Research
My research aims to understand the extensive and multifaceted ways in which people are harmed by oppression, the ways in which different systems of oppression intersect and inflict unique kinds of harm, and the most effective ways for achieving justice. My current project aims to answer these questions in the context of medical research, public health and more specifically, medical research on fatness (i.e., "obesity"). The project has three components: (1) conceptualizing fat oppression, (2) identifying the extensive and cumulative harms of fat oppression, which are often produced and perpetuated by medical research and recommendations and public health programs/messages, and (3) offering suggestions for liberation.
Below are brief descriptions of papers that are in development.
Below are brief descriptions of papers that are in development.
Reconceptualizing Fat Oppression as a Form of Cultural Imperialism
In this paper I argue that we need to move beyond viewing fatness through a strictly feminist critique (e.g., Susie Orbach 1978; Susan Bordo 1993). Rather, I argue that fat oppression is a kind of cultural imperialism (Young 1990) that has adapted to fit contemporary society’s seemingly less offensive and legitimate cultural value of health. The dominant narrative about fatness preserves the common anti-fat biases and stereotypes about people in larger bodies (e.g., that they are lazy, unreliable, incompetent, etc.), and the narrative is perceived as justified because it is grounded in concern for people’s health. I provide some context on the history of weight stigma and how fat oppression has adapted itself to the changing times. This historical background demonstrates that fat oppression needs to be evaluated through a lens that acknowledges the role of medicine and public health in perpetuating fat oppression via the “obesity epidemic.” An early draft of this paper was presented at the 2023 Pacific APA. |
A Value-Neutral Model of Fatness
This paper applies Elizabeth Barnes’ (2016) value-neutral model of disability to the case of fatness and discusses whether we ought to consider fatness a kind of disability. This framework is particularly helpful in describing the complicated ever-changing relationship that larger-bodied folks have with their bodies – a relationship that is not always positive but has also been said to be enriching (Wann 1998; Cooper 2016). Much of the suffering that people in larger bodies experience is a result of living in an anti-fat society, and for this reason fatness cannot be said to be in itself a bad thing. Just like other marginalized ways of being in the world (e.g., being Black, a woman, elderly, gay, etc.), there are positive and negative features associated, but we do not assume that the negative features are intrinsic or even that they must outweigh the good. And even if there are cases in which fatness is linked to pain, suffering or even death, this does not make fatness on the whole a bad thing (Barnes 2016). |
A Case Study of Systemic Epistemic Injustice in Fat Oppression
There are two papers related to epistemic injustice. The first argues that the epistemic injustice that people in larger bodies experience is best understood as a kind of systemic epistemic injustice. This approach allows for recognizing the broader impacts of epistemic injustice (Medina 2013; Reiheld 2018) and understanding the problem as a practice of silencing instead of mere instances of silencing (Dotson 2011). I also consider a potential objection to my argument given that most people in larger bodies want to lose weight. How can there be a systemic epistemic injustice given such testimonies? In response, I argue that most people in larger bodies who say they want to lose weight have internalized the oppressive views of the dominant narrative. This isn’t to say that we should ignore such testimonies but rather, hold them in light of knowing that these individuals likely desire to lose weight given the pervasive dominant narrative. Revolutionizing Fatness
Building off my argument that fat oppression is being perpetuated via cultural imperialism and due to the dominant narrative about fatness (i.e., a life-threatening disease), this paper argues that liberation requires a cultural revolution and offers potential ways of promoting liberation. For one, fat liberation needs fat activists, their allies, and fat justice scholars to continue providing counternarratives to the dominant conception of fatness and to encourage all people in larger bodies to establish a positive identity and develop fat pride. Secondly, fat justice scholars should continue playing a role in educating people (and especially health care providers) on the complexities of obesity research and the many things we don’t know about fat and its effects on the body as well as the harms of implicit anti-fat biases and assumptions on the health of patients in larger bodies. Finally, another way of revolutionizing the way we understand fatness is by having fat activists involved in “obesity” research in ways that help the research achieve its social aim of improving the health of people in larger bodies and curate transparent, accurate, and socially beneficial information about the effects of adipose tissue on the body. |
An Adaptive Preference for Fatness: A Concern for Health or an Epistemic Injustice?
