Where Has Fat Activism Gone?

Lizzy Russo

WGSS 275

OpEd #3

Where Has Fat Activism Gone?

This past spring, in Soho, New York, a giant billboard for Calvin Klein (CK) featured the rapper Chika. She was wearing nothing but CK undergarments. This was big news because Chika is what author Charlotte Cooper would describe as fat. Usually, CK features traditionally skinny supermodels like Kate Moss and Kendall Jenner, but because of the recent backlash, they decided to use a plus-size person for their newest ad campaigns. It is true that many people want to see plus-size models in advertisements. People want to see more real people in the media. This does not exactly mean though that people are accepting of fat people. As a society, we still see fat people as lazy and unmotivated. We still have a prejudice against them and degrade them. This is why fat activism is needed, and not just more inclusive ad campaigns. We need more radical fat activism to make any change in our society. This is the only way for there to be any real acceptance of diverse body types. 

Calvin Klein Chika Ad

It is true that we are beginning to see more “fat” people in the media. A big reason for this is because of the influence of social media. Social media platforms like Instagram are becoming epicenters for fat activism. Instagrammers like Katie Przbyl are at the forefront of Instagram fat activism. Przbyl’s Instagram account is mostly close-up pictures of her eating food. She describes her account as “...happy fat people living their lives…”. Her pictures have created a whole community of fat people who are accepting themselves and embracing their fatness. Przbyl’s main goal with her pictures is to make other fat people feel comfortable with their bodies and to tell them that it’s ok to enjoy food. Pictures similar to Przbyl’s have become a trend on Instagram. Women, mostly fat, have begun posting pictures with the hashtag #womeneatingfood with the goal of normalizing fat people. Is this really fat activism? Is posting pictures to Instagram really making a change in society? No,this isn’t really fat activism. According to the book, Fat Activism by Charlotte Cooper fat activism is a political process. It involves public engagement which can include public protests, debates, and letter writing. Fat activism relies on visibility. The problem with fat activism existing on social media is that it is not visible to the public. With social media, especially Instagram, you can tailor your feed to be exactly what you want it to be. If you do not want to see pictures of fat women eating food then you do not have to. The people that are mostly seeing these pictures are the ones who are already participating in the hashtag. This creates an echo chamber. People outside of this trend are not seeing the pictures. This is not really fat activism because the public is not being engaged. There are no protests or debates going on. The whole point of fat activism is to make a change by reaching a large audience. If people are posting these pictures and only people like them are seeing them, then a mass audience is not being engaged. Change is not being made. 

Katie Przbyl's Instagram pictures

Part of what used to make fat activism so successful in its early years in the 70s and 80s was that there were numerous organizations involved. One organization that is heavily referenced by Cooper is the London Fat Women’s Group. What made them such a successful group despite only existing for a few years was because they were extremely visible to the public. They were visible because they were often featured in mainstream media. Something else that the group did that made them successful was that they held a very well attended conference. The London Fat Women’s Group conference was a way for fat people to come together and have constructive conversations about what it meant to be fat as well as how to make changes in society. It became a very high profile event with lots of media coverage. This is a very stark contrast to what fat activism is today. With social media fat activism, there is not real-world engagement between activists. There is very little mainstream media coverage. One large reason for there being little real-world engagement in modern fat activism is because of the declining social capital in America especially. Social capital is the health of interpersonal relationships, mainly referring to the health of community organizations. According to the author Leo Doran in their piece “Erosion of Social Capital a Major Problem, Say Experts”, community organizations are places for constructive dialogue. They are places where major issues are discussed and hashed out. In America, we are losing this vital face to face interaction. Americans are becoming more and more isolated due to this decline in social capital. This is a major disadvantage to the fat activism movement. As seen with the London Fat Women’s Group, having a community group to meet with and have discussions can be very valuable and allows for real changes to be made. Doran states that social capital can be increased by increasing the trust between people. The only way to do this is by having face to face conversations with others. This cannot be done online. Social media is hindering social capital. Having community organizations would be a great service to the fat activism movement. The movement cannot exist exclusively on the internet.

I do acknowledge that social media can be good. It can be a valuable resource in getting a productive conversation started. It is also a great way to meet people from across the country and even across the world. It’s a very valuable tool in getting information out to people very quickly. In those ways, social media can be great for helping the fat activism movement, but the movement cannot stop at Instagram! Having fat activism move off of social media and to real-life community groups would do the movement a great service.

According to Cooper, fat activism is very public and grabs the attention of mainstream media. Right now fat activism does not do that. Right now fat activism exists mainly on social media. Yes, we are seeing more people in advertisements and on TV that are plus-sized, but those are models and actors. For everyday fat people to have more rights and to be persecuted less fat activism needs to have more attention. Fat activism needs to move off of the internet and into community spaces because online activism is not what fat activism is.