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raveller@outside.ofa.dog

Joined 6 months, 2 weeks ago

Making knots into rainbows.

Ideas: alternative education, neurodiversity, non-violence, cultural studies, collaborative parenting, HAES, anti-racism, permaculture. Interests: memoir, BIPOC fiction, Palestine, California, Ireland, DCP stories, nature writing, creative geography, cookbooks, graphic novels, picture books, poetry, guidebooks. About: White cis woman. Unschooling parent. PhD in English/Feminist Theory, specializing in 19th-20th century California domestic fiction. Volunteer support group moderator. Healing CPTSD. Bagel maker and haphazard gardener.

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raveller's books

Currently Reading (View all 7)

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Stuff That's Loud (2020, New Harbinger Publications) 5 stars

An OCD book just for you—full of powerful tools and engaging illustrations to help you …

Guidebook from people who have been there

5 stars

I love that this book is based in lived experience, is accessible and concise, has beautiful illustrations, and acknowledges how hard it can be to move forward with OCD treatments. Because it's aimed at teenagers it is truly consent based, rather than shaming or bossy, but I would recommend it for anyone or for friends and family of someone with OCD.

Fat Talk (2023, Holt & Company, Henry) 4 stars

In this illuminating narrative on the daily onslaught of body shame that kids face from …

"We want desperately to get this right: to have kids who love beets and kale and hummus, and who fall precisely in the middle of the body mass index at every pediatrician visit. Our kids' weight has become a measure of their current and future health and happiness, as well as our own success or failure as parents." (xvii)

"A high body weight is not, in and of itself, a disease. Kids with eating disorders are truly sick. And when a higher-weight child gets the message that their body is wrong, they become even more vulnerable to this sickness precisely because the behaviors that raise red flags when thin kids engage in them will be praised and reinforced. We've spent four decades in a public health panic about rising childhood obesity, and we've not only failed to solve that 'crisis'--we've stoked another fire." (xviii)

"For moms like Elena, it's nearly impossible to separate out her fear of judgment from her fear of fat because we've always dealt with theses as one and the same in our culture. . .. The 'war on childhood obesity' of the past forty years has normalized the notion that parents, but especially mothers, must take responsibility for their child's weight, and must prioritize that responsibility above their own relationship with their child as the ultimate expression of maternal love." (23)

"we assume that thinness equals virtue and restraint and that fatness is evidence of a body untamed. What's more, we assume that thin people are doing something (or everything) right, which gives thin people a sense of entitlement over their bodies and lifestyle choices. The entire modern fitness industry rests on the premise that thin people who work out a lot know something you don't about health. Most of them are just genetically predisposed to thinness, or to building muscle in certain ways that give them an idealize body type. But we reward them for existing--and punish fat people when they do the same." (78-9)

Division of Responsibility "assumes that every family starts from the same baseline in terms of resources and abilities. This makes DOR 'a fundamentally ableist framework,' says Hunani. 'It promises to help parents raise 'competent' eaters--bu that can be deeply triggering for kids who are labeled 'incompetnent' in so many areas of their lives.' Hunani also worries that DOR is not trauma-informed enough for th efamilies she works with. 'These kids have experienced trauma around food and will continue to experience trauma because this world doesn't work for the way their brains are wired,' she says" (120) "'Kids are interpreting all of our rules around food to figure out if they are safe or not,' Hunani says. 'And what's fine for one child will be anxiety-provoking for another.'" (120)

Fat Talk by 

Fat Talk (2023, Holt & Company, Henry) 4 stars

In this illuminating narrative on the daily onslaught of body shame that kids face from …

Good if you want a lot of studies to deprogram anti-fat bias

4 stars

This book is doing crucial work and does it well combining piles of studies with people's stories and interviews. The core thesis is around Health at Every Size, that we mainly have correlative studies to demonstrate fat=unhealthy, not studies showing being fat causes someone to be unhealthy, and we do have studies showing anti-fat bias to be incredibly damaging to mental and physical health, raising stress levels and easily triggering eating disorders. The most frightening thing is how often eating disorders get missed in fat people, and how anti-fat biased doctors are. There are some great suggestions for talking with kids.

It's a bit of a slog to read the whole thing. The blog/substack "Burnt Toast" by Virginia Sole-Smith has more easily digested articles for the general public. The book is worth checking out especially for the conversation starters or if you feel yourself waffling about your own commitment to …