ESRC Seminar Series - Fat Studies and Health at Every Size
Fat Studies and Health at Every Size
Welcome
Over the course of 2010-2012, an interdisciplinary Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) seminar series will take place in the UK, addressing critical questions about the politics surrounding fatness and health. This series will consist of four seminars involving academics, policy makers, practitioners, activists, students and interested individuals. The interdisciplinary team involved in organising this series are from disciplinary backgrounds including: geography, sociology, women's studies, dietetics, nursing and midwifery, education, and sports and exercise science and the series will be of interest to people from many other subject areas. These pages outline the main context for the seminars.
Want to attend the seminars?
The individual seminar pages will be updated on a regular basis giving information on the locations and dates of the seminars, and details on who will be involved in each event. Each seminar will be free for up to 30 people and a limited number of travel bursaries are available to facilitate the involvement of students etc. Further details will be posted on the seminar pages. The contacts page gives details on the organisers of the seminar series and contact details if you are interested in finding out more.
Page Contents
Seminar series context: summary
Detailed context for the seminar series:
- Introduction
- What is Fat Studies?
- What is Health at Every Size (HAES)?
- Why bring Fat Studies and HAES together?
- How do Fat Studies and HAES relate to policy?
- Why is a seminar series on Fat Studies and HAES needed?
References and further reading
Seminar series context: summary
There is significant concern about the impact of fatness on the UK's health, and numerous policy interventions have attempted to tackle the so-called 'obesity epidemic'. This policy relies on universal facts to encourage individuals to maintain the 'correct' body. This has meant the reduction of complex scientific knowledge about health and body size/weight to simple messages: thin is good, fat is bad and losing weight will make you healthier. However, there is little definitive evidence that proves that fatness unequivocally causes ill-health or that dieting will improve health. What is more certain is that being defined as (or considering oneself to be) fat/overweight/obese may have an immediate detrimental effect on self-esteem and mental well-being. Policy response to this has been limited by its focus on individual responsibility, meaning there has been a tendency to blame people for their own low self-esteem and suggest that the solution is to lose weight.
Fat Studies and Health at Every Size (HAES) researchers, activists and practitioners have therefore asked serious ethical questions about the dominant medical and political approach to fatness in the UK. This has involved questioning: the influence of social, cultural and moral ideologies about fatness on anti-obesity policy; the ways in which obesity policy may reinforce such ideologies; and the implications of this for weight-based discrimination and individual's body image and self-esteem. HAES practitioners have therefore developed alternative, body-positive health interventions which aim to improve people's health and well-being regardless of their body size and without expecting weight loss.
Given the power and pervasiveness of medical models of health and weight, it is often difficult for Fat Studies and HAES activists, researchers and practitioners to find the space to develop alternatives. These approaches have historically developed from different disciplinary backgrounds (Fat Studies associated with Women's Studies, and HAES within the health sciences). Both also have a shorter history in the UK than elsewhere (e.g. the USA). This seminar series therefore aims to provide a space for Fat Studies and HAES academics, practitioners and activists in the UK to come together to debate and discuss the future direction of research and practice at the intersection between these two areas of work.
For more detailed information on the context for this seminar series, see below.
The seminar series aims to:
- Critically question the political, social, cultural and economic structures within which dominant approaches to fatness are embedded and to explore the multiple experiences of fatness according to social identities (race, gender, class, age, sexuality, etc.);
- Explore multiple theoretical approaches to fatness beyond restrictive medical models of 'obesity' and 'overweight' (and the associated concepts of metabolic risk and nutritional well-being beyond restrictive models of energy balance);
- Discuss the ethical and practical issues associated with different methodologies used in Fat Studies and Health at Every Size research;
- Facilitate interdisciplinary discussion and networking between activists, practitioners and academics seeking to further non size-discriminatory approaches to health, particularly amongst postgraduates and early career researchers in the UK and link to international Fat Studies and HAES networks;
- Disseminate the outcomes of the seminar series in both academic and popular arenas to counter the dominance of medical models of fatness in the UK.
