“To coerce, beauty must exclude…. It cannot be universal.”[33]

“beauty is the preferences that reproduce the existing social order”[32]

To that point, Insecurities are valid. It is okay for us to be insecure in bodies that are constantly beat on and berated. Those Insecurities don’t change the reality [of] what anti-fatness, or overall Ugliness, is and what it does…. You can’t beat people down forever and expect that they never feel the effects of that continued beating.

feeling insecure makes sense in a world set up to undermine you. We feel insecure because, in being fat or trans or queer or disabled or otherwise nonnormative in a bodily dimension—that which Harrison calls “Ugly”—we are made to be insecure in our very embodiment.

If gaslighting succeeds, then the victim winds up mentally being colonized.

Moreover, there is evidence that adults are likely to be heavier when they experienced childhood trauma—including physical abuse, bullying, and sexual assault.[14]

Fatness serves as a potent class and race signifier. And so, when we wring our hands or jeer at fatness, we are often tacitly and unwittingly expressing classism and racism.

Health is weaponized against fat people: The gospel of fatphobia says you’re unhealthy and it’s your fault, so you don’t deserve care and compassion. There’s an ingrained cultural myth that links wellness to goodness, so what’s perceived as poor health—fatness, chronic illness, or disability—is a result of poor choices and thus poor character.[78]

Namely, they are saying, or at least implying, that we are weak-willed, gross, lazy, lax, and stupid. They are saying that we are destined to be not just unhealthy but unhappy. And that we are responsible for our own ignominy. In this way, the label “unhealthy” works as a dog whistle in the discourse around fat bodies—much as the terms “inner city”