Schools are sites of great power and influence where the “obesity” discourse is often taken uncritically as truth and reproduced, to the detriment of young people. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how theories of fatness can inform theories of culturally relevant pedagogy with the goal of helping teachers create spaces where increased size acceptance is possible for secondary students. Literature from both these areas of study was reviewed and applied to the Ontario secondary curriculum documents for science and physical education. This analysis demonstrated a body acceptance orientation in teaching these disciplines, and that doing so can mitigate many of the negative effects of living in a fat hating world.

Schools are sites of great power and influence where the “obesity” discourse is often taken uncritically as truth and reproduced, to the detriment of young people. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how theories of fatness can inform theories of culturally relevant pedagogy with the goal of helping teachers create spaces where increased size acceptance is possible for secondary students. Literature from both these areas of study was reviewed and applied to the Ontario secondary curriculum documents for science and physical education. This analysis demonstrated a body acceptance orientation in teaching these disciplines, and that doing so can mitigate many of the negative effects of living in a fat hating world.

Obesity is one of the most serious problems of the contemporary civilization. Although its causes are multifactorial, some authors blame media for the increase of obesity. However, media can also be seen from another perspective. It can be seen as a tool for activating people towards a healthier lifestyle and thus moderate obesity. This work is based on this second view. On the basis of the health communication are formulated requirements on informing about obesity. I use quantitative content analysis to verify whether Czech media works according to these requirements. I come to the conclusion that the Czech media fulfills the requirements only partially. Although media consider obesity as a problem and gives factually correct information, it blames mostly individuals, which is not in accordance with the recommendations of the health communication. Likewise, it offers mainly individual forms of solutions. Compared with foreign media it focus less on childhood obesity too.

Thesis Representation of fat people in chosen media content is audience research based on perception of thickness, related to characters from three selected czech television series. Fat Studies was primary science literarture source for thesis theory and practical research part is using both, quantitative and qualitative methodology. Quantitative method of data collection were self-serviced questionnaire shared throught internet. Qualitative method used half- structured personal interviews. Thesis is trying to answer, if there is existing correlation between thickness (body constitution) of character and popularity based on character personality. This correlation was statisticaly confirmed only for characters, which are considered strongly obese. Not for any other type of characters. Another findings confirmed, that there is strong positive correlation between popularity of personality and character attractiveness.

While many modernist authors exhibited eugenicist tendencies which I While many modernist authors exhibited eugenicist tendencies which I will detail in this paper, Joyce wrote, implicitly and explicitly, against it. Joyce’s anti-eugenics aesthetic, expressed almost in passing by Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (1916), becomes entangled in questions of bodies and national identity in Ulysses. I intend to identify a series of moments in which disgust and bodily difference in Ulysses counter the eugenics trends in elitist modernism while simultaneously criticizing racism in Irish nationalism that, in some ways, drove the movement for Irish independence. It would be impossible to provide and exhaustive exploration of all the anti-eugenics imagery in Ulysses. this project attempts to differentiate Joyce more thoroughly from his contemporaries through readings of Gerty MacDowell and Molly Bloom. Gerty is the disabled granddaughter of a racist nationalist, and she functions as an articulation of Joyce’s search for an Ireland that rejects simplistic, narrow-minded nationalism. Molly, Ulysses’ ultimate heroine, takes ownership of her sexuality, thereby countering the eugenics project. I read both women as counter-eugenics icons who personify an anti-hegemonic ideal through their relationships with their own bodies.

No description available.

Forskning kring tjock representation är knapp och en aspekt som har negligerats i debatter kring inkluderande och mångfald. Syftet med denna uppsats är därför att undersöka hur vår samtid, i en engelskspråkig kontext, ser på tjockhet i film och tv. Detta utforskas genom fallstudien Reflect, en animerad kortfilm från 2022. Fallstudien är vald då Reflect omskrivs i media som Disneys första film med en tjock huvudkaraktär. Uppsatsen ämnar besvara hur Disney har porträtterat och hanterat den tjocka huvudkaraktären i Reflect, samt hur denna kortfilm har mottagits och vilka diskussioner som den har väckt. Detta görs genom att närläsa filmen samt analysera dess mottagande på filmdatabaser, sociala medier och i massmedia. Resultaten diskuteras med hjälp av teorier inom representation, socialkonstruktionism, fat studies och mottagandeteori. Resultaten visar att filmen porträtterar huvudkaraktären som en tjock karaktär vars kroppsstorlek gör att hon sticker ut. Detta leder till självtvivel som hon övervinner på ett självständigt sätt. Resultaten visar vidare att mottagandet både är positivt och negativt och att diskussioner har väckts kring sättet som Disney väljer att fokusera på en tjock karaktär.

This thesis explores the intricate interplay of fatness and queerness, as navigated by Greek individuals. Employing a qualitative approach and thematic analysis, the study aims to unfold the experiences, challenges, and resilience. To do so it is informed by queer theory, as well as Michel Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon and Judith Butler’s concept of performativity. Ethical considerations, the application of queer phenomenology, and an awareness of positionality guide the study to ensure a compassionate and empathetic examination of these experiences. The findings reveal the pervasive societal narratives on fatness and queerness and the significant role of self-identification, aiming to contribute to the broader discourse on body image, self-identity, and societal expectations.

