Recontextualising weight stigma: health sciences and fat studies in dialogue

Both obesity and weight stigma are recognised as public health problems warranting intervention. Within health sciences, weight stigma is typically framed as a by-product of rising obesity rates, caused by the stigmatising behaviours of individuals. Contrasting this individualised framing of the issue, fat studies scholars have elucidated the broader structural and historical roots of stigma relating to higher weight. This review offers a conceptual overview of weight stigma across health science and fat studies, first examining health science conceptualisations, and then synthesising genealogical fat studies scholarship that elucidates how the origins of weight stigma (oft termed anti-fat ideology) can be attributed to influences of race science, puritanism, misogyny, and commercial interests. Through this critical historical frame, weight stigma pre-dated, and even arguably influenced, the enshrinement of ‘obesity’ as a public health problem. Reflecting on this gap between health sciences and fat studies conceptualisations of weight stigma and its conceptual relationship to obesity, we discuss approaches toward a discrimination-focused approach to tackling weight stigma that supports anti-discrimination protections and critically examines the stigmatising dimensions of obesity prevention and treatment efforts.