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This chapter develops the decision-theoretic approach to quantum probability, originally proposed by David Deutsch, into a mathematically rigorous proof of the Born rule in (Everett interpreted) quantum mechanics. It sketches the argument informally, then proves it formally, and lastly considers a number of proposed ‘counter-examples’ to show exactly which premises of the argument they violate.

This chapter reviews and criticizes various strategies for making sense of quantum-mechanical probability-talk in the context of Everett Picture, with particular attention to recent such strategies involving decision theory.

This chapter begins by discussing methodological issues in analyses of obesity and mortality. It then reviews recent literature on obesity and mortality, paying special attention to body fat distribution, intentionality of weight loss, and the relative impact of fatness and fitness. Finally, it discusses the impact of obesity on years of life lost and life expectancy.

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to examine the social implications of understanding fatness as a medical health risk, disease, and public health crisis. To do this, it is necessary to understand where these frames come from, what their internal logic is, and how and why have they come to dominate our understanding of fatness. The chapter provides definitions of the terms used in the book; explains why the way fatness is framed matters; considers the social implications of the argument that obesity is unhealthy; and discusses how body size intersects with class, race, and gender. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This chapter examines three ways that fatness is framed as a problem, including: the immorality frame, in which fatness is seen as a moral problem; the medical frame, in which fatness is viewed as a medical problem; and a public health crisis frame, in which corpulence is viewed as a public health crisis. It also discusses three different ways in which fatness has been framed as not a problem, including: a health at every size frame, according to which corpulence is potentially compatible with health; a beauty frame, in which fatness is seen as beautiful; and a fat rights frame, according to which weight-based discrimination, not fatness itself, is the problem. The chapter examines in detail the internal logic of each of these frames, as well as how the groups and individuals promoting each frame are situated within a larger fat field, in terms of their economic and political power.

This concluding chapter teases out theoretical and material implications of this study. This book contributes not only to our understanding of how fatness has been framed but more broadly to how social issues come to be defined in particular ways, with specific material implications. It has underscored the central role played by the people, groups, and institutions who participate in debates over fat, showing how their social location shapes their frames and affects the degree of social influence they wield. It has shown how, in this particular case, body size is a relevant part of the social characteristics that shape one's perspective. This book has shown how more powerful players, in terms of economic resources and cultural authority, have more influence in public debate. However, it has also pointed to the power of symbolic meaning. Specifically, master frames represent a potent cultural resource into which savvy people and groups can tap. Thus, the fat rights movement has had more influence than one might expect given their small size and limited resources, in large part because they have been able to link their cause to powerful political U.S. traditions of equality and diversity.

This chapter argues that the demands on marathon swimmers to acquire body fat as insulation against the cold are in tension with conventional understandings of what constitutes the ‘good’ sporting body. For some swimmers, this tension is resolved through the mobilisation of ‘heroic fatness’, which renders the fat ‘fake’. However, this protection is not available to all, demonstrating the ways in which not all fat is equal, in spite of the universalised anti-fat narratives of the ‘war on obesity’. The chapter also highlights the ways in which diverse experiences of swimming fat unsettles anti-fat values. The chapter concludes with the importance of looking beyond impoverished, utilitarian visions of sport as a tool for weight management, and instead, of accessing sport’s manifold possibilities for pleasure and for new ways of thinking about sporting embodiment.

This chapter looks at three actors who have gained weight for roles—Javier Bardem, Santiago Segura, and Antonio de la Torre—in order to discuss the role of fatness and fat masculinities in their performances. The substantial weight gain of each actor in all three films becomes a metric for understanding the way that their bodies are represented, filmed, and discussed. The chapter questions the limits of performance and acting, particularly when the body one inhabits is so drastically altered for a role. These physical alterations between the actors’ general appearance and their personal appearances, in turn, negatively mark the masculinity of their characters, the chapter argues.

This chapter examines the potential, as well as the limits, of making the superhero Faith Herbert/Zephyr fat. Typically framed as monstrous in western superhero comics, Faith’s fatness is treated textually and visually as if it is not in any way aberrant. The author of this chapter questions whether this representation marks a positive shift in western popular culture in relation to fatness, or whether, in this case, Faith as a monstrous woman has been “defanged” and denied the potential to be subversive of marginalizing norms.

This chapter explores the prestige associated with “bigness” in the Middle Ages. The vicious cycle of hunger, severe restrictions, and food shortages stemming from poor degraded soils, inadequate storage, slow and difficult transportation networks, and vulnerability to inclement weather all contributed to raising the accumulation of calories into an ideal. The collective imagination dreamt of accumulation. Health meant a full stomach and vigor was represented in the compact heft of flesh. Bigness, however, could also become excessive that it is perceived as deformed, the ultimate physical disgrace. There is no precise measure of this threshold, no definition, just the allusion hardly ever discussed in twelfth-century Latin chronicles that distinguish pinguis (“big”) and praepinguis (“very big”).

This chapter considers the ambiguity surrounding the definition of “fat” in medieval texts. These texts variously refer to fat as an oily, pliable, and fundamentally aqueous material, sometimes more compact depending on the location, and of a composite, somewhat obscure nature. Unknown were its proportions of water, oil, blood, or phlegm; its consistency and density; and its origin and content. All that is certain is the immediate evidence: colors, odors, resistance, and extension that lump together many possible substances as sources of fatness. Even air must be considered since it is thought to move through the body provoking swelling and puffiness, a by-product of body heat as much as smoke from fire.

This chapter discusses how references to weight became ordinary and a widely understood indicator in people’s minds in the nineteenth century. This can be seen in the mention of weights in the literature of a bicycle manufacturer in the 1890s, whose sales pitch made an association between the ideal weight of the bike and the rider: 14–15 kilograms “minimum” for the bike, on condition that the cyclist weighed no more than 70 kilograms “maximum.” Bodily weights and measures became progressively more and more commonplace as technology moved into everyday life. Other practices encouraged an unprecedented attention to nuances. For example, people revealed their bodies more at the end of the nineteenth century, a new habit that incited watchfulness of the adipose, as did public and private pastimes as well as fashion and body care. Becoming big was also talked about in years younger than before, and as something generally unpleasant and ugly.

The book concludes by examining how a group of committed Guatemalan nutritionists sought to redefine the standards of ideal weight by emphasizing the importance of fatness. Whereas the BMI situates thinness in opposition to obesity, these nutritionists positioned fatness as obesity’s opposite. While they associated obesity with metabolic illness, an increased reliance on processed foods, and the stress of urbanization, they used fatness to refer to a hearty, healthy appetite and a life in which balance was fluid and imprecise. Fatness did not reference weight, but the fullness experienced by finding deep pleasure, satisfaction, and richness in bodies and food. This focus on experiences and relations and not on quantities of calories or weight destabilized the dangerous practices of restrictive dieting; with fatness—a way of being that defied measurement—the commonly taught equation “input minus output = dietary balance” simply did not add up. Through this final examination of forms of health that cannot be quantified, the book makes a case for the value of anthropological approaches to knowledge-making in the fields of nutrition, medicine, and global health.

This chapter looks at the obesity epidemic that emerged in East and West Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. It compares the ways in which socialist and capitalist nutritionists and economists diagnosed and attempted to treat the new problem of widespread overweight. Despite expressing different attitudes toward fatness, East Germany and West Germany attempted to solve the problem of obesity using similar strategies, including expanding food options for private purchases and modifying the caloric content of institutional meals, especially in canteens. However, in both states these projects failed to reverse the population’s steady weight gain. When it came to fatness, the two states were more similar than not, despite deeply held beliefs that their populations consumed quite different diets.