The Seminars
Please follow the links for further information:
Seminar 1: Abject embodiment: Uneven targets of fat discrimination
Seminar 2: Fat in the Clinic/HAES
Seminar 3: Experiencing and celebrating fatness
Seminar 4: Researching Fat studies and HAES: Working with/as fat bodies
Detailed Context for the Seminar Series
Introduction
In the last 10 years there has been widespread concern about fatness/weight/obesity in the UK and there have been numerous policy reports, reviews and white papers commissioned over this time, each one beginning from the assumption that fatness is fundamentally unhealthy and damaging to the national economy (e.g. House of Commons (HOC), 2004; Foresight, 2007). Numerous interventions have therefore been developed to tackle the 'problem of obesity' through attempting to literally reduce individuals' bodies (Department of Health (DH), 2008). The basis for these concerns about fatness is broad population level associations and correlations between body mass (most commonly measured using the Body Mass Index or BMI) and a range of illnesses (such as coronary heart disease, cancer and diabetes). However, there remains significant medical uncertainty surrounding these correlations since some illnesses are associated more with higher, and some with lower, BMI (BBC Radio 4, 2007). Additionally, there is little consensus about the 'best' way to measure body size (Hacking, 2006), and the mechanisms resulting in these associations are unknown (e.g. weight gain may be an early symptom of, rather than cause of, diabetes) (Ernsberger, 2004; see also Franzosi, 2006; and Romero-Corral, et al., 2006 on cardiovascular health). Moreover, as the Department of Health acknowledge, 'there are no obvious cut off points at which there is a clear link between BMI and a change in risks of morbidity and mortality' (DH, 2006:6-7) and there is little evidence to support claims that weight loss will improve health (in fact the opposite may be true) (see Aphramor, 2005). Critical geographical and sociological research has therefore argued that the universal obesity 'truths' underpinning obesity policy (that fatness is inherently unhealthy and that it can be treated through individual body work) are reliant on moral and cultural ideologies about fatness to mask the underlying uncertainties in biomedical knowledge (e.g. Boero, 2007; Cooper, 1998; Evans, 2003; Evans, 2006; Gard and Wright, 2005; Le Besco, 2004, Monaghan, 2008). Others have questioned the extent to which this knowledge is itself produced through particular political-economic relations within which powerful actors (e.g. the diet industry and the pharmaceutical industry) have a vested interest in the continued assertion that fatness is universally bad (Campos, 2004).
What is Fat Studies?
This critical work crosses disciplinary boundaries and there is no single term used to refer to this work, though 'critical obesity studies' and 'Fat Studies' are increasingly used (a Fat Studies reader is due to be published in 2009 in the USA). For the purpose of this seminar series we are adopting the term 'Fat Studies' though this will be debated as part of the series. Fat studies is closely aligned with the Fat Acceptance movement, which emerged during the late 1960s in association with other embodied rights campaigns surrounding gender, sexuality, race and disability (Cooper, 1998). Fat Studies research draws on critical literatures such as feminist, disability and queer theories to critique assumptions that there is 'one perfect body' and promotes positive body image whatever size (e.g. Cooper, 1998; LeBesco, 2004). This work has utilised a range of ethnographic, poststructuralist and participatory approaches (Longhurst, 2005) to analyse the social, cultural, political and economic contexts within which slimness is held as ideal and fatness is vilified (Bordo, 1993) and to make visible embodied, material and emotional experiences of fatness and involvement in anti-obesity policy interventions (e.g. Monaghan, 2008; Evans et al., 2008).
What is Health at Every Size (HAES)?
'Health at Every Size' (HAES) scholarship and practice similarly promotes a body positive approach but has stronger roots within the biomedical and health sciences than Fat Studies. HAES offers medical practitioners an alternative approach to the dominant weight-loss paradigm, one which allows them to 'help people live healthier, more fulfilling lives by caring for their bodies they presently have' (Robison, 2005:13) and has questioned the 'scientific' credibility of medical assertions that fatness is unhealthy (Aphramor, 2005; Ernsberger, 2004; Robison, 2005).
