Within our society, size is used as a measuring stick to determine which bodies . are deemed acceptable and which are unacceptable. Fatter people have come to fill the space of the unacceptable. However, because of pressures to conform, both thinner and fatter people are oppressed by this condition. Young people need tools to be able to critique the messages that the medical profession, mass media, their family, and their peers are sending them; and within this thesis, a language is needed to theoretically explore the politics of size. To solve the first problem, I engaged in group interviews, using a semistructured interview format to help me determine how youth interpret societal messages about fat. I used the information from these interviews to develop a workshop that is designed to help youth develop positive body image. It is my contention that if young people can grow up being comfortable in their bodies, regardless of size, than society's fatphobic tendency will wither away. To solve the second problem, the theories developed by Michel Foucault in Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison and The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume One are used as a springboard to examine fatphobia, weight-loss discourse and strategies of resistance. From Discipline & Punish, Foucault's thoughts on Benthan's Panopticon, systems of normalisation, and methods of disipline are explored. From The History of Sexuality, this thesis examines Foucault's four categories of discourse (the hysterical woman, the masturbating child, the Malthusian couple, and the Perverse Adult) that he offers to demonstrate that sex was not repressed during the Victorian era. In turn, four categories of discourse (the anorexic woman, the chubby child, the health conscious couple, and the obese adult) are offered to both draw attention to the existence of weight-loss discourse in society and to demonstrate that these categories of discourse, which have been created to help people lose weight, are in fact contributing to more people getting fatter. This thesis also looks at the role that the Fat Liberation Movement has played in recent history. Over the last 30 years, those involved in this movement have been steadily working towards ending fat oppression. From The History of Sexuality, Foucault's notion of reverse discourse is taken as a point of departure to highlight the various strategies that have been used by participants in the Fat Liberation Movement to subvert fatphobic dogma. Though society still exhibits fatphobic tendencies after 30 years of activism, it is not indicative of failure on the part of those participating in the Fat Liberation Movement. The fact that this thesis focuses on fatphobia serves to illustrate that progress is being made. The strategies adopted by these activists are being used to create a new definition of fat: one that eliminates the negative stigma.
The behaviour of adolescents in our society often results in unhealthy or dangerous consequences. Professional practitioners often are ineffective in guiding our youngsters toward positive and healthy behavioural choices because they attempt to address the problem behaviours themselves, rather than the processes through which teens are motivated to make such behavioural choices. Previous research has defined "teenagerhood" as a discrete cultural stage through which many teens pass, and has suggested that their behavioural choices are often motivated by perceptions of "coolness", defined as social attractiveness. This thesis advances these notions, further suggesting they comprise a viable foundation on which to develop further research and practice in our school system, particularly with respect to preventing problems among teens. Written from the stance of an integrative-interpretive review, this paper attempts to bridge the gap between research and practice through developing an ecological overview of teenagerhood and middle-level education. This study examines a wide variety of academic and popular literature pertaining to the culture of coolness, and middle school practice. This paper draws five broad and interrelated conclusions: (a) that there is a need for innovative and appropriate research methods for integrating research and practice in education, particularly concerning ecologically complex issues such as teenagerhood, coolness, and risky behavour; (b) that the problem of youth at risk is both real and serious; (c) that many youngsters need to be cool, and adults working with young adolescents need to understand, respect, and work with that knowledge; (d) that the function and structure of schools must accommodate youngsters' real characteristics, needs, and the contextual imperatives of teenagerhood and coolness; and (e) that the roles and practices of professionals in schools must fit youngsters' real characteristics, needs, and the contextual imperatives of teenager hood and coolness.
