Holding Space For People Just Trying To Survive: The Inclusion Of Fat Students In Higher Education
Date
2022-05
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Fatness is not a part of the analysis surrounding the inclusion of students in
Higher Education. Oppression based on body-size, and critical obesity scholarship is
integral to understanding how institutions welcome people. Examining support
provided to fat students, this analysis provides space for fat students to talk about their
experiences using focus groups from a snowball sample of people who self-identify as
fat. This analysis deliberately avoids a focus on fatness through the lens of disability
or disease. Utilizing primarily lexicon sourced from grassroots Fat activists, this paper
expands upon the fat spectrum and how fatness cannot be plotted linearly. With
intersectionality in mind, this paper uses Queer theory to challenge binary conceptions
of fatness and the shorthand fat people use to discuss inequities. The interviews from
this project led to the existence of a “fat ecosystem” which emerges from this project
to better describe the fluidity of people’s identities. While participants detailed the
rigidness of their opportunities within higher education, their own introspection is
dynamic and ever-changning much like an ecosystem. Despite participant’s
willingness to adapt to stressful situations, this project also resulted in the coining of
the theory “fat essentialism.” This theory acknoledges the rigid path that is set forth
for fat people, which includes loss of opportunities and pigeonholing them into labels
they do not claim. Most participants had been labeled as fat before they knew what
body size diversity meant and for some participants this condemned them from
pursuing their life’s passions. Fat students use survival tactics to cope with their
determined paths. These tactics includes fight, flight, and appease, these instincts are used in Adeverse Childhood Experiences to explain how survivors of gender-based
violence experience trauma but had not yet been applied to fat students. This project
examines how fat people’s wellbeing and health outcomes are in danger because of the
way they are treated and limited by the labeling of fatness. Instead of addressing
fatness through a health-centered approach this project challenges institutions to have
discussions about the fat student experience in spaces of diversity, equity, and
inclusion to encourage institutional restructuring.
Description
Keywords
Fat essentialism, Queer theory, Body size diversity