| Title | : | The Fat Studies Reader |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0814776310 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780814776315 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 396 |
| Publication | : | First published October 28, 2009 |
The Fat Studies Reader Reviews
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This is a text book made up of chapters which appear to be a bunch of senior thesis projects. The "chapters" really are truly research papers that the writers were hoping to publish in some sort of journal, probably one related to sociology. The "chapters" even have sections such as "methodology", "results" etc. I'm telling you, the editors grabbed a bunch of senior research papers and stuck them together calling them a "book". So, this is excruciating to read, really very very horrible to read for a person who enjoys fiction writing. I have a BA in sociology and an MA in clinical psychology. So, I do actually understand the writing and I know why it's written as it is. However, I cannot over-emphasize how painfully dull, academic, and un-enjoyable this is to read. The topic is interesting and I learned quite a bit about the movement for the civil rights of fat people (including that they prefer to be called "fat") and about the "health at any size" argument. I'm glad to know more about this subject and what I've read will definitely stay with me and inform my thinking about fat people. However, I STRONGLY encourage the authors to consider writing a book that people might actually enjoy reading. It's difficult to persuade people to your point of view by by expecting them to slog through painfully dull academic writing. This subject could be really full of emotion and humor. It could be a captivating topic but they just fail miserably at making it readable. One bright spot, however was the chapter written by S. Bear Bergman called "Sometimes I'm Fat, and Sometimes I'm Not". It's written in a narrative style instead of a research paper style. It's easily the best and most readable chapter in the book.
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This is an outstanding edited collection. Part manifesto, part future research agenda, this book offers the starting point for an understanding of health, fitness and the 'weight loss industry.' There is attention to size diversity in education, sexuality, popular culture and politics.
Edited collections are often uneven in terms of research and writing. But this is beautifully written, evocative research. It is also incredible value for a library collection. For students and staff, this single book provides a gateway to a diversity of inter-disciplinary fields, such as work studies, leisure studies, education and women's and men's studies. -
WEIGHING IN
Jessica Holden Sherwood
Review of The Fat Studies Reader
Edited by Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay
NYU Press
With a winning audacity, The Fat Studies Reader announces its intention to serve as the foundation of a new academic field. Its editors present convincing voices from law, medicine, social sciences and the humanities, making it difficult to dismiss their case that the time has come for fat studies. As the student authors of one essay note, the subject overflows disciplinary boundaries the same way their bodies overflow the desks in their college classrooms.
Most Americans have accepted the health-focused conventional wisdom that obesity is a medical condition demanding prevention or intervention because of its risk of causing various other conditions, including diabetes or even premature death. Whether or not one questions the concept that “normal” weight is better and healthier, The Fat Studies Reader demonstrates that this powerful assumption does deserve analysis. Yes, research has found some connections between weight and health, but these correlations do not, the book argues, justify the stigmatization of an entire group of people. It’s certainly possible to be heavy and healthy, just as it’s possible to be thin and unhealthy.
The United States has a unique history of anti-fat bias, generated in the early 20th century by a confluence of factors: industrialization, which increased the availability of food; a puritanical ethic of denying desires; and scientific and pseudoscientific study of human improvement, as in eugenics. These factors coincided with perceived social threats from suffragists and from non-European immigrants. Thanks to certain scientific and medical professionals of the time, fatness became associated with “other” ethnic groups, the lower classes and those women who couldn’t control their carnality.
Things look surprisingly unchanged today: classism and racism live on in antifat discourse. Helping “them” make better choices remains a common mode of intervention in fat people’s lives, and just as it was a century ago, whole economic sectors thrive on selling services and products specifically to fight fat. Too many health professionals and community health programs focus not directly on well-being, but on weight loss and “obesity prevention.”
In The Fat Studies Reader, there is inevitably some disjuncture among the chapters, and the jargon of an academic niche occasionally appears. The takedown of “traitorous” formerly fat celebrities like Ricki Lake and Carnie Wilson feels more selfindulgent than feminist. But usually, the analysis is undeniably feminist, with fatness placed into larger social contexts. The chapter that follows the money from pharmaceutical companies to researchers to the National Institutes of Health is particularly cogent.
