BACKGROUND

The contemporary moral and medical panic concerning rising obesity generates a site in which to explore the production and meanings of gendered bodies and body size. Such an exploration begins with gender comparisons in the prevalence of excess weight, but it also requires an appreciation for how social life and embodiment are shaped by age, class, ethnicity and sexuality (among other statuses). In this paper, we concentrate on contemporary gendered meanings of (and responses to) being large. Through an examination of Australia's most popular weight-loss programme, Weight Watchers, we examine one manifestation, that is, the increasing obsession with norms of thinness, particularly among women. We also consider concerns about weight obsession expressed by some academics and the fat acceptance movement. Together, analysis of these various discourses sheds light on how responses to weight are constructed by contemporary gender norms, and reveals potential for unintended consequences from these gendered constructions.

GENDERED SIGNIFICANCE OF WEIGHT

In most developed societies, including Australia, the prevalence of obesity (BMI>30) is higher among women than men, although the prevalence of overweight (BMI 25–29) is higher among men. These discrepancies can make it difficult from the outset to declare whether excess weight is more of a problem for one sex than the other. In addition to the epidemiology, previous research on the relationship between weight and gender has spanned a variety of disciplines, including social historical approaches (Forth, 2005), textual analyses (LeBesco, 2004) and socio-political arguments (Sobal et al., 1999; Wardle et al., 2002b). In the past, however, these various strands have been separate. This paper combines historical, textual and socio-political perspectives to enlarge the understandings of how gender and weight are related.

The gendered meanings of weight have changed dramatically during the last 100–150 years in developed societies. In populations where food is scarce, female flesh connotes welcome fecundity. However, for most women (especially elites) in rich countries, fat has become a social liability rather than an asset (Williams and Germov, 1999; Friel et al., 2006). Among men, body mass has carried implications of strength and (in some contexts) wealth, and while these connotations are also shifting, they may be doing so more slowly or less dramatically than the changes in preferred female body size and shape. ‘A man who loses weight risks looking weaker rather than fitter’ (Smuts, 1992).

Fat anxiety

Females are notoriously dissatisfied with their bodies, although gender comparisons indicate that men are becoming more body conscious, and that the sexes differ in the specific focus for body dissatisfaction. While women are likely to want to be thinner (whatever their weight) and to be unhappy about their waists, hips and thighs, men often want to be more muscular (rather than thinner) and are liable to be concerned about the appearance of their upper bodies/chests (Grogan, 1999). Some observers have proposed evolutionary explanations for the social significance of female appearance (Smuts, 1992), but regardless of origins, social research suggests that women today reap more social and economic rewards from being slim than men do (Mitra, 2001; Wardle and Griffith, 2001; Chang and Lauderdale, 2005; Zagorsky, 2005), so a feminine tendency to concern about appearance may arise in part from a realistic evaluation of its consequences for marriage and employment (Offer, 1998, 2001).

In the context of contemporary gender norms and fat anxiety, however, concern about appearance is sometimes expressed as acute and persistent anxiety with weight, size and eating. British survey research reports that women are more likely than men to be ‘preoccupied with a desire to be thinner’, to be dissatisfied with their body shape, to eat when anxious or under stress, to feel ‘guilty’ about eating, and to say that food controls their life (Beardsworth et al., 2002). One study found little difference in these feelings between women with eating disorders and those who eat ‘normally’ (Haworth-Hoeppner, 1999).

Is obesophobia a mental health hazard? or Can you be fat and happy?

Setting to one side the potential physical health effects of excess weight (and the thresholds at which weight becomes ‘excessive’), concerns have been expressed about harmful consequences arising from media and public health alarm surrounding the ‘obesity epidemic’. It has been suggested that this is generating an ‘obesophobic’ environment (one characterized by a morbid fear of obesity) that may provoke an unhealthy fixation on food and eating in the general population, elevated rates of depression and social isolation among overweight and obese people, and harmful weight-loss practices. For example, some size-acceptance advocates argue that public debates on healthy and acceptable body weight contribute to feelings of failure, low self-esteem and disempowerment among those who do not conform (Sobal, 1999).

