“I’m fat and proud of it”: Body size diversity and fat acceptance activism in Spain

Hegemonic representations of body size and beauty often have negative and painful impacts on fat people. Fat individuals face social discrimination because of the stigma associated with fatness and because of weight-based stereotypes. In Spain, fat activism has emerged in the last decade. Social networks are used by this movement as one of the principal means of redefining fatness and disputing prescriptive standards of body health and beauty. The narratives and iconography found on these websites, managed mainly by women, contest fat phobia not only by advocating for inclusive public policies, but also by reclaiming fatness as a possible form of subversive identity. This identity is constructed by challenging the representation of fat bodies as diseased and in need of medical intervention, and emphasizes recognition of variability in and multiple experiences of body size.