Corpo gordo, discursividades midiáticas e o fenômeno da gordofobia: uma análise crítico-reflexiva e problematizadora

Abstract

Society has been currently permeated by varied forms of stereotyped attributes towards those who do not correspond to negative paradigms postulated as the only possibility for social experience, and such reality has not been dissimilar to those whose body frame is different from the so-called "perfect" body to be achieved, which is usually referred to as a thin/slim/fitness body. Such paradigm has contributed to the phenomenon of fatphobia, which emerges when people pathologize and address culpability or deliberate stigmatization towards fat people. In the light of that, we have inquired: what are the representations of fat body like in digital news platforms? Thus, this piece of research aimed to problematize media contents as well as discourses aired in digital news platforms concerning fat bodies. As to methodological issues, this piece of research was grounded on qualitative nature focused on a descriptive-exploratory perspective through documentary work of "media content analysis". The health section of the UOL’s Vivabem Portal and the G1 Portal (the digital news portal of Grupo Globo) were the locus for this piece of research. Data was analyzed through content analysis (CA) by Lawrence Bardin, and Kress and Van Leeuwen's "Grammar of Visual Design" (GVD) was used for image analysis. As a whole, 16 (sixteen) articles published in the aforementioned digital platforms (seven from UOL and nine from G1) were identified and analyzed. Based on the methodological and the theoretical bases of CA, data was treated and three thematic categories of analysis emerged: (1) Biomedical discourse as normativity; (2) Losing weight is the watchword; (3) Media and its body pedagogy. Concerning the image analysis, it was done through the reading of an image in which the news report conveys information about a fat body that goes through twists and turns where one loses and gains weight in a continuous loop; the target, though, was set on the triad of physical activity, weight loss, and health (according to a biomedical perspective). After an image and a textual analysis, it was evident that the biomedical model of health knowledge and the way media deals with fat bodies promote a deep pathological process, which ends up relating to fatphobia, once it stereotypes all fat bodies as sick ones, and it also highlights weight loss as the "ideal" attitude in order to supposedly "promote health”. Therefore, it is flagrant that thin or fitness bodies have been praised positively, while fat bodies have been commonly portrayed as a pathogen, which illustrates fat people as the guilty ones for their corpulence while also imposing stigmatization and a social process of exclusion. Therefore, we consider that the pedagogical work on media education plays a decisive role in developing people’s critical attitude for dealing with discourses portrayed by media platforms. In addition, GVD happens to be of great potential for educational research, since it provides scholars with the possibility of gathering media, health and body issues, and it also stands for a methodological tool to investigate contemporary issues featured by an intense culture of image.