Since 2023, the Weight Stigma Conference has been hybrid with both in-person and remote attendance available. All sessions will be recorded and videos will be available for delegates after the event.
NOTE: Please note that our conference program is subject to change at any point before or during the conference.
Presenting authors only are listed below. For the full list of authors and abstracts, please see the conference booklet.
| Download conference booklet (available late-June) |
Day 1
| Day 1 | ||
| 8:30–9:15 | Registration | |
| 9:15–9:30 | Opening remarks | |
| 9:30–10:30 | Keynote Presentation 1 | |
| Dr Lene Bull Christiansen Institute for Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, Denmark Weight Stigma awareness entering the mainstream – a double-edged sword? |
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| 10.30–10.45 | Short break | |
| 10:45–11:45 | Oral Presentations 1: Culture | |
| Anti-fatness in contemporary Icelandic culture Sjöfn Asare Hauksdóttir, Dept of Comparitive Literature, University of Iceland, Iceland |
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| Sculpted by algorithms: Weight stigma and body ideals in AI-generated fitness imagery Kat Schneider, Centre for Appearance Research, University of the West of England, UK |
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| A sticky matter: Early modernity, fat and cleanliness Kathleen M Self, Dept of Religious Studies, St Lawrence University, USA |
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| Fat people dancing Johann Michael Schober, Veronika Merklein, Artists |
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| The fat suit as a solution: Theatrical approaches to weight justice in Lardo Weeping Jordan Mattson, Theatre and Performance Studies, Florida State Univerity, USA |
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| 11:45–12:00 | Short break | |
| 12:00–12:45 | Oral Presentations 2: Health and Wellbeing | |
| Weight stigma as a somatic stressor: Interoceptive pathways to chronic pain Janell L Mensinger, Dept of Clinical and School Psychology, Nova Southeastern University, USA |
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| Beyond the burn: How fat microaggressions shape exercise motivation and experiences Becky Scott, Dept of Psychology, University of Essex, UK |
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| Examining implicit and internalized weight bias as predictors of exercise-related cognitive errors and physical activity avoidance for women in larger bodies Jazz Jabbar, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, Brock University, Canada |
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| “If I can accept my queerness, I can accept my body as it is”: Understanding weight-related perspectives and stigma from sexual minority women and non-binary adults Lauren A Fowler, Dept of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, University of South Carolina, USA |
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| 12:45–14:00 |
Lunch |
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| 14:00–15:00 | Oral Presentations 3: International Perspectives | |
| Weight stigma in Norway: Preliminary insights Carina Elisabeth Carlsen, The Centre for Equality, Norway |
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| Weight stigma in the Global South: Clinical practice, access, and ethical care beyond high-income settings Mónica Peralta, Physician, Diabetes Educator, and ED specialist, Managua, Nicaragua |
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| Weight stigma and engagement in physical health behaviours among young adults in India Ankita Sehrawat, School of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK |
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| Examining bidirectional relationships among weight bias internalization, body image flexibility, and intuitive eating: An 8-month longitudinal study in Chinese adults Kathryn Pasquariello, Dept of Psychology, Suffolk University, USA |
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| Contributions of fat and queer thinking to eco-cultural transformation Izchel Adriana Cosio Barroso, Departamento de Estudios Experimentales Rurales, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico |
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| 15:00–15:15 | Short Break | |
| 15:15–16:15 | Oral Presentations 4: Healthcare | |
| Size-inclusive care policies: Expert clinician interviews guided by the Health Equity Implementation Framework Hillary K Hecht, Dept of Health Policy & Management, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA |
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| Stigma-driven barriers to care: Weight-related predictors of healthcare avoidance among Black adults Virginia Ramseyer Winter, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, USA |
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| A body-based revolution meets a movement-based practice: Physiotherapists becoming HAES® Patty Thille, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Manitoba, Canada |
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| Nuance is necessary: Gaps in providers’ adoption of weight-inclusive care Mindy L McEntee, College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, USA |
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| Developing medical advocacy resources by fat community, for fat community National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance |
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| 16:30–18:30 | Poster Session and Reception | |
Day 2
| Day 2 | ||
| 9:00–9:30 | Registration | |
| 9:30–10:30 | Breakout Session Option 1: Pregnancy Symposium | Breakout Session Option 2: Workshop |
| Measurement, prevalence, and outcomes of weight stigma in perinatal healthcare settings: A systematic review Ashleigh A Armanasco, Sydney School of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Australia |
Measuring what matters: Moving beyond body mass index to advance inclusive health with heart rate variability and embodied well-being Janell L Mensinger, Dept of Clinical and School Psychology, Nova Southeastern University, USA |
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| What could weight-inclusive fertility care look like in practice? Rebecca Muir, Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, UK |
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| Fattening abortion care: Fat people’s abortion experiences and access to care Alex Bruno, Faculty of Law and Criminology, University of Greenwich, UK |
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| Weight stigma in fertility care: Moving shame from bodies to systems Nicola Salmon, Fat Fertility Coach |
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| 10:30–10:45 | Short Break | |
| 10:45–11:45 | Breakout Session: Option 1: Workshop | Breakout Session: Option 2: Workshop |
| Burlesque Workshop Fifi von Tassel, Performer, Norway |
From stigma to solutions: Co-creating best-practice values and principles for size-inclusive health promotion Evangeline Gardiner, Centre for Community Health and Wellbeing, University of Queensland, Australia |
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| 11:30–11:45 | Short Break | |
