Shrink: a compelling graphic novel about navigating fatphobia as a younger lady
By Rosie Nelson
What’s it like to maneuver via the world when everybody tries to vary who and what you might be? That is the elemental expertise that the graphic novel Shrink explores in its stylistic depiction of the writer’s autobiographical expertise of being fats.
The e book opens with the writer hospitalised. Even whereas mendacity in mattress with oxygen tubes, Rachel M Thomas’ thoughts is racing – will individuals suppose that she’s there as a result of she’s fats? How are others judging her? This sense of claustrophobic, comprehensible paranoia persists via the novel.
As Thomas exhibits, to be fats is to be judged. Herein lies probably the most attention-grabbing contribution of this e book: what does it imply to exist as a fats particular person in a massively fatphobic society?
Thomas masterfully weaves collectively tutorial perception, autobiographical expertise and graphic artwork to discover these questions. Because the reader strikes via Thomas’ experiences of her physique, we more and more see how fatphobia shapes her experiences and interactions.
This consists of the irritating and anger-inducing experiences of accessing healthcare. Thomas is repeatedly advised to only “shed pounds” even when it’s irrelevant to her well being concern. Docs select to remind her that her physique might be smaller, as an alternative of partaking with the particular signs she experiences.
Past the horrors of medical trauma, is the horror of how strangers really feel justified in commenting negatively on fats individuals’s our bodies. Between making “oink” noises, or snide feedback, Thomas can be bombarded by media photographs of “best” physique varieties which compounds her detrimental relationship to her personal physique.
For me, one of the crucial attention-grabbing sections of the e book was the place Thomas mentioned individuals’s relationship to fatness all through historical past. She exhibits how fatness was not traditionally demonised the way in which it’s now. Relatively, an ideal storm of sophistication, capitalism and medical bias have now come collectively to recommend that any fats our bodies are “flawed”, with out accounting for the truth that they are often as wholesome – and even more healthy – than some slimmer frames.
Spurred on by the detrimental responses to her physique, Thomas begins calorie counting and extreme train and weight reduction to facilitate her emotional journey. In some unspecified time in the future, her well being crashes as a result of her excessive method, main her to lastly reset her relationship along with her physique.
Ultimately, she involves phrases with the truth that no person is “regular” – everybody has their quirks and challenges.
Shrink is a compelling, considerate and private account of navigating a fatphobic society. The illustrations all through the graphic novel pull on the reader’s feelings to really feel empathy and reference to the narrator.
Equally, Thomas’ data of the educational literature on this discipline helps floor her narrative in a wider tutorial context to point out an account of among the shared experiences of fatphobia.
This e book is consultant of 1 particular person’s navigation of fatphobia and so, evidently, can’t seize the gamut of experiences of fatness. Having stated that, Thomas is aware to discover how fatness would possibly intersect with blackness and different minority identities.
For these readers questioning extra about experiences of fatness and blackness, I like to recommend Fearing the Black Physique by Sabrina Strings. Thomas herself attracts on this e book all through Shrink, and I believe they function excellent companions to at least one one other.
Though I struggled with the truth that Thomas reached a spot of self-acceptance largely via working via an unhealthy relationship with food plan and train, this was an necessary a part of her navigation of her physique. This honesty round her expertise is vital to the impression of the graphic memoir.
It’s an attention-grabbing and accessible exploration of fatphobia, although readers who’ve a tough relationship with meals and train ought to train warning, because the content material could also be triggering.
I loved this e book and felt that it affirmed a few of my very own experiences of navigating a world in a traditional, and so imperfect, physique.
Rosie Nelson is Lecturer in Gender, College of Bristol. This text is republished from The Dialog underneath a Inventive Commons licence
