Ever wondered about the future of fatness? Ali Thompson has. After watching and reading science fiction for years, she noticed a repeated lack. Not just no plus size spacesuits, but no fat people at all in the future. In discussions, she came to realise that not everyone saw this as a lack, because they assumed “Fatness wouldn’t exist anymore. Because it would have been solved…Solved out of existing”. 

In this collection of short stories, Thompson examines the steps towards that fat-free utopia, and what is lost along the way. Thompson’s work focuses on three themes.

1. Fatphobia arising when thin people believe that fatness is a choice

The first story, Nothing left to burn, expertly demonstrates this. Using height as a comparator of weight, Thompson shows how futile it is to fight against the body you’re born with. None of us would blame a person for being too tall, in the way that we regularly blame people for being too fat. Woven through the story are illustrations of how fatphobic rules around food could be turned against height in a different culture. Instead of being terrified of carbs, people in this culture are told “Never ever drink milk – the calcium is practically decadent”. The demonisation of height becomes built into cultural beliefs such as “It’s unhealthy to be so long”, and “How many too-long people will die each year, from not trying hard enough to make themselves shorter? And how much do they cost?”.

2. The way that tech can be used against fat people, and its move from assistive to punitive

At first glance, Thompson’s stories about tech that actively punishes fat people could be seen as far-fetched. But consider that people are already offered a discount on their health insurance or life insurance if they meet certain health-based guidelines measured automatically through technology. There is apparently a market in China for phone cradles to get your fitbit to track the required number of steps without your having to actually take those steps. With the introduction of the sugar tax, people who buy sugary drinks now face a financial penalty. Many workplaces now offer competitions around weight loss, bringing something once seen as purely personal into the work sphere and, by making it competitive, turning it into somewhere that you can let not only yourself, but your teammates down.

Is it such a stretch from here to the world of I’m not sorry, where “People who are BMI non-conforming can’t be citizens”? Thompson describes a fitness tracker that will blare out a warning if the wearer enters anywhere food is served before the minimum number of steps has been completed – even if it’s just to buy a black coffee.

In the story, mandatory 6-weekly BMI checks put further pressure on fat people, who then have to take time off work regularly to be monitored. We know that fat people are already likely to face work-based discrimination and be viewed as lazy, so how would this kind of regular health check affect the way they are perceived at work?

You poured ashes into my mouth goes even further. People’s weight is tracked via hidden scale plates under the city’s sidewalks, and an increase in weight leads to a decrease in the food you are allocated.

This idea culminates in We shall all be healed, at last, at last, where the protagonist goes into the hospital for needed surgery, “and came out with a “complimentary” spinal bypass, my vagus nerve connected to a health center where they could control my hunger signals “for (my) own good”. In this story, the tech goes beyond merely monitoring and can be used to act on the body. Thompson describes the counterproductive idea of having your lungs forced to take in deep breaths, as a [terrifying] way to help you relax.

3. Fat people being prevented from supporting each other

All of the stories echo the feeling of isolation as a fat person, stemming from today’s idea that anything other than a constant pressure to be thin is ‘glorifying obesity’. Protagonists talk of seeing the occasional fat person in the distance, of being warned by loved ones to keep away from the other fat people. More insidious is the question that rolls through the work: “Have you heard of the fat people gone missing? The ones who didn’t wouldn’t couldn’t lose the weight?”.

Statistics show us that 95% of dieters are unable to reduce their weight in the long term. Moreover, the side effects of dieting include reduced health over time and a propensity to gain more weight after the diet. In this context, the idea that fatness will be “solved” in the future is less science fiction and more fantasy. How much will fat people be made to suffer for this fantasy?

Thompson’s stories give us a glimpse into where we may end up if society’s obsession with thinness (no matter the health costs behind it), goes unchecked.

Find out more about “They don’t make plus size spacesuits” by Ali Thompson at Goodreads | Amazon UK | Amazon US.