Learn about weight stigma and anti-fat bias

IHSI Diversity Committee Monthly Resources

Each month, the IHSI Diversity Committee shares resources and learning opportunities with the rest of the IHSI staff. Curating and sharing these resources allow us to educate ourselves on various topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. As an institute devoted to promoting all forms of health, we want to share these resources more broadly with our campus and community stakeholders. We hope that you will find them as useful as we have.

This month, Amy Clay, IHSI Communications Manager shared resources to help us better understand how weight stigma and anti-fat bias impact the health and well-being of fat people in the United States. 

Weight stigma and anti-fat bias

Anti-fat bias is considered one of the most prevalent forms of discrimination today. In fact, anti-fat discrimination remains legal in 48 states – only Michigan, Washington state, and a handful of cities have banned weight-based discrimination in the workplace.

That is just the legal aspect of anti-fat discrimination. Weight stigma shows up everywhere. In the classroom, in media (including in popular children’s programs), at home, in the doctor’s office, in retail and grocery stores…the list goes on.

Each August, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) holds Fat Liberation Month. The mission of NAAFA is to change perceptions of fat and end size discrimination through advocacy, education, and support. During Fat Liberation Month, NAAFA hosts events and educational activities to show the world how fat people are thriving despite society’s biases and prejudices. In honor of fat liberation month, I want to share a bit of my personal story and some resources to introduce people to this issue.

Obesity bias and weight stigma are deeply personal issues for me. I have encountered this stigma in every aspect of my life since I was around eight years old when I started to weigh more than my classmates. The internalized stigma persisted well into my adulthood, until I encountered the body positivity movement on social media. Fat people, mostly women, were gathering for pool parties, clothing exchanges, kickball, and more. Finally, fat people were going into spaces they had always been told they were too fat for.

In 2019, I joined a local chapter of the national group, Fat Girls Hiking. I met other amazing women in my community who sought to love, challenge, and live in their bodies without seeking apology or permission to exist or enter these previously forbidden spheres. Suddenly, I found the confidence and permission to enter into these spaces. In doing so, I challenged myself physically and mentally and improved my personal health as a result.

While addressing ant-fat bias and weight stigma is important to me, it is also important to the health of our society. The following resources highlight research and expert opinions on how obesity stigma can lead to worse health outcomes.

If you have 5 minutes:

Harvard HealthSpark Podcast | Is Obesity Our Most Visible and Misunderstood Health Inequity?

Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, explores how “personal responsibility” narratives, coverage decisions, and organizational policies can marginalize people living with obesity, and what it takes to replace blame with evidence‑based, compassionate care. (5 minutes)

If you have 10-15 minutes:

NPR's The Picture Show | Fat, happy and healed: A movement toward fat liberation 

Freelance photojournalist Jackie Molloy explores how fat liberation has allowed people in larger bodies to find acceptance in society and begin to find both physical and mental healing. (10 minutes to read/view pictures). Molloy has also covered a pro-fat camp for women for NPR, and how plus-sized dancers responded to a 2023 NYC ban on weight and/or height discrimination for the New York Times. 

How and why weight stigma drives the obesity ‘epidemic’ and harms health

In this opinion piece in the journal BMC Med, researchers highlight compelling evidence that weight stigma itself contributes to obesity and certain comorbidities. Solutions focus on changing the behaviors and attitudes of those who stigmatize, rather than towards the targets of weight stigma. (15 minutes)

If you have 20 minutes:

Population Healthy Podcast | Weight stigma and redefining healthy

Drawing from her research and experience as a registered dietitian, Kendrin Sonneville, professor of nutritional sciences at the Michigan School of Public Health, sheds light on the historical basis of weight bias and walks us through why some of our most relied-upon measures, like the Body Mass Index (BMI), are not useful health indicators. Sonneville hopes deemphasizing weight in public health discussions can help combat poor health outcomes relating to weight stigma. (20 minutes)

Addressing weight stigma and fatphobia in public health

University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Public Health’s Collaboratory for Health Justice, which leads the school’s community-academic partnership efforts put together this policy brief to encourage health professionals to look more critically at how public health campaigns reinforce weight stigma. (20 minutes)

This invites us to pause and reflect on how weight stigma shows up in our lives:

• How do we experience anti-fat bias or weight stigma? 
• Where do we recognize anti-fat bias or weight stigma in our daily lives and work?