Promoting 'Better Health'?: A critical geographical exploration of the interrelations between anti-obesity strategies and the everyday experiences of

fat people. (Continuation from title)

The Covid-19 pandemic offers a new perspective on the so-called 'obesity epidemic'. Anti-obesity discourses have long constructed fatness as both an individual failing and a pathologized disease affecting population health. The arrival of Covid-19, a virus reported to disproportionately affect the fat population, has only enflamed such discourses institutionally, in media reporting and in the public. In 2020 the UK government launched a 'Better Health' anti-obesity national strategy focussed on reducing the body size of the fat population in order to 'protect the NHS'. This study, building upon theories developed in both Critical Geographies of Obesity/Fatness and Fat Studies which have explored the governance of, and discourses around, fatness and the multiplicities of embodied fat experiences, will critically interrogate how such policies impact the everyday lives of fat people. Using a qualitative methodology, including discourse analysis of historic and current anti-obesity policies and comparative case studies of fat people living in localities with high levels of 'obesity', Gateshead and Manchester, the study will reveal the ways in which an
anti-obesity policy context, intensified, accelerated and re-framed by Covid-19, has, in the name of 'Better Health', increased and legitimised anti-fat stigma, reaffirmed fatness as an issue of personal responsibility, and affected the everyday decisions which fat people make about their health and well-being. Ultimately, this research will add to the available evidence-base for policy-makers developing future campaigns aimed at the health and well-being of fat people.