Size Acceptance Research Articles

Selfies as Practices of Care-Taking (and Giving)

Research on selfies finds that negative feedback in comments and the currency of likes reinforce and police dominant feminine or masculine beauty ideals, including binary gender ideals. For example, Döring et al. (2016) analysed 500 Instagram selfies to explore if they conform to gender stereotypes as identified in Erving Goffman’s 1976 Gender Advertisements. The study revealed that gender stereotypical behaviours found in adverts are repeated in selfies, and that some of the behaviours feature in selfies more frequently than in magazine adverts. The prevalence of dominant beauty ideals in selfies is demonstrated in #bodypositivity and #curvyfit posts that tend to depict slender female and muscular male bodies (Webb et al, 2017). However, selfies are an important mode of self-presentation. Research on queer and fat activist selfies has highlighted their role in enhancing visibility, raising awareness of oppression and challenging stereotypes. In research with trans and gender-fluid Tumblr users, Vivienne (2017) found positive comments on selfies helped promote body acceptance and that users viewed trans and gender-fluid selfies as defying industries that promote binary beauty ideals and capitalise on consumer’s insecurities. In my book Consuming the Body: Capitalism, Social Media and Commodification I argue that fat activist selfies challenge dominant modes of self-presentation and looking. This paper will draw on my research into selfie taking practices, and also a participatory research project around queering the gender binary (Bois of Isolation co-produced with Dr AC Davidson) to identify methods of producing creative selfies that evade commoditisation and discipline (#EmpoweringPresence, new project), and consider selfie taking and sharing as practices of care.

Performing Fat Liberation: Pretty Porky and Pissed Off’s Affective Politics and Archive

This article uses collaborative auto/ethnography to explore the circulation and potentiality of affect in the live performances and archive of Pretty Porky and Pissed Off (PPPOd), a Toronto-based queer fat activist performance art collective active during the late 1990s and mid-2000s. Drawing on video and audio recordings of five PPPOd performances alongside other performance ephemera and a series of conversations relating to these archival objects among the article’s three authors, we identify and theorize our affective responses to and situated recollections of these performances, both in their current form as archival objects and as historical live events. We argue that PPPOd’s archival objects/live performances disrupt the constellation of affects that constitute fat hate (e.g., fear, loathing, shame) and set in motion more affirmative affects (e.g., playfulness, pride, desire, love) that contribute to micro-worldings and prefigurative fat politics, as ephemeral as these might be. In capturing these fleeting moments of radical possibility, PPPOd’s activism and archive offer opportunities for touching and feeling a future where fat lives are more livable.

Embodied ambivalence in Taiwan: fat women and gender minorities’ negotiation and subversion of their hyper(in)visibility

ABSTRACT Based upon Jeannine Gailey’s concept of ‘hyper(in)visibility’ of fat women (2014), this article has two goals: (a) to analyse Taiwanese self-identifying fat women and gender minorities’ management and negotiation of their (in)visibility; and (b) to examine the local appropriation of the important international feminist movement that is fat activism in a non-Euro-American context. Drawing upon in-depth conversations with Taiwanese women, fat activists, and gender minorities who self-identify as fat, the findings reveal that they embody a paradoxical hyper(in)visibility. Given their large body size, fat women and gender minorities are hypervisible and their bodies are dissected publicly and privately, while at the same time their corpulent bodies are marginalized and overlooked. Moreover, since the most important criterion determining whether a Taiwanese woman is considered beautiful is thinness, the beauty cult also means a fat-phobic culture within which participants suffer from a dehumanizing gaze. As a result, some fat women choose to enact docile and cute femininity by embodying the figure of a ‘marshmallow girl’, while activists subvert gender and body-size norms and fight for fat acceptance and body diversity. Some activists try to reverse and queer the fat-shaming and abject representational codes and embody fat euphoria momentums.

