Soul Food: The Condemnation of Fatness and Apotheosis of Thin Bodies in Christian Diet Books

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2013
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Haverford College. Department of Religion
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Thesis
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
In this thesis, I examine the social and religious pressures to diet on obese and overweight individuals. I also contest the ubiquitous notion found in Christian diet books that weight loss is salvific. These books follow a formulaic concept that losing weight means gaining spirituality, strengthening the correlation between a small body mass and a spiritual zenith. Further, they condemn behaviors that are associated with being overweight and obese, as the sin of gluttony also becomes a sin against societal norms. Additionally, remaining fat is perceived as a choice going against God’s plan. I argue that the promoted salvific experience of losing weight becomes paradoxically oppressive and submissive, as a duality of virtue and sin is aligned with thinness and fatness, respectively. This paradox becomes especially harsh for overweight females who lose weight through loss of agency and control over food consumption. I then introduce personal narratives of women recovering from eating disorders. Through a close reading, I navigate the same arguments about oppression and submission with regard to food consumption through the experiences of underweight women recovering from serious anxieties with food and bodies. Next, I build upon how these reconstructions of dieting habits intersect with culturally constructed norms about the female body and beauty ideals. I implement a counterexample in which women are force-fed and fatness is ideal. Through my comparison of corpulence as both the preeminent and defective female body shape, I demonstrate that the control of food consumption is essentially the control of how female bodies contribute to their surrounding society.
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