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Obesity is a pressing social issue and a persistently newsworthy topic for the media. This book examines the linguistic representation of obesity in the British press. It combines techniques from corpus linguistics with critical discourse studies to analyse a large corpus of newspaper articles (36 million words) representing ten years of obesity coverage. These articles are studied from a range of methodological perspectives, and analytical themes include variation between newspapers, change over time, diet and exercise, gender and social class. The volume also investigates the language that readers use when responding to obesity representations in the context of online comments. The authors reveal the power of linguistic choices to shame and stigmatise people with obesity, presenting them as irresponsible and morally deviant. Yet the analysis also demonstrates the potential for alternative representations which place greater focus on the role that social and political forces play in this topical health issue.

Obesity --- Discrimination against overweight persons --- Overweight persons --- Public opinion --- Press coverage --- Social conditions --- Public opinion. --- Adiposity --- Corpulence --- Fatness --- Overweight --- Body weight --- Metabolism --- Nutrition disorders --- Corpulent persons --- Fat persons --- Large persons --- Obese persons --- Persons --- Anti-fat bias --- Fat bias --- Fat discrimination --- Fat oppression --- Obesity bias --- Obesity discrimination --- Oppression, Fat --- Overweight bias --- Physical-appearance-based bias --- Disorders --- Patients --- Obesity - Press coverage - Great Britain --- Overweight persons - Press coverage - Great Britain --- Obesity - Public opinion --- Overweight persons - Public opinion --- Public opinion - Great Britain --- Overweight persons - Great Britain - Social conditions - 21st century --- Discrimination against overweight persons - Great Britain