Book contents
- Understanding Obesity
- Understanding Life
- Understanding Obesity
- Copyright page
- Reviews
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 I’m Too Fat
- 2 It’s My Genes
- 3 It’s My Metabolism
- 4 I Blame the Food Corporations
- 5 I Blame Society
- 6 You’ve Only Got Yourself to Blame
- 7 You Eat Too Much
- 8 You Don’t Get Out Enough
- 9 Making an Imperfect Storm
- Concluding Remarks
- Summary of Common Misunderstandings
- References and Further Reading
- Figure Credits
- Index
6 - You’ve Only Got Yourself to Blame
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2024
- Understanding Obesity
- Understanding Life
- Understanding Obesity
- Copyright page
- Reviews
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 I’m Too Fat
- 2 It’s My Genes
- 3 It’s My Metabolism
- 4 I Blame the Food Corporations
- 5 I Blame Society
- 6 You’ve Only Got Yourself to Blame
- 7 You Eat Too Much
- 8 You Don’t Get Out Enough
- 9 Making an Imperfect Storm
- Concluding Remarks
- Summary of Common Misunderstandings
- References and Further Reading
- Figure Credits
- Index
Summary
I go to the swimming pool and everybody’s body is on show, including my own. I don’t have rippling pecs, and I am in my 60s, an age when you think I wouldn’t care about my body anymore, but I do. Another swimmer, in her 30s, is just getting out of the water. She is ‘a big girl’, and gets looks, of the wrong kind, even though I have watched her plough the lanes and work hard, keeping enough stamina back to sprint her final lap. If I am self-conscious of my body, how self-conscious is she? Every look is a dagger to her self-esteem. I try to put myself in her place, chanting to myself, ‘Don’t put me down, don’t put me down.’ People who say, ‘You’ve got yourself to blame’ have got it wrong. Even though the evidence is that body stigma only contributes to obesity, people stigmatize large body size – especially in the Global North among poorer people, females, and Black and Indigenous peoples. I discuss how obesity stigma comes from the type of moralizing thought that is embedded in present-day Western societies. I go on to consider how obesity stigma is used to develop and maintain social hierarchies in times of food-plenty.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Understanding Obesity , pp. 88 - 102Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024