Is A Weight-Centred Health Framework Salutogenic? Some Thoughts on Unhinging Certain Dietary Ideologies

Abstract

Does promoting weight loss improve health? This paper draws on diverse writings in empowerment, social justice, critical obesity literature, feminism and stress biology to challenge the appropriateness of the continued reliance on a reductionist metaphor of 'energy balance' in understanding fatness. It examines some of the scientific and philosophical premises underlying mainstream UK dietary antiobesity guidelines and argues that the evidence supporting a link between promoting weight-loss and improving health is, at best, contentious. A central theme is that the current weight-loss schema helps to naturalise a fatness discourse that not only represents large people in offensively stereotyped ways but also fails to integrate people's lived experience as gendered, situated bodies in an inequitable world.

Working hard on the outside: a multimodal critical discourse analysis ofThe Biggest Loser Australia

“…In response to the growing influence of 'obesity crisis' discourse a counter movement of obesity critics and Fat Studies researchers has arisen (e.g., Aphramor, 2005;Campos, 2004;Cooper, 2009;Gard, 2011;Gard & Wright, 2005). These critical obesity scholars and activists contest many of the claims of 'obesity crisis' discourse, and draw attention to the ideological functions of the bodily surveillance that is mandated and legitimised by the invocation of a 'crisis'.…”

Fucking failures: The future of fat sex

“…The endorsement of weight loss in the articles can be seen as part of this process wherein responsibility (or more often blame) for sexual function or fertility is placed on the individual. What makes the continued recommendation of weight loss in the sample articles even more problematic is the absence of any the counter-literature that presents evidence of the failure of most weight loss attempts long term and questions its benefits to health (see for example Aphramor, 2005). Similarly, Hanne Blank's ground-breaking fat-positive sex guide Big Big Love (2011) raises issues around weight loss and sex that are completely neglected in the sample articles.…”

Debating, theorising and researching ‘obesity’ in challenging times

“…The first three papers in this collection (Aphramor, 2005;Monaghan, 2005;Rich and Evans, 2005) reflect my own early forays and fortuitously established alliances within this nascent field of study. My 2005 Discussion Piece: A Critical Take on the Obesity Debate was written after my interest was piqued by claims that most men in England are overweight or obese, that 'excess' weight/fatness is unacceptable and this must be tackled as a matter of national urgency.…”

“…For instance, although I have contributed five papers on obesity/weight/fatness to STH, given an obvious need for polyvocality I have only selected one fairly short paper (Monaghan, 2005). I chose that because it has served as a recurrent point of reference for other contributors to STH and it was accompanied by two excellent papers in the same issue, which I wanted to include here (Aphramor, 2005;Rich and Evans, 2005). These two papers on dietary approaches to weight loss and fat politics have grabbed the attention of many STH readers as gauged by citation metrics.…”

“…For instance, in the interests of social justice can we ignore the maldistribution of nutritional privilege and metabolic imprinting in utero as potentially consequential mechanisms for health and adiposity, especially when people living in poverty migrate from (semi-)peripheral to core nations and have children? Note Aphramor's (2005) critical reference to obesity among US Mexican boys, which undermines prejudicial allocations of irresponsibility to immigrant mothers. As she explains when reworking a well-known feminist slogan, the physiological is also political.…”