As someone who has struggled with body image all my life, this was a tough, but important read. Sophie doesn't pull her punches and makes a strong and heartfelt case to accept your larger body, as it is, despite public opinion. The book made me think of a Thich Nhat Hanh quote: 'To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.' Sophie's book should be read by ALL women, not just women, living in larger bodies. Because it highlights how our culture is desperate to reduce the size of all of us and advocates how standing our ground can be incredibly life affirming and liberating.

I absolutely adored this book. It was exactly what I needed. I love how it is written with an important topic and vital messages sprinkled with hilarious stories and great jokes. I just love Sofie Hagen and her humour.

I am also a huge fan of the fact that Sofie accepts that she has various privileges and is using her platform to amplify marginalised voices. There are interviews from POC, trans and disabled people which is just so important to me. We need to hear how fatphobia affects different groups of people and how everyone's experience is different.

Some of the tips etc are in every anti-diet book out there but they are so important that you need to hear them repeated for them to sink in. I also enjoyed the fact that Sofie manages to cover some important statistics etc without making them boring.

Everyone who is hoping that the next diet will be the one that works and is convinced their body needs changing for it to be lovable and worthy desperately needs to read this book.

I received a copy of the ebook in exchange for an honest review

I am such a big Sofie Hagen fan so I was so excited to be approved for this - she is unfailingly brilliant, honest and hilarious.

Part memoir and part manifesto for why the body positivity movement must return to its radical fat liberation roots, Happy Fat is a call-to-arms for examining our internalised anti-fat bias while working to dismantle the damage caused by structural, particularly in the field of medicine, fatphobia.

Happy Fat is an excellent starting point for people new to the politics of body positivity and fat acceptance, but there is also much to take from it for people who are already familiar with the concepts Hagen discusses. It is written with the same warmth and humour Hagen brings to her Made of Human podcast.

I hadn’t heard of Sofie before reading Happy Fat but I’m so glad I have now. I honestly wish I could make everybody read this book because I really do think it is THAT vital and needed. It covers so many aspects of life as a fat person, whether they are a bit fat, fat, superfat or any other level of fatness. Even just writing the word ‘fat’ over and over to describe someone makes me feel uncomfortable which just shows how much negativity has been attached to an essentially descriptive word by society. Taking away that shame-inducing association is part of what fat activists like Sofie are trying to achieve.

Reading this book was actually quite an emotional experience because there were so many sentences that just rang so true. I’m probably what would be considered ‘a bit fat’ because whilst I can certainly relate to some of what the author discusses, I cannot pretend to know what it is like to have to worry about fitting into airplane seats or toilet cubicles. However, that is the whole point of Happy Fat – to make people aware of the prejudice and unwelcome/unasked for criticism and hostility fat people have to endure from a world that places so much importance on the way we look, and has generated a very specific body type as the ultimate ‘ideal’.

Happy Fat is Sofie’s own personal experience but she also includes interviews with other individuals from the fat community. This gives the reader plenty of different perspectives to think about which is so important. The topic of fat bodies is so controversial and full of misconceptions that it’s crucial to understand where all the hate comes from and how we can begin to counteract it. This book is an excellent place to start finding ways some of the stigma can be reduced and how we can get rid of some of the frankly damaging fat-phobia in our society. Happy Fat is an informative, frank, warm and incredibly necessary read. Highly recommended.

This book perfectly combines memoir and political call-to-arms; I consider myself fairly well-versed in fatphobia despite not being fat myself, as I've followed Sofie, and other fat activists, for a long time, but I definitely took away a lot from this book - even if it wasn't for me!

The balance works so well, and Sofie does a fantastic job of breaking down the wider causes for & effects of fatphobia, as well as discussing the personal effects on her own life. The blame for fatphobia lies firmly at the feet of capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy and I left the book feeling fired up to do something about it - even if it is in small ways.

Obviously, Sofie is a comedian, so the book is funny - I might get the audiobook because I could hear her voice the whole time I was reading it (which was delightful) but it's also important and eloquent and intelligent and I'm very glad it exists in the world.

I wanted to love this book, I wanted it to be the book of my dreams. But it wasn’t. It just wasn’t what I expected. I thought it was going to be something that made me feel better about myself and the world we live in but it really didn’t.

