In this paper, we explore barriers to health for fat people. By shifting the focus from what fat people do or do not do, neoliberal principles are replaced by a focus instead on structural and institutional policies, attitudes, and practices. This includes the impact of stigma on the health treatment and health-seeking behavior of fat people. For example, we consider the role that provider anti-fat attitudes and confirmation bias play in the failure to provide evidenced-based healthcare to fat patients. This is an autoethnographic paper, which provides the opportunity to read research from the perspective of fat scholars, framed by questions such as: can fat people have health? Is health itself a state of being, a set of behaviors, a commodity, a performance; perhaps the new social contract? As a co-written autoethnographic paper, one aspect of the evidence provided is the recorded experiences of the two fat authors. This includes writing from notes, journals, compiled and repeated experiences with medical professionals, family, and the community. Framed by feminist standpoint and supported by literature drawn from Fat Studies, Public Health, Obesity Research, and other interdisciplinary fields, this is a valuable opportunity to present an extended account of fat discrimination and the impact of the stigma fat people face through the medical profession and other sectors of the community, written by fat individuals. The paper concludes by considering the health pathways available to fat people. Special attention is paid to whether Bacon and Aphramor's Health at Every Size paradigm provides a path to health for fat individuals.

Written by: The word worriers/warriorsThis article uses four academics' gendered and cultural responses to life in a university in Aotearoa New Zealand under the new managerialist regime. Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF) requires academics to submit evidence-based portfolios every six years to categorise and rank them, with government funding assigned accordingly. When the authors met as members of a writing group, the talk often turned to negative aspects of PBRF. Using cooperative enquiry, the four co-researchers began writing observations of their individual experiences, differences and identities to help them reflect and understand the impact of the changed environment. The four phases of writing as enquiry were: deciding on a focus, writing observations, engaging with the written accounts and interpreting the outcome through metaphor. The article process facilitated a positive outcome by helping the authors regain a sense of collegiality and mutual support, along with a sense of preserving their academic identity by writing and publishing as a group.

The productivity of shame as an affective-discursive practice implicated in the neoliberal governance of “healthy pregnancy” is examined in the narratives of 27 ethnically diverse, cis-gendered, self-identified fat pregnant people in Aotearoa New Zealand. Shame is identified as a dominant affective-discursive practice produced in response to the problematising medical discourses surrounding the fat pregnant body, leading to the constitution of shamed maternal subjectivities. Seeking reparation in order to restore their maternal identities, participants adopted a range of self-governance strategies. However, fat shaming, while productive in constituting self-governed maternal subjects, was not constructive. We demonstrate how shame induced self-governed action, rather than improving maternal and infant health, instead led to a range of unhealthful behaviours and negatively impacted how participants experienced their pregnancies, emerging maternal selves, and newly born children. We call for attention to affect in feminist governmentality studies of reproduction and fatness.

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her research focuses on the effects of spoiled identities on the health and well-being of fat individuals. Her work appears in scholarly journals such as Feminist Review and Narrative Inquiries in Bioethics, as well as online in The Huffington Post and The Conversation, among others. Her fat positive radio show, "Friend of Marilyn," is traveling the world this yeartune in on iTunes.