Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.
com
and
lavanguardia.com
La gordofobia, ¿una cuestión de género? Análisis de la cobertura de
elpais.com
y
lavanguardia.com
doxa.comunicación |
nº 42, pp. 207-231
| 207
January-June of 2026
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
How to cite this article:
Marauri-Castillo, I.; Rodríguez-González, M. M. and Vargas-Veleda, Y. (2026). Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.
com
and
lavanguardia.com
.
Doxa Comunicación
, 42, pp. 207-231.
https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n42a2670
Iñigo Marauri-Castillo.
Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country/
Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
(UPV/EHU). After 15 years of professional experience as a journalist at the newspapers
El Correo
and
El País
and the
magazine
Consumer Eroski
, professor Marauri-Castillo now teaches subjects related to writing, such as Writing and
Creation of Web Content, News Genres, and Reporting. He has participated in ten research projects with funding
obtained from competitive calls, three of which were granted by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business (
MINECO
)
and the Ministry of Universities. Professor Marauri-Castillo also served as the Principal Investigator (PI) in the project
entitled
Tratamiento Mediático y Prevención de la Obesidad: Cibermedios, Redes Sociales, y Comunicación Institucional
(
PID2020-118090RB-I00
) [the media’s coverage of obesity prevention: cybermedia, social networks, and institutional
communication]. Moreover, he is the PI of the
Mediaiker
group, a consolidated research group acknowledged and
funded by the Basque Regional Government
(IT1686-22).
As a result of this work, he has published some thirty articles
reecting his main lines of research, which are digital journalism, communication and nutrition, social media, crisis
communication, and breaking news journalism.
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain
[email protected]
ORCID:
0000-0003-0883-8003
María del Mar Rodríguez-González.
Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country. She has worked for 12
years in the News Products Department of Eroski S. Coop, eight of which included serving as head of content for the online
magazine
www.consumer.es
, as well as the print edition. Previously, she worked in consultancy and has collaborated with
both the newspaper
El País
and the television station
TVE
. After obtaining a PhD 2005, professor Rodríguez-González has
more than thirty publications in journals such as
El Profesional de la Información
,
Revista Latina de Comunicación Social
,
Estudios del Mensaje Periodístico
,
Comunicación y Sociedad
,
Revista Mediterránea
,
Doxa Comunicación
,
Revista Española
de Comunicación en Salud
, and
Mediatika
. She is part of the research team in charge of the
Mineco
project “
Tratamiento
mediático y prevención de la obesidad: cibermedios, redes sociales y comunicación institucional
” [Media Treatment and
Prevention of Obesity: Cybermedia, Social Networks and Institutional Communication] (2021-2024), and has participated
in the project
Universidad Sociedad
, which a research paper entitled, “
La información sobre alimentación en los diarios
digitales españoles
” [information about nutrition in Spanish digital newspapers: content, sections, and new formats] (2017-
2018). Professor Rodríguez-González also serves as PI on the Project, “
El papel de los medios de comunicación en el desarrollo
de la gordofobia y obesofobia en Bizkaia”
(the media’s role in the development of fatphobia and obesophobia in Bizkaia),
which is part of the project
Universidad Empresa Sociedad
2023/2024 [university, company, and society project]. She is also
a member of
Mediaiker
, which is a consolidated research group focused on communication in the digital environment.
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain
[email protected]
ORCID:
0000-0001-9121-1468
is content is published under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. International License CC BY-NC 4.0
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doxa.comunicación
Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.com
and
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
lavanguardia.com
1. Introduction
Obesity is a concept that refers to the excessive accumulation of fat that leads to a wide range of health problems. e standard
for identifying excessive weight is the Body Mass Index (BMI), created by Belgian scientist Adolphe Quetelet in the 19th century
for insurance actuaries. e index is obtained by dividing a person’s weight by the square of their height. is reference, which
is considered a medical parameter, disregards genetic, cultural and even geographical aspects, and instead measures diverse
Yazmina Vargas-Veleda.
With a degree in Journalism and a Master’s Degree in Social Communication from the
University of the Basque Country/
Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
(
UPV/EHU
), she has a pre-doctoral contract granted
by the same institution, which allows her to carry out her doctoral thesis. Her research is focused on the phenomenon
of fatphobia and its implications for contemporary society, with a special focus on its reection in both textual and
audio-visual media, as well as its depiction on social networks and ctional TV and lm productions. She has published
numerous articles and reportage pieces in prominent journals such as
Hordago
and
Píkara
, the latter of which is a
leading feminist website in Spain, where she is an active contributor. She also stands out for her commitment to the
dissemination and awareness of social issues by giving informative talks on fatphobia from a feminist perspective, as
well as the portrayal of fat bodies and its eects.
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain
[email protected]
ORCID:
0009-0009-6143-0841
Received: 14/05/2024 - Accepted: 09/09/2024 - Early access: 07/10/2024 - Published: 01/01/2026
Recibido: 14/05/2024 - Aceptado: 09/09/2024 - En edición: 07/10/2024 - Publicado: 01/01/2026
Abstract:
Fatphobia is seen as a stigma to which fat people are subjected,
and the term has gained prominence in the media in recent years.
In this article, we have analysed content published on the subject
in 2022 in two of the main Spanish digital newspapers,
elpais.com
and
lavanguardia.com
, using a multidisciplinary methodology
that includes content analysis and framing theory, while bearing
in mind the gender perspective. e authorship of the content, the
sections where they are placed, the images, the protagonists, the
type of framing employed, and the use of language are the main
aspects addressed. e study suggests that the news coverage
of fatphobia is dominated by episodic framing without depth or
context, which is written, focused on, starring, and portraying
mainly women. Among the most relevant conclusions is the need
to address this problem through thematic analysis using expert
sources and more contextualisation, while keeping in mind that
we are faced with a gender discourse in which women are both the
object of victimisation and the only vindicating voices.
Keywords:
Fatphobia; framing; information; gender perspective; the press;
stigmatisation.