The phrase, “Toward Adipositivity” in my title is derived from an episode of the Indian fat-activist podcast, Fat.So? (2019-2022). Photographer Substantia Jones presents her fat-activist artwork, “The Adipositivity Project.” Her method involves photographing revealing, sometimes nude, pictures of fat women, and then posts them to the Internet. Jones’ goal is to reclaim the pejorative connotations associated with the word “fat,” to show that fat women’s bodies are beautiful and worthy of artistic inspiration. The arrival of fat activism in Bollywood cinema circa 2010 resulted from the 1991 neo-liberalization of India. The nation experienced a subsequent rise of feminism in civil society, and thus saw the importation of related identity political considerations from Western culture. Bollywood fat activism developed in response to almost two decades of imitating Hollywood featuring thin actresses as protagonists, while relegating fat actresses to insignificant and unattractive roles. In this dissertation, I apply Fat Studies to Bollywood and podcasting. My dissertation centers on two mass mediated sites: weight-based discrimination against women in the 2015 Bollywood film, Dum Laga ke Haisha, and the early fat-activist podcast, Fat.So?, which began in 2019. I conclude that podcasting is a more effective medium than Bollywood cinema for delivering a radical fat-activist message. The latter mass mediated form of communication represents a multiplicity of nuanced perspectives, across a wider array of the population. I employ intersectional theory to study the interaction of weight as an identity political variable with gender, class, and caste. Finally, I lay out the relationship between the fat-activist film and podcast and the recent rise of non-diet nutrition-based podcasting in India.

Syftet med den här avhandlingen är att utveckla en begreppslig och teoretiserande förståelse för villkor och möjligheter i överviktiga personers handlingsliv. Med utgångspunkt i intervjuer med femton feta svenskar har slutpunkten för studien kommit att bli en artikulering av processer och subprocesser inom viktordningen. Viktordningen är ett system som ordnar alla horisontellt, som underviktiga, normalviktiga eller överviktiga. Den ordnar oss även vertikalt, genom att över - och underordna oss beroende på vilken viktkategori vi tillhör. Det innebär att vissa gynnas medan andra missgynnas. Att feta är en grupp som i den västerländska kulturen tenderar att både underordnas, förtryckas och missgynnas har humanistiskt och samhällsvetenskapligt orienterad fetmaforskning visat. Den forskningen, såväl som fetas redogörelser för sina liv, vittnar också om det viktordnande systemet. Genom att teoretisera kring viktordningen vill jag öka förståelsen för hur underordandet, förtrycket och missgynnande av feta är möjligt. Viktordningen är således inte i sig ett system för underordning av feta. De som dominerar är själva i vissa avseenden dominerade. Underordandet är snarare en effekt sprungna ur det viktordnande systemet. Viktordningen inkluderar mer än det som uppmärksammas i den här studien. Den teoretiserande framställningen behandlar fyra processer samt viktiga subprocesser och element i viktordningen: viktordnandets betingelser, viktiggörande, inordnande viktgörande och oviktiggörande. Viktordnande betingelser behandlar de kulturella och sociala förutsättningar som möjliggör viktordningens existens. Dessa betingelser gör att vikten blir viktig mer allmänt och för alla. I de övriga processerna är det fetas position och roll i viktordningen som är i fokus. Viktiggörande, belyser olika sätt varigenom feta människor kan kommer att uppleva och uppfatta sin övervikt som något negativt viktigt i sina liv. Inordnande viktgörande behandlar de sociala och kulturella medel som är ämnade att göra den feta smal (-are). Dessa tenderar också att göra vikten negativt viktig för feta. De tre första processerna behandlar syftets första del, det vill säga fetas villkor. Syftets andra del, möjligheterna, lyfts fram i den fjärde och sista processen, oviktiggöranden. Oviktiggörande kan enkelt beskrivas som viktiggörandets motkrafter, och refererar till hur feta kan göra sin övervikt mindre viktig. / The purpose of this thesis is to develop a conceptual and theorizing understanding of circumstances and possibilities in fat people’s lives. Starting in interviews with fifteen fat Swedes, this research finally ended up as an articulation of processes and sub-processes within the weight order. The weight order is a system that orders all of us horizontally as underweight, normal weight or overweight. It also orders us vertically as super- or subordered depending on which weight category we belong to. This means that some are favoured while others are unfairly treated. The fact that fat people in Western cultures tend to be sub-ordered, oppressed and unfairly treated because of their body sizes and weights has already been shown in previous research, and this study does not treat that issue to any great extent. Instead it focuses on the ordering system that is evident in fat people’s statements and in previous research about fatness and overweight within the humanities and social sciences. By theorizing around weight order I wish to broaden the understanding of how subordination, oppression and unfair treatment of fat people are possible. The weight order is not a system for subordination of fat people. Those who dominate are also in some sense dominated. Subordination is rather an effect driven by the weight-ordered system. The weight order is a more inclusive conception than has been presented in this study. The theoretical treaties examine four processes, sub-processes and elements within the weight order. These include weight-ordering conditions, weightification, subsuming weightdoing, and downplaying weightification. Weight-ordering conditions deal with cultural and social circumstances that make the weight order possible. These conditions are processes that no one can fully escape. In the other processes it is only fat people’s positions and roles within the weight order that is in focus. Weightification consists of the processes that make body weight important in people’s lives. In this work weightification highlights different forms that make fat people experience and understand their overweight as negatively important in their lives. Subsuming weight-doings deals with social and cultural means that are intended to make fat people thin (-er). These also tend to make the  body weight negative for fat people. The three first processes treat the first part of the aim, fat people’s conditions. The second part of the aim, possibilities, is dealt with in the fourth and last process, downplaying weightification. Downplaying weightification can simply be described as including the opposite forces to weightification, and deals with how fat people can make their overweight less important.