Following a record number of submissions, we have a fantastic program lined up for online and in person delegates at the 11th Annual International Weight Stigma Conference, happening online and in-person at Griffith University Gold Coast, Australia. Early-bird registration is available until 6th May, 2025. Click on the button to catch the early-bird discount of $100.
Abstract Submission
We are still accepting abstracts for POSTER presentations, so if you have some work you’d like to present, consider submitting an abstract before 20 June, 2025. Ensure you read the Abstract Submission Guidelines prior to submission.
Click the Submit your poster abstract button to complete the submission process. If you submit an abstract but do not receive a confirmation email from stigmaconf@gmail.com with two days, please email me directly.
Bursary Fund
The Weight Stigma Conference is a not-for-profit event with an extremely limited budget. We keep registration fees as low as possible, but we know that even the concession fees are out of reach for some people with limited financial resources. Since 2016, we have been crowdfunding our Bursary Fund to support those needing financial assistance with their registration fees. In these difficult times, donations are lower than in previous years, which means less people will benefit from a registration bursary. To help more people in need to attend, you can add a donation to your registration fee at the time of registration or click on the button below to donate directly. We would also be incredibly grateful if you could share our fundraising link https://www.gofundme.com/f/WSC2025-bursary-fund with your friends, colleagues, and networks, whether you need a bursary or not.
fat Joy Festival
For those of you planning to attend in-person, why not come a day early and join in the activities at the inaugural Fat Joy Festival, which will be held on 5 July 2025 at the same venue as the Weight Stigma Conference, Griffith University Gold Coast. More details to follow soon!!
Please forward this email to your networks and anyone you think may be interested!
The amazing Esther Rothblum, founder and former editor in chief of the Fat Studies journal, has created a new free resource on writing and publishing aimed predominantly at students and early career researchers. She will be posting weekly on Substack as Esther Editor. Visit https://esthereditor.substack.com to view and subscribe, and ignore any messages from Substack to donate, etc.!
Esther would also love to hear reactions and additions from more senior writers in the chat.
Please share with colleagues and students who need mentoring with writing and publishing.
Upcoming posts include:
How do I find time to write?
Where should I submit my article?
How can I stop procrastinating and begin writing?
What are “predatory” journals? Are there other journals I should avoid?
How can I get invited to publish?
What are effective ways I can write and publish with co-authors?
What do I say in a cover letter when I submit my article?
How do I mask my article for anonymous submission?
How do I change US to UK spelling and grammar?
What is self-plagiarism?
When can I remind an editor that a decision is overdue?
What is a “revise-and-resubmit” decision?
The journal wants to keep copyright of my work! What if I want to resubmit my work elsewhere?
What are good ways to read and edit page proofs?
When is a good time to be a reviewer or editorial board member?
When is a good time to be a guest editor of a thematic journal issue?
I would like to be a journal editor—how do I do that?
The King’s Fund is an independent charitable organisation working to improve health and care in England. Their tag line is: Ideas that Change Health and Care. They are launching an initiative called Do With – a network of people and organisations calling for a radical shift in health and care from ‘doing to’ to ‘doing with.’ On March 26th, there is a #DoWith online event, 10am-12pm UK time, although attendance is not limited to UK participants.
Nutriri is a Voluntary Community Social Enterprise (VCSE) – a community organisation working to leverage the lived experience of higher-weight people to improve healthcare access, experience, and outcomes. They have been going since 2015 and are making a mark in important spaces (or at least getting invited to them!). They have joined the Do With network and are looking for weight stigma experts interested in shaping their intersectional Stigma Free network to join them for this event.