These 40 essays provoke questions aplenty: Does poverty make people fat, or does fatness impoverish? Would public health benefit more by altering the high-fat and sugar-heavy foodscape that consumers confront, or by fighting the stigmatization of obesity? Does cultural attention to fat women’s struggles, and to their sexual attractiveness (see mentions of J.Lo’s butt and fat burlesque), do harm or good or both? Whether you’re interested in women’s physical representation in the media, the debate about fitting into airline seats, the intersections of inequalities, or simply the prospect of accepting your body as it is, The Fat Studies Reader
has an abundance to offer.
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JESSICA HOLDEN SHERWOOD, PH.D., is executive officer of Sociologists for Women in Society. -
it was good for the first out of the gay...but one could have dealt with more intersectionalities
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A much needed anthology, this was my bible when writing an academic research paper about fatness and fat liberation. However, as many have noted, this book is incredibly dense and academic. I struggled with reading this anthology and was not able to finish. What I did read and was able to comprehend, though, was so extremely transformative. These topics are so rarely explored in larger academia, I would highly recommend this book.
For me, a stressed out undergrad rushing to finish a paper, the foreword was the most accessible part of this book. I admittedly tend to skip forewords, but Marilyn Wann's foreword has single handedly showed me why that is bad practice. Wann's foreword really succeeds in highlighting the importance of fat studies, fat people, and fat liberation. The context and analysis she gives to thse issues are written as a manifesto: what it means to be a fat studies scholar, the praxis of the field, the importance of fat liberation. She also prepares the reader for some of the language used in the upcoming essays. Just really well written and completely enchanting. The introduction does this as well, and more in depth, but I have never been so captured by a foreword before.
I hope to update this review as I progress through this anthology, to which I will undoubtedly return. -
fine-to-good, many individual pieces in this that could have stood to expand their analysis far more, the nods to extending its discourse beyond the academy / the US / the anglophone world were often cursory, but still a thorough + necessary anthology
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Julie Guthman, “Neoliberalism and the Constitution of Contemporary Bodies” pp.187-196
p.190 – As Harvey notes in The Condition of Postmodernity (1989), several possible fixes for the crisis existed in theory, but none was all too pretty. Devaluations (which did occur, notably in the rust belt) are always politically fraught; macro-economic regulation of the Keynesian sort was exactly what the right was out to dismantle, and temporal fixes of infrastructural development (which displace the problem into the future) would only add to the debt problem. This left the spatial fix – the absorption of excess capital and labor through geographic expansion – as the last rocky of the roads to take, paving the way to “globalization.”
p.191 – Cheap goods made by cheaper labor (including the super-exploitation of third world labor) prop up the declining wages of the middle class; their spending keeps the economy plodding along. In other words, contra Fordism, which had at its core a social wage that upheld demand for Fordist manufacture, the low-wage economy actively produced by McDonald’s and its ilk makes people dependent on fast, cheap food. At the very least, disarticulated production-consumption relationships make super-sizing seem like a good deal.
Fast food becomes a double good fix for capitalism; not only does it involve the super-exploitation of the labor force, but it also provides an outlet for surplus food. Insofar as this surplus manifests in more body mass, the contradiction is (temporarily) resolved in the body.
Neoliberalism’s other fix is to create purchasable solutions to the problems that it generates. One solution, as others have noted, is to commodify dieting as well as eating. Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers’frozen dinners, the thousands of diet books, and pay-as-you-go group weight loss therapy all demonstrate that diets can be sold and bought. A related solution is to design food products that do not act like food. Products like Simplesse, the substance used as fat in low-fat ice cream, or Splenda, the low0calorie sugar, break right through the problem of inelastic demand. As implied by the brand names, the commodity simply passes through, enabling it to be consumed with no weight-gaining effect. For that matter, some of the newer pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements designed to reduce the body’s absorption of fat (along with essential vitamins and minerals) fulfill a similar function.
Dina Giovanelli and Stephen Ostertag, “Controlling the Body: Media Representations, Body Size, and Self-Discipline” pp.289-296
p.289 – Panopticism refers to surveillance and social control where people alter their behavior because they feel as if others are constantly observing and judging them. With panopticism, power saturates the self and invades every minutia of existence. Initially, the term “panopticon” referred to either crime or sexuality (Foucault 1977/78). More recently, it has evolved to encompass the mass media. We argue that “panopticism” has become so pervasive in contemporary societies that the mass media now engage in the surveillance and control of women’s bodies.
