Understanding ‘fat shaming’ in a neoliberal era: Performativity, healthism and the UK’s ‘obesity epidemic’

Abstract

This article explores how ‘fat shaming’ as a practice that encourages open disdain for those living in larger bodies operates as a moralising tool to regulate and manage those who are viewed as ‘bad citizens’. It begins by outlining the problematic use of fat shaming language that is often used as a tool 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 overweight and obesity to lose weight. I then go on to discuss how shame as it relates to body image and excess weight is culturally produced through both objective conceptualisations of deviance and subjective judgements about the moral character of those who are living with excess weight. Adopting a feminist theoretical perspective, this article further considers the reciprocal nature of fat shaming by calling attention to how shame as a felt emotion is dependent on understandings of oneself in relation to others, as well as the relationships that one forms with others. In this way, I argue that shame in general, and fat shaming in particular, is performative to the extent that it exists as a relational construct that is iteratively produced through the language and actions that give it meaning.

I Was Too Fat: Boris Johnson and the Fat Panic

“…Through neoliberal logics, 'health' and 'wellbeing' have become pursuits and achievements of individuals, where the responsibility for good health is placed firmly on an individual's ability to regulate, manage and invest in their own lifestyle, body and health-related activities. 27 This individualization of responsibility means that poor health and other social ills, like poverty and unemployment, are often seen as an individual shortcoming and the result of poor lifestyle choices. 28 The neoliberal emphasis on individual self-management, self-control and self-actualization has led to, as Hannele Harjunen argues, body size and the economy becoming 'closely intertwined with each other' .…”

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

“…Fat shaming is a practice wherein people living with overweight or obesity are purposefully stigmatised and deemed responsible for their body size ( Spratt, 2021 ). Under the logic of fat shaming, these individuals are made to feel ashamed of, and to blame for, their body size.…”

“…The normative contours of contemporary fat shaming and blaming are underpinned by this neoliberal logic, whereby individuals are assumed to be able to choose which foods they have access to, and hence can eat or feed their children, and the amount of exercise that they, or their children, can undertake on a daily basis ( Brewis & Wutich, 2019a ). Moreover, claiming that people living with overweight and obesity are directly responsible for their excess weight is often utilised to support the argument that fat shaming is ‘beneficial’ because it could prompt a change in their ‘poor behaviours’ ( Spratt, 2021 ). As noted by US television host Bill Maher in 2019, ‘some amount of shame is good.…”

Digital Modernity

“…However, given the calculation of our health and wellbeing from aggregate information from our avatars, it turns out that these responsibilities now more nearly coincide. This has led to the claim that health has now become a required objective for the responsible citizen (Spratt, 2021;Welch, 2021, 63). Why should this be?…”

“…This is less controversial as generally negatively construed as discipline-transformed-into-harm (Billingham and Parr, 2020;Fritz, 2021;Frye, 2021), but nonetheless attempting to shame people into conforming with norms remains a prominent activity. Shaming may be aimed at immigrants (Rohlfing and Sonnenberg, 2016), white supremacists (Milbrandt, 2020), people with criminal convictions (Dunsby and Howes, 2019), fat people (Ravary et al, 2019;Spratt, 2021), senders of "dick pics" (Paasonen and Sundén, 2021), sexually-active women (Jane, 2017;Van Royen et al, 2018), women who eat on public transport (Alberti, 2021), those who over-use water during droughts (Milbrandt, 2017), entitled white women ("Karens") (Negra and Leyda, 2021), welfare recipients (Brooker et al, 2015), those behind on school lunch money payments (Oravec, 2020), those who use their volunteering experiences to get dates (Laywine, 2021), and even doctors trying to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic (Dolezal et al, 2021).…”