Fat studies is a relatively new interdisciplinary field characterized by its critical approach to western society's views of fatness and fat people. Fat studies research projects vary widely but share some basic tenets. First, societies' attitudes toward fatness are socially constructed. Second, antifat constructions cause great harm to fat people and constitute discrimination against them. Third, some groups benefit from these constructions and actively work to maintain and spread them. Fourth, all claims and assumptions about fatness are suspect, as is any terminology coined as part of antifat constructions. Fat studies is therefore a political project as well as an academic field.