Shame, discrimination and disability: Unveiling narratives of obesity

The World Health Organisation (WHO, 2021) defines obesity as those who have a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than or equal to 30. In 2016, the WHO registered more than 1.9 billion adults on a global scale as being obese (WHO, 2021). The consequences of obesity have a wide reaching impact on the individual as well as healthcare systems. Many obese people develop greater and more serious physical pathologies not to mention psychological ones, and therefore obesity is classified as a disability in this case. Obese people often cannot work, are victims of online hate speech, are ill represented in the press and become ostracised by society. The aim of this study was to examine narratives of obesity, discrimination and disability using corpus based discourse analysis. First hand narratives were collected from online support forums over a ten year period using the search terms obesity*, disability* discrimination*, stigma* and shame*. Results show the extent to which obesity is stigmatised by the general public as well as by some healthcare providers.