The body as enemy: fat women, slenderness ideal and gastric sleeve surgery

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the narratives of 14 women over 50 years of age from the Lima upper class about the relationships between the self and their fat or excessive bodies. This is important because in contemporary heteropatriarchal societies, fat women are morally sanctioned, de-feminized and considered ill-equipped to achieve success in different areas of their personal and social lives. The women we interviewed suffer from health conditions stemming from overweight and underwent gastric sleeve surgery (in which about 80 percent of the stomach is removed) to restrict their food intake. We found that the interviewees value the “tyranny of the tiny” imposed by the stomach (ingesting small portions of food), which they see as a way to stop regarding the body as a formidable enemy in the process of losing weight. Likewise, the women appreciate forgetting about the sorrow of thinking of themselves as subjects with a failed self, unable to control their appetites.