Why bring Fat Studies and HAES together?
There has been criticism of some aspects of Fat Studies and HAES approaches. An overemphasis on Fat Pride has been critiqued as counterproductive to an (every) size acceptance goal since it may exclude those whose bodies are not 'fat enough' (Cooper, 1998) and limits recognition of the importance of 'emotional size' (Colls, 2002). Similarly, as Monaghan (2008) and Throsby (2007) argue, this also leads to a tendency to condemn people who (understandably given the social vilification of fatness) do attempt to lose weight as either co-conspirators in, or victims of, size-discrimination. Additionally some have criticised fat acceptance activism and scholarship for its failure to address the structural issues which may affect people's access to health improving resources (see Guthman and DuPuis, 2006). Although this criticism is problematic when reproducing simplistic assumptions about the relationship between food consumption, body size and health (Monaghan, 2008), dismissal of these critiques means dismissal of valid concerns about malnutrition and health inequalities which, if combined with a HAES approach, could be refigured to ask pertinent questions about every(sized)body's access to nutritional food and health services. The most productive approach to a continued critique of institutionalised fat phobia therefore lies in the productive intersections between Fat Studies and HAES.
How do Fat Studies and HAES relate to policy?
Foresight's review of ethics in relation to obesity recognises that 'it is difficult to promote one body shape as good without implying that other shapes are bad' (Holm, 2007:210). However, this has had little impact on practice and it is often implied that the solution to stigma and discrimination is for individuals to lose weight (Evans, 2006), that fatness is a result of pre-existing mental illness manifest in 'disorders' such as binge eating (Cooper, 1998), or that 'it might be helpful if more stigma [were] attached to obesity so that people made more effort to lose excess weight' (HOC 2004:104). It is therefore vital that Fat Studies and HAES researchers continue to provide a critical perspective, working with those who are the targets of anti-obesity interventions to ensure their experiences are heard, and to raise the importance of emotional, affective and material experiences of fatness and the implications of size discrimination for everyone (see Evans et al., 2008). To do this, Fat Studies and HAES need to be responsive to the changing parameters of the 'war on obesity' (Monaghan, 2008). For example, whilst Fat Studies and HAES scholars welcome Foresight's (2007) move away from individual 'blame based' approaches to obesity, the alternative 'obesogenic environments' explanation, dominating the most recent anti-obesity policy, is also problematic. It continues to define health within narrow weight based categories and to prescribe weight loss as a means to improve health. Moreover, premised on the argument that obesity is the result of a disjuncture between technological and biological evolution, this explanation represents a particularly pernicious form of biological determinism within which fat people are denied any subjectivity (their bodies a product of 'genetic memory'), thin people seemingly able to transcend this biological destiny (Guthman and DuPuis, 2006; LeBesco, 2004). It is therefore important to continue to develop new theoretical and methodological approaches to fat bodies. In doing so, recent 'Fat Studies' and HAES research in the UK has also made important contributions to broader theoretical debates on embodiment, through developing alternative ways of thinking about (fat) bodies (Braziel and LeBesco, 2001). This research has, for example, involved in-depth empirical and ethnographic research considering the experiences of individuals targeted through anti-obesity policy interventions (Evans and Colls, forthcoming; Evans, et al., 2008); how individuals understand their own bodies in relation to 'medically' sanctioned measurements (Monaghan 2007); the translation of research into clinical practice (Badger, 2008; Throsby 2007); and ways of celebrating fat bodies (Cooper, 1998; Tomrley, 2009).
Why is a seminar series on Fat Studies and HAES needed?
Discussion of weight related issues remains dominated by bio-medical science and critical social science perspectives are often silenced in such arenas. A number of unrelated one-off Fat Studies and HAES events have been held in the UK in recent years, leading to several publications, the establishment of a Fat Studies UK mailing list and the creation of the multi-disciplinary team named on this seminar series application. However, Fat Studies and HAES are in their infancy in the UK, dominated by early-mid career professionals. This seminar series will therefore provide vital support for the continued development of Fat Studies and HAES interdisciplinary working and dissemination to practitioners and activists.
