Fat stigma to fat acceptance: Fat women's size acceptance as an embodied process
Abstract
Fat stigma and discrimination are prevalent in the U.S. and have harmful effects (Puhl, Adreyeva, and Brownell 2008; Puhl, and Brownell 2008, Friedman 2005). As part of that stigma, fat people are commonly understood to be limited, not only in terms of their bodies, but in terms of who they can be and how they can live in the world given their fatness. The size acceptance movement provides an arena wherein the fat body can be differently understood. However, one's gender, race, class, sexual orientation, or body size may impact one's understanding of fatness and/or feeling of inclusion in the size acceptance movement. This research centers on the sets of experiences which were transformative in the lives of size accepting fat women. In particular, it examines sets of experiences which helped fat women resist notions of fatness as inherently limiting and expand their understandings of who they could be, what their bodies could do, and how they could live in the world, as fat women.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Jackson, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Social psychology|Womens studies|Social structure
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