The Fat Pedagogy Reader: Challenging Weight-Based Oppression Through Critical Education

Description

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. Cover Acknowledgments Preface (Marilyn Wann) Introduction (Erin Cameron and Constance Russell) Part One: Storying Fat Pedagogy Chapter One: Picking the Bones (Ellen S. Abell) Chapter Two: Fat Invisibility, Fat Hate: Towards a Progressive Pedagogy of Size (Tracy Royce) “Chapter Three: How Can You Be Teaching This?”: Tears, Fears, and Fat (Victoria Kannen) Chapter Four: Reflections on Thin Privilege and Responsibility (Linda Bacon, Caitlin O’Reilly, and Lucy Aphramor) Part Two: Practicing Fat Pedagogies Chapter Five: Promise to Try: Combating Fat Oppression Through Pedagogy in Tertiary Education (Cat Pausé) Chapter Six: Teaching Fat Studies in a Liberal Arts College: The Centrality of Mindfulness, Deep Listening, and Empathic Interpretation as Pedagogic Methods (Amy E. Farrell) Chapter Seven: Weapons of Mass Distraction in Teaching Fat Studies: “But Aren’t They Unhealthy? And Why Can’t They Just Lose Weight?” (Esther D. Rothblum) Chapter Eight: Creating Space for a Critical Examination of Weight-Centered Approaches in Health Pedagogy and Health Professions (Pamela Ward, Natalie Beausoleil, and Olga Heath) Chapter Nine: The Enemy Within: Teaching “Hard Knowledges” About “Soft Bodies” in a Kinesiology Faculty (Moss Norman and LeAnne Petherick) Chapter Ten: “Obesity” Warriors in the Tertiary Classroom (Lisette Burrows) Part Three: Researching Fat Pedagogies Chapter Eleven: Fat Bullying of Girls in Elementary and Secondary Schools: Implications for Teacher Education (Hannah McNinch) Chapter Twelve: Critical Pedagogical Strategies to Disrupt Weight Bias in Schools (Richard Pringle and Darren Powell) Chapter Thirteen: Recognizing and Representing Bodies of Difference Through Art Education (Lori Don Levan) Chapter Fourteen: Moving Beyond Body Image: A Socio-critical Approach to Teaching About Health and Body Size (Jan Wright and Deana Leahy) Chapter Fifteen: Promoting Physical Activity for All Shapes and Sizes (Angela S. Alberga and Shelly Russell-Mayhew) Chapter Sixteen: Inclusion of Fat Studies in a Difference, Power, and Discrimination Curriculum (Patti Lou Watkins) Chapter Seventeen: Learning to Teach Every Body: Exploring the Emergence of a Critical “Obesity” Pedagogy (Erin Cameron) Chapter Eighteen: An “Intervention” Into Public Health Interventions: Questioning the Weight-Based Paradigm (Krishna Bhagat and Shannon Jette) Chapter Nineteen: Mitigating Weight Stigma Through Health Professional Education (Caitlin O’Reilly) Chapter Twenty: Fat Studies in the Field of Higher Education: Developing a Theoretical Framework and Its Implications for Research and Practice (Heather Brown) Chapter Twenty One: We Take “Cow” as a Compliment: Fattening Humane, Environmental, and Social Justice Education (Constance Russell and Keri Semenko) Chapter Twenty Two: A Tale of Three Classrooms: Fat Studies and Its Intellectual Allies (Breanne Fahs) Chapter Twenty Three: A Public Pedagogy Approach to Fat Pedagogy (Emma Rich) Chapter Twenty Four: Navigating Morality, Politics, and Reason: Towards Scientifically Literate and Intellectually Ethical Fat Pedagogies (Michael Gard) Conclusion: A Fat Pedagogy Manifesto (Constance Russell and Erin Cameron) Biographical Statements for Contributors Author Index Subject Index