Schooled on Fat: What Teens Tell Us About Gender, Body Image, and Obesity

Obesity has dominated popular media as one of the most pressing issues of the new millennium. In the US, high rates of obesity, and by extension, fat people are often blamed for rising health-care costs and a weakening of national security. What does it mean to be considered fat during a time when obesity is framed as a threat? When body fat is the enemy, how does the line between "acceptable" and "too fat" get defined moment-to-moment as people make value judgments about each other's bodies in the course of everyday life? Nicole Taylor explores how teens navigated the fraught realities of body image within a high school culture that reinforced widespread beliefs about body size as a matter of personal responsibility while offering limited opportunity to exercise and an abundance of fattening junk foods. Drawing on daily observations, interviews, and focus groups with teens, Schooled on Fat takes the reader into their lives to show how, through everyday language, they managed their body size, social status, and identities as body-conscious individuals. Taylor traces policy efforts to illustrate where we are as a nation in addressing childhood obesity and offers practical strategies schools and parents can utilize to promote teen wellness.