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Universi^ Micronlms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 8225516 SoUoway, Orin Esther THEORY AND PRACTICE OF FAT The Uniyersily o f Oklahoma PH.D. 1982 University Microfilms I n tern ati O n si300 N. zeeb R W . a m Arbor, M I 48106 Copyright 1982 by Solioway, Orin Esther All Rights Reserved THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA. GRADUATE COLLEGE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF FAT A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment for the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY ORIN SOLLOWAY Norman, Oklahoma 1982 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF FAT APPR03KD BY DISSERTATION COMMITTEE This work is dedicated to two SyIvans, The first in memory, the second in hope. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I thank Dr. Charles W. Wright for chairing the doctoral committee and charting those territorial waters. Without his friendship and generosity during my long, somewhat checkered student odyssey, this errant apprentice might never have negotiatiated the full route. The present enterprise was immeasurably enhanced by Dr. Wright's example of scholarship and intellectual energy. To other members of the committee— each a valued teacher and friend— I am grateful for general encouragement as well as for incisive scrutiny of the manuscript. Dr. Richard E. Hilbert has been a seminal source on the nuances of social control theory. To Dr. Marilyn Affleck, I owe my first introduction to sociology of knowledge perspectives. Dr. D. Lawrence Wieder provided a superior reservoir of méthodologie talent. Others whose assistance was crucial to the completion of this project include Betty Sudduth, Elizabeth Waddell and Terri Coffey Rooth. Finally and foremost, I express my deepest appreciation for Stan Solioway. Best friend, best fan and best critic, he is the major supporter of this research — and of its author. Orin Solioway June, 1982 iix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF T A B L E S ............................................... v Chapter I. INTRODUCTION......................................... 1 Framework and Orientation .............................. 4 Statement of the Problem .............................. 5 Major Concepts of the S t u d y ............................ 6 Theoretical Overview .................................. 14 II. REVIEW OF THE L I T E R A T U R E ............................. 16 Applications of Sociological Theory .................... 17 Empirical Sociological Studies ........................ 46 III. METHODOLOGICAL REPORT ................................. 58 Field W o r k ........................................... 58 Content Analysis ..................................... 66 IV. THE F I N D I N G S ......................................... 76 Fat T h e o r y ........................................... 77 Fat P r a c t i c e ........................................... 139 V. SUMMARY AND C O N C L U S I O N ................................. 195 Summary of Sociological Interpretations................. 195 The Social Importance of F a t ............................ 213 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................. 215 APPENDICES.................................................... 224 A. Measurements and Operationalizations of Fa t ................224 B. The Prevalence of O v e r w e i g h t ........................... 226 C. Genetic Disease Svndromes Associated with Fat ............. 227 D. Obesity Surgery: Summary Report............. 228 E. Glossary of Technical Terms in Professional Literature* • • 234 IV LIST OF TABLES TABLE Page 1. Weight Information for Recipients of Gastric Bypass Surgery................................................. 61 2. Partial List of Professional and Scientific Journals Which Have Published Articles on Obesity Research ......... 70 3. Average Weights of Americans According to Insurance Industry Society of Actuaries, Chicago, 1959............... 84 4. "Desirable Weights" of Men and Women According to Insurance Industry Society of Actuaries, Chicago, 1959. 85 5. Average Weights of Americans According to United States Government Statistics ............................ 86 ABSTRACT THEORY AND PRACTICE OF FAT by ORIN SOLLOWAY Major Professor: CHARLES W. WRIGHT, Ph.D. This study explores the contemporary social construction of fat, defined as an object of human meaning systems and denoting both cognitive and evaluative orientations. We focus on Fat Theory and Fat Practice as related aspects of a social reality-building process. Fat Theory represents the cognitive doctrine of fat — i.e., objectified knowledge products which serve to explain it. We review two major bodies of current literature: The professional reports of obesity research and the popular accounts of "overweight" in the lay press. Considered as major repositories of a legitimating lore, these clinical constructions and popular paradigms are exposed and compared in terms of their definitional, physiological, psychological and sym bolic formulations on fat. Fat Practice refers to the ways of life of fat people — that is, people who identify themselves as "compulsive overeaters," people who diet, people who elect surgery for obesity and people who are members of weight reducing groups. We present (1) a typology of compulsive food practices and associated modes of consciousness, (2) participant-observa tion reports from local settings of two nationally-coordinated fat organizations, and (3) interview data from patients of obesity surgery. vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION It is said that fat, conveniently stored on the bodies of our Paleolithic ancestors, provided an energy reserve that was crucial to human survival in the glacial hinterlands. Whatever the anthropological merit of this proposition, it suggests that human body fat — once the hero of somatic adaptation — may now be regarded as an evolutionary anachronism. Those contemporary humans who may have retained residues of a genetic propensity for subcutaneous energy storage have, it would seem, fallen on hard times since the Ice Age. The modern era — having passed the species survival emergencies and spawned great industrialized sectors of abundant, relatively predictable food supply— decidedly disvalues fatness. Today, the topic of human adiposity increasingly belongs to arbiters of health and high fashion, under whose auspices fat has de clined to the status of pathology and pathos. In the popular and pro fessional discussion of human fat and fat people, this much is clear; To be fat is to be aesthetically flawed and functionally impaired. But the assertions that fat isn't pretty and is believed to be a health risk do not, somehow, account for the pervasively moralistic tone of many anti-fat exhortations. There is, one suspects, more to the message: Health and beauty are not all; character is also at issue. Moreover, behavior itself is inferred from the existence of excess body fat. 2 To the detached observer it might seem that configurations of the body present, in the usual case, merely individual variation. But it has not escaped sociological notice that very few of such variations are without social meaning, and that some variations (for example blondness, tallness or hirsuteness) are often interpreted as reflections of charac ter. Moreover, specific anatomical aspects attain added social (indeed, socially-structured) salience as emblems of status or group membership — notably skin color as racial and secondary sex traits as gender identi fication. The body, then, is a well-acknowledged repository of social meanings. In this respect, body fat is merely one among other benchmarks of social signification. Not only amounts of body