Reporting Risk, Producing Prejudice How News Reporting on Obesity Shapes Attitudes about Health Risk, Policy, and Prejudice

News reporting on research studies may influence attitudes about health risk, support for public health policies, or attitudes towards people labeled as unhealthy or at risk for disease. Across five experiments (N = 2123) we examined how different news framings of obesity research influence these attitudes. We exposed participants to either a control condition, a news report on a study portraying obesity as a public health crisis, a news report on a study suggesting that obesity may not be as much of a problem as previously thought, or an article discussing weight-based discrimination. Compared to controls, exposure to the public health crisis article did not increase perception of obesity-related health risks but did significantly increase the expression of antifat prejudice in four out of seven comparisons. Across studies, compared to controls, participants who read an article about weight-based discrimination were less likely to agree that overweight constitutes a public health crisis or to support various obesity policies. Effects of exposure to an article questioning the health risks associated with overweight and obesity were mixed. These findings suggest that news reports on the obesity epidemic and, by extension, on public health crises commonly blamed on personal behavior may unintentionally activate prejudice

Making Over Poor Women: Gender, Race, Class & Body Size in a Welfare-to-Work Nonprofit Organization

Research on aesthetic labor suggests that poor women’s appearance may hinder their job prospects, yet little research has examined the institutional contexts through which they might acquire these embodied capacities. I draw on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork at a welfare-to-work nonprofit that helps unemployed poor women through “style advice” and second-hand business attire. I examine organizational policies along with interactions between staff, volunteers, and clients to understand the extent to which – and how –cultural capital is transmitted to participants. I focus especially on the relationship between “objectified cultural capital” (professional attire, in this case) and clients’ “bodily capital,” which is bounded by the intersecting corporealities of gender, race, class, and body size. I find that, despite providing an essential service to women who need professional attire, the organization reproduces the inequalities it seeks to remedy through uneven distribution of objectified cultural capital, penalizing clients seen as “undeserving” and those with stigmatized embodiments. I use these findings to caution against romanticized understandings of philanthropic efforts to remedy social inequality, while also underscoring the importance of taking embodiment – particularly the striking social disadvantages of larger body size – into account when examining the intersections of gender, race and class

Properly Attired, Hired, or Fired: Aesthetic Labor and Social Inequality

This dissertation examines the relationship between physical appearance and social inequality, exploring how workplace demands for "aesthetic labor" reproduce and legitimize workplace discrimination on the bases of gender, race, class, and body size. The term, aesthetic labor, refers to organizational expectations for workers' attractiveness, style, and interactional mannerisms. These expectations - both formal and informal - influence which people will be hired to do what jobs and how people are expected to look and behave at work, a process that favors workers from more privileged backgrounds. I examine this understudied aspect of labor market inequality in three complementary cases studies, each centering on a different phase of a worker's career: during the job search, at the point of hire, and when establishing job security. Chapter 1 is a participant observation and interview study of a non-profit organization that provides professional clothing and style advice to disadvantaged women entering the workforce. My analyses focus on service interactions between volunteer personal stylists and job seekers. I found that interactions were structured by organizational understandings of deserving versus undeserving poor, through which clients were reputed to be more or less difficult, and more or less deserving. Chapter 2 draws on the case of female "fit models," i.e., fashion workers with supposedly "perfect measurements" who try on prototype garments during the clothing production process. Because the work of a fit model only requires perfect bodily measurements (at least in theory), this case provides analytic leverage for unteasing the bodily vs. interactional elements of aesthetic labor. I interviewed fit models and their coworkers, and then compared these accounts with information from 77 job advertisements for fit models. I found that, although a fit model's bodily measurements were necessary at the point of hire, her job security ultimately depended on her ability to interact congenially and professionally with colleagues. This illustrates that even in jobs with seemingly exacting aesthetic standards, having the appropriate interactional dispositions, or habitus, can protect workers when their bodily capital diminishes. Chapter 3 is an ethnographic examination of service interactions in a women's "plus-size" clothing store. This research draws on the unique experiences of plus-sized women to examine how service interactions are shaped by mainstream beauty standards, body-accepting branding, and customers' diverse feelings about body size. Despite branding that promoted prideful appreciation for "real" bodies, the influence of these body-accepting discourses was constrained by women's internalization of mainstream fat stigma. This resulted in an environment characterized by deep ambivalence toward larger body size, allowing hierarchies between women to be reified rather than dissolved

