5 Questions with Angel Austin

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Welcome to another installment of the 5 Questions With… series.

If you’re a new reader (hello and welcome!) this is a series where we learn a bit about experts in the field. Previous interviewees include Mikey Mercedes, Aaron Flores, Dr. Gregory Dodell, Lisa Du Breuil, Dr. Asher Larmie, members of Medical Students for Size Inclusivity, Chrissy King, Jessica Jones, Leslie Jordan Garcia, Dr. Mara Gordon, Dr. Whitney Trotter, Dr. Anna Whelan, Angela Goens, Dr. Maayan Simckes, Dr. Lesleigh Owen, Dra. Mónica Peralta, and Dana Sturtevant, Hilary Kinavey, and Sirius Bonner.

Today I am beyond honored to get to share an interview with Angel Austin who does incredible work for which I am so grateful, including as the Executive Director of the Association for Size Diversity and Health!

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your work.

I’m Angel Austin, Executive Director of ASDAH and founder of Sacred Space for Fat Bodies.

My degree is in Public Relations and my minor is in Music (Classical Voice), so if you’d told me years ago that I’d end up leading a national nonprofit focused on social justice, weight-inclusive care, and health equity, I probably would have laughed. Honestly, I still don’t entirely know how I got here.

What I do know is that my life has taught me things I never could have learned in a classroom. I’ve been fat my entire life and superfat/infinifat for most of my adult life. I’ve been a Black girl and Black woman all my life. I’ve been chronically ill and disabled for more than twenty years. Dealing with healthcare, education, employment, public spaces, relationships, and everyday life from those intersections has been an education all its own. It’s an entire conversation for another day.

I don’t consider myself an academic scholar. What I bring to this work comes from lived experience, community, observation, curiosity, and a deep commitment to justice since High School. My life has been a crucible. The lessons forged m have become the foundation of my work and, in many ways, my purpose. I spend my time helping people make sense of systems that often harm them while working alongside others to dream and to build something better.

2. How did you learn about the concept of weight-inclusive, body-affirming care?

The short answer is that I needed it long before I knew there was a name for it.

Like many fat people, I spent years having healthcare conversations where my body size seemed to matter more than whatever I was actually there for. At the same time, I was managing chronic illness, disability, pain, and a growing awareness that many of the messages I was receiving about health didn’t match what I was experiencing in my own life.

When I eventually found weight-inclusive care and Health at Every Size®, it felt less like discovering something new and more like finding language for things I’d already been wrestling with for years.

It helped me understand that many of the harms fat people experience aren’t accidental. They’re built into systems, policies, assumptions, and cultural beliefs. Once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it.

3. How have you/do you apply those concepts to your work?

Everything I do starts with the belief that I deserve dignity, care, and self-determination right now. not someday, not after I change my body, and not after I prove I’m worthy. If that’s true for me, it’s true for so many who share my experiences and interactions.

Whether I’m creating programming, speaking, writing, or facilitating community conversations, I’m interested in helping people move away from the question of “How do we fix fat people?” and toward “How do we create conditions where fat people can thrive?”

I think a lot about power. Who gets believed? Who gets access to care? Who gets included in research? Who gets left out of the conversation? Whose knowledge counts? I’m deeply and personally motivated change the answers to these questions.

Weight-inclusive care isn’t just about healthcare for me. It’s about challenging the idea that our worth is conditional.

4. What’s one thing that you wish people who are still working from a weight-focused paradigm could learn or know?

I wish more people understood that weight is not the most interesting thing about a fat person’s life. There is so much we miss when we reduce people to their body size.

Fat people have goals, talents, relationships, dreams, expertise, challenges, identities, and whole complex lives. Though this is the case, so many systems have been designed to look at us and see only a problem to solve. Our humanity is perceived to be an afterthought, if it’s considered at all.

I’d love for people to approach fat people with more curiosity and less certainty. Health professionals are especially guilty of this and diagnostic overshadowing is a serious issue with devastating and sometimes deadly consequences.

Please ask questions and really listen. Consider the possibility that we are experts in our own lives (and maybe even more).

The people most impacted by a system often understand that system in ways others never will.

5. How and where do we find you and your work?

You can find me through ASDAH and Sacred Space for Fat Bodies.

ASDAH is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing size diversity and health equity through education, advocacy, and community-building. Sacred Space for Fat Bodies is a community-centered online space focused on creating support, connection, and belonging for fat people, especially Black, superfat+ folks who might also be disabled or chronically ill. It’s a home for those of us whose experiences are often overlooked.

You can learn more at:

ASDAH: https://asdah.org

Sacred Space for Fat Bodies on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sacredspaceforfatbodies?igsh=OXRlMXliOTkyd3Zw

Bonus - Anything else you’d like to say?

I think we’re living through a time when people are hungry for answers, but what many of us actually need is to begin to ask the right questions.

Some of the most important things I’ve learned haven’t come from having the right credentials or the perfect theory. They’ve come from paying attention. We ALL need to listen to people whose experiences are dismissed and ask why they are. I do this as a practice and notice patterns. So many of us are surviving things we never wanted to experience. Why is that? We all (including those with privilege and power) need to remain curious.

Again, I don’t know how I got here. I didn’t follow a traditional path. I just know why I stay. I believe another world is possible and people deserve care without conditions.

I KNOW lived experience is a form of expertise. Some of the most transformative knowledge comes from people like myself who have spent their lives fighting systems that weren’t built for us. People like me are who I learn from every day. These are the people I’m committed to serving until I can’t anymore.