Three Ways to Support Fat Acceptance

What is the fat acceptance movement?

Fat acceptance is a social justice movement promoting the equitable treatment of fat people in society. The movement started in the 1960s as a way to protest discrimination and end stigma against folks in fat bodies. In 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) became the world’s first recognized fat acceptance organization.

The fat acceptance movement is focused on:

• Embracing fat people
• Drawing awareness to size discrimination
• Eliminating weight stigma

According to NAAFA, one-third of the world’s population is fat. Despite this, fat discrimination continues to be an ongoing issue for folks in larger bodies in all aspects of  their daily lives – health care, wage discrimination, hiring practices, clothing options and media representation, among other things.

The fat acceptance movement today

Today, the fat acceptance movement focuses on valuing and respecting the rights of folks in larger bodies by ending size discrimination. This is different from modern day body positivity, which has its origins in the fat acceptance movement and instead focuses on self-love.

There has absolutely been progress made toward fat acceptance, including:

• Increased sense of community
• Global awareness around the importance of inclusivity
• More education about fat acceptance and Health At Every Size

However, there is still a lot of work to be done in many areas, particularly in health care and policy change. 

Weight stigma in health care

Weight stigma, which is when an individual or group is discriminated against for having larger bodies, makes people less likely to seek medical care. Unfortunately, many health care providers still equate weight with health, which can lead to a myriad of issues including misdiagnosis, emotional stress and an outright refusal of medical testing and care. It is also common for people in larger bodies to experience fat shaming and other forms of discrimination in a health care setting.

Learn more about weight stigma in health care.

Size-inclusive policy change

This may come as a surprise to some, but there are currently no federal laws that prohibit size discrimination. There are a handful of individual cities that have started putting laws into place, including New York City which recently passed legislation making discrimination based on height and weight illegal. Only one state, Michigan, has made size discrimination illegal.

How to support fat acceptance

That being said, there is still a lot of work to be done. Here are three things we can all do to collectively move toward fat acceptance.

1. Break up with diet culture

Learning about the impact of diet culture and fatphobia is necessary to make progress toward fat acceptance. It’s nearly impossible to be fat-positive without unlearning our own implicit bias about bodies. Why? Because if we are harboring anti-fat bias and weight stigma ourselves, consciously or subconsciously, this will show up in the ways we interact with fat people in our lives, even if we have the best of intentions. It will also affect how we feel about our own bodies.

Kaila Peak-Rishel, LCSW, LMFT, CEDS-S, clinical director at Eating Recovery Center, explains:

“I think the best thing individuals can do to combat weight stigma is educate themselves on the diet culture in which we live. It is an oppressive culture that impacts each of us. Once you see weight stigma as a systemic issue, that awareness creates enough personal distance to start the journey toward acceptance. Seeing a therapist and dietitian who specialize in weight-inclusive care is a good place to start. Having boundaries with social media can also help create some distance between yourself and diet culture.”

2. Practice intersectionality

The term “intersectionality,” coined by Black feminist, activist and lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw , refers to “the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage .”

In other words, intersectionality helps us understand that our identities -- our gender, weight, race, class, sexuality, ability status and nationality, among other factors -- affect our lived experiences and the way the world engages with us. The more overlapping identities you have, the greater the potential for discrimination, disadvantage and harm. Intersectionality calls for us to understand how weight stigma or living in a fat body affects people’s lived experiences in the world, regardless of whether we ourselves experience those things. It also challenges us to see how living in a fat body, coupled with other marginalized identities such as race or ability status, compounds the oppression being experienced.

As it applies to collectively moving toward fat acceptance, intersectionality is important because even if we ourselves are not personally affected by weight stigma, it’s of the utmost importance that we advocate for policy change and bring awareness to weight stigma within the health care system.

3. Focus on collective liberation

Fatphobia and weight stigma hurt all of us. When we focus on fat acceptance and the pursuit of the equitable treatment of all marginalized bodies, especially fat bodies, the result is everyone’s liberation. When we demand justice for all bodies, even bodies that are different from our own, it’s with the mindset that we are working toward collective liberation, not just our own individual liberation.

The end goal is a world where every individual, regardless of size, is free to exist as they are – free from harm, discrimination, harassment and systemic oppression. The goal is freedom for everyone, especially those with multiple intersecting identities. In the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Read more from Chrissy King on how to reduce the impact of weight stigma on kids and teens.

Clinically reviewed by Kaila Peak-Rishel, LCSW, LMFT, CEDS-S, in May 2024.