Fat by Deborah Lupton

Fat Reviews

• 
  Trevor

  If you wanted a quick introduction via a kind of worked example of the sort of ideas that sociologists think about and how they go about that thinking, you could do a lot worse than reading this book. It is not that she provides a link to every sociological theory that might apply to the idea of being overweight (although, she covers enough for this to be a useful introduction there too), but rather this book shows some of the power of sociological thinking applied to something most of us might take a bit for granted.
  
  She starts by showing that being fat is something that is socially constructed, even if we currently think that we live in an age where we have a ‘scientific’ basis for understanding what being overweight or obese means. She discusses the BMI – body mass index – and points out that it wasn’t all that long ago that the medical profession decided to lower the ranges where being overweight or obese start. She makes it clear that these are quite arbitrary and that there is debate even within the scientific community about whether or not being overweight is as grave a health issue as it is often presented. There is also debate around the idea that even if it is a health issue, how should we decide what is the best way to address it.
  
  The problem is that losing and then regaining weight might well be as bad, or possibly even worse, for you than just being overweight.
  
  Foucault gets a bit of a run here – not least due to his ideas of biopolitics – how those in power use various means to regulate our bodies as a way to control populations – and his governmentality – that by creating various ways to quantify, measure and average aspects of people’s bodies and behaviours, society can encourage people to police themselves. Body mass has long been used as a means to shame people – whether for them being too fat or too thin – with the golden mean something most of us struggle to ever achieve, or to even know we have achieved.
  
  One of the early premiers of Victoria, the state where I live, was corpulent enough for an opponent to ask him, pointing to his stomach, what he would name the child once it was born. Being a good loyalist to the crown he is supposed to have replied, “if it is a boy I will call it Edward, if it is a girl I would call it Edwina, and if it is just piss and wind, I’ll name it after you”.
  
  Feminist scholars are also central to the discussion here – given that society is particularly obsessed with regulating female bodies, and that females are expected to make themselves small in all ways if they are to be attractive, this then becomes an imperative. And it is interesting how unconscious this can be. For instance, I got into an argument once with my father about which sex is the most prone to being overweight – he was certain it was women, but virtually everyone I’ve ever read says men are much more likely to be. We like to think we can trust the evidence of our eyes, but we are much more likely to notice a slightly overweight woman and consider this to be a problem for her, while we ignore a much more overweight man. Men are supposed to take up space, and so when they do we barely notice.
  
  I think there are limits to this, of course, and I think body shaming has become something that embraces males now too. Recently I read an article by a woman who lost a significant amount of weight. She had been going out to various dating nights and using apps and so on, more or less to have sex, rather than necessarily to end up in a relationship. And she thought that losing weight would prove a bit of a boon for her sex life – except, the opposite happened. She was outraged when she was told by a man that a possible reason for that was that men might have thought she would have been easier to sleep with when she was overweight than when she was slim. She took this to mean that she would have had looser morals as a fat girl than as a slim one. I don’t doubt this would have been part of the story here, but it is interesting to note that men are always supposed to be incapable of self-reflection in these cases – and that perhaps another part of this story might well be that they didn’t approach her when she was slim because they didn’t think she would be attracted to them.
  
  I really liked this book – enough that I’m going to read some more of her books (I’ve tracked down one on risk and one on the digital society, and a friend has recommended one on the quantified self I’ll need to look out for). She complicates some of the ideas here – for instance, early in the book she talks of libertarians who believe government health promotions are all part of the ‘nanny state’ and that people should be able to eat whatever they like. Later she discusses feminist sociologists who end up saying much the same thing – but from nearly the opposite perspective. I think what it means to be overweight is certainly socially constructed, however, even so, it is likely that there are physical limits to how fat or thin you should be, and that if you surpass those limits it is likely that it will have a negative impact on your life and life expectancy. So, not totally socially constructed, but it would be daft to not notice the social construction entirely.
  
  All the same, people’s weight has become a moral issue, possibly the moral issue of our age, where fat shaming is seen as justified and people are judged as having a weak character if they are over a certain weight. The problem here isn’t just for those outside of whatever the ‘normal’ range might be – and as she makes clear, what is ‘normal’ is certainly not the weight of the ‘average’ person, whoever that might be.
  