On Being the ‘Fat Person’: Possibilities and Pitfalls for Fat Activist Engagement in Academic Institutions

This article addresses the possibilities and pitfalls for fat activist engagement in academic institutions through the framework of the ‘fat person.’ Drawing from Emily Henderson’s (2019) ‘gender person’ in academia framework, we connect our own experiences as fat studies scholars, teachers, and activists with the experiences of other scholars in our field to construct a framework of understanding the role of the fat studies expert, or the ‘fat person,’ in the academy. The raw material for this article was written over the course of two extended online chat sessions between the authors, which took place during the summer of 2020. Our conversations were seeded by our prior histories as fat people and fat academics, and by our pre-existing collaborations: as supervisor and graduate student, co-researchers, and through teaching together in a fat studies course. Throughout this article we draw on scholars in our field who have explored their experiences as fat academics, fat researchers, fat students, and fat teachers. We argue that this framework is a useful step in furthering understanding of what it means to be positioned as the ‘fat person’ within an academic institution. We are embedded in the strength of our communal and embodied experiences, and at the same time, we are also aware of the potential ethical challenges of working from a place that is firmly grounded in community knowledge. Our hope is that other scholars, particularly fat studies scholars, will build from the framework we are suggesting here to further understandings of how the ‘fat person’ is constructed—and resisted—within the academy

Multi-level gains of fat activism and their impact on sustained activism for fat justice

Previous research has indicated that outcomes of collective action can occur at the individual, group, and societal levels. Taken together, we argue that multi-level outcomes can influence sustained involvement in social movements. We aimed to examine the multi-level outcomes of fat activism across two studies. In our first study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with fat activists (N = 20) to learn what they believe are the multi-level outcomes of fat activism. At the individual level, activists reported greater health, well-being, and self-esteem; at the group level, they reported a sense of community and increased clothing options; and at the societal level, they reported change in toxic cultures around dieting. By building on the findings of Study 1, Study 2 (N = 464) aimed to understand how fat individuals’ past collective action participation may predict their future collective action participation through individual-, group-, and societal-level gains. Results indicate that greater collective action participation in the past predicts greater willingness to engage in collective action through the pathway of higher beliefs in individual and societal gains of fat activism, but not through group-level gains, even after we control for identification with fat and fat activist identities. We discuss these findings in relation to the importance of multi-level outcomes in collective action and sustained involvement in social movements.

Creating Weight-Inclusive Climates in Fitness Spaces

Research shows that physical activity (PA) -related professionals perpetuate weight stigma and discrimination in their practices by holding antifat attitudes. Given the adverse outcomes associated with weight stigma and discrimination (including PA avoidance), researchers and fat activists have proposed and implemented a range of strategies to reduce weight stigma and cultivate inclusive PA settings. In this paper, we summarized and organized research-informed strategies for reducing weight stigma and creating weight-inclusive climates in fitness spaces. We adopted a socioecological model to organize a variety of strategies for improving weight inclusivity in fitness spaces at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural levels. Ranging from staff training to adjusting the physical space, the strategies proposed in this paper aim at dismantling limited and harmful weight-centric narratives and practices that keep fat individuals marginalized from PA settings.

Development and validation of the Fat Attitudes Assessment Toolkit (FAAT): A multidimensional nonstigmatizing measure of contemporary attitudes toward fatness and fat people