The academic literature is equivocal about the mental health status of overweight and obese populations compared to other groups. There is some evidence that the mental health of heavy children and adolescents is compromised by living in an obesophobic environment (Must and Strauss, 1999; Wardle et al., 2002a). However, the relationship between excess weight and depression is not necessarily uni-directional. For example, depression in adolescents and adults can precede the development of obesity (Goodman and Whitaker, 2002; Sammel et al., 2003).

Australian and international evidence on the mental health status of overweight and obese adults is equally mixed. Jorm and colleagues summarize the ambiguous findings by suggesting that while adults ‘who present clinically for weight loss tend to be more depressed, there is little difference in anxiety or depression between obese and non-obese people in community samples’ (Jorm et al., 2003). This suggestion is supported by their Australian survey showing that underweight women were more likely to report depression and negative affect than overweight or obese women. Their research also highlights significant gender differences in mental health associated with being either over- or under-weight. While obese and underweight men are apparently not mentally troubled by their weight, obese women are more likely than ‘normal weight’ women to be anxious and depressed, and they are less likely to report positive affect. However, when controlled for physical ill health, the study's findings of an association between obesity and worse mental health and well-being in women disappeared. That is, obese women's poorer physical health contributes to their poorer mental health, a plausible finding given that ‘exceeding the threshold of BMI 30 is associated with premature disability’ (Ferraro and Kelley-Moore, 2003).

Acting on weight

The possibility of poor mental health or impaired well-being among people with excess weight is one thing; how they view their size, and their intentions and motivations regarding their weight are distinct issues. Perhaps heavy people are reasonably happy because they are unaware of the extent of their overweight; or they may perceive their weight to be ‘normal’ given that more than half the adult population is overweight; or they may experience average well-being but still be unhappy about their size. One survey of weight perceptions and weight-control behaviours found that attempts at weight control were common among both men and women (Timperio et al., 2000). Most respondents subscribed to weight-control strategies recommended by experts: watching the type of foods eaten, reducing dietary fat intake and engaging in physical activity. A number of respondents named what might be considered extreme weight-loss practices: a quarter thought that vigorous physical activity was required, and over a third believed in eliminating fat from the diet. However, few in the sample practised harmful weight-loss regimens (such as smoking or inducing vomiting). Although just under half of all respondents were either trying to maintain their weight or to lose weight, substantial numbers – including many people whom medical standards would classify as too heavy – were not. The researchers noted that overweight men in particular were not worried about their weight, in contrast to the concerns expressed by overweight women.

Individual motivation to act on weight issues surfaced as a conclusion in an Australian study of young women (Andajani-Sutjahjo et al., 2004). The relative comfort – or perhaps resignation – regarding weight among overweight and obese women in this sample suggests either the failure of shaming discourses and health-promotion programmes, the success of the size acceptance movement, people's capacity to adapt when they feel they cannot change or perhaps a combination of these.

Thus while many heavy people are ignoring the widespread advice to do something about their weight, many others – especially women – are actively engaged in individual or organized efforts to control or reduce their body size (Stinson, 2001; Murcott, 2002). Indeed, so many women diet at some time in their lives that Stinson suggests that ‘to be female is to diet’ (2001). In the next section, we explore the role of weight-loss programmes as they contribute to the construction of notions of feminine and masculine bodies and lives.

GENDERING WEIGHT LOSS

Although the findings from Australian and international research are in some instances ambiguous and even contradictory, a content analysis of weight-loss programmes confirms the finding of Timperio et al., 2000 that men and women approach weight loss and control in distinctive ways, so that weight-loss strategies mobilizing those distinctions will be more acceptable (and possibly more effective). In this section, we describe two weight-loss programmes that illustrate such strategies. The comparison permits us to elucidate the forms of masculinity and femininity encoded in each programme, and hence the gendered subjectivities, social relations and social practices that are invoked in programme participants.

