The Metamorphoses of Fat : A History of Obesity / Georges Vigarello.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vigarello, Georges, author.

Contributor:

Delogu, C. Jon.

Series:

European perspectives.

European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism

Standardized Title:

M©tamorphoses du gras. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Body weight--Social aspects--History.

Body weight.

Obesity--Social aspects--History.

Obesity.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (297 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2013]

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

PDF

Summary:

Georges Vigarello maps the evolution of Western ideas about fat and fat people from the Middle Ages to the present, paying particular attention to the role of science, fashion, fitness crazes, and public health campaigns in shaping these views. While hefty bodies were once a sign of power, today those who struggle to lose weight are considered poor in character and weak in mind. Vigarello traces the eventual equation of fatness with infirmity and the way we have come to define ourselves and others in terms of body type. Vigarello begins with the medieval artists and intellectuals who treated heavy bodies as symbols of force and prosperity. He then follows the shift during the Renaissance and early modern period to courtly, medical, and religious codes that increasingly favored moderation and discouraged excess. Scientific advances in the eighteenth century also brought greater knowledge of food and the body's processes, recasting fatness as the "relaxed" antithesis of health. The body-as-mechanism metaphor intensified in the early nineteenth century, with the chemistry revolution and heightened attention to food-as-fuel, which turned the body into a kind of furnace or engine. During this period, social attitudes toward fat became conflicted, with the bourgeois male belly operating as a sign of prestige but also as a symbol of greed and exploitation, while the overweight female was admired only if she was working class. Vigarello concludes with the fitness and body-conscious movements of the twentieth century and the proliferation of personal confessions about obesity, which tied fat more closely to notions of personality, politics, taste, and class.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

Part 1. The Medieval Glutton

1. The Prestige of the Big Person

2. Liquids, Fat, and Wind

3. The Horizon of Fault

4. The Fifteenth Century and the Contrasts of Slimming

Part 2. The "Modern" Oaf

5. The Shores of Laziness

6. The Plural of Fat

7. Exploring Images, Defining Terms

8. Constraining the Flesh

Part 3. From Oafishness to Powerlessness

9. Inventing Nuance

10. Stigmatizing Powerlessness

11. Toning Up

Part 4. The Bourgeois Belly

12. The Weight of Figures

13. Typology Fever

14. From Chemistry to Energy

15. From Energy to Diets

Part 5. Toward the "Martyr"

16. The Dominance of Aesthetics

17. Clinical Obesity and Everyday Obesity

18. The Thin Revolution

19. Declaring "the Martyr"

Part 6. Changes in the Contemporary Debate

The Affirmation of an "Epidemic"

"Counterattacks"?

The Dynamics of Thinness, the Dynamics of Obesity

The Effects of Thinness

A "Multifactor" Universe

The Self, the Trial, and Identity

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Backmatter

Notes:

Translation of: Les m©tamorphoses du gras.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9780231535304

0231535309

OCLC:

853360201