This page and resources are all about the very real and very troubling problem of weight discrimination in our world. The cultural mandate that “thin is good” and “fat is bad” underpins your entire food problem, and it’s critical that we understand and challenge weight discrimination—so that we can make informed and empowered choices about how to manage oppressive people, ideologies, and belief systems when they arise.
Most of this module will reference and centre the experiences of fat women (that is, plus-sized women), but make no mistake, it is that very discrimination towards fat women that ultimately keeps all women in a constant state of fear around their weight. To be clear, this module is important for everyone to understand.
Audios
Weight in society
Weight, sex, race & class
Bias vs. discrimination Part 1
Bias vs. discrimination Part 2
Social status – clearly during this audio I forgot how to say “status” correctly 🤣
Fat activism & body positive
Your choice
Suggested reading/listening/watching
Why am I still bingeing when I have stopped physically and mentally restricting?
Watch this incredible Trailer for the documentary, Fattitude 👇🏽
Great/Funny Buzzfeed Video about Weight as a Social Issue 👇🏽
Love this Video by Virgie Tovar about overcoming “internalized fatphobia” 👇🏽
Read this article about how “fat-phobia” affects ALL women (thin women included) and read about where the experiences of fat women and thin women differ (i.e. the difference between internal body image struggles and oppression/discrimination).
Virgie Tovar is one of the most relevant and interesting activists of this time. I highly recommend you listen to every Podcast she’s ever recorded. She is incredible and will continually deepen your education in understanding weight as a social justice issue, and managing both internalized and externalized weight stigma. Start with this episode and this episode.
Continue your homework from the last time — that is, soak up as much body-positive literature, information, images, etc. as you possibly can. This will be ongoing homework for the rest of your time until you feel you have ‘arrived.’
It’s not just one thing that people do that changes their body image over time, but rather, it’s a whole collection of things (ongoing challenging of thought patterns, regular exposure to body-positive ideas, images, media, etc.), most of which have to be repeated over and over again or we fall back into the paradigm of the normative culture.
When you realize that the default setting on your external environment is designed to create body dissatisfaction, it becomes clear that positive body image is not a thing to
achieve, but is a muscle to develop and strengthen in the midst of an oppressive culture.
Recommend listening
Body image with Bri is a great account to follow and her podcast is awesome