Speaker

The speaker of the TED Talk “Enough with the fear of fat” is Kelli Jean Drinkwater, an artist and fat activist.

By the time she was invited to give the TED Talk, Drinkwater was already well-known as a performer and documentary filmmaker who promotes fat acceptance.

TED is an organization that puts together conferences in which influential people are invited to talk and promote ‘ideas worth spreading’. The topics of TED Talks cover tech and science developments but also issues related to culture and lifestyle. The conferences are organized worldwide.

In the speech, Drinkwater presents herself as a fat person with humor, suggesting she accepts how she looks and embraces it: “I’m not sure if any of you have noticed, but I’m fat. (...) Let’s not sugarcoat it. I am the capital F-A-T kind of fat. I am the elephant in the room.” (ll. 4-7). She is also an active person suggested by the various pictures she shows the audience in which she does sports and performing arts.

The speech includes references to Drinkwater’s childhood and her mother: “So when I was six years old, my sister used to teach ballet to a bunch of little girls in our garage. I was about a foot talle...