Obesidade e sobrepeso: corpo gordo x corpo ideal. Contribuições da literatura socioantropológica acerca da medicalização do corpo gordo

Abstract

Obesity and overweight are medical concepts for the classification of excess body fat, which is based on certain numerical reference parameters such as, mainly, the Body Mass Index (BMI). For medicine, individuals must maintain their weight within the stipulated range, considering that the fat body is considered a chronic disease and a risk factor for the development of comorbidities. In this sense, the thin body is valued as a healthy body and the fat body is devalued as sick. At the same time, being fat or fat is a condition considered to be preventable, which makes these individuals personally responsible for their physical condition. As a result, they are also morally devalued and stigmatized, not only by medicine, but in all social spheres, especially in contemporary Western societies. The thin body, on the other hand, from a social point of view, is a sign of beauty and a sign of distinction, both class and moral. In this way, thinness is idealized in one pole and excess body fat is repudiated in the other, that is, with that, we have a fat body x ideal body. This dichotomy impacts social and political relations, as well as being a social construction and a result of political actions. So, from the socio-anthropological point of view, we seek to research about the social crossings about what medicine calls overweight and obesity, questioning the issue of medicalization of the fat body. Our field of investigation was bibliographic research of recent publications related to this theme. The present work is organized into three chapters: the first, dedicated to conceptual assumptions; the second, to the methodological course and the third, finally, deals with the analysis and discussion of the articles resulting from the research. The main themes and concepts addressed in these articles are: obesity and overweight as gender issues, specifically female; western societies as lipophobic and obesogenic; consumption and hyperconsumption; publicity; industries linked to food, health and fashion; slim body as ideal; stigma; culture; nutritional rationality as a form of medicalization of food, a fat body as a risk factor in health and a healthy lifestyle as a means of prevention and individual accountability. Our analysis of these approaches showed that the medicalization of the fat body has a function beyond health promotion and risk management, as it involves the possibility of greater acceptance and social mobility. In this way, an intense social pressure for aesthetic adequacy is sustained. We believe that it can be positive to promote the diversity of bodies and politicize the medicalization of the fat body, discussing the various interests at stake, such as the profits of the slimming industry.