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editorial
. 2019 Sep 29;8(12):678–683. doi: 10.15171/ijhpm.2019.78

Table 2. Where There Is Power, There Is Resistance .

Elements That Can Be Challenged in the Exercise of Disciplinary Power The Discursive Resistance of TheMarginalised
Problematization/ technologies:
• Against the dominant discourse
• Against prevailing classifications/measurement		 Against the discursive association of body size as a proxy for health. Against diet/exercise “choices” as explanations for trends in obesity.
Critical of the “artifactually constructed” idea that you use BMI to measure adiposity, you link excess deaths with high BMI and that you define high, normal and low according to the characteristic bell curve of BMI scores.36
Explanations:
• Challenging “accepted” evidence
• Deconstructing motivations 		Questioning the assumed connections of body size and health and the effectiveness of strategies to reduce obesity that target behaviour change in those identified as most at risk of adverse health impacts.
Ask “who benefits from the prevailing obesity discourse” and “who benefits from the creation and maintenance of an obesogenic environment?” The former privileges the profession of medicine and the latter requires scrutinising the profit motive in the producers and distributors of “fast food” and other high calorie/high sugar food and drink.
Authorities/subjectivities Critical of using medical terms to classify body size. In the same way as other oppressed groups have questioned terminologies defined by authorities external to the affected group (eg, homosexual) so obesity, it is argued, can be replaced by “fat,” see the Fat Underground, the Fat Liberation Manifesto and including the scholarship presented in the journal “Fat Studies.”37 The argument is that both a critical examination of societal attitudes about body weight and appearance and advocating for equality for all people irrespective of body size are needed.
Strategies Opposing the use of stigma as a deliberate policy to encourage weight loss.
Creating solidarities of the marginalised to challenge the dominant discourse instead of isolating and individualising them.

Abbreviation: BMI, body mass index.