For as long as she can remember, Kate Manne has wanted to be thinner. It's one of the first confessions this philosopher and professor at Cornell University has made to Irreducibles (Captain Swing), a book in which personal reflections give way to a broad analysis of how fatphobia acts as a factor of inequality and oppression.

Audi Crooks is 20 years old, but she's used to the constant buzz. The center, who plays for Iowa State University, is breaking a number of conventions. Her videos dominating the NCAA have gone viral. The American stands 6'3" and is accustomed to both the praise (she's been dubbed Lady Shaq) and the fatphobia she's endured since she was a teenager. "The first time ESPN published a post about me, I was in seventh or eighth grade and still underdeveloped. Being 13 years old and seeing adults talking about you and your body more than your game is crazy. It was too much, impossible to handle," Crooks admits. The player found the refuge she needed in her family and in the locker room, where her teammates rallied around her. The advice her mother gave her always stays with her. "Just try to kill them with kindness because that way you won't give them ammunition to fight back," she recalls.

There are injections that heal, but others can hurt deeply. The images ofinfluencers and celebrities promoting themselves on social media with Ozempic slimming syringes are leaving a lasting impression on adolescents. Almost half of Catalan girls aged 12 to 16 (47%) want to lose weight—according to the Catalan Women's Institute—although the vast majority already have a healthy, balanced body. This unfounded desire erodes self-esteem, fuels obsessive thoughts, and triggers anxiety to the brink of depression. The allure of extreme thinness, presented as a desire, becomes a path to emotional pain.

I see the ad on television, before a series. It simulates a game show. The contestant is a woman who is overweight, but not obese. The host asks the woman to complete the sentence: "Obesity increases..." And she says: "The capacity for self-acceptance." And adds: "And it also increases the risk of heart disease." The formula is repeated several times. The woman says many things that wouldn't be out of place in a television program about what we now call fatphobia, so the host's words are like a warning sign for self-help. The ending, however, is corny and cheesy and ruins the beginning. The woman breaks down and says that obesity is "Not being able to play with my children" or "Feeling ashamed when I eat in front of others," and ends by saying that "Obesity is an illness."

After fulfilling her dream and becoming an Olympic champion with the water polo team, Paula Leitón had to endure insults and criticism on her body. The Catalan woman confronted fatphobia with pedagogy. "It's something that hasn't just happened to me, but it happens to many girls, boys, teenagers and older people... Thanks to my family and my colleagues, I handled it well. They were by my side the whole time. I think the fact that this situation caught me at 24 years old, when I had already done a lot of personal psychological work, no. 2016, when I was still a girl who wasn't confident in my body, these words would have hurt me a lot.

The entire life of playwright and actress Esther F. Carrodeguas (Rianxo, 1979) has been marked by her physical appearance. "I was the typical round baby. I've endured a lot of violence since I was born," says the artist. During her childhood and adolescence, the way others viewed her body determined everything she did; or rather, what they wouldn't let her do. "I couldn't skate because I was fat, I couldn't wear tight clothes because I was fat, and of course, I couldn't eat chocolate because I was fat," Carrodeguas lists. Over the years, she lived this situation in silence until one day she began to write and transformed it into a theatrical monologue in verse. The show, entitled The only thing I truly wanted my whole life was to be thin., arrives on March 22nd at the Ateneu Popular 9 Barris as part of the Cítrico festival after having been at Fira Tàrrega last year and touring Spain.