‘That’s a Bit Drastic’: Risk and Blame in Accounts of Obesity Surgery

  • Karen Throsby
Chapter

Abstract

Obesity surgery refers to a burgeoning constellation of interventions into the fat body with the goal of reducing stomach capacity and/or intestinal length in order to restrict the consumption and absorption of food. It is an intervention of last resort for those experiencing extreme and intractable obesity, and has the potential to produce significantly higher and more enduring degrees of weight loss than other antiobesity interventions (Baxter, 2000; Mitka, 2006; Sjostrom et al., 2004). However, it also carries significant risks, including infection, digestive problems, diarrhoea, vomiting, malnutrition, and in a small number of cases, death (see, for example, Ackerman, 1999). It is also a profoundly gendered technology, with approximately 80% of all obesity surgery being performed on women (Ellis et ah, 2006), raising important questions about how this burden of risk is distributed.

Keywords

Obesity Surgery Weight Loss Surgery Weight Cycling Weight Loss Strategy Social Semiotics 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Karen Throsby 2008

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  • Karen Throsby

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