The politics of disease: Obesity in historical perspective

Scholarship across the humanities and social and life sciences has documented a wide variety of historical, sociocultural and medical attitudes to large bodies, including both positive and negative associations. Obesity has never been a stable or unified category.

The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the historical trajectory of obesity as a disease in a Western context.

Discussions about whether obesity should be classified as a disease have been ongoing. Many scholars regard the early Greeks as the first to identify obesity as a disease, and trace changing manifestations of obesity from Classical times through the Middle Ages and Age of Enlightenment to contemporary times. This trajectory of obesity as a disease is contentious, and in light of recent moves to attribute disease status to obesity in Australia, this article outlines the politics and value of classifying obesity as a disease.