In the past decade, obesity has emerged as a major public health concern in the United States and abroad. At the federal, state, and local level, policy makers have begun drafting a range of policies to fight a war against fat, including body-mass index (BMI) report cards, “snack taxes,” and laws to control how fast food companies market to children. As an epidemic, obesity threatens to weaken the health, economy, and might of the most powerful nation in the world. In Killer Fat, Natalie Boero examines how and why obesity emerged as a major public health concern and national obsession in recent years. Using primary sources and in-depth interviews, Boero enters the world of bariatric surgeries, Weight Watchers, and Overeaters Anonymous to show how common expectations of what bodies are supposed to look like help to determine what sorts of interventions and policies are considered urgent in containing this new kind of disease. Boero argues that obesity, like the traditional epidemics of biological contagion and mass death, now incites panic, a doomsday scenario that must be confronted in a struggle for social stability. The “war” on obesity, she concludes, is a form of social control. Killer Fat ultimately offers an alternate framing of the nation’s obesity problem based on the insights of the “Health at Every Size” movement.

A four year old Mexican American girl is taken away from her parents because she is obese and experiencing health problems related to her weight. Such a measure, once seen as extreme, quickly comes to be seen as a logical means of addressing a problem viewed as nothing short of child abuse. And yet, for all the purported concern for these children’s welfare, little if any mention is ever made of the psychological ramifications of removing children from their families. They are simply the latest victims of the war on obesity—a war declared on a “disease” but conducted, April Herndon contends in this book, along cultural lines. Fat Blame is a book about how the war on obesity is, in many ways, shaping up to be a battle against women and children, especially women and children who are marginalized via class and race. While conceding that fatness can be linked to certain conditions, or that some populations might be heavier than others, Herndon is more interested in the ways women and children are blamed for obesity and the ways interventions aimed at preventing obesity are problematic in and of themselves. From bariatric surgeries being performed on children to women being positioned as responsible for carrying to term a generation of thin children, her book looks closely at the stories of real people whose lives are drastically altered by interventions that are supposedly for their own good. As with so many practices surrounding bodies and health, like dieting, people are often simultaneously blamed and empowered through policies and interventions, especially those that seem to offer them choices. What Herndon reveals is how such choices only offer the illusion of being empowering. Rather, she shows how woman and children are pushed, pulled, and sometimes victimized by interventions such as bariatric surgeries, limits on reproductive technologies, and having their families broken up by the courts. Only by identifying members of this group as victims of discrimination, she argues, can we hope to return them to a fuller and richer kind of agency. In declaring a war on obesity, the United States has said that fat is one of the most serious enemies it faces. Fat Blame asks us to confront the real enemy—the moral, political, and ideological significance of our every move in this “war.”

There is considerable rhetoric and concern about weight and obesity across an increasing range of national contexts. Alarmist claims about an ‘obesity time-bomb’ are continually recycled in policy reports, reviews and white papers, each of which begin with the assumption that fatness is fundamentally unhealthy and damaging to national economies. With contributions from the UK, Canada, the USA and Australia, this book offers alternative critical perspectives on this alleged public health crisis which were, in part, developed through an Economic and Social Research Council seminar series on Fat Studies and Health at Every Size (HAES). Written by scholars from a range of disciplines and the health professions, themes include: an interrogation of statistical procedures used to construct the obesity epidemic, overweight and obesity as cultural signifiers for Type 2 diabetes, understandings of healthy eating and healthy weight in a ‘problem’ population, gendered expectations on men and women to lose weight, the visual representation of obesity, tensions when researching (anti-)fatness, critical dietitians’ engagement with HAES, alternative ways of promoting physical activity, and representations of obesity in the media. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Public Health.

"Breakthrough research has confirmed that combining the right diet with the right mind-set is the secret to eliminating the most stubborn of all fat: belly fat. Stress is the number one reason so many of are led to self-sabotage when trying to eat well, but following Jorge Cruise's revolutionary carb control [may] curb your cravings and balance your hormones"--

JORGE CRUISE is internationally recognized as a leading celebrity fitness trainer and a #1 best-selling author. He bring us The Belly Fat Cure which addresses the main issues and causes of belly fat, as well as workouts and recpies to help you get on the right track to lose weight. For years, experts have told you that you’re tired and overweight because you eat too much and don’t exercise enough. They were WRONG. The truth is that you are eating foods packed with hidden sweeteners that deliver a belly-fattening Sugar/Carb Value. This simple guide makes smart eating effortless and affordable. This revised edition is updated with a completely new chapter—Simply Fit™, with Belly-Burning Workouts—and includes more than 1,500 options customized for: carboholics, meat lovers, chicken and seafood fans, chocoholics, fast-food junkies, and even vegans! What are you waiting for? Dig in!

In The Hyper(in)visible Fat Woman Gailey investigates the interface between fat women's perceptions of their bodies and of the social expectations and judgments placed on them. The book explores the phenomenon of 'hyper(in)visibility', the seemingly paradoxical social position of being paid exceptional attention while simultaneously being erased.