"YOU SHOULD LOSE WEIGHT; I TELL YOU THAT BECAUSE I LOVE YOU": AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC REFLECTIONS ABOUT FATNESS

The recent construction of a global obesity epidemic favours the construction of thinness as a moral value, a self-evidence of the individual's health status, and as aesthetically desirable. This autoethnographic paper presents an account of my experience of being fat from childhood to adulthood, from a feminist sociological perspective. The cultural imposition of thinness and societal fatphobia fed feelings of incapacity, bodily inadequacy, and psychological suffering which led to problematic eating behaviours. I argue that the war on obesity operates in the name of health but paradoxically produces a significant renunciation of physical and psychological well-being in the pursuit of thinness.