ABSTRACT

So far in this book we have provided a critique of the ways in which obesity has been talked about in the mass-media, the scientific literature and other popular publications. In each case, we have seen how people take for granted the proposition that ‘overweight and obesity’ are definable, recognizable, universally understandable, measurable ‘real’ objects. We have described how the ideology of the ‘obesity epidemic’ has been constructed, and how its central arguments have been marshalled and disseminated by journalists, scientists and other commentators.