Keynote Speakers
We are thrilled to announce the keynote speakers for the 8th Annual International Weight Stigma Conference will be Lindo Bacon, Isaac Warbrick, and Kimberly Dark. Check out their bios below.
Abstract deadline reminder
Don’t forget that session and oral presentation abstracts are due Monday 17th. Visit the website for more information and to submit your abstract. Posters submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Weight Stigma Conference Bursary Fund
For the past few years, we have been crowdfunding a bursary fund to help make the conference more accessible for people who might otherwise not be able to attend. All donations are very gratefully received. You can make a donation at:
- https://www.gofundme.com/f/wsc2020
- On our website homepage: stigmaconference.com
- At time of registration. Note registration is not yet open. The WSC is a not-for-profit and registration is costed at break-even levels. We are currently finalising this year’s budget and will be able to calculate delegate costs and open registration as soon as that has been done.
Speaker bios
Dr Lindo Bacon
Lindo Bacon Ph.D. is an internationally recognized authority on topics related to nutrition, weight and health. Dr. Bacon’s academic training includes two Masters’ Degrees, one in Psychotherapy, specializing in Eating Disorders and Body Image, and the other in Exercise Science, specializing in Metabolism. They also earned a Ph.D. in Physiology with a Nutrition emphasis from the University of California. A professor and researcher, for almost two decades Dr. Bacon has taught courses in social justice, health, weight and nutrition; they have also conducted federally funded studies on health and weight and published in top scientific journals.
Dr. Bacon is author of the iconic and bestselling Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight. Their more recent co-authored release Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, or Just Fail to Understand about Weight, has already found its way into the heart of the weight discourse, transforming the way we think about weight and health, and offering an alternative path to compassionate and effective health care. Dr. Bacon is committed to centralizing the ways in which power, privilege and disadvantage complicate our experience of our bodies. Health professionals – as well as people on their own personal journeys to body appreciation – call Lindo’s work “life-changing” and “transformative,” providing the tools and confidence for personal change and inspiring others. Their forthcoming book, Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (and Transform it for the Better), takes their inspiring message beyond size, to shaping a culture of empathy, equity and true belonging. Website: lindobacon.com Twitter: @LindoBaconX Instagram: lindobacon
Dr Isaac Warbrick
Dr. Isaac Warbrick (Ngāti Te Ata, Te Arawa, Ngā Puhi) is an exercise physiologist, Senior Research Fellow and Co-Director of Taupua Waiora Centre for Māori Health Research at AUT University. The Taupua Waiora Centre is part of the National Institute of Public Health and Mental Health Research. It is a multi-disciplinary research group specialising in hauora Māori. The mission of Taupua Waiora is to promote whānau ora, and positive health experiences for Māori whānau. A core aim is to make significant contributions aimed at reducing health and social inequities in Māori health, by improving evidence and knowledge that will enhance access and use of health and associated services, and promote positive outcomes and hauora for Māori whānau, hapū, iwi and communities.
Dr Warbrick’s research has focused on the impact of physical activity on the health and well-being of Māori with a particular focus on Māori men. Much of his research is conducted at the interface between biomedical, lab-based, and indigenous approaches to research. Isaac is currently leading projects and collaborating with researchers in a variety of fields including exercise physiology, Māori health, epigenetics, men’s health, racism and health, and the use of traditional knowledge, such as the maramataka, on Māori health. His most recent publications have questioned whether ‘weight’ and ‘weight loss’ are appropriate ‘health’ measures for Māori, suggesting that outcome measures should better reflect cultural values.
Kimberly Dark
Kimberly Dark is a writer, professor and storyteller, working to reveal the hidden architecture of everyday life so that we can reclaim our power as social creators. She’s the author of Fat, Pretty and Soon to be Old, The Daddies and Love and Errors, and her essays, stories and poetry are widely published in academic and popular online publications alike. Two of her contributions to Fat Studies Journal were among the top ten most read of 2019. Her ability to make the personal political is grounded in her training as a sociologist, and you can find her course offerings in Sociology at Cal State San Marcos and Writing/Arts at Cal State Summer Arts.
Kimberly’s essay collection, Fat, Pretty, and Soon to be Old is a moving, funny, and startlingly frank collection of personal essays about what it means to look a certain way. Or rather, certain ways. Navigating Kimberly Dark’s experience of being fat since childhood—as well as queer, white-privileged, a gender-conforming “girl with a pretty face,” active then disabled, and inevitably aging—each piece blends storytelling and social analysis to deftly coax readers into a deeper understanding of how appearance privilege (and stigma) function in everyday life and how the architecture of this social world constrains us. At the same time, she provides a blueprint for how each of us can build a more just social world, one interaction at a time.Website: kimberlydark.com Twitter: @kimberlydark Instagram: kimberly.dark