We treat television as panopticon and examine fat female depictions. We focus specifically on women because the media panopticon is infused with patriarchal beliefs, and therefore women learn to see and judge themselves through men’s eyes and according to men’s criteria (Mulvey 1975, Walter 1995).
Self-discipline and control though time and space reflect subjectivities thoroughly infused with patriarchy, where women’s bodies confer a status in a hierarchy not of their own making; this hierarchy requires constant body surveillance and maintenance, often taking form in self-disciplining practices. Such control requires docile bodies (Foucault, 1977) and cannot be maintained without the internalization of patriarchy, saturating the soul through unremitting surveillance. The media contribute to women’s self-control and self-discipline by serving as a panopticon, specifically a cosmetic panopticon. As a cosmetic panopticon, the media induce a state of permanent surveillance and judgment around concerns of physical appearance and standards of “beauty.” Women’s clothing, hair, body size, and movements are all shrouded in meaningful discourses and interpretive suggestions. Viewers are simultaneously reminded that violating expectations of physical appearance, perhaps by being fat and female, will be recognized and subject to gossip and discrimination. As such, the media tap daily into millions of women’s sense of self and warn them of the horrors suffered by those who stray from established definitions of femininity.
p.290 – The construction of being “appropriately” female transgressed the physical body and incorporates other markers such as personality and movement. Accordingly, a women must be smaller than a man, demure, and take up little space. Fat women are, then, the antithesis of what it means to be appropriately feminine. Bartky (1988) explains that women discipline themselves and their bodies to create what she terms “the ideal feminine body-subject,” where control is directed at the body in the areas of time (through constant surveillance) and space (through women monitoring the space that their physical bodies occupy), and is practiced though diet, exercise, posture, and movement. Women are constantly reminded of “appropriate” looks and style, which are then expressed in self-evaluations, behavior, and self-control directed at diminishing size and restricting movement.
This is especially true for fat women, who frequently develop a sense of self-loathing as a direct reaction to their internalized social expectations and pressures.
The media’s contribution to our understanding of the social world through representations happens in two distinct ways: the first is concerned with quantity and the second with quality. The quantitative focus pertains to frequency and asks how often social groups are represented in the media; the qualitative focus asks how often social groups are represented in the media; the qualitative focus asks, when social media groups are represented in the media, how are they portrayed?
p.294 – Fat women’s symbolic annihilation on television speaks to the media as cosmetic panopticon though its ability to pass judgment, stigmatize, and pressure people to manage their identity. The cosmetic panopticon reflects a hierarchy of patriarchy, socially constructed so that simply being female is stigmatized and advances certain self-discipline practices, and being a fat female is morally reprehensible and reason for extreme forms of body control.
p.295 – Eating disorders are often caused by, and symptomatic of, a number of interrelated psychological and social factors, and they pose numerous health risks, including cardiac failure, multiple organ dysfunctions, cardiovascular problems, abnormal adolescent development, and muscular atrophy (Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, 2006). We believe that the cosmetic panopticon is partly responsible for the roughly eleven million people diagnosed with eating disorders. Fat female television representations reflect a hierarchy of patriarchy that suggests to viewers how females should look and act of they wish to be viewed positively. Females who stray will be stigmatized, scorned, and constantly pressured and coerced to adhere to specific body expectations. For many women, achieving such body expectations requires exercising extreme control over their emotional, psychological, and physical self. -
I'm sure that academics (particularly those in the Women's Studies field) will love this anthology but for the average reader it is a bit dense. There is a lot of good things going on in here, but the academic nature of the tome will put lots of people off. Bottom line is that the average person interested in issues of fat in society will find Shapely Prose or Kate Harding's book "Lessons from the Fatosphere" far more accessible.
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Panfleto del HAES
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A much-needed anthology, though I already was aware of much of the information in it (as will be most people with any background in feminism). The chapters are usually at least marginally interesting, and are thankfully free of psychobabble or impractical recommendations to "love yourself" out of fat stigma. Honestly, the first chapters (focusing on that stigma and the horrific effects it can have) depressed me. Fat shame is the last acceptable prejudice, but it's so entrenched that it will take generations to eradicate. However, the pieces by fat folks (particularly those pointing out ways toward joyous fat embodiment) offered some light.
