Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell with three women embracing the radical practice of finding joy in big bodies. Fat bodies are often stigmatised, stereotyped, shamed, medicalised, and politicised. Even the word F.A.T gets denigrated. But there is another way. Reckoning with eating disorders and society's limitations, Dani, Evie, and Kalpana are no longer holding back from the delights of food, fashion, dance, ocean swimming, and more. Hear why, for them, the personal is political. But can expectations to be fat and jolly become a burden too? What about the radical act of just being and big?

This event was hosted and organised by the inaugural Fat Joy Festival and the 11th International Weight Stigma Conference

Speakers

Dani Galvin (aka Dani Adriana)Content creator and body positivity and mental health advocateFat peer support facilitatorCo-creator, plus-size pop-culture inspired costumes and accessoriesBachelor of Counselling graduate

Evie (Evangeline) GardenerPublic health researcher and advocatePhD studentUniversity of Queensland

Kalpana PrasadPerformer, facilitator, choreographer with Bring a Plate Dance companyPostgraduate speech pathology studentDisability support worker

Thanks to Dr Lily O'Hara from Griffith University, the convenor of the Fat Joy Festival and the 11th International Weight Stigma Conference.

Further reading and viewing

How we think about obesity and body weight is changing, here's why (article co-athored by Evie Gardener)

The Real Cost of Appearance Ideals and Discrimination report (The Butterfly Foundation)

Fat Joy Podcast

The body is not an apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

What we talk about when we talk about FAT by Aubrey Gordon

You have the right to remain fat by Virgie Tovar

"Fat" isn't a bad word — it's just a way I describe my body by Aubrey Gordon 

Selling Stigma: Afflictive Power and Fat Oppression - presentation by Rachel Fox