The paper employs the theoretical framework of Queer Theory and the disciplinary framework of fat studies to read the television series Somebody Somewhere as a positive intervention in the representation of fat and queer bodies. Showcasing the fault lines of heteronormative temporality and kinship patterns and replacing them with viable alternatives of queer/ed fat time and queer joy, this paper argues that queer kinship leads to a process of "unbecoming" for fat bodies, allowing for acceptance and celebration of selfhood through queer temporality. The analysis highlights the everyday visibility of aging fat bodies in the series to contend with their exoticisation and showcase systemic inequalities that permeate the everyday. This paper proposes the examined visual text as an alternative to the representation of fat bodies in visual culture, focusing on giving fat bodies more screen space rather than discourse space and seeing them as individuals within a fatphobic system rather than symbols of an identity trope.
This article discusses desirability hierarchies related to a framework I term, Compulsory Thin Desire (CTD), wherein thinness is the compulsively sought category of "normative" desire in Western societies. I contextualize CTD with compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory able-bodiedness to discuss the social construction of eroticism and the consequences of typifying certain corporealities as "desirable." As I show, these compulsive systems are interconnected as they "queer" desirability, meaning that groups labeled "undesirable" are considered deviant due to their nonconformity to strict body standards. By elaborating on these interlocking systems, we can move toward scholarship that highlights pleasurable bodily experiences and sexual joy for groups labeled "undesirable." In critically examining larger systems of compulsive attraction, this article troubles erotic ideals to make room for weighty discussions on fat sexualities.
The intersectionality of being fat, Maori, ADHD, takatapui, and Christian reveals complex experiences shaped by both colonial and Indigenous frameworks. Drawing on Indigenous Fat Studies, Kaupapa Maori theory, and intersectionality, this paper critiques Western deficit-based narratives that pathologise body size, neurodivergence, gender, and faith. Public health initiatives often medicalize fatness and ADHD, overlooking Maori perspectives that emphasize relational and spiritual well-being. Colonial Christian doctrines have also shaped attitudes toward gender and sexuality, marginalizing takatapui within both Maori and religious spaces. A Kaupapa Maori approach situates these identities within whakapapa (genealogy) and tikanga (customs), contesting Western frameworks that define difference as pathology. Fatness is acknowledged as culturally significant rather than a medical problem, while ADHD is understood through a strengths-based lens that values diverse ways of thinking and being. Takatapui identity is affirmed as part of Maori traditions of gender and sexual diversity, countering heteronormative binaries imposed by colonization. Maori Christian communities engage with these intersections in varied ways, with some embracing decolonial theologies that affirm diverse embodiments and identities. Structural transformation is required across health, education, and spirituality to center Maori ways of knowing. Indigenous-led approaches can ensure policies and practices reflect Maori understandings of identity and well-being. Honoring these perspectives affirms self-determination, strengthens cultural continuity, and supports collective resilience within Maori communities.
GLP-1 agonists, initially approved for Type-2 diabetes and other medical issues, are now prescribed to individuals labeled "overweight" and "obese" for weight loss. Our research examines the motivations of 30 women who used GLP-1s for weight loss. In interviews, participants overwhelmingly discussed using GLP-1s to address health concerns. In addition, survey results revealed higher-than-average scores on the fear of fat subscale of the Anti-Fat Attitudes scale, prompting us to examine this finding more deeply. We uncovered subtle differences in how participants contextualized their health concerns, with those with higher fears of fat reporting conversations about weight loss with medical providers more often than other participants, along with being slightly less resource-advantaged than those with lower levels of fear of fatness. Our results demonstrate participants' trust in the medical model of "obesity," affecting their consumption of weight loss medications.
The rapid expansion of pharmacological interventions using GLP-1 (Glucagon-like peptide-1) receptor agonists, which induce significant weight loss primarily through appetite suppression, has reshaped contemporary approaches to fatness and "obesity," raising new professional, ethical, and cultural questions for clinical dietitians. Given the pervasive weight bias in the field, it seems unlikely that dietitians would oppose these drugs solely for causing weight loss. However, the ability of GLP-1s to regulate hunger and facilitate weight reduction without dietary intervention may undermine dietitians' authority and long-held principles about "optimal nourishment" and "health." This study explores how dietitians negotiate tensions among their professional beliefs about food, health, lifestyle, and weight loss in the context of GLP-1 treatments. Through semi-structured interviews with ten clinical dietitians at a major Israeli medical center, we examine how weight bias informs their attitudes toward these medications and whether they perceive them as a threat to their professional legitimacy. We hypothesize that most dietitians will express ambivalence about GLP-1s, not due to fat-acceptance principles but because these drugs challenge entrenched values such as "effort," "hard work," and "healthy eating"- these values themselves deeply rooted in weight bias and healthism. By analyzing these perspectives, this study contributes to critical discussions on the intersection of professional identity, weight stigma, and the medicalization of fatness.
