ABSTRACT
Updated survey research in the US suggests that if people think of body weight as strongly genetically determined, they are more likely to recognize that weight discrimination is common, to have sympathy for fat people, and to support non-discrimination policies. It might seem that convincing more people that one’s weight is not entirely within one’s control is the best way to win rights, reduce health disparities, and push back stigmatization and humiliation. I certainly use this argument all the time. But as I take stock of where we are with fat rights as a scholar, things are more complicated. Critical obesity studies at its most useful illuminates many other things in addition to helping us better understand the meaning and power of body sizes. It tells us about what kinds of arguments resonate in our law and political systems, thereby helping us to see what forms of power delimit the possible. In this chapter, I will argue that the possibilities for fat rights remain extremely limited because rights overall are extremely limited. Fatness tends to be overwhelmed by health, disease, and disability frames, which are difficult to assimilate into rights discourses at all, and are much more likely to be rerouted to more narrowed forms of medicalization, pity, or moral disapproval.
