FYI.

Call for proposals. Special issue of Fat Studies: Fat and fat studies in higher education

Guest Editor: Dr Thea Werkhoven – University of Sydney (Australia), thea.werkhoven@sydney.edu.au

500-word summary due by August 31, 2000

This special issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society will examine health and weight related pedagogy in higher education. Specifically, how degrees and courses for future health educators and health professionals approach education on weight, health and working towards unbiased professional practice after graduation.

Research has shown that students in higher education institutions enrolled in health related degrees designed to funnel them into health professions, allied health or health education may possess weight bias towards fat individuals and fatness itself. The future professionalism and style of service provided to clients/patients/students may in turn be jeopardized by these attitudes, resulting in fat individuals being treated more poorly than people the professional does not view as being fat. The flow on effects for the multifaceted wellbeing of the affected individual are plentiful.

This special issue invites contributions across a range of disciplines, methodological and theoretical frameworks within fat studies that have investigated or tested interventions in the field of weight bias in higher education. Papers that have implemented an experimental research methodology are particularly welcomed, as are those that have utilised or compared a holistic approach to education like Health At Every Size to more biomedical approaches to education which are weight-centric.

Potential topics might include but are not limited to:

• Degree structure and accreditation for discipline specific health professionals
• How higher education prepares future health professionals for unbiased practice
• Advancements in fat studies or fat pedagogy in higher education
• Health at Every Size and the separation or integration with biomedical approaches to health education in colleges and/or universities
• Novel interventions to decrease weight bias in pre-service health professionals, health educators or clinicians.
• Factors that influence weight bias in future health professionals, health educators or clinicians during their studies
• Role modelling of instructors and higher educators teaching fat studies
• Can fat educators teach fat studies and reduce weight bias
• Policy analysis of professional requirements for each discipline to practice in an inclusive and unbiased way, relevant to fatness
• Policy analysis of national +/- government endorsed approaches to weight-specific health care

To submit a proposal for inclusion in this special issue of the journal, please send a 250-500 word summary of your article to Thea Werkhoven (thea.werkhoven@sydney.edu.au) by 31st August 2020. Any questions about the special issue can be directed to this email address as well.

Fat Studies is the first academic journal in the field of scholarship that critically examines theory, research, practices, and programs related to body weight and appearance. Content includes original research and overviews exploring the intersection of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, age, ability, and socioeconomic status. Articles critically examine representations of fat in health and medical sciences, the Health at Every Size model, the pharmaceutical industry, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, legal issues, literature, pedagogy, art, theater, popular culture, media studies, and activism.

Fat Studies is an interdisciplinary, international field of scholarship that critically examines societal attitudes and practices about body weight and appearance. Fat Studies advocates equality for all people regardless of body size. It explores the way fat people are oppressed, the reasons why, who benefits from that oppression and how to liberate fat people from oppression. Fat Studies seeks to challenge and remove the negative associations that society has about fat and the fat body. It regards weight, like height, as a human characteristic that varies widely across any population. Fat Studies is similar to academic disciplines that focus on race, ethnicity, gender, or age.