Countering ‘obesity truths’: Operation Transformation and reality television as governance

This paper analyses the Irish government's use of reality television show Operation Transformation as a biopolitical strategy to prevent future generations from becoming obese/overweight, and the centrality of social media to the Irish public's resistance to this strategy. I draw on critical fat studies to challenge existing dogmatic 'obesity truths' which equate fat with poor health (Evans & Colls, 2008; 2010; Colls, 2014). In this case, I draw on the Irish state's utilization of a reality TV show to demonstrate that such cultural productions are important containers for bio-political governance which seek to normalize citizens' body weight. Exploring the eventual cancellation of the show due to public resistance to its 'diet culture' messaging, I show that the public uses social media to redefine the orthodoxies around obesity, restricted eating, and state health strategies which perpetuate weight stigma. In doing so, I call on social and cultural geographers to engage with popular social media as a vital space where ideas about justice, inequality, and power are being redefined and resisted.