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NO RATING
Mhmm... As a fat woman, some of these articles/research interested me, such as Hogging (Easy Target), Bullying, the blame on moms, and more. Though, by the end, the articles were losing my interest due to their aspect in Fat Studies, which is not their fault. I'd recommend this for people who want to further their understanding and view on fat studies, because it talks about how thin became the new ideal and how airplanes do not support fatter flyers. -
I'm reading this for grad school. I imagine I will keep coming back to it over and over again. So surprised and grateful my public library has a copy!
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Some amazing, some ok, some stinkers. am specifically looking for a solid intro book and this wasn’t it, but lots of neat stuff regardless
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This is an excellent point of entry if you are not familiar with research in the area of fat studies. The essays cover a great breadth of topics relevant to many traditional academic disciplines (medicine, public health, history, rhetoric, political science/sociology/anthropology, literature, etc). Although the chapters are brief, they provide citations to previous work that you can easily track down if you want to explore any particular topic in greater depth. Some of the essays serve primarily as literature reviews, while others seek to make research contributions of their own. Methodologically, the essays either used or cited research involving a wide range of methods from medical/health science, social science (qualitative, quantitative, and experimental), and the humanities (Foucaultian analysis, queer theory, feminist theory, critical race theory, critiques of neoliberalism, etc.). I am particularly interested in the topics of bodies and imagination, both of which were themes of several of the essays (although I was not terribly impressed with the section on fat embodiment). Overall, this volume falls squarely into the tradition of socially conscious academic research that performs both a scholarly and activist function.
As some have mentioned, this is a primarily an academic volume, although there are also several chapters written by activists and other practitioners (e.g. people in the fat burlesque and fat exercise movements). While it is clear to me that most of the authors have a serious attempt to write in a relatively accessible fashion, the primary audience is academic researchers. If this is not what you're looking for, you may want to look at some of the popular books on this topic (based on the introduction, I think Marilyn Wann's *Fat!So* book might be a good choice, and based on her blog, Kate Harding's book Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere* might also be a good choice). I would say that Deb Burgard's essay on Heath At Any Size is very important reading for everyone, especially for healthcare providers and fat people who wish to advocate for themselves in medical contexts, even though it is written in social scientific language (although I don't think it's too difficult to follow).
As in all volumes like this, the essays vary in quality. Overall, I thought the essays were strong, but the last two sections were notably weaker. If the dearth of quality academic work on embodiment and fat politics in this volue is representative of the field of fat studies as a whole, this suggests to me that this is an area that political theorists and even political scientists, as well as people who study bodies in the humanities, need to contribute to. -
So far, this is an excellent Reader. The Forward by Marilyn Wann (author of FAT!SO) gave an excellent overview of fat oppression. Its a good start for anyone interested in this subject. It was also a sort of "call to arms" about this discipline of study. Although the very first essay did did start off with a White essentialist point of view, i can tell from the table of contents that this Reader is set to dicuss the intersections of various oppression with fat oppression....so I am hopeful....however, there is still this pull, I am finding, that if an article isn't directly discussing race, then the point of view is still majority white.....
Finished this Reader, and I must say it was excellent. The stories are varied, the topics completely relevant (i think the materials stopped at 2005). I think this is a must read for anyone interested in fat studies. I still think most of the articles were written by non-people of color.....but i think that is can be excused (for now) at least due to the wonderful scholarship of the other essays. -
It took me awhile to get through this one, but it was worth it. The essays sort of reminded me of things my ex-gf would write when she was in a gender studies class in grad school. I mean that in a positive way, as she was a good writer.
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This is a decent introduction to the field and its major concerns, but if you're already well-versed in HAES and related concepts, a lot of this info is probably old hat. The personal essays and participant/observation research pieces are definitely the strongest in the collection.
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i want to come back to this book at some point in the future. i got a lot out of the essays on health and queer stuff.
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Slowly making my way through this amazing anthology, savoring every page.
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Fantastic. Informative. A new perspective gained.
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This book has changed my life.
