Empower Wisconsin | April 7, 2020
As the world confronts COVID-19’s mounting death toll and collapsing economy, two University of Wisconsin-La Crosse professors are concerned about “fatphobia.”
Darci Thoune, associate English professor and author of “Am I Fat?” published a blog post on the website twofatprofessors.com. “Diet Culture at the End of the World” outlines Thoune’s thoughts on “weight gain during the Covid-19 crisis,” according to Campus Reform.
Thoune wrote that she wanted to respond to the “number of posts that have popped up on [her] social media sites addressing fears about weight gain.” The posts “shame viewers for not going to the gym, eating ‘too much,’ for getting fat, and for not starving ourselves at the end of the world.” The professor asserts such criticisms are representative of a problematic “diet culture.”
Thoune criticizes those who speak out against weight gain and characterize it as “dangerous,” saying they feed “into a system of fatphobia that oppresses and abuses so many.”
Thoune’s colleague Laurie Stoll who earned her doctorate in sociology with a concentration in women’s and gender studies, is the second one of the “Two Fat Professors.” She published the most viewed blog post on the site which is titled, “I See You, Fat Grrl: Fat Pride and Fat Visibility.”
Read more at Campus Reform.
