It’s that time of year again. The 6th Annual International Weight Stigma Conference is being held in Leeds, UK on June 18-19, less than three months away.  The conference is not-for-profit and we set the prices to break even only – this year only £130 for the two days (early bird rate – until April 15th).

Because of this, though, we don’t have a surplus to fund bursaries for people on low incomes. We try and raise sponsorship from corporate sponsors, but those with the deep pockets are usually not a good match for the ethos of the WSC. Since 2016, we’ve been crowdfunding a Bursary Fund, and thanks to the generosity of the weight stigma community,  we raised enough to provide seven bursaries to the 2016 conference and six full and two partial bursaries to the 2017 conference.

Edited: This legislation was passed in 2016 but an English translation has now been made available.

The City of Reykjavik has just added body size to the list of characteristics that must be used as a means of overt or unintentional discrimination in its Human Rights Policy. This fantastic news comes as a result of the tireless work of activist Sigrún Daníelsdóttir, founder of Body Respect Iceland, eating disorders campaigner, author of children’s book Your Body Is Brilliant, and host of the amazing 2015 Weight Stigma Conference. The mayor of Reykjavik gave the opening address that year, and it was discussions arising out of this that led to the new policy.

Reykjavik joins Santa Cruz and San Francisco CA, Madison WI, Urbana IL, Washington DC, Binghampton NY, and the state of Michigan in forbidding discrimination based on weight or body size. Efforts are underway to introduce similar legislation in other states and countries.

But the Reykjavik declaration goes further than banning outright discrimination. It requires that in its role as a public authority, employer, and service provider consider weight diversity when making policy decisions and in the provision of its various services, such that higher weight people are not unintentionally disadvantaged by structural or systemic inequalities built into everyday life, and that the city and its employees do not inadvertently promote negative attitudes or stereotypes about higher-weight people. It also explicitly states that NGOs concerned with body respect must be consulted when their input might be relevant.

To read the exact terms of the policy statement, click here.

FYI. (And you can hop on a plane right afterwards and come to WSC 2018!)

Calling All Abundant, Fat, Plus Sized, Succulent, and Thick Peoples From All Over!

This year at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, Michigan we are coming back together as a network gathering to continue our conversations and expand on the work we’ve done in previous years. This is Abundant Bodies 5th Anniversary and we want to make this year BETTER than ever. How can we work together to deconstruct fat stigma and other forms of marginalization while building a stronger and more inclusive fat community? How can we challenge ourselves to decenter whiteness, capitalism, ableism, cissexism, heterosexism and classism while we explore what it means to be fat? We will explore these questions and create media and practical strategies for resistance, healing and community building.

We are looking for a variety of session proposals that may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Fat community 101 –

• How to love your body
• Ally building for thin folks and privileged fat folks
• Body autonomy and social media
• Anti-racist fat activism
• Skillshares and tools for surviving and thriving

Bodies, health and movement –

• Breaking down connections between health and weight
• Body movement / dance / practice for all bodies
• Fat sexuality
• Super-sized community members

Fatness at its intersections –

• Fatness and femme identity
• Fatness and masculinity
• Sci-fi bodies as fat, queer and people of color
• Dis/ability and fatness
• History of indigenous / people of color / Black / trans / dis/ability / supersize fat activism
• Tools for young fat folks
• Breaking down discussions about fatness through race, class, gender and other identities

Submit a proposal for the gathering here.

Everyone at the Abundant Bodies team hopes to see you there on June 14th to kick off another amazing AMC weekend.

**The deadline for proposals is April 1st.**

We are delighted to announce the keynote speakers for the 6th Annual International Weight Stigma Conference being held on 18-19th June 2018, Leeds, UK.

• Dr Lucy Aphramor (Well Now)

Dr Aphramor has a PhD in weight science and is one of the founding members of the international Critical Dietetics movement and the UK group Dietitians for Social Justice; and is an elected committee member of the European Specialist Dietetic Network (ESDN) for Public Health.

• Professor Rhiannon Turner (Queens University, Belfast)

Professor Turner is a social psychologist with a specific focus on intergroup relations, prejudice, and prejudice-reduction. Professor Turner is Director of the Centre for Identity and Intergroup Relations at Queen’s University, Belfast.

• Dr Emma Rich (University of Bath)

Dr Rich is a Reader/Associate Professor in the Department for Health at the University of Bath. Over the past 15 years, she has undertaken critical health research examining the relationship between the cultures, policies and practices of schools and young people’s health, wellbeing and identities.

Visit stigmaconference.com for more information about our keynotes, and details of abstract submission and conference registration.