Thin is the Feminist Issue

This article attempts both to discuss difficulties around eating and body image, and to question the pursuit of slenderness as a positive strategy for women. In particular, the aim is to problematize this latter ideal as it is covertly presented in Fat is a Femznist Issue (hereafter FIFI). The point is not to criticize Orbach personally (or to deny the vital insights in her work), but to focus on the way social constructions of meaning produce what goes said and unsaid in the text itself. Such an exploration is politically motisrated for it seems that there in fact lies an anti-feminist strategy in the way the questions and answers are posed: both in setting up fat as the issue, and in implying that losing weight is part of the solution.