- Title Pages
- Introduction
-
Part 1 The Medieval Glutton -
1. The Prestige of the Big Person -
2. Liquids, Fat, and Wind -
3. The Horizon of Fault -
4. The Fifteenth Century and the Contrasts of Slimming -
Part 2 The “Modern” Oaf -
5. The Shores of Laziness -
6. The Plural of Fat -
7. Exploring Images, Defining Terms -
8. Constraining the Flesh -
Part 3 From Oafishness to Powerlessness -
9. Inventing Nuance -
10. Stigmatizing Powerlessness -
11. Toning Up -
Part 4 The Bourgeois Belly -
12. The Weight of Figures -
13. Typology Fever -
14. From Chemistry to Energy -
15. From Energy to Diets -
Part 5 Toward the “Martyr” -
16. The Dominance of Aesthetics -
17. Clinical Obesity and Everyday Obesity -
18. The Thin Revolution -
19. Declaring “the Martyr” -
Part 6 Changes in the Contemporary Debate - Conclusion
- Index
- European Perspectives
From Energy to Diets
From Energy to Diets
- Chapter:
- (p.131) 15. From Energy to Diets
- Source:
- The Metamorphoses of Fat
- Author(s):
Georges Vigarello
, C. Jon Delogu- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
This chapter discusses the revision of numbers, knowledge, and ideas about the organic at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The obese body was now viewed as a body more sensitive to morbidities. And the organic was now conceived as an energy-producing machine, an “appliance” whose inputs, outputs, and surpluses could all be measured. In this context fat took on a new meaning, when linked for the first time to an account of efficiency and yield, as a product of unconsumed energy. This in turn reoriented the diet for the obese person that now ruled out many foods long considered ordinary staples, notably bread, sugars, and starches. The response varied from indifference to tense resistance. No issue opposed tradition and modernity in a clearer confrontation at this time than debates about size.
Keywords: fat, fat people, organic, nineteenth century, obesity, obese body, morbidity, diet, body size
Columbia Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
- Title Pages
- Introduction
-
Part 1 The Medieval Glutton -
1. The Prestige of the Big Person -
2. Liquids, Fat, and Wind -
3. The Horizon of Fault -
4. The Fifteenth Century and the Contrasts of Slimming -
Part 2 The “Modern” Oaf -
5. The Shores of Laziness -
6. The Plural of Fat -
7. Exploring Images, Defining Terms -
8. Constraining the Flesh -
Part 3 From Oafishness to Powerlessness -
9. Inventing Nuance -
10. Stigmatizing Powerlessness -
11. Toning Up -
Part 4 The Bourgeois Belly -
12. The Weight of Figures -
13. Typology Fever -
14. From Chemistry to Energy -
15. From Energy to Diets -
Part 5 Toward the “Martyr” -
16. The Dominance of Aesthetics -
17. Clinical Obesity and Everyday Obesity -
18. The Thin Revolution -
19. Declaring “the Martyr” -
Part 6 Changes in the Contemporary Debate - Conclusion
- Index
- European Perspectives
