Amanda Martinez Beck - More of You: The Fat Girls Field Guide to the Modern World

Praise for More of You: The Fat Girls Field Guide to the Modern World

Existing in a world that constantly tells you what you should be, what you should do, and how you should look is hard, frustrating, and terrifying, especially if you exist in a non-normative, fat body. Becks More of You gives readers the language and tools to reframe our bodies not merely as objects designed to get us from point A to point B, but as sacred creations, designed for existing in relationship and with love and passion for justice for all bodies. Following this field guide helps readers to understand fat within the context of oppression, accessibility, and disability and reframe the discussion in important ways.

Dianna E. Anderson, author of Damaged Goods, Problematic, and In Transit

In More of You: The Fat Girls Field Guide to the Modern World, Amanda Martinez Beck sets out to give the reader a knapsack of tools to navigate a world that is often an unsafe and unjust place for fat people. With her characteristic wit and empathy, Martinez Beck gives an excellent overview of the history of fat activism, as well as vital key points, or touchstones, that she has gleaned about her body and her life, including her signature line, All bodies are good bodies. This book is a must-read for anyone with a body.

Jessica Kantrowitz, author of The Long Night, 365 Days of Peace, and Blessings for the Long Night

Becks religion informs her writing as she reconciles being a person of size with being one of faith, taking up space in a society that wants fat women to shrink and mingling the bodys inherent goodness with pain and discrimination. This book is a fat liberation manifesto that recognizes the gains of the pastand the fights of tomorrow.

Lindley Ashline, body acceptance photographer and activist

Intricately weaving personal storytelling and pieces of the Christian Scriptures, this book meets us at the intersection of the fat liberation movement and our faith, opening our minds and hearts to this truth: Gods love isnt contingent on your weight, body size, or body shape.

Patrilie Hernandez, body liberation advocate and founder of Embody Lib

Practical and straightforward with beautiful prose and a message of hope and freedom. Beck offers helpful tools for navigating a world designed to exclude fat people. She weaves together the strands of self-advocacy, history of the fat liberation movement, intersectional justice, and compelling memoir to provide a guidebook for all of us who want to live in such a way that we are at home in our body and in this world.

J. Nicole Morgan, author of Fat and Faithful: Learning to Love Our Bodies, Our Neighbors, and Ourselves

Beck walks us through ways to relate to, care for, and appreciate our bodies as they are this very day. She includes information about the history of fat activism that will inspire and give hope to everyone.

Lisa Du Breuil, LICSW, fat activist, and clinical social worker

MORE
OF
YOU

MORE
OF
YOU

THE FAT GIRLS
FIELD GUIDE TO
THE MODERN
WORLD

AMANDA MARTINEZ BECK

MORE OF YOU

The Fat Girls Field Guide to the Modern World

Copyright 2022 Amanda Martinez Beck. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

The author is represented by WordServe Literary Group, www.wordserveliterary.com.

Scripture quotations marked (NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design: FaceOut Studios

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-7424-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-7425-0

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to J. Nicole Morgan, whose work impacted every part of it. Thank you for leading by saying, Ill go first.

CONTENTS

1

ALL BODIES ARE GOOD BODIES

Good: to be desired or approved of; the quality of something that fulfills its purpose.

I LIVE MY LIFE IN A LARGER BODY. I have swallowed the shame of not finding anything to wear when my friends have new and formfitting clothes. I have experienced the embarrassment of literally not fitting in, both in the child-sized amusement park rides and the seats of friends cars. And I have been subjected to countless doctors assumptions and prejudices about me and my body, including that I am lazy or lying about what I have eaten. For literal decades, all I wanted to do was shrink so that I could fully participate in the life around me that I saw all my not-fat friends enjoy, seemingly so easily. All I wanted was to conform to the impossible demands of the culture around me that says in order to be worthyto be goodI had to make myself smaller. It never occurred to me that maybe it wasnt my body that needed to change but the culture itself.

After over twenty years of trying to change my body and make it smaller and more culturally compliant, the wave of discontentment swelling in my soul reached tidal proportions. I knew that if I gave myself permission, that wave could come down on all I thought I had known about bodiesabout how they were supposed to look and function. If I let it, that wave would come and clear the path ahead of me, setting me free to live my life in the body I inhabited right at that moment. I decided to let it crash and tear down all the scaffolding of shame and other peoples expectations. I didnt know what my life would look like afterward, but I was tired of trying so hard to placate the siren of thinness and health that called so loudly.

As this wave crashed down on the assumptions and expectations I had internalized about bodies, I came across a phrase that latched onto my heart and would not let go: all bodies are good bodies. At first, I balked. The statement was so simple and yet so broad. I wanted it to be true because, deep down inside, I yearned for goodness, not just for my body but for all of me. If all bodies were good, that meant my bodylarge, weak, and imperfectwas good too. I didnt know if I could ever believe that, but I wanted to.