Festival of Social Science

Monday 27 October 2025

As part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science, we hosted a public workshop called “Let’s Talk About Weight Discrimination in Healthcare”. The aim was to provide the space for reflection and conversations for people who have experienced weight stigma; those who work in healthcare settings; those conducting research on weight-related discrimination; and those who are seek to eliminate it.

It’s always hard to predict public-facing events - Will enough people show up? Who will they be? Will they engage with each other? How will they engage with our activities? But we hit jackpot!

We were joined by, among others, choreographers, academics, public health practitioners and health tech innovators who brought a huge range of knowledge and experience with them. For some, weight discrimination in healthcare was a deeply personal experience, for others an academic subject, sometimes it was a mix of both, and for some attendees it was a whole new concept.

We used spatial mapping techniques to bring these different experiences, knowledges and backgrounds together to explore what weight discrimination in healthcare looks and feels like, and how it might be addressed. Watch this space for more on our spatial approach to