She is the poster child for obesity in the USA.
She blames the rule of law, the police, science (!) and “white men” (of course) for everything, especially that people should not be overweight.
It’s really a fascinating read.
Authored by Kyle Hooten via Campus Reform:
“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.”
These comments and more were made in the context of her two-hour speech, sponsored by St. Olaf College’s Wellness Center, Women’s and Gender Studies Department, and Center for Equity and Inclusion, on the topic of “radical fat liberation.”
The talk included assertions that fitness contributed to the recent Christchurch shooting, that people should “challenge” the rule of law, as well as the authority of and the police.
“Tonight we’re gonna start by talking about how to politicize our definition of body image,” Rashatwar began, “because oftentimes we actually get stuck thinking of it from a white supremacist lense.” She explained how “white supremacy happens every day in all these little little things.”
During the course of her talk, Rashatwar listed science as one of these supposedly white supremacist everyday things.
“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.”
Her solution to these problems of society requiring individual responsibility was calling students “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.”