Synopses & Reviews
The UK is now in the throes of an obesity epidemic. Life expectancy has been improving for centuries, advances in hygiene, science, public health and medicine have enabled us to live longer and to lead more productive lives but now obesity, on its own, is threatening to herald a reduction in life expectancy in coming generations. The number of overweight people in the world has overtaken the number of malnourished for the first time. Much has been written about the dietary medical and social causes of obesity yet little work has been done on the cultural history of the subject. In Fat, Gluttony and Sloth: Representing Obesity in Art Literature and Medicine, David W. Haslam, Clinical Director of the National Obesity Forum, and MD turned art history PhD Fiona Haslam set out to put the current obesity crisis in historical perspective. Through innovative and enlightening work on art, literature and the history of medicine the authors examine the changing meaning of 'fat' in the public consciousness: from circus freaks to pharmacology, from 'John Bull' to Billy Bunter. The authors' convincing argument is that present day food, fashion, fads and fat cannot be dissociated from history and that can be lessons learnt from the mistakes of the past.
Review
"A timely historical survey of cultural perceptions of obesity."--Journal of the History of Medicine
"The Haslam volume brings together a wide range of sources, wonderful reproductions, and a basic approach that will give many students pause."--Reviews in History
"Fat, Gluttony and Sloth: Obesity in Literature, Art and Medicine is an entertaining exploration of obesity that is simultaneously empathic, stark, humorous, unsettling, cautionary, and hopeful. Go ahead and take a nibble. There is no need to feel guilty about sampling this tasty book."--The Journal of the American Medical Association
"The book is extremely well researched and illustrated throughout and a book which health professionals who have any interest in the causes and management of obesity will enjoy as it explores much more than just medical fields. Don't, however, take my word for it. The proof of the pudding is in the reading."--Pulse
Synopsis
Historical symbol of wealth and fertility, stigma of the modern West, and currently the worlds second-leading cause of preventable death: despite advances in hygiene, science, and public health, obesity and its corpulent imagery are inescapable reminders of a global epidemic and its manifold incarnations. For the first time, the number of overweight people in the world has overtaken the number of those malnourished and in Fat, Gluttony, and Sloth, the current crisis is put in historical perspective. The authors examine the changing meaning of “fat” in the public consciousness—reconsidering art, literature, and the history of medicine alongside circus freaks, pharmacology, and present-day trends in food and fashion—all in an effort to glean knowledge from examining our heavy past.
About the Author
David Haslam is Chairman and Clinical Director of the National Obesity Forum, and medical doctor. He is Visiting Lecturer at Chester University and Visiting Fellow at the Postgraduate Medical School of Herts and Beds.
Fiona Haslam worked for many years in medical practice and in 1986, while still working she began her research into medicine and art, which resulted in the award of a doctorate from the University of St Andrews. She has written a number of articles on medicine and art and is the author of From Hogarth to Rowlandson: Medicine in Art in Eighteenth Century Britain (Liverpool University Press, 1996)
Table of Contents
Contents
List of colour illustrations
Foreword
Picture credits
1 Introduction
2 Obesity and the obese
3 Fat folk on show
4 A brief history of food and drink
5 Addressing obesity - diet
6 Addressing obesity - physical exercise
7 Addressing obesity - drug treatments
8 Gluttony
9 Sloth
10 Heavenly bodies
11 Obesity on the page
12 Popular images of obesity
13 Fat on film
Epilogue. The dance of death
Notes
Select bibliography
Index
Colour section (see over for details) opposite page