016 version starring Melissa McCarthy)
Grand Crew
Hairspray (John Waters’s version starring Ricki Lake and Divine)
Huge (starring Nikki Blonsky)
Last Holiday (starring Queen Latifah)
A League of Their Own (2022 version!)
Loosely Exactly Nicole (starring Nicole Byer)
Reservation Dogs (starring Jana Schmieding)
Rutherford Falls (starring Jana Schmieding)
Set It Off (starring Queen Latifah)
Shrill (starring Aidy Bryant)
Somebody, Somewhere (starring Bridget Everett)
Spy (starring Melissa McCarthy)
Watch Out for the Big Grrrls (starring Lizzo)
OTHER RESOURCES
Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH)
A Letter to Opt Out of School Weigh-Ins
A Letter to Your Child’s Doctor
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance
@SellTradePlus: An Instagram community by our own
where you can buy and sell plus-size clothing.Sunny Side Up Nutrition (for family feeding and resources)
Book Tour Update!
Just a reminder about the next two stops on the FAT TALK Book Tour.
NEXT Tuesday, May 9, 7pm ET (Madison, Connecticut)
I’ll be in Connecticut, in conversation with Crystal Maldanado, the incredible author of one of my favorite YA novels, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega, and several other wonderful books. This one is hosted my hometown bookstore, RJ Julia Booksellers! It’s always super special to do a book event there because I worked at RJ’s all through high school and college (a million years ago now). Register here.
NEXT Wednesday May 10, 7pm ET (Boston)
I’ll be at the Museum of Science in Boston, in conversation with the one and only
author of FLIGHT and WANT. Lynn read an early draft of FAT TALK and offered so many important notes and she is also very fun to hang out with and I am so excited for this. Register here.I’ve also deleted a few that are now out of print or look too hard to find.
This one comes with a special trigger warning for explicit anti-fatness. But is nevertheless an important part of this conversation!
A Perpetually Evolving List of FAT TALK Resources
In addition to adding my review, I marked all the thoughtful reviews “helpful”. I always do that with books like this that bring out the vitriolic mouth breathers. It’s so frustrating trying to get a sense of whether a book is in accordance with my values and having to wade through a bunch of knee jerk reaction reviews by people who not only haven’t even read the book, but are probably in line with the “Moms for Liberty” way of thinking.
Antiracist Dietician is another great newsletter for your list: https://anjaliruth.substack.com