Get with the programme

Founded in 1963 and sold to the food corporation HJ Heinz in 1978,Footnote 1 Weight Watchers is now the largest commercial weight-loss business, with over $US2.5 billion in global sales, more than 1.5 million members, and 46,000 meetings in 30 countries. It markets a large range of portion- and calorie-controlled food products, cookbooks, other publications and devices to assist with weight loss, as well as a specific, systematic approach to planning, monitoring and controlling eating and exercise. Independent research suggests that in an industry largely devoid of evidence for product claims, Weight Watchers (hereafter WW) may be modestly successful in supporting weight loss among those participants who persist with the programme (Tsai and Wadden, 2005).

In general, the WW programme has been distributed mainly through attendance at regular meetings, and Australia has 1,800 meetings per week around the country. But WW Australia now also offers its basic system, ideas and materials to participants who cannot attend meetings via the ‘Weight Watchers at Home’ programme. Additionally, after buying out the successful Australian ‘Gut Busters’ programme targeted to men (Egger et al., 1996) in 2002/2003, WW developed ‘Weight Watchers for Men’, which is designed for men to use at home without going to meetings. While Weight Watchers for Men (hereafter WWfM) is overtly gender specific, Weight Watchers at Home (hereafter WWaH) does not explicitly state that it is targeted to women; but for reasons that will become apparent in our content analysis (below), we believe that it anticipates virtually exclusively female membership.

This analysis begins by summarizing the appearance and contents of the kits themselves, and goes on to describe the text and images they contain. Given that the two kits have presumably been prepared to present the same basic approach to weight loss and control, the differences between them are quite marked. Both arrive in a lidded silver cardboard box, but that is almost the end of the similarities.

The kits

WWaH is introduced by a printed letter (personally addressed to the member) announcing the theme: ‘It's time for success’. The kit contains 12 small booklets, a points-finder, a Passport to success (in which the participant is invited to ‘personalize your weight loss journey’) and a 48-page A4 size recipe book (called a ‘Cookzine’). The booklets are designed to fit in a small zip bag of cream calico with a red printed pattern and a black panel at the top.

The WWfM kit contains three booklets (The Facts, The Exercise and The Food), a points-finder (similar but not identical to the one contained in WWaH), a 20-page Countdown pad to keep track of exercise and food points, a Scorecard on which to record weekly weight and waist measurements, a 300-page Points Guide, a tape measure and a pedometer.Footnote 2 WWfM members also receive a weekly e-mail message from Alan (‘Guru’) Bolton linking them to a regular ‘Bolton's Blog’ on the WWfM website and inviting them to enter their weight online. The complete inventory of items in both kits – all of which were subjected to content analysis – is listed in Table 1. The analysis reported here is based on a detailed examination of all these materials, including the weekly blog e-mails.

Table 1 Contents of weight watchers kits (purchased 1 December 2004)
Full size table

Inspecting the kits side-by-side, one is immediately struck by their different appearance. WWfM is slick and corporate before it is even opened. The presentation (in a custom-cut foam lined carton) is reminiscent of the car kit for a mobile phone rather than a weight-control programme. The design and colour scheme are cool, simple and consistent, a presentation believed by designers to appeal to men. By contrast, WWaH is full of vivid colours, and the design combines these bold, fruity hues with photographs of smiling, slim young women in active poses wearing bright, sporty clothes. Both the clothing and the text contain lots of lime green, bright aqua and hot pink. It communicates a sense of youthful feminine vitality. The zip purse looks as though it could be used as a toiletry bag or to carry sanitary products.

The WWfM kit is introduced by fewer words: the welcome card announces what ‘health experts agree’ is required to lose weight, and enumerates how ‘to get started: (1) Read The Facts booklet; (2) Establish your starting point; (3) Start learning about fitness and food’. The reverse side of this card lists the ‘3 steps to shaping up’, with brief charts and photographs of the relevant ‘tools’ (booklet, pedometer, etc).

