ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development of traditional grounds for fat stigma until the end of the nineteenth century. It explores that the development of 'thinness' as the beauty ideal created new grounds for weight bias. The chapter tracks the twentieth-century medicalization of 'being fat' into 'being overweight'. It also discusses the stigmatizing effects of the recent medicalization. The chapter then discusses the dilemma government's face in dealing with weight bias and the bleak perspective of the dominant paradigm to change. It then explores the counterproductive health effects of enhancing weight bias by focusing on personal responsibility. The medicalization of 'obesity' may have very early roots, but it only became hugely successful by the end of the twentieth century. It involves the claim that 'being fat' should primarily be considered a 'medical problem'—that is, a problem over which physicians and especially 'obesity experts' have jurisdiction.
