Fat shaming under neoliberalism and COVID‐19: Examining the UK’s Tackling Obesity campaign

Abstract

This article explores the dynamics between fat shaming, neoliberalism, ideological constructions of health and the ‘obesity epidemic’ within the UK, using the UK Government’s recent Tackling Obesity campaign in response to Covid‐19 as an illustration. We draw attention to how fat shaming as a practice that encourages open disdain for those living with excess weight operates as a moralising tool to regulate and manage those who are viewed as ‘bad’ citizens. In doing so, we begin by outlining how the ideological underpinnings of ‘health’ have been transformed under neoliberalism. We then consider the problematic use of fat shaming discourses that are often used as tools to promote ‘healthy’ lifestyle choices by those who view it as not only an acceptable way of communicating the health risks associated with obesity but also a productive way of motivating people with obesity to lose weight. Drawing on Graham Scambler’s theoretical framework regarding shame and blame (2020), we discuss how ‘heaping blame on shame’ has become a ‘wilful political strategy’ under neoliberalism, particularly as it relates to individuals with obesity, and how the Tackling Obesity campaign leverages concerns around ‘choices’ and ‘costs’ as a means through which to encourage normative models of self‐care and self‐discipline.

‘Solitude is not thrust upon any lovable person’: loneliness, shame and the problem (of) personality

“…The author Evelyn Home’s address to the WGPW, here, bears returning to at greater length. Her usual mode of communication – agony aunt columns and the growing genre of self-help – imposed a specific perspective on loneliness, emphasising individual responsibility for health in ways which have been rigorously critiqued as creating fertile ground for shame ( Dolezal and Spratt 2022 ). For Home, the path away from loneliness began with ‘a bit of self-knowledge.’ Through her magazine work, she was frequently in receipt of letters from readers, many of which outlined their own feelings of loneliness or relational dilemmas.…”

The shameful dead

“…In the UK, the government repeatedly set out to deflect shame from both their own poor handling of the immediate crisis, and their long complicity in the raft of endemic problems which COVID-19 brought into sharper focus; including the 'slow death' of stark health inequalities among racialised communities (Sandset, 2021(Sandset, : 1412; see also Berlant, 2007). Unsatisfactory rates of infection and death were blamed on individuals ignoring advice, breaking rules, burdening the UK's National Health Service (NHS) with complications, or not using their 'common sense', frequently demonising groups who were already socially disadvantaged (Cooper, 2021;Dolezal and Spratt, 2023). Public health policy and messaging actively directed shame towards the populations it targeted, drawing on some of the most harmful traditions in its history (Cooper et al, 2023).…”

“…Conversely, where shame is deliberately or unwittingly produced in pursuit of public health objectives, this helps to legitimise other -and perhaps more extreme -iterations of shame and shaming. One particularly visible example of the effects of public health messaging in producing shame can be seen in the UK Government's 2020 'better health' campaign, which explicitly positioned people with excess weight as making poor lifestyle choices and burdening the NHS (Dolezal and Spratt, 2023). In this instance, well-worn patterns of body shaming in public health were adapted to the COVID-19 context, even as the pandemic placed heightened constraints on the pursuit and maintenance of a 'healthy' weight.…”

Nursing's professional character: A chimera?

“…Second, some positive associations ought to be refused. For example, although jolliness is a positive attribute, it is rude and inane to associate those who are overweight with jolliness (see Dolezal & Spratt, 2023, on ‘fat shaming’). This is not an acceptable group level character attribute for overweight people, and regards nursing, self‐sacrifice might similarly be declined.…”