Resumen:
La gordofobia, entendida como la estigmatización a la que están somet
-
idas las personas gordas, es un concepto que ha ganado presencia en los
medios de comunicación. En este texto se analizan los contenidos pub
-
licados al respecto en 2022 en dos de los principales diarios digitales es
-
pañoles,
elpais.com
y
lavanguardia.com
, desde una metodología multi
-
disciplinar que incluye el análisis de contenido y la teoría del framing, y
teniendo presente la perspectiva de género. La autoría de los contenidos,
las secciones que ocupan, las imágenes, los sujetos protagonistas, el tipo
de encuadre utilizado, así como el uso del lenguaje son los principales as
-
pectos investigados. El análisis sugiere que la cobertura informativa de la
gordofobia está dominada por un encuadre episódico, sin profundización
ni contexto, redactado, enfocado, protagonizado e ilustrado mayoritaria
-
mente con perles femeninos. Entre las conclusiones más destacadas está
la necesidad de abordar este problema desde un enfoque temático, recur
-
riendo a más fuentes expertas y una mayor contextualización, así como la
evidencia de estar ante un discurso de género donde las mujeres son a la
vez el objeto de victimización y las únicas voces reivindicativas.
Palabras clave:
Gordofobia; encuadre; información; perspectiva de género; prensa;
estigmatización.
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January-June of 2026
Iñigo Marauri-Castillo, María del Mar Rodríguez-González and Yazmina Vargas-Veleda
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
| 209
individuals by the same criteria, ignoring the fact that socio-economic level, gender, age, and ethnic origin are explanatory
variables, not only because the opportunities for eating and managing health are very dierent according to these variables,
but also because eating practices depend on numerous micro and macro structural factors (García Arnaiz, 2011: 25).
Research on the news coverage of obesity has addressed dierent aspects such as placing blame, or the most common frames
and themes when facing this problem (Marín-Murillo, Marauri-Castillo and Rodríguez-González, 2024; Martín Vicario, Bustos
Díaz and Nicolas-Sans, 2024; Argiñano and Gurrutxaga, 2024; Armentia, and Marín, 2020; Baker,
et.al
., 2020; Van Hooft, et. al.,
2017). Childhood obesity has also been the subject of study in recent years (Miralles, Chilet-Rosell and Hernández-Águado,
2021), in view of its prevalence among children. Currently, diverse studies are being carried out (Mathieu Bolh, 2021; Shekar
and Popking, 2020; García Arnaiz, 2011), which highlighted the importance of economic and social factors, both in addressing
the causes of obesity and its consequences.
Regardless of the causes and where to place the blame, obesity is acknowledged by national and international institutions
as a growing trend that requires immediate action (WHO, 2024). As such, the media emphasise the health consequences of
being overweight, such as cardiovascular problems, hepatitis, certain cancers, musculoskeletal disorders, and even premature
death. Psychosocial approaches to the issue have also acknowledged the multiple factors involved, including environmental,
cultural and, above all, economic determinants, which are being addressed in order to understand how social and economic
inequalities have an impact on higher rates of obesity in both high-income and developing countries (Argiñano and
Gurrutxaga-Rekondo, 2023). In spite of this, a signicant percentage of news coverage continues to link the responsibility for
obesity, as well as solutions to solving the problem, to personal choices and attitudes toward nutrition, habits, and lifestyle, as
if all of these factors were the result of freely-made decisions (Camacho, Goikoetxea and Marauri, 2023).
In this paper, the authors do not want to focus on these aspects, which have been extensively addressed already, but rather
to focus on the way language is used and the individuals who adopt such language in order to reveal the main source of
stigmatisation, fatphobia, and the reactions it provokes.
Although the Spanish neologism
gordofobia
is not ocially recognised by the Royal Spanish Academy [
RAE
], it has become
popular both in common speech and in the media. It is a translation of the English term “fatphobia”, which was rst used in
1984 by Robinson, Bacon and O’Reilly (Allende and Allende, 2020; Álvarez, 2015: 37), a term that now has synonyms such as
fat shaming
and
fat shame
.
Historical analysis shows that women have suered patriarchal oppression through the control of their bodies (Halse, CH.,
2009; Bordo, S., 2003). ey have been subjected to all kinds of disciplinary actions and treated as objects that can always be
improved. e tyranny and violence exercised over women’s bodies makes fatphobia a variant of this domination. As Guerrero
Salazar points out, a high percentage of fat discrimination found on social sites is suered by the female gender, which has
led feminist platforms to spread the neologism
fatphobia
, through which they denounce the fact that a rejection of fat people
mainly aects women (2020: 96).
In our society, obesity is portrayed as a body stigma, which is impossible to hide in social situations, yet ironically it is almost
completely hidden in media portrayals. e stigma of fat people includes stereotyping that depicts them as lazy, lacking self-
control, and weak. To counteract such negativity, audio-visual ction has added kindness, aability, and even a sense of
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nº 42, pp. 207-231
|
January-June of 2026
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Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.com
and
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
lavanguardia.com
humour to the characters of fat people. Goman goes even further and asserts that stigma theory operates as an ideology to
explain the inferiority of stigmatised individuals (Goman, 2006:15).
Specically, fatphobia can be expressed through dierent behaviours, such as segregation in the workplace and education,
in addition to health care discrimination, a decline in interpersonal relationships, and stigmatisation in the media, with the
resulting denial of basic rights to those aected (Morán and Terrasa, 2022: 1). According to Piñeyro (2016), all these problems
can be seen in the areas of social, institutional, and cultural discrimination.
In reaction to this stigma, fat activism emerged in the United States in the 1960s and later spread to Latin America, with a
strong presence in Chile, Mexico and Argentina. Fat activism and dierent scientic approaches have cast doubt on the linear
relationship between body weight, diet, physical exercise, and health, claiming that this concept is inconsistent, while at the
same time refuting BMI (body mass index) as a universal anthropometric measure (Kohan, 2020: 402).
While the term obese, for both men and women, refers to converting what is considered being
fat
into a pathology, the word
fat
has been transformed into a derogatory adjective. Despite this situation, or perhaps because of it, the term is now in the
process of an attempted vindication: Identifying oneself as fat, as certain feminist viewpoints proclaim, “is a political necessity
today” (Masson: 227). In fact, on Spanish-speaking websites dedicated to feminist activism, there is an awareness that language
intervention is a social construction of the signs of identity, which is why terms such as
fatphobia
(aimed at either men or
women), and specically use of
fat woman
, are becoming vindicated by being stripped of negative connotations (Guerrero,
2020: 106). According to Baker, “e only negative connotation of this word is what has been built around it... We don’t need
to stop using the word
fat
; we need to stop the hatred that our world connects to the word
fat
” (2015: 3). Anti-fatphobia
activism has been fuelled from the beginning by the feminist movement, and in Spain one of the rst platforms was
Stop
Gordofobia
[stop fatphobia] (2011), founded by Carlos Savoie and Magdalena Piñeyro, the latter of whom is the author of
Stop
Gordofobia
and
Las panzas subversas
[subversive pot bellies]
(
Piñeyro, 2016). From there, dierent initiatives such as
Cuerpos
Empoderados
[empowered bodies] (2014), and the
Ramonak
(2016) continued to emerge.