The second paper on epistemic injustice is inspired by another potential objection to my argument on epistemic injustice and arises from a variation of the argument from adaptive preference. For instance, when fat activists claim to value their fatness and are simply trying to defend their right to live unapologetically fat in a society that accommodates them, their message gets distorted as “advocating unhealthy lifestyles” or as attempts to “glamorize obesity” thereby making their fat-positive testimonies seem delusional. I argue that those who claim that all people who value their fatness have adaptive preferences commit an epistemic injustice. This injustice stems from an assumption that fatness is a suboptimal state (Barnes 2016; Stramondo 2021). In a similar vein, it also seems inappropriate to assume that all larger-bodied people who have a desire to lose weight in response to fat-shaming and discrimination have adaptive preferences, but I argue that it seems more likely that this group has adaptive preferences given the very low success rates of intentional weight-loss (less than 5%) and the emotional and physical stress research has shown often accompanies repeated weight-loss attempts. I presented an earlier draft this paper at both the 2nd Annual Arizona Feminist Philosophy Graduate Conference (2021) and the American Philosophical Association Central Division Meeting (2022). |
Works-in-Progress
"A Value-Neutral Model of Fatness" (under review)
Published Papers
Mehl, Kayla R. 2023. "The Medical Model of 'Obesity' and the Values Behind the Guise of Health." Synthese 201, 215. doi: 10.1007/s11229-023-04209-z.
Marshall, Colin and Kayla Mehl. (Forthcoming). “Schopenhauer's Five-Dimensional Normative Ethics.” In David Bather Woods and Timothy Stoll (eds.), The Schopenhauerian Mind. Routledge.
Mehl, Kayla R. (Forthcoming). “Allowable Deaths: Anorexia and Suicide by Starvation.” In Fritz Allhoff (ed.), Bioethics: New Directions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marshall, Colin and Kayla Mehl. (Forthcoming). “Schopenhauer's Five-Dimensional Normative Ethics.” In David Bather Woods and Timothy Stoll (eds.), The Schopenhauerian Mind. Routledge.
Mehl, Kayla R. (Forthcoming). “Allowable Deaths: Anorexia and Suicide by Starvation.” In Fritz Allhoff (ed.), Bioethics: New Directions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Public-Facing Work
Mehl, Kayla R. 2023. "Is Improving Health Really the Goal?: A Criticism of the American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines for Treating Obesity," Bioethics Today, April 17, 2023.
Talks
"The Incompatibility of the 'Obesity Epidemic' Framework and Eating Disorder Recovery," Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, Toronto, Canada, May 27–29, 2023.
"Reconceptualizing Fat Oppression as a Form of Cultural Imperialism," American Philosophical Association Pacific Division, San Francisco, CA, April 5–8, 2023.
"The Medical Model and the Values Behind the Guise of Health," 10th Values in Medicine, Science and Technology Conference, University of Texas at Dallas, May 19–21, 2022.
"An Adaptive Preference for Fatness: A Concern for Health or an Epistemic Injustice?" American Philosophical Association Central Division, Chicago, IL, February 23–26, 2022.
"An Adaptive Preference for Fatness: A Concern for Health or an Epistemic Injustice?" 2nd Annual Arizona Feminist Philosophy Graduate Conference, University of Arizona, May 1–2, 2021.
"A Feminist Critique: The Education of Children in Latinx Communities,"Asociaciόn de Filosofía y liberaciόn (Philosophy of Liberation Conference), Universidad Autόnoma de Cuidad Juárez, Cuidad Juárez, México, September 2017.
"Contemporary Challenges and Solutions to Established Feminist Philosophies on Race and Gender: Racial Barriers as a Lived Experience," The 8th Annual Women's History Month Conference, the University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, April 2017.
"Reconceptualizing Fat Oppression as a Form of Cultural Imperialism," American Philosophical Association Pacific Division, San Francisco, CA, April 5–8, 2023.
"The Medical Model and the Values Behind the Guise of Health," 10th Values in Medicine, Science and Technology Conference, University of Texas at Dallas, May 19–21, 2022.
