A Discursive Look at Large Bodies - Implications for Discursive Approaches in Nursing and Health Research

摘要

This article illuminates discursive constructions of large bodies in contemporary society anddiscusses what discursive approaches might add to health care. Today, the World HealthOrganization describes a current “epidemic of obesity” and classifies large bodies as a medicalcondition. Texts on the obesity epidemic often draw upon alarming perspectives that involveassociations of threat and catastrophe. The concern we see for body size in contemporarydiscourse is not new. Understandings of body size in Western societies are highly culturaland normative and could be different. The way we approach large bodies affects healthcare practice as well as subjects’ self-perceptions.