Aubrey Gordon

Last updated
Aubrey Gordon
Born (1983-11-09) November 9, 1983 (age 40) [1] [2]
Other namesYour Fat Friend
Occupation(s)Author and podcaster
Website yourfatfriend.com

Aubrey Gordon (born 1983), [1] [2] also known as Your Fat Friend, is an author, podcaster, and activist. She writes about fatness, fat acceptance, and anti-fat bias, and her podcast, Maintenance Phase, focuses on the poor science behind health and wellness fads. [3]

Contents

Career

Before beginning her writing career, Gordon was an LGBTQ community organizer. [4]

After an argument with a friend about the differences between thin and fat people's relationships with their own bodies, Gordon wrote a letter to the friend to try to convey her thoughts. She shared it to a different friend to get feedback on whether the letter came off as rude, and her friend asked her to post it online so he could share it. Gordon, who was concerned about her professional reputation after beginning a new job, shared the letter anonymously with the name "Your Fat Friend." The letter was widely read, and Gordon decided to keep writing and posting essays about fatness, and hate and discrimination directed toward fat people. [1]

Gordon writes a regular column for Self magazine. [4] [5] She also publishes essays on Medium, and has written for publications including Vox and The New York Times. [6] [7] [8]

Gordon remained anonymous for five years. In October 2020, just before publishing her first book, she revealed her identity and began including her name in bylines. [4] The following month, she published the book What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, which focuses on fatness and anti-fat bias. [8] [9]

Since October 2020, Gordon and Michael Hobbes have co-hosted the podcast Maintenance Phase. They use the show to debunk the myths and "junk science" behind health, nutrition, and wellness trends, and have discussed topics including popular diets and diet foods, anti-fat bias, and eating disorders. [3]

Gordon's second book, “You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People, was published on January 10, 2023, by Beacon Press. [10]

A documentary following Gordon's life in 2020 and 2021, Your Fat Friend , directed by Jeanie Finlay, was released in 2023. [11] It premiered at the 2023 Tribeca film festival. [12]

Personal life

Gordon describes herself as "very fat." She identifies as queer. [4] As of September 2021, she lived in Portland, Oregon. [3]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fat acceptance movement</span> Social movement seeking to change anti-fat bias in social attitudes

The fat acceptance movement is a social movement which seeks to eliminate the social stigma of obesity. Areas of contention include the aesthetic, legal, and medical approaches to fat people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ricki Lake</span> American television host and actress

Ricki Pamela Lake is an American television host and actress. She is known for her lead role as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film Hairspray, for which she received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She is also known for her talk show, Ricki Lake, which was broadcast internationally from September 1993 until May 2004. When the show debuted, Lake was 24 and credited as being the youngest person to host a syndicated talk show at the time. In late 2012, Lake began hosting a second syndicated talk show, The Ricki Lake Show. The series was canceled in 2013 after a single season, but Lake won her first Daytime Emmy Award for the project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Garlin</span> American stand-up comedian and actor (born 1962)

Jeffrey Garlin is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for playing Murray Goldberg, patriarch of the eponymous family in the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs, and Jeff Greene on the HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. He also played Marvin on Mad About You and Mort Meyers on Arrested Development for Fox and Netflix.

<i>Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?</i> 1976 short story collection by Raymond Carver

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976) was the first major-press short-story collection by American writer Raymond Carver. Described by contemporary critics as a foundational text of minimalist fiction, its stories offered an incisive and influential telling of disenchantment in the mid-century American working class.

Fat feminism, often associated with "body-positivity", is a social movement that incorporates feminist themes of equality, social justice, and cultural analysis based on the weight of a woman. This branch of feminism intersects misogyny and sexism with anti-fat bias. Fat feminists advocate body-positive acceptance for all bodies, regardless of their weight, as well as eliminating biases experienced directly or indirectly by fat people. Fat feminists originated during third-wave feminism and is aligned with the fat acceptance movement. A significant portion of body positivity in the third-wave focused on embracing and reclaiming femininity, such as wearing makeup and high heels, even though the second-wave fought against these things. Contemporary western fat feminism works to dismantle oppressive power structures which disproportionately affect working class poor people or poor people generally. It covers a wide range of topics such as diet culture, fat-phobia, representation in media, ableism, and employment discrimination.

<i>I Know Who Killed Me</i> 2007 film

I Know Who Killed Me is a 2007 American psychological thriller film directed by Chris Sivertson, from a screenplay by Jeff Hammond. The film stars Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, and Brian Geraghty. The film's story revolves around a young woman who is abducted and tortured by a sadistic serial killer. After surviving the abduction, she insists that her identity is that of another woman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jameela Jamil</span> English actress (born 1986)

Jameela Alia Jamil is an English actress, activist and presenter. She began her career on Channel 4, where she hosted a pop culture series in the T4 strand from 2009 until 2012. She then became the radio host of The Official Chart, and co-hosted The Official Chart Update alongside Scott Mills on BBC Radio 1. She was the first regular solo female presenter of the BBC Radio 1 chart show.