"An Adaptive Preference for Fatness: A Concern for Health or an Epistemic Injustice?" American Philosophical Association Central Division, Chicago, IL, February 23–26, 2022.
"An Adaptive Preference for Fatness: A Concern for Health or an Epistemic Injustice?" 2nd Annual Arizona Feminist Philosophy Graduate Conference, University of Arizona, May 1–2, 2021.
"A Feminist Critique: The Education of Children in Latinx Communities,"Asociaciόn de Filosofía y liberaciόn (Philosophy of Liberation Conference), Universidad Autόnoma de Cuidad Juárez, Cuidad Juárez, México, September 2017.
"Contemporary Challenges and Solutions to Established Feminist Philosophies on Race and Gender: Racial Barriers as a Lived Experience," The 8th Annual Women's History Month Conference, the University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, April 2017.
Future Projects
Below are a few examples of current and forthcoming projects that will stay true to my commitments to justice but will help launch my research into other overlapping areas of interest (e.g., values in science, research ethics, environmental bioethics, public health ethics, AI ethics, medical ethics, social epistemology).
Stakeholder Engagement in "Obesity" Research
Disability scholars have argued in favor of changing the relations of disability research production due to the oppressive history of disability research (Zarb 1992; French and Swain 1997). Likewise, "obesity research" has functioned in a way that seems to perpetuate and justify weight stigma and deteriorate the health of people in larger bodies. It has been argued by disability scholars that shifting research models to emphasize participatory engagement in research – moving disabled people from objects of study to more active roles as team members – will improve the lived experiences of disabled people in that the research will not remain part of the problem but will instead be part of the solution (Zarb 1992). I intend to further research practical ways in which participatory and emancipatory research methodologies can be applied to "obesity research." Causes of the “Obesity Epidemic”: Reverting Back to Old Habits
A growing literature describes the racist origins of weight stigma (Strings 2019; Harrison 2021) and the ways "obesity" research is finding racialized and gendered explanations for the "obesity epidemic" (Hatch 2016; Saldaña-Tejeda 2017). Rather than questioning the "obesity epidemic" paradigm, researchers are trying to find biological and genetic explanations for obesity that reconstruct a biological notion of race and place too much emphasis on the mother’s role in a child’s genetic predisposition for obesity. Black Americans have been said to have higher rates of obesity because of their genes and culture (Hatch 2016), pregnant mothers are being held to higher standards of responsibility to produce children who do not become obese (e.g., needing to breastfeed), and mothers (particularly mothers who were fat when they conceived) have been blamed for their children’s weight (Tirosh 2012; Boney et al. 2005). I argue for a more just approach to improving the health of the nation that does not place unwarranted blame on mothers and does not revert back to biological determinism. This approach requires abandoning an overly individualistic and medicalized view of "obesity" and adopting a broader approach that takes more seriously the social and economic factors that are at play. |
Challenging Anti-Fatness Amid the Climate Crisis (with Paul Tubig)
This paper will critically interrogate anti-fatness that operates in environmental bioethics and public health responses to climate change. First, we will challenge a prominent interpretation of “obesity” as uniquely intensive and harmful to the environment. Some have argued that “obesity” imposes serious social, political, and environmental costs, such as exacerbating climate change, because it is presumed that people who are “obese” consume more resources and produce more greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, environmental considerations serve as another rationale for further pathologizing larger bodies, contributing to weight stigma, and advocating for medical interventions and public health measures to make people thinner and smaller. We argue that such interpretations employ problematic biases and assumptions to justify placing disproportionate blame on already oppressed individuals. This not only reinforces weight stigma but also defocuses on the broader societal conditions that drive climate change. Second, anti-fatness amid the climate crisis further marginalizes larger-bodied people of proper consideration from medical and public health institutions. This is represented in the case of Emmett Everett, a conscious and aware larger-bodied and paralyzed Black man who was killed by lethal injection during Hurricane Katrina because doctors deemed him to be too large to be evacuated. On the one hand, numerous bioethicists promote fat shaming/weight stigma in the name of protecting the environment, and on the other hand, despite the rising numbers of people in larger bodies, medical facilities and healthcare providers are not equipped, prepared, or educated on emergency planning or disaster risk reduction regarding larger-bodied patients. |