From a feminist point of view, fatphobia is presented as a new language of classism and racism (Tovar, 2018), which demands
a response that must occasionally go beyond the discourse of pride and acceptance in order to challenge the culture of diets,
physical exercise, and surgery – in short, to avoid pathologising fatness and the feelings of guilt that result from it.
In the eld of science, voices have also been raised along the same lines. In 2020, in the journal
Nature Medicine
, one hundred
representatives from renowned scientic organisations that specialise in obesity published a declaration known as the Joint
International Consensus Statement for Ending the Stigma of Obesity. In the statement, they describe and condemn dierent
attitudes and beliefs that contribute to the discrimination and stigmatisation of obese people by debunking certain myths
about this group with scientic evidence. ey claim that the media have fomented stereotypes of fat people as lazy and
gluttonous, lacking in willpower and self-discipline, and these scholars have denounced the media’s role when spreading
messages, one of which is that diet and physical exercise are the only adequate therapies to combat obesity, which they say
lacks scientic evidence (Rubino et al., 2020: 489).
From the academic world, the so-called
Fat Studies
appeared in the 1950s in the United States, which focused attention on
the body, contemplating the ideals of beauty, medicalising nutrition, and standardizing the healthy body in biomedical and
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moral terms (Barrientos and Silva, 2020: 153). As these academics consider that fatness is becoming a science, language once
again takes on a key role: “With language, they are trying to vindicate fatness as another possible body shape that should not
be pointed to as pathological, undesirable, and unhealthy’ (Energici and Acosta, 2020:10).
Recent studies on the stigma of fat bodies in the media, whether in the digital sphere (Camacho, Goikoetxea and Marauri,
2023; Cooper, 2021; Blanes, 2017; Fernández-Ramírez and Baleriola, 2012), or in audio-visual ction (Kyrölä, 2021, 2016;
De Sousa and Mikos, 2020; Donovan, 2019), highlight the long road ahead for “the deconstruction of these narrative and
imaginary patterns, in a process of recovery, reassignment, and oering new meaning to a specic body type and its role in
communication” (De Sousa and Mikos, 2020: 124).
2. Objectives and hypothesis
Based on the assumptions above and a deliberate selection of the units of analysis, the main objective is to reveal how fatphobia
is covered in the digital press in Spain.
e specic objectives are as follows:
O1. Discover the extent of fatphobia in cyber newspapers.
O2. Describe the sections where this type of content most often appears.
O3. Reveal the type of framing, either thematic or episodic, used for the texts.
O4. Make a sum of the number and gender of the authors.
O5. Identify the protagonists of the information and, as a result, those who wear the label of either
fat man
or
fat woman
.
O6. Quantify and categorise the images published.
O7. Analyse the use of language and assess its connotations.
O8. Determine whether the media address fatphobia as another form of discrimination against women.
With the above objectives in mind, the hypotheses to be tested are the following:
H1. Fatphobia is a problem that receives signicant coverage by the press, especially in the sections focused on Health.
H2. ere is a balance between thematic and episodic coverage.
H3. e authorship of the texts is equally divided between men and women.
H4. e terms used prioritise their most negative connotation without distinction of gender.
H5. Women are more frequently the protagonists of the information and images than men, since both social and self-
imposed control over their bodies aects them, especially in the case of women. Consequently, fatphobia can be seen as
another type of gender violence.
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Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.com
and
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
lavanguardia.com
3. Methodology
e digital media examined were
lavanguardia.com
and
elpais.com
, both of which are benchmark dailies at the national level
in Spain. In selecting these two newspapers, we considered the place of publication (Madrid in the case
of
elpais.com
, and
Barcelona in the case of
lavanguardia.com
), their editorial line (centre-left for
elpais.com
and centre-right for
lavanguardia.
com
), as well as the readership of each. In December 2022,
elpais.com
had 17.3 million unique users, and
lavanguardia.com
had 12.5 million, according to data from GfK Dam
1
, the ocial agency for audience metrics in Spain. is makes
elpais.com
the
most widely read newspaper, with
lavanguardia.com
being the daily with the largest readership outside the national capital.
To select the units of analysis, the search engines of the newspapers themselves were used by employing keywords such as “fat
man”, “fat woman”, and “fatphobia”. e search covered the entire year of 2022. By using these terms as references in the search,
the aim was to focus the sample on content that specically addressed the issue.
Next, we carried out a content analysis (Krippendor, 1990), both quantitative and qualitative, for which a le was prepared
with both descriptive and analytical items. is analysis included the date of publication, specic medium, author, the most
relevant sources, and whether or not the concept of “fatphobia” was present in both the headlines and the text. is could be
either an explicit presence of the term
fatphobia
, such as attitudes directly related to the word, or an implicit presence, such as
attitudes that t with the term but are not directly linked to it, regardless of whether the word is specically used.
In approaching this research, the authors have also considered the gender perspective, which is seen as an expansive theory
that encompasses categories, hypotheses, interpretations, and knowledge related to the wide array of historical phenomena
constructed around gender (Lagarde, 1996: 23). us, we have detailed not only the gender of those who authored the
information, but also the gender and social role of both the male and female protagonists of the content, as well as the images
used to portray them. e texts have also been analysed according to this criterion in order to highlight whether they include
a gender perspective when dealing with the issue.
It was also of interest to reveal whether the content used a news frame that was episodic or thematic. Based on framing
theory, and specically on the contributions of authors such as Iyengar (1991), and De Vreese and Semetko (2001), the
rst dierentiation was established between
issue-specic
news frames and
generic
news frames. e former address very
specically and in detail the typical aspects of events or topics, while the latter refer to a summary of various topics that can
occur in dierent cultural contexts over time. Among the latter, there are two categories: episodic and thematic (Iyengar and
Kinder, 1987). As dened by Sádaba (2008: 107), episodic framing is linked to a specic event regarding a certain person, yet
without a political and social context. On the other hand, as thematic framing places more emphasis on context, the sources
are more specialised and can address both causes and consequences.
