In the fields of sport, entertainment, broadcasting, science, politics, literature, journalism and academia, you couldn't find one exceptional woman?

Wow, @oliwilliams.bsky.social this looks SO good! Already looking forward to reading the chapters on body facism and your one on the use of stigma in public health.

Have a great time and say hi to everyone for me - so nice for you to be in the same room (and time zone!) for a change!

I knew I'd forget someone! And Georgie MacArthur!

And one extra!

Great to work with fab people on this project: Mandy Hughes, Lis Grey, Fiona Gillison, Caoimhe Gowran, Fayth Shepherd and Alice Haigherty.

@arc-west.bsky.social

Read the whole paper here: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
The press release here: bit.ly/4dJKov3
And my blog about this researcher here: bit.ly/3HoJlob
8/8

We're calling on schools to explicitly include weight-related bullying in their policies — and to consider how they can put this into practice — so that no pupil is bullied because of their weight.
7/8

Mentioning weight in policies matters.
US data shows that anti-bullying laws that specifically mention weight are linked to lower rates of victimisation. But when policies only refer to appearance in general, there's no such effect.
6/8

Bullying in relation to appearance was mentioned by about half the policies. And while this might include weight, it also covers a whole range of over things too, like height, hair colour, clothing, wearing glasses.
5/8

Most policies focused on protected characteristics — even those less relevant to pupils. Bullying linked to age or pregnancy was mentioned twice as often (14%) as weight. And 7% mentioned marital status — even though it's illegal to marry under 18 in the UK.
4/8

We reviewed the anti-bullying policies of 250+ local south west secondary schools. Private schools were most likely to mention weight-related bullying (n=40, 18%), followed by mainstream state schools (n=148, 7%). No special schools (state or private, n=67) mentioned it at all.
3/8