“I truly believe that a child cannot consent to being on a diet the same way a child cannot consent to having sex,” Sonalee Rashatwar, whose Instagram username is "The Fat Sex Therapist," proclaimed Thursday from the main stage of St. Olaf College. She continued, “I experience diet culture as a form of assault because it impacts the way that I experience my body.”
“We should be critical of the use of science and the production of knowledge to continue promoting this idea that certain bodies are fit, able, and desirable...is it my fatness that causes my high blood pressure, or is it my experience of weight stigma?" Rashatwar asked. She then connected the science suggesting that obesity is unhealthy to Nazism, saying that "fatphobic" science is “often actually eugenic science....eugenic science is Nazi science.”
However, she then pivoted to support scientific findings as she pondered “intentionally pursuing weight loss,” claiming that “what we’re discovering scientifically is that that’s not possible.”
After addressing the topic of science and making her claim that there is no connection between high blood pressure and obesity, Rashatwar turned to discuss political philosophy and policy.
“This conversation about pushing off our own wellbeing onto the individual is part of these 1980s Reagan era policies that again try to move that structural obligation of a system and this social safety net onto the individual," Rashatwar said, "instead of thinking that there should be social supports that also help me to subsidize my food costs."
“to challenge all authorities, not just the authority that science has given but also legal authority...the same way I want us all to challenge laws, I want us all to challenge prisons and policing.”