Health & Healthism

The term “healthism” was coined by Robert Crawford in the 1980 article “Healthism and the Medicalization of Everyday Life.” Crawford defined healthism as “the preoccupation with personal health as a primary – often the primary – focus for the definition and achievement of well-being; a goal which is to be attained primarily through the modification of life styles, with or without therapeutic help. The etiology of disease may be seen as complex, but healthism treats individual behavior, attitudes, and emotions as the relevant symptoms needing attention.”

Crawford, R. (1980). Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services, 10(3), 365-388. https://doi.org/10.2190/3H2H-3XJN-3KAY-G9NY

BOOKS

• Brown, H. (2016). Body of truth: How science, history, and culture drive our obsession with weight – and what we can do about it. Da Capo Lifelong Books.
• Campos, P. F. (2004). The obesity myth: Why America’s obsession with weight is hazardous to your health. Gotham Books.
• Saguy, A. C. (2013). What’s wrong with fat? Oxford University Press.

CHAPTERS

• Baker, S. A., & Walsh, M. J. (2020). You are what you Instagram: Clean eating and the symbolic representation of food. In D. Lupton & Z. Feldman (Eds.), Digital food cultures [eBook]. Routledge.
• Brady, J., & Gingras, J. (2016). “Celebrating unruly experiences”: Queering health at every size as a response to the politics of postponement. In J. Ellison, D. McPhail, & W. Mitchinson (Eds.), Obesity in Canada: Critical perspectives (pp. 399-418). University of Toronto Press.
• Brady, J., Gingras, J., & Aphramor, L. (2014). Theorizing health at every size as a relational-cultural endeavour. In L. Monaghan, R. Colls, & B. Evans (Eds.), Obesity discourse and fat politics: Research, critique and interventions (eBook). Routledge.
• Burgard, D. (2010). What’s weight got to do with it?: Weight neutrality in the Health at Every Size paradigm and its implications for clinical practice. In M. Maine, B. H. McGilley, & D. W. Bunnell (Eds.), Treatment of eating disorders: Bridging the research-practice gap (pp. 17-35). Academic Press.
• Ferreira de Lima, A., & Jacinto da Silva, M. (2023). “I’d rather die than get fat in quarantine”: Psychological effects of fatphobia during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. In N. Portillo, M. L. Morgan, & M. Gallegos (Eds.), Psychology and Covid-19 in the Americas (pp. 21-26). Springer.
• Ingraham, N. (2019). Health at Every Size (HAES™) as a reform (social) movement within public health: A situational analysis. In N. Boero & K. Mason (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the sociology of body and embodiment (pp. 120-143). Oxford University Press.
• Otis, H. N. (2023). Covid and fatphobia: How rhetorics of disposability render fat bodies unworthy of care and life. In E. Winderman, A. L. Rowland, & J. Malkowski (Eds.), COVID and…: How to do rhetoric in a pandemic (pp. 123-146). Michigan State University Press.
• Reiheld, A. (2021). Thin or thick, real or ideal: How thinking through fatness can help us see the dangers of idealized conceptions of patients, providers, health, and disease. In E. Victor & L. K. Guidry-Grimes (Eds.), Applying nonideal theory to bioethics: Living and dying in a nonideal world (pp. 255-283). Springer Nature.
• Rice, L., & Collins, L. (2020). Health at Every Size®. In Y. N. Evans & A. D. Docter (Eds.), Adolescent nutrition: Assuring the needs of emerging adults (pp. 317-347). Springer.
• Sikka, T. (2022). The social construction of ‘good health.’ In C. Elliott & J. Greenberg (Eds.), Communication and health: Media, marketing and risk (pp. 231-249). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Simpson, A. B. (2023). Fat and (un)healthy: A dramaturgical analysis of health, lifestyle, and body size in healthcare settings. In Z. L. Rocha & K. L. Davidson (Eds.), Applied and clinical sociology in Aotearoa New Zealand (pp. 151-167). Springer Nature.

