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Fat Can “Do Stuff”

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Fatness, Obesity, and Disadvantage in the Australian Suburbs

Abstract

Many cross-cultural and historical studies point to the value of fat bodies, where size is associated with status and capacity to be a productive member of society. In Western contexts, fatness is a negative term, and its excess is constructed as lack of care, laziness, and poor choices. This chapter examines the socio-materiality of bodies and practices, how people experienced, enacted, and embodied fat as positive, productive, and disabling in their day-to-day lives.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As well as these studies it is important to remember that historians of fat have consistently shown that there have always been alternative readings and positions on fat and fatness in the so-called West (see, e.g., Schwartz 1986; Stearns 2002; Hutson 2017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Megan Warin & Tanya Zivkovic

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  1. Megan Warin
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  2. Tanya Zivkovic
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Correspondence to Megan Warin .

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Warin, M., Zivkovic, T. (2019). Fat Can “Do Stuff”. In: Fatness, Obesity, and Disadvantage in the Australian Suburbs. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01009-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01009-6_6

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01008-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01009-6

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