Web Links
Obesity Organizations
NAASO – The Obesity Society
www.naaso.org
The Obesity Society is a scientific organization dedicated to the study of the causes and treatment of obesity. The Obesity Society’s goal is to promote research, education and advocacy to better understand, prevent, and treat obesity and improve the lives of those affected.
Obesity Action Coalition
www.obesityaction.org
The Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) is a non-profit, patient-based organization that offers educational resources, advocates for the safe and effective treatment of obesity, and provides patients with a variety of levels of support. Combating weight stigma is also part of OAC’s mission.
STOP Obesity Alliance
www.stopobesityalliance.org
A main focus of the STOP (Strategies to Overcome and Prevent) Obesity Alliance is to conduct and assemble research that identifies cultural and systemic biases in combating obesity and its related health conditions.
Anti-Bullying Websites
Beat Bullying
www.beatbullying.org
Beat Bullying, based in the U.K., aims to reduce the prevalence and impact of bullying by operating local anti-bullying campaigns and producing anti-bulling toolkits and publications. The site offers downloadable toolkits for several audiences.
Bullies Can Be Transformed
www.bulliescanbetransformed.com
Bullies Can Be Transformed offers consultation services for bullying prevention through bully transformation. The site contains information and guides for schools and parents.
Bully Boy
www.bullyboy.ca
Bully Boy was created by two Canadian youths with a mission to stop bullying. They provide resources for use in schools, including the interactive comic book The MISadventures of Bully-Boy and Gossip-Girl. Their site features a kids sections with an interactive game and a useful recommended reading list for adults.
Bully Busters
www.bullybusters.org
Bully Busters is a campaign against workplace bullying that coordinates national legislative initiatives to stop workplace bullying and also provides education and action strategies for bullied individuals.
Bully Free World
www.bullyfreeworld.com
Bully Free World offers straightforward information about bullying and what to do about it.
Bullying.org
www.bullying.org
Bullying.org provides online support groups, education, and strategies to victims of bullying as well as information for parents and teachers. They also welcome submissions of stories, poetry, images, music, and videos, which they feature on the site. Their motto: You’re not alone. It’s not your fault. You can do something about it.
Bully Police
www.bullypolice.org
Bully Police is a watch-dog organization that reports on state anti-bullying laws and advocates for bullied children. The site posts the names of schools that fail to deal with bully problems and also contains useful resources and links for parents and teachers.
Kids Against Bullying
www.pacerkidsagainstbullying.org
PACER Center, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota is a parent center for families of children and young adults with all disabilities—physical, mental, learning, and emotional. The Kids Against Bullying website is targeted toward younger children (elementary school) and is a helpful resource and forum for anyone who is exposed to bullying – not only children with disabilities.
Stop Bullying Now!
www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov
Stop Bullying Now! contains information and strategies for kids who are being bullied, kids who are bullying, and kids who witness bullying. The site features animated webisodes of short stories about bullying situations. For families and educators the site provides video workshops, downloadable tip sheets, and the The Stop Bullying Now! Activities Guide, a handbook of ideas for putting the campaign to work locally and a Video Toolkit DVD containing webisodes, PSAs, and video workshops.
The Surviving Bullies Project
www.survivingbullies.com
The Surviving Bullies Project (SBP) is a grassroots effort dedicated to helping targets of bullying, their family, friends and community. The SBP strives to provide practical tools and strategies for targets to better cope with being bullied and regain control of their situation.
Wounded Child Project
www.thewoundedchild.org
The Wounded Child Project is a storytelling website. Students, parents and survivors of bullying tell their stories so that others may learn of the emotional, psychological, mental and physical abuse they have suffered at the hands (and minds) of a bully.
Diversity & Anti-Bullying Curriculums
Operation Respect
www.dontlaugh.org
Operation Respect is a non-profit organization working to assure that youth experience a respectful, safe and compassionate climate of learning where their academic, social and emotional development can take place free of bullying, ridicule and violence.
Operation Respect’s "Don't Laugh at Me" (DLAM) is a classroom-based program, with components for grades 2-5, another for grades 6-8 and a third for summer camps and after-school programs. All of the programs utilize inspiring music and video along with curriculum guides based on the well-tested, highly regarded conflict resolution curricula developed by the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) of Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR). Thanks to the generosity of The McGraw-Hill Companies, and other supporters, Operation Respect disseminates the DLAM programs free of charge. More than 145,000 copies of the curriculum have been distributed to educators since Operation Respect's inception.
The website includes a variety of resources for educators, parents, and students, including a curriculum guide, evaluations, CD, and video.
