Throwback Thursday for July 16, 2015: In the Library with the Lead Pipe welcomes Ian Beilin to our Editorial Board! In honor of Throwback Thursday, we’re highlighting Ian’s recent piece on the ACRL Framework.

In her 2020 memoir, activist Aubrey Gordon describes the frequent cruelty she experiences because of her body shape and size, explaining that “there is a minefield of abuse reserved for the very fat. I have come to view the world through the prism of that abuse, negotiating my days around reducing it.” (( Aubrey Gordon, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2020), 2.)) Gordon’s experience is only one example of coping with fat phobia or weight bias. Weight bias is defined as “negative attitudes toward individuals who are perceived to have excess weight.” ((Rebecca L Pearl and Christina M Hopkins, “Bias, Stigma, and Social Consequences of Obesity,” Clinical Obesity in Adults and Children  (2022): 58, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119695257. ch5.)) These negative judgments are the result of the “valuing and privileging of thinness as the optimal body type and [are] associated with negative attitudes, stereotypes, and a desire for more social distance.” ((Andrea N Hunt and Tammy Rhodes, “Fat Pedagogy and Microaggressions: Experiences of Professionals Working in Higher Education Settings,” Fat Studies 7, no. 1 (2018).)) These negative attitudes can, in turn, lead to discrimination. Although stigmatizing people based on race, sex, gender, and similar categories has become less socially appropriate, judging people negatively based on weight and/or body shape and size is distressingly common and growing in prevalence, both in the United States and globally. ((Alexandra A Brewis et al., “Body Norms and Fat Stigma in Global Perspective,” Current Anthropology 52, no. 2 (2011): 26; Alexandra Brewis, Cindi SturtzSreetharan, and Amber Wutich, “Obesity Stigma as a Globalizing Health Challenge,” Globalization and Health 14, no. 1 (2018).))