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Framing Fat: Competing Constructions in Contemporary Culture
Author(s): Samantha Kwan (Author), Jennifer Graves (Author)
- Publisher: Rutgers University Press
- Publication Date: 3 May 2013
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 192 pages
- ISBN-10: 0813560926
- ISBN-13: 9780813560922
Book Description
Alongside public health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are advertisers of the fashion-beauty complex, food industry advocates at the Center for Consumer Freedom, and activists at the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.
Framing Fat takes a bird’s-eye view of how these multiple actors construct the fat body by identifying the messages these groups put forth, particularly where issues of beauty, health, choice and responsibility, and social justice are concerned. Samantha Kwan and Jennifer Graves examine how laypersons respond to these conflicting messages and illustrate the gendered, raced, and classed implications within them. In doing so, they shed light on how dominant ideas about body fat have led to the moral indictment of body nonconformists, essentially “framing” them for their fat bodies.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Kwan and Graves were successful in challenging conventional beliefs about fat bodies. In so doing, they highlighted weight discrimination as a significant problem worthy of attention, as fat continues to be moralized, medicalized, and politicized. Framing Fat would be of interest not only to researchers and educators with interests in fatness and obesity, but also those with interests in the media, public health, food policy, and social justice more generally. If you seek to better understand contradictory claims in the contested field of fat, then pick
up this book today.”– “Sex Roles” (9/1/2013 12:00:00 AM)
“Provocative, progressive, and timely,
Framing Fat explores cultural discourses about the fat body, challenging prejudice and convention and providing a compelling argument for re-framing fat stigma as the real problem.”–Linda Bacon, PhD “author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight” (1/4/2013 12:00:00 AM)“This well-written, engaging work takes a refreshing and intriguing approach of frame analysis and also offers a refreshing examination of key stakeholders in the obesity debates.”
–Shari Dworkin “University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing” (9/7/2012 12:00:00 AM)
“An important addition to the fat studies and critical obesity literatures.
Framing Fat clearly maps the political, ideological, and rhetorical positions of key stakeholders in the battle to determine what fatness means, making it highly useful for those trying to get their bearings in the field as well as those planning the next steps in the fight.”— “Fat Studies”
About the Author
JENNIFER GRAVES is a professor of sociology at Houston Community College and a sociology instructor at the University of Houston.