In addition, the corpus analysed has been extended to look at the media’s use of the terms “fat man” and “fat woman”. Following
on from studies by Fernández-Ramírez and Bareliora (2012), and Guerrero (2020), yet restricting the analysis to these two
1
Information gathered in
https://dircomdencial.com/medios/el-pais-cierra-el-ano-como-lider-en-audiencia-de-la-prensa-digital-20230117-0403/
Information
gathered in.
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| 213
terms, the aim was to discover the following: Who are the subjects of this qualier: men, women, or both? What is the approach
used: positive, negative, or neutral? What are the metaphors, euphemisms, or associations surrounding these terms?
e aim was to show how language can either stigmatise or, conversely, become an instrument of empowerment, yet bearing
in mind that social portrayals are also shaped through communication and language, which is a construct that can lead to the
creation of categories that culminate in stereotyping certain groups (Moscovici, 1998; Guareschi and Jovchelovitch, 1995).
4. Results
4.1. Fatphobia by section
e corpus of this study was limited to 142 texts, 56 from
elpais.com
and 86 from
lavanguardia.com
, which include the terms
fat
man
,
fat woman
, and
fatphobia
. It should be noted that the number of texts would have increased considerably if the concepts
obese man/woman
and
obesity
had been added, as evidenced by the fact that in the same period, a search in
lavanguardia.com
involving these terms yielded 346 pieces of content. ese data conrm the intuitive belief that although they are not mutually
exclusive, on rare occasions terms such as
fat man
,
fat woman
, and
obesity
can be found together in the same content. Yet the
fact is, in the sample selected, this happened only in 10 texts.
Of the 142 texts extracted, the number of content items that refer to
fatphobia
, either explicitly or implicitly, reached a total of
101. e term
fatphobia
is addressed explicitly in 63 content pieces (31 in
elpais.com
and 32 in
lavanguardia.com
) and implicitly
in the remaining 38 (11 in
elpais.com
and 27 in
lavanguardia.com
). Fatphobia is an issue that is mainly addressed in thematic
headings such as Society and People, which covers various sections in both media, such as
S
, Fashion, Celebrities, People, Life
Style, Society, and
Magazine Luchadoras
, which focus on reporting about the lives of people who are famous or popular
.
In
this category, there were 37 pieces of content, there are many testimonies of singers, actresses, models, and inuencers who
have suered rejection, criticism, or exclusion for having non-standard bodies: “Fame, excess weight, and mistreatment: e
intolerable recollections of Gabourey Sidibe, the unforgettable star of
Precious
(
elpais.
com
, 13/04/2022); or “Alicia Silverstone,
who gets so fed up with those who call her fat that she makes a crude gesture’ (
lavanguardia.com
, 10/01/2022).
In the Culture section, 16 texts related to history, literature, theatre and the cinema were collected. e considerable number
of texts in this eld is due to its coinciding with the premiere of the lm
Cerdita
, directed by Carlota Pereda and starring
Laura Galán. e lm is a thriller set in summertime in a village in La Mancha, Spain, where the main character, who is
clearly overweight, is bullied by other young girls in the village. Interviews with the lead actress, director, and casting director
highlight the prevalence of fatphobia in society. e feature lm was dened in
elpais.com
as “a cocktail of horror, bullying,
social reection, fatphobia testimony, and a portrait of Spain” (
elpais.com
, 25/01/2022). Other content items highlight the
nearly total lack of visibility to which fat people are subjected due to the dearth of body diversity in audio-visual portrayals, as
well as the scant number of role models in this eld. us,
lavanguardia.com
(27/02/022) reports on the demands made by
actresses such as Kate Winslet and Emma ompson to appear on screen as they really are.
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214 |
nº 42, pp. 207-231
|
January-June of 2026
doxa.comunicación
Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.com
and
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
lavanguardia.com
Graph 1. Fatphobia by section
Graph 1. Fatphobia by section
Source: compiled by the authors
In the Television section
,
there are 13
items
that refer to fatphobia. In most cases, the
information refers to comments made on social
sites
or on the sets of certain programmes
that focus on the excess weight of different public figures:
“
Carmen Lomana causes
une
ase in
Secret Story
with her fatphobic comments
”
(
lavanguardia.com
, 25/02/2022).
In sections associated with Fashion and Beauty, 12 texts related to fatphobia
were
published. Some of the topics covered include the rejection of fat bodies
,
professional
obstacles in the field of fashion, the difficulty
in
finding sizes that fit different types of
bodies,
and especially eating disorders associated with social and personal judgements
a
bout one's own body
.
In the Opinion section, we
found
three letters to the editor and seven other articles. Most
of the latter seven items were written by women in which, from different perspectives,
they address the social and personal judgements that women are subjected to in their daily
lives for not fulfilling standard body aesthetics
.
One example is the controversy over an
advertising campaign by a well
-
known sports brand that presented women with a wide
range of body types. The advert unleashed a
firestorm
on
social networks with accusations
of fatphobia and the
defence
of
fatness
, which was e
choed
in
a
column by Noelia Ramírez
in
elpais.com
(28/04/2022).
Two
opinion
columns
written by men focus on school bullying, yet the
y
o
nly indirectly
hinted
that the insults associated with a
n adolescent’s
body
were
part of the bullying
reported.
With six news items, the sections linked to
C
urrent
A
ffairs such as International, Local
,
and
Politic
al information, deal more superficially with fatphobia. However, in 2022 the
bullying suffered by a child at school went viral through the images that the child's brother
uploaded
to
social
sites
showing the taunts he was subjected to by classmates on his
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ϰ
ϯ
Ϭ
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Ϯϱ
ϯϬ
ϯϱ
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Source: compiled by the authors
In the Television section, there are 13 items that refer to fatphobia. In most cases, the information refers to comments made on
social sites or on the sets of certain programmes that focus on the excess weight of dierent public gures: “Carmen Lomana
causes unease in
Secret Story
with her fatphobic comments” (
lavanguardia.com
, 25/02/2022).
In sections associated with Fashion and Beauty, 12 texts related to fatphobia were published. Some of the topics covered
include the rejection of fat bodies, professional obstacles in the eld of fashion, the diculty in nding sizes that t dierent
types of bodies, and especially eating disorders associated with social and personal judgements about one’s own body.
