In November 2002, Today Show meteorologist Al Roker announced that he had previously undergone gastric bypass surgery in the hopes of ending a lifelong struggle with his weight. Roker’s surgery came a little more than 3 years after Carnie Wilson, daughter of Beach Boys’ leader Brian Wilson and former member of the singing group Wilson Phillips, underwent the same operation. The author explores the ideology of weight loss surgery that emerges from news coverage of these very public procedures and discusses thematic differences in the reporting of the reasons behind their decisions to take this step. One would think that both individuals, having lost weight and improved their appearance, would be allowed back inside the bounds of cultural intelligibility. However, coverage of their surgeries suggests that Roker has been given such a pass but Wilson has not. Only Roker is acknowledged for adding gastric bypass surgery to our cultural weight loss protocol.
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