Heavy

Helene A. Shugart is Professor of Communication at the University of Utah. Her research synthesises rhetorical, media, and cultural studies to critically assess cultural discourses; her most recent work examines discourses around health, concentrating specifically on obesity.

"Heavy is a triumph of a book, a must-read for anyone interested in obesity in the United States. It is an extremely readable account of how the population of this great nation got into this seemingly intractable problem. Helene Shugart shows how political, corporate, and media representations of obesity fail the test in the eyes of ordinary people in their everyday experience of obesity. The book reflects broader cultural tensions and anxieties in the United States, making it much more than a book about obesity." -- Stanley Ulijaszek, Professor of Human Ecology and Director of the Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity, University of Oxford"Helene Shugart makes a bold, compelling case for obesity as the ideal field for both cultural negotiation and scholarly exploration of contemporary tensions between radical individualism and authenticity. Her dynamic retelling of contemporary stories of obesity explains both how and why these disparate narratives manage to capture both the cultural imagination and the public purse, while failing to significantly loosen neoliberalism's stranglehold on publicpolicy. And, even better, she hints at how their transformation might contribute to this end." -- Tarla Rai Peterson, Professor of Communication and Coordinator of Rare Mozambique, University of Texas at El Paso

• Chapter I Introduction Chapter II Calorie Laden: The Official Story of Obesity Chapter III Circumstantial Case: The Environmental Story of Obesity Chapter IV Destiny Obesity: The Fatalistic Story of Obesity Chapter V Heavy Legacies: The Cultural Story of Obesity Chapter VI Heavy Heart: The Story of Emotional/Spiritual Dysfunction Chapter VII Fighting Weight: Stories of Resistance Chapter VIII Feeling Fat: The Story of Disgrace Chapter IX Conclusion: Getting Real References