Mary Fuller

Publication Date

11-1988

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Aaron Podolefsky, Joan Krenzin, Stephen Groce

Comments

Access granted to WKU students, faculty and staff only.

After an extensive unsuccessful search for the author, this thesis is considered an orphan work, which may be protected by copyright. The inclusion of this orphan work on TopScholar does not guarantee that that orphan work may be used for any purpose and any use of the orphan work may subject the user to a claim of copyright infringement. The reproduction of this work is made by WKU without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage and is made for purposes of preservation and research.

See also WKU Archives - Authorization for Use of Thesis, Special Project & Dissertation

Degree Program

Department of Sociology

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

A sample of 15 women was gathered through the utilization of accidental sampling procedures. All of the women comprising the sample are or have been obese. Capitalizing on the method of verstehen and qualitative methods, each of these women was intensely interviewed and the interviews were tape-recorded. Mundane files were used to place particular pieces of information garnered from the taped interviews into logically obvious categories.

This project was based on the symbolic interactionist perspective in order to follow the course of events in each woman’s life which led to her current concept of self and level of self-esteem. This theoretical orientation coupled with a feminist perspective provided the framework for following the formation and development of each woman’s self-concept.

It was found that the women in this study, most of whom were obese as children and adolescents, experienced derision and castigation during their lives. Many of the women in this study had distorted images of their physical selves and did not perceive themselves as large as they actually are. Some rejected the term obese in favor of the term overweight and some, although obese, did no consider themselves to have a weight problem at all.

The women in this study gave physiological, psychological, and sociological self-defined casual factors for their own problems of obesity. They also spoke of the various diet regimens they used in an attempt to achieve the culturally established ideal of thinness.

The self-esteem of these women ranged from very negative to positive. All of these 15 women have accomplished a number of things which allowed them to enhance their self-esteem.

Disciplines

Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sociology | Women's Studies

Download

Share

COinS