Upcoming Events
Every month, year-round, we offer events of all kinds! Our hallmark education events and teach-ins deepen our understanding of health equity, improving access to healthcare, and abolishing weight-centric care. Education events are open to all Health at Every Size® Providers, Advocates, and folks who use HAES in their personal approach to wellbeing. Member events are free to ASDAH members and provide connection and networking to engage with other ASDAH members. We also offer community events open to all – members and non-members – to build relationships and provide programming for those most impacted by fatphobia.
By registering for and attending ASDAH events, you consent to the following community agreements. The agreements can be read in full here.
- This is An Accountable Space
- Engage in Conversation in a Way that Is Inclusive, Generative & Impactful
- Embrace Conflict, Discomfort, Friction, Imperfection, Nuance & A Both/And Mentality
- No Racism, White Supremacy, Anti-Blackness, Anti-Fatness, Transphobia, Queer Antagonism, Ableism, Healthism, Ageism, Classism, or Other Forms of Oppression
- Know That You Will Fuck Up
- Take Care of Yourself
- Stories Stay; Lessons Leave
- Privacy & Confidentiality Cannot Be Assured
- Commit to Self-Reflection & Action When You Leave This Space
Members Only Book Club Meeting – Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness
DATE & TIME
Thursday, November 30th, 2023 | 12-1:30pm ET
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness As Anti-Blackness, the 2022 Lambda Literary Award Winner for Transgender Nonfiction, is a foundational text for the work that ASDAH does and is essential reading for any provider who claims or wants to be Health at Every Size®-aligned. In the book Harrison discusses the limitations of self-love and body positivity, the incongruity of “health” and “healthiness”, hyper-policing & carcerality, and the discrimination, abuse, condescension, and trauma that the Black fat faces within the medical industrial complex and under other systems of oppression.
During this members-only book club meeting with a special guest appearance by Harrison, we will process and unpack all that we have read while also visioning what’s next for how we nurture and care for each other, particularly the Black fat and those who are deeply impacted by medical anti-fatness. There will be time for members to connect and to be in discussion with Harrison. You don’t want to miss this!
If you are not a member of ASDAH yet, you should be! You will get to participate in exclusive members only events such as this and earn up to a possible 6 continue education credits in a year. Become a member today!
Past Events
Select past events are available to the public on our Learning More page. Members have access to even more past events via the Member Portal! Join ASDAH today to access this great member benefit.
Fat Liberation & Palestinian Liberation: What do they have to do with HAES®?
DATE & TIME
Friday, October 27th, 2023 | 1-2:30pm ET
EVENT DESCRIPTION
During this teach-in, we will be in conversation with Dr. Caleb Luna, an artist, public scholar and theorist of the body. We will discuss fat liberation, Palestinian liberation, what they have to do with the HAES® principles and framework of care, and why HAES® providers and advocates should care about this issue. We will open with reading of a statement by Fat Rose in soldarity with Palestine and close with community processing and healing time.
ASDAH Annual Meeting
DATE & TIME
Wednesday, September 27th, 2023 | 7-8:30pm CT
EVENT DESCRIPTION
It is with great excitement that we invite you to join us for our Annual Meeting as we move into ASDAH’s 20th year of existence. Our theme for this year is “It’s Our Anniversary: Celebrating 20 Years of ASDAH.” As we commemorate this remarkable milestone, we have prepared an engaging agenda that reflects our journey, accomplishments, and aspirations for the future.
This is an ASDAH Member only event. If you are not a member and would like to join the conversation, become a member!
Community Event
DATE & TIME
Sunday, August 27th, 2023 | 5-6:30pm ET
EVENT DESCRIPTION
We are thrilled to announce that this year marks a significant milestone for ASDAH – 20 years of promoting size diversity and supporting Health at Every Size®! As a valued member of our community, we cordially invite you to join us in commemorating this momentous occasion at our “It’s Our Anniversary! Celebrating 20 Years of ASDAH” Community Mixer Event, named for this year’s theme. Look forward to dancing to some fantastic music and participating in fun, engaging activities that will give you the opportunity to build new connections and strengthen existing ones as you mingle with like-minded individuals who share your commitment to promoting size diversity and Health at Every Size®️.
This is an ASDAH Community event, open to members and non-members thanks to our donors and accomplice members!
This event was not recorded.
Open Mic Night: An ASDAH Member Event
DATE & TIME
Thursday, July 27th, 2023 | 7-8:30pm CT
EVENT DESCRIPTION
We are kicking off our 2023-2024 board year with a very special members-only Open Mic Event on July 27, 2023 at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET. This is an opportunity to share your talents with other ASDAH members through spoken word, song, dance, puppetry, and all the other ways you express your creativity. This year’s theme is It’s Our Anniversary! Celebrating 20 Years of ASDAH. We welcome members to explore themes of celebration, joy, growth, and transformation during the open mic. Members are also welcome to present on other areas of interest. If you plan to perform or just watch, please complete the event registration form.
