In the last few years, the discourses around the obesity model have gained significant attention in scientific practices and other widespread expert knowledges. Stigma, discrimination, and social exclusion based on weight, shape, and size are evident in popular media representations of the fat body (Lupton, 2018). In India, the discourse on obesity/fat as a health crisis is accompanied by technological management, such as weight-loss surgery. It is legitimized by medical practitioners, public health experts, and the state to combat the ‘obesity epidemic.’ Within neoliberal forms of governance, the ideal bodies rest on notions of self-responsible, market-driven, productive, and healthy bodies, not physically deviant (Harjunen, 2017). Drawing on qualitative research, Foucault’s ideas of biopolitics, and discourse analysis, this paper reveals how fatness is framed as morally deviant and risk seeking behaviour within broader cultural understandings. First, this paper explores how these discourses reveal contested meanings around the subjective embodiment of the fat body. Further, it explores the uncertain assumptions around body, health, and weight, that manifest ethically problematic implications on the social identities of fat body people. The current closer analysis for understanding obesity intervention will bring new effective strategies and collaborative discussion among researchers and policy analyst and helps us to reduce existing size- discrimination and health disparity for people living with excess body weight.
