Faculty note: Smith joins Fat Studies board

Christine Smith, associate professor of Human Development and Psychology, and also a member of the Women’s and Gender Studies faculty, has joined the editorial board of the journal Fat Studies. The publication is billed as “An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society” and the first academic journal in the field of scholarship that critically examines theory, research, practices, policies and programs related to body weight and appearance. Smith describes the field of Fat Studies as a cross-disciplinary field of study that critiques cultural constraints against “fatness,” and explores fat bodies as they live in, are shaped by, and remake the world… and creates paradigms for the development of fat acceptance or celebration within mass culture.