PowePoint slides from a webinar delivered to the Australia New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders, Sydney, 5 December 2012 by Deborah Lupton.

1. WHY ARE FAT BODIES SO
STIGMATISED?
Deborah Lupton,
Sociology and Social
Policy, University of
Sydney

2. MY BOOK ‘FAT’ (2012, ROUTLEDGE, LONDON)

3. MY BOOK ‘FOOD, THE BODY AND THE SELF’
(1996, SAGE, LONDON)

4. FAT PEOPLE: SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS
 more likely to live in poverty
 earn less income
 be unemployed
 have lower education levels
 be employed in lower status occupations
 experience lower living standards

5. DISCRIMINATION IN SOCIAL SETTINGS
 Fat children are more likely to experience bullying, ostracism
and teasing at school
 Fat people often avoid visiting their doctor because of concern
about negative judgements
 Fat people receive less respect from shop assistants and
health care providers
 Fat people are subject to humiliating comments from friends,
family members and strangers

6. FAT STIGMA
In contemporary western societies, fatness is associated with:
 laziness
 greed
 lack of self-discipline and self-control
 ‘letting yourself go’
 not caring about physical appearance or health
 shame
 Inevitable disease and early death

7. NEGATIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF FAT PEOPLE
ARE EVERYWHERE
 The news media (the ‘obesity epidemic’)
 Public health campaigns
 Reality television
 Television drama and comedy
 Ads for weight-loss products or unrelated products
 Weight-loss blogs and websites
 School-based health education programs

8. EXTREMES OF EMBODIMENT

9. THE ARCHET YPAL FAT BODY WITH HEAD
CROPPED OFF

10. THE FAT BODY AS GROTESQUE

11. FEELING LIKE AN OUTSIDER BECAUSE OF
ONE’S FAT BODY

12. THE FAT BODY AS TOXIC

13. THE PUBLIC HUMILIATION OF FAT PEOPLE

14. FAT FLESH AS EXCESSIVE

15. FAT PEOPLE AS EMOTIONAL, EATING FOR
GREED OR COMFORT

16. THE BIGGEST LOSER: FAT PEOPLE AS
‘LOSERS’, FREAKS ON DISPLAY

17. FAT MAN AS FREAK IN SIDE-SHOW

18. CULTURAL CONCEPTS GIVING MEANING TO
FATNESS
 Judeo-Christian ideals: body size as demonstrating spirituality
and piousness
 The flesh as weak: the need to overcome temptation and
master the body
 Valorising self-control over one’s body and one’s physical
urges
 The conflation of health with beauty and with goodness: the
food/health/beauty triplex

19. THE CONFLATION OF FATNESS WITH DISEASE
 The label of ‘obesity’ represents fatness as equivalent to
disease and pathology
 Negative moral meanings of disease and illness
 Disease is stigmatised: lack of control over the body, link with
death, imperfection

20. FATNESS AND FEMININIT Y
 Fatness is linked to emotionality, lack of self -control,
fleshiness, irrationality
 All of which are often represented as more typically ‘feminine’
than ‘masculine’ qualities
 Fat activism a predominantly female -dominated movement
 Fat men as experiencing ‘spoilt masculinity’

21. FAT ACTIVISM: FIGHTING AGAINST
NEGATIVE REPRESENTATIONS

22. THE ADIPOSITIVIT Y PROJECT

23. FAT PEOPLE AS ACTIVE AND FIT

24. THE EROTIC FAT BODY

25. BETH DITTO

26. HEALTH AT EVERY SIZE

27. CONTACT DETAILS
Email: deborah.lupton@gmail.com
Twitter: @DALupton
Blog:
http://simplysociology.wordpress.com
Pinterest board ‘Fat Culture’:
http://pinterest.com/dalupton/fat-
culture