Intimate portraits of fat women eating: The missing discourse of joy in food

Although some researchers have addressed fat women’s complicated feelings about their bodies and fat stigma, little is known about fat women’s eating practices, particularly their positive or joyful eating experiences. This study drew from semi-structured interviews with 20 fat women from a diverse community sample (M_age = 40.4, SD = 11.83, 40% queer-identified, 50% women of color, wide range of body weights) collected across the United States to examine their responses to questions about their emotions about eating, particularly positive emotions toward food. We identified five themes of how fat women conceptualize emotions about their positive and joyful experiences with eating: 1) ambivalence about eating “bad” food; 2) feeling proud of not eating too much; 3) food as a reward or incentive; 4) food as a connection to loved ones; and 5) food as a symbol of travel memories. We found an absence of unadulterated food pleasure and noted the insidious ways that fat stigma and fat negativity crept into fat women’s narratives about food, even when they reflected on joyful or positive experiences. In particular, they constructed restraint as good, certain foods as bad, and joys of eating as incentivizing themselves for hard work or struggle. That said, stories of food as a bridge to loved ones and travel memories offered a window into other possibilities for resisting the overwhelming food negativity directed at, and internalized by, fat women. Ultimately, though, we found a missing discourse of joy in food, undergirded with cultural and emotional assumptions about fat women eating.