Fat lives: a feminist psychological exploration

Abstract

Ever caught somebody – or yourself – checking out the content of a ‘fat’ person’s supermarket trolley? Ever wondered what lies behind this behaviour, or what it may be like to be at the receiving end of this judging gaze? This book endeavors to address some of the complex issues around this rather common social interaction. Within the context of the current ‘obesity debate’, this text investigates the embodied experience of ‘being large’ from a critical psychological perspective. Using poststructuralist and feminist theories, looking at the discourses available and employed by self-designated ‘fat’ individuals, it explores the dynamics and complexities of the issue of body size, the alleged links to health and the experiences and subject positions available to ‘fat’ individuals. Using the issues of body size and ‘fat’ as illustration, the benefits of exploring psychological and societal issues from a poststructuralist perspective will be drawn out. Further attention is given to the dangers inherent in taking reductionist approaches to (public) health and other societal issues, and to the harm, in the form of unequal power relations, marginalisation and oppression, these may be causing certain groups in society and individuals. As such, this book should be of particular interest to everybody involved in the studies of, health, gender issues and appearance within the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and health studies. Students of these disciplines will also find the methodological discussion and the exploration of power relationships produced in research, and particularly in the research interviews, interesting and useful.