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This paper is based on my forthcoming doctoral dissertation exploring obesity from the viewpoint of social sciences and women’s studies. The working title of the dissertation is: The Fat Subject-Social scientific perspectives to women and obesity.

The focus of the research and this paper is on the study of social construction of obesity and women’s personal experiences of being fat. Theoretical starting point of the project can be found in the Foucauldian thought, and the social constructionist thought concerning the body (eg Foucault 1979). Furthermore, I understand obesity as a socially and politically meaningful difference that is analogous to other significant differences based on the body such as disability, gender, and ethnicity, for example (cf. Cooper 1997&1998; Young 1990). In my research, I approach obesity, on one hand, as a discursive category that is created, produced and reproduced through various social practices such as medicine and health care system, school, religion, and media (eg Foucault 1979) and on the other hand, as a personal experience. Central hypothesis of the research and this paper is that discursive construction of obesity is an ongoing, gendered and embodied, and often a marginalising and violent cultural process that has real consequences for the obese individual (eg Harjunen 2002&2003).