Caught in the Middle: Biomedicine, Social Constructivism and Young People’s Experiences of Obesity in Poland

There continues to be a lot of uncertainty around childhood obesity, with biomedical and social perspectives colliding. Based on ethnographic research in Poland, we argue that the messiness of obesity as a research object and the inability of researchers and practitioners to agree on how to address it has harmful consequences. Young people are often caught between different approaches to care and health, trying to lose weight, address their obesity, recognize fat stigma, and find self-acceptance. While the status of obesity as a disease remains highly contested, young people often have to deal with these multiple contradictions on their own.