Summary Of In Defense Of Fat Acceptance By Mary Worley

Mary Ray Worley, member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), author of “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance,” represents the fat community to convey the biases they feel on a daily basis. She argues that everyone should embrace their size and love themselves for who they are, not the weight they carry. Worley’s article is highlighted by her use of diction, logical fallacies, and her constant relation to her personal life. However, with the excessive use of some of these techniques, she begins to create a divide in her audience between those who are overweight and the rest of the readers. To begin, Worley contends that today’s society is too negative and judgemental when it comes to overweight people. To support

Her goal may be to make the word fat comfortable and a less offensive word. However, it becomes unsuccessful as it begins to make readers uncomfortable as though they were being a bully. However, her article could’ve been more effective if she eliminated the number of times she used the word fat and alternatively added words to substitute them such as overweight, obese, or heavier. Worley uses various logical fallacies to convince her audience that being fat is and should be acceptable in today’s society as a whole. One of these logical fallacies include, “[They] would rather die or cut off a limb than be fat” (163). This is an example of an assumption that has resulted in a hasty generalization that is used quite unsuccessfully by the author. Worley tries to be dramatic but when the reader stops to reflect, they recognize they would not want to die due to being a few pounds heavier. Another example includes, “[we] can’t wear short or sleeveless t-shirts...for fear of offending the delicate sensibilities of others” (165). Unfortunately, this logical fallacy is an unsuccessful form of slippery slope. She indicates throughout the paragraph that if you are skinny you will automatically insult someone in public, resulting in lack of confidence in those overweight people wearing less clothing, thus making them quit exercising altogether. Continuing on, Worley uses yet another hasty generalization when referring to