Health at Every Size (HAES™) as a Reform (Social) Movement within Public Health

Abstract

This article uses situational analysis to examine the history and current applications of Health at Every Size™ as a reform movement within public health, supported by fat political/social movements. Situational mapping highlights the vast and diverse worlds of public health broadly conceived, and how fat politics intersects with HAES. Drawing on personal and organizational accounts of how HAES emerged through pathways of existing fat political activism and health professional work, the author shows how HAES aligns closely with public health by centering health and is sometimes critiqued for ignoring fat acceptance. However, HAES generally uses a “both/and perspective”—both health and acceptance as key and inseparable pieces of HAES. HAES’s position as a reform movement within public health highlights tensions between a politics of reform and a politics of radical change within and between body activism movements.