An eclectic and highly original examination of one of the most dynamic concepts-and constructs-in the world.
With more than one billion overweight adults in the world today, obesity has become an epidemic. But fat is not
as straightforward-or even as uni-versally damned-as one might think. Enlisting thirteen anthropologists and a
fat activist, editors and anthropologists Don Kulick and Anne Meneley have produced an unconventional-and unprecedented-examination
of fat in various cultural and social contexts. In this anthology, these writers argue that fat is neither a mere
physical state nor an inert concept. Instead, it is a construct built by culture and judged in courts of public
opinion, courts whose laws vary from society to society.
From the anthropology of "fat-talk" among teenage girls in Sweden to the veneration of Spam in Hawaii;
from fear of the fat-sucking pishtaco vampire in the Andes to the underground allure of fat porn stars like Supersize
Betsy-this anthology provides fresh perspectives on a subject more complex than love handles, and less easily understood
than a number on a scale. Fat proves that fat can be beautiful, evil, pornographic, delicious, shameful, ugly,
or magical. It all depends on who-and where-you are.