Abstract
People who are considered to be overweight or obese (as the medical terms have it) or fat (as many fat activists prefer to call their body size) suffer discrimination and humiliation (Lupton D. What does fat discrimination look like? The conversation. 3 Jan 2013. Retrieved from ► https://theconversation.com/what-does-fat-discrimination-look-like-10247). Being fat is a stigmatised condition and living as a fat person often includes being treated with disdain and disregard. People living with fat stigma impacts how they experience being in the world, including how they interact with healthcare professionals and their access to healthcare. Community attitudes and experiences of discrimination inevitably impact on a person’s ability to live well. The relationship between fat stigma and mental health is examined, and further brought into focus through scholarly discourse and personal experiences. Experiential activities where the learner can question and challenge stereotypes, their own perceptions and gain a better understanding of environmental, social and systemic issues faced by people living with fat stigma conclude this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
For more about how to teach this material, see Bergen & Mollen, 2019.
- 2.
For more info on the latter, see Bacon & Aphramor, 2009; Mann et al., 2007)
- 3.
Patients who have the symptoms of anorexia nervosa but have a BMI over 18.5, are diagnosed with atypical anorexia nervosa (Harrop, 2019).
- 4.
See Calogero et al. (2019) for a review of other weight normative approach assumptions.
- 5.
For creative and adventurous clients, suggest they turn their existing scales in Yay! Scales instead (7 http://www.fatso.com/). This may also be helpful for those who cannot imagine not having a scale.
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Pausé, C., Lupton, D., Cadigan, T., Hutton, V., Sisko, S. (2021). Sizeism. In: Hutton, V., Sisko, S. (eds) Multicultural Responsiveness in Counselling and Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55427-9_9
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