Steps to Respect: A Bullying Prevention Program
www.cfchildren.org
Produced by the Committee for Children, this program engages the entire school and includes classroom lessons for students in the upper-elementary grades (3-5 or 4-6), workshops and training for all adults at the school, materials for parents, and step-by-step procedures to help school leaders put anti-bullying policies into action. The Steps to Respect kit includes everything schools need to implement the program, including step-by-step guidelines for program use, sample anti-bullying policies and procedures, research on bullying, and best practices for prevention. The Training Manual includes training outlines, presentation materials, staff training videos, and parent education materials. Approximately 3300 schools across the U.S. and Canada are currently using the Steps to Respect program.
Teaching Tolerance
www.tolerance.org
Teaching Tolerance (a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center) is highly respected within the education world and is an influential publication in the anti-bias education field.Teaching Tolerance offers online education and resources for parents, teachers, teens, and kids aimed at stopping hate and promoting diversity. Teaching Tolerance also provides free kits and handbooks to schools and ideas for classroom activities. There are 10 different kits on specific topics that range in target age from pre-K to 12th grade.
Recently, Teaching Tolerance posted a new resource to specifically address Weight Bias, called the “ABC’s of Size Bias”. This resource includes lesson plans, expert Q & A, and strategies for educators and parents to foster healthier attitudes about body size. To view this resource, click here: http://www.tolerance.org/teach/activities/activity.jsp?cid=825&ttnewsletter=ttnewsgen-042507
The Anti-Defamation League – A WORLD OF DIFFERNCE Institute
www.adl.org/education/edu_awod/default_awod.asp
The Anti-Defamation League’s A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute is a leading provider of anti-bias education and diversity training programs and resources. The Institute seeks to help participants recognize bias and the harm it inflicts on individuals and society, explore the value of diversity, improve intergroup relations, and combat all forms of prejudice and bigotry. Program Components include: A Classroom of Difference, A Campus of Difference, A Community of Difference, and A Workplace of Difference.
Understanding Prejudice
www.understandingprejudice.org
UnderstandingPrejudice.org is a web site designed for students, teachers, and others that discusses the causes and consequences of prejudice. Their website provides more than 2,000 links to prejudice-related resources, as well as searchable databases with hundreds of prejudice researchers and social justice organizations. They also provide a variety of interactive exercises offering unique perspectives on prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination.
Women’s Educational Media – The Respect for All Project
http://www.groundspark.org/respect/index.html
The Respect for All Project (RFAP) seeks to create safe schools and communities by giving youth and the adults who guide their development the tools they need to talk openly about diversity in all its forms. The website offers a comprehensive set of resources for educators and youth-service providers, including award-winning documentary films, high-quality curriculum guides and comprehensive professional development workshops.
The Let’s Get Real film and curriculum focuses on name-calling and bullying among middle school students. Workshops provide participants with effective tools to help youth explore the underlying issues that lead them to tease or harass one another, including stereotypes and prejudice. This film indirectly addresses weight-related bullying.
Size Acceptance Organizations
Big Fat Blog
www.bigfatblog.com
Founded in 2000, Big Fat Blog (BFB) aims to demonstrate how overweight and obese people are portrayed in the media.This blog has a community of around 1,200 individuals and contains up-to-date news and information.
Don't Tell Me What Size I Must B
www.geocities.com/tenorqueen
"Don't Tell Me What Size I Must B" focuses on discriminatory practices in fashion and the media internationally. The site contains current information about industry practices and hosts related research projects.
Health at Every Size
www.healthateverysize.info
Health at Every Size is a source for weight-related news and resources. The site is also home to the Health at Every Size radio show with Dr. Peggy Elam.
International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA)
http://www.size-acceptance.org/
ISAA is a non-profit civil rights organization dedicated to promoting size acceptance and helping to end size discrimination. ISAA engages in multiple activism activities including the Respect Fitness Health Initiative, which promotes the ideas that people must respect themselves in order to succeed, people of all sizes can become more fit, and everyone can benefit from healthier food choices.
Largesse Network
www.largesse.net
Largesse, the Network for Size Esteem is an international clearinghouse for information on size diversity empowerment. The organization’s mission is to create personal awareness and social change, which promotes a positive image, health and equal rights for people of size.
NAAFA – The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance
www.naafa.org
NAAFA is a non-profit organization that works to eliminate discrimination based on body size through empowerment, public education, advocacy, and member support. NAAFA organizes letter-writing campaigns, sponsors events, and is involved in legislative issues.