In the Opinion section, we found three letters to the editor and seven other articles. Most of the latter seven items were written
by women in which, from dierent perspectives, they address the social and personal judgements that women are subjected to
in their daily lives for not fullling standard body aesthetics. One example is the controversy over an advertising campaign by
a well-known sports brand that presented women with a wide range of body types. e advert unleashed a restorm on social
networks with accusations of fatphobia and the defence of fatness, which was echoed in a column by Noelia Ramírez in
elpais.
com
(28/04/2022).
Two opinion columns written by men focus on school bullying, yet they only indirectly hinted that the insults associated with
an adolescent’s body were part of the bullying reported.
With six news items, the sections linked to Current Aairs such as International, Local, and Political information, deal more
supercially with fatphobia. However, in 2022 the bullying suered by a child at school went viral through the images that the
child’s brother uploaded to social sites showing the taunts he was subjected to by classmates on his birthday. Although the term
fatphobia
does not appear in any part of this item, the version of the happy birthday that the other children sang to the little
boy at his party literally said, “as fat and happy as a walrus”. In a signicant percentage of the news items analysed, fatphobia
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doxa.comunicación |
nº 42, pp. 207-231
January-June of 2026
Iñigo Marauri-Castillo, María del Mar Rodríguez-González and Yazmina Vargas-Veleda
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
| 215
can therefore be interpreted as another type of bullying, which emphasises the victim’s physical appearance, especially when
the victim is a minor.
In the Sport section, there are only three texts that address fatphobia. e demands of sport practice often lead to abuse that
is verbalised through insults, an example of which is the Italian rhythmic gymnastics team, which was denounced for abusive
practices in which some of the girls were mocked for their weight (
elpais.com
, 04/11/2022). In other cases, the sportswomen
themselves perceive their own obesity, such as cyclist Omer Shapira (
elpais.com
, 13/10/2022), or cricket player Sahne Warne,
who were insulted for gaining weight and were periodically forced to follow strict diets (
lavanguardia.com,
09/03/2022). In all
three examples, both male and female athletes were aected physically and psychologically.
ere are three items related to Health, which include the sub-headings Health & Well-being, Science and Matter, and
Screening. Although the texts approach obesity from a multi-factor perspective, they allude to fatphobia directly or indirectly.
In
elpais.com
, the health problems of an anonymous woman undergoing a comprehensive treatment was also reported. is
text gives a voice to health professionals and nutritionists (
elpais.com
, 18/09/2022), without leaving aside the added suering
caused by social criticism in the form of insults about their fatness. Another text addresses the prevalence of childhood obesity
in Spain, which ranks third among European countries, according to a study carried out by the Childhood Obesity Surveillance
Initiative
(COSI), the results of which were shared by the European Regional World Health Organisation (WHO). Both the
health and physical problems reected in these data do not hide the underlying psychological repercussions that result from
hatred directed at fat bodies. Published in
lavanguardia.com
(10/11/2022), the article mentioned above is one of the most
comprehensive in the sample. It includes a video by a well-known inuencer, Andrea Compton, who reviews the stereotype of
fat women in audio-visual ction and denounces their lack of presence.
In the pages related to Health and Well-being in
elpais.com
, the features of what is known as ‘aesthetic violence’ are described,
which is social pressure linked to the aesthetic criteria of slimness, youth, and beauty. As this type of aggression is perpetrated
mainly against women, it has a clear sexist undertone that leads to eating disorders and psychological distress: “Aesthetic
violence: the price of being beautiful” (
elpais.com
, 16/07/2022). Also in this section, columnist Juanjo Villalba (
elpais.com
,
04/09/2022) warns of the presence of micro-fatphobias. According to Ferrán Giménez, lecturer at the
Universitat Oberta
de
Catalunya
, “despite not being a physical manifestation of violence, micro-phobias have a tremendous capacity to create stress,
anguish, anxiety, and feelings of helplessness in the people who are targeted”.
4.2. Episodic and thematic framing
Only 28 of the 101 texts have a thematic frame. In the Opinion section, all the texts are of this type, yet in the Sport and
Television sections, the proportion is completely reversed.
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216 |
nº 42, pp. 207-231
|
January-June of 2026
doxa.comunicación
Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.com
and
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
lavanguardia.com
Table 1. Proportion of thematic and episodic frames by section
Section
Framing
ematicEpisodic
%No.%No.
Society & People16%
6
84%
31
Culture
12%
2
88%
14
Television0%0
100%
13
Fashion & Beauty
55%6
45%
5
Opinion
100%
100%0
Current Aairs14%
1
86%
6
Health
75%
3
25%
1
Sport 0%0
100%
3
Source: compiled by the authors
Health is the section with the third highest percentage of content published with a thematic focus, 75% (3), preceded by
Fashion and Beauty at 55% (6), and Society/People (also with 6), which in this case represents 16%. In Culture and Current
Aairs we found two texts and one text, respectively.
ese data reect the extent to which fatphobia, in 72% of the cases analysed is subject to specic events that explicitly or
implicitly suggest discriminatory or humiliating treatment towards a specic person, generally a celebrity, because they are
fat.
ere are several cases of this type of treatment, including the following: e airline that refused to provide a seat to a plus-size
model (
lavanguardia.com
24/12/2022); the singer who was reproached for being fat (
elpais.com
, 30/08/2022
); the fatphobic
comments of a television presenter (
lavanguardia. com, 20/04/2022
); the recollections of an actress (
elpais.com
, 13/04/2022);
and an arguably controversial fatphobic message in a video clip by singer Taylor Swift (
la
vanguardia.com
, 30/10/2022). In
none of these cases were the cited sources experts on the issue, beyond the words of the protagonists of the news item, and the
information was rarely placed in context.
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doxa.comunicación |
nº 42, pp. 207-231
January-June of 2026
Iñigo Marauri-Castillo, María del Mar Rodríguez-González and Yazmina Vargas-Veleda
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
| 217
In 28% of the content with a thematic focus, the situation is not very dierent. Despite placing more attention on the context, as
well as the causes and consequences of the events reported, few of the texts include the opinions of experts in their reections.
