Fatphobia constitutes a form of structural oppression that permeates social, educational, and sporting practices, producing historically naturalized exclusions and bodily hierarchies in physical education and sport. In the context of digital media, bodily activism emerges as a space for contesting meanings and producing counter-hegemonic discourses. This study analyzes how the discursive productions of Ellen Valias, a Black and fat amateur athlete, on Instagram, operate as practices of contesting hegemonic norms of body, health, and ability in physical education and sport, from an intersectional perspective. This is a qualitative, interpretive, case study, with a corpus composed of ten posts published on the profile @atletadeₚeso between 2022 and 2023. The analysis is based on critical discourse analysis, articulated with intersectional feminism and fat studies, understanding discourse as a social practice implicated in the production, contestation, and transformation of power relations. The results indicate that the analyzed discourses denounce fatphobia in conjunction with oppressions of race, gender, class, and ability, highlighting its structural, cultural, disciplinary, and interpersonal effects. Through discursive strategies such as interdiscourse, recontextualization of lived experiences, and resignification of naturalized meanings, Ellen Valias mobilizes counter-hegemonic discourses that affirm the legitimacy of fat bodies in bodily and sporting practices, displacing meritocratic and biomedical narratives centered on body control. The digital activism analyzed is configured as a pedagogical and political praxis, expanding regimes of visibility, building positive references, and fostering more inclusive sports practices, highlighting the potential of digital media in promoting social justice and questioning hegemonic body norms.
Godoi et al. (Fri,) studied this question.