| 12:00–13:00 | Oral Presentations 5: Activism & Advocacy | |
| Breaking barriers: Addressing weight stigma through size-inclusive business practices Joan Denizot, Body Ready LLC, USA |
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| From pathologization to bodily justice: Rethinking university health policies from an intersectional transnational perspective Desirée Farfán González, University of Cádiz, Spain |
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| Fat social justice: Annual fat activism gatherings in Argentina as a space for community building and social change Laura Contrera, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina |
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| The activist and scholar: Evaluating the influence of TED talks on attitudes towards fatness Trish Cain, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Australia |
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| The 2025 International Declaration of Weight Stigma and Size and Weight Inclusion Lily O’Hara, School of Medicine and Dentistry, Griffith University, Australia |
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| 13:00–14:00 | Lunch | |
| 14:00–15:00 | Breakout Session: Option 1: GLP-1s Symposium | Breakout Session: Option 2 |
| Children’s autonomy, weight stigma, and the ethical challenges of GLP-1 use in paediatric care Nanette Ryan, Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore |
Taking up space: Reimagining fat gaming avatars through co-created user personas Brooke Hull, Dept of Graphic Design, Pennsylvania State University, USA; Aisha Sobey, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge, UK |
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| Cheating, stigma, and health: Latinx adolescents’ social media-shaped views on Ozempic and body positivity Stephanie L Albert, Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, USA |
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| Challenging the boundaries between care and pharmacological treatment: Anti-stigma language and the promotion of weight-loss pharmacotherapies Lisa Moura, Instituto de Medicina Social Hesio Cordeiro, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
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| The moral and social negotiations of the medicated body: A qualitative study on the attitudes towards and experiences of GLP-1RAs for weight loss Ruby Good, Dept of Psychology, University of Essex, UK |
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| 15:00–15:15 | Short Break | |
| 15:15–16:15 | Keynote Presentation | |
| Angel Austin Association for Size Diversity and Health, USA The Stigma-to-Structural Change Pipeline: Building systems that don’t require fat people to shrink |
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| 16:15–16:30 | Prizes and Close | |
Posters
| 1 | Under-represented voices: Latin American women’s weight concerns and disordered eating behaviors Mónica Peralta, Clinician, Nicaragua, et al. |
| 2 | Body appreciation mediates relationships between weight stigma and HRQOL for Black Americans Elizabeth O’Neill, Social Work Department, Washburn University, USA, et al. |
| 3 | Implicit bodily knowledge and practical epistemic injustice Halie White, Dept of Philosophy, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA |
| 4 | Associations among social privilege, beliefs about weight controllability, and attitudes toward fatness Laura Di Pietro, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy; Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, et al. |
| 5 | Weight stigma internalization and coping responses across BMI Helena Pipová, Dept of Psychology, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic, et al. |
| 6 | The social assessment: How pain origin impacts perceptions of chronic pain in higher-weight individuals Madison Eagle, Dept of Psychology, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Canada, et al. |
| 7 | Retouched and resized: Examining the relationship between external weight stigma, internal weight bias, and photo-editing behaviors Brooke L Bennett, Dept of Psychology, Clemson University, USA |
| 8 | The dramaturgical labour of fat embodiment: A longitudinal qualitative study Lucinda D Richardson, Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, UK |
| 9 | Thickening the archive: A critical analysis of fat representation within UK museum fashion collections and recommendations towards a fat liberatory collecting practice Larissa Jennings, National Museums Liverpool, UK |
| 10 | Moderating effects of weight stigma on the BMI-body dissatisfaction relationship: Challenging assumptions through resisting sizeism Maria Fernanda Carriel Sarmiento, Dept of Clinical and School Psychology, Nova Southeastern University, USA et al. |
| 11 | God likes bit butts and God cannot lie Kelly Collins, Methodist Theological School in Ohio, USA |
| 12 | Structural weight stigma in healthcare: Mechanisms and consequences Magdalyn Hallead, Healthcare Management, Michigan State University, USA et al. |
| 13 | “I was bullied as a child, and it still shapes my life”: Using autoethnography to understand the lasting impacts of childhood bullying Gurnoor Kaur Suri, Dept of Sociology, Dept of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Canada |
| 14 | “Being fat and sex working, it’s saying all of that, fuck you”: Embodied resistance in fat bodies and sex work Alex Bruno, Faculty of Law and Criminology, University of Greenwich, UK |
| 15 | Eating away at me: An exploration of the lived experience of people with binge eating disorder Sophiia deFaia, Dept of Social Sciences and Nursing, Solent University, UK |
| 16 | “Less weight should be given to weight”: A qualitative exploration of the framing and experiences of weight stigma amongst health professionals and people with lived experience in the East Riding of Yorkshire Chloe Singleton, Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK |
| 17 | Beyond BMI: A qualitative comparative analysis of weight stigma instruments and identification of research gaps in the Taiwanese context Leon Li-Hsiang Yang, Dept of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan, et al. |
| 18 | Person-centred care to reduce weight stigma in MRI practice Tuva Granbo, St Olavs University Hospital, Norway |
| 19 | Blessed, thin, and selling it: Faith, fatphobia, and post-feminism in multi-level marketing discourses Taylor McAulay, Dept of Psychology, University of New Brunswick, Canada, et al. |
| 20 | Trouble in the story: How fictional narratives elicit reflection on weight stigma in physiotherapy Mary Osunlusi, Dept of Physical Therapy, University of Manitoba, Canada, et al. |
| 21 | Seeing weight: Sex differences in the associations of BMI and interviewer-rated attractiveness in a nationally representative U.S. survey Kacey Thigpen, School of Social Work, University of Connecticut, USA |
| 22 | Barriers and facilitators to the confrontation of intergroup bias and weight stigma: A systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis informing future focus groups and interventions Lilith Roberts, School of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK |
| 23 | Co-designing weight-neutral triage: An invitation Helen James, VCSE Nutriri, UK |