Obesity and depression…who doesn’t want to read about these things during the Christmas season??!!
…not me, obviously…
It had been a little while since I read a health and fitness book that wasn’t some type of athlete biography (not to mention some other books that are too forgettable to mention) so it seemed like a good time to switch things up a bit.
Fat and Unhappy: How “Body Positivity” is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself) wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it happened to be recommended by some political commentators I follow.
Guess that means I had to read it, right?
As someone with a background in research and statistics (as well as being a person who has an interest in…ya know…discussing health and fitness with people) I’ve always been drawn more to books that discuss “important” topics in a manner that implies they’ve put some effort into researching and reporting on them.
This certainly isn’t on par with the likes of works like Dr. Peter Attia’s Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity and I’d be willing to bet that most of the people picking it up aren’t in the “fat” or “unhappy” demographics, yet alone both (hence, not really having a “need” for the book). However, the subject matter is certainly timely and the research and statistical documentation are solid. Let me tell you all about my experience with this one.
Table of Contents
Why I Decided to Read Fat and Unhappy
As you might be able to imagine, on this site, we’re not really about the whole “healthy at any size”. We’re not about lying to people and, arguably worse, making them feel better in the moment at the expense of hurting them in the future.
In a time where fewer and fewer people, yet alone major media outlets, advertisers, and even many healthcare “professionals” seem to share a similar sentiment, it’s a relief to find other, like-minded individuals.
Truth be told, I didn’t go out of my way to find and ultimately read this book, but actually came across a tweet that piqued my interest:
Seeing something like this, along with the rather provocative title and unsettling cover art was just a bit too much for me to pass up on!
When I took a look at some of the “free preview” content and noticed a large number of footnotes and other referenced material, it seemed like the kind of health and fitness book I’m usually interested in: not the “Trust me bro!” style of presenting health information that seems to be rage in the era of 5-second attention spans, but supported claims that I could explore in further detail at a later time.
…also, I didn’t feel like reading yet another book that presented me with sections like “My 5 Favorite Engine-building EMOMs”. The chances of running into such information in this book seemed…minimal.
(Thankfully, very few workouts are presented in this text!)
Length/Layout
Fat and Unhappy is 274 pages (with some acknowledgements and end material afterwards) and, due to its structure and interesting subject matter, actually reads slightly faster than this page count implies.
The two-author structure is nothing new, but it seems much more apparent in this book than in most others I’ve read. The writing styles are quite pronounced and are quite different from one another; it almost felt like I was reading two separate books in some areas. To piggyback off of this, the book’s structure also felt a little inconsistent at best and disjointed at worst.
To be fair, this is implied in the book’s table of contents where Part 1 (“The Problem”) and Part 2 (“Honest Positivity”) are clearly differentiated from one another. However, I wasn’t expecting such a stark contrast between the sections.
Otherwise, you get a bunch of chapters, each of which is more or less devoted to discussing a particular topic in more focused detail (ex. “Big Pharma’s” role in body positivity and methods to get more “positive sleep”).
Standard stuff.
Main “Objectives”/Message
As you can probably imagine, Fat and Unhappy actually has two main objectives, each related to the book’s major sections:
- Raising awareneness of and exposing the dangers of the Body Positivity movement
- Providing alternative solutions (both practical steps as well as those that are going to require an “all hands on deck” approach by policy makers) to the current mainstream approach
In my opinion, the first section is much better researched, organized, and presented while also being more on point with what most of the book’s readers are likely looking to read. When you combine the book’s title and cover with the affiliations of its writers (they are both affiliated with the, for lack of a better term, “edgier” political publication The Federalist), I can’t imagine any of the actual “fat and unhappy” people hear about the book and are like “oh yeah, I need that!”
Because of this, the message presented in the first section is much more impactful than the message in the second portion; I walked away realizing that the problem is much worse than I had originally thought, but didn’t feel the need to personally implement any of the suggestions from the second half.
To be fair, I understand that simply outlining and continuously expanding on the problem would make the book out to be more of a long-running rant. Also, advocating for an array of policy solutions would be taking agency away from the individuals who need to implement the changes on a micro level.
…but devoting half the book to discussing topics like the importance of sleep, exercise, and the recently criticized value of blue zones seems like a bit much.
I think the most effective areas are the passages that subtly convey/cover both sections at the same time. These are mainly found in the first section and discuss topics like:
- How/why certain foods are made to be more addictive than many hard drugs
- Problems with current popular weight loss drugs (ex. Ozempric)
- The disturbing degree to which the main culprits have “bought” their way into influencing health and food policy
These sections aren’t presented in a “you eat the whole bag because it’s designed that way!” manner, but instead convey findings that are genuinely thought-provoking. For me, the oftentimes dry statistics suddenly led to memories of a previous (baked!) Lay’s sour cream and onion chips binge (my apologies that that example was overly specific!) and how hard it was to control/stop. There isn’t much explicit advice given here, but the wheels are turning…
I would imagine that the book’s primary intended audience will likely take similar pauses during these passages, maybe even taking some notes like I did, as they experience similar recollections. In my opinion, this subtle messaging will provoke more realization (and ensuing personal change) more than the “get better sleep” and “walk at least 8,000 steps per day” suggestions.
Ultimately, I think Fat and Unhappy would have benefitted by having more Section 1 type of content and relegated Section 2 to a much more concise final chapter or to a separate book, entirely. There are certainly data and statistics presented in the second section to back up the authors’ suggestions, but I can’t imagine the typical Federalist reader needs sections like this…
Conclusion/My Take
That last section was probably pretty critical and, after reading them, you’d probably think that I’m not the biggest fan of this book. However, consider that the last few books I’ve reviewed have pretty much either been CrossFit athlete bios (not exactly the most thought-provoking reading material) or books that have turned out to be instant classics.
Fat and Unhappy doesn’t fall into either of these categories. It “suffers” from my being more critical of it than I am of (autobiographical) books discussing Mat Fraser’s favorite recipes and not quite being as substantive as “a runaway best seller since it was published this spring [of 2023]”.
What I did get is exactly what I expected from a couple of authors I’d be more than happy to read more books on this or related topics from in the future. I enjoyed the writing (even if it was a bit disjointed due to the writers’ different styles) learned a bit and was able to take notes and make plans to further explore some of the books/papers the authors referenced.
I could have done without most of the second half of the book, but regarding the first section…well…Fred and I are once again on the same page!
