Shifting the Balance: The Contemporary Narrative of Obesity

Abstract

In this essay, I assess the narrative of obesity as articulated in representative contemporary mainstream media fare—namely, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Biggest Loser, and Big Medicine. I contend that the emergent narrative of obesity across these programs signals a shift from the historically received narrative in light of its intersection with the concurrent culturally resonant narratives of addiction and self-actualization. In particular, the proposed “problem” and “solution” to obesity, both historically attributed to personal responsibility, appear to be shifting in favor of cultural explanations that describe obesity as symptomatic of and secondary to broader issues related to community, emotionality, and agency. This suggests novel cultural understandings, practices, and policies regarding the mounting “obesity epidemic.”

Notes

¹While “obesity” is understood to be a medical term and “fat” a cultural concept, the line between the two is very ambiguous. Indeed, the medical classification of obesity has varied dramatically historically and continues to be unstable today, evidence of the degree to which medical designations reflect their cultural and historical contexts.

²Other serial programming featuring “real-life” representations of “supermorbid” obesity exists, featured on cable networks Discovery Health and The Learning Channel. I have elected not to include them because, although they do reflect several of my findings, in my opinion the primary focus of these shows is sensationalistic, i.e., to demonstrate the grotesqueness of supermorbid obesity and its specific consequences.

³Because the cultural meanings of fat are socially constructed and inherently unstable, it is a highly contestable concept. Certainly, many challenges from various quarters have been leveled at the “anti-fat bias” in contemporary U.S. culture and elsewhere, most visibly on the part of “fat activists” who stage protests, demonstrations, and campaigns to prompt critical awareness of the issue (LeBesco, 2004; also Solovay, 2000). However, the overwhelming received or “mainstream” cultural perception of fat in contemporary U.S. culture is, all critics agree, unquestionably negative (e.g., Gard & Wright, 2005; LeBesco; Levy-Navarro, 2008; Schwarz, 1986).

⁴A number of critics question the impetus for the designation of obesity rates as an “epidemic,” suggesting that the urgency and panic intimated by that characterization are morally rather than materially motivated, even as they have definite material implications and consequences. The rise of the highly profitable “ObesEconomy”—the range of services, practices, products, and industries that have sprung up in direct response to a growing obese consumer market—is one such example (Finkelstein & Zuckerman, 2008), prompting some to suggest economic motives for appending the terms “epidemic” or “crisis” to rising rates of obesity (e.g., Gard & Wright, 2005; Levy-Navarro, 2008).

⁵Competing theories of addiction generally favor either genetic/biological causes or social/psychological ones. However, they all accept the definition offered here regarding the link between emotional need or desire (seeking pleasure or avoidance of pain) and compulsive, self-destructive practices (Lilienfeld & Oxford, 1999).

⁶Michael Pollan (2008) has chronicled this trend of “nutritionism,” wherein food is endorsed exclusively according to its nutritive value to the body in ways that, among myriad other problems implicated by such an approach, are entirely divorced from cultural traditions, contexts, benefits, and practices.

⁷While it is the case that the genres of mainstream television talk show and reality television, with their flair for the dramatic and the sensational, are arguably predisposed and/or invested in psychological and emotional framings of individuals and their motives, it is also the case that these texts are the most culturally prominent and available texts that engage obesity in a sustained fashion for contemporary mainstream television audiences. In other words, that predisposition does not negate the fact that these articulations are culturally pervasive and resonant, per (as discussed earlier) studies of the cultural impact of both genres; the established role of television entertainment programming as the most significant learning environment for most U.S. Americans, including as relevant to health; and, not least of all, the significant correlation between heavy entertainment television viewing and obesity.

⁸This is consistent with the assertion of some cultural critics (e.g., LeBesco, 2004) that fantasies of material consumption are cultivated as the ultimate goal of weight loss.