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Fat Church: Claiming a Gospel of Fat Liberation
Whether your body is small or large, aged or young, disabled or abled, toned or soft, lithe or stiff--or somewhere in-between--anti-fatness affects us all, because it is intended to. Fat Church critiques anti-fat prejudice and the Church's historic participation in it, calling for a fatphobic reckoning for the sake of God's gospel of freedom. Pastor and theological educator Anastasia Kidd reviews the history of diet culture, fat studies, beauty, body policing--and the white supremacist machinations underpinning them--in order to work for a society rooted in body liberation for all. Fat Church offers a disruption to social habits of shame and remembers the theology of abundance that calls us all beloved by God.
299 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 15, 2023
This book. Everyone needs this book. I took my time reading it to soak in every story, research finding, and historic/cultural observation. It made me rethink my relationship with my body and how I have both struggled against and upheld systems of anti-fatness. Kidd is so thorough in her research dismantling harmful theories passed down by the medical, public health, diet culture and church communities and in her advocacy to disrupt fatphobia. We don’t deserve Anastasia Kidd. She is the freedom fighter we desperately needed.
“Without body shame, what might we do with that collective freedom.”
“…I’m 100% done being a self-hating, ever-dieting puppet of fatphobic marketing, actively lining the pockets of my oppressors with my hard-earned money.”
“Without body shame, what might we do with that collective freedom.”
“…I’m 100% done being a self-hating, ever-dieting puppet of fatphobic marketing, actively lining the pockets of my oppressors with my hard-earned money.”
March 17, 2023
I devoured this book, because it was feeding me something that I desperately needed. Kidd's academic research and rigor is matched only by her warmth, humor, and absolute passion for a world where all know that "God's spirit was poured out on all flesh, not just some flesh" (189). This book incorporates theory, memoir, parable, and theology into a highly readable and incredibly important call to action. I learned so much - it has changed the way I see the world, myself, and my faith.
I know that I will read ithis book again and again, that the extensive margin notes I added on this first ground will be joined by highlights and dog ears and even more notations over the years. As a clergy person, this is the book I needed to start truly serving my congregants, especially every fat person who finds themselves coming through the doors of my church. This will be my go-to ordination gift for new ministers - I already ordered my second copy.
I know that I will read ithis book again and again, that the extensive margin notes I added on this first ground will be joined by highlights and dog ears and even more notations over the years. As a clergy person, this is the book I needed to start truly serving my congregants, especially every fat person who finds themselves coming through the doors of my church. This will be my go-to ordination gift for new ministers - I already ordered my second copy.
January 5, 2024
This is a fairly interesting book. For decades, if not longer, we've been told that being fat is unhealthy and is, in fact, the cause of what ails fat people. Which is to say, doctors don't take valid medical complaints of people deemed overweight seriously and claim that the problems would vanish were one just to lose some weight. For example, if you have a fall and bung up your knee, a doctor will take x-rays and prescribe appropriate physical therapy to get things back to normal, provided you are a person whose weight is deemed normal. But if you are deemed decidedly overweight, the doctor will just tell you to slim down and the damaged tendons will magically repair themselves. Something like that.
Anyway, we have a problem in our society that deem people who are on the heavy side as being lacking in moral character. They'd be slim like a model if only they ate properly. Apparently, however, most diets only work for a short time, but all the literature pimping various diet plans only talk about short-term gains. Yes, it's relatively easy to lose ten pounds if you diet diligently. I was a wrestler in high school and college, and know all about a quick crash diet to "make weight" for the match. But such crash dieting is unhealthy in the long run, and I can attest from my own experience, that "dieting down" to a lower weight class only works a little bit. Back in the day, I weighed something like 150 lbs, but the guys I would wrestle at the 152-lb weight class were all bigger and stronger than I. If I went down to the 145-lb weight class, I was competetive. But, I learned to my chagrin, that trying to get down to the 138-lb class rendered me lethargic and ineffectual.
What does that have to do with the book? Well, dieting works only a bit, and, generally, not long term. According to the author, all the glowing studies of success in losing oodles of pounds on the "something-or-other" diet plan only work for a while. But, if there were any follow up some five or ten years later on, all those alleged success stories would show that the weight-loss regime didn't actually solve any long-term problems. But, the diet community is controlled by people in the for-profit industry, so they constantly put out scientifically flawed studies. [thank the Good Lord that there was no "financial" incentive to fabricate similar successes regarding the observation of glowing gases containing excited argon or nitrogen with various other molecules. I can safely look at myself in the mirror, knowing the results I observed weren't ephemeral].
I suppose that, technically, I didn't read the whole book, and shouldn't get credit for the whole 299 pages. The book ends with a bunch of discussion questions on the issues raised by each chapter. I just skimmed them. I read the book to understand the author's point of view, but I wasn't involved in any kind of book-discussion group around the book's contents.
