Over the past decade, concerns about a global «obesity epidemic» have flourished. Public health messages around physical activity, fitness, and nutrition permeate society despite significant evidence disputing the «facts» we have come to believe about «obesity». We live in a culture that privileges thinness and enables weight-based oppression, often expressed as fat phobia and fat bullying. New interdisciplinary fields that problematize «obesity» have emerged, including critical obesity studies, critical weight studies, and fat studies. There also is a small but growing literature examining weight-based oppression in educational settings in what has come to be called «fat pedagogy». The very first book of its kind, The Fat Pedagogy Reader brings together an international, interdisciplinary roster of respected authors who share heartfelt stories of oppression, privilege, resistance, and action; fascinating descriptions of empirical research; confessional tales of pedagogical (mis)adventures; and diverse accounts of educational interventions that show promise. Taken together, the authors illuminate both possibilities and pitfalls for fat pedagogy that will be of interest to scholars, educators, and social justice activists. Concluding with a fat pedagogy manifesto, the book lays a solid foundation for this important and exciting new field. This book could be adopted in courses in fat studies, critical weight studies, bodies and embodiment, fat pedagogy, feminist pedagogy, gender and education, critical pedagogy, social justice education, and diversity in education.

The Routledge International Handbook of Fat Studies brings together a diverse body of work from around the globe and across a wide range of Fat Studies topics and perspectives. The first major collection of its kind, it explores the epistemology, ontology, and methodology of fatness, with attention to issues such as gender and sexuality, disability and embodiment, health, race, media, discrimination, and pedagogy. Presenting work from both scholarly writers and activists, this volume reflects a range of critical perspectives vital to the expansion of Fat Studies and thus constitutes an essential resource for researchers in the field.

Winner of the 2010 Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology Winner of the 2010 Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Edited Volume in Women’s Studies from the Popular Culture Association A milestone anthology of fifty-three voices on the burgeoning scholarly movement—fat studies We have all seen the segments on television news shows: A fat person walking on the sidewalk, her face out of frame so she can't be identified, as some disconcerting findings about the "obesity epidemic" stalking the nation are read by a disembodied voice. And we have seen the movies—their obvious lack of large leading actors silently speaking volumes. From the government, health industry, diet industry, news media, and popular culture we hear that we should all be focused on our weight. But is this national obsession with weight and thinness good for us? Or is it just another form of prejudice—one with especially dire consequences for many already disenfranchised groups? For decades a growing cadre of scholars has been examining the role of body weight in society, critiquing the underlying assumptions, prejudices, and effects of how people perceive and relate to fatness. This burgeoning movement, known as fat studies, includes scholars from every field, as well as activists, artists, and intellectuals. The Fat Studies Reader is a milestone achievement, bringing together fifty-three diverse voices to explore a wide range of topics related to body weight. From the historical construction of fatness to public health policy, from job discrimination to social class disparities, from chick-lit to airline seats, this collection covers it all. Edited by two leaders in the field, The Fat Studies Reader is an invaluable resource that provides a historical overview of fat studies, an in-depth examination of the movement’s fundamental concerns, and an up-to-date look at its innovative research.

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Obesity Studies is an authoritative and challenging guide to the breadth and depth of critical thinking and theory on obesity. Rather than focusing on obesity as a public health crisis to be solved, this reference work offers divergent and radical strategies alongside biomedical and positivist discourses. Comprised of thirty nine original chapters from internationally recognised academics, as well as emerging scholars, the Handbook engages students, academics, researchers and practitioners in contemporary critical scholarship on obesity; encourages engagement of social science and related disciplines in critical thinking and theorising on obesity; enhances critical theoretical and methodological work in the area, highlighting potential gaps as well as strengths; relates critical scholarship to new and evolving areas of obesity-related practices, policies and research. This multidisciplinary and international collection is designed for a broad audience of academics, researchers, students and practitioners within the social and health sciences, including sociology, obesity science, public health, medicine, sports studies, fat studies, psychology, nutrition science, education and disability studies.

Within the overlapping fields of the sociology of sport, physical education and health education, the use of critical theories and the critical research paradigm has grown in scope. Yet what social impact has this research had? This book considers the capacity of critical research and associated social theory to play an active role in challenging social injustices or at least in ‘making a difference’ within health and physical education (HPE) and sporting contexts. It also examines how the use of different social theories impacts sport policies, national curricula and health promotion activities, as well as the practices of HPE teaching and sport training and competition. Critical Research in Sport, Health and Physical Education is a valuable resource for academics and students working in the fields of research methods, sociology of sport, physical education and health. Chapter 5 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Theoretically informed and empirically grounded, Rethinking Obesity invites readers to reconsider the medical and public health framing of population weight (gain) as a massive global problem, epidemic or crisis. Attentive to social values, scientific uncertainty and possible harms, the book furthers critique of the weight-centred health paradigm and world war on obesity. Building upon existing international literature from critical weight studies, fat studies and critical obesity research, the book advances scholarship with reference to body politics and health policy, epidemiology and obesity science, media reporting and weight-related stigma. The authors resist the common moralised narrative that ‘the overweight majority’ are lazy, gluttonous, and personally responsible for their actual or potential ills and the solution ultimately necessitates individual lifestyle change. Critique is also extended to seemingly compassionate public health interventions that putatively avoid victim-blaming through an appeal to ‘the obesogenic environment’, a consequence of modern living. Empirical case studies are grounded in women’s repeated and often frustrating experiences of dieting and schoolgirls’ encounters with fat pedagogy, which challenges dominant obesity discourse. Recognising that declared public health crises may become layered and cascade through society, this book also includes timely research on the COVID-19 pandemic response amidst concerns about lockdown weight-gain, heightened risk of infection and death among people deemed overweight and obese. Rethinking Obesity interrogates how social injustice is reproduced not only through cruelty but also through seemingly benevolent representations, pedagogies and policies. Alternative approaches and action, ranging from weight-inclusive health paradigms to broader social change, are also considered when seeking to foster collective hope in crisis times. This is valuable reading for students and researchers in medical sociology, social and population health sciences, physical education, critical weight and fat studies, and the social dimensions of the body.

