From the medieval condemnation of gluttony to the contemporary obsession with overweight, corpulence has always aroused criticism, while being part of logics of social distinction. The story of “ fat “By Georges Vigarello fulfills his previous research on the history of the body and beauty.
In line with his work on the body, straightened, clean or dirty, healthy or unhealthy, Georges Vigarello, director of research at Cnrs and co-director of the Edgar Morin Center, is interested in this work in an object already present in watermark in its previous research: the “ fat “And, more broadly, the” fat And obesity. The author specifies in the introduction that “ The big one has not always been so strongly denounced “And that, for him,” This is what justifies the historical question. But the stake of such research is actually much wider: this book seems in a context in which the question of weight and obesity is the subject of real political and media craze in the face of which the sciences human and social remains relatively silent. We can only salute the author’s desire to shed light on these debates by providing a fairly original historical light.
From gluttony to the incapable obese
By relying on a vast corpus of iconographic texts and sources, Georges Vigarello draws up a story from the Gros of the Middle Ages to the present day. He shows how the criticism of the big has moved over the centuries. If the medieval gaze focuses on capital sins and first retains gluttony and gluttony, a change takes place in the Renaissance: the criticism of the big centers on the question of softness and disability ; The obese is therefore characterized by its laziness and slowness. But the interest then relates only to the most extreme corpulences, those which make the obese unfit to carry out a certain number of tasks, especially military. The volumes will however individualize and differentiate themselves with the Enlightenment, while a new type of social criticism sets in: the “ fat Is no longer a simple uncultivated or unable, he becomes a useless and unproductive character. A criticism of defects and weaknesses provoking obesity, that of the obese which abuses food, succeeds a criticism of the inadequacies of the obese itself: he is the one who does not manage to control himself, who does not know not lose weight. It would be “ unable », Vision still very widely used in our representations at the start of XXIe century.
For the author, this story of the Gros is part of the broader theoretical framework that he has developed in his previous works: the history of obesity overlaps that of the great organic models. Thus, at XIXe century for example, the representation of the body as “ fire machine »Leads to represent fat as an unructed substance. But one of the main interests of Georges Vigarello’s work is due to what he combines the analysis of representations to that of practices. He thus describes the evolution of compression practices, such as belts or corsets which systematize to XVIe And XVIIe centuries, with the willingness to get closer to the desirable body by moderating the body, sometimes in suffering. He thus shows how two social problems, long confused, can today be distinguished: “ The mince requirement “, On the one hand, and” the growing presence of the denunciation of the large », On the other. The first is “ A standard of social appearance »Cultural. The second is “ a health threat index “, Based on economic logics. However, a lot of discourse on corpulence and obesity now mix these two very different logics, further strengthening pressure on corpulence, especially women.
The weight of the measurement
But the most remarkable point of this work is the place it gives to the question of measurement. This aspect which could appear anecdotal or secondary is indeed as essential as historically little studied, and it is for us the great contribution of this research. Georges Vigarello describes with finesse how a large blur has persisted for a very long time on the threshold from which you become too big. So, while doctors of XVIe century denounce the many problems caused by obesity, they seem relatively indifferent to define from when one is obese. Until very recently, the measure was limited to personal observation, as Cardan did at XVIe century, judging the stability of its weight at the unchanged pressure exerted by its rings, or like Mme from Sévigné appreciating his weight loss commensurate with his clothes.
Georges Vigarello shows how we went from a long subjective weight measurement to a standardization of this measure, with the use of increasingly precise and stronger weight standards. It is this evolution which makes possible a greater sensitivity to weight variations and therefore to the methods of social distinction according to corpulence.
The desirable body, the issue of social distinction and gender
One of the other contributions of this work is indeed to shed light on the importance of social differences in the appreciation of corpulence over the past centuries. The role of the belly in the affirmation of force and a social status, in France of the XIXe A century for example, is indeed a fairly well known point of researchers in human and social sciences and that Georges Vigarello has already approached, with less precision, in his previous works: prestige or on the contrary the devaluation of the big ones are first of all linked to the social position of what one judges. To the same body correspond to different looks depending on the person to whom it belongs. But the body also varies according to social circles and, today as yesterday, corpulence has an essential character of distinction.
We also find the strong symbolism of corpulence, which will characterize certain characters or certain professions, both for practical reasons (a pork butcher must use force to prepare meat) and symbolic (big and fat associated with the products it sells). The author shows how the illustrations of XVe century show certain professions, such as bakers, cooks or butchers, for which size becomes valued, therefore corresponding to this “ employment physics Which characterizes certain professions and which Pierre Bourdieu described in the late 1970s in The distinction.
Beyond these social differences, Georges Vigarello underlines another essential and useful aspect to shed light on the contemporary debate on obesity: the importance of gender differences as soon as we are interested in corpulence. This point has long been ignored or underestimated in the analysis of the issues of corpulence in our contemporary societies, and this work highlights it for past centuries. The author thus notes how much the vindictive is more severe towards the body of women, while it is much more tolerant with men, whose volumes can more frequently translate social status. Female beauty, whose corpulence is an essential character, thus appears as a “ Beauty of decor “, Made for the reception, the” inside “, As opposed to male appearance, turned towards” out And in which we mainly value strength.
What happens before the Middle Ages ?
If Georges Vigarello very precisely analyzes the look of the big age since the Middle Ages, this story of obesity appears a little incomplete insofar as it begins very late. We would have liked to know more about the place of thinness in ancient Egypt as given us to see the papyrus and the bas-reliefs, or on the vision carried in ancient Greece on obesity by doctors like Hippocrates. This would undoubtedly have allowed the author, and his reader, to give himself even more perspective to analyze the contemporary period.
In addition, a reader accustomed to sociological literature on this subject will note some minor inaccuracies over the most recent period. This is the case for example on the very widespread, but false belief, according to which there is today in France a link between poverty and high corpulence. If this link is proven for adult women, who are all the more thin as they belong to a cleaning at the high standard of living, it is not the same for men: the poorest of them do not are not necessarily the most corpulent, which also joins the observations made by the author on the different treatment of the corpulence of men and women in previous centuries.
But the most embarrassing error concerns Adolphe Qutelet, a central character for those who want to understand the history of weight and its measure. This Belgian scientist was the first to measure the weight of a large number of people and to offer a scientific study. He went so far as to give his name to the body mass index which is used today to appreciate the weight and which is commonly called “ Quetle index ». The fact that the author emphasizes his name, quite widespread, is of course without any importance. That he is wrong with first names and calls him several times “ Auguste Quételet Is more annoying. This first name error is unfortunately fairly widespread in Anglo-Saxon scientific circles and spreads from work under construction, signaling the authors who use second-hand analysis, without having taken the trouble to consult the original text Or even to have checked the first name of this author often quoted badly about it.
But that of course does not detract from the high quality of this work which constitutes an essential contribution for who wants to understand the evolution of weight standards. Georges Vigarello manages to show how the figures and the measure have led to accentuating the shades of the big and establishing a social norm which today weighs on the most corpulent. If he is sometimes a little less convincing on the contemporary period, his work sheds light on the historical dimension of “ Martyrdom of the obese “, Until now relatively little studied and yet fundamental to clarify contemporary debates and understand the sources of identification” sneaky From the obese to his size.