Fat and Identity Politics: A Review of Paul Campos's Talk in the Gender and Body Size Series

Author discusses the recent lecture by Paul Campos, "Fat and Identity Politics", which was part of CSW's Gender and Body Size series, organized by Faculty Curator Abigail Saguy

Thick Description, Fat Talk: An Ethnography of Embodied Interactions Between Women in a “Plus Sized” Clothing Store

When and how do female-female interactions work to promote boundaries rather than cohesion between women? Because mainstream American society holds strong aesthetic preferences for female thinness, a shared “fear of fatness” might create common ties between women as they recognize shared pressures to conform to a slender ideal. Yet, given the wide range of body sizes and sub-cultures among American women, this same mainstream cultural preference may work to define boundaries between thin and fat women, and between women who ascribe to mainstream (white) beauty culture and those who do not. The current investigation builds upon previous research identifying a social norm for women to engage in “fat talk”, a term which refers to ritualized verbal exchange during which women express body dissatisfaction to each other. Previous work conceptualizes “fat talk” as a normative interaction that reinforces social bonds between women, yet this research has drawn upon interactions occurring in either experimental conditions or amongst primarily white, middle-class women of average weight. To more completely understand the meaning and function of “fat talk”, this investigation draws upon over 200 hours of ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation of “fat talk” in a racially diverse “plus size” women’s clothing store. Results indicate that “fat talk” often reinforces cohesion and shared experiences and understandings among women of similar body types and ethnic/class backgrounds. However, attempts at ritualized “fat talk” between women of different body types or ethnic backgrounds tended to prompt sanctioning and boundary-making behaviors. Results are discussed as they relate to theoretical understandings of inequality between women

Properly Attired, Hired, or Fired: Aesthetic Labor and Social Inequality

This dissertation examines the relationship between physical appearance and social inequality, exploring how workplace demands for "aesthetic labor" reproduce and legitimize workplace discrimination on the bases of gender, race, class, and body size. The term, aesthetic labor, refers to organizational expectations for workers' attractiveness, style, and interactional mannerisms. These expectations - both formal and informal - influence which people will be hired to do what jobs and how people are expected to look and behave at work, a process that favors workers from more privileged backgrounds. I examine this understudied aspect of labor market inequality in three complementary cases studies, each centering on a different phase of a worker's career: during the job search, at the point of hire, and when establishing job security. Chapter 1 is a participant observation and interview study of a non-profit organization that provides professional clothing and style advice to disadvantaged women entering the workforce. My analyses focus on service interactions between volunteer personal stylists and job seekers. I found that interactions were structured by organizational understandings of deserving versus undeserving poor, through which clients were reputed to be more or less difficult, and more or less deserving. Chapter 2 draws on the case of female "fit models," i.e., fashion workers with supposedly "perfect measurements" who try on prototype garments during the clothing production process. Because the work of a fit model only requires perfect bodily measurements (at least in theory), this case provides analytic leverage for unteasing the bodily vs. interactional elements of aesthetic labor. I interviewed fit models and their coworkers, and then compared these accounts with information from 77 job advertisements for fit models. I found that, although a fit model's bodily measurements were necessary at the point of hire, her job security ultimately depended on her ability to interact congenially and professionally with colleagues. This illustrates that even in jobs with seemingly exacting aesthetic standards, having the appropriate interactional dispositions, or habitus, can protect workers when their bodily capital diminishes. Chapter 3 is an ethnographic examination of service interactions in a women's "plus-size" clothing store. This research draws on the unique experiences of plus-sized women to examine how service interactions are shaped by mainstream beauty standards, body-accepting branding, and customers' diverse feelings about body size. Despite branding that promoted prideful appreciation for "real" bodies, the influence of these body-accepting discourses was constrained by women's internalization of mainstream fat stigma. This resulted in an environment characterized by deep ambivalence toward larger body size, allowing hierarchies between women to be reified rather than dissolved

