Food unease: How Ozempic era master narratives burden fat people

This article develops the twin concepts of food ease/unease by examining the effect of Ozempic era cultural narratives on fat peoples’ relationship with food. Accordingly, I make three contributions to the literature on GLP-1RAs. First, I characterize four master narratives relating to food that stem from Ozempic era discourses. Master narratives were first theorized by Hilde Lindemann (2001): they are cultural stories through which people construct their narrative selves. I identify four relevant master narratives: the miracle narrative, the ending narrative, the simplicity narrative, and the food noise narrative. Second, I argue that these food narratives burden fat people with what I term food unease. Food unease makes the subjective experience of hunger and eating difficult, undesired, or interfere with life in an unpleasant or obtrusive way. Narratives that pathologize (fat) hunger and (fat) eating burden fat people insofar as fat people use them to make sense of their relationship with food. My third contribution is to show that the twin concepts of food ease/unease are more useful for thinking about GLP-1RAs’ effect on peoples’ relationship with food than the concept of food noise. By examining the impact of Ozempic era master narratives on fat people’s relationship with food, I provide more reason to be circumspect about the popularity of these drugs. At the same time, I offer new concepts that can be used to construct counter narratives against oppressive cultural stories.