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Young people’s perceptions of fat counsellors: “How can THAT help me?”

ABSTRACT Being fat is widely recognised as a stigmatised identity which disproportionately impacts women, both personally and professionally. Women are numerically dominant as therapy practitioners, and we use this group to explore the ways a “fat counsellor” is imagined in the context of counselling. A qualitative story completion task, about a woman starting therapy, was presented to 203 British young people ages 15–24. Participants were 75% female, 88% white, 93% heterosexual, and 98% able-bodied. The story stem did not specify the sex of the counsellor, who was identified as fat; the vast majority of stories assumed the counsellor was female. Overall, fatness was perceived as negatively affecting therapy and the counsellor’s professional credibility because fatness was equated with a lack of psychological health, which rendered fat counsellors professionally “unfit.” This finding extends the literature on “weight bias” in professional settings and has implications for counsellors of all body sizes.