“Disgusting” Fat Bodies & Young Lebanese-Canadian Women’s Discursive Constructions of Health

Using feminist poststructuralist and postcolonial lenses, we investigate how young Lebanese-Canadian women discursively construct health in the current context of a dominant obesity discourse. Participant-centered conversations on the topic of health were conducted with 20 young LebaneseCanadian women. Results attest that the participants construct health as a matter of physical appearance and more specifically on the basis of being “not fat.” While doing so, they generally show disgust for overweight and obese bodies although some participants express compassion as they see obesity as a deterrent to health and a serious “disease.” Our results address the language used by participants to construct their multiple and shifting subjectivities as they speak about health. We reflect on such language and the impact of diasporic spaces on young women’s changing and complex subject positions.