It’s Weight Stigma Awareness Week (WSAW), an initiative from the Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA) with the goals of:
- increasing awareness of the pervasiveness and destructive nature of weight stigma, and
- providing effective strategies for combating the problem.
It’s a packed week with activities such as:
- A blog conference with over 40 prominent bloggers—many of them ASDAH members—writing on everything from weight stigma viewed through the eating disorders lens, to weight stigma in diverse populations and more.
- Two video interviews, one on “When Liking Your Body Seems Impossible” and the other reviewing new weight stigma research.
- A tweet chat with Ralph Carson, PhD, RD, on the neurobiology of weight stigma.
- Several powerful toolkit articles designed to help healthcare professionals and the public alike recognize and combat weight stigma, and understand how the focus on weight loss contributes to the development of binge eating disorder. Again, key articles were written by ASDAH members.
Last week, Fall Ferguson kicked off a discussion of weight stigma on this blog as a prelude to WSAW. In her post, Fall issued a call to action, saying
we need to make the voices of all people treated badly or judged because of their size or weight—large, small, thin, fat—audible to folks who ordinarily can’t hear them.”
WSAW is an effort to amplify that voice into a roar. To add the Health At Every Size® Blog voice to the roar, we invite you to share your thoughts, experiences, and strategies here for combating weight stigma. How has the HAES® approach made a difference in helping people understand the issues? Do you have any special events planned in honor of the week? Do tell….