Thinness and Salvation

The American "obesity epidemic" has been all over the news -– from stories about the viability of the Atkins diet to tabloid profiles of 100-pound toddlers.

2008 / Sarah Yahm / KFAI, USA

The American "obesity epidemic" has been all over the news -– from stories about the viability of the Atkins diet to tabloid profiles of 100-pound toddlers.

It's pretty clear that Americans are fixated on fat. But conversations about weight are often about much more than health; they're about deeper personal, social, and political questions. In Thinness and Salvation independent producer Sarah Yahm interviews everyone from Christian dieters to California foodies to fat activists and tries to untangle what we talk about when we talk about fat.


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Sarah Yahm

Sarah Yahm is an independent radio producer, oral historian, and educator trying to figure out how those three things can actually equal making a living. Her work has aired on a variety of NPR affiliates, on WBAI in New York, through various Internet venues (including Transom.org), and in the Reel Work Film Festival. Yahm recently graduated from the new social documentation program at UC Santa Cruz. She's interested (or more accurately obsessed) with finding ways to replicate people's internal worlds through sound.


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