Eating and exercise are practices common to both programmes, but the presentation of how to get started is different. Men are introduced to exercise, then food, while women begin with food, then go on to exercise, then to feelings. Conforming to current evidence that girth is more significant than weight in predicting health problems among men (Wang et al., 2005), WWfM specifically distinguishes its approach from a stringent focus on weight loss, saying that ‘…while weight ranges are great for women, they’re often a little tough for men…because men's bodies have a higher percentage of muscle… [which is] 2.3 times heavier' (The Facts, p. 10).

Targeting gender

WW was seemingly originally pitched only at women, and much of the material still suggests a female audience. In early 2007, the WW International homepage wrapper, for example, showed only women, as did the Australian WW ‘meetings’ page. The overwhelming majority of those attending meetings have been women. While men can attend (and are encouraged to do so), the very femininity of the typical WW meeting would be likely to discourage most men from going along. One estimate suggests that 96% of members are women (Business Review Weekly, online 23 August 2003). These circumstances present challenges to recruiting men to the weight-loss project, but they also situate gender – and gender difference – as an explicit focus for those striving to promote weight control or marketing weight-loss products. In addition to the observations described above, a closer inspection of the WW materials illustrates such gender-targeted techniques.

Sporting metaphors and images are common in WWfM, for example in the supply of a Scorecard and a Countdown pad. These tropes also appear occasionally in Bolton's Blog (‘breakfast is for champions’, ‘keep your eye on the ball’, ‘successful weight loss is the same as any ball sport’.). WWfM also gives greater apparent emphasis to exercise than to diet, including (in another blog entry) a calendar of upcoming fun-runs around Australia and encouraging men to aim to participate (‘You don't need to be a runner – walking the races is just as rewarding’.)

Another masculine metaphor is paid employment and the workplace (suggested by the ‘support factory’). WWfM (Book 1) refers to the ‘deadlines and demands’ of a job, and evokes a businesslike approach to weight loss, proposing that the member ‘treat WWfM like a work project – set goals, plan your schedule and take time out to do regular progress reports’ (p. 16).

The muted cool, corporate colours and design of the WWfM materials indicate a comparatively mature man as the consumer. The inclusion of technology (pedometer, tape measure) could appeal to male interest in gadgets, and the pedometer and tape measure are both black, perhaps to dispel any feminine connotations. Even the shape of the tape measure makes clear that it has not come from a woman's sewing box.

The tone of WWaH is quite different. For example, the representation of the ‘journey’ to weight loss is reminiscent of a child's game. Members are offered several progressive ‘rewards’ for achieving weight-loss goals (bookmark, pin, charm and key ring), perhaps like party favours. The member is encouraged to reward herself for small successes with such purchases as a lipstick, jewellery or ‘sexy lingerie’.

Although statistically we know that the majority of Australian women do paid work, WWaH rarely addresses women as employees. Instead, it foregrounds their family relationships and unpaid domestic activities, and devotes considerable space to strategies for dealing with the problem of ‘unsupportive family and friends’, reflecting the empirical observation that while women prepare family meals, the preferences of men (and increasingly children) tend to determine the content of those meals (Dixon and Banwell, 2004; Sobal, 2005).

The emphasis on feelings in WWaH places emotions in the foreground of women's difficulties with eating and body size, an approach in keeping with research showing that women are more liable than men to stress-related eating (Laitinen et al., 2002). The reader is told, ‘Don't feel bad about leaving food on your plate’. The booklet for week 3 is devoted entirely to making the link between feelings and food, encouraging the member to recognize the personal or social habits and emotional triggers that lead to eating, to identify ‘the real need’ underlying the emotion, and to devise ‘tricks’ and alternatives that can substitute for eating energy-dense foods. The emphasis is on dealing with negative emotions such as stress, insecurity, sadness, worry, anger and frustration. In one example for dealing with stress, it suggests ‘5 better ways to feel calm and in control’ including playing a calming CD or screaming ‘silently’.

In contrast, when WWfM says ‘feelings’ it means not emotions but physical sensation, specifically hunger. A blog entry (1 March 2005) distinguishes ‘physiological hunger’ from ‘psychological appetite’, presenting hunger in evolutionary terms as ‘a key survival mechanism’ related to the physical need for food. The member should ‘stop and think’ before eating to be sure he is really hungry, and distract himself if it is an appetite response rather than physical hunger.