Anyway, we have a problem in our society that deem people who are on the heavy side as being lacking in moral character. They'd be slim like a model if only they ate properly. Apparently, however, most diets only work for a short time, but all the literature pimping various diet plans only talk about short-term gains. Yes, it's relatively easy to lose ten pounds if you diet diligently. I was a wrestler in high school and college, and know all about a quick crash diet to "make weight" for the match. But such crash dieting is unhealthy in the long run, and I can attest from my own experience, that "dieting down" to a lower weight class only works a little bit. Back in the day, I weighed something like 150 lbs, but the guys I would wrestle at the 152-lb weight class were all bigger and stronger than I. If I went down to the 145-lb weight class, I was competetive. But, I learned to my chagrin, that trying to get down to the 138-lb class rendered me lethargic and ineffectual.
What does that have to do with the book? Well, dieting works only a bit, and, generally, not long term. According to the author, all the glowing studies of success in losing oodles of pounds on the "something-or-other" diet plan only work for a while. But, if there were any follow up some five or ten years later on, all those alleged success stories would show that the weight-loss regime didn't actually solve any long-term problems. But, the diet community is controlled by people in the for-profit industry, so they constantly put out scientifically flawed studies. [thank the Good Lord that there was no "financial" incentive to fabricate similar successes regarding the observation of glowing gases containing excited argon or nitrogen with various other molecules. I can safely look at myself in the mirror, knowing the results I observed weren't ephemeral].
I suppose that, technically, I didn't read the whole book, and shouldn't get credit for the whole 299 pages. The book ends with a bunch of discussion questions on the issues raised by each chapter. I just skimmed them. I read the book to understand the author's point of view, but I wasn't involved in any kind of book-discussion group around the book's contents.
February 28, 2024
Towards the beginning of the book, Kidd says, “…pull up a chair. They’re sturdy and armless. Because it’s time for the Christian church to take up the cause of fat liberation as one of the intersectional spaces necessary for social justice,” and that about sums up the intent and message of the book.
This was a good read, and spot-on theologically for me personally. I can think of plenty of people in my life who might be mad that I, a fat woman, read a book by another fat woman, claiming, in essence, that “all God’s creatures have a place in the choir” extends to fat people just as they are, and then had the gall to claim publicly that I agree, so clearly it’s not for everyone. I suspect many people would just get more and more angry reading this book, but, still, it was nice to read something that validates my experience.
I have lots of things I could say here about living in this world in a fat body, but I will limit myself to one story: when I was pregnant in 2018, my morning sickness was unbearable, but I was denied any prescription treatment, because, at my size, maintaining weight during pregnancy was not important. After I gave birth, during the time when I was in and out of consciousness because of my hemorrhage, I overheard the nurses in my room, who definitely thought I was asleep, talking about my potassium levels, which were “the lowest [they’d] ever seen.” (I sure wish I knew what they were at that time). The one nurse was saying that she couldn’t believe I’d been able to walk into the hospital on my own two days earlier, and the other was just concerned that my levels weren’t coming up even though I’d had “bag after bag” of IV potassium. I wanted to explain that I had been so, so sick for 30 whole weeks, but I was not conscious enough to say it. The National Institutes of Health says that hyperemisis gravidarum is “commonly defined as extreme nausea and vomiting accompanied by a weight loss to at least 5% below prepregnancy weight.” I lost more than 17% of my prepregnancy weight during my pregnancy and the immediate postpartum period, a level of weight loss that the NIH defines as “extreme,” but never received a diagnosis of HG, because that diagnosis is for people whose weight loss is problematic, which excludes me, despite the fact that my potassium levels clearly indicated that I was likely suffering from dehydration, not to mention the cognitive symptoms I struggled with during and after pregnancy. A few years later, I ended up working with a number of women who were pregnant and normal-weight, and none of them seemed to have any problem getting Zofran for their morning sickness. Up to that point, I had assumed that Zofran was just hard to get, but it turns out that it’s only hard to get for me (and, I assume, other people of my size), not hard to get in general.
This was a good read, and spot-on theologically for me personally. I can think of plenty of people in my life who might be mad that I, a fat woman, read a book by another fat woman, claiming, in essence, that “all God’s creatures have a place in the choir” extends to fat people just as they are, and then had the gall to claim publicly that I agree, so clearly it’s not for everyone. I suspect many people would just get more and more angry reading this book, but, still, it was nice to read something that validates my experience.
I have lots of things I could say here about living in this world in a fat body, but I will limit myself to one story: when I was pregnant in 2018, my morning sickness was unbearable, but I was denied any prescription treatment, because, at my size, maintaining weight during pregnancy was not important. After I gave birth, during the time when I was in and out of consciousness because of my hemorrhage, I overheard the nurses in my room, who definitely thought I was asleep, talking about my potassium levels, which were “the lowest [they’d] ever seen.” (I sure wish I knew what they were at that time). The one nurse was saying that she couldn’t believe I’d been able to walk into the hospital on my own two days earlier, and the other was just concerned that my levels weren’t coming up even though I’d had “bag after bag” of IV potassium. I wanted to explain that I had been so, so sick for 30 whole weeks, but I was not conscious enough to say it. The National Institutes of Health says that hyperemisis gravidarum is “commonly defined as extreme nausea and vomiting accompanied by a weight loss to at least 5% below prepregnancy weight.” I lost more than 17% of my prepregnancy weight during my pregnancy and the immediate postpartum period, a level of weight loss that the NIH defines as “extreme,” but never received a diagnosis of HG, because that diagnosis is for people whose weight loss is problematic, which excludes me, despite the fact that my potassium levels clearly indicated that I was likely suffering from dehydration, not to mention the cognitive symptoms I struggled with during and after pregnancy. A few years later, I ended up working with a number of women who were pregnant and normal-weight, and none of them seemed to have any problem getting Zofran for their morning sickness. Up to that point, I had assumed that Zofran was just hard to get, but it turns out that it’s only hard to get for me (and, I assume, other people of my size), not hard to get in general.
