'Fat studies' gaining weight in academia

Daily Pennsylvanian\nPHILADELPHIA -- Perceptions about body weight don't stop at the scales anymore.\n"Fat studies" is a growing interdisciplinary area of study at universities across the country devoted to examining discrimination and stereotypes against the fat body and studying the collective experience of fat people in society.\nWhile no specific field of study exists at the University of Pennsylvania, both professors and graduate students have been exploring related issues.\nAndrew Geier, a graduate student in experimental psychology, has done extensive research on existing biases against overweight people.\nPenn's Anthropology Department also offers a class, "Fat and Society," that examines psychological and sociological issues concerning body image.\nThe study of these issues will hopefully "bring a balance back to an academic curriculum" that has traditionally lacked the overweight perspective, said Miriam Berg, president of the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination.\nBerg said discrimination against fat people is a real issue in society, causing people to lose jobs, spots at universities and opportunities for health insurance.\n"It needs to be combated," she said.\nThe reason for the discrimination stems from the common belief that weight status is easily changeable, Geier said, adding that this is an "erroneous belief."\nAnd the number of people interested in fat studies is growing by the year.\nThe Popular Culture Association, a group that studies trends in media pop culture, opened an official section for fat studies at their national conference three years ago; the section has since served as a forum for presentations on relevant issues.\nStefanie Snider, a graduate student at the University of Southern California and the fat-studies area chair for the Popular Culture Association 2007 conference, said there will be more fat-studies panels than in the past.\n"The number of people interested in fat studies is obviously expanding, and the work they are doing is incredibly diverse," she wrote in an e-mail, adding that presenters come from fields such as sociology, psychology and literature.\nAnd in a society "preoccupied with size," fat studies is probably only going to continue to grow in popularity, said Lynn Bartholome, former president of the association.\nBut Geier said he hopes if fat studies becomes institutionalized, it will not "look to further policy rather than do academic research," which he said is often the fate of "newer, less-traditional departments"