Cyr V. Daniel - A Fat Girls Manifesto: A Thin Book on Living Fat in America

A Fat Girls Manifesto

Cyr V. Daniels A Fat Girls Manifesto is educational and uplifting. Daniel introduces her audience to current research on weight and health with wit and simplicity. The old paradigmfat is bad, and you must lose weight to be healthyis not supported by scientific evidence. Daniel is an admirer of the work of Glenn Gaesser (including his groundbreaking book, Big Fat Lies), using quotes from that book to illustrate her points.

In between the quotes, Daniels unique voice comes through. She describes her journey towards self-acceptance in an honest and entertaining way. She critiques the traditional view of weight with clever humor. Given the adage Being fat will shorten your life, Daniel says that would be true if you add two words to the phrasenamely, in America. In her words, Living in a country where you are bombarded with officially sanctioned anti-fat sentiments everywhere you turn is extremely stressful, and people stress kills!

Her personal testimony includes the pain of lectures on weight from her father; the shame of overhearing her parents argue about who was to blame for their daughters weight; and her feeling as a young girl that life was unfair. It will be all too familiar to many people who grew up in any of the past few decades. But then Cyrs journey takes a turn. She is an artist, with a degree in sculpture and ceramics. And while in college, she decided to be brave and become an artists model. Posing nude for art studentsand becoming a much-requested modelgave her an appreciation of her body that no amount of reading and research can provide.

Cyr Daniel tells her readers how she reclaimed her body and her life. She still encounters prejudice, but she has the self-esteem to fend it off. When a thin woman treats her with contempt, Cyr now understands that the contempt often comes from that womans own struggle with self-love. She writes:

A friend of mine posted these words where she would see them every day:

Nothing tastes as good as thin feels

Words to live by? For menot so much. If most men lead lives of quiet desperation, most women (in this culture at least) lead lives of quiet deprivation.

I do have one quibble with the book. Daniel feels that the airlines have the right to charge larger people for two seats. As an activist against weight discrimination, I have worked on this problem for many years. It might be legitimate to base freight costs on the size and weight of a piece of cargo, but airlines carry people, not freight. They charge to transport one person from point A to point B. They do not charge less for children or very thin people. So I have to disagree with Cyr Daniel on this issue.

A Fat Girls Manifesto provides a good balance between science and personal testimony. Daniel offers an easy-to understand summary of the latest research: being heavier than average is not as bad as you think, and restrictive dieting and weight obsession are neither effective nor healthful. Her spirited personality shines through as she relates her journey towards self-acceptance. The book is a pleasant and worthwhile read.

Miriam Berg, President of The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination

A Fat Girls Manifesto should be required reading for every health, wellness and fitness professional, regardless of if they work with the overweight population or not. With sharp insight, humor and candidness, Cyr opens the window for the reader to glimpse through and see what it is like growing up and living in America in a body which society deems as too big and unhealthy.

Based on a foundation of solid research and science, this book will strip away any ill-founded assumptions and preconceived notions you might have, and clearly shows that you can, contrary to popular belief, be fat and fit. It is time for everyone, including the diet and fitness industry, to stop profiting from the vulnerability and insecurities of the overweight. Lets produce products and services that emphasize health, not weight loss, as a primary goal, and do so with compassion, respect and dignity.

Ellen G. Goldman, M.Ed., Certified Professional Wellness Coach, Certified Personal Trainer, EnerGcoaching.com

This is a little book with a big message. Regardless of our size, accepting ourselves is fundamental to truly understanding what each of us needs for health and happiness. Kudos to Cyr Daniel for discovering that for herself and spreading the message.

Marsha Hudnall, MS, RDN, CD, President & Co-Owner, Green Mountain at Fox Run

Cyr Daniel says, I cant tell you how many women Ive seenfat and thinobsessed with dieting and hating their perfectly beautiful bodies. It strikes me as a sad way to spend lifes precious moments.

A woman whose life was similarly oppressed by antifat prejudice, Daniel broke free. She learned what she calls the TRUTH* behind the FIBs and FIB2s that underlie the oppression. With an engaging sense of humor and a knack for useful acronyms, she encourages consciousness fattening in the reader. She makes several good points, such as the economic costs of fat prejudice vs. those of sports, exercise, and recreation.

This quick, easy read demonstrates her long-held decision that her life would never be about quantity, but always about quality. Its easy to see from her photo and her story that she chooses friends, fun, and food every time. *Read the book to decode the acronyms.

Barbara Altman Bruno, PhD, LCSW, author, Worth Your Weight

You have been led to believe lies in her often times witty and always brilliant memoir, Cyr Daniel shows us how to stop the self-loathing and see ourselves and our bodies in a new, much more sensible and intelligent way. This book gives new meaning to the old adage change the way you see, not the way you look. Her book is a call for a revolution and awakening in the way people perceive themselves.

Lisa Sanders, Life Coach & Intuitive Consultant

No overweight American should be scared to walk into a gym, regardless of social norm or media pressure. Cyr is an inspiration. A true revolutionary for one of the most misunderstood niches of the fitness industry. An amazing memoir by a brilliant fat-fit soul. Cyr provokes and challenges what was cut and dry fundamental in fitness and turns it upside down!

Michael Cupples, Certified Personal Trainer

A thin book on living FAT in America

By

Cyr V. Daniel

2015 Cyr V. Daniel

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-942155-03-4
Library of Congress Control No.: 2014945376

Published by
Peter E. Randall Publisher
PO Box 4726
Portsmouth, NH 03802
www.perpublisher.com

Book design: Grace Peirce (nhmuse.com)

The publishers and/or authors have generously given permission to use extensive quotations from the following previously published works. From The New England Journal of Medicine, Losing Weight: An Ill-fated New Years Resolution, 1998 by Marcia Angell and Jerome P. Kassirer. Republished with permission of Annual Review of Medicine, Faith Fitzgerald, 32:221-231, 1981; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.. From Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health, by Glenn A. Gaesser, copyright 2002, Gurze Books. From Health Day,. From The Huffington Post, Fat Genes Determine Obesity, UCLA Study Says, In Addition to Diet and Exercise, 2013,01,10 2013 AOL Inc., by Kathleen Miles, All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.