Abstract
As the scholarly area of fat studies grows, sociological research continues to expand its contributions. Killer Fat and What’s Wrong With Fat? are two of the most useful books to the area’s advancement within the discipline. Both books contain meticulous research that speaks to the significance of an analysis of fatness for sociology and beyond. Although they overlap in some ways conceptually, they are diverse and utilize different kinds of data and theoretical frameworks, making them a very complementary pair.
Killer Fat is based on several lines of qualitative research. Boero gives readers many angles from which to look at debates around and lived experiences of fatness and explores the idea of a postmodern epidemic. She demonstrates the way in which obesity became a priority and was framed as an individual problem in government documents, explores how the media has framed obesity, compares food ideologies in Weight Watchers and Overeaters Anonymous, and examines the framing of bariatric surgery and experiences of those who have undergone gastric bypass surgery. Despite these divergent studies, Killer Fat weaves a coherent narrative. Saguy also draws upon multiple lines of research, including qualitative and experimental research, in What’s Wrong With Fat? She develops a conceptual framework for the fat field, with the book essentially serving as a meta-analysis of framing fatness (Saguy, p. 31). Saguy explores six ways that fatness is framed as a problem, examining to whom or what these frames assign blame for the problem. She then discusses the way these frames are constructed and their effects.
Though neither book is centrally about gender per se, both books bring to light the gendered, racial, class, and sexual constructions of fatness. Boero (p. 42) writes, “What we know about fat people is informed by what we know about minorities, women, and poor people.” As she traces the way obesity became a leading health indicator according to the Institutes of Medicine, she notes that their Healthy People reports strayed further and further from addressing structural issues around health such as poverty. Boero very usefully explores the way fatness intersects with heterosexuality and femininity in her chapter on bariatric surgery. Saguy explores gender, race, and class implications of framing fat, including the blame placed on mothers (which Boero also mentions) and the differing emphasis on personal responsibility in news articles discussing thinness-oriented eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia)—often associated with upper-class white females—and obesity and binge eating disorder—often associated with the poor, African Americans, and Latinos.
Boero’s discussion of the postmodern epidemic and the pros and cons of medicalization is useful, especially for scholars critical of obesity orthodoxy (Boero, p. 43). Boero examines deeply the ways in which obesity has been medicalized and constructed as an epidemic, including discussion of the stakeholders, claimsmakers, and major influences in the process at the policy level. On the whole, Boero does a great job of highlighting the American tendency to “solve” social problems such as obesity at the individual level.
Saguy includes health at every size (HAES) advocates’ and fat activists’ framing of fat in her analysis, illuminating two ways of thinking about fatness of which the average person is likely unaware. Boero’s research does not focus on either HAES proponents or fat activists, and only mentions them in cursory ways throughout the book, though she advocates for HAES in her conclusion. As a fat studies scholar, I noted the absence of these comparisons in Killer Fat, but recognize the dire need for analysis of mainstream narratives around fatness.
Boero’s writing is thick with description, which brings the analysis to life and is easily relatable. Saguy presents an intensely researched argument that should be unquestionably compelling to any sociologist. Although the barrage of factual information is likely to be overwhelming for the average reader, Saguy illustrates concepts with anecdotes throughout the book.
Both scholars, Boero a fat woman and Saguy a thin woman, address their positionality and are reflexive in regard to their bodies and research experiences in ways that are revealing. For example, Boero fit in at Weight Watchers and Overeaters Anonymous meetings, but was met with the notion that as a fat woman she was automatically a compulsive overeater—a statement that the speaker assumed overruled Boero’s own knowledge about her habits. Saguy notes that many are puzzled by her interest in fatness but also noted that her body size privileges her via, among other things, the notion that she is more objective and credible. When contrasted with one another, these books show the ways in which fatness and thinness can both be seen as giving one authority or credibility depending on the context.
Killer Fat and What’s Wrong With Fat? are appropriate for both mid- to upper-level undergraduate courses, as well as graduate courses. Both books cover contemporary social issues and inequality, making them useful issue-oriented content for courses on social inequalities and health and Illness. Theoretically and substantively, they would prove very useful for courses on the body, media, or social policy. The varied methodologies also make them interesting for courses in methods, specifically qualitative methods, or discussions of reflexive methods.
Scholars will draw on Killer Fat and What’s Wrong With Fat? for years to come. Both books offer well-documented scholarship, a variety of illuminating data, and informative theoretical frameworks. Themes in these books solidify into coherent arguments that directly challenge common ideas about and contemporary approaches to fatness.