Virgie Tovar, a Latina weight-based discrimination and body positivity expert has been hired by the San Francisco Department of Public Health to act as a consultant on 'weight stigma and weight neutrality,' as reported by the New York Post.
According to her contributor bio on Forbes, Virgie Tovar is the author of several books revolving around weight stigmas, including You Have the Right to Remain Fat (2018), The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity (2020), and The Body Positive Journal (2022).
According to her website, Virgie Tovar was named one of Bitch Magazine's 50 most prominent feminists. Her awards include three Individual Artist Commissions from the San Francisco Arts Commission, an Inspire Award from Project HEAL, and a renowned Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale.
A San Fransico resident, Virgie Tovar broke the news of this consultancy collaboration with the San Fransisco Department of Public Health on her Instagram with the caption:
"I'm UNBELIEVABLY proud to serve the city I've called home for almost 20 years in this way! This consultancy is an absolute dream come true, and it's my biggest hope and belief that weight neutrality will be the future of public health."
More about Virgie Tovar
Virgie Tovar got engaged on 2 October and then documented her 52-week journey to her Fall 2024 wedding in her Substack newsletter. In the caption where she shared her engagement photos, she wrote:
"So much love to our friends and to Andrew's family, who have made me feel like a daughter/sister from Day 1 ♡♡♡♡ My body is ready!!!"
When posting pictures about her wedding on her social media, Virgie Tovar wrote in the caption:
"The last year has taught me that being a bride is a practice in visibility. I believe in plus-size women being in the limelight - publicly and unequivocally worshipped, loved, and adored the way we deserve to be."
She has also given an interview to The High Society Magazine where she spoke about being a 'Plus-Size Bride.' In the interview, Virgie Tovar reflected on how society's obsession with weight loss impacted her from a young age. She recalled watching reruns of the famous "I Love Lucy" diet episode, where Lucy’s husband challenged her to lose weight in five days. In the episode, Lucy’s efforts escalated from eating celery to spending an entire day in a sweatbox.
Tovar remembered realizing that women, including herself, would be expected to go to extreme lengths to avoid being considered 'fat' and that she no longer believed that she should be expected to lose weight simply because she was fat, and she knew that science didn’t support weight loss. She said:
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"I’ve been anti-diet and fat-positive for almost 13 years. My husband-to-be is fat positive, too. Both of our families know all about where we stand on the matter of body size. I love that I get to be a plus-size bride and that my engagement photos and wedding photos will document me as I actually exist — double chin and all."
With over 84K followers on her Instagram, Virgie Tovar regularly posts about the negative effects of diet culture and posts that talk about body positivity and fat shaming.
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