  I would have liked some mention of Baudrillard and his The Consumer Society in this. Not least because that book was written in 1970 – pretty much when we generally assume the obesity crisis was about to begin. But as he says, “It is estimated that 30 million Americans either are, or believe themselves to be, obese” Page 143 – even back then. The whole point of capitalism is to make us feel dissatisfied, since satisfied people are not good consumers. The author here made me feel that notions that we are encouraged to think of ourselves as being overweight so that we will pour money into medical treatments, fitness, dieting and so on is effectively a conspiracy theory. I think I prefer to understand this as Baudrillard intended it – that there is no need for a ‘conspiracy’ – because what is in the interests of power generally becomes ‘common sense’.
  
  There is always only so much you can actually eat, but a consumer society can get us to consume well beyond ‘need’. It can make adding gold to our food a thing, it can encourage you to feel shame so you will then join your local gym, or buy some home gym equipment, or have your stomach stapled, or just buy the latest Dr Mosley book on his 5/2 diet. Mosley is interesting here, because he makes it clear that even looking thin isn’t enough, you might be a TOFI (thin outside, fat inside). The need to regulate your body, to discipline it, to see the truth below the superficial, to take responsibility, to make whatever sacrifices are necessary – this is the not so hidden message of the entrepreneurial self that being fat stands as the motivator for direct action.
  
  I liked this book – it’s a quick read, but on a subject that is nearly impossible for us to not be aware of, nor to be unaffected by.
  
• 
  Andrea Hickman Walker

  This is a very interesting introduction to the subject. It didn't answer some of the questions I have, but that's because it's a broad introduction and detailed information is completely out of the scope. I certainly believe in Health at Every Size, rather than a blanket, 'anyone over this weight is unhealthy and bad', though there are certain larger people that I judge negatively for their size. Of course, that's because I don't like them and it's one more thing to be critical of. The larger people who I do like, well, I never think about their size unless there's a reason to. I really can't believe that there are people who still think BMI is a decent proxy for health (of course, I feel the same way about those who think the IQ is a decent proxy for intelligence, but those are different books). What I really want to know is whether or not fat really does impact negatively on health, and if so, how much fat is too much? I know people who prefer to be plump and I don't think that's having an impact on their health. But what I want to know is, is there a way to say 'you need to lower your body fat percentage to x' and have it apply to everyone? And, moreover, have it actually have health benefits, rather than just making people feel bad about themselves?
  
  This is a good introduction to a complicated issue that more people need to think about. There's so much hate and self-hatred around this issue, not to mention body policing, that I think more people need to read this sort of thing and approach the matter with knowledge and compassion. And while I'm at it, can we have world peace, an end to world hunger, and affordable medical care for everyone?
• 
  Tara Brabazon

  This book is part of Routledge's 'Shortcuts' series. Therefore it is short and introductory and can be read in one sitting. It offers a guide through the reasons for fixating on fatness since the last decade of the 20th century. This book exhibits a strong use of sociological theories, including the normalizing parameters around the body.
  
  Lupton has a fine career in critiquing the positivism and empiricism of medical discourse. That expertise is continued in this book. The challenge in this book is that some of the thoughts - particularly with regard to gender, class and sexuality - are left incomplete. Yet for the scholars that follow, there is much of interest in this book, and much to investigate in greater depth and complexity.
• 
  Emily

  'Fat' by Deborah Lupton is a great introductory book about why society has such a disdain for fat bodies. The book was easy to read and highlighted a number of sociological theories and concepts relevant to the subject. This is a must read book for sociology students! However, I think any person would stand to gain from reading this book. It is eye-opening and makes you consider how we view larger people in society. It raises some interesting questions about self-responsibility and about whether obesity should be considered a disability. While Lupton's personal beliefs are evident throughout this book, she is respectful of both sides of the argument.
  
  While this book gives you a glimpse of what it's like to be a fat person in contemporary western society, it does not push fat people all into one category. Instead, it highlights the common experiences they share while also acknowledging that each person is still an individual. Some people enjoy being fat and want to challenge the norm while others wish to have surgery and improve their health. I would have liked to see a stronger critique of the dangerous side to fat activism. Loving yourself at every size is great, however, denying the realities of the illnesses which come with being larger I take issue with. It disappoints me that fat activists push this idea and feminist academics support them.
  
  Overall, this was an enjoyable read and challenged a lot of my previous held assumptions about fatness.
• 
  Gayle Noble

  A short but informative look at the issue of why we hate fat, and by extension, many people hate those who are overweight or obese. It is a feeling that goes way beyond skin-deep and is historically evidenced. Maybe by becoming aware of why society feels as it does, we can look at how to change things so that we don't remove a person's right to being treated as a human being, just because of their weight. Very interesting book.
• 
  ~*kath*~

  Some good food for thought, but highly disappointing amount of privilege denial and a willful misrepresentation of the crux of most fat activism.