Perceptions of body size and health among older queer women of size following participation in a health programme

Abstract

Little research examines how older queer (lesbian and bisexual) women understand and construct meanings around their body size in the context of individual and community norms and identities. Grounded theory was used to analyse transcripts from 31 interview participants drawn from a health programme in the San Francisco Bay Area. Older queer women of size navigate tensions between body ideals and community ideals in and through their experiences of body size. Women’s embodied experiences of fatness, chronic pain and weight changes shifted in tandem with their experience of interactions with other queer women, as well as what bodies and body ideals should be in ‘the lesbian community’. This study found that bodily norms and health ideologies are embedded and embodied in communities and navigated through the ongoing formation and configuration of communities over time. Body acceptance movements may be out of touch for this population based on their internalisation of the medical model in which weight loss automatically means improved health. Health interventions for older, queer women of size must be community-based to effectively shift behaviours, norms and expectations around healthy living in fat, ageing bodies.