The representations of foods to avoid or minimize are also distinct. Men are to differentiate ‘good versus not-so-good’ foods, language that seems designed to minimize affect. Women must deal with ‘Frankenstein foods’, a term suggesting a malevolent anthropomorphized presence (reinforced by the accompanying cartoon image of a chocolate bar with a menacing expression). However, there are parallels: the WWaH booklet for week 6 called It's time to make smart choices teaches the reader about ‘smart versus not-so-smart’ alternatives. It outlines the points-values of various foods, including fast foods and WW products, to document the distinction. This approach is much like the tone of the WWfM materials. In sum, while there are similarities between the materials in the two programmes, the contrasts are marked.

These comparisons speak to presumed gender differences shaping the experiences of weight loss and weight-related practices; and they also suggest that weight-control regimes may contribute to the ongoing reproduction of gendered subjectivities and relationships. But what about resistance to the emphasis on weight loss?

REFUSING OBESOPHOBIA

In 2007, the socially desirable norm of thinness is contested by the stigmatized statistical norm of overweight. Clearly, while many people – particularly women – expend considerable time and emotional (possibly also physical) energy in efforts to maintain or reduce their weight, there is also detectable resistance, both academic (Aphramor, 2005; Gard and Wright, 2005) and popular (Campos, 2004), to the moral panic surrounding obesity.

Some opposition is more-or-less commercial. The plethora of books and products aimed at weight control has provoked a smaller but still consequential array of books, magazines and products designed to promote self-acceptance among people who exceed the recommended BMI. Just as investment analysts identify the profit-potential in the diet industry, some publishers and others appear to believe that there is also money to be made from large people for whom self- and social-acceptance (rather than weight loss) are the objectives.

An apparently relaxed form of this rejection is evident in popular culture that has generated some affectionate terms for the signs of overweight. The ‘muffin top’ bulging over a woman's low-waist pants is one example. The ‘beer gut’ and ‘porch over the playground’ are the masculine versions of rhetorical refusal to worry about size, a sort of back-handed affirmation of heaviness, a theme that has also been identified by research on heavy men in the UK (Monaghan, 2006). On television, a number of overweight male characters have appeared in leading roles in both dramatic and situation comedy programmes; and while there are fat female characters, they are less common (Mosher, 2001).

The fat acceptance movement is the collective manifestation of a more widespread scepticism about the discourse of ‘the obesity epidemic’. The research summarized above showing that many people are unperturbed by what is medically defined as their unhealthy weight signals that substantial numbers are not ‘buying’ the notion that they should make weight control an urgent priority. While the response may be apathy in some instances, in others it entails a more overt contest with definitions of excess weight and injunctions to reduce. When their own bodies (as opposed to corporate profits) are at stake, what exactly are people resisting when they decline to engage with the weight-loss industry and with the popular concern about weight?

Sites of resistance

Many weight-loss programmes entail a meticulous and relentless focus on ‘energy balance’. Whether the emphasis is on controlled eating, managing physical activity or both, maintaining or reducing one's body size often seems to require a level of attention that many people find unpleasant at best and morbidly obsessive at worst (Sarlio-Lahteenkorva, 2000). Although perhaps not as common as some have feared, there is evidence that some women justify continuing to smoke by saying that they would rather be dead than fat (Jacobsen, 1986). The possibility of triggering eating disorders such as bulimia has also been a concern. Feminist protest against the self-hatred provoked by fat anxiety appeared more than 25 years ago (Orbach, 1979), and it persists in some quarters.

Avoiding such extremes might be reason enough to resist dieting, but there are other issues at stake. Size-acceptance organizations such as the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (in the USA) articulate a variety of grounds for objecting to obesophobia. The hazards of dangerous weight-control strategies and self-hatred are prominent. In addition, many size-acceptance groups aim to overcome prejudice and discrimination against large people not only because of its possible impact on self-esteem, but also because it limits opportunities for social participation (Sobal and Mauer, 1999a, 1999b).

