Moderation, Reward, Entitlement: The “Obesity Epidemic” and the Gendered Body

Abstract

I argue that the abject figure of the fat woman that emerges from “obesity epidemic” discourse makes the construction of the slender body visible as the object of (bourgeois masculine) national desire. It extends the theory of the slender body originally outlined by Susan Bordo to propose that the “obesity epidemic” morally regulates female bodies according to a moderation-reward-entitlement system. This architecture describes the way that individuals become useful to the state and to themselves, with the promise of reward for obedient behavior. Specifically, I argue that slenderness, as an ascetic practice of moderation, grants the female subject a range of entitlements—to femininity, to the middle class, to national belonging—the reward for which is happiness.