June 3, 2023
I cannot more highly recommend this book for literally every reader out there. The audience is wide because, sadly, as this incredibly researched work points out fat phobia is widespread and intersectional amidst and throughout other injustices in the world. On a personal level, Rev. Dr. Kidd’s ability to also weave memoir and to share of her life with us really touched me. As a fat reader and minister myself coming to terms with my own internal fat phobia was both hard and ultimately a real blessing within these pages, and then to be able to realize a theology of God’s abundance, hospitality and acceptance has helped me move toward fat activism. Please read this book! She has included a 40 page discussion guide for personal and group discussion and teaching! So be sure to use the robust personal and group discussion guide with yourself and your friends, book groups and church groups. You will be so enriched, I’m sure of it. I will read this book again and again because it is so profound, personal, and inspirational.
June 28, 2023
I would gift this book to everyone I know if only I could afford to do so. And probably passive aggressively send it anonymously to some doctors and a few choice individuals who have done me and my fat body wrong. Fatphobia is deeply rooted in America's systems and structures in the same way racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and ableism are. Rev. Kidd has written her gospel with a call to action to change the culture with the receipts to support her case for mainstream fat acceptance. This book is so much more than simply saying fat doesn't mean unhealthy and diets don't work. And exactly what I needed to read on my own journey of shirking diets, body acceptance, and knowing my health does not hinge on a number. Read it. Read her citations. Use the discussion prompts. Share it with friends and family. Let's shift the culture.
March 7, 2023
I feel so strongly about this book. The church has bought in wholeheartedly to the pseudoscience lies of diet culture and popular fatphobia. In Faith Church, Anastasia debunks the myths surrounding the “sin” of fatness and calls on the church to recall that ours is an embodied faith, and that God truly lives in ALL bodies - including fat ones!
I wish I could’ve read the truths in this book when I was 12 or 15 or 18. I wish members of my family who have “struggled” with their own weight and commented on mine could’ve read this book.
Christians, please read this book. Your fat congregants and neighbors and friends and children - and maybe even your fat future-self - will thank you.
I wish I could’ve read the truths in this book when I was 12 or 15 or 18. I wish members of my family who have “struggled” with their own weight and commented on mine could’ve read this book.
Christians, please read this book. Your fat congregants and neighbors and friends and children - and maybe even your fat future-self - will thank you.
July 19, 2025
Even if you’re not here for the Church part of Fat Church, read the first two sections; they are a brilliant Critical Fat Studies primer on weight stigma and fat phobia, the diet and beauty industry and its many contributions to anti-fat oppression, and the rise and enduring harm of medicalized anti-fat bias. Exhaustively researched and sourced, but like the best of narrative nonfiction it *reads* - conversational and engaging and erudite and funny, and so beautifully written. I recommend staying for all of it.
June 30, 2023
Rev. Kidd offers a beautiful vision of justice and liberation and many reasons for why we need this work now. Connecting fat liberation to other intersecting liberation movements, moving through the history of how Christianity became, frequently, a body-hating tradition, and with gentle humor invites all of us to the work of fat liberation.
Individual reflection and communal reader guides included, so excellent for individual and group study.
Individual reflection and communal reader guides included, so excellent for individual and group study.
July 11, 2023
A good introductory read for those new to the Fat Liberation movement. She describes fat studies research that gives compelling rationale to unraveling anti-fat bias that has reported fat = unhealthy; while also reminding us that worth doesn’t require health. I found the memoir and stories interesting but I did feel left wanting relating to the Christian theology/perspective. Good place for Christian’s to start, may leave some to be desires for those looking for a more theological deep dive.
May 28, 2023
The book should be in one of the seminary course materials to discuss fat liberation. Her prose is well done and makes it readable. As I read, I heard Anastasia Kidd's voice narrating it. Her work made me laugh, angry, disbelieving, and then shocked. I am thankful to read the book because I learn the truth, and I plan to recommend the book to others.
May 22, 2024
I really gravitate toward books about erasing anti-fat bias. The fact that this one connects weight stigma to the teaching of the church adds an extra layer of interest to me. I appreciate the well-researched and affirming approach to the topic from the author. It will definitely find a home on my Essential Fat Positive Library list.
April 8, 2024
A truly amaizing read about the liberation the church needs from fatphboia!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews