O NASCIMENTO DO DISCURSO PATOLOGIZANTE DA OBESIDADE

In order to explore the emergence of the concept of obesity, this historical study is theoretically and methodologically referenced on Michel Foucault's archaeo-genealogical discourse analysis, focusing on the aesthetic, ethical, moral, religious and biological inflections in the early pathologization of excess body fat. From the mid-17th to the 19th century, medical discourses invested in pathologizing ugliness of the corpulent, the gluttony of sinners and the vice of the intemperant. From enunciation of ugliness as disease to medicalization of discourse, pathologization of that condition is a relatively recent development in the West, as opposed to some historians' views.