University of Illinois School of Public Health calls to end ‘weight stigma’ and ‘fatphobia’
The school’s website recommends not using BMI and eliminating the word 'obesity.'
The school thinks 'fatphobia' should be understood in relation to 'intersectionality' and 'how other identities such as race and ability may play a role in the oppression of bodies.'
The University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Public Health maintains a page dedicated to “weight stigma” and “fatphobia,” and recommends the end of BMI, weighing people, and the word “obesity.”
“The term ‘obesity’ is extremely stigmatizing. Instead, use terms such as ‘people in larger bodies,’” the website says. The school thinks “fatphobia” should be understood in relation to “intersectionality” and “how other identities such as race and ability may play a role in the oppression of bodies.”
“Intersectionality” is a term used by left-wing thinkers that refers to how various identities intersect with one another.
The page appears on the School of Public Health’s ‘Health Justice’ section of its website and says that “[p]ublic health needs to decouple health and weight.”
To that end, the page advocates for various changes to public health policy, including ceasing to use “BMI” as a health standard, and praises “medical facilities that do not weigh patients.”
BMI, or Body Mass Index, is a tool used to estimate healthy weight ranges based on height.
On the page, the school also challenges professors to consider how “fatphobia show[s] up in your classroom.” Inclusive course curricula should remove assignments on “‘obesity’ and health” or assignments that “focus on weight loss.”
Professors should also avoid using “fatphobic” research. “Research may be fatphobic if it uses BMI as a marker for health, does not critically assess the role of confounders such as weight stigma, weight cycling, or trauma, has a goal of working to reduce the ‘obesity epidemic’ or regards weight as a personal or moral responsibility,” the page says.
In addition to adopting these considerations, courses should prompt students to consider questions such as “Who is most harmed by the use of BMI?” and “How do racism, capitalism, and the use of BMI intersect?”
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Universities often use “fatphobia” or “fatphobic” as social justice terms and push students to consider anti-fat bias through the lens of “intersectionality.”
Campus Reform has reported that the University of California, Davis maintains a “Weight Stigma” page, pushing faculty and students to eliminate “fatphobia.”
According to the page, people who are “perceived to be smaller” should “create safe fatphobia free spaces” and use “non-polarizing language about bodies and food.”
In January, San Diego State University’s Pride Center connected “fatphobia” to other forms of identity-based oppression in an Instagram post.
“Anti-Fatness/fatphobia is intrinsically rooted in anti-Blackness, racism, classism, misogyny, homophobia, and many other systems of oppression,” the post told students.
Campus Reform contacted the University of Illinois Chicago and the School of Public Health for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
