no. 6, Spring 2022

The Fat Issue

A drawing of a fat, brown-skinned woman with curly hair. We see her from the back; she is in a doctor's office. She faces two doors, one marked "Lose Weight" and the other marked "DIE."

Feature Story

No Health, No Care: Everything You Know
About Fatness Has Always Been Wrong

Marquisele Mercedes

Medical fatphobia isn’t the result of providers not knowing some special cheat codes for working with fat patients. Providers didn’t all miss the day in medical school where students were taught how not to be cruel to fat people. Medical fatphobia is medicine’s status quo. 


Conversation Pieces

The Urge to Burn
Ali Thompson
Art & Illustration

Field Notes from a Fatty
Athia Choudhury
Nonfiction

Freedom Song No. 28
Aurielle Marie
Poetry

The Story of Your Body
Caroline Moore
Letter

Belly of the Beast: Two Excerpts
Da’Shaun Harrison
Book Excerpt

We Care a Lot
Fresh Roberson
Nonfiction

Deep Breaths: In the Waiting Room
Katta Spiel
Nonfiction

Public Health’s Self-fulfilling Prophecies
Monica Kriete
Nonfiction

Valuing Fatness: A Fat Studies Reading List
Rachel Fox
Reading List

Three Acts for Cass Elliot
Rachel Wiley
Poetry

Once Upon an Ovary…
Victoria Abraham
Nonfiction


Columns

Naked, and Unashamed
Breai Mason-Campbell

Another Body on Another Slab
Soraya Roberts

Our Bodies, Our George
Sara Benincasa


For Funsies

Weight Loss: A Big Fat Pop Quiz
Michelle Weber

A Visual History of Futility or, Diet Ads of the 20th Century
Pipe Wrench