Eat Fat [Paperback]

Richard Klein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 1998

In this tour de force the author traces the older, positive meanings of the word "fat." He analyzes "the thing fat, " discussing not only the aesthetics of fat but also the nature of fat. He examines "fat sex, " including representations of the human body designed to arouse people whose taste in beauty is fat. And he explores "political fat, " i.e., the relation of fat to power.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Klein, author of Cigarettes are Sublime, is making a profession out of political, and medical, incorrectness. Here he assembles statistics on "healthy fatties," adds the weight of anecdotal evidence that fatness equals happiness, cites the voluminous depiction of plump beauty in art, and piles on the heft of his own forceful opinions to make a case for fatness as the ideal. Given modern culture's unhealthy addiction to a vision of waif-like beauty, leading to the extremes of anorexia and bulimia, and the dangers of more routine crash dieting and weight-loss programs, he certainly has a point. Klein anticipates with pleasure the day when the aesthetic of Rubens becomes normative again. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Klein, a professor of French at Cornell and author of Cigarettes Are Sublime, wants you to feel good about eating animal and vegetable fat, arguing that for most people the medical risks of obesity have been greatly exaggerated. Asserting that there is a wide range of healthy body sizes, he finds an irresistible charm or an aura of imposing gravity surrounding heavies like Orson Welles, Julia Child, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and Roland Barthes. He calls this fat-friendly meditation "a postmodern diet book," and it is larded with playful, self-conscious irony, with literary allusions ranging from Shakespeare to Raymond Carver, as it tracks cycles of fat and thin worship, from prehistoric figurines of plump, fertile Venuses to svelte Nefertiti to the enormously corpulent President William Taft. Klein's freewheeling smorgasbord samples Americans' eating habits, supermarket labels, word origins (fat, vat, tub, etc.), the biochemistry of dieting. His investigation of the politics of fat leads from Nero, Louis XIV and weight-gaining President Clinton (who overeats under stress) to adipose byways like the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance; Fat Girl, a magazine for and about fat lesbians; and the heterosexual 'zine Plumpers. While his inquiry may not persuade the weight-conscious to stop slimming, it effectively challenges fatphobia and conventional ideas of beauty. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (January 12, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679758488
• ISBN-13: 978-0679758488
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,949,420 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fat from a Historical Perspective, October 10, 2000

By 

Steve Amerige "www.fatbear.com" (Morgan Hill, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eat Fat (Paperback)

The author of this book provides us with an impartial analysis of the history of how we have regarded fat. Public opinion can last for decades, so it is only with the perspective of history that we can more accurately assess the nature of something.

Richard Klein draws our attention to the fact that for most of human history being fat is a positive thing. When one looks at famous art, one sees voluptuous curves and full forms. Works of art that depict thin body forms frequently are associated with plague, war, and other forms of human misery.

He also helps us to recapture the essential sensuality of fat. One needn't fear intimacy with a robust person as one might with a thin, frail-looking shell of a person.

All of this plays very well with a recent PBS program that showcased "Fit and Fat." We're instructed that being fat doesn't mean you have to be unfit. And this undercuts the criticism of those who demean fat people. Historically, fat and thin alike had to work hard to remain alive. Today, this isn't true. So, part of the return to enjoying being fat is to adapt to the times by adding exercise and healthful living to the mix.

As a fat person myself (6', 250#), I work out to be fit and have earned the respect of my doctor who not only cannot fault my health, but says I'm a lot healthier than his thin/average clients!

This book provides substance and support to my belief that we fat persons are fine just as we are and have much to be proud of. Be informed. Enjoy your wonderful body--and Eat Fat!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars [e-mail], December 18, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Eat Fat (Hardcover)

Klein is a man in the process of waking up from our wacky culture's notions of food-as-drugs and this-is-beautiful. This post-modern diet book retrieves the older, more positive valuations of fat, and attempts to "transvalue" fat in anticipation of a possible return to a fat idea of beauty. He supplies some in-depth analysis of some of the more flawed recent attempts to re-instate the outrageously low ideal weight charts of the fifties, and discusses some of the less publicized risks associated with the latest in diet drug cocktails. It's a book worth reading, even if it self-describes as an attempt to charm you into changing the way you view fat. I recommend supplementing it with Levenstein's excellent histories of wacko food fads in America: _Paradox of Plenty_ and _A Revolution at the Table_. You might also try Shapiro's _Perfection Salad_.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars antidote to Cosmo, May 19, 2004

By 

Loren E. Clive "bonne vivante" (Pukalani, HI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat Fat (Paperback)

The people who have reviewed this book negatively take it too seriously! It is meant to be entertaining and humerous, and the author far from advocates eating everything in sight. Instead, he traces the history of body image, back to the eighteenth century when fat symbolized wealth and plenty. He also goes into the etymology of the word "fat," in its positive and negative connotations, and its cognates "phat." Reading this book got me to rethink my relationship to flesh, and there's nothing wrong with flesh, despite what all the magazine covers say. All in all, it's a refreshing read that will improve your body-image, relation to food, and overall mindset.