This is an ASDAH Member only event. If you are not a member and would like to join the conversation, become a member!
This event was not recorded.
ASDAH Conference 2023
DATE & TIME
June 9th & 10th
EVENT DESCRIPTION
We are excited to announce ASDAH’s 2023 Annual Conference that will be held June 9-10 (plus pre- and post- conference sessions!) The theme and focus for our work this year has been Dreaming of New Worlds: Health at Every Size® in the Future. Together with conference attendees, speakers, performers, and facilitators, we will explore this theme with curiosity and hope.
We’re expanding the conference this year to span two days plus breakout sessions (all recorded so you won’t miss soaking up any of the wisdom offered). In support of our desire to make this work collaborative from a truly global perspective, we’re including replays so more timezones can join in with others for live community connection and conversation.
Check out the full conference schedule, session descriptions, and 2023 sponsors.
Taste & Talk: Edible Activism + Health at Every Size®
DATE & TIME
May 6th | 1PM CT
EVENT DESCRIPTION
ASDAH Members! Join edible activist Chef Fresh Roberson and certified culinarian Veronica Garnett (also ASDAH’s Vision & Strategy Leader) for a Cooking Demo & Conversation! In celebration of No Diet Day, Chef Fresh will be preparing a simple dish featuring ingredients from Fresher Together’s BIPOC Harvest Bag. We’ll chat about edible activism, food justice, Health at Every Size®, how to live out the spirit of No Diet Day all year long, and creating a new world where all of us are free. We will have the opportunity to connect with each other, build community, and share a snack together…virtually!
This is an ASDAH Member only event. If you are not a member and would like to join the conversation, become a member!
Suffocating Whiteness
Transforming Care: Dreaming of New Worlds
DATE & TIME
APRIL 21st | 10AM PT/1PM ET
EVENT DESCRIPTION
This is the third in a three-part series examining the past, present, and future evolution of the Health at Every Size® framework of care. Folks who missed part one and/or two are welcome to join this session as well, as each session can also stand alone. In part three, we will provide an update on the Health at Every Size® Framework of Care revisions and look to the future of Health at Every Size® including the direction the ground-building work done this year on the HAES® Framework of Care is leading us. We’ll discuss a future where we move beyond Health at Every Size® as a necessary framework of care and what liberatory care might one day be like.
Fat Activism & HAES: Advocating for Ourselves & Our Clients in Healthcare Spaces
DATE & TIME
March 24th, 2023 12-2pm ET
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Fat people deserve justice. Access to quality healthcare is a basic human right. Despite what we deserve, we know the reality is quite different. Fat people are often denied gender- and life-affirming surgeries, organ transplants, medical & diagnostic testing, and participation in medical research studies. Providers’ fatphobic attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors often lead to healthcare avoidance by fat people. As fat people it can be very daunting to navigate these situations and advocate for ourselves. As fat-positive providers it can also be daunting going against the machine and advocating for our clients.
This free community event, a collaboration between ASDAH and NAAFA, will highlight the myriad ways both organizations are advocating for change in the areas of governance & policy, education & training, coalition building, and more. Participants will leave with actionable steps they can take to advocate for themselves and/or their clients when navigating fatphobia in our healthcare spaces and systems.
Anti-Blackness and Anti-Fatness: A 201-Level Teach-In
DATE & TIME
February 24th, 2023 12pm ET
EVENT DESCRIPTION
What does a Black fat femme centered future look like? How does it feel? What does it illuminate for you? In this workshop, we will discuss the intersections of antiblackness and fatphobia to think through our varying positionalities in relation to this hopeful future. We will engage experiential activities in this workshop to collaboratively envision a Black fat femme centered futurity that boldly refuses the limits of fatphobia, the weight of antiblackness, and the divisions that hegemony reinforces between marginalized peoples. Using pop culture figures like Lizzo to ground our time, we will consider how Black fat women have been seen as of use for others as an entry point for our engagement with one another.
Finding Breath: Using Counter Narratives to Resuscitate the HAES Framework of Care
DATE & TIME
January 13th at 12pm CST
EVENT DESCRIPTION
This is the second in a three-part series examining the past, present, and future evolution of the Health at Every Size® framework of care. Folks who missed part one are welcome to join this session as well, as each session can also stand alone. In part two, we dive deeper into using counter narratives to refocus our Health at Every Size® work to be by and for those most impacted by fatphobia. We’ll discuss the work ASDAH is doing to reclaim and reorient the Health at Every Size® Framework of Care. We’ll also cover how you can begin using counter narratives in your work today to begin divesting from white supremacist lenses too commonly used in the name of Health at Every Size® like healthism, nutritionism, and marginalizing those at the highest end of the size spectrum.
