Welcome to the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination website!
The Council on Size & Weight Discrimination works to change public policies and people’s attitudes concerning body weight. We act as consumer advocates for larger people, especially in the areas of medical treatment, job discrimination, and media images. We have been incorporated since 1991.
We believe that:
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- All people, no matter what their weight, deserve equal treatment in the job market and on the job.
- All people, no matter what their weight, deserve competent and respectful treatment by health care professionals.
- The media’s portrayal of fat people is often inappropriately negative.
- The media promotes people’s fear of fat and obsession with thinness.
- Weight diversity is a positive goal. Our dream is a world in which a person’s life, health, well-being, and happiness are unrelated to that person’s weight.
- Happy, attractive, capable people come in all shapes and sizes.
- Each of us has the responsibility to stand up for ourselves and for people around us who may suffer weight discrimination.
- Sizeism and weight bigotry will end when people of all sizes refuse to allow it to continue.
- We stand in solidarity with those who experience discrimination based on ethnicity, skin color, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or other traits. Our mission is to make people aware of discrimination based on size, shape, and weight, and to work to end such discrimination.
Update as of September, 2025:
ANNOUNCING THE END OF THE 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status of the CSWD (Council on Size & Weight Discrimination). The CSWD has enjoyed this status since it was founded in 1991. But in the long run, the time and expense of the filing requirements have proven to be too limiting, and the board has, by consensus, determined to abandon the effort to restore and maintain the tax-exempt status to be active.
By so doing, we are stating that gifts to the CSWD will no longer be tax deductible. However, the organization itself will continue, and its website CSWD.org will be maintained, possibly with even more features and commentary. And the CSWD will continue to be a voice when the community of size acceptance activism comes together to get legislation passed outlawing size discrimination.
The website is also to be maintained, in part, as a memorial tribute to our first president, Miriam Berg, who devoted the final 30 years of her life to setting up and maintaining the site.
–Bill Fabrey
President, Exec Dir, and one of the 7 co-founders in 1991
Donate to the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination with PAYPAL Or donate by mail: CSWD, PO Box 116, Bearsville, NY 12409
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