“They are fat and want special treatment for being fat”: Backlash to and lay theories of fat activism

Fat activism is a movement that seeks to acknowledge and eliminate the oppression of fat people. The movement and those who participate face significant backlash, yet fat activism is understudied. We sought to understand lay theories about fat activism; that is, how everyday people think about the goals and motivations of fat activism, and people who engage in fat activism, to understand how these perceptions shape support for and backlash toward fat activism. In Study 1 (N = 294), we qualitatively elucidated lay theories of fat activism in a US nationally representative sample. We identified lay theories that both represented neutral or positive perceptions of fat activism (e.g., oriented around increasing rights for fat people) and lay theories that captured more hostile perceptions of and backlash toward fat activism (e.g., enabling unhealthiness). Building on Study 1 findings indicating fat women are characterized as most likely to engage in fat activism, Study 2 (N = 349) manipulated gender (woman, man) and body size (fat, thin) of hypothetical fat activists. Relative to thin people, fat people engaging in fat activism were perceived to have more hostile goals and more experiential and negative motives, and their fat activism was perceived more negatively overall.