In fact, reports issued by the WHO regarding obesity are cited only twice, and scientic and health sources, although more
numerous, are concentrated in three articles. e same is true of sources that specically analyse the portrayal and impact of
fatphobia in social and psychological research, as well as those who speak out from the viewpoint of anti-fatphobia activism,
philosophy, literature, and journalism, or in their capacity as inuencers.
is scarcity of specialised sources means that very few of the items analysed, including those that fall within the thematic
category, address the causes, consequences and solutions arising from discrimination against fat bodies with sucient depth
and diversity of perspectives.
4.3. Fatphobia is a women’s issue
Of the 101 pieces analysed, 28% were written by men, 59% by women, and 13% were unsigned. ese data do not vary
substantially in percentage terms if we look only at the texts (63) in which fatphobia is dealt with more explicitly. us, 60%
(38) are by women authors, 26% (16) are by men, and 14% (9) are unsigned.
Graph 2. Authorship
4.3.
Fatphobia is a women’s issue
Of the 101 pieces analysed, 28% were
written
by
men
, 59% by
women,
and 13% were
unsigned. These data do not vary substantially in percentage terms
if
we look only at th
e
texts (63) in which fatphobia is dealt with more explicitly. Thus, 60% (38) are by women
authors, 26% (16) are by men
,
and 14% (9) are unsigned.
Graph 2. Authorship
Source: compiled by the authors
We cannot ignore the fact that the greater presence of female bylines in the sections
traditionally known as
soft news
is widely documented in various studies (North, 2016;
Bezunartea et al. 2014; García Gordillo, 2010). In the case at hand, these are also the
sections where most of the content on fatphobia is located. Although slight changes have
been
observed in the profession, women are generally assigned t
opic
areas linked to
consumption, well
-
being, lifestyle, beauty, education, and the arts, as pointed out by
North (2016).
In 48 of these texts, a gender perspective is present, yet not in the remaining 52%. The
criterion for this distinction has to do with explicit or implicit
references
to women as the
most
common
victims of weight discrimination. In fact, authors such as sociologist Esther
Pineda do not hesitate to include fatphobia as merely one additional manifestation of the
aesthetic violence perpetrated against women. In the words of Pineda, this violence is
“
the
collection
of narratives,
portrayals,
and practices that exert pressure and different
types of discrimination
against
women in order to force them to comply with the
prevailing standards of beauty. This social pressure has physical and psychological
consequences on women and is based on four premises: sexism, gerontophobia, racism
,
and fatphobia
”
(
lavanguardia.com
, 16/07/2022).
This
kind
of pressure against large bodies is mainly suffered by women,
as
expressed in
the content
in
which they are the central figure
(G
raph 3).
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Source: compiled by the authors
We cannot ignore the fact that the greater presence of female bylines in the sections traditionally known as
soft news
is widely
documented in various studies (North, 2016; Bezunartea et al. 2014; García Gordillo, 2010). In the case at hand, these are also
the sections where most of the content on fatphobia is located. Although slight changes have been observed in the profession,
women are generally assigned topic areas linked to consumption, well-being, lifestyle, beauty, education, and the arts, as
pointed out by North (2016).
218 |
nº 42, pp. 207-231
|
January-June of 2026
doxa.comunicación
Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.com
and
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
lavanguardia.com
In 48 of these texts, a gender perspective is present, yet not in the remaining 52%. e criterion for this distinction has to do
with explicit or implicit references to women as the most common victims of weight discrimination. In fact, authors such
as sociologist Esther Pineda do not hesitate to include fatphobia as merely one additional manifestation of the aesthetic
violence perpetrated against women. In the words of Pineda, this violence is “the collection of narratives, portrayals, and
practices that exert pressure and dierent types of discrimination against women in order to force them to comply with the
prevailing standards of beauty. is social pressure has physical and psychological consequences on women and is based on
four premises: sexism, gerontophobia, racism, and fatphobia” (
lavanguardia.com
, 16/07/2022).
is kind of pressure against large bodies is mainly suered by women, as expressed in the content in which they are the
central gure (Graph 3).
Graph 3. e protagonists
Graph 3: The protagonists
Source: compiled by the authors
Women are the protagonists of the information in 60% (61) of the cases. Of these, 32%
(19) are anonymous women
,
and the remaining 68% (42) can be classified as
“
celebrities
”
. In this
regard
, the most common professions are
from
the world of fashion,
show business
,
and communication, such as actresses, singers, influencers
,
and
communicat
ion professionals
.
Some of the names are very well known. On the
international scene, these include Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Britney Spears, and
Ireland’s
Nicola Coughlan, star of the series
The Bridergtons
and
The Derry Girls
, among
others
.
Those in Spain include model Helena Barquilla, actress and communicator María
Jiménez
, lead actress Laura Galán of the film
Cerdita
,
as well as several anti
-fatp
hobia
activists such as Magadalena Piñeyro and influencer
/
actress Teresa López. In her study
on the coverage of eating disorders in the daily press, Mónika Jiménez warned not only
of the placement of this content
o
n the
S
ociety pages, but also of the overexposure of
famous women and its implications:
“
The fact that celebrities suffer from
e
ating
d
isorders, far from humanising them, it gives them an aura of exclusivity, of a clear
differentiation from the rest of
the
mortals
”
(Jiménez, 2008: 781).
The remaining 19 women are anonymous
individuals
,
sometimes
television contestants,
women who have undergone surgery to reduce their weight, or simply a generic reference
to all the women who suffer this
kind
of mistreatment.
Men are less
present
in this type of content, as only 15% are the protagonists of the
information. Of these, 27% (4) are well
-
known personalities, including a TV presenter, a
singer, a cricket
player,
and a fictional character. When a clear gender bias is not present
(
16% of the texts refer to fat people, men or women,
indistinctly
), people are referred to
by their first names
,
or the terms female and male are used interchangeably to designate
them. In these cases, celebrities do not
appear,
and the protagonists are simply anonymous
people.
In 20% of these
items
, the protagonists are underage young people of both
genders
who suffer bullying at school, which includes fatphobia. In the remaining 9% of the texts
analysed, there is no explicit reference to the people who suffer this
stigma.
