[IMC] PRESS RELEASE: Dr. Jean Braithwaite and Fat: The Story of My Life with My Body

Fri Oct 12 21:12:26 UTC 2012

[OiirMap]
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PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Author Jean Braithwaite to Discuss Fat Phobia and Body Image"

Tuesday, October 16th, 7pm, Writer's Workshop with Dr. Jean Braithwaite,
University of Texas-Pan American and Author of Fat: The Story of My Life with My Body
Urbana Free Library, 210 West Green Street  Urbana, IL 61801

Wednesday October 17th, 7pm, Lecture | Fat: The Story of My Life with My Body
Allen Hall's Main Lounge,  1005 W. Gregory Dr., MC-050, Urbana, IL 61801
*Copies of Fat: The Story of My Life with My Body will be available.
Book signing to follow lecture.

CHAMPAIGN, IL-Funded through a Strategic Initiative Grant and sponsored by the Women's Resources Center, University Housing, and the Counseling Center as part of the Campus Body Image Initiative comes a lecture for all of us who've struggled with body image. Come join us for a lecture from scholar, Dr. Jean Braithwaite, author of Fat: My Life with My Body (the Women's Resources Center's 2012 Summer Book Club Selection) as she discusses her story.

Pudgy bodies haven't always been condemned by the medical and fashion industries. The idea that it was undesirable to be skinny was mainstream less than 100 years ago. Since the mid-20th century, though, trends in fashion and medicine have taken us far, far in the opposite direction. Here's the weird thing: at first it was only mildly socially unacceptable to be fat in America, and at that time not all that many people were very "overweight." But as the decades passed the social punishments imposed became more severe. Strangely, these penalties had no deterrent effect on the increasing number of increasingly large offenders: the curve graphing the fattening of America got steeper and steeper even as the stigma of obesity got heavier and heavier. Those statistics are mysterious, right? Perverse, even.

FAT: The Story of My Life with My Body is not exactly about the American "obesity epidemic," but that is its background. This literary memoir, the intense story of one individual's ups and downs with her body, has something to say about the way our culture shapes us. The book is a case study revealing how one strong-willed teenage girl became fatter while trying to become thinner (and years later, a middle-aged fat woman became thin again accidentally). Maybe FAT sheds some light on the mystery of the obesity epidemic. This is a story about private shame and effort that will resonant with nearly every American woman and many men even though it is almost never told. The stories we always read about being fat/overweight are either triumphalist dramas of self-improvement, or else their protagonists are caricatures of raw greed or neurotic psychology. This book is about what it actually feels like to become fat, to resist eating unsuccessfully, and then successfully, and the effects of both "success" and "failure" on the body and the personality.

The Women's Resources Center, a unit of the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations, was established in 2009 and now is one of the largest of its kind.  It hosts over 1000 events and meetings a year and collaborates annually with campus units, RSOs, and community organizations.  The Counseling Center provides services that are designed to help students reach a balanced Illinois experience, ranging from various counseling services, educational programming initiatives, training programs, outreach and consultation activities, to a wide variety of self-help materials.  University Housing provides programs to students living in the residents halls to enrich their housing experiences.

For media press kit including print quality photos, see: http://www.jeanbraithwaite.net/fat.html.
Free and open to the public. Parking will be available for free in most U of I lots after 5:00 P.M. For information regarding convenient parking, contact the Women's Resources Center. The Champaign Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD) provides service from many lines to a bus stop in front of the Illini Union, half a block from the Women's Resource Center. For bus schedules, call the MTD, (217) 384-8188.

####END####
___________________________________________________________
Rachel Lauren Storm, Program Coordinator
Women's Resources Center | Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations
703 South Wright St. MC-302, 2nd floor, Champaign, Illinois 61820
t.  217.333.3137<tel:217.333.3137> |  e. rstorm2 at illinois.edu<mailto:rstorm2 at illinois.edu>  | w. www.go.illinois.edu/wrc<http://www.go.illinois.edu/wrc>
Give to the Women's Resources Center!: http://bit.ly/i3fQK8
Follow the WRC online: [Description: Description: Facebook] <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Champaign-IL/University-of-Illinois-Womens-Resources-Center/164120746133>  [Description: Description: Twitter] <http://twitter.com/IllinoisWRC>  [Description: Description: Google] <http://studentaffairs.illinois.edu/diversity/women/index.html>

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