Fat Planet
Fat Planet
Obesity, Culture, and Symbolic Body Capital
The average size of human bodies all over the world has been steadily rising over recent decades. The total count of people clinically labeled "obese" is now at least three times what it was in 1980. Fat Planet represents a collaborative effort to consider at a global scale what fat stigma is and what it does to people. Making use of an array of social science perspectives applied in multiple settings, the authors examine the interplay of weight, wealth, history, culture, and meaning to fat and its social rejection. They explore the notion of symbolic body capital--the power of non-fat bodies to do what people need or want. In so doing, they illustrate the complex and quickly shifting dynamics in thinking about fat--often considered personal yet powerfully influenced by and influential upon the broader world in which we live.
A valuable contribution to both the anthropology of obesity and body capital theory. The volume's inclusion of non-US contexts and understudied groups is highly welcome, as are the rigorous theoretical and methodological approaches used.'--Journal of Anthropological Research
Eileen P. Anderson-Fye directs the Medical Humanities and Social Medicine Initiative at Case Western Reserve University, where she also is an associate professor of bioethics and the leader of the Medicine, Society and Culture track of the School of Medicine’s bioethics master’s degree program. Alexandra Brewis is a President’s Professor and a Distinguished Sustainability Scientist at Arizona State University, where she also co-leads the translational Mayo Clinic-ASU Obesity Solutions initiative and serves as associate vice president of Social Sciences.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Making Sense of the New Global Body Norms
Alexandra Brewis
Chapter One. From Thin to Fat and Back Again: A Dual Process Model of the Big Body Mass Reversal
Daniel J. Hruschka
Chapter Two. Managing Body Capital in the Fields of Labor, Sex, and Health
Alexander Edmonds and Ashley Mears
Chapter Three. Fat and Too Fat: Risk and Protection for Obesity Stigma in Three Countries
Eileen P. Anderson-Fye, Stephanie M. McClure, Maureen Floriano, Arundhati Bharati, Yunzhu Chen, and Caryl James
Chapter Four. Excess Gains and Losses: Maternal Obesity, Infant Mortality, and the Biopolitics of Blame
Monica J. Casper
Chapter Five. Symbolic Body Capital of an "Other" Kind: African American Females as a Bracketed Subunit in Female Body Valuation
Stephanie M. McClure
Chapter Six. Fat Is a Linguistic Issue: Discursive Negotiation of Power, Identity, and the Gendered Body among Youth;
Nicole L. Taylor
Chapter Seven. Body Size, Social Standing, and Weight Management: The View from Fiji
Anne E. Becker
Chapter Eight. Glocalizing Beauty: Weight and Body Image in the New Middle East
Sarah Trainer
Conclusion. Fat Matters: Capital, Markets, and Morality
References
Contributors
Index