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Source: compiled by the authors
Women are the protagonists of the information in 60% (61) of the cases. Of these, 32% (19) are anonymous women, and the
remaining 68% (42) can be classied as “celebrities”. In this regard, the most common professions are from the world of fashion,
show business, and communication, such as actresses, singers, inuencers, and communication professionals. Some of the
names are very well known. On the international scene, these include Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Britney Spears, and Ireland’s Nicola
Coughlan, star of the series
e Bridergtons
and
e Derry Girls
, among others. ose in Spain include model Helena Barquilla,
actress and communicator María Jiménez, lead actress Laura Galán of the lm
Cerdita
, as well as several anti-fatphobia activists
such as Magadalena Piñeyro and inuencer/actress Teresa López. In her study on the coverage of eating disorders in the daily
press, Mónika Jiménez warned not only of the placement of this content on the Society pages, but also of the overexposure of
famous women and its implications: “e fact that celebrities suer from eating disorders, far from humanising them, it gives
them an aura of exclusivity, of a clear dierentiation from the rest of the mortals” (Jiménez, 2008: 781).
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doxa.comunicación |
nº 42, pp. 207-231
January-June of 2026
Iñigo Marauri-Castillo, María del Mar Rodríguez-González and Yazmina Vargas-Veleda
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
| 219
e remaining 19 women are anonymous individuals, sometimes television contestants, women who have undergone surgery
to reduce their weight, or simply a generic reference to all the women who suer this kind of mistreatment.
Men are less present in this type of content, as only 15% are the protagonists of the information. Of these, 27% (4) are well-
known personalities, including a TV presenter, a singer, a cricket player, and a ctional character. When a clear gender bias
is not present (16% of the texts refer to fat people, men or women, indistinctly), people are referred to by their rst names,
or the terms female and male are used interchangeably to designate them. In these cases, celebrities do not appear, and the
protagonists are simply anonymous people. In 20% of these items, the protagonists are underage young people of both genders
who suer bullying at school, which includes fatphobia. In the remaining 9% of the texts analysed, there is no explicit reference
to the people who suer this stigma.
Another aspect to be considered is whose bodies are displayed visually in these items, and what they look like. is aspect
is relevant, since media images can show bodies that we would never see in our daily lives, and they can exclude bodies that
are present in our daily lives. In both cases, this inclusion or exclusion inuences the way we assess what kind of bodies are
suciently important, valued, or undervalued in order to be reected in images (Kyröla, 2016).
In 89% of the items there are accompanying photographs, and only in the remaining 11% is there no image at all. In total, 178
photographs were edited and distributed among 90 texts.
Graph 4. Content of the photographs
Another aspect to be
considered
is whose
bodies
are
displayed visually in these
items,
and what they look like. This aspect is relevant, since media images can show bodies that
we would never see in our daily lives
,
and they can exclude bodies that are present in our
daily lives. In both cases, this inclusion or exclusion
influences
the way
we
assess
what
kind of bodies are sufficiently
important
, valued
,
or
undervalued
in order to be reflected
in images (Kyröla, 2016).
In 89% of the items there are accompanying
photographs,
and only in the remaining 11%
is there no image at all. In total
,
178 photographs
were
edited and distributed among 90
texts.
Graph 4. Content of the photographs
Source: compiled by the authors
A total of 75% of these photographs are depictions of women (Figure 4), who appear in
133 images. Men are only portrayed in 18% of the content,
or
33 photographs. Mixed
content with men and women sharing space accounts for 5%
(only
9 photos
)
, and the
remaining 2% consists of 3 images
;
one of a patrol car, another of an empty classroom
,
and the third of a set of scales surrounded by a
one-
metre ruler
.
Although
there
are more photos of fat women than fat men
(
62 and 14
,
respectively)
, the
fact is
,
despite addressing fatphobia, standard body types are in the majority
among
both
genders
. A total of 53% are images of thin women
,
and 59% of slender men. The fat
bodies belong to public figures, models, actors, actresses, singers, influencers,
communicat
ion professionals,
etc.
There are only
eight
photos of anonymous men, eight
in the case of women
,
and only
three
in which a mixed group is shown. The
fat
women
mostly appear posing in a photo
call,
in the middle of the street, in an airport, in a fashion
show,
or on a TV set. There is also a photo from a campaign by the Ministry of Equality
that is not without controversy, which is repeated several times and shows a group of
women with different bodies on the beach. This particular photo is one of 15 in which
women are depicted in skimpy clothing, swimming costumes, bikinis
,
or see
-through
garments
. The singer Lizzo is the only fat woman who poses completely naked (
I
mage 1)
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ϭϴй
D/y"!
ϱй
Kd,"Z
Ϯй
Source: compiled by the authors
220 |
nº 42, pp. 207-231
|
January-June of 2026
doxa.comunicación
Fatphobia: a gender issue? Analysis of the news coverage in
elpais.com
and
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
lavanguardia.com
A total of 75% of these photographs are depictions of women (Figure 4), who appear in 133 images. Men are only portrayed in
18% of the content, or 33 photographs. Mixed content with men and women sharing space accounts for 5% (only 9 photos),
and the remaining 2% consists of 3 images; one of a patrol car, another of an empty classroom, and the third of a set of scales
surrounded by a one-metre ruler.
Although there are more photos of fat women than fat men (62 and 14, respectively), the fact is, despite addressing fatphobia,
standard body types are in the majority among both genders. A total of 53% are images of thin women, and 59% of slender
men. e fat bodies belong to public gures, models, actors, actresses, singers, inuencers, communication professionals,
etc. ere are only eight photos of anonymous men, eight in the case of women, and only three in which a mixed group is
shown. e fat women mostly appear posing in a photo call, in the middle of the street, in an airport, in a fashion show, or on
a TV set. ere is also a photo from a campaign by the Ministry of Equality that is not without controversy, which is repeated
several times and shows a group of women with dierent bodies on the beach. is particular photo is one of 15 in which
women are depicted in skimpy clothing, swimming costumes, bikinis, or see-through garments. e singer Lizzo is the only
fat woman who poses completely naked (Image 1) in order to strengthen her message of empowerment and pride in her own
body (
lavanguardia.com
, 03/03/2022). She is also the only fat woman to pose for a photograph preparing to eat something as
“inadvisable” as a hot dog. Another image is that of a fat man (Image 2). He is naked from the waist up, with his face not even
in the frame, holding a plate of pasta with tomato sauce on his lap, and holding his mobile phone in the other hand. As part
of an advertising campaign for the prevention of childhood obesity, this photograph was controversial, because some people
saw it as a stereotypical and prejudiced depiction of overweight people (
lavanguardia.com
, 28/08/2022). ey argued that the
association between fatness and the excessive consumption of unhealthy foods would reinforce the stereotype of overweight
people as lacking willpower and, consequently, solely responsible for their condition.
