NAAFA’s Impact on the 2023 Impact Conference
Image description: NAAFA Board Members Tigress Osborn and Tegan Lecheler are seated at a long rectangular table. Tigress and Tegan are both wearing black clothing and black KN95 masks. The table is covered by a white cloth featuring the NAAFA logo. A laptop computer and handouts are on the table, alongside a large white poster pad and markers. The table is flanked by standing signs featuring the faces of fat People of Color and colorful words (illegible in pic).
By Tigress Osborn, NAAFA Board Chair
The IMPACT Conference is the largest annual conference in the USA focused on engaging college students in service, advocacy, and social action. This year, hundreds of students from 40 states gathered in Massachusetts at UMass Amherst to engage in workshops and other learning opportunities about issues ranging from environmentalism to racial justice to ethical leadership. This year, for the first time in their 30-year history, IMPACT also included a workshop on fat liberation.
NAAFA was introduced to IMPACT by Amy Rios-Richardson. Amy is a former leader of Fat Girls Hiking and has written for the NAAFA Community Voices Blog about the intersections of fat identity and Asian-American heritage. She is now part of the IMPACT staff as a co-coordinator of the conference.
Image description: A photo of the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as seen from the Student Union, a pond glittering in the winter sun, surrounded by large buildings of various heights. Several small, bare trees grow around the pond and pathways. The ground and rooftops are covered in snow.
I traveled with our Advocacy Chair, Tegan Lecheler, to snowy Western Mass in February to represent NAAFA. At the daily opportunities fair, Tegan and I were able to engage students and administrators in small group and one-on-one conversations about NAAFA’s work, upcoming legislative advocacy opportunities in Massachusetts and elsewhere, and the recently launched Campaign for Size Freedom. We informed conference participants about the new Size Freedom Fellowship at FLARE and invited everyone to sign the Campaign petition. (You can sign the petition, too!) We also invited everyone to write a message of support for fat rights (see image).
Image description: A poster-size white notepad shows the words “I support #SizeFreedom because” in large letters written in blue marker. This is surrounded by handwritten messages in blue, green, black, and orange.
Tegan and I also presented a workshop: “If You Care About Social Justice, Support Fat Liberation!” Because it was the first time this topic has ever been offered at the conference, we had no idea what our reception would be. We arrived at our workshop room and were pleasantly surprised to discover it so packed that we had to get more chairs from a storage closet! The group was highly interested and engaged. We started with a bit of NAAFA and fat rights history. Then we discussed the disproportionate impact of anti-fatness on Black and Brown communities, and students worked in small groups to outline ways anti-fatness creates additional barriers and challenges within various categories of social (in)justice. We ended by discussing ways to make the world more inclusive and accessible for fat people. Students committed to one action they would do soon to fight anti-fatness in themselves, with their peers, and in their greater communities.
We were thrilled to learn from the conference planners that our workshop received perfect 5 out of 5 ratings in all evaluation categories. We’re even more thrilled that the students left with plans ranging from directly discussing fat inclusion with loved ones to creating fat inclusive urban planning projects as part of their studies. We can’t wait to see the ripple effects bringing fat liberation ideals and practices to this important annual gathering. We hope this is the beginning of a long and IMPACTful relationship!