This article reads how fatness has become a composite local cultural metaphor for Fat excesses and disability in South Asian societies. In South Asian cultural discourses, fatness is stereotypically linked to laziness, greed, and incapacity, associations reinforced in media portrayals such as Commander Safeguard. It focuses on the intersection of indigenous experience of fatness and aims to mobilize the way media portrays fat bodies as disgusting while drawing on Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection in analyzing fat characters in children's indigenous South Asian cartoon series Commander Safeguard by Procter and Gamble, Ltd. Kristeva's theory of abjection, as propounded in Powers of Horror, emphasizes repulsion caused by bodily experience and explains resultant behaviors in social attitudes. This theory has been analyzed in a psychoanalytic framework to read its impact on the minds of children. My focus is on the cartoon series which celebrates fat as funny, Fat as filthy, and Fat as flagrant. This article concerns itself with the aspect of the body image from Kristevan lens which has not been probed earlier with reference to the portrayal of South Asian fat children's characters in films/cartoons/kids series. It is in this indigenous context of fat-shaming and body acceptance that I locate the research on the Commander Safeguard series.
Current understandings of bodies and health are predominantly informed by a weight normative viewpoint that supports the supremacy of an idealized body type as reflecting optimal health and wellbeing. Studies have shown that physical educators hold negative assumptions about, and lower expectations of the abilities of higher weight students. However, how trainee physical educators' conceptualizations about the health of bodies might influence their approach to teaching children of different body sizes has not been directly explored. While previous researchers have focused on physical educators' constructions of fatness and the influence of visual culture on beliefs and stereotypes about bodies and physical activity, we explored how trainee physical educators conceptualize the health of bodies based on appearance, and how that might influence how they would approach teaching children of different body sizes. Seven trainee physical educators took part in this photo elicitation and interview study. Using a constructionist, critical orientation of reflexive thematic analysis, three key themes were developed: you can tell by looking; social experiences reproduce and reinforce weight normativity; and, weight normativity hinders weight inclusivity. These three themes conveyed the overarching thematic narrative that conceptualizations of bodies are both simplistic and complex. Our study shows that if physical educators are to positively influence how children of all sizes perceive their bodies, there is a need to establish a unifying definition of weight-inclusive practices in physical education, to support approaches to reducing weight bias in schools.
This article examines how the counternarratives deployed by fat activists from the Mexican collective Gordas Expansivas challenge and redefine dominant discourses on corporeality and female beauty in urban contexts in Mexico. Based on a qualitative ethnography, focus on depth interviews, and analysis of Instagram posts, the study reveals that activist resistance operates from three fundamental dimensions: the redefinition of bodily and emotional pain as a starting point for collective action, the creation of supportive and caring communities that strengthen autonomy and self-esteem, and the promotion of direct actions to educate and transform social perceptions about fat bodies, especially among children and adolescents. The results highlight how the interrelation between digital and physical spaces enhances the movement's political effectiveness. Finally, the article argues for the need to incorporate intersectional perspectives that broaden the representative diversity within Latin American fat activism, emphasizing the relevance of these findings for developing public policies against body discrimination.
Although some researchers have addressed fat women's complicated feelings about their bodies and fat stigma, little is known about fat women's eating practices, particularly their positive or joyful eating experiences. This study drew from semi-structured interviews with 20 fat women from a diverse community sample (Mage = 40.4, SD = 11.83, 40% queer-identified, 50% women of color, wide range of body weights) collected across the United States to examine their responses to questions about their emotions about eating, particularly positive emotions toward food. We identified five themes of how fat women conceptualize emotions about their positive and joyful experiences with eating: 1) ambivalence about eating "bad" food; 2) feeling proud of not eating too much; 3) food as a reward or incentive; 4) food as a connection to loved ones; and 5) food as a symbol of travel memories. We found an absence of unadulterated food pleasure and noted the insidious ways that fat stigma and fat negativity crept into fat women's narratives about food, even when they reflected on joyful or positive experiences. In particular, they constructed restraint as good, certain foods as bad, and joys of eating as incentivizing themselves for hard work or struggle. That said, stories of food as a bridge to loved ones and travel memories offered a window into other possibilities for resisting the overwhelming food negativity directed at, and internalized by, fat women. Ultimately, though, we found a missing discourse of joy in food, undergirded with cultural and emotional assumptions about fat women eating.
