Feminist Theology and Contemporary Dieting Culture : Sin, Salvation and Women’s Weight Loss Narratives

Hannah Bacon draws on qualitative research conducted inside one UK secular commercial weight loss group to show how Christian religious forms and theological discourses inform contemporary weight-loss narratives. Bacon argues that notions of sin and salvation resurface in secular guise in ways that repeat well-established theological meanings. The slimming organization recycles the Christian terminology of sin – spelt ‘Syn’ – and encourages members to frame weight loss in salvific terms. These theological tropes lurk in the background helping to align food once more with guilt and moral weakness, but they also mirror to an extent the way body policing techniques in Christianity have historically helped to cultivate self-care. The self-breaking and self-making aspects of women’s Syn-watching practices in the group continue certain features of historical Christianity, serving in similar ways to conform women's bodies to patriarchal norms while providing opportunities for women's self-development. Taking into account these tensions, Bacon asks what a specifically feminist theological response to weight loss might look like. If ideas about sin and salvation service hegemonic discourses about fat while also empowering women to shape their own lives, how might they be rethought to challenge fat phobia and the frenetic pursuit of thinness? As well as naming as 'sin' principles and practices which diminish women's appetites and bodies, this book forwards a number of proposals about how salvation might be performed in our everyday foodways and through the cultivation of fat pride. It takes seriously the conviction of many women in the group that food and the body can be important sites of power, wisdom and transformation, but channels this insight into the construction of theologies that resist rather than reproduce thin privilege and sizeist norms. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Theology, food and fat: A healthy recipe? Forming a Feminist Theological Response: The Livingness of God Why Weight Loss? Why Empirical Research? Why Women? Go Forth and Shrink! Chapter 1: Syn, danger and disordered desire Syn: Tensions and Ambiguities Missing the Mark: Sin within Christian Thought Syn, Danger and Disobedience Syn, Inner Conflict and the Battle for Self-control Syn and Eating What We Do Not Need: The Snare of Pleasure versus ‘Sensible’ Eating Taking the Wrap for Fat Syn, Death and Disease Syn, Guilt and Shame The Gendered Nature of Syn Conclusion Chapter 2: Syn, self-surveillance and taking care: Tensions and ambiguities Adapting Theological Discourse: Permission to Syn Choosing Syn: A Reassertion of the Neoliberal Enterprising Self Keeping an Eye on Syn: Negotiating Syn through Self-surveillance The Delight of Self-possession Challenging the False Consciousness Thesis Continuing Features of Historical Christian Asceticism Foucault and Self-care Conclusion Chapter 3: Salvation, ‘getting rid’ and ‘getting there’ Wellness, Wholeness, Rescue and Escape: Beginning to Plot Soteriological Motifs Salvation as ‘Getting Rid’: The Logic of Sacrifice ‘Getting Rid’ of the Past: Salvation as Conversion ‘Getting Rid’ of Disfigurement ‘Getting Rid’ of the Female: Salvation as a Return to the Past Escaping to the Future: Salvation as ‘Getting There’ Beyond Individual Salvation: ‘Getting There’ as a Social and Corporate Project Conclusion Chapter 4: Rethinking sin: Sizeism, the victimization of food and the divided self Sin as a Distorted Way of Relating A Distorted Relationship to Fat: Sizeism as Sin A Distorted Relation to Food: The Victimization of Food as Sin A Distorted Relation to the Self: Sin as the Divided Self Conclusion: Evil and Sin Chapter 5: Rethinking salvation: A (re)turn to ‘sensible’ eating The Fleshiness of Salvation Salvation as the Performance of Embodied Alternatives: Jesus’s Ministry of Food Salvation and ‘Sensible’ Eating Food, Feminist Theology and Affect Conclusion Chapter 6: Rethinking salvation: Sabbath and fat pride The Meanings of Sabbath Sabbath and the Meaningful Work of Salvation Slimming and Sabbath? Living and Sanctifying the Sabbath: Resisting Sizeism Beyond the Private: Sabbath as a Corporate and Political Practice Living the Sabbath, Embodying Pride Conclusion: Salvation, Sabbath and Fat Pride Conclusion: For the love of food, for the love of fat Bibliography Index Hannah Bacon draws on qualitative research conducted inside one UK secular commercial weight loss group to show how Christian religious forms and theological discourses inform contemporary weight-loss narratives. Bacon argues that notions of sin and salvation resurface in secular guise in ways that repeat well-established theological meanings. The slimming organization recycles the Christian terminology of sin – spelt 'Syn' – and encourages members to frame weight loss in salvific terms. These theological tropes lurk in the background helping to align food once more with guilt and moral weakness, but they also mirror to an extent the way body policing techniques in Christianity have historically helped to cultivate self-care. The self-breaking and self-making aspects of women's Syn-watching practices in the group continue certain features of historical Christianity, serving in similar ways to conform women's bodies to patriarchal norms while providing opportunities for women's self-development. Taking into account these tensions, Bacon asks what a specifically feminist theological response to weight loss might look like. If ideas about sin and salvation service hegemonic discourses about fat while also empowering women to shape their own lives, how might they be rethought to challenge fat phobia and the frenetic pursuit of thinness? As well as naming as 'sin' principles and practices which diminish women's appetites and bodies, this book forwards a number of proposals about how salvation might be performed in our everyday eating habits and through the cultivation of fat pride. It takes seriously the conviction of many women in the group that food and the body can be important sites of power, wisdom and transformation, but channels this insight into the construction of theologies that resist rather than reproduce thin privilege and size-ist norms. "The fat body has increasingly become a site for a confrontation of different ideologies about lifestyle, as it is increasingly stigmatized and concerns about the obesity 'epidemic' create headlines in the newspapers. Weight-loss industries are booming, and the rise in faith-based dieting among Protestant evangelical women in the US evidences a growing relationship between Christian devotion and the pursuit of female thinness. What exactly though is the relationship between Christianity and secular commercial diet plans? Bacon draws on qualitative research conducted inside one UK secular commercial weight loss group to show how Christian religious forms and theological discourses inform contemporary weight-loss narratives. Notions of sin and salvation resurface in secular guise, but in ways that repeat well-established theological meanings. Theological tropes help produce and sustain a set of contradictions and tensions about weight loss which conform the women's bodies to patriarchal norms while simultaneously providing opportunities for women's self-development. Taking into account these tensions, Bacon asks what a specifically feminist theological response to weight loss might look like. If notions of sin and salvation service hegemonic discourses about fat, how might they be rethought to challenge fat phobia and the frenetic pursuit of thinness? While naming as 'sin' principles and practices which diminish women's appetites and bodies, this book gives theological expression to the conviction of many women in the group, that food and the body can be important sites of power, wisdom and transformation"-- Provided by publisher