Media and Research Roundup - December 2021
By Bill and Terri Weitze
For the latest information and research on fatness, check out the Media and Research Roundup. This issue features: Fat myths, Bo-Po vs fat acceptance, healthism and ableism attitudes, traveling while fat, sharing fat history in an archive and more!
November 14, 2021: Livestrong.com provides a detailed article about healthcare discrimination, myths about fat bodies and health, the HAES (Health at Every Size) approach and some ways to help a fat person deal with these issues.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/13767169-how-to-unlearn-weight-bias/
November 15, 2021: (Trigger Warning: Fat bias.) An article about Body Positivity shows where the Bo-Po movement can be in direct conflict with the tenets of the fat acceptance movement. The author confuses weight with health and discloses her own biases in her healthism and ableism attitudes.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/15/mclellan-body-positivity
November 19, 2021: KQED, a public television station, interviews Annette Richmond (founder, Fat Girls Traveling and Fat Camp: A Fat Girl's Traveling Retreat), Tigress Osborn; and Jeff Jenkins (founder, Chubby Diaries travel blog) about their experiences traveling while fat.
https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101886561/experience-of-plus-size-travelers-often-gets-ignored-advocates-are-changing-that
December 1, 2021: Researchers find that anti-obesity messaging may put vulnerable people at risk for eating disorders, and suggests that (a) school personnel and healthcare professionals get increased training regarding weight bias, and (b) public health campaigns and legislative policies be weight neutral.
https://www.inquirer.com/health/anti-obesity-messaging-harms-fat-bmi-20211201.html
https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000962
December 14, 2021: Long time NAAFA member and size acceptance activist Barbara Altman Bruno, PhD has donated her papers to her Cornell University's Rare and Manuscript Collections in Kroch Library, where they are available for review by scholars.
https://alumni.cornell.edu/cornellians/bruno-size-acceptance/
Terri and Bill Weitze have been active within NAAFA for years, and they currently coauthor the Media and Research Roundup in the NAAFA Newsletter. They both live and work in San Jose, CA, and met through a fat-positive bulletin board system before the days of the World Wide Web.