Skin & Bones

Skin & Bones

Content type: Health story

Skin & Bones is Renée Watson’s novel about the experiences of Lena, a 40-year-old African American woman in predominantly white Portland, Oregon.  Health, body image, weight, diet, and beauty standards are prominent topics throughout the book and these are contextualized within larger themes about race, gender, gentrification, work, love, faith, and friendship.  There are many passages in the book that show how beliefs about health are communicated through interactions with Lena’s friends, family, romantic partners, co-workers, and service providers. For example, the book opens with a chapter entitled, “the weight I carry,” that problematizes assumptions about health and weight in an interaction with a healthcare provider. Lena’s observations about the interaction (e.g., the too-small gown, unfounded assumptions and problematic statements from the health care provider) are woven with reflections on her lifeworld.  Immediately following this chapter is a brief reflection on “morbid” as a word used in relation to weight; it concludes with the statements, “Comment on my appearance. But tell yourself it’s about my health.”

Health-related themes are prominent enough that one might assign the entire book and this would provide opportunities to see “big” or “fat” as an identity that intersects with race and gender and to discuss health themes in relation to sex, social support, family, and community.  However, the book is also written in chapters (some only a paragraph long) that could be excerpted to explore specific topics.  For example:

  • the aforementioned “the weight I carry” and “morbid” focus on a health care interaction
  • “Sunday supper” includes a reference to a mother who died from a failure to diagnose breast cancer because she was “a poor Black woman”
  • “shopping while fat” and “back to school shopping” address finding plus-sized clothing
  • “macro microaggressions” details lunch with younger white co-workers and concludes with the line, “…they sat there and basically admitted—in my presence—that of all the cares and worries to have in life, their greatest fear is having a body that looks like mine.”
  • “aunt Aretha” examines “soul food” and its complicated connections to health, family, race, and class
  • A sequence of chapters–“fat girl, dance,” “how whiteness killed the body positive movement” (an excerpt from Kelsey Miller), “debriefing,” “positivity,” “positive,” and “body positivy” address how fat acceptance intersects with race and this is taken up later in two chapters describing Lena and her friends’ experience at a “Fat Girl Wellness Conference”

One especially powerful recurring storyline involves messages about self-acceptance, health, and diet that Lena received from her own mother and what she communicates with her daughter. These are difficult chapters and include a near overdose on diet pills that is initially taken as a suicide attempt. A strong bond between Lena, her mother, and her daughter sustains them and the book addresses the complexities of communicating about health, race, gender, and beauty in our personal relationships.

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El miedo de engordar en cuarentena

El miedo de engordar en cuarentena

Content type: Health story

This narrative is from a woman whose struggle with bulimia worsened during the Covid lockdowns. Maria describes the impact of the isolation and forced inactivity that came from lockdown, and the physical and mental damage she has suffered from her bulimia during the quarantine. Contextualizes her personal struggle in social and cultural frameworks of beauty and control, making this useful for advanced intermediate and above students – and educated lay adults – to discuss eating disorders.

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Historia de una cicatriz

Historia de una cicatriz

Content type: Health story

Melania Mosteiro is a Spanish life coach who bases her perspective and approach in her experience of having been born with a minor deformity that makes her face appear slightly crooked. She was very ashamed of this deformity and when she was 17 years old, she underwent an operation to correct it. The operation didn’t change much, but as she waited for the next operation, her point of view changed. She realized that her scars are a part of her, and she was finally satisfied with her appearance. 8 minute read; upper intermediate Spanish readers. Useful to discuss body image.

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BDD, Fighting the Voice of Imposter Syndrome, and an Act of Power

BDD, Fighting the Voice of Imposter Syndrome, and an Act of Power

Content type: Health story

This 47 minute podcast discusses how three generations of Koreans have experienced mental illness. Joanne details her elders’ PTSD and depression, then moves into her own story. Initially, she ignores the little voice in her head, comparing her struggles with her grandparents’. Later, on her honeymoon, she realizes that she is losing a fight with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Joanne describes an up and down journey toward body acceptance. As media become saturated with unrealistic beauty standards, this podcast would fit well in an undergraduate class to discuss how students face body image issues.

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My body is a cage of my own making

My body is a cage of my own making

Content type: Health story

An accessible, 7-8 page excerpt from her book, Hunger: A Memoir Of (My) Body. Roxane Gay writes about her struggle with her weight and body image. When people commented on her body, refused to sit next to her on planes, or took food out of her grocery cart, Gay struggled to accept, and even love, her body. When she broke her ankle and needed emergency surgery she began to take a healthier approach to living in a larger sized body. Useful for classes and community groups to talk about fat-shaming.

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