Ruffles Not Diets

Dancer from Russia's "Big Ballet"

Us librarian types love a good reading list.  It's right up there with shushing.  If you are new to the world of fat acceptance or just want to learn more about it, here is my carefully curated introductory reading list.  I'll also post more reading recommendations later on, and update this list when and if I find more.

Books:
Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata: In my opinion this is the ultimate, and if you don't read anything else on this list read this.  It is essentially a literature review (as written by a journalist, therefore an engaging version of  a literature review) of a battery of scientific studies that prove primarily: no one knows how to make fat people thin, no one knows how to make thin people fat and fat biological parents have fat children regardless of where they are raised and visa-versa for thin people, and that there is little to no evidence that obesity in itself (except at the very extreme end) has a negative effect on mortality.

Screw Inner Beauty (Known in most of the world as Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere but I really prefer the Australian title, more on that later): This is a more socio-political and personal take on fat acceptance, and primarily discusses both the ramifications of fat in society and how you as an individual can accept/love your body and think about eating and exercise in a post-dieting/weight loss way. That was a little scattered, but um, try it, you'll like it.

Blogs
Now I must shame-facedly admit that actually I mostly didn't read all that many FA books, I mostly just read blogs, here is a listing of canonical blog posts, without descriptions as this way I may eventually publish this shiz.

Health and Nutrition

But Isn't Fat Unhealthy?: you've seen this one before, but it bears repeating.
Health at Every Size: Choice or Coercion: this is probably the best summary of Health at Every Size I have read, even better than the HAES Manifesto, which you would think...
Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift: It's peer-reviewed!
Eat Food, Stuff you Like, As Much as You Want
Food Isn't Poison

Fatshion and Visibility

Why the Pictures Matter: This is why I *Heart* Lesley Kinzel so hard and why I post pictures too
The Fat Body (In)Visible: very cool documentary about fat visibility and fashion, NSFW in the first and last few minutes due to pictures from the Adipositivity project
I Spy with my Fat Eye; On Seeing and Being Seen

Other



The Awesome Power of No
Why are you so Fat? It was Gnomes.

Other Stuff

From: Fatpocalypse

BMI Project: Pictures of different people and what their BMI.  It is incredibly revelatory, especially the "overweight" category.

The Museum of Fat Love: because it's adorable.

Shapely Women (which is where I got the image on the banner): an interesting blog of art depicting women of all sizes from many different periods.