The modern struggle against fat cuts deeply and pervasively into American culture, as evidenced by the compulsion to stay thin, or at least to profess a desire to become thin. Dieting, weight consciousness and widespread hostility to obesity form one of the fundamental themes of modern life in countries around the world. Yet, for example, while the French are renowned for their delight in all things gustatory, they are significantly trimmer and less diet-obsessed than Americans. Indeed, “France had no equivalents of rural Americana’s pie-eating contests.”
Fat History explores the meaning of fat and anti-fat in modern Western society, focusing on the uniquely moral component of dieting in America. Tracing how standards of beauty and physical morality have been radically transformed over the past century in the United States and France, Peter N. Stearns illustrates how the contemporary obsession with fat arose in tandem with the dramatic growth in consumer culture, women’s increasing equality, and changes in women’s sexual and maternal roles. Contrary to popular belief, fashion and nutrition have played only a secondary role in spurring the American aversion to fat, while the French distaste for obesity can be traced to different origins altogether.
Filled with narrative anecdotes and rooted in Stearns’ trademark use of engaging original sources–from Ebony and Gourmet to The Journal of the American Medical Association and popularized accounts of French doctors–Fat History explores fat’s transformation from a symbol of health and well-being to a sign of moral, psychological, and physical disorder.
Contents :
PART 1 : AMERICAN FAT
The turning point
The medical path : physicians and faddists
Fat as a turn-of-the-century target : why ?
PART 2 : INTENSIFICATION OF THE CULTURE, 1920s-1990s : EXPIATION AND ITS LIMITS
The misogynist phase : 1920s-1960s
Stepping up the pace : old motives, new methods
Fat City : American weight gains in the twentieth century
PART 3 : THE FRENCH REGIME
The evolution of weight control in France
The french regime
Atlantic Crisscross : the Franco-American Contrasts
Conclusion : the fat’s in the fire
Mots clé : histoire des mentalités, états-unis, france, régime, minceur
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