Essayists weigh in with observations on body image

Fat. It’s a “three-letter word larded with meaning,” write the editors of the book “Fat.”

At a time when the subject of body image provokes widespread anxiety, insecurity and self-consciousness, especially about weight, 13 anthropologists and a self-described “fat activist” consider the word as a concept, a stigma, an aesthetic, an epidemic and even a status symbol in a collection of provocative and entertaining essays subtitled “The Anthropology of an Obsession.”

Regardless of diet trends -- or could it be because of them? -- studies show that people are getting bigger and ever more neurotic about how much they weigh. Figurative artists such as Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville have famously tapped into our obsession with fat, painting thickly textured, oversized nudes that both captivate and repel the viewer.

The word “conjures images of repulsion, disgust, and anxiety for some, but associations of comfort, delight, and beauty for others,” editors Don Kulick and Anne Meneley write in their introduction. In some societies, being fat symbolizes prosperity and even an erotic ideal.

Yet it is a growing epidemic, implicated in heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and cancer. (The editors quote a World Health Organization study indicating that an estimated 1 billion adults worldwide are overweight, at least 300 million of whom are obese.)

Margaret Wilson’s “Indulgence,” for instance, reads like a stand-up comic’s predictable routine. She muses about Seattle’s coffee culture, making obvious statements about “the apparent mixture of indulgence and restraint in this particular type of consumption. Most customers order a skimmed-milk drink -- and add whipped cream. Or they order a low-fat pastry -- with butter or frosting on the side.”

Apparently no one told her about the fast-food customers who order a bacon double cheeseburger, super-size fries and diet soda.

Far more intriguing and a highlight of the book is Julia Harrison’s glorious paean to Spam, noting that Hawaii is the nation’s largest per-capita consumer of this “humble, inexpensive canned meat.”

Exploring its popularity among Hawaiians, she delves into Spam’s complex and fascinating history, the island chain’s rather undistinguished culinary heritage and Spam’s role in global expansion as a cheap, portable, durable protein source for soldiers and laborers. (Adopted as a staple ration for Allied Forces in World War II, it soon became Hormel’s most successful product.)

The heightened American military presence in and around Hawaii after the attack on Pearl Harbor -- bringing in tens of thousands of soldiers -- flooded the islands with Spam. Hawaiian enthusiasm for the product has not abated: Harrison describes a three-day festival called Spam Jam, in which islanders participate in a contest to construct the “Great Wall of Spam.”

Also compelling is “Leaky,” in which the authors study the disturbing use by middle-class Brazilian women of expensive diet medications said to dissolve body fat and prevent more from accumulating, all in an effort to emulate certain upper-class Brazilian women.

The authors argue that as these women swallow diet pills, they are also harmfully ingesting “particular Brazilian fantasies of class, race, order, and progress.”

Also explored in the book is the “fat porn” industry, which features women who weigh more than 300 pounds (and sometimes more than 500). Another essay describes desert villages in Niger where Arab women strive to become as fat as possible.

Fanny Ambjornsson writes of spending time among teenage girls in Sweden. In a nation where women hold more political power than in any other country in the world, the author observes that feminist ideals seem to trickle down less than body weight obsessions. Among high school girls, talking about fat, she observes, “is a way of establishing friendships with some girls and ostracizing others.”

In this anthology, the best pieces don’t read as mere manifestos against obesity but challenge our ways of thinking about it. They probe our assumptions on the subject, and explain how social and cultural forces, left unexamined, can prove damaging in ways we don’t often realize.

*

Carmela Ciuraru is a regular contributor to Book Review.