The physical and emotional harm caused by repeated weight loss and regain has also provoked opposition to the diet industry that is often represented as exploiting people's fears. Some size-acceptance advocates strive to educate the public about the poor long-term success of diets, and they explicitly dispute popular and medical beliefs about the alleged lazy or self-indulgent behaviour of fat people. They highlight evidence that it is possible to be ‘fat and fit’ (Tito, 2001), and insist on the right of overweight people to be socially visible and physically active. An aphorism on the website of the International Size Acceptance Association asserts that ‘obesity is not a disease’.

People in size-acceptance groups deploy a variety of devices to avoid the ‘spoiled identity’ implicit in dominant discourses of excess weight. For example, they cite genetic predispositions to heaviness, observe that many find ample flesh sexier than thinness, or assert that ‘my boyfriend/husband loves me’ this way (Cordell and Ronai, 1999).

Combining these various perspectives suggests that resistance to obesophobia focuses on four general themes:

  1. 1

    The obsessive self-surveillance and self-denial entailed in regimes of weight-loss or weight-control;

  2. 2

    The presumption that one's overall life and personal success are contingent on one's physical appearance and particularly weight;

  3. 3

    The trend toward ‘healthism’ (Crawford, 1980; Metcalfe, 1993) with its associated deference to the authority of experts and the implication that good health (as defined by experts) is the top priority; and

  4. 4

    Size-based discrimination (overt and covert).

Such issues and concerns are potentially relevant to males and females alike, but given the gendered character of worries about weight and body-image, and the weight-loss programmes outlined above, we now ask whether this resistance is also gendered, and if so, how.

Gendered resistances

Just as weight worries and dieting have been much more prominent among women than men, involvement in organized resistance also appears to be mainly a feminine preoccupation. The contemporary size-acceptance movement was founded around the same time as second-wave feminists began to take up the issue in the late 1960s and 1970s. The feminist approach attacks women's obsessions with diet and body shape as examples of how pressure to conform to a particular appearance contributes to the oppression of women (Orbach, 1979; Chernin, 1981; Counihan, 1999). In keeping with other feminist protest against norms for feminine appearance, they explored in detail the particular social mechanisms (media portrayals, fashion styles) and the psychodynamics of women's size and weight. Although it is surely too simple to say (as some did) that anorexia and bulimia are logical results of these norms, they helped alert the public to the range of eating disorders, all of which have been more prevalent among females than males. They also argued that refusal to concede to the ideal feminine norm of slenderness could constitute a powerful form of resistance to patriarchy (Hartley, 2001).

Some size-acceptance organizations are not obviously gendered, perhaps particularly those with a more medical perspective such as the Healthy Weight Network (concerned with childhood obesity). Others may not state that they are for women but, like the original Weight Watchers, they appear to cater mainly or exclusively for women. For example, a USA-based group called ‘Largely Positive’ with the motto ‘self-esteem comes in all sizes’ does not stipulate that it is addressed to women, but the pastel colours, homepage cartoon flower and link to a ‘self-esteem makeover’ connect it with the style of a women's magazine.

The MSNBC ‘Fat-lash’ television programme on size acceptance (broadcast in Australia on 19/10/04 on SBS) focussed entirely on women with the exception of an interview with Prof. Paul Campos, author of a controversial book The Obesity Myth, and another with Dr Arthur Frank disputing Campos's views. That is, men appeared in the programme as warring voices of authority. Women's were the bodies subjected to their critical gaze.

Photos on the NAAFA website of their 2004 convention are almost all of heavy women. There are few males in the pictures, and fewer still who appear to be heavy. Similarly, websites oriented toward fat acceptance are mostly by and for women. For example, Don't Tell Me What Size I Must B is an ‘international online women's activist group, fighting the size discrimination that is prevalent in women's fashion and media’. Another called ‘About face’ concerns the representation of heavy women in the media.

A local Australian women's size acceptance group called Living Large aims to support members ‘to become and remain physically active… and to address the various prejudices faced by fat women’. They have worked with local agencies to develop an exercise programme for heavy women, and several members have become trainers qualified to teach the programme. Their activism is both literal and practical, and there are other ‘healthy and active at any size’ initiatives in many nations.

As far as we are aware, there is no exact equivalent group for men. One cognate, however, is an Australian group calling itself ‘Fat Bastards’, a motorcycle club focussing on enjoyment of riding. Full membership is available only to men over 90 kg (although lighter men can join as associate members). However, some fat acceptance websites (eg, Size Wise) incorporate social pages that affirm men (as well as women) who are heavy, and online sociological research into fat male embodiment has identified several distinct positive representations of masculine heaviness, including fat-acceptance bars for gay men (Monaghan, 2005). A preference for a large partner is also the central theme in ‘fat admirer’ groups.Footnote 3

In light of the longstanding link between women and dieting, it is logical that resistance to the culture of dieting would also have a strongly female constituency. Having been most harmed by the downsides of diets and dieting, and being subjected to a more stringent range of acceptable body norms, women have a greater potential stake in resisting obesophobia.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Many of the findings from this study are unremarkable. It is no surprise that the largest commercial weight-loss scheme mobilizes conventional elements of gender in its materials. Bright colours and photographs of smiling, slim, dynamic young women adorn the pages of booklets designed for women, while a low-key professional look characterizes the publications for men who are offered a businesslike factual text.

As a health promotion intervention, WW takes what may be thought of as a sensible and strategic approach. Women's interests and anxieties concerning weight and body shape constituted an existing market receptive to the early programmes, and consequently the materials were first developed to reflect typically feminine interests and tastes. More recently, it has become evident that men are also a potential market for commercial weight-loss programmes, but – perhaps in part because of the femininity of the existing programmes – they have been reluctant to participate. To recruit men, WW Australia has developed a product designed especially for them (based on a system first formulated by a health education agency), thus distinguishing it clearly from the original WW programme.

However, we suggest that the potential effects are not limited to whatever marketing or health promotion WW may intend. In addition, there may be a number of unintended consequences. At the very least, these strategies reproduce markedly gendered and heterosexist concepts of appropriate social and personal life and of the body. For example, they rely on and implicitly reinstate stereotyped notions of men as paid workers and women at home, despite women's high and rising employment and the gradual decline in men's labour force participation. Apparently no lesbian or gay client is envisaged for either programme. The sexual division of labour (in both paid and unpaid work) persists, and we wonder how the use of such stereotypes contributes in a subtle way to its persistence. Surprisingly in light of women's lower incomes, in December 2004, the women's kit cost almost $40 more and lacked the technology (pedometer and tape measure) included in the men's kit. The higher price may signal women's greater willingness to invest in such products, despite their limited finances.

Gendered stereotypes also appear in the sorts of persons being invoked by the programmes. The WWfM client is implicitly motivated by science and technology, and his eating and exercise are to be organized by appeals to these authorities. Comparatively little attention is paid to the possibility that his lifestyle might be affected by relationships with family or friends, or by emotions. This contrasts with the emphasis on relationships and feelings that occupy a central place in the texts addressed to women. The women's material also highlights physical appearance as a major consideration, a theme with only limited prominence in WWfM. Insofar as such elements are threads in the pervasive yet largely invisible fabric of the gender order (Connell, 2002), they recreate a hierarchy that authorizes the allocation of privilege and higher pay to men, and the delegation of family care and emotional work to women (Strazdins and Broom, 2004). Thus, a cycle is operating: the same social and emotional arrangements that encourage using gender stereotypes to improve recruitment and participation in weight-loss programmes are in turn authorized and reinforced when they are used as part of these commercial weight-loss strategies. The seamless incorporation of the stereotypes helps to keep them embedded in a taken-for-granted social environment construed as natural and inevitable.

