Marilyn Wann wants us all to know that we don't have to apologize for our weight.

Wann published an indie zine on the topic in the mid-1990s and runs a body-positive website of the same title as her book. Her oversized paperback reads like a spunky zine, full of sidebars, drawings, candid photos, quizzes and personal stories.

Wann's tone varies from body-positive affirmations to near-radical fat crusading. She wants the public to reclaim the word fat, to live without apologies, to exercise and eat sensibly, and to avoid a paralyzing life of denial and shame in the quest for a perfect body.

Wann presents eye-opening facts about the history of the diet drug market. She also does a side-by-side comparison of the public shaming of left-handers vs. the shaming of overweight people. The reader will glean a number of scientific and cultural insights about the modern body image.

Some of Wann's implications are a bit extreme, however. She implies that the poor health of obese Americans may be due to the fact that doctors are more squeamish about touching and bonding with large patients. She cites a few lone studies that imply a lack of correlation between health problems and weight, but everyone knows anecdotally, at least, someone whose health vastly improved when a program of sensible diet and exercise (with the resulting weight loss) was undertaken.

I highly recommend this book for every modern woman, from those in a size 6 to those in a size 20. We can all use some positive body affirmations and a reminder that being a slave to a scale is no life at all.