Politics of Health Archives - Food, Fatness and Fitness

This essay by Thomas Cousins originally appeared on Somatosphere on October 8, 2023. It is reposted with permission by the author and the editors. I start with the question, why was it necessary, from 2008, for Mondi South Africa to spend R50 million (USD 8 million) a year on a nutrition intervention for 10,000 timber plantation labourers in KwaZulu-Natal province? The simple answer, to improve labour productivity, belies the dark histories of colonial conquest and apartheid exploitation, on the one hand, and the developing science of fatigue, nutrition, and infectious disease over the 20th century. The question opens out to a critical look at the way in which these working bodies were understood to metabolise calories and other substances, and suggests a…

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Brazil is a huge, diverse country with significant social disparities. People are commonly judged and stigmatized due to their social class, race, education, gender, and body characteristics. Weight, particularly high weight, is one of the body characteristics that is used to stigmatize parts of the population, often intersecting with race and class. Similar to other parts of the world, the fat body in Brazil is seen as synonymous with ‘failure,’ ‘lack of control,’ ‘laziness,’ and ‘ignorance.’ Low-income classes believe that weight gain is related to heredity or stress, while high-income classes, especially those who are not fat, blame ‘poor’ diet and exercise choices. In reaction to this last point, the Brazilian government has propagated strategies to combat weight gain based on self-control, seeking…

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Darya, a 35-year-old PhD student in Florida who was born in Iran, shares a painful memory with me. At a New Year’s party, after she hadn’t seen her cousin in Tehran for three years and after an accident that had her gaining weight, “instead of saying hi and how are you doing,” Darya explains, “she tells me, ‘Darya you’re exploding!,’ or let me say it in Farsi, ‘Darya, Natereki!’” Darya responded by justifying her body: “I said, ‘yeah, I’m gaining weight but I will be okay soon.’” After the party, Darya was very upset that she didn’t defend herself; she didn’t want to upset her mother. As she told her mother, “I didn’t answer her [cousin] and next time, I’m…

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In 2020, a large group of international health experts published a joint international consensus statement for ending stigma of “obesity,” in which the authors state: “Research indicates that weight stigma can cause physical and psychological harm, and that affected individuals are less likely to receive adequate care. For these reasons, weight stigma damages health, undermines human and social rights, and is unacceptable in modern societies.” In January 2022, the Lancet, one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific journals, called for reframing “obesity health care,” studying “the impact of weight stigma and discrimination in health care,“ and exploring “the development (…] of weight inclusive environments“ and “non-weight focused policies and practices.” These statements mark a milestone in health science! Why?…

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Towards the end of the twentieth century the World Health Organization declared “obesity” a global epidemic. From 2001 onwards the term “globesity” came into use. “Globesity” is understood as a globally observable consequence of the spread of new “lifestyles” common in industrialized countries characterized by increased consumption of high-energy, industrially processed foodstuffs and low physical activity. According to this thesis, more and more people in the global North and increasingly also in the global South are “overweight” and suffer from “obesity,” measured by using the BMI. As “obesity” is classified as a risk factor for chronic, non-communicable diseases, “globesity” has been declared a public health crisis that threatens global society due to high healthcare costs and decreasing productivity. More recently,…

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Food, Fatness and Fitness

Critical Perspectives

Category Politics of Health:

Metabolism and Capacity: History and Labour in Post-apartheid South Africa

Fat Bias and the Development of Clinical Protocols in Brazil

“You’re exploding!”: Sizeism among Iranian Americans in the Diaspora

From Sin to Science? How a Brand-New Diabetes Guideline Reveals the Moral Influences of Moderation on Health Science

„Globesity“: On an Objectionable Narrative of Global Health