Hunger by Roxane Gay

I've never heard of Roxane Gay, didn't know who she was and was only half listening to Trevor Noah interview her on The Daily Show. I ended up stopping what I was doing to listen to what she was saying. She wrote a book about being fat?

Hunger is a memoir of her body. Gay was gang raped at the age of 12 and, in a very short summary, began eating and eating and eating in order to build a fortress around her. She felt that if she was bigger, men wouldn't hurt her.

The book was amazing. Gay really articulated how she has to move through this world in her body. She was a "hot mess" for a while and has since moved into a better type of mess and is able to share her history, and how she became the woman she is, to us. It pained me to read, and know as true, how people think they can offer advice and criticism to fat people without batting an eye. I hear this stuff in our break room at work almost daily - someone critiquing someone else's food choices "That's not healthy. Aren't you diabetic?", "Should you be eating that?", "How many miles do you need to walk to burn THAT off?". Some of those were said to me, and even though the BMI says I'm overweight, my food choices shouldn't invite criticism from co-workers (or anyone for that matter).

Gay talks about being invisible yet highly visible. People don't see her, but they are upset she takes up so much space. Women, all women, are not supposed to take up space. Girls are taught that, either explicitly or implicitly, throughout their whole lives. And yet, here she is, taking up space.

This is really a great book to read to gain a perspective you probably didn't know you needed. EVERYONE targets fat people. Everyone has judgments about fat people and the majority of people love voicing those opinions. It's insane that we, as a whole, can target a group of people and think it's ok.

Read this.....