Fat Studies: The Basics introduces the reading of fat bodies and the ways that Fat Studies as a field has responded to waves of ideas about fat people their lives and choices. Part civil rights discourse and part academic discipline Fat Studies is a dynamic project that involves contradiction and discussion. In order to understand this field the book also explores its intersections with race class gender sexuality age disability ethnicity migration and beyond. In addition to thinking through terminology and history this book will aim to unpack three key myths which often guide Fat Studies showing that: fat is a meaningful site of oppression intersected with other forms of discrimination and hatred to be fat is not a choice (but also that a discussion of choice is itself problematic); and fat cannot be unambiguously correlated with a lack of health Fat Studies: The Basics is a lively and accessible foundation for students of Gender Studies Sociology Psychology and Media Studies as well as anyone interested in learning more about this emergent field.
