T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories from Being Fat in a World of Thin People

Part memoir, part support group, comedian Ian Karmel with help from his sister Alisa, a clinical psychologist, opens up about the daily humiliations of being fat and traces the way that fat—gaining it, losing it, worrying about it, trying to hide it—dictates the way so many of us live.

Ian and Alisa Karmel grew up fat. As kids, they never talked about it. They were too busy fighting over the last Snackwell Devil’s Food cookie. They went their entire childhood never sharing their private struggles and public embarrassments with each other. Ian embraced the role of the “funny fat kid” so thoroughly that he created a career as a successful comedian, while Alisa cycled through so many fad diets that she eventually pursued a doctorate in clinical psychology and became a nutritional health counselor. Now, decades later, having both turned into fat adults who eventually figured out how to get their health under control, they are finally ready to unpack the impact their weight has had on them.

Ian’s weighed eight pounds and he’s weighed 420 pounds and right now he’s almost exactly in between the two, but this book is not a weight loss book. It’s about being a fat person in a skinny world. It’s about gym class and football practice; about chicken wings and juice cleanses; about airplane seats and rollercoasters, about fat jokes and Jabba the Hutt; about crying in the Big and Tall section and the joys of being a sneakerhead; about pre-diabetes and gout; and about realizing that you actually don’t want eat yourself to death and hoping it’s not too late. This book also includes lots of practical advice from Alisa, so it’s helpful too. It’s ultimately about trying to explain why it’s so hard to talk about something so visible.

The T-Shirt Swim Club is meant to be a place of support for anyone who struggles with weight issues. A place of care and candor, free of shame. A place to not deny or avoid the emotions you feel, the experiences you go through, the embarrassment, the anger, the resentment. The T-Shirt Swim Club is about being a fat person and how the world treats fat people—but also an acknowledgement that maybe it doesn’t always have to feel quite so lonely.