Madeline Atwood’s Reviews > “You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People > Status Update
Madeline Atwood
is 49% done
“Fat people have existed in every corner of our world, in every moment of our history. Like thin people, some of us experience traumas that stay with us for a lifetime, others don’t. Like thin people, some of us eat to comfort ourselves, others don’t. While all of the studies in this chapter offer sound scientific understanding of a correlation, it is only that. A correlation.”
mental health/trauma + weight
— Jun 22, 2026 11:59AM
mental health/trauma + weight
Like flag
Madeline’s Previous Updates
Madeline Atwood
is 49% done
“Fat people should be allowed to tell the stories of our own bodies.”
— Jun 22, 2026 12:05PM
Madeline Atwood
is 49% done
3/3 They only function when we lash together our drives to stigmatize mental illness, fatness, and trauma and they allow us to do what so many of us are already driven to do: ruthlessly judge fat people, even in the name of compassion.”
— Jun 22, 2026 12:04PM
Madeline Atwood
is 49% done
2/3 Fat people are neither created nor defined by trauma, disordered eating, or some vague idea of emotional dysfunction. These ideas only function if we believe that fatness is a failure, a derivation from the natural ideal that is thinness.
— Jun 22, 2026 12:04PM
Madeline Atwood
is 49% done
1/3 “We simply do not know why some people are fat and others are thin and the closer we get to an answer, the more complex the picture becomes. Pathologizing fatness as an expression of emotional brokenness is another way to marginalize fat people; first presuming that our bodies are cause for blame, then laying that blame squarely at our feet.
— Jun 22, 2026 12:03PM
Madeline Atwood
is 42% done
“That doctor diagnosed Nees with Obesity Pain. Later, Nees found out she had progressive scoliosis, a condition that isn’t caused by being fat, but can be caused by consistent physical activity in adulthood.”
Man, the framing of this sentence is disappointing, coming from a writer who works to break down health misinformation. Makes it sound like consistent physical activity is a detriment to our health.
— Jun 19, 2026 09:20AM
Man, the framing of this sentence is disappointing, coming from a writer who works to break down health misinformation. Makes it sound like consistent physical activity is a detriment to our health.
Madeline Atwood
is 34% done
2/2 - None account for the widespread and widely documented substandard healthcare received by fat people, which can lead to postponement of care, misdiagnosis of crucial health conditions, and denial of care altogether in some cases.”
— Jun 18, 2026 01:01PM
Madeline Atwood
is 34% done
1/2 “Each of these mortality estimates is just that, an estimate, based on existing available datasets. Few control for family histories of conditions they readily attribute to body weight, like type 2 diabetes or heart disease. -
— Jun 18, 2026 01:01PM
Madeline Atwood
is 34% done
“It is absurd to claim that all excess deaths of fat people are the result of being fat, just as it would be to claim that all swimmers die of drowning, all birthing people die in childbirth, or all people who wore jeans at the time of their death were killed by their Levi’s.“
kind of an inaccurate and foolish comparison in my opinion
— Jun 18, 2026 01:01PM
kind of an inaccurate and foolish comparison in my opinion
Madeline Atwood
is 30% done
“We keep our disappointment and displeasure quiet, revealing our disapproval of fatness only in our celebration of thinness. Ultimately, weight loss compliments don’t function without a hierarchy of bodies. Thinness is only worth celebrating if it is an accomplishment and thinness is only an accomplishment if fatness is a failure.”
— Oct 25, 2025 11:58AM
