McDonaldizing Men's Bodies

Body & Society, Vol. 13, No. 2, 67-93 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1357034X07077776
© 2007 SAGE Publications

McDonaldizing Men's Bodies? Slimming, Associated (Ir)Rationalities and Resistances

Lee F. Monaghan

University of Limerick

Using Ritzer’s McDonaldization of Society thesis as a reference point, this article contributes sociologically to burgeoning critical obesity studies. It does this using qualitative data from a study of men and weightrelated issues undertaken in northern England. Taking a counter-intuitive approach, it explores whether slimming proceeds in accord with the rationalizing principles of the fast-food restaurant: calculability, efficiency, predictability and technological control. Rather than reproducing a simplified and ultimately stigmatizing account, where fatness is a pathological bodily state caused by fast food, this article explores the degree to which fatness is actively made into a correctable problem using McDonaldized principles. Irrationalities and meaningful resistances associated with the public and private fight against fat are also considered. 

Key Words: McDonaldization • men’s fatness • obesit • resistance • slimming