95+ Fat-Positive and HAES-Aligned Support Groups, Courses & Workshops Online and Around the World

Body Liberation Photography, Body Love Shop & Box, Events, Living in a Fat Body, Resource Guides  

Everywhere we go, we’re surrounded by diet culture, the cultural forces that cause us to feel bad about our bodies and want to shrink them into acceptability. Diet culture causes poor body image, encourages eating disorders and makes $71 billion in profit for the diet industry every year.

More and more often, people are pushing back against systems like these that arrange bodies in a hierarchy and call some of them “better” than others. Being anti-diet or recovering from dieting can be a lonely place, though, especially when everyone around you seems to still be jumping into every fad diet out there. Though diet culture encourages us to be vicious and toxic towards our own bodies and other people’s as well, it’s also an important bonding mechanism in our society. What are people supposed to do when they feel left out (or shut out) by diet talk?

As we move forward in our body acceptance journeys, support from people like us — along with experts to show us the way — is vital. Online support groups of every kind have sprung up to meet this need for community and support. (Many in-person and local support groups have as well, but due to the current COVID-19 situation, those have been put on hold.) These groups include:

  • Health at Every Size (HAES) and intuitive eating groups
  • Meal support groups for eating disorder recovery
  • Anti-diet, body positive and fat positive book clubs
  • Eating disorder recovery support groups and group therapy that welcome people in larger bodies
  • Fat-friendly fashion, fitness and hobby groups
  • Diet-free support groups for people with chronic illnesses and medical conditions

Here’s a list of over 95 support groups, programs, resources and courses that do not allow diet talk. Though each group listed is HAES-aligned, body positive and/or fat positive, I haven’t attended/scrutinized them all and am not responsible for their content.

I have a HAES-aligned group or program to add

Online HAES Support Groups & Programs

Online HAES Courses, Classes & Workshops

See the body-positive and fat-positive events calendar

Local, In-Person HAES Support Groups and Programs

Multi-Country

Fat Girls Hiking (Various locations across the US, Canada and UK)

Canada

Alberta

Ontario

United States

California

Connecticut

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Illinois

Des Plaines: Support in Recovery from Center for Discovery

Maryland

Baltimore: Positive Bodies Baltimore Peer support group

Massachusetts

Missouri

Kansas City: Kansas City Body Liberation

New Jersey

Paramus: Support in Recovery from Center for Discovery

New York

New York City: Creating A Connection with Lauren Fabrizio, email [email protected]

North Carolina

Ohio

Columbus: Fat Babes of Columbus

Oregon

Texas

Virginia

Washington State

This resource guide was created on land belonging to the Duwamish tribe. I support my current local tribal council monthly and you can too: www.realrentduwamish.org.

Hi! I’m Lindley.

I’m a photographer, author, cat mom, subscription box creator, and fat activist.

I help people reclaim their bodies through photography. I capture images of people of all sizes, ethnicities and genders, not just the ones whose bodies are likely to be seen in magazines and advertisements.

I also really enjoy putting together resources like this — so much that I do it every week!

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Hi there! I'm Lindley (she/her, pronounced LIN-lee). I create artwork that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards at Body Liberation Photography. I'm also the creator of Body Liberation Stock, which provides body-positive stock photos for commercial use, and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products. Find all my work at http://www.bodyliberationphotos.com.