I am a PhD student in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex. My research explores clinical perception, language and attitude on obesity in local clinical contexts in Brighton and Hove.

In my Master’s thesis (University of Bologna, 2011) I focused on doctor-patient encounters in the endocrinology department of Sant’Orsola-Malpighi Hospital in Bologna, to investigate how biomedical knowledge on obesity and public debate on fatness influence each other and individuals’ perception of themselves. Taking an ethnographic approach to the fieldwork, I aimed to comprehend the reproduction of social stigmatization and “self-blaming” strategies in clinical encounters, with a special emphasis on notions and practices used by patients in understanding, perceiving and conveying their experiences as obese subjects.

My PhD research draws on this previous experience and shifts its focus on the impact of obesity-related health policies on local clinical realities. By exploring everyday narratives and perceptions of obesity used by different, clinical actors such as GPs, nurses and weight loss groups’ participants, I examine the diversity within biomedicine in understanding the “obesity epidemic” discourse. This investigation promotes a reflection on body politics and technologies of policy and governance as well as on social reproduction of identities linked to health, social class and gender.