Woke universities' newest social justice crusade: Fighting 'fatphobia'

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com.

"Health justice" is becoming a new woke agenda item in universities across the country, as progressive academics try to eliminate "fatphobia," or the cultural stigmatization of obesity, including scrapping the word "obesity" itself.

The University of Illinois Chicago’s school of public health defines weight stigma as "the discrimination or stereotyping based on a person’s weight," which it claims is "reported at rates comparable to racism and is one of the last types of discrimination still condoned and carried out by public health and medical experts."

OBESTIY: MORE THAN HALF OF YOUNG ADULTS ARE OVERWEIGHT, STUDY SAYS

The University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) campus in Chicago in October 2020. (Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) (Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

"The incidence of weight stigma has increased by 66 percent with the rise of public health campaigns to end the ‘obesity epidemic,’" the school says.

The school released a policy brief in October called, "Addressing weight stigma and fatphobia in public health," which said the country’s focus on body size is "rooted in racism" dating back to Charles Darwin, and it advised against using "extremely stigmatizing" words like "obesity" in favor of terms such as "people in larger bodies."

"Though lifestyle factors such as nutrition and exercise are important, it is essential to note the historical racism and injustices within our current food environment," the brief said. "As presented by Soul Fire Farm, the U.S. food system is built on stolen land using stolen labor from Black and Latinx indigenous people. Not only