Book review: Fat

Fat is a book about why the fat body has become so reviled and viewed as diseased, the target of such intense discussion and debate about ways to reduce its size down to socially and medically acceptable dimensions. It is also about the lived experience of fat embodiment: how does it feel to be fat in a fat-phobic society? Sarah Burton finds the book’s vast range of critical perspectives which stand alongside the examination of popular culture and political activism makes it thoroughly relevant and a particularly worthy starting point for undergraduate readers or those new to the study of identity.