I enjoyed the interviews dotted through the book and found I related to some of Sophie’s personal stories, I think this is what I wanted from the book. A book about her I could relate to, to get inspiration from, allow me to be okay with me but it wasn’t. It was very focused on one point of view YOU MUST LOVE YOURSELF, which is fine and dandy for some people but just wasn’t what I was looking for.

I also found it rather repetitive, it felt a little like I was reading the same chapter over and over. I love Sophie as a comedian but this book didn’t hit the mark for me, with that said if she wrote a true memoir I wouldn’t hesitate to pick it up. 3/5

I loved it. It's part memoir, part manifesto, part revolution. It talks about Sofie's own history with her body, and her path to self acceptance through fat acceptance and positivity. Everything is well researched and backed up with plenty of footnotes, in case you want to undertake further research of your own. There are chapters on clothes, on fat sex, on why diets don't work, and interspersed are interviews with other fat activists like Stephanie Yeboah and Kivan Bay. Sofie talks a lot about her privilege as a white woman in the book, so the interviews tend to be with people less privileged whether by race or gender or something else. I really felt like Sofie had done a good job in raising voices that may sometimes be ignored and in acknowledging her own privilege within the movement.

I thoroughly enjoyed the memoir parts of this book, the parts about Sofie’s childhood and her current life, and enjoyed a lot of the interviews. I also loved the concept of the book and challenging how many people see and treat ‘fat’ people.
What I struggled with is that, in my opinion, the book was incredibly repetitive. In my view it needed a further edit. That is the reason for only three star review.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Happy Fat by Sofie Hagen is a fab read so far, so I have to put it down for a second and tell everyone how great it is now. I'll share a full review when I reach the end though.
.
So Sofie is Danish (now living and working in UK) comedian who also has a few podcasts and featured recently on a couple of my favourites, Grazia Life Advice and Hoovering. Recently published her first book which she describes as 'part memoir (lol), part self-help (lool) and mostly just my thoughts, knowledge and feelings about FATNESS. It’s essentially a book about why it’s fucking okay to be fat.'
.
Glancing at the chapter titles, I think it's going to be a great read and cover so many topics that until this havent been spoken about loudly. Including loving your body, being a good friend to fat people, fat fucking and why need a fat Disney princess.
.
The book was out at the beginning of the month, and I was lucky enough to receive a copy via Netgalley.. just wish I'd have got to it sooner!
.

Important, essential and inspiring - you need to read this book - whether that’s for the inclusive messages about bodies and self love, or for realising your thin privilege and how to become a fat ally. Sophie Hagen approaches the subject of fatness with humour and kindness - a great big hug of a book. Thank you, Sophie.

Yes, so much yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sofie doesn't write anything new to me. I've read Jes Baker's books and fiction around being fat. But she tells it with such clarity, humour light and love, it's easy to get lost in book. I'm glad she's here, I'm glad this book exists and I think it's a must read for everyone.

Fat people of the world, unite.

Sofie Hagen discusses how fat people (and yes, she uses the term herself merely as a non-pejorative descriptor) can both learn to live in a fatphobic society, and work together to bring about needed cultural changes. I thought it was a very readable book, and the author articulates well what it is like to live as a fat person, sometimes making you laugh out loud at her witty delivery, and at other times making you shake your head at what people face.

Hagen talks about 'symbolic annihilation' where a group of people are metaphorically erased by not being represented in the media and the message it send to those people, and 'concern trolling' where nasty things are said under the guise of being concerned for someone's health. She also notes that good health should not be seen as a sign of superiority, and as someone with chronic illnesses, this really struck a chord, and we see how the obsession with health leads to the sick and disabled being viewed as less than in society. Overall an interesting read.

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers, HarperCollins UK / Fourth Estate / William Collins, for the opportunity to review an ARC.

Combining comic memoir with powerful polemic, Sofie Hagen's Happy Fat is so much better than I could have hoped (and my hopes were extremely high). Hagen eloquently and intelligently dismantles fatphobia, rightly laying the blame for it at the feet of capitalism and demonstrating how fatphobia is an intersectional issue linked to white supremacist, colonialist, patriarchal neo-liberalism. This makes it sound like a serious, academic read but it's really not, maintaing a lightness of tone throughout. Absolutely essential reading for people of any size.

*thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate, William Collins for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

2.5 stars.

This was just OK and unfortunately I did find its just a bit boring in parts. But I do need to state that I am not exactly in the best state of mind to fully read and review this, and I won't be for quite some time. This has nothing to do with fatphobia, but my current mental health issues. There were parts that I had to skip over as I found them triggering. But for the most part, what I liked the most, was her self-love and self-acceptance. That is something that ALL of us need to have no matter of our gender, race, body size/shape/height and so on. I do hope that helps others out there dealing with their own issues. 

This book may not have been for me right at this time but I do hope that I pick its up again and give it another go in the far future.

Very interesting, individual and indepth look at a very topical issue. The author is clearly writing from the heart and it will give the reader a lot to think about. A good addition to the ongoing debate!

Reading #HappyFat was so eye opening. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, but necessary, and Sofie is so funny (as you’d expect since she’s a comedian!) she makes the journey (sorry) a lot easier than another author might.

Get ready to acknowledge fat phobia, hear about the experiences non fat people take for granted but cause so much misery for fat people...this book is all about body acceptance which is something we all need.

I feel that I now understand feminism, racism and intersectionality a lot better, and we can all do better!

Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for my free advance copy in return for an unbiased review.

Thanks to Fourth Estate and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was looking forward to reading this one. I'm a huge fan of Sophie from both The Guilty Feminist and the Made of Human podcast. Her sense of humour really clicks with me and I keen to read some of her writing.

This is a manifesto about accepting your body. If you're fat, own it. It's part memoir, part call to arms. I appreciate what Hagen is trying to do with this book and it's hard to disagree with her message. It was interesting reading about Sophie's experiences as a fat woman although as a fellow overweight woman, I struggled to identify with a lot of her experiences. Even as ak teen she clearly had no trouble experiencing people finding her attractive which wasn't my experience at all. Where are all these attractive men attracted to fat women exactly?

I found some parts a little repetitive which maybe isn't surprising when 'don't treat people as subhuman based on their weight' should be a simple enough thing for everyone to understand. Maybe we'll get there one day.

I was so excited when I saw this title. I first heard of Sofie Hagen when she was a long-time co-host of the Guilty Feminist podcast, and I've followed her Made of Human podcast since then too. I think she is funny, but also really insightful. That sums up Happy Fat for me too. I'm not very tooled up in terms of the fat acceptance/activist/positivity world, and this acted as a sort of induction for me. Brief context - I was an obese teen, slim/average/overweight/average/slim/average in my 20's, and now in my mid-30's I've gone from average to obese in a year. Fun times. You can imagine the mess that is my relationship with food, my body and how I feel the world sees me. This book came along at the right time for me, to see that actually fat isn't the worst thing I could be. And it also pulled me up on my own fatphobia, both internalised and projected at others. Sofie is honest (painfully so, see the public toilet cubicle story...) about living as a fat woman, in a world conditioned to see fat as bad, to see fat people as lazy and worthless, and to see the pursuit of thinness as the ultimate mission. Honest about the pain and hurt that comes with it, yes, but also the immense joy she feels now that she has shed the capitalist blinkers and fully accepted who she is as a person. Although it tackles some quite upsetting statistics, experiences and realities, this is such a positive book - a battle cry for fatties and allies alike. A plea for compassion, love and sanity, for each and every one of us no matter what the number (scale, label, BMI or completely made up) tells us. This isn't a magic potion, I'm not going to be posting a picture of my belly on social media now I've finished it, but Sofie doesn't promise that reading her book will make you a different person or that the culture around you will suddenly do a 180. This is simply the start of a journey (sorry, I used that word). And Sofie is one hell of a tour guide.

I started and finished this in a day. I'd never heard of Sofie Hagen before, but I saw someone talking about the book on Twitter and it piqued my interest. My daughter is a recovering anorexic with profound body issues, and I have learned so much about how we view our bodies from living through the process of recovery with her. I realised how little I know and how much I have internalised certain thoughts and feelings without even being fully conscious of them. This book is stunning. Erudite, thought provoking, frank. I cannot put into words quite how much reading it has affected me. It's one of those books I want to buy in bulk and give to everyone I meet. I hate to say that this is a book that should be compulsory reading, but it really should.