Ch5. Reinterpreting Male Bodies and Health in Crisis Times: From “Obesity” to Bigger Matters
Lee F. Monaghan is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Limerick, Ireland. He mainly teaches the Sociology of Health and Illness, Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory, and The Sociology of the Body. He has researched and published on topics such as illicit steroid use, private security work, the war on obesity, childhood asthma, and COVID-19. Monaghan’s work has been published in numerous international journals. He has also authored or co-authored four monographs and four edited collections. His most recent books are Rethinking Obesity: Critical Perspectives in Crisis Times (Routledge, 2022, with Emma Rich and Andrea Bombak), and Key Concepts in Medical Sociology, 3rd edition (SAGE, 2022, edited with Jonathan Gabe).
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Medicalized concerns about an “obesity epidemic” and the need to treat the body as a modifiable “project” are well rehearsed. Such preoccupations have also been amplified recently, following the outbreak of COVID-19 and calls for responsible risk management and pandemic preparedness. Yet, there is fallout from the ongoing war on obesity. Whilst women and girls are disproportionately impacted (e.g., in terms of stigma and body dissatisfaction), men’s and boys’ bodies and health (behaviors) have also been rendered “problematic.” This chapter draws from critical weight/fat studies and other literature (e.g., medical sociology, critical studies on men) when reinterpreting male bodies and health in crisis times. Rather than endorsing an individualizing, pathologizing, depoliticizing “problem frame” wherein the majority of male bodies are deemed to be deficient (lazy, greedy, ill, risky, irresponsible), this chapter underscores the significance of social structures and processes—the fundamental causes of health inequalities, which exceed fleshy bodies whilst also impacting upon them.
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For updates from the author and access to supplemental materials (interviews, podcasts, syllabi, etc.) when they are made available, please visit Chapter 5.
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