Suzy Gershman was an American writer who authored sixteen "Born to Shop" guidebooks over the course of twenty-six years, beginning in 1986. Her travel guides, which cover the shopping scenes in counties and cities, including Paris and New York, have sold more than four million copies as of 2012. Six guidebooks are now revised and republished every two years - France, Hong Kong, Italy, London, Paris, and New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monica Reinagel</span> American nutritionist

Monica Reinagel is a nutritionist based in Baltimore, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Hyman (doctor)</span> American physician and author (born 1959)

Mark Adam Hyman is an American physician and author. He is the founder and medical director of The UltraWellness Center. Hyman was a regular contributor to the Katie Couric Show until the show's cancellation in 2013. He writes a blog called The Doctor’s Farmacy, which examines many topics related to human health and welfare, and also offers a podcast by the same name. He is the author of several books on nutrition and longevity, including Food Fix, Eat Fat, Get Thin, and Young Forever.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roxane Gay</span> American writer (born 1974)

Roxane Gay is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and the memoir Hunger (2017).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aseem Malhotra</span> British cardiologist and writer

Aseem Malhotra is a British cardiologist, health campaigner, author, and, contrary to public health consensus, an anti-mRNA vaccine activist. He contends that people should reduce sugar in their diet, adopt a low-carb and high-fat diet, and reduce their use of prescription drugs. He was the first science director of Action on Sugar in 2014, was listed as one of The Sunday Times 500 most influential people in 2016, and was twice recognized as one of the top fifty black and minority ethnic community member pioneers in the UK's National Health Service by the Health Service Journal. Malhotra is co-author of a book called The Pioppi Diet.

Samin Nosrat is an Iranian-American chef, TV host, food writer and podcaster.

Teddi Jo Mellencamp Arroyave is an American television personality and podcast host. She is best known for appearing as a main cast member on three seasons of Bravo's reality series The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2017–2020). She is the daughter of singer-songwriter John Mellencamp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Obesity and sexuality</span> Influence of obesity on sexuality

Being overweight or obese has influence on the sexuality of people in various different aspects. It can include negative aspects such as stigmatization which can be an obstacle for romantic developments, sexual dysfunction and an increased chance of risky sexual behavior. It can also have positive aspects in the form of fat fetishism.

Maintenance Phase is a health science and pop culture podcast that aims to debunk health and wellness-industry myths and discusses anti-fatness in mainstream American culture. It is hosted by Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes. Launched in 2020, the podcast has addressed topics such as the Keto diet, the Presidential Fitness Test, Weight Watchers, and various fad diets and diet self-help books.

Megan Rossi is a dietitian, nutritionist and author specialising in the microbiome. Her PhD in gut health received the Dean's Award top 5% for Outstanding Research Higher Degree.

Michael Hobbes is a journalist and podcast host. He was formerly a Senior Enterprise Reporter for HuffPost. His writing has also appeared in Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and Slate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virgie Tovar</span> American author, podcaster, and activist

Virgie Tovar, is an American author, lecturer and weight-based discrimination speaker. She writes about fat acceptance, and anti-fat bias, and was the host of The Virgie Show and the Webby-nominated podcast, Rebel Eaters Club. Tovar has received Yale's Poynter Fellowship in Journalism.

<i>Your Fat Friend</i> (film) 2023 American film

Your Fat Friend is a documentary film directed by Jeanie Finlay. It follows author Aubrey Gordon for several years before and including the publication of her first book, What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, including breaking her anonymity as a blogger, the launch of her podcast Maintenance Phase, and the impact of her writing, including on her relationships with her parents. The film premiered on June 8, 2023, at the Tribeca Film Festival, and received positive reviews.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Gordon, Aubrey (December 11, 2020). "After Years of Writing Anonymously About Fatness, I'm Telling the World Who I Am". Self . Archived from the original on 2020-12-12. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
  2. 1 2 Gordon, Aubrey [@yrfatfriend] (November 9, 2020). "Hey! It's my birthday! ..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  3. 1 2 3 Petersen, Victoria (September 9, 2021). "Breaking Down the 'Wellness-Industrial Complex,' an Episode at a Time". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 1, 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Fallik, Dawn (January 22, 2021). "Aubrey Gordon, the writer behind 'Your Fat Friend,' has some thoughts on diets, BMI and the relentless advice of strangers". The Washington Post . Retrieved October 1, 2021.
  5. ↑ Avari, Daniel; Gordon, Aubrey (May 25, 2021). "That Orson Welles Feeling". Big Mood, Little Mood (Podcast). Slate . Retrieved October 1, 2021.
  6. ↑ Gordon, Aubrey (February 17, 2021). "Such a pretty face". Vox . Archived from the original on 2021-02-26. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
  7. ↑ Gordon, Aubrey (November 13, 2020). "Opinion | Leave Fat Kids Alone". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-10-02.
  8. 1 2 Gormley, Shannon (November 16, 2020). "A Formerly Anonymous Portland Writer Has Written a New York Times Op-ed Titled "Leave Fat Kids Alone"". Willamette Week . Archived from the original on 2020-11-17. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
  9. ↑ Zoller, Charlotte (January 26, 2021). "Aubrey Gordon Is Ready to Change How Society Treats Fat People". Teen Vogue . Archived from the original on 2021-01-26. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
  10. ↑ Dennett, Carrie (16 January 2023). "What does the book 'You Just Need to Lose Weight' get right? Everything". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  11. ↑ Zilko, Christian (10 December 2023). "'Your Fat Friend' Review: Fat Acceptance Doc Blurs the Line Between Empathy and Complacency". IndieWire. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  12. ↑ "Spotlight Documentary World Premiere: Your Fat Friend". Tribeca Film Festival. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.