After long discussions, the terminology commission of Science Academy of Latvia, in collaboration with the head of Flourish NGO Ieva Miltiņa, has adopted a series of terms in Latvian language that will give opportunity for opening discussion about the challenges regarding inclusion of different bodies. This is particularly important, because so far in Latvia, relatively little has been said about discrimination based on body size, shape or other aspects, and there is also a lack of language for a ability to raise awareness about it.
Even though the word "fat" still seems offensive and traumatizing to many, we see the inclusion of this word in several of the terms as the biggest achievement. By reducing its stigmatizing tone and encouraging discussion about these topics, we purposefully disempower those who use them to hurt others, while empowering those who suffer from hate speech and discrimination. Similarly to what the fat activists have done so far in the world - we start by changing the narrative and language, as the first step towards accepting people of different sizes.
Terms that were acccepted: fat acceptance movement, weigth bias, fat bias and anti-fat bias, fatphobia, weight stigma and weight stigmatization, body shaming, fat shaming, fat oppression, body liberation (movement), body positivity and body neutrality, appearance related violence.
More information available in the Latvian version of this post.
