I am delighted to announce that after tireless effort from Icelandic weight stigma activist Sigrún Daníelsdóttir, the City of Reykjavik has today included weight as a protected category in its new human rights policy. Reykjavik joins a handful of cities and the state of Michigan in the US in outlawing discrimination based on weight.

Sigrún is a clinical psychologist who has worked with children and adolescents with eating and body image problems, and founded the Body Respect movement in Iceland eight years ago. She currently works for the Directorate of Health in Iceland in the area of mental health promotion and prevention. She campaigns to promote body satisfaction and respect for diversity, and is author of the book: Your body is brilliant: Body respect for children. She hosted the Weight Stigma Conference in 2015, which was sponsored by the City of Reykjavik as part of its celebrations marking 100 years of women’s suffrage in Iceland.