Weighing Both Sides: Morality, Mortality, and Framing Contests over Obesity

Abstract

Despite recent and growing media attention surrounding obesity in the United States, the so-called obesity epidemic remains a highly contested scientific and social fact. This article examines the contemporary obesity debate through systematic examination of the claims and claimants involved in the controversy. We argue that four primary groups-antiobesity researchers, antiobesity activists, fat acceptance researchers, and fat acceptance activists-are at the forefront of this controversy and that these groups are fundamentally engaged in framing contests over the nature and consequences of excess body weight. While members of the fat acceptance groups embrace a body diversity frame, presenting fatness as a natural and largely inevitable form of diversity, members of the antiobesity camp frame higher weights as risky behavior akin to smoking, implying that body weight is under personal control and that people have a moral and medical responsibility to manage their weight. Both groups sometimes frame obesity as an illness, which limits blame by suggesting that weight is biologically or genetically determined but simultaneously stigmatizes fat bodies as diseased. While the antiobesity camp frames obesity as an epidemic to increase public attention, fat acceptance activists argue that concern over obesity is distracting attention from a host of more important health issues for fat Americans. We examine the strategies claimants use to establish their own credibility or discredit their opponents, and explain how the fat acceptance movement has exploited structural opportunities and cultural resources created by AIDS activism and feminism to wield some influence over U.S. public health approaches. We conclude that notions of morality play a central role in the controversy over obesity, as in many medical disputes, and illustrate how medical arguments about body weight can be used to stymie rights claims and justify morality-based fears.

Communicating Stigma About Body Size

“…This approach contrasts with the majority of body-size stigma research that focuses on the stigmatization of large bodies and analyzes body-size stigma victims' recollection of stigmatizing messages (Cossrow, Jeffery, & McGuire, 2001;Puhl, Moss-Racusin, Schwartz, & Brownelll, 2008) or analyzes media discourse about weight (Heuer et al, 2011;Saguy & Almeling, 2008;Saguy & Riley, 2005). In addition, analyzing SC generated by lay individuals adds critical knowledge to the field of stigma research, since previous research indicates that body-size stigma is pervasive (Puhl & Brownell, 2003), but getting participants to admit to feeling stigma toward an individual or group is difficult, and capturing the ways that such stigma is communicated is especially challenging (Bresnahan & Zhuang, 2010).…”

“…Contemporary popular and medical discourse about body size emphasizes individual responsibility for weight and simultaneously highlights the individual and societal financial costs associated with "unhealthy" weighttypically obesity (Saguy & Almeling, 2008;Saguy & Riley, 2005). Smith (2007a) postulates that SC will often assign personal responsibility for the condition to the individual and/or attribute significant social peril (i.e., a costly burden to society) to the condition.…”

“…But, as news and scientific literature demonstrate, these costs are passed on to the larger group in the form of rising health care costs, reduced productivity of important institutions, or even perceived threats to the moral fabric of society (Saguy & Riley, 2005). Thus, when one speaks of the health risks associated with obesity, or with extreme low weight, one speaks of the costs not only to the individual, but also to society.…”

“…Given the links between weight and costly physical or psychological health issues seen in contemporary popular discourse (Saguy & Almeling, 2008;Saguy & Riley, 2005), comments that directly referenced costly health conditions were seen as linking body size to social peril. This category was labeled "social perilphysical" and included references to physical health conditions like "diabetes" or "anorexia."…”

Reporting risk, producing prejudice: How news reporting on obesity shapes attitudes about health risk, policy, and prejudice

“…They spread their message in books, blogs, and via organizations such as the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and the International Size Acceptance Association. Fat rights activists argue that epidemiological studies such as the Eating-to-Death study increase weight-based prejudice and stigma (see Saguy and Riley, 2005). The extent to which this fear is justified, however, remains unknown.…”