Social problem construction and national context: news reporting on "overweight" and "obesity" in the United States and France.

Drawing on analyses of American and French news reports on "overweight" and "obesity," this article examines how national context—including position in a global field of nation states, as well as different national politics and culture—shapes the framing of social problems. As has been shown in previous research, news reports from France—the economically dominated but culturally dominant nation of the two—discuss the United States more often than vice versa, typically in a negative way. Our contribution is to highlight the flexibility of anti-American rhetoric, which provides powerful ammunition for a variety of social problem frames. Specifically, depending on elite interests, French news reports may invoke anti-American rhetoric to reject a given phenomenon as a veritable public problem, or they may use such rhetoric to drum up concern over an issue. We further show how diverse cultural factors shape news reporting. Despite earlier work showing that a group-based discrimination frame is more common in the United States than in France, we find that the U.S. news sample is no more likely to discuss weight-based discrimination than the French news sample. We attribute this to specific barriers to this particular framing, namely the widespread view that body size is a behavior, akin to smoking, rather than an ascribed characteristic, like race. This discussion points, more generally, to some of the mechanisms limiting the diffusion of frames across social problems

Social problem construction and national context: news reporting on "overweight" and "obesity" in the United States and France.

Drawing on analyses of American and French news reports on "overweight" and "obesity," this article examines how national context—including position in a global field of nation states, as well as different national politics and culture—shapes the framing of social problems. As has been shown in previous research, news reports from France—the economically dominated but culturally dominant nation of the two—discuss the United States more often than vice versa, typically in a negative way. Our contribution is to highlight the flexibility of anti-American rhetoric, which provides powerful ammunition for a variety of social problem frames. Specifically, depending on elite interests, French news reports may invoke anti-American rhetoric to reject a given phenomenon as a veritable public problem, or they may use such rhetoric to drum up concern over an issue. We further show how diverse cultural factors shape news reporting. Despite earlier work showing that a group-based discrimination frame is more common in the United States than in France, we find that the U.S. news sample is no more likely to discuss weight-based discrimination than the French news sample. We attribute this to specific barriers to this particular framing, namely the widespread view that body size is a behavior, akin to smoking, rather than an ascribed characteristic, like race. This discussion points, more generally, to some of the mechanisms limiting the diffusion of frames across social problems

Reporting risk, producing prejudice: how news reporting on obesity shapes attitudes about health risk, policy, and prejudice.

News reporting on research studies may influence attitudes about health risk, support for public health policies, or attitudes towards people labeled as unhealthy or at risk for disease. Across five experiments (N = 2123) we examined how different news framings of obesity research influence these attitudes. We exposed participants to either a control condition, a news report on a study portraying obesity as a public health crisis, a news report on a study suggesting that obesity may not be as much of a problem as previously thought, or an article discussing weight-based discrimination. Compared to controls, exposure to the public health crisis article did not increase perception of obesity-related health risks but did significantly increase the expression of antifat prejudice in four out of seven comparisons. Across studies, compared to controls, participants who read an article about weight-based discrimination were less likely to agree that overweight constitutes a public health crisis or to support various obesity policies. Effects of exposure to an article questioning the health risks associated with overweight and obesity were mixed. These findings suggest that news reports on the "obesity epidemic" - and, by extension, on public health crises commonly blamed on personal behavior - may unintentionally activate prejudice