Sara Jafari on beauty standards, diet culture and anti-fatness

By gal-dem

Growing up with gal-dem

18/08/21·44m 48s

Content warning: this episode contains detailed discussion of dieting, weight loss, specific weights, and discussion of disordered eating. For more information and recommended reading and listening, please check out the rest of the show notes for a list of brilliant articles, resources, and podcasts dealing with these topics.

This week on Growing up with gal-dem we’re joined by award-nominated author and editor Sara Jafari. Ahead of the US publication of her debut novel The Mismatch, we speak to Sara about Muslim women’s representation in literature, and how The Mismatch tackles this through storytelling in 1970s Iran and contemporary Brighton.

Sara shares with us an extract from her teen years dealing with disordered eating and weight loss, and shares her experiences with Nie and Natty on how normalised fatphobia impacted her and her growth.