ARTICLES

• Beijbom, M., Fabricius, A., & O’Doherty, K. C. (2023). Women’s health magazines and postfeminist healthism: A critical discourse analysis. Feminism & Psychology, 33(4), 604-621. https://doi.org/10.1177/09593535231169823
• Campos, P., Saguy, A., Ernsberger, P., Oliver, E., & Gaesser, G. (2006). The epidemiology of overweight and obesity: public health crisis or moral panic? International Journal of Epidemiology, 35(1), 55-60. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyi254
• Clark, S. L. (2018). Fitness, fatness and healthism discourse: girls constructing ‘healthy’ identities in school. Gender and Education, 30(4), 477-493. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1216953
• Colls, R., & Evans, B. (2013). Making space for fat bodies?: A critical account of ‘the obesogenic environment.’ Progress in Human Geography, 38(6), 733-753. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132513500373
• Dolezal, L., & Spratt, T. (2022). Fat shaming under neoliberalism and COVID-19: Examining the UK’s Tackling Obesity campaign. Sociology of Health & Illness, 45(1), 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13555
• Firth, J. (2012). Healthy choices and heavy burdens: Race, citizenship and gender in the ‘obesity epidemic.’ Journal of International Women’s Studies, 13(2). https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol13/iss2/4/
• Francombe-Webb, J., Clark, S., & Palmer, L. (2020). Embodying sporty girlhood: Health and the enactment of “successful” femininities. Thresholds in Education, 43(1), 33-49. https://academyforeducationalstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/francombe-clark-palmer-final.pdf
• Friedman, M., Rice, C., & Lind, E. R. M. (2020). A high-risk body for whom? On fat, risk, recognition and reclamation in restorying reproductive care through digital storytelling. Feminist Encounters, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/8524
• Gailey, J. A. (2021). The violence of fat hatred in the “obesity epidemic” discourse. Humanity & Society, 46(2), 359-380. https://doi.org/10.1177/0160597621995501
• Gibson, G. (2021). Health(ism) at every size: The duties of the “good fatty.” Fat Studies, 11(1), 22-35. https://doi.org/10.1080/21604851.2021.1906526
• Guthman, J. (2007). Can’t stomach it: How Michael Pollan et al. made me want to eat Cheetos. Gastronomica, 7(3), 75-79. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2007.7.3.75
• Harwood, V. (2012). Neither good nor useful: looking ad vivum in children’s assessments of fat and healthy bodies. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 33(5), 693-711. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2012.696344
• Henry, H. L., & Walters, S. E. (2020). Fatness and fertility: A feminist therapist perspective. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 32(1-2), 5-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/08952833.2020.1755171
• Lee, J., & Macdonald, D. (2010). ‘Are they just checking our obesity or what?’ The healthism discourse and rural young women. Sport, Education and Society, 15(2), 203-219. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573321003683851
• Lee, J. A., & Pausé, C. (2016). Stigma in practice: Barriers to health for fat women. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02063
• Murray, S. (2008). Pathologizing “fatness”: Medical authority and popular culture. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25(1), 7-21. https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.25.1.7
• O’Hara, L., & Taylor, J. (2018). What’s wrong with the ‘war on obesity?’ A narrative review of the weight-centered health paradigm and development of the 3C framework to build critical competency for a paradigm shift. SAGE Open, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018772888
• Parker, G. (2017). Shamed into health? Fat pregnant women’s views on obesity management strategies in maternity care. Women’s Studies Journal, 31(1), 22-33. https://www.wsanz.org.nz/journal/docs/WSJNZ311Parker22-33.pdf
• Stadnyk, F. (2024). Co-healthism in Health at Every Size®-aligned TikTok activism: transforming the definition of healthism via feminist-of-color disability studies theorizing. Fat Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/21604851.2024.2306991
• Strings, S., & Bell, C. (2024). BMI is bunk, but fat women are diseased: The hypocrisy of “the normal (white) man.” Social Sciences, 13(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13060276
• Tanner, C., Maher, J., & Fraser, S. (2013). ‘I don’t want her to be overweight like I was as a girl’: Mother/child bodily connections in nutritional carework. Australian Feminist Studies, 28(76), 177-194. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2013.789583
• Welsh, T. L. (2011). Healthism and the bodies of women: Pleasure and discipline in the war against obesity. Journal of Feminist Scholarship, 1, 33-48. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs/vol1/iss1/13/
• White, F. R. (2016). Fucking failures: The future of fat sex. Sexualities, 19(8), 962-979. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716640733
• Zafir, S., & Jovanovski, N. (2022). The weight of words: Discursive constructions of health in weight-neutral peer-reviewed journal articles. Body Image, 40, 358-369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2022.01.009

DISSERTATIONS/THESES

• Christman, E. (2023). When striving for health becomes unhealthy: The relationship between healthism, orthorexia nervosa, and anti-fat prejudice (Publication No. 30636518) [Doctoral dissertation, Biola University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/when-striving-health-becomes-unhealthy/docview/2955205929/se-2
• Harrop, E. N. (2020). “Maybe I really am too fat to have an eating disorder”: A mixed methods study of weight stigma and healthcare experiences in a diverse sample of patients with atypical anorexia [Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington]. ResearchWorks at the University of Washington. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/46576
• Ioannoni, K. A. (2022). Fattening up health care: Exploring the ways fat women navigate health care services in Canada [Doctoral dissertation, York University]. YorkSpace. https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/ec057832-08fc-4df2-af5e-918ff6718c42
• Mehl, K. R. (2023). Fat – therefore unhealthy? Oppressing fat people in the name of health [Master’s thesis, University of Washington]. ResearchWorks at the University of Washington. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/50890

POPULAR PRESS

• Brown, H. (2015, October 29). These women were fat-shamed by their doctors – and it almost cost them their lives. Prevention. https://www.prevention.com/health/a20484878/medical-fat-shaming/
• Donnelly, L. (2016, August 3). Girls with anorexia turned away by NHS because they are ‘not thin enough.’ The telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/03/girls-with-anorexia-turned-away-by-nhs-because-not-thin-enough/
• Mercedes, M. (2022). No health, no care: The big fat loophole in the Hippocratic Oath. Pipe wrench magazine. https://pipewrenchmag.com/dismantling-medical-fatphobia/
• Siber, K. (2022, October 23). ‘You don’t look anorexic.’ The New York times magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/magazine/anorexia-obesity-eating-disorder.html

OTHER

• Graves, L. (n.d.). Size diversity and eating disorders. National Eating Disorders Association. https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/size-diversity-and-eating-disorders/
• Women’s Reproductive Health, volume 6, issue 4, 2019 – Special Section on Fat Shaming in Reproductive Health Care. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/uwrh20/6/4
• Women & Therapy, volume 42, issues 1-2, 2019 – Making Space for Every Body: Ending Sizeism in Psychotherapy and Training. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/wwat20/42/1-2