ABSTRACT
Social problems are often tightly intertwined with organized social movements that work to define, draw attention to, and change the conditions associated with those particular problems. This chapter examines how a social movement that opposes the stigmatization of obese individuals that has come to be called the size acceptance movement has played a role in the way body weight is constructed as a social problem in the United States and other postindustrial societies. The size acceptance movement has been the subject of historical chronologies by leaders in the movement, reflective discussion by movement participants, journalistic reports, and acknowledgment by the mainstream weight loss community. Size acceptance became a new conceptual model that was used in the broader social construction of body weight, opposing the moral and medical models that dominated discourse about fatness and thinness. The size acceptance movement organizes and engages in a variety of political activities to promote its causes.
