Psychologizing childhood in the reality show Biggest Loser

Abstract

Obesity and overweight are central issues in contemporary western societies, and the public debates in media are extensive. This paper investigates stories from participants in the reality TV-show Biggest Loser, and how the participants invoke temporal identity changes and childhood traumas to produce discursively accepted narratives about the causes for being obese. This study analyses personal stories about being overweight, and narratives of living a life of obesity. The findings illustrate narrative trajectories in personal stories used to explain overweight within a contemporary therapeutic discourse, and how the participants use chronology and childhood as narrative resources to explain their obesity. These narratives do not only produce preferred explanatory narrative elements, but also highlight that a number of psychologized explanatory storylines must be used in order to produce a culturally valid and discursively accepted personal obesity-narrative.