Interpreting Weight

What is "too fat"? what is "too thin"? Interpretations of body weight vary widely across and within cultures. Meeting weight expectations is a major concern for many people because failing to do so may incur dire social consequences, such as difficulty in finding a romantic partner or even in locating adequate employment. without these social and cultural pressures, body weight would only be a health issue. while socially constructed standards of body weight may seem immutable, they are continuously recreated through social interactions that perpetuate or transform expectations about fatness and thinness. Written by sociologists, psychologists, and nutritionists, all of the chapters in this book focus on how people construct fatness and thinness, examining different strategies used to interpret body weight, such as negotiating weight identities, reinterpreting weight, and becoming involved in weight-related organizations. Together these chapters emphasize the many ways that people actively define, construct, and enact their fatness and thinness in a variety of settings and situations.

Part 1 Introduction: the social management of fatness and thinness, Donna Maurer, Jeffery Sobal. Part 2 Weight identities: the adoption and management of a fat identity, Douglas Degher, Gerald Hughes; identity management among overweight women - narrative resistance to stigma, Gina Cordell, Carol Rambo Ronai; fighting back - reactions and resistance of the stigma of obesity, Leanne Joanisse, Anthony Synnott. Part 3 Redefining weight: from dieting to healthy eating - an exploration of shifting constructions of eating for weight control, Gwen E. Chapman; medical discourse on body image - reconceptualizing the differences between women with and without eating disorders, Susan Haworth-Hoeppner; weight and weddings - the social construction of beautiful brides, Jeffery Sobal et al. Part 4 Organizational processes in weight management: let go and let God - religion and the politics of surrender in overeater's anonymous, Rebecca J. Lester; fat world/thin world - fat busters, equivocators, fat boosters, and the social construction of obesity, Karen Honeycutt; creating uniformity - the construction of bodies in women's collegiate cross country, Elizabeth Ransom. Part 5 Reinterpreting weight: pounds of flesh - weight, gender, and body images, Thomas F. Cash, Robin E. Roy; re-evaluating the weight-centred approach toward health - the need of a paradigm shift, Jeanine C. Cogan. Biographical sketches of the contributors.