Beyond the O-Word: Exploring Nuance in the Language of Body Size
DATE & TIME
December 9th at 12pm CST
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Join us for this insightful round table discussion about navigating the nuances of body size terms and language. Susanne Johnson MSN, CRNP, FNP-BC, Family Nurse Practitioner; Ash Nischuk of the podcast The Fat Lip, & Dr. Jonathan Higgins of Nailed It! and Black Fat Femme Podcast bring their thoughtful perspectives to support both new and seasoned Health at Every Size® professionals navigating language around body size. Our discussion will be grounded in frameworks like patient/body autonomy, harm reduction, and trauma-informed care. We will discuss body size terms in various settings, particularly in healthcare and public health. We will explore the nuances of language in one-on-one settings, group settings, and public-facing media like pamphlets, websites, and social media. Most importantly, we’ll discuss language use as it pertains to all larger people, including those who don’t use the word ‘fat’ as a self-descriptor.
From South Africa to Nicaragua: Global Perspectives on HAES
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Due to European colonialism and western imperialism, white supremacist, anti-Black, and anti-fat notions about bodies, food, health, and wellbeing are pervasive across the globe. We know that oppression is universal, but the ways in which oppression impacts people differ based on geographical and social locations.
Frameworks such as Health at Every Size® have emerged to address & combat the problem of anti-fatness in healthcare. However they have been created & promoted from a very American/western/anglophone perspective and context. The Health at Every Size® “movement” itself has perpetuated white supremacy culture. It has not only drowned out BIPOC & fat voices in the west, but also international voices from people of the global majority. This panel discussion will highlight the voices of three HAES-aligned practitioners & fat liberation activists from Africa, Latin America, and the Francophonie.
Please join this lively discussion with Pontsho Pilane, Julia Lévy-Ndejuru, and Mónica Peralta where we will discuss and explore ways that Health at Every Size® is useful, but also fall short in a global context, how this framework of care can transform to be more inclusive of global perspectives, and how we can build coalitions and transnational solidarity as we do this work.
Suffocating Whiteness: A History & Critique of HAES
EVENT DESCRIPTION
We are pleased to be collaborating with Eating Disorder Registered Dietitians & Professionals (EDRD Pro) for our Suffocating Whiteness Series: A History and Critique of Health at Every Size®!
This workshop is the first in a three-part series examining the past, present, and future evolution of the Health at Every Size® (HAES) framework of care. The narratives around Health at Every Size® have primarily been led by white women; disconnected from intersectional social justice movements; and centered white feelings, needs, and priorities. The resulting advocacy and care in the name of HAES has further oppressed people of the global majority (particularly Black people) and superfat/infinifat people. In this session, we’ll discuss the history of the Health at Every Size® framework of care with a particular focus on how whiteness and white supremacy culture showed up in this movement deflecting from radicalness, making concessions in the name of health equity, and impeding fat liberation in healthcare.
State of ASDAH Annual Meeting
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Join us for our highly anticipated Annual Meeting! We are excited to connect with you and discuss our last year of work to improve healthcare for fat folks through the Health at Every Size® framework. This meeting will serve as libation for all we’ve transformed in the fires of freedom. It will also serve as a visioning space for the collective new world we’re building together.
AfroFuturism: Changing the Narrative on the Future of Bodies
EVENT DESCRIPTION
This interactive workshop will give a history of AfroFuturism as well as an opportunity to discuss and work with the ideology of AfroFuturism (context, resilience, futurist ideation) as they apply to the ongoing work of ending fat antagonism. We will also discuss how we envision the ways in which we talk about bodies, examine bodies, and celebrate bodies in a way that humanizes all individuals along a spectrum of the diversity of bodies.
Open Mic: An ASDAH Member Event
EVENT DESCRIPTION
The first event of the 2022-2023 ASDAH board year is a very special members-only Open Mic Event on July 24, 2022 at 1pm CT. This is an opportunity to share your talents with other ASDAH members through spoken word, song, dance, puppetry, and all the other ways you express your creativity in 5-minute time slots. At ASDAH’s 2022 Conference, we announced this year’s theme, Dreaming of New Worlds: HAES in the Future. We welcome members to explore this theme during the open mic or present other areas of interest.
Select past events are available to the public on our YouTube Channel. Members have access to even more past events via the Member Portal! Join ASDAH today to access this great member benefit.
To learn about upcoming and more recent events, click here.