AbstractMany instruments recommended for measuring attitudes toward fatness and “obesity” were developed in the 1990s, a time when the “obesity epidemic” was gaining momentum and anti‐fat rhetoric was normative. Consequently, these instruments have tended to focus on assessing negative appraisals of fatness and fat people and reinforce weight stigma. As fat discourse has matured and expanded to incorporate fat positive attitudes, a nonstigmatizing way of measuring contemporary fat attitudes and beliefs in quantitative research is required. To address this need, we developed the Fat Attitudes Assessment Toolkit (FAAT). In this article, we describe the development of the FAAT and provide initial evidence for the scale's validity and psychometric properties across three studies. Study 1 included a systematic process for developing the extensive item pool that was reviewed by subject matter experts and a community panel. We explored and identified an initial multidimensional structure for the FAAT. Study 2 expanded and confirmed the factor structure with additional analyses in an independent sample and provided evidence for the overall reliability of the subscale scores and reliability as a function of gender and identification as fat. Construct and criterion validity of the subscale scores were also demonstrated. Study 3 provided evidence for the test‐retest reliability of the FAAT subscales scores over time. The FAAT includes nine robust scales: Empathy, Activism Orientation, Size Acceptance, Attractiveness, Critical Health, General Complexity, Socioeconomic Complexity, Responsibility, and Body Acceptance. Specific subscales can be combined to form two composite measures: Fat Acceptance and Attribution Complexity. The scales that comprise the FAAT measure specific elements of attitudes towards fat people that are frequently targeted in weight stigma reduction research and activism; the FAAT thus offers a powerful and precise method for evaluating weight stigma reduction interventions that allows for an assessment of shifts toward more positive attitudes.

When we shine, we shine together

Taking its point of departure in a photoshoot organized by Danish fat activists, this article explores the relationship between activism, social media, and affect. Through a carnivalesque lens (Bahktin, 1984a), the article illustrates how the Fat Photoshoot as a joyful and festive celebration of fat embodiment challenges prevailing social body norms and understandings of the fat body in society. By including the social media aftermath of the event, the article argues that the Fat Photoshoot’s norma- tive upending of fatphobic culture is extended in time and space. By sharing, liking, and re-posting photos from the photoshoot in the following days and months, the article demonstrates how participants re-invoke an affective solidarity (Hemmings, 2012) fostered by the event. Through affective flows on social media, personal expe- rience is placed within a collective and consequently political landscape (Papacha- rissi, 2015), allowing fat activists to not only envision but also make claims for an alternative future for fat bodies.

Public health in the making: Dietary innovators and their on-the-job sociology

Diet is understood to be one of the most important influences on public health and chronic disease, and is particularly implicated in the so-called ‘obesity epidemic’. Yet interventions aiming to improve the population's dietary habits have failed to translate into widespread health improvements. Simultaneously, the knowledge landscape has become increasingly contentious, with fat activism challenging dominant approaches to how obesity is framed and addressed. This paper is based on 24 ethnographic interviews, and explores the work of health practitioners promoting therapeutic carbohydrate restriction (‘low-carb’ diets) for people with metabolic health conditions. Drawing on Michel Callon's study of technological innovation, I show practitioners engaging in ‘on-the-job sociology’—situated sociological work to justify, and forge a space for, innovative dietary intervention. These innovators employ physiological explanations of hormones, satiety (or hunger), and pleasure (or shame), supported with personal experience, to emphasise material connections between particular eating habits and the sustainability of dietary improvement in everyday life. They resist fat activist influence on healthcare practice (that has resulted in practitioners avoiding conversations about diet, fatness and health), as well as the more extensively critiqued practices of health promotion. Deflecting blame/shame from individuals, innovators spotlight the role of the food industry in undermining public understandings of food and physiology, and dietary improvement that is achievable and sustainable. Through on-the-job sociology, innovators forge a space to engage patients in collaborative dietary experimentation and improvement. This study highlights the importance of on-the-job sociology in the contemporary knowledge landscape, providing new insights about public health in the making.

