“You will face discrimination”: Fatness, motherhood, and the medical profession

Abstract

ABSTRACT This is an autoethnographic article that explores the intersection of fatness, pregnancy, motherhood, health and diabetes, and interaction with the medical profession. The autoethnographic approach used includes both written stories and photographic narrative. There have been times when my fat body has been seen by the medical profession as barren, incapable, and excessive and also times when I didn’t know whether I could trust a medical opinion to be objective, because I inhabit a fat body. I discuss medical and cultural assumptions about a fat woman’s ability to conceive, oppressive medical policies, such as how much weight a fat woman “should” gain in pregnancy and what she “should” eat according to medical guidelines. In addition, I document the complicating factor of having diabetes and the hypermonitoring of blood sugar and “dieting” to keep a baby safe, and the return of guilt about eating “the wrong things.” I tell these stories to illuminate what the medicalization of fatness, pregnancy, and early motherhood have been like, including the effect it had on my ability to practice fat acceptance. The article is framed by both scholarly and fat activist approaches to the discussion of fat embodiment, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding, in an attempt to expose discrimination and oppression of fat women’s bodies within the medical field. I consider the question: How can a fat woman have a voice during pregnancy and into motherhood?