In a recent article titled “Co-healthism in Health at Every Size®-aligned TikTok activism,” Faith Stadnyk (recent graduate from the FIST Master’s Program) introduces a transformative discourse in Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society. Fat Studies is the first academic journal in the field of scholarship that critically examines theory, research, practices, and programs related to body weight and appearance. Delving into the realm of feminist-of-color disability studies, the analysis looks at 100 popular Health at Every Size® (HAES®) TikToks, unraveling power dynamics in disseminating HAES® frameworks and their implications for fat liberation. You can access a PDF version here!
Faith Stadnyk (she/her): a feminist, disability, and fat studies scholar who draws on feminist-of-color disability studies and critical eating dis/order studies perspectives to mark and challenge white supremacy, ableism, sanism, fatmisia, healthism, (settler) colonialism, and intersecting modes of oppression in health activism, healthcare, health promotion, and well-being related landscapes. She is a white, settler, fat, disabled, neurodivergent, and queer woman living and working on the unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinaabe territories. Faith is committed to knowledge production that calls for radical social change that benefits all marginalized people, especially those living in the intersections of multiple systems of oppression.
ABSTRACT: “This article is published in Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society. It is a feminist-of-color disability studies-oriented TikTok critical discourse analysis of 100 popular Health at Every Size® (HAES®) TikToks. It evaluates the power relations surrounding how HAES® frameworks are disseminated on TikTok and unpacks the implications for fat liberation. HAES® frameworks of care capacitate the eradication of medical fatmisia and the weight-centered health paradigm. While popular among online fat activists, HAES® frameworks have been widely accused of perpetuating healthism. My analysis makes clear how HAES® discourse is often steeped in ableist, white supremacist, and colonial healthism. Through this analysis, I ultimately argue that the definition of healthism needs to shift to center ableism, white supremacy, and colonialism, as well as the co-constituting nature of how systems of oppression aggregate to weaponize health against those with embodiments marked as “unhealthy.” I argue that this shift is necessary to produce analyses committed to radical solidarity. I mark this shift by coining and utilizing the term co-healthism. To demonstrate the need for my argument, I organize the results into three themes: healthist ableism, healthist white supremacy, and healthist colonialism in HAES® discourse. In the discussion, I clarify the co-constitutive nature of these themes and argue for the shift from healthism to co-healthism. I also define the concept and explain its methodological potentialities.”