Report from the International Weight Stigma Conference
Group photo of participants from 16 countries who attended the 2022 International Weight Stigma Conference. The group is gathered on the courtyard of the historic Senate Hall at Humboldt University in Berlin. Photo by Henning Hattendorf, courtesy of Gesellschaft gegen Gewichtsdiskriminierung (the German Association Against Weight Discrimination)
The annual Weight Stigma Conference (WSC) is an international interdisciplinary gathering of scholars, advocates, community leaders, and others whose work addresses weight stigma (bias against people who are considered “overweight” in their cultures). Founded by British scholar and activist Dr. Angela Meadows in 2013, the conference has been held in Birmingham (UK), Canterbury (UK), Reykjavik (Iceland), Vancouver (Canada), Prague (Czech Republic), Leeds (UK), and London (Ontario, Canada). Although the conference was founded in 2013, COVID-related delays made this year the 8th offering of the in-person conference, with a commitment to adding more virtual elements in 2023 and a fully hybrid conference in 2024. 2023 and 2024 locations are yet to be announced.
NAAFA has supported the conference as a sponsor for many years. This year, for the first time, we sent an official delegation. Board Chair Tigress Osborn and Board Member-at-Large Elaine Lee traveled to Berlin in July to represent NAAFA at the conference and learn from fat community leaders from sixteen countries.
This year’s conference focused on legislation and policy. The gathering was held in the historic Senate Hall at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and members of the local German media and government were invited to come and learn more in support of German activists’ work toward legal protections for fat people in Germany. This work is led by the local host group, Gesellschaft gegen Gewichtsdiskriminierung (the German Association Against Weight Discrimination). Activists in Germany hope to make their nation the first to pass national fat rights legislation.
The conference was keynoted by Dr. Asher Larmie (@thefatukdoctor) and Dr. Hannele Harjunen. Dr. Larmie is a transgender non-binary UK-based GP and fat activist who founded the #noweighcampaign. They recently left medicine after 20 years, and their presentation highlights why we should be distrustful of the medical industrial complex. Dr. Harjunen is a Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at University of Jyvaskyla in Finland. She presented about neoliberalism and the gendered body. There were also 30 other topics covered in panels and breakout sessions. Subjects ranged from weight stigma in Chilean children, to body image among Iranian-Americans, to how trans activism influences fat depathologisation in Argentina. Weight stigma was considered in the context of pregnancy, food justice, self-esteem, consumerism, education, eating disorder treatment, and more. There were also interactive workshops including writing and art, as well as plenty of time for networking and cross-cultural relationship building.
Tigress was featured on the opening panel of the conference. She presented an overview of fat rights law in the US, as well as updates about pending legislation. The presentation received a warm reception from the group and an enthusiastic response to her insistence that we do not have to partner with anti-obesity organizations in our pursuit of fat rights legislation. Conference planners and participants tweeted slides from her presentation and posted them to Instagram stories.
Screenshot of a tweet from the Weight Stigma Conference (@stigmacon), which synopsizes NAAFA Chair Tigress Osborn’s remarks about the involvement of anti-obesity organizations in the pursuit of fat rights. Text reads: “The pursuit of fat rights must be done intersectionally and in coalition. It does not need to be done in coalition with anti-ob*sity organisations. We are NOT on the same side. @iofthetigress @NAAFAofficial #wsc8”
The full conference program is available here, and the conference webpage will eventually include materials from many conference presentations.
In addition to conference sponsorship and attendance, NAAFA was able to support the conference by helping spread the word about the Dr. Cat Pause Memorial Travel Bursary Fund. Lisa Moura, a nutritionist and post-grad student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was the first recipient of the Dr. Pause Travel Fellowship. The bursary fund also raised enough money to provide additional support to other travelers from the Global South, resulting in the largest South American participation in conference history. We look forward to seeing future conferences outside of Europe and North America! To join the Weight Stigma Conference mailing list for updates about future conferences, visit weightstigmaconference.com and use the sign-up box on the right of the screen.
We are grateful for the support of five anonymous donors, who covered our registration, travel and lodging expenses. To support future NAAFA participation in the WSC, or to support any of our important education and advocacy efforts, give today at naafa.org/give.