Angela Meadows (she/her) is a social psychologist whose research focuses on all aspects of weight-related stigma, including self-stigma, stigma resistance, and social change; weight stigma and physical activity; weight stigma in healthcare and medical education; and policy and legislative aspects of weight discrimination. Angela has published over 40 articles and book chapters, is frequently interviewed on television, radio, and press, and has presented expert testimony to UK and international governmental bodies on the relationship between weight and health, and the individual and structural impacts of weight stigma. In a previous existence, she was a biomedical scientist but had to give that up due to her propensity to blow things up. However, bringing this expertise together, Angela is an educator in critical weight science, helping researchers, health professionals, and policy makers identify the flaws in the literature that equates weight with health and challenge mainstream policies and practices that drive the oppressive treatment of higher-weight populations. In 2013, she accidentally founded the Annual International Weight Stigma Conference and still hasn’t quite recovered. Angela is based at the University of Essex, UK and lives with her long-suffering husband and two slightly dim but extremely adorable pets. You can follow Angela on X at @drameadows. Websites: https://angelameadows.info/
Fiona Willer (she/her) is Australia’s first dual-qualified dietitian and bioethicist, an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian, and the current President of Dietitians Australia. Known nationally for her leadership in advocating weight-inclusive healthcare and fostering entrepreneurship, Fiona is a long-standing lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She also holds a senior research role at the University of Queensland’s School of Business, focusing on optimising digital primary care services and exploring the role of AI and other emerging technologies to enhance human-centered healthcare. Fiona’s career spans higher education, non-profit, and private sectors. Her research expertise includes weight stigma, health consciousness, body appreciation, and the application of inclusive, weight-neutral approaches—such as Health at Every Size®—in healthcare practice, health promotion and policy. Fiona is also the founder of Health, Not Diets, a consultancy dedicated to inclusive, weight-neutral healthcare, which celebrated 10 years of advocacy in 2023. She produces the Unpacking Weight Science podcast, a unique professional development resource for healthcare providers. An experienced board director, Fiona has served on the board of Dietitians Australia since 2019 and held previous board roles with Size Inclusive Health Australia (formerly HAES Australia) and the Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH). You can follow Fiona on X at @FionaWiller. Website: https://www.fionawiller.com/
George Parker (they/them) is a registered kahu pōkai | midwife and Senior Lecturer in Health Service Delivery in the School of Health at Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand. George is a social researcher of inclusive and equitable healthcare for under-served communities with a particular focus on reproductive and perinatal healthcare access for communities on the margins. George’s work centres reproductive justice, intersectionality, and cultural humility approaches to build health system capability for inclusion particularly at the intersections of weight and size inclusion, gender and sexuality diversity, and decolonisation and Indigenous justice. George is a Pākehā/White European New Zealander, a queer and non-binary person, and a parent to two children, Bell (11 years old) and Mae (7 years old) and lives on the beautiful Kāpiti Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand with their extended queer family. They are passionate about the places of family building and growing, including healthcare access, being safe and inclusive so that families can flourish. Website: https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/george.parker
Louise Adams (she/her) is a clinical psychologist in private practice and an advocate for weight inclusive health. A founding member and past President of Size Inclusive Health Australia (SIHA), Louise is an activist, educator, author, blogger, speaker, and host of the All Fired Up podcast. She founded Flourish Kirribilli, a multidisciplinary clinic in Sydney offering weight inclusive health care. Through multiple channels, including her newsletter, blog, podcast, academic publications, public speaking, and media, Louise challenges weight-centric frameworks that perpetuate harmful research, weight stigma and damage psychological and physical well-being. Her advocacy work included a high-profile campaign against the Fast Track Trial—a semi-starvation study on Australian teenagers—which galvanized public support and led to changes in the trial protocol. Louise has authored two books. The Non-Diet Approach Guidebook for Psychologists and Counsellors (2014), co-written with Dr Fiona Willer, AAPD, offers a framework for applying non-diet principles in therapeutic settings. Her second book, Mindful Moments (2016), provides practical guidance on self-compassion and mindfulness for everyday life. Currently, Louise’s advocacy work is focused on countering the growing influence of pharmaceutical companies in “ob*sity” research, policy and practices, which has reached epidemic levels since the introduction of Novo Nordisk’s weight loss drugs.
Ticket Types
Prices are in Australian dollars.
Online
Standard registration: Early bird rate (until 6th May, 2025) is AU$289. From 7th May, standard rate will be AU$389.
Student/low income: Early bird rate (until 6th May, 2025) is AU$189. From 7th May, student/low income rate will be AU$289.
In-person
Standard registration: Early bird rate (until 6th May, 2025) is AU$489. From 7th May, standard rate will be AU$589.
Student/low income: Early bird rate (until 6th May, 2025) is AU$389. From 7th May, student/low income rate will be AU$489.
As a reminder, and across all rates, further reductions or hardship requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please use the Bursary Application form on our website and/or email us at stigmaconf@gmail.com. Standard bursary applications will be accepted until noon, the day before the conference, with awards depending on availability of funding. A single Dr Cat Pausé Travel Bursary will be awarded. The deadline for applications is 6th May 2025. Application is via the same form.
Bursary Fund – Supporting Accessibility
The Weight Stigma Conference is a not-for-profit event. The conference is funded by registration fees and a small number of sponsors whose support has made this event possible. Although we try and keep prices down, we realise that the conference will nevertheless be beyond some people’s means. Rather than raising the cost of tickets, we make every effort to raise additional funding through donations and sponsorship to allow us to give bursaries to individuals who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend. Since 2016, we have been crowdsourcing the conference Bursary Fund, and your generosity has allowed us to provide 81 bursaries and 6 travel awards so far.
Donations can be made through our Go Fund Me page – please share this page with your networks. Thank you so much for your generosity.