References and Further Reading
Aphramor L (2005) Is A Weight-Centred Health Framework Salutogenic? Some Thoughts on Unhinging Certain Dietary Ideologies. Social Theory & Health 3:315-340.
Badger S (2008) A genetic diagnosis for obesity: social and moral experiences of the body and responsibility in childhood. PhD Dissertation. University of Cambridge.
BBC Radio 4 (2007) The Investigation: The Truth About Obesity. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/theinvestigation/pip/94hjc/ Accessed 3 April, 2008 (Broadcast 22/11/07)
Boero N (2007) All the News that's Fat to Print: The American "Obesity Epidemic" and the Media. Qualitative Sociology 30:41-60
Bordo (1993) Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. London: Uni. of California Press
Braziel JE and LeBesco K (2001) Bodies out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni. of California Press
Campos P (2004) The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health. New York: Gotham Books
Colls R (2002) Review of 'Bodies out of bounds: fatness and transgression' Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 9 218-20
Cooper C (1998) Fat and Proud: The Politics of Size, Women's Press
DH (2006) Measuring Childhood Obesity: Guidance to Primary Care Trusts. http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/ Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4126385 Accessed 3/4/08
DH (2008) Cross Government Obesity Unit Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: A Cross-Government Strategy for England http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/ PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/ DH_082378 Accessed 3/4/08
Ernsberger P (2004) Obesity Is an Early Symptom of Diabetes, Not Its Cause. Health at Every Size 18(5)67-69
Evans B (2006) 'Gluttony or Sloth': critical geographies of bodies and morality in (anti)obesity policy. Area 38:259-267
Evans B and Colls R (Forthcoming) Measuring Fatness, Governing Bodies: The Spatialities of the Body Mass Index (BMI) in Anti-Obesity Politics. Accepted for publication in Antipode
Evans J (2003) Physical Education and health: a polemic or 'let them eat cake!'. European Physical Education Review 9:87-101
Evans J, Rich E, Davies B and Allwood R (2008) Education, Disordered Eating and Obesity Discourse: Fat Fabrications. London: Routledge
Foresight (2007) Tackling Obesities: Future Choices Project Report. London: HMSO
Franzosi M G (2006) Should we continue to use BMI as a cardiovascular risk factor? The Lancet 268:624-625
Gard M and Wright J (2005) The Obesity Epidemic: Science, Morality and Ideology. London: Routledge
Guthman J and DuPuis M (2006) Embodying neoliberalism: economy, culture, and the politics of fat. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24:427-448
Hacking I (2006) Genetics, biosocial groups and the future of identity Daedus Fall 81-95
HOC (2004) Health Select Committee Report: Obesity. London: The Stationary Office
Holm S (2007) Obesity interventions and ethics Obesity reviews 9 (suppl.1) 207-210
LeBesco K (2004) Revolting Bodies?: The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press
Longhurst R (2005) Making Space for Fat Bodies. Progress in Human Geography 29:247-259
Monaghan L E (2007a) Body Mass Index, Masculinities and Moral Worth: Men's Critical Talk about 'Appropriate' Weight-for-Height. Sociology of Health & Illness. 29:584-609
Monaghan LE (2008) Men and the War on Obesity: a sociological study. Routledge: London
Robison J I (2005) Health at every size: toward a new paradigm of weight and health Medscape General Medicine 7:3 13
Romero-Corral A, et al (2006) Association of bodyweight with total mortality and with cardiovascular events in coronary artery disease: a systematic review of cohort studies. The Lancet 368:666-78
Throsby K (2007) 'Happy re-birthday: weight loss surgery and the "new me"', Body & Society, 14:1, 117-133
Tomrley C (2009) 'Beth Ditto, Spectacular Spectacle in Blue Spandex: Looking for fat positive images in celebrity gossip' in Tomrley, C. and Kaloski Naylor, A (eds). Fat Studies in the UK. York: Raw Nerve.