Unpacking the ‘anti-diet movement’: domination and strategies of resistance in the broad anti-diet community

ABSTRACT This paper explores how those who adopt an ‘anti-diet’ stance use strategies to challenge weight-loss dieting norms. We used a qualitative survey to examine how a heterogenous collective of feminists, fat activists and health professionals (and those on the margins of these groups) define the source(s) of power underlying diet culture and discuss the strategies they use to challenge it. One hundred and eighteen people (Mage = 36.67, SD = 10.50) took part. Most were female (n = 112), heterosexual (69%), and residing in Australia (59%). A small proportion (13%) had a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) background. Thirty-seven per cent were health professionals, and over half identified as non-diet activists (52%). We generated three themes in our thematic analysis: ‘Describing diet culture: Unpacking cultural and material forms of power,’ ‘Self-care as a political strategy: Refusals and ambivalence in the anti-diet community,’ and ‘Relational strategies: Challenging diet culture in work and everyday interactions.’ Participants viewed diet culture as being reinforced through internalized multi-institutional patriarchal, Eurocentric and capitalist systems. They challenged cultural norms and institutions that reinforce diet culture by being critical of gender norms and rejecting consumerist dieting practices. We argue that the self-care and relational strategies used by participants across communities signify an awkward but unified ‘anti-diet movement.’ Future research should recruit a more culturally and ethnically diverse sample and examine the ‘anti-diet’ movement beyond the Global North context.

The Fat Acceptance Scale: Development and initial validation.

The fat acceptance movement arose to combat the widespread stigmatization of fatness and fat people through personal liberation and political activism. Support for the movement and its underlying ideology has grown rapidly over the past three decades; however, a self-report measure of fat acceptance with strong psychometric properties has not yet been developed. The current studies aimed to develop the Fat Acceptance Scale (FAS), a measure of fat-accepting beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that was designed to be appropriate for use with people of all sizes. In Study 1, exploratory factor analysis (n = 266) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 267) supported a three-factor solution assessing fat activism, health beliefs related to weight, and interpersonal respect for fat individuals. In Study 2 (N = 291), FAS scores predicted reactions to fictitious fat women after controlling for an established measure of antifat attitudes. Data from a subsample of 47 participants indicated moderate-to-high stability of the FAS over 4 weeks. In Study 3 (N = 156), health service psychology doctoral students' FAS scores predicted their reactions to a fictional fat psychotherapy client after controlling for antifat attitudes. Taken together, results provided preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of FAS scores and suggest that the FAS may be a valuable tool for researchers, clinicians, and advocates interested in fat acceptance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Removing the armor: art, the fat body and vulnerability

ABSTRACT It feels transgressive to reveal what I am most scared to reveal, to share stories, vulnerability and sometimes “dirty laundry” in my writing. It can open me up to potential attack. But a few years ago, I realized that it was still safer for me to express my fat activism in written form. I made the decision to move from fat activism driven by writing, to include activism that explores fat embodiment through representation of my body in shibari (Japanese rope) performance, photography and visual art. I am now taking it a step further to reflect on the representation of my fat body in art. In this autoethnographic piece, I find that I have an ability to frame how a story is told, where to expose and reveal my body in ways that challenge what fat bodies are capable of doing, or how they “should” be visually represented, is a more vulnerable position for me as a fat activist. Self-protection and self-preservation would dictate that I keep myself hidden away. Revealing myself and my body, and becoming vulnerable by doing so, takes courage. It means putting aside the instincts of self-protection, to reveal aspects of myself so that others either see themselves reflected in my body, and take strength and courage from that, or are exposed to a representation of a fat body they wouldn’t normally be exposed to. This article includes, and discusses, visual art with my body as the subject, from an Australian artist and two photographers.

