I have actually read Wann’s book, and I thought it was not too crazy.
She starts by trying to increase fat women’s self-esteem, talking about sexy, sensual fat women, talking about how ridiculous our culture’s weight expectations are. Self- love is probably more successful than self-hate in helping people look good. She talks about the way a fat woman shouldn’t give up on being attractive, talks about choosing clothes that are flattering on you, choosing things that fit instead of buying too-small clothes out of denial, about the way that big, bright patterns actually look better if you’ve got a bigger body to hang them on. She encourages women to get their hair done, experiment with makeup, learn to feel attractive where they are now instead of saying ‘I’ll only be pretty if I’m thin.’
She approaches fat acceptance in some ways as a civil rights issue, saying that the discrimination and ostracism fat people face is stupid and wrongheaded, and that fat people should fight against it instead of internalizing the idea that they deserve to suffer for being fat.
She says frankly that all diets are useless, stupid, and wrong. That dieting is doomed to failure and that the only people who are benefitted by diets are the dieting industry, who is getting rich off of disappointing fat women over and over again. She says that it’s wonderfully liberating to simply refuse to diet, ever again. She encourages celebrating 12:01AM, January 1, as National No Diet Minute. Regarding diets I’d say she’s right.
Then she asks women who are fat to concentrate on being healthy fat women rather than trying to get skinny. She tells them to add fruits and vegetables to their diet as much as possible, without asking them to stop eating anything. She advises them to find physical activity that they like doing, and to do it regularly, without being intimidated by the skinny people around them. She says many people will never be thin, but everyone can and should try to be healthy, and that everyone, even fat people, deserves to enjoy the benefits of better health.
I liked her book, and thought it was a much healthier approach than the rest of the media’s, which tends to tell fat women that they are ugly and lazy and deserve to suffer, and that they should lose weight in the harshest, most painful, and quickest ways possible.