Accessibility Accommodations
The chairs used in the conference venue have no arms and a weight capacity of 135 kg (298 pounds). Online, we will provide automatic closed captioning via Teams. For other accessibility requirements, please indicate on your registration questionnaire. If we are not able to accommodate your needs, we will reach out to discuss options with you. Note, we cannot guarantee requests made less than 14 days prior to the conference.
Terms and Conditions
Recorded Event
This event will be recorded (both audio and visual). By registering for this event, you consent to this recording. Recordings will be available to delegates for viewing after the live event has ended. Content will remain available until the 2026 WSC. While we will make every effort to ensure recording availability, we cannot guarantee that all sessions will be available. We take no responsibility for technical failures beyond our control.
Cancellations and refunds
Cancellations before 20th June will be refunded in full. After that date, only partial refunds will be available. Please contact us at stigmaconf@gmail.com if you need to cancel your registration. If the event is cancelled by the organisers, a full refund will be given. No responsibility will be taken for technical failures beyond our control that prevent posting of recorded content after the event; refunds will not be given for this reason.
Payment FAQs
Payment method: All payment is by credit or debit card. If you do not have a card, please contact us at stigmaconf@gmail.com.
This special issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society explores fatness and anti-fatness as they relate to the emerging medical application of GLP-1 agonists, a class of drugs (including Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro), for weight loss. From a fat studies perspective, GLP-1s are fraught with ethical, moral, and existential tensions for fatness and fat people (Oswald, 2024).
The goal of this special issue is to center critical social science and humanities-based perspectives on the relationships between fatness and GLP-1s, especially how these relationships are mediated by sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, disability, age, gender identity, and other axes of identity. This special issue will prioritize submissions that use a critical fat studies lens, and will not consider work that solely adopts a medical perspective. We are particularly interested in work that utilizes an intersectional framework and focuses on fat people’s lived experiences.
We are currently conducting a meta-analysis on the association between weight stigma and engagement in physical health behaviours, which has been pre-registered on PROSPERO (CRD42024505496).
We are therefore contacting authors who have carried out research in the field of weight stigma, to ask whether you have any relevant published or unpublished research that we may be able to include in this meta-analysis.
Specifically, we are looking for research that meets either of the following inclusion criteria:
Research that measures both weight stigma and engagement in physical health behaviour OR
Research that manipulates exposure to weight stigma and examines subsequent engagement in physical health behaviour, including both a group exposed to weight stigma and a control group not exposed to weight stigma.
For the purposes of the review, we consider weight stigma to encompass experienced, perceived, anticipated and internalised weight-based stigma, as well as weight-related bias, teasing, shaming, prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping and victimisation. We consider engagement in physical health behaviours to include engagement in behavioural patterns, actions and habits that maintain, restore or improve health, as well as those that may disrupt, damage or otherwise compromise health (e.g., occurrence/frequency/quantity of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, eating behaviour, sleep, substance use, use of healthcare services, uptake of health screening, and medication and treatment adherence).
Do you have any published or unpublished research that may fit these inclusion criteria? If so, please get in touch with Ankita Sehrawat (asehrawat1@sheffield.ac.uk) by 1st April and we can let you know further details about what information we would need from you to be able to include your research in our meta-analysis. If you know of any colleagues who may have relevant data, please do feel free to forward this email to them.
Did you know that the 11th Annual International Weight Stigma Conference will be held in hybrid mode? People can participate online or in person at the Gold Coast, Australia.
Have you submitted your abstract? The deadline of 23 February for oral presentations and sessions is fast approaching. Abstracts for posters will remain open until 20 June.
We encourage scholars, practitioners, policy makers, activists, and community members to submit abstracts for oral presentations, posters, or sessions. Students are especially encouraged to submit abstracts. Abstract authors should demonstrate the alignment of their work with the conference theme “From weight stigma to weight inclusiveness and liberation.”
Visit Weight Stigma Conference for more information about the different types of sessions and to submit your abstracts.
Deadline Abstracts for all presentation types except posters must be submitted by 23 February 2025 Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST). Poster abstracts will be reviewed on a rolling basis and a decision within one week of submission.
I look forward to seeing the fantastic array of practice and research taking place in weight stigma and weight inclusiveness.
In 2025, the International Weight Stigma Conference will be held online and in Australia for the first time, at Griffith University on the gorgeous Gold Coast, Country of the Kombumerri People of the Yugambeh language region – where winter temperatures in July average highs of 21°C and lows of 11°C and the sun is almost guaranteed to shine every day.
The Annual International Weight Stigma Conference is an inter-disciplinary event that brings together scholars and practitioners from a range of backgrounds (e.g., public health, government and public policy, psychology, medicine, bioethics, sociology, anthropology, allied health professions, education, sports and exercise science, social sciences, media studies, business, law, activism, and the lay public) to consider research, policy, rhetoric, and practice around the issue of weight stigma.
