1st Edition

Neoliberal Bodies and the Gendered Fat Body

By Hannele Harjunen Copyright 2017
128 Pages
by Routledge

128 Pages
by Routledge

128 Pages
by Routledge

In recent decades the rise of the so-called "global obesity epidemic" has led to fatness and fat bodies being debated incessantly in popular, professional, and academic arenas. Fatness and fat bodies are shamed and demonised, and the public monitoring, surveillance and outright policing by the media, health professionals, and the general public are pervasive and socially accepted. In... Read more

1. Introduction and Personal Prologue



1.1 Neoliberal Society, Neoliberal Bodies?



1.2 The Fat Body in Neoliberal Culture



1.3 Healthy, Acceptable, and Moral Bodies… and Their Opposites



1.4 Feminist Body Studies, Fatness, and Feminist Fat Studies



1.5 The Fat Body as the Target of Biopower



1.6 Methodology and Data



1.7 Outline of the Book





2. Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and the Body



2.1 From Neoliberalism to Neoliberal Governmentality



2.2 Governmentality and Neoliberal Governmentality



2.3 Neoliberal Consumer Culture and the Body as a ‘Project’



2.4 The Disembodied Social Analysis of the Neoliberal Economy



2.5 The Body as an Intersection of Fat, Class, and Gender





3. The Biopolitics of Weight and the Obesity Epidemic



3.1 The Biopolitics of Weight



3.2 Biomedicine and Normal Body Weight



3.3 Body Weight and Health



3.4 The ‘Obesity Epidemic Discourse’ …Epidemic



3.5 Moral Panic and the Metaphorical Illness of Obesity





4. The Economisation of Health and the Fat Body



4.1 Health and the Public Welfare State



4.2 Neoliberal Health Care



4.3 Health Inequalities



4.4 The Obesity Epidemic Discourse as a Form of Neoliberal Governmentality



4.5 Deservingness, Morals, Costs and Investment





5. Healthism and Individual Responsibility



5.1 The Ubiquity of Healthism and its Moral Implications



5.2 Fatness as a Self-inflicted Problem



5.3 Wellness and Women - Buying Normative Femininity?





6. Money for your Fat! Moral Credit for Disappearing Fat



6.1 The Literacy in Fat Campaign



6.2 Moralising Prejudice in a Campaign



6.3 The Commodification of Fat





7. Postfeminism, Fatness, and Female Body Norms



7.1 From Sexual Objects to Empowered Agents?



7.2 How to Build a Neoliberal Girl



7.3 Neoliberal Surveillance and Control



7.4 Femininity for Sale



7.5 Free Choice and the Thin Privilege





8. Conclusion



8.1 The Preferred Body of Neoliberalism



8.2 Some Final Words





References

Biography

Hannele Harjunen is Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies in the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.