Weight stigma is so pervasive in our culture that it is often unnoticed, along with the harm that it causes. Health care is rife with anti-fat bias and discrimination against fat people, which compromises care and influences the training of new practitioners. This book explores how this happens and how we can change it. This interdisciplinary volume is grounded in a framework that challenges the dominant discourse that health in fat individuals must be improved through weight loss. The first part explores the negative impacts of bias, discrimination, and other harms by health care providers against fat individuals. The second part addresses how we can ‘fatten’ pedagogy for current and future health care providers, discussing how we can address anti-fat bias in education for health professionals and how alternative frameworks, such as Health at Every Size, can be successfully incorporated into training so that health outcomes for fat people improve. Examining what works and what fails in teaching health care providers to truly care for the health of fat individuals without further stigmatizing them or harming them, this book is for scholars and practitioners with an interest in fat studies and health education from a range of backgrounds, including medicine, nursing, social work, nutrition, physiotherapy, psychology, sociology, education and gender studies.

The School Leadership Survival Guide: What to Do When Things Go Wrong, How to Learn from Mistakes, and Why You Should Prepare for the Worst is intended as an uncommon guide for school leaders and a resource they can turn to when confronted with issues they might not normally face in typical practice. The book serves as a bridge between research and day-to-day school leadership, and is intended to help leaders and school communities improve in areas they routinely avoid. In this sense, the book is meant as a “go to” resource for principals, those who train and teach them, and scholars. Although authors recognize the complexity of issues raised in the book, each chapter has a “How to” “What to do” or “Why You Should” ethos in order to give the book a unifying structure and help provide a practical translation of research and theory into practice. Some of the issues addressed include: How to elevate student voice; How to navigate religious conflict in the school and community; How to improve support for LGBTIQ students; Why You Should develop a natural disaster plan; How to work against racism in the school and community; How to practice inclusion in the school; How to make a vision and mission come to life; How to manage relationships with difficult people; What to do when there is racial tension in the community; How to learn the history of your school and community—and why that matters; How to guide and support a leadership team, and; What to do in a school with low trust.

**Winner of a 2022 American Educational Studies Association Critics′ Choice Book Award** This extensive Handbook brings together different aspects of critical pedagogy in order to open up a clear international conversation on the subject, as well as pushing the boundaries of current understanding by extending the notion of a pedagogy to multiple pedagogies and perspectives. Bringing together contributing authors from around the globe, chapters provide a unique approach and insight to the discipline by crossing a range of disciplines and articulating common philosophical and social themes. Chapters are organised across three volumes and twelve core thematic sections: Part 1: Social Theories of Critical Pedagogy Part 2: Seminal Figures in Critical Pedagogy Part 3: Transnational Perspectives and Critical Pedagogy Part 4: Indigenous Perspectives and Critical Pedagogy Part 5: On Education Part 6: In Classrooms Part 7: Critical Community Praxis Part 8: Reading Critical Pedagogy, Reading Paulo Freire Part 9: Communication, Media and Popular Culture Part 10: Arts and Aesthetics Part 11: Critical Youth Pedagogies Part 12: Technoscience, Ecology and Wellness The SAGE Handbook of Critical Pedagogies is an essential benchmark publication for advanced students, researchers and practitioners across a wide range of disciplines including education, health, sociology, anthropology and development studies

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER By the time they reach kindergarten, most kids believe that “fat” is bad. By middle school, more than a quarter of them have gone on a diet. What are parents supposed to do? Kids learn, as we’ve all learned, that thinness is a survival strategy in a world that equates body size and value. Parents worry if their kids care too much about being thin, but even more about the consequences if they aren’t. And multibillion-dollar industries thrive on this fear of fatness. We’ve fought the “war on obesity” for over forty years and Americans aren’t thinner or happier with their bodies. But it’s not our kids—or their weight—who need fixing. In this illuminating narrative, journalist Virginia Sole-Smith exposes the daily onslaught of fatphobia and body shaming that kids face from school, sports, doctors, diet culture, and parents themselves—and offers strategies for how families can change the conversation around weight, health, and self-worth. Fat Talk is a stirring, deeply researched, and groundbreaking book that will help parents learn to reckon with their own body biases, identify diet culture, and empower their kids to navigate this challenging landscape. Sole-Smith draws on her extensive reporting and interviews with dozens of parents and kids to offer a provocative new approach for thinking about food and bodies, and a way for us all to work toward a more weight-inclusive world.