Fatphobia

the fear, hatred, and stigmitasation of fat people.

Issues

Fatphobia is the racialised, classist, and ableist tool of oppression that codifies a “ideal” body type that centres a white, Western aesthetic, demands time and resources that people may not have, and attempts to correlate thinness and heathliness—perpetuating white supremacist violence against people of colour, perpetuates classist oppression of people living with limited resources, and the ableist idea of healthiness as an indicator of human value.

Impact

A history of being ignored and shamed prevents many fat people from visiting medical professionals even if they have the financial and physical means to do so. Medical professionals hold fatphobic biases and often prescribe weight loss as a default instead of listening to their fat patients' concerns.

Employers will pay fat employees less than their thin colleagues and offer them no protection from weight stigma in the workplace, as their fatphobic biases lead to their perception of fat employees as lazy, less intelligent, and unmotivated.

Law enforcement officers are less likely to believe fat people reporting sexual assaults, as their fatphobic biases lead them to think of fat people as unattractive, not sexually active, or undesirable.

Note

While fatphobia is a more widely known term, many prefer fatmisia, as [-misia] means hate or hatred of, which more accurately describes the prejudice and discrimination.

Further Reading

• Sizeism and Fatphobia
• Anti-Oppression: Anti-Fatmisia