Fighting Fat Phobia

Kelli Jean Drinkwater, an unapologetic activist and artist, explores how consistent negative representation and an obsession with socially constructed perfection effects overweight people in her talk on body politics for TED.

To do so, she considers the types of discrimination these members of society face in their day-to-day lives, as well as the elaborate measures people will take to avoid becoming one of them. She explains this by delving into the discriminatory concept that overweight people are morally flawed and that people never waver in the sense of entitlement they seem to have in judging them.

Throughout her talk on body politics, Kelli Jean Drinkwater highlights the problems with what she calls "fat phobia," a form of systematic oppression that she considers to be a part of capitalism, patriarchy and racism. In addition, she speaks to the billion dollar industry that's resulted from this widespread disdain.

With this, Kelli Jean Drinkwater shows the importance of claiming one's space in a society that takes every chance to beat a person down, as well as the frustrations that unfortunately come along with this.