Oregon State Offers 'Fat Studies' Course to Combat Body-Shaming

Maureen Collins | August 10, 2017
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Move over gender studies. There's a bigger, badder major in town. 

"Fat Studies" is an actual course at Oregon State University. The college made headlines in January when they first included the course for their Winter 2016 term.

Now, the class is back for the Fall 2017 semester. Students can earn three full credits learning about "weight, shape, and size as an area of human difference subject to privilege and discrimination that intersects with other systems of oppression." 

Can we get some fries with that system of oppression? 

The course is technically a psychology class taught by Professor Patti Lou-Watkins. According to Campus Reform, Lou-Watkins' course has packed on some new features.

"My course now frames body image disturbances more as a function of oppressive societal structures than of individual pathology" said the professor.

So, no longer is she teaching a course on the psychology of overeating, but on how society is to blame for people feeling fat.

Lou-Watkins said -- un-ironically -- that "the field of fat studies has undergone tremendous growth in recent years." 

It's a statement that's almost too delicious to contemplate, without going over your calorie limit. 

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