ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the ways in which fat bodies are governed via these strategies and technologies, including the assumptions, tacit knowledges and power relations which underpin them. Medicine and public health are intertwined authoritative institutions which have been immensely influential in the ways in which individuals understand, perceive and experience their bodies. The Body Mass Index (BMI) used by orthodox medicine to measure, standardize and categorize body weight, including defining overweight and obesity versus 'normality', has been the subject of trenchant critique from various brands of obesity sceptic. In neoliberal societies, the concept of 'free choice' is dominant. This concept presumes that consumer/citizens use their own assessment of risks and benefits when making choices about lifestyle commodities and behaviours. The family setting has also provided an integral site for governmental interventions into children's and young people's weight control. Apps and wearable devices, in particular, allow ever-greater monitoring and measuring of human body weight and energy consumption and expenditure.
