Fat Phobia in Western Society

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses fat phobia in Western society and how it affects girls and women of all ages. The paper specifically demonstrates how overweight women are the targets of discrimination, hatred and fat-phobia. The paper defines the terms 'fat', 'overweight' and 'obese' and then examines the ways in which fat women are discriminated against.

Table of Content:
Body Image Issues Since 1900
Fat Oppression and Women

From the Paper:

"Women are far from merely oppressed from the outside. They have internalized the fears and phobias towards fatness, maintaining lives of undue discipline and self-policing of behavior. How many women count their calories or read nutrition labels for fat content while insisting they are not dieting? Women manipulate their lives so that food appears to be a non-issue for them. Men will often whine that they are annoyed when women won't eat in their presence, yet women believe they are doing that so men will find them more attractive. The oppression of fatness in our culture is not one that only affects those deemed 'medically overweight.' Pick up any magazine or watch any television show (particularly during daytime TV) and you will realize how prevalent notions of 'thin is the only option' are. The fat woman in the ad is often portrayed as lonely, searching for a new career and looking for that perfect love. The only way she can ever achieve these goals is to be thin, at any cost."

Sample of Sources Used:

• National Associate to Advance Fat Acceptance Website: http://www.naafa.org/press_room/history_obesity.html
• Cooper, Charlotte. Fat and Proud: The Politics of Size. London: The Women's Press, 1998.
• Lebesco, Kathleen. Revolting Bodies: the Struggle to Redifine Fat Identity. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.
• Mazer, Sharon. "She's So Fat...: Facing the Fat Lady at Coney Island's Sideshows by the Seashore." in Bodies out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression. Eds. Braziel, Jane Evans, and Lebesco, Kathleen. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001.
• Wann, Marilyn. Fat?So! Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size. . Ten Speed Press: Berkley, CA: 1998

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