And how exactly do you expect people to find these stories who want to without labeling them in some way that pertains to the character's body? Or control why other people want to read such books in the first place?
How about treating fat bodies the same as thin bodies, and selling stories by genre, not character size? I mean, characters seldom ARE the genre, their story is. It's not like there is "Thin Romance" or "Thin Whodunnit". Making body types into a fetish/genre, is just preposterous to me. There is no valid ethical argument for separating us from the " thin mainstream". I am not a costume, a practice, or an object, I am a human being equal to all the "mainstream" bodies in how much respect (opposite of being reduced to fetishizability) I deserve. As an enlightened and reasonably civilized society, we don't approve of fetishizing Asians or amputees anymore - so why is this still okay with fat people?
Also, I don't mean to "control" why people read anything, but fetishizing a person's body type for entertainment when it's a body that, in the real world, is the object of 24/7 abuse, discrimination, and ridicule, is inherently unethical in my opinion, and perpetuates our segregation from the mainstream. Fat people are not a freak show and not an on-demand channel. I mean, is there a "thin with huge breasts and lush hair" genre? Why is my body a genre? Except for some fat-specific experiences such as 24/7 discrimination that needn't continue on the shelf, our bodies are irrelevant to our stories. We have the same skills, likes and dislikes, hobbies and beliefs, and the same sex, as thin people. A story's quality doesn't depend on character size.
Everyone is free to read whatever they want, but since no-body can choose to avoid another skinny white MC they can't identify with because this isn't pointed out pre-purchase because it's not treated like some
specialty, I don't see why fat bodies need to be. Fatness should not be a fetish or special interest if thinness isn't. I doubt the real life average body today is "thin" anyway...
As long as "thin" equals "standard/not worth mentioning", "fat" equals "abnormal", and that is unacceptable. It's not like there is a distinction between short and tall women, or droopy- and bug-eyed ones.
My problem is not with the fact that people hoping to find a story that represents their fat* body, would appreciate the fat-label to help find such a book. That would basically be okay, but the problem is that this inherently means a continuation of othering and fetishizing fat bodies while thin bodies are taken for granted.
Or if at least, the focus on the fatness would be limited to genre labels. But normally, there's this whole asinine "fat but beautiful" or "embarassed chubby chaser" tone in the story itself.
This author sums it up much better than I do:
https://happybodies.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/fat-objectification-fetishism/
The problem with labeling a guy as "bear" is as complicated and annoying as what constitutes "plus size" in women. Back when "the movement" first began, "bear" meant any larger, hairier guy who didn't fit the stereotypical mold of what GLBT men were supposed to look like. As time went on, the term was co-opted by the image of the stereotypical muscle men bears were originally fighting against and everybody was back where they started from.
Here's the whole problem. Human beings aren't "supposed to look like" any certain way, because that implies that there are right and wrong ways to have a body. Differences are so fluid that drawing lines in between is silly. You have "bears" and "otters", both basically the same except for body mass, so what's the hairy guy in between? A raccoon dog? What kind of otter? We gonna distinguish among bears whether he's a blackbear, panda, or grizzly? Are white, big, hairy men all polar bears? How much hair exactly does it take to get the label, anyway? How many more shelves do we need in that section?
*I reclaim the word fat as meaning nothing inherently negative, but rather just describing a physical property