Weight-Normative versus Weight-Inclusive Narratives in Weight-Related Public Health Campaigns: Effects on Anti-Fat Attitudes, Stigma, Motivation, and Self-Efficacy

Research has shown that weight-related public health campaigns can inadvertently stigmatise individuals with obesity. We compared the effects of weight-normative (personal responsibility and public health crisis) versus weight-inclusive (Health at Every Size [HAES] and fat acceptance) campaign narratives on anti-fat attitudes and reactions to campaigns in two studies. In study 1, participants (n = 283) from a range of Body Mass Index (BMI) categories viewed one of four mock campaigns before rating their anti-fat-attitudes (dislike, fear of fat, willpower, social distance), and reactions to the campaign (motivation, stigma). In study 2, participants (n = 175) in overweight or obese BMI categories viewed one of four mock campaigns before rating their reactions to the campaign (motivation, stigma, self-efficacy). Study 1 results showed that weight-normative campaigns were perceived as significantly more stigmatising than weight-inclusive ones. However, weight-inclusive campaigns did not decrease anti-fat attitudes or increase motivation for health behaviour change in this sample. Similarly, study 2 results showed that the personal responsibility campaign was rated as significantly more stigmatising than other campaigns among women with overweight or obesity. Fat acceptance was rated as the least stigmatising campaign in this sample, but weight-inclusive narratives did not increase motivation or self-efficacy for health behaviour change. Future research should focus on developing campaign narratives that are non-stigmatising, motivating, and efficacious by addressing health behavior benefits irrespective of sex or weight.

Feeling ‘Pretty Porky & Pissed Off’: a photo essay on fatness, affect, art, and archives

ABSTRACT This photo essay is about the process of creating a digital archive dedicated to Pretty Porky and Pissed Off, a Toronto-based fat activist and performance art collective active in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a leading member of the collective and the project’s principal investigator (Allyson Mitchell) and the project’s researcher archivist (Allison Taylor) we explore the affective potential of the visual archival fat representations produced through Pretty Porky and Pissed Off’s artistic practice. We first provide an overview of the Pretty Porky and Pissed Off archive project. Second, we contextualize our photo essay within queer and fat studies scholarship on affect, archives, and the visual. Third, we present a set of stills from archival video footage of a Pretty Porky and Pissed Off clothing swap in Allyson Mitchell’s art studio. Using these stills, we consider the affectively rich nature of visual archival representations of fatness. We suggest that feelings are a central component of visual archival fat representations; feelings offer important insights about the potential of visual artistic and archival practices to represent, embody, and imagine fatness otherwise.

“Just there for the fashion, basically”: politicized fem(me)ininity in the fat-o-sphere

ABSTRACT Body positivity is experiencing a cultural moment of popularity. Recognizable by its self-love and “inclusive” messaging, body positivity’s primary aim is to help people feel “good” in their bodies. However, the movement also receives legitimate critiques which argue only some bodies are celebrated. Fem(me)inine fat people are centralized in body positivity and with the popularization of branding influenced microblogging comes a very specific, cultivated femme style associated with popular fatshion. This article explores where fem(me)inine fatshion styles come from and whether femme is being recognized as a political identity in the body positivity and fat activist movements. Using case studies and autobiographies of people engaging with body positive ideologies, I examine the claims that body positivity depoliticizes the fat activist movement and explore whether this happened within a specific femme and fatshion context. I conclude that while embodying fem(me)ininity can feel like an act of resistance, it is unlikely all the goals of fat activism will be met through a “legitimized” fat fem(me)ininity alone.

Tracking sentiments toward fat acceptance over a decade on Twitter.

The fat acceptance (FA) movement aims to counteract weight stigma and discrimination against individuals who are overweight/obese. We developed a supervised neural network model to classify sentiment toward the FA movement in tweets and identify links between FA sentiment and various Twitter user characteristics. We collected any tweet containing either "fat acceptance" or "#fatacceptance" from 2010-2019 and obtained 48,974 unique tweets. We independently labeled 2000 of them and implemented/trained an Average stochastic gradient descent Weight-Dropped Long Short-Term Memory (AWD-LSTM) neural network that incorporates transfer learning from language modeling to automatically identify each tweet's stance toward the FA movement. Our model achieved nearly 80% average precision and recall in classifying "supporting" and "opposing" tweets. Applying this model to the complete dataset, we observed that the majority of tweets at the beginning of the last decade supported FA, but sentiment trended downward until 2016, when support was at its lowest. Overall, public sentiment is negative across Twitter. Users who tweet more about FA or use FA-related hashtags are more supportive than general users. Our findings reveal both challenges to and strengths of the modern FA movement, with implications for those who wish to reduce societal weight stigma.

