“You can’t claim an identity if everyone around you is saying it doesn’t or shouldn’t exist.”

Harrop, the eating disorders researcher, realized several years ago that her university had clubs for trans students, immigrant students, Republican students, but none for fat students. So she started one—and it has been a resounding, unmitigated failure. Only a handful of fat people have ever showed up; most of the time, thin folks sit around brainstorming about how to be better allies.

I ask Harrop why she thinks the group has been such a bust. It’s simple, she says: “Fat people grow up in the same fat-hating culture that non-fat people do.”

Since 1980, the obesity rate has doubled in 73 countries and increased in 113 others. And in all that time, no nation has reduced its obesity rate. Not one.