Fat Kids: Truth and Consequences  is an informational vault of deeply personal tales and essential information, focusing on the lives, questions, and concerns of parents and children living in a "childhood obesity crisis." Unlike most books about weight, however,  Fat Kids  is not a dieting or weight loss how-to; it instead explores the true human experiences and often untold science outside the current political positioning on children and weight. This book powerfully combines interviews, relevant research, social anecdotes, personal author accounts, and the reality of children struggling with weight, to create a narrative that is profoundly poignant, accessible, and essential for understanding our current "war on fat." Fat Kids  is a truly unique work; all other books focusing on children and weight are solely focused on diet and weight loss. This book, with its empathetic point of view, raw emotion, and solid information, is a necessary voice in the literary scene. Fat Kids is a fascinating and important book . At a time when we are bombarded with unrealistic media and celebrity images, and endlessly critical social media, parents and children need a source of accurate information and empathy. Truly, everyone can and should read this book because as a culture we have a lot to learn about the subject and Fat Kids is a wealth of information in a compelling and moving read. -- Mark Ebner, New York Times bestselling author Hollywood, Interrupted , and Six Degrees of Paris Hilton As a one-time Fat Kid still scalded by memories of diets, ridicule, shame, and anxiety, and as a grown-up raising daughters in a society still preoccupied with a patently unhealthy ideal, I found Rebecca Jane Weinstein's FAT KIDS to be both a consolation and a not-always-nostalgic walk down memory lane. Informative, surprising, moving, and funny -- sometimes all at once -- FAT KIDS is an essential read for Fat Kids and the people who love them, and should be an obligatory one for everyone else. -- Christopher Sorrentino, LA Times & Pub Weekly acclaimed, National Book Award finalist for Trance Often equally heartbreaking and heartwarming , Rebecca Jane Weinstein's Fat Kids reveals that the so-called war on obesity isn't saving anyone; instead it's wreaking havoc on the emotional sanity of innocent and perfectly normal children. This book is a must read for anyone who was or has a fat child. -- Lindsey Averill, documentary filmmaker "Fattitude" Fat Kids: Truth and Consequences tells the real-life stories behind being a fat kid.At this critical juncture, kids are struggling - fat kids, skinny kids, girlkids, and boy kids.  The pressure to be thin is overwhelming.  Thedevastation that is happening to kids because of weight, bullying, shame, fear,pills, surgeries, and profound pain is ever growing.  The childhoodobesity crisis around the world may be troubling, but not only because kidsmight be fatter.  And everyone, kids, their parents, and all thewell-meaning people trying to protect these kids from their fat bodies, needsto know the truth and consequences.  We must not focus only on their fat;we must protect kids' hearts, souls, and sanity as well.  These are storiesof fat kids, former fat kids, and kids who think they are fat.  Theirstories need to be told.  They will make you cry, and then they will makeyou think. Whether an "epidemic" or a "war,"children are in midst of a battle for their lives, for their physical,emotional, and social existence.  As fat kids, those who are perceived assuch or even just those who simply feel fat, children, as they grow intoteenagers and adults, are struggling in ways more profound than the media oreven the medical establishment would lead us to believe.  And it's notprimarily because of deadly pounds; the issues are far more complex thenthat.  Although discussion is at a fever pitch now, it has been decades inthe making.  There is nothing new about children on diets, children ondiet pills, children in intense weight loss programs such as camps andschools.  But now it is in the news, and the message is one of life anddeath. Whether that message leads toweight loss, lifestyle changes, responses from the food industry, and happier,healthier children, is certainly unclear.  In fact it is so unclear, thetruth and consequences are rarely discussed.  What is even more hidden isthe struggle, often lifelong, that is burdening these children.  Fromshame, to bullying, eating disorders, feelings of self-defeat, lack ofself-esteem, and all of the emotional and physical costs of what is so often afrustrating and even futile battle - fat kids are impacted by being fat, andthe expectation of becoming thin, in ways most people cannot comprehend. It is time their stories aretold. Fat Kids: Truth andConsequences is a narrative nonfiction account of people's life experiencesgrowing up fat and being the parents of fat children, the methods that wereused to cause weight loss, and the