Book Review on “Fat Girl” Essay

Book Review Obesity is an upcoming and extremely prevalent phenomenon in America today. Author, Judith Moore of the book â€Å"Fat Girl† discusses some of the issues fat girls face. Her book is less about every stereo-typed fat girl and more about her story individually. Judith Moore chooses to take a different route, instead of complaining continuously about being fat, she explains in depth why she believes she is fat. She is not lazy; she expresses her knowledge of diets and her experiences of strenuous work outs but ends with little to no results. ‘My flesh resists loss. My fat holds on for dear life, holds on under my bratwurst arms and between my clabber thighs. † Food is a fuel, but to some food may be a pain reliever. For Judith, she had to face an unhappy family life early on. Judith had always been a fat girl and her father a fat man weighing close to 300 pounds. Her family was secluded and each individual only cared for themselves. Clearly her family was an unhappy one; they used food as source of pleasure and hoped it would cure the pain. At the age of four, Judith’s parents divorced. After the divorce, Judith was shipped back and forth between her mom’s mother’s farm and her mom’s apartment in Brooklyn. These trips back and forth only created more emotional scaring for Judith. Her Grandmother had a strong hatred for her father, and being that Judith was a spitting image of him, she received the backlash. Grandma fed Judiths needs literally and figuratively speaking. Each time she visited her Grandmothers farm she was fed extremely fattening comfort foods, and with that she grew larger. Her Grandmother would make comments over how large she was and how she was growing, breaking her down each time. This led to Judith’s reach for food to fill the hole created by her dysfunctional family. The love of food steamed from her unloving family. Her continuous pattern of eating to fulfill an emotional need led to Judith’s weight gain. Judith proceeds to explain more emotional traumatizing events in her life that are male influenced. She discloses information that a man once told her she was too fat to get in bed with, and her experience of being manipulated into giving oral head to a man who she thought was a kind person, while his friends watched and laughed. Not once throughout her book did Judith play the victim for being fat. Because Judith proceeds to tell the readers events in her life and why they make her who she is today, this book consider would be considered an autobiography. The book gives another perspective on another persons’ life. Judith’s obvious intention for this book was not to complain about being fat, but to state the events of her life that made her who she is. She did not stereo-type every fat girl, she simply told her story and ways other fat girls could relate. This autobiography presents an issue of correlation with our society and obesity. It suggests that obesity can come from emotional pain or distress. I would suggest this book to my friends, it explains that everyone has a story of why they are the way they are.