Swedish Obesity Specialists : Obesity and its Treatment at a Specialist Clinic in Stockholm

• Main Author: Forrest, Mia
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholms universitet, Socialantropologiska institutionen 2009
• Subjects: Obesity; medical expertise; global assemblages; governance; lifestyle alteration; Pharmaceutical Sciences; Farmaceutiska vetenskaper
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-31035

Swedish Obesity Specialists examines how obesity is conceptualized as a medical condition by the staff working at an obesity clinic in Stockholm Sweden. Through eight weeks of participant observations and eight semi-structured interviews this thesis answers the question of how specialist working in the field of obesity construct obesity as a medical site. The thesis aims at understanding how obesity is becoming an issue for medicine, further how obesity’s entry into medicine creates new understandings of the body and medical treatments. Through the theoretical concepts of global assemblages and bio-power I argue that obesity as a disease is defined through seemingly objective criteria aimed at defining a population of sufferers, simultaneously for obesity to be viewed as disease scientifically valid treatments on an individual level must be put into place. By viewing obesity’s entry into medicine as a process of shared consensus, this thesis examines the relationship between global levels of knowledge production and their application and negotiation at one clinic treating obesity. Here expert knowledge and governance are integrated to create both treatment and an idea of what obesity as a medical condition is. In this thesis I argue that the application of expert knowledge and global criteria leads to unexpected views on what can be conceived as medical treatment. Further the thesis discusses how the body of the patient becomes reinterpreted once obesity becomes a medical condition.