Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Constructing The “Obesity Epidemic:” A Chronology Of The Pathologizing And Enfreakment Of Fatness, Brooklynn Smith

Honors Theses

The “obesity epidemic” is framed by medicine and media as a public health crisis that urgently demands medical intervention and policy. Despite this common narrative, the cultural and scientific dimensions, as well as the historical roots of the “obesity epidemic,” have been subject to much less scrutiny than necessary. Part of this inadequate scrutiny is due to the pervasive pathologizing of fatness that has roots back in 18^th- and 19^th-century ideals of normative bodies. While the contemporary American medical system holds the “obesity epidemic” as objective truth, scholars both within and outside of medicine have challenged …