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INTRODUCTION
Rates of obesity in all late modern societies have soared over the last 20 years, leading some commentators to speak of a 'crisis' and triggering considerable reaction by governments and public health authorities (Gritser, 2003; Brownell, 2004; National Audit Office, 2001; Boseley and Wintour, 2004; Wintour, 2004). In this paper, focusing particularly upon the UK, I seek to explore this 'crisis', examining both its causes and its consequences. My rationale is threefold.
Firstly, rising levels of obesity seem to me an obvious topic for sociologists with an interest in the body, a topic from which we have much to learn and upon which we have much to contribute. The media has been awash with stories of obesity over the last few years, stories which allude to the interplay between body and society but which invariably become drawn onto the turf of other disciplines, such as psychology and genetics, so that this interplay is never thematised or explored. I want to initiate a fight back in this respect; to show that, as my title claims, 'fat is a sociological issue'.
Secondly, I wish to consider the significance of rising levels of obesity for the portrayal of the body-society relationship offered in much contemporary sociology, a portrayal of a 'body-conscious' society which celebrates fitness, health and thinness, and whose members monitor and adjust their conduct in accordance with these ideals. This portrayal needs to be reconciled with the fact of rising obesity levels. How could there be an obesity crisis in a society as conscious of the body and as concerned with thinness as ours is alleged to be?
Finally, I want to use obesity to explore the interactive relationship between biological and social processes (on this see also Benton, 1991; Williams et al., 2003). Fluctuations in the obesity rate and their consequences illuminate this relationship in clear and important respects. This is only one example of bio-social interaction, of course, and some of my observations regarding it will be specific to it. But it is an important and revealing example nevertheless.
I begin the paper with a reflection upon sociological accounts of body-consciousness, briefly considering data which support them before reviewing the data on obesity and considering how it might challenge them. Next I...