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(Mis)Representing Weight and Obesity in the British Press

Fear, Divisiveness, Shame and Stigma

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  • © 2023

Overview

Authors:
  1. Tara Coltman-Patel

    1. Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

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  • Analyses a corpus of over 16,000 British newspaper articles about obesity, totaling 9.7 million words
  • Explores the sociological effects of media conceptualisations of weight and obesity
  • Reveals how discriminatory tropes and stereotypes are embedded within and driven by language

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About this book

This book is a linguistic analysis of the British obesity media narrative, analysing a large corpus of published newspaper articles to demonstrate how the language used perpetuates common misconceptions and stereotypes about weight and obesity, and then exploring the sociological effects of these widespread conceptualisations. Weight stigma and weight bias are misunderstood issues, and often underestimated in terms of their prevalence and effect by society at large. The author examines topics including the role of power and persuasion, the use of metaphor, the personal stories of members of the general public, and the gendered real-life consequences of arbitrary weight standards to provide a linguistic driven study of obesity in news media. Obesity is an issue which sits at the intersection of science and the humanities, and as such, although the research methods used are firmly situated within the field of Linguistics, this book will also be of interest to readers from fields as diverse as Sociology, Fat Studies, Media Studies, Medicine and Psychology. 




Keywords

Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Weight, Stigma, News Media, and This Research

    • Tara Coltman-Patel
    Pages 1-55

  3. Fear: Expert Voices and the (Mis)Representation of Science and Health

    • Tara Coltman-Patel
    Pages 57-101

  4. Divisiveness: The Metaphorical Conceptualisation of Obesity

    • Tara Coltman-Patel
    Pages 103-148

  5. Shame: Challenging Linguistic Strategies of Representation

    • Tara Coltman-Patel
    Pages 149-187

  6. Conclusion

    • Tara Coltman-Patel
    Pages 189-202

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 203-214
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Authors and Affiliations

  • Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Tara Coltman-Patel

About the author

Tara Coltman-Patel is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University, UK. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: (Mis)Representing Weight and Obesity in the British Press

  • Book Subtitle: Fear, Divisiveness, Shame and Stigma

  • Authors: Tara Coltman-Patel

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44854-6

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-44853-9Published: 05 November 2023

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-44856-0Due: 06 December 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-44854-6Published: 04 November 2023

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 214

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Research Methods in Language and Linguistics, Sociology of the Body, Journalism, Gender Studies, Social Sciences, general, Sociolinguistics

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