Fat-talk nation : the human costs of America's war on fat / Susan Greenhalgh.
Greenhalgh, Susan, author.
2015
RC628 .G743 2015eb
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Title Fat-talk nation : the human costs of America's war on fat / Susan Greenhalgh.
Author Greenhalgh, Susan, author.
ISBN 9780801456442 (electronic book)
9780801453953
Published Ithaca, New York : Cornell University Press, 2015.
Copyright ©2015
Language English
Description 1 online resource (xi, 323 pages)
Call Number RC628 .G743 2015eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 613.2/5
Summary In recent decades, America has been waging a veritable war on fat in which not just public health authorities, but every sector of society is engaged in constant "fat talk" aimed at educating, badgering, and ridiculing heavy people into shedding pounds. We hear a great deal about the dangers of fatness to the nation, but little about the dangers of today's epidemic of fat talk to individuals and society at large. The human trauma caused by the war on fat is disturbing--and it is virtually unknown. How do those who do not fit the "ideal" body type feel being the object of abuse, discrimination, and even revulsion? How do people feel being told they are a burden on the healthcare system for having a BMI outside what is deemed--with little solid scientific evidence--"healthy"? How do young people, already prone to self-doubt about their bodies, withstand the daily assault on their body type and sense of self-worth? In Fat-Talk Nation, Susan Greenhalgh tells the story of today's fight against excess pounds by giving young people, the campaign's main target, an opportunity to speak about experiences that have long lain hidden in silence and shame. Featuring forty-five autobiographical narratives of personal struggles with diet, weight, "bad BMIs," and eating disorders, Fat-Talk Nation shows how the war on fat has produced a generation of young people who are obsessed with their bodies and whose most fundamental sense of self comes from their size. It reveals that regardless of their weight, many people feel miserable about their bodies, and almost no one is able to lose weight and keep it off. Greenhalgh argues that attempts to rescue America from obesity-induced national decline are damaging the bodily and emotional health of young people and disrupting families and intimate relationships. Fatness today is not primarily about health, Greenhalgh asserts; more fundamentally, it is about morality and political inclusion/exclusion or citizenship. To unpack the complexity of fat politics today, Greenhalgh introduces a cluster of terms--biocitizen, biomyth, biopedagogy, bioabuse, biocop, and fat personhood--and shows how they work together to produce such deep investments in the attainment of the thin, fit body. These concepts, which constitute a theory of the workings of our biocitizenship culture, offer powerful tools for understanding how obesity has come to remake who we are as a nation, and how we might work to reverse course for the next generation. -- Publisher description
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Available in Other Form Fat-talk nation.
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Introduction: the politics and culture of fat in America
A biocitizenship society to fight fat
Creating thin, fit bodies: the view from SoCal
My BMI, my self
Obese
Overweight
Underweight
Normal
Uncharted costs and unreachable goals
Physical and mental health at risk
Families and relationships unhinged
Does biocitizenship help the very fat?
What now?
Conclusion: social justice and the end of the war on fat.

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