Shaping my Latinx body in Canada: challenging internalized anti-fat bias

Abstract

This research project explores my journey as a Mestizo Latinx Immigrant woman in Canada and how, with a body transformation, I came to realize that I have an internalized anti-fat bias. As an autoethnographer, I delve into my life experiences, feelings, and memories to discover when this started and how much family, cultural context, education, and healthcare systems influenced its development. In this thesis, I discuss themes such as intersectional oppression, immigration, colonization, family interactions, and anti-fat stigma and bias, mostly in my home country, but also what I have experienced in two years of living in Canada. The findings of this research show: how the lack of attention on topics such as body and food relationships in the educational system affects the later development of a distorted body image and possible eating problems; how the colonization system influenced centuries of history such that a family can be led to grow with anti-fat stigma and bias; and how many racist ideals are perpetuated and enforced in younger generations, which in my case meant being forced into restricted dieting all my life. Finally, through the literature and analysis, this thesis examines and deconstructs how I reached the point where “fat” became a liberating word, a word of power, rather than a negative descriptor used to make me feel inferior. Through research, I built a new, powerful definition that empowers my body image, heals my journey, and leads me to advocate for a more diverse and inclusive world with different body shapes and sizes.