Life as a Fat Female Body

Bridging Feminist Narrative Inquiry and Creative Writing

Abstract

The medicalization of women’s body mass index has led to the usage of terms such as “overweight”, “obese,” or even “morbidly obese,” which convey negative clinical and moral judgment of death, disease, and especially failure. Gender studies and fat studies have shown that heavy women often internalize these valuations. Against this backdrop, this qualitative study examines the affects, emotions, and experiences of becoming, living, and identifying as “fat bodies” through narrative inquiry and creative writing with Iranian women. The participants were two women, 19 and 57 years old, graduated from different Iranian universities, one currently living in Iran and the other one in the Czech Republic.

The central idea of narrative inquiry is that stories are examined to understand how people construct their experiences as they live. By integrating feminist narrative inquiry with creative expression, the study promotes creative writing as a medium to challenge societal norms and foster personal empowerment. By turning a vital part of the interview into a short creative writing piece, participants got engaged in poetic expressions, revealing themes of resistance and aesthetics of fatness. Results show that fat is perceived as dangerous and considered a physical inadequacy due to societal beauty standards and can lead to social stigma. However, the findings also suggest that fat can be experienced as lively, pleasurable, and empowering when the sweating body is felt to be alive and energetic. This approach highlights the potentiality of creative writing in fostering the catharsis and amplifying these critical encounters.