ABSTRACT
Weight scholars often decry the very fat stigma much of their work is reproducing. Outside of these, but located within the actual subject being examined, are fat studies scholars. These scholars centre fatness and the lived experiences of fat people; many of them operate as activist scholars, working to secure civil rights for fat people. This, in turn, leads many scholars to question the voracity of the work produced by fat studies scholars. If this calls into question the validity of the work of fat studies scholars, it must also do the same for obesity scholars, as they too seek to change the world through their research by eliminating fat people. This chapter presents an overview of the hallmark characteristics of these four kinds of scholarship, allowing the reader to recognise the areas in which they overlap and in which they differ. It concludes with a demonstration that fat studies scholarship is the most appropriate scholarship to study fatness.
