The University of Illinois Chicago’s school of public health defines weight stigma as “the discrimination or stereotyping based on a person’s weight,” which it argues is “reported at rates comparable to racism and is one of the last types of discrimination still condoned and carried out by public health and medical experts.”
“The incidence of weight stigma has increased by 66 percent with the rise of public health campaigns to end the ‘obesity epidemic,’” the school states.
The school released a policy brief in October called “Addressing weight stigma and fatphobia in public health,” which said that the nation’s focus on body size is “rooted in racism” dating back to Charles Darwin. It advised against using “extremely stigmatizing” words like “obesity” in favor of terms such as “people in larger bodies.”
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“Though lifestyle factors such as nutrition and exercise are important, it is essential to note the historical racism and injustices within our current food environment,” the brief said, “As presented by Soul Fire Farm, the U.S. food system is built on stolen land using stolen labor from Black and Latinx indigenous people. Not only has this created a large-scale food apartheid and trauma for people indigenous to this land, it has caused a disconnection of indigenous people from their cultural practices and identities.”
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Several schools across the nation have been hosting events on fatphobia in recent weeks.
Last week, the Institute for Bioethics & Health Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston hosted a lecture on “Fatphobia as Misogynoir: Gender, Race, and Weight Stigma,” where University of California, Irvine associate professor Sabrina Strings addressed “fat stigma” and the “centrality of slavery and race science in its perpetuation throughout the western world.”
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During the lecture, Strings claimed that the medical field “took up the mantle of anti-fatness as a result of social and cultural shifts in thinking about race and feminine propriety in the early 20th century.” Strings gave the lecture at Boston University and Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
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Last week, Amherst College in Massachusetts hosted an event called “Unpacking Fatphobia: Learning to Love Your Body,” which promised, “games, snacks, and a raffle” for participants.
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“Are you frustrated with social media commentary surrounding people’s bodies?” the event description read. “Have you ever wondered about the history of diet culture/fatphobia? Do you want to know the difference between the Body Positivity and the Body Neutrality Movements?”
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