“French Women Don't Get Fat”

Disorder Symptoms

The book "French Women Don't Get Fat" is scrutinized for its potential to promote eating disorder behaviors. Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon discuss how the book's guidelines, such as eating less and avoiding temptation, mirror the behaviors of eating disorders. Aubrey shares her personal experience, noting how the book's recommendations resemble her own unhealthy patterns:

There is this sort of concept of eating disorders that is just like, one day, a person, usually a young white woman, wakes up and is just consumed with the desire to be thin and will do anything to become as thin as possible.

--- Aubrey Gordon

Michael highlights the problematic nature of these guidelines, which include limiting food intake and avoiding certain routes to resist temptation 1 2.

   

Fatphobia

The societal prejudices against fat people are a significant contributor to the culture of eating disorders. Michael and Aubrey discuss how fatphobia is deeply ingrained in society, leading to discrimination and internalized shame. Aubrey notes the lack of accountability in diet books for harmful societal attitudes:

There are so many ways to slice this. And diet books, when they present moments like this, pick the single way that will result in no accountability for the person or people who are, like, saying these awful things to people.

--- Aubrey Gordon

They highlight how fat people are often marginalized and subjected to unfair treatment, such as being equated with disabilities or losing jobs due to weight bias 3 4.