Paradoxically, these very strategies may also partly erode the effectiveness of the programmes themselves. For example, the prominence given to women's feelings is likely to be realistic and may encourage women to develop effective coping strategies. However, by failing to engage extensively with social and personal circumstances underlying men's eating or physical activity, WWfM may be neglecting potentially significant elements influencing men's health. While it may not be common for men to discuss feelings, emotions may still exert powerful influences on what, when and how much men eat (Laitinen et al., 2002; Monaghan, 2006), so ignoring men's emotions could sow seeds of failure. Similarly, by downplaying that women are physical as well as emotional beings, they are being short-changed when they are encouraged to value dieting over physical activity, a tendency that is already present in health beliefs (Welsh et al., 1998). This ignores the demonstrated benefits of physical activity, independent of weight loss (Yancey et al., 2004). The limited attention to men's family and personal circumstances overlooks the fact that not all men live with a woman who can be relied upon to manage his diet on his behalf or to cooperate in his determination to lose weight. Additionally, failing to engage fully with women's paid employment and the constraints imposed by their ‘second shift’ (paid+unpaid work) may leave women frustrated and defeated by their difficulties making time for the changes required to lose weight and keep it off (Broom and Strazdins, 2007). And all the participants in both programmes are implicitly heterosexual, thus ignoring additional market potential, while reinscribing heterosexist social norms. Thus, the apparent wisdom of relying on such conventional gender norms could turn out to be short sighted and ultimately counterproductive, perhaps contributing to participants’ difficulties achieving sustained weight loss.

We began this investigation in response to the widespread view that gender shapes weight and the social and personal practices affecting weight. We have sketched briefly themes evident in the extensive research on gender differences in feelings about weight and body size and in the ways people respond to weight-related aspects of embodiment. In addition, we have analysed closely how these gendered perspectives are mobilized in commercial weight-loss programmes, also exploring more briefly the operation of gender in organized resistance to the commercial and public health fixation on weight. Taken together, these analyses effectively position gender as a problem (and potential resource) for weight and hence the obesity crisis.

As resistance to obesophobia gathers pace, and evidence accumulates about the low success rates of weight-loss campaigns (Aphramor, 2005), commercial firms might be well advised to cast a more critical eye over the part that gender may play in their programmes as a way to improve their effectiveness. There may also be a role for government in this regard as a watchdog on the claims of advertisers and commercial weight-loss products and programmes, as well as considering more critically their own health promotion and lifestyle campaigns that are overwhelmingly gender-blind and consequently may be less effective (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2003).

Like dieters, the subjects (in both senses) of resistance to the weight-loss project are typically women. However, unlike the discourse of dieting, fat acceptance is more liable to deploy an oppositional response to normative femininity, particularly to forms of femininity that emphasize feminine beauty and women as objects to be looked at. But while some fat acceptance is politicized – even feminist, other elements of the size acceptance movement dispute only the requirement to be slim to be considered beautiful, and instead assert that abundant feminine flesh is attractive to men, even erotic. Thus they replace (or supplement) one bodily norm with another, but the underlying dynamic is preserved: women remain objects for consumption by the male gaze (Mulvey, 1975).

The fact that gender can be mobilized both for and against the weight-loss agenda relies on the complex and contradictory character of gender, and raises ethical (Rich and Evans, 2005), scientific (Crossley, 2004) and practical questions for the public health response to weight-related disease and disability. There is practically no empirical evidence that any behavioural programme results in sustained weight loss; additionally, attempting such programmes may actually cause harm to some participants (Aphramor, 2005). To this picture we now add the possibility that even ‘the best’ commercial weight-loss programmes operate to position participants within highly conventional gender norms, thus reinforcing constrained forms of femininity and masculinity that may even subvert any potential for improving weight-related health. Furthermore, as the prevalence of obesity increases, so does the tension between the statistical norm and the desirable ideal. The difficulty of conforming to the dietary and exercise regimes required to control body weight may be generating unexpected forms of social solidarity, for example, among women who struggle with dieting, or among men who no longer have time to exercise. We wonder how far these changes, along with organized resistance to obesophobia, may be destabilizing the slender ideal, and consequently altering gender norms regarding preferred appearance.