Pearlsong Press
www.pearlsong.com
Pearlsong Press offers books and resources to promote size accepatance. Their site also contains two useful handouts: Questions and Answers on Size Diversity by Miriam Berg and Twelve Tips for Fighting Fat Stigma by Pattie Thomas and Veronica Cook-Euell.
Size Wise
www.sizewise.com
Size Wise is a site devoted to size acceptance, containing size-positive articles, information, resources, and a useful list of links.
The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination
www.cswd.org
CSWD is a not-for-profit group which works to change people's attitudes about weight. They act as consumer advocates for larger people, especially in the areas of medical treatment, job discrimination, and media images.
The Obesity Law and Advocacy Center
www.obesitylaw.com/
The Obesity Law & Advocacy Center is devoted to representing the interests of morbidly obese persons in health care and discrimination matters. They work with people all over the country in challenging insurance companies who deny access to medically necessary bariatric surgery and other types of health care and consult with victims of employment discrimination, Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) violations and wrongful termination based on weight.
Body Image Resources
Body Aloud and Proud (BAP)
www.theeuellconsultinggroup.com
Body Aloud and Proud is an educational program for girls focusing on eating disorder prevention, body acceptance, and self-empowerment for girls. BAP is based on the Body Positive curriculum and can be customized for any size group of girls age 7 and up.
Model for Healthy Body Image
www.bodyimagehealth.org
Model for Healthy Body Image is a designed by Kathy Kater (author of Real Kids Come in All Sizes) to help children and adults to develop a positive body image by challenging cultural myths that promote unhealthy body images and eating. The curriculum, Healthy Body Image: Teaching Kids to Eat and Love Their Bodies Too, is available for purchase on the website in addition to free downloadable information and resources.
NAAFA Kids Project
www.naafa.org/kidsnew.html
The NAAFA Kids Project provides speakers and curriculum materials on the issue of body image. The project promotes healthy eating and exercise, combats weight-related teasing, and boosts self-esteem for children of all sizes. The Kids Project invites people who are interested in helping kids deal with their anxieties related to weight and body image to become volunteer speakers. NAAFA provides the training materials and support to get you started. It's an experience that is incredibly valuable, for both the students and the speaker. The Kids Project also invites teachers who want to address these important--and often overlooked--topics in their classrooms to check out the resources that NAAFA offers.
Size Wise Kids
www.sizewisekids.com
Size Wise Kids, offered by the Council for Size and Weight Discrimination, contains information for kids and parents about size acceptance and health and a useful listing of resources and links.
The Body Positive
www.thebodypositive.org
The Body Positive is an educational program designed to teach young people to adopt the Health at Every Size philosophy, allowing them to enjoy healthy eating and physical activity in their natural bodies. The program offers training, consultations, workshops, and speaker presentations. The Body Positive is different, although complementary to, the Body Positive Approach (see below).
Body Positive Approach
www.bodypositive.com
This site is an educational resource for the Body Positive Approach, which is a set of ideas and tools aimed at improving body image by emphasizing quality of life over weight loss. Body Positive also addresses children and weight, providing information for parents. The site contains a useful list of resources and related links.
Yahoo group email list for Parents of Fat Kids
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/FatThinAlliance/
"Parents of Fat Kids"offers support for parents and their larger children and teens. This is a Health at Every Size (HAES), size acceptance-oriented group that does not discuss or endorse pursuing weight loss. Instead, they support parents in cherishing their children at any weight, living and communicating the message that all sizes of bodies are good and need good care, and in helping their children deal with weight-based stigma. Members also help each other deal with sources of weight-based stigma that affect their kids, including schools, healthcare, and legal discrimination.
Websites for Youth
BB Teenz
www.size-acceptance.org/bbteens
Big Beautiful (BB) Teenz is a section of the International Size Acceptance Association’s website devoted to teenagers. The site contains news clips, links to teen plus-sized fashion and more.
Bullying for Girls
www.girlshealth.gov/bullying/index.htm
This government sponsored site contains information specifically for girls and young women about bullying.
Extra Hip
www.extrahip.com
Extra Hip is a magazine for plus-sized teens, published by plus-sized model and author Katie Aarons. She says, “Our goal is to inform the Hipster with honest truths about dieting and nutrition and inspire them to live their lives to the fullest.” Site offers a forum, fitness and fashion tips, and accepts poetry and story contributions.
The Dressing Room Project
www.thedressingroomproject.org
The Dressing Room Project is a group created by girls with the purpose of challenging media-imposed standards of beauty. They post girl-designed cards on mirrors in women’s dressing rooms everywhere to help girls and women feel confident about their bodies.