“I’m fat and proud of it”: Body size diversity and fat acceptance activism in Spain

ABSTRACT

Hegemonic representations of body size and beauty often have negative and painful impacts on fat people. Fat individuals face social discrimination because of the stigma associated with fatness and because of weight-based stereotypes. In Spain, fat activism has emerged in the last decade. Social networks are used by this movement as one of the principal means of redefining fatness and disputing prescriptive standards of body health and beauty. The narratives and iconography found on these websites, managed mainly by women, contest fat phobia not only by advocating for inclusive public policies, but also by reclaiming fatness as a possible form of subversive identity. This identity is constructed by challenging the representation of fat bodies as diseased and in need of medical intervention, and emphasizes recognition of variability in and multiple experiences of body size.

KEYWORDS:

• Fat activism
• social networks
• multiple bodies
• Spain

Acknowledgments

In memoriam Susan M. DiGiacomo (1951-2019), PhD, our colleague in the Department of Social Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Work at University Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain) who recently passed away. She translated and edited this manuscript. Gone but never forgotten, she will always be in our hearts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Figure 2. Text figure translation. The first picture says “Women’s freedom of expression!!”. The second picture: “Fat commando presents: Kabaret (free entrance) Saturday 8th June. CSO The Quimera. Nelson Mandela Square. Metro stations: Lavapies or Tirso de Molina. Madrid. ”.

2. Figure 3. Text figure translation: “Fat women … /Fat women, like everyone else, do whatever they want”.

Figure 2. Images from Orgullo Gordo and a flyer for a cabaret from Komando Gordix in Cuerpos Empoderados¹.

3. Figure 4. Text figure translation. Picture 2: “My body doesn’t want your opinion”.

Figure 3. Images from Orgullo Gordo on the diversity of bodies, and from WeLoversize on agency².

4. Figure 5. Text figures translation. Picture 1 “Which one is unhealthy? None, all of them are just drawings. You would not say anything about a person’s health just by looking at their size, unless you just base your opinion on your own preconceived notions about what you are seeing”. Picture 2 “We are the hypervisible invisible, the double morality and your hypocrisy, the aesthetic critique disguised as health, the discomfort in your eyes, in your space, in your uniformity. We are the breakdown of your rules, disobedience and excess, overflow and sin. Dissidence. We are the women you wish didn’t’t exist. But we exist. And we are not going to ask for forgiveness or permission”.

Figure 5. Images from Cuerpos Empoderados and Orgullo Gordo⁴.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lina Casadó-Marín

Lina Casadó-Marín is an associate professor in the Department of Nursing and researcher at the Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC) at University Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain. Her research interests include gendered agency and theories of embodiment. She has been involved in a number of national and international projects focused on food, gender and culture.

Mabel Gracia-Arnaiz is a professor in the Department of Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Work and researcher at the Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC) at University Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain. Her research interests are focused on the sociocultural study of food, gender and health. Spain and Mexico are her ethnographic areas of specialization.