THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
'A brave and radical book' - Rebecca Seal, The Observer
'Fearless and game-changing.' - Emily Oster
'Hard recommend.' - Pandora Sykes
'A must-read.' - Aubrey Gordon
'Essential.' - Laura Thomas, PhD
'Revolutionary!' - Bethany Rutter
'Pivotal.' - Anita Bhagwandas
Change the way you talk about food, weight, and self-worth, forever.
We live in a world designed to make us hate our bodies. By the time children start school, most have learned that 'fat' is bad. As they get older, many pursue thinness to survive in a society that ties their value to their size. Parents worry both about the risks of their kids fixating on unrealistic beauty standards - and about them becoming fat. Meanwhile, multibillion-dollar industries thrive on our insecurities, and the medical system pushes weight loss at almost any cost.
Talking to researchers, doctors, and activists, as well as parents and young people, Virginia Sole-Smith lays bare how diet culture has perpetuated a crisis of disordered eating and body hatred. She exposes our internalised fatphobia and shows why we need to let go of shame and start supporting young people in the bodies they have.
Fat Talk is a stirring, deeply researched, and ground-breaking book that will transform the conversation about health and size.
Praise for Virginia Sole-Smith:
'Sole-Smith writes with warmth and insight about the sheer complexity of eating today'. - Bee Wilson, author of First Bite: How We Learn to Eat Virginia Sole-Smith is the author of Fat Talk: Coming of age in diet culture and The Eating Instinct. As a journalist, she has reported from kitchen tables and grocery stores, graduated from beauty school, and gone swimming in a mermaid's tail. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Scientific American and many other publications. She also writes the popular anti-diet newsletter Burnt Toast and hosts the Burnt Toast Podcast. Change the way you talk about food, weight, and self-worth, forever. The definitive guide to growing up without body image stigma, deeply researched and compellingly written. Perfect for readers of Philippa Perry and Julie Smith. 'A brave and radical book' 'The book I wish my parents had when I was growing up.' 'If you have ever held a piece of food or briefly glimpsed a part of your body and felt a complicated thing, you need to read this book.' 'Hard recommend.' 'A tour de force' 'Fearless and game-changing' 'Virginia Sole-Smith is a visionary ... Everyone should read this book.' 'If you've ever struggled in your relationship with food and your body-and especially if you're trying to raise kids to be resilient in the face of diet culture-this book is essential reading.' 'A must-read' 'I am absolutely obsessed with this illuminating, thoroughly-researched, and compassionate book. Revolutionary!'