This year’s theme “From weight stigma to weight inclusiveness and liberation” highlights the importance of moving beyond studies that demonstrate the extent of the issue, to work that demonstrates how to address and effectively mitigate the issue. By offering a space for learning, collaboration, and action, the conference aims to contribute to the dismantling of weight stigma and the enhancement of weight inclusive and liberatory practices, thereby fostering a more equitable, just, and inclusive society.
We are now accepting abstracts for oral presentations and posters, as well as session proposals including brief symposia, round tables, debates, and workshops. We are also interested in non-traditional submissions (e.g., media, performance, art). The two-day interdisciplinary programme will cover the entire weight stigma spectrum, from foundational research through to implementation research, practice, policy, and activism, and feature an outstanding roster of international speakers and local experts.
We invite contributions across a wide range of disciplines and methodological and theoretical approaches. Intersectional approaches and perspectives from other groups with unequal access to power and privilege are especially welcome. We encourage submissions from scholars, practitioners, policy makers, and activists. Students are especially encouraged to submit proposals.
The Weight Stigma Conference respectfully acknowledges the Kombumerri People of the Yugambeh language region as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, skies, and waterways of the Country on which the conference will take place. We pay respect to First Peoples throughout the world and their Elders past and present, in the spirit of reconciliation, aiming to foster justice and collaboration as we tread lightly upon this land together to deepen our learning and understanding.
Previous Conferences
Information about previous conferences, including conference brochure and abstract books, and speaker slides, is available here.
Weight Stigma Conference Bursary Fund
The Weight Stigma Conference is a not-for-profit event. The conference is funded by registration fees and sponsors whose support has made this event possible. In order to make the conference more accessible, we offer a small number of full and partial bursaries to people who might otherwise not be able to attend, but there is never enough funding to give a bursary to everyone who needs one. Since 2016, we have been crowdsourcing the conference Bursary Fund, and your generosity allowed us to provide 81 bursaries so far.
There are several ways that you can donate to the Bursary Fund. If you are planning on attending the conference this year, there will be a donation option on the Registration form. Otherwise, please visit our GoFundMe page to make a donation. All funds raised via these methods are ring-fenced for bursaries and will not be used for anything else. Thank you again for your generosity in helping us make this possible.
University of Vermont Post-Doctoral Position in Weight-Inclusive Nutrition
The Weight-Inclusive Nutrition (WIN) Research Group located at the University of Vermont (UVM) invites applicants for a postdoctoral fellow to work collaboratively with our research team to facilitate the adoption of weight-inclusive practices in school environments. The WIN team is comprised of an interdisciplinary group of scholars including College of Agriculture and Life Science faculty Dr. Lizzy Pope and Kelsey Rose, College of Education and Social Services faculty Dr. Bernice Garnett, and College of Nursing and Health Sciences faculty Deborah Hinchey as well as Food Systems graduate student Janet Gamble. Additionally, the WIN Team has relationships with state agencies and multiple schools in Vermont. Dr. Lizzy Pope and Dr. Bernice Garnett will be the principal mentors for the WIN postdoctoral fellow. The post-doctoral position is supported by the UVM Food Systems Research Center. More information about the WIN team can be found here: https://site.uvm.edu/efpope/.
The post is for one year with the possibility of extending for a second year.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.
Catherine Walker (Union College, Lily O’Hara (Qatar University), and I (Erin Harrop, University of Denver) are currently building a Special Issue forFrontiers in Psychiatry around The Mental Health Impact of Weight Stigma and are looking for Manuscript Summary Submission, which are due 14 October, 2024.
Upon initial editorial acceptance, the finalized Manuscript Submission Deadline is 31 January 2025, at which point papers will be sent for peer review and will undergo a traditional peer review process. Papers are reviewed and, if accepted, published, on a rolling basis, so can be submitted prior to the deadline.
Frontiers in Psychiatry is an open access journal with an article processing fee (information follows); however, if you lack institutional or grant support to publish in an open access journal, please reach out to discuss any concerns (and we will pass them along to the Frontiers in Psychiatry Content Specialist, as the journal may be able to provide fee reductions, depending on researchers’ circumstances.
Here is a brief summary of the research topic:
This Research Topic is focused on the mental health impact of weight stigma. We invite high-quality submissions that examine lived experiences, predictors, mediators, and moderators of weight stigma and its mental health consequences. We also welcome submissions exploring the development, implementation, and/or evaluation of initiatives to reduce weight stigma and its mental health consequences at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, intersectional, institutional, or ideological levels. Lastly, we encourage submissions that explore weight-inclusive approaches to mental health care. We invite scholars from any field of study to submit manuscripts focusing on any of these aspects related to weight stigma and its impact on mental health.