Demystifying ‘diet culture’: Exploring the meaning of diet culture in online ‘anti-diet’ feminist, fat activist, and health professional communities

Social aspects of dieting are discussed in the extant feminist literature. However, despite frequent use of the term ‘diet culture’ in online communities critical of weight-loss dieting and popular books about the harms of restrictive eating, academic studies have not yet investigated its meaning holistically. We used thematic analysis to examine how those in the broad ‘anti-diet movement’ have challenged norms representing ‘diet culture,’ and how the term can be used to unite feminist researchers, activists, and health professionals. One-hundred and eighteen online qualitative survey participants (94.92% female; 37.29% health professionals; 51.70% anti-diet activists; Mage = 36.67) characterised ‘diet culture’ as ‘health myths about food and eating,’ and a ‘moral hierarchy of bodies’ driven by ‘systemic and structural factors.’ Feminist researchers, activists, and health professionals can use ‘diet culture’ to challenge myths and misconceptions about dieting and health, as well as the broader systems and structures that perpetuate these myths.

#MeReclamoMía: representaciones y narrativas en torno al cuerpo femenino de instagrammers #BodyPositive

Recently, in social networks such as Instagram, it is common to find non-normative bodies challenging the hegemonic ideals that govern over the bodies. Focusing on the activism in social networks, this investigation addresses the representations and narratives about the female body of three Body Positive Fers. At the same time, this study includes three other types of participants: specialists in gender topics, body and Body Positive; fat activists and/or Body Neutrality with a critical perspective about the Body Positive movement; and followers of Body Positive accounts. Firstly, we identify the digital trajectories, profiles and content of the Instagrammers. Secondly, we analyze the representations of the female body that they show on their profiles. Thirdly, we examine the narratives about the female body that Instagrammers promote as a response to hegemonical body ideals.

“Spread my thighs and imagine a better, fatter world”: the uses of the erotic in fat activist art

ABSTRACT I make the claim that the erotic has significant uses for fat activist art. I examine the work of Toronto-based, queer, South Asian, fat artist Anshuman Iddamsetty (@boarlord) on Instagram, Patreon, and Only Fans. I draw on Audre Lorde’s writing on the erotic while at the same time challenging her sidelining of the pornographic, using Iddamsetty’s nude self-portraiture as a counterexample of the possibility for an erotic pornographic. My analysis involves a fundamental linking of fat sexuality with fat art and activism both in the current moment and throughout history, with a special focus on digital spaces. Jenny Ellison’s research provides a background for exploring the role of sexuality in gendered fat activism and art, as well as the queer fat history of politicizing desire. I examine how the erotic can be used to flip fat stereotypes and push for liberation in order to understand the specific erotics on display in Iddamsetty’s oeuvre. My analysis configures the fat body as a site of resistance and the erotic as a source of embodied artistic, activist power. I point to the potential of the internet (despite censorship) for creating intimate artistic activist networks, using Lorde’s concept of “the erotic connection.” Ultimately, the question I ask throughout the piece is what can be gained from fully embracing erotic art in fat activism?

Glimpses of acceptance through problem frames: An analysis of the lessons on fatness in the television series This is Us

ABSTRACT Bias and stereotypes can be reinforced or challenged through television entertainment, and individual viewers will negotiate their interpretation of such public pedagogies through the lenses of their own knowledge and experience. The popular show This is Us presents multiple and sometimes contradicting messages about fatness and weight stigma. A close textual analysis of the first three seasons of the series revealed some of the complex and implied lessons on weight. While there are some scenes that model fat acceptance, the overall implications of the show are blaming and depict fatness as a problem to be solved.