Body shaming and weight discrimination remain largely unaddressed in Philippine law and policy despite their significant implications for human dignity, equality, and health. This paper examines how existing statutes, including the Safe Spaces Act (RA 11,313), the Anti-Bullying Act (RA 10,627), and the Cybercrime Prevention Act (RA 10,175), provide partial remedies but fail to explicitly recognize weight or body size as protected categories. While these laws penalize harassment, bullying, and online defamation, their scope is fragmented and enforcement inconsistent. High-profile cases, such as sanctions against public transport operators and electoral candidates, highlight both the potential and the limitations of current mechanisms. Drawing from fat studies scholarship, the commentary situates body shaming within broader systems of stigma and normalization that shape cultural and political life in the Philippines. It argues that meaningful protection requires a dual strategy: strengthening legal frameworks through explicit recognition of weight discrimination, while also advancing cultural change through fat activism and digital resistance. Insights from fat studies on activism as a social movement and emerging work on digital counter-narratives show that legal reforms must be paired with grassroots and cultural initiatives that challenge systemic body-based oppression. By combining legislative protections, institutional safeguards, and activist strategies, the Philippines can move beyond incidental remedies toward structural and cultural change. Establishing comprehensive protections would affirm the state's commitment to dignity and equality for all individuals, while also creating space for collective resistance to body normativity and the celebration of body diversity.
Indigenous Queer Studies prioritizes Indigenous queer worldviews in response to western settler-colonial cis-heteropatriarchal societies and their ongoing occupation. While performing critical anti-colonial work, Indigenous Queer Studies also invests in the salvage and continuity of sovereign embodiments, expressions, and desires produced and maintained by Indigenous societies for thousands of years globally. Extending out from the focal point of gender and sexuality, this article explores the possibilities between Indigenous Queer Studies and the emergent field of Indigenous Fat Studies as mutually beneficial and co-constructed sites that hold potential to further embed the self-determined agenda of contemporary Indigenous Studies as a humanizing and future-oriented academic project. This article will engage these interconnected fields of inquiry through the perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+SB peoples who have reinvigorated conversations about Indigenous identities and embodiment as sites of resistance to settler-colonialism in so-called Australia. This will be explored by examining how Indigenous fat/queer embodiments challenge settler-colonial imaginaries through socio-political issues including racialized homo/trans/queerphobia, misogyny, fatphobia, and introduce conceptualizations of Indigenous sovereignty which recognizes, validates, and affirms the level of inclusivity that Indigenous relational theory encompasses.
GLP-1 weight loss drugs are receiving an avalanche of positive press. From major media outlets to trade publications, clinical, policy, and lay audiences have been inundated with articles declaring them to be "miracle drugs." This messaging has largely been constructed by the drugs' manufacturers, often supported with quotes from doctors and researchers holding significant, undeclared financial entanglements with the manufacturers. The peer-reviewed research underpinning the efficacy and safety of these drugs also uses misleading reporting practices to obscure less positive findings. As such, this information may not be seen by reviewers, policy makers, clinicians, or the public. This paper will examine and critique the literature on GLP-1 medications for weight loss. We begin by briefly describing the mechanism of action and their evolution from diabetes medications to "weight management." We then provide a narrative review of the efficacy and safety data from the Phase 3, double-blind, randomized controlled trials of the two most popular GLP-1-based drugs currently available for weight loss - semaglutide and tirzepatide, highlighting misleading reporting practices. We also describe conflicts of interest among research authors, media proponents, and "patient advocacy" groups, as well as documented regulatory misconduct in the marketing of these drugs. This analysis will provide readers with more clear, comprehensive, and accurate information than is currently easily accessible, allowing for improved public and healthcare discourse and informed consent around these drugs.
