Fat Talk and Thin Ideals: Culture, Social Norms and Weight

Harvard FAS

In 1995, the Fiji Islands were one of the last places on the planet to receive broadcast television. Within just three years, body weight ideals had transformed from large to thin and purging had become as common in Fijian high school girls as in their Massachusetts counterparts. How can we understand what happened in Fiji? And, likewise, how did heaviness in the U.S. migrate from signifying prestige to stigmatizing? In this seminar, we will examine the bio-social dimensions of…