I am interested in the effects of experienced and internalised weight stigma and their impact on health and wellbeing outcomes. I’m also interested in why some people internalise societal weight stigma whereas others actively resist or fight back. Is resistance futile, or should we be pursuing it? Is it beneficial to the individual? And does resistance influence others’ prejudicial attitudes?
A second, related line of research looks at how societal fat phobia directly and indirectly hinders fat people in developing an active identity. Whether via actual or anticipated traumatic experiences, or through the erasure of positive active fat role models, fat people are robbed of the many benefits that physical activity can bring (and no, weight loss is NOT one of them). Read more here.
Angela Meadows 