“I Just Couldn’t Keep it in Control Anymore:” Weight Loss Surgery, Food Addiction, and Anti-Fat Stigma

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter explores how discourses of obesity as addiction are taken up by weight loss surgery patients and medical and scientific professionals.

Methodology/approach – Based on 14 semistructured interviews, I discuss the ways in which bariatric patients partially account for their presurgical bodies and contemporary struggles with weight loss and regain by referencing food addiction. This work is part of a larger project involving 35 interviews and participant-observation work and therefore these results should thus be considered preliminary.

Findings – I argue that bariatric patients and bariatric professionals portray weight loss surgery as an extraordinary tool that allows the “out of control” to become controllable. However, bariatric patients also emphasize the hard work that is entailed in both losing weight and maintaining a weight loss even after surgery.

Social implications – I suggest that this portrayal, in addition to being an accurate assessment of the potential for regain following weight loss surgery, is a technology of stigma management.

Originality/value – This work contributes to the sociology of the body and medical sociology literatures by illustrating that, within a neoliberal and anti-fat social context, highlighting the hard work involved in weight loss and weight maintenance allows bariatric patients to demonstrate proper subjectivity and thereby reclaim “proper selves” as they work toward a “proper bodies.”

Citation

Meleo-Erwin, Z. (2012), "“I Just Couldn’t Keep it in Control Anymore:” Weight Loss Surgery, Food Addiction, and Anti-Fat Stigma", Netherland, J. (Ed.) Critical Perspectives on Addiction (Advances in Medical Sociology, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 201-224. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-6290(2012)0000014013