UC Berkeley task force targets ‘anti-Fatness,’ links it to 'anti-Black racism'
UC Berkeley health officials are promoting a 'Body Diversity and Weight Inclusion' effort tied to 'anti-Black racism.'
The initiative urges 'urgent action' to address 'anti-Fatness,' including new courses that reject 'diet culture.'
The University of California, Berkeley’s University Health Services maintains a “Body Diversity and Weight Inclusion Work Group” to eliminate “anti-Fatness” on campus and its intersections with “anti-Black racism.”
Some of the group’s active projects include making weighing during doctor’s appointments optional, hosting “Body Diversity and Weight Inclusion trainings,” and producing a tips sheet for “weight inclusion,” which is still in progress.
The university reiterates its “commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion” on a page titled “Body Diversity & Weight Inclusion,” but finds that “anti-fatness, rooted in the same systems of oppression as anti-Black racism, remains a largely unaddressed issue.”
The page asserts that discrimination against fat people “can significantly impact various aspects of university life, including academic performance, mental health, and social inclusion,” because “individuals in larger bodies are often the most marginalized and face systemic bias and exclusion.”
As part of its commitment to ending “anti-Fatness,” the university has formed the “Body Diversity and Weight Inclusion Work Group,” which includes faculty, staff, and students, and aims to foster “a campus environment that embraces community members of all shapes, sizes, and social identities.”
The group published a brief this spring called “Urgent Action Needed to Address Anti-Fatness at UC Berkeley.”
In the brief, the working group recommends making “body size” a “protected characteristic,” including “weight bias” in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) trainings, and creating courses that “promote weight inclusivity” and push back on “diet culture.”
[RELATED: Lewis & Clark Grad School plans ‘Fat Studies & Health at Every Size’ weekend course]
The brief claims that “individuals in larger bodies are often the most marginalized and face systemic bias and exclusion,” and quotes two anonymous campus members who say they experienced “anti-Fatness.”
“There are constant fat jokes even though I do my job to great reviews from management,” one anonymous staff member said. “Easy target, I guess.”
Colleges and universities often promote body size and fatness as a social justice category.
Campus Reform reported in October that the University of California, Davis provides students a page on “Weight Stigma,” which seeks to protect people who are “perceived to carry excess weight.”
This past summer, Harvard University offered a course called “Sick, Fat, Ugly, Useless: Disability and Fat Studies.”
The course asked students to “examine questions drawn from fat liberation about the construction of aesthetics, the history of fatphobia and racism, and the way we layer symbolic meaning on the body.”
Campus Reform contacted UC Berkeley and its University Health Services for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
