cover image No Fat Chicks: How Big Business Profits by Making Women Hate Their Bodies--And How to Fight Back

No Fat Chicks: How Big Business Profits by Making Women Hate Their Bodies--And How to Fight Back

Terry Poulton. Birch Lane Press, $21.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-55972-423-4

As a large woman, Canadian freelance writer Poulton argues that she subjected herself to destructive gimmicks promoted by the billion-dollar weight-loss industry, which is the subject of her investigation here. After losing and regaining 65 pounds, she had her stomach stapled and went on a liquid fast that destroyed her gall bladder. Now a ""size liberation"" activist, she traces the cultural obsession with thin bodies sparked by designer Christian Dior's 1947 ""new look"" and accelerated by the fame of super-thin London model Twiggy in 1967. An industry composed of diet doctors and producers of diet products mushroomed and prospered by convincing women, often against medical evidence, that thin is healthy and fat is sick, according to Poulton. In her convincing expose, occasionally marred by her strident tone, she describes how the quest for thinness has resulted in discrimination against large women, a rise in eating disorders and damaged self-esteem. She also takes to task the fashion industry for ignoring these women's clothing needs. Although Poulton recommends that women with large body types exercise and eat healthily, she also advocates that they disregard the anti-fat profiteers. (Aug.)