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Image 1. Instagram/@lizzobeeating.
Lizzo,
lavanguardia.com
, 03/03/2022
Image 2. Twitter/@elpodcastgordo.
lavanguardia.com
. 28/03/20
Source:
lavanguardia.com
Source:
lavanguardia.com
In the same article, a young, overweight man who was naked from the waist up was also shown with his face hidden and with a tape
measure around his waist. Another photo of a fat child sitting in a doctor’s oce with his face hidden exemplies the fact that Spain
is third in the rankings of countries with the most overweight children (
lavanguardia.com
, 10/11/2022). is series of photos of fat
people without faces is nearly a genre in itself, referred to as the ‘headless fat people’ by Charlotte Cooper (2007), which describes
this phenomenon of not showing the heads of fat, anonymous people who usually accompany reports on the overweight epidemic.
Image 3. Photos published by a passenger.
lavanguardia.com
10/11/2022
Source:
lavanguardia.com
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is same objectication can be seen in the close-up shots taken by a passenger to support her complaint to an airline
company, because she had to travel with two overweight people. e photo (Image 3) shows parts of the bodies of these people
extending beyond the limits of their seats (
lavanguardia.com
, 10/11/2022).
4.4. How to refer to overweight people
Although the initial search yielded 142 texts, if we exclude the 9 texts in which the term
fat man
or
fat woman
is not used, there
would be a total of 133 contents in which the adjectives
fat man/woman
are used on at least one occasion.
Although the terms
obese man
,
obese woman
, and
obesity
are not mutually exclusive, they were not part of the search criteria,
and the truth is that only 8% of these contents appear together with the popular adjectives
fat man
and
fat woman
. In fact, this
occurs in the articles that address obesity, and even fatphobia, from a health perspective.
e adjective
fat
refers to women in 59% (70) of the texts, and to men in 34% (46). Its use for both men and women can be found
in the remaining 13% (17).
Although there is only one meaning for this word, which has a clearly degrading connotation and equates the adjective to
“clumsy, foolish, and unwise” (a meaning which the Royal Spanish Academy considers to be in disuse), the fact is that the
insulting use of this term is the most widespread and common in the corpus analysed (Table 2). It should also be kept in mind
that the stigma attached to a certain group produces responses that are not only physical, but verbal as well, in the form of
insults and mockery.
Table 2. Proportion of positive, negative, hybrid, and neutral approaches to the terms
fat man
and
fat woman
Term
PositiveNegativeHybridNeutralTOTAL
%n%n%n%n%n
FAT WOMAN
17%1279%554%30053%70
FAT MAN
9%459%272%130%1434%46
MIXED00100%170013%17
TOTAL12%1674%993%411%14100%133
Source: compiled by the authors
In 74% (99) of the texts, an overweight man or woman is described as fat, and this term is displayed as a judgement or criticism
of their physical appearance, which sometimes takes the form of an insult. While 59% (27) of the men are subjected to this
description, this is the case with 79% (55) of the women. e social pressure directed at the female body makes fatness a
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condition to be avoided, hidden, or rejected. However, on more occasions 17% (12), women are actually the ones who see the
term
fat
as something positive:
“For me, it was very hard to use the word
fat
. But I grew up like that. It’s part of my personality. It has made me who I am. So it’s
necessary for me to reclaim the term in order to be happy, because otherwise it’s like being stabbed with a dagger every time
you hear the word out there” (María Jiménez,
elpais.com
, 17/05/2022).
e content items that give a voice to anti-fatphobia activists are among those that have an inuence on reclaiming the term
fat
, although the testimonies of famous women also reinforce the use of this adjective.
Only in 9% (4) of the texts do men assimilate the term
fat
as something positive. is is the case with war correspondent and
journalist S.J. Liebling, who describes himself as ‘happily fat’ (
lavanguardia.com
, 02/03/2022). Other examples include the
association made by the mother of columnist Carlos Zanón between virility and fatness, which oers a positive image of a fat
Elvis (
lavanguardia.com
, 03/08/2022), or the disappointment of a contestant on the TV dating programme
First Dates
, when
she realises that her companion is not fat (
lavanguardia.com
, 18/11/2022).
While the neutral use of this word is non-existent among females, or when it refers to both genders, it is used in a neutral
sense in 30% (14) of the content referring to men. is is because the word
fat
is sometimes used as a nickname for a public or
historical gure, such as Louis XVI, and it is used without any special connotation in the article. Moreover, some fairly well-
known individuals, such as lm director Álex de la Iglesia, use it to describe themselves, neither with a desire to vindicate their
bodies nor in a derogatory sense: ‘I’m the fat guy who makes lms: it’s the mask I use when I go out into the street’ (Álex de la
Iglesia,
elpais.com
, 09/09/2022).
Hybrid approaches, or in other words, those that refer to the positive and negative aspects of being fat, are more dicult to
nd. In the case of men, there is only one text that meets these criteria, and in the case of women, there are only three. e
latter tend to be reports on fashion and aesthetics that promote body diversity, yet without neglecting the health problems
associated with being overweight.
It is enlightening to see the association of terms shown in the texts, as well as synonyms and euphemisms, and the use of
adverbs that hyperbolise or ridicule body appearance, as shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Association of terms regarding the expressions
fat man
and
fat woman
, both in a positive and negative sense,
and the use of synonyms and euphemisms
Positive terms for fat womenPositive terms for fat men
Fat and fabulousFat and rich
Fat and funnyFat and virile
Beautiful and healthyFat for life
Gorgeous, strongHappily fat
Fat and sexyFat and condent
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Negative terms for fat womenNegative terms for fat men
Fat scumFucking Elephant
Class whaleFat and vulgar
Fat, disgusting, cellulite freakGreedy fat man
Hideously fat woman with elephant legsFat, ugly, and bald
Little pigFat and sickly
Fat bitchFat fucking moors
Lard assFat ass
Wide body 747Four-eyed fat ass
Fat and decrepitFat and decrepit
Old fat midget
Hippo
Slum whaleFat walrus
Fat, ugly, four-eyed geek Little fat hog
Fat cowFat, tyrannical, power monger
Super fat
Fat women / Fat men
Lazy people
Euphemisms/Synonyms
Large women
Women of dierent sizes / Non-standard bodies
Large sizes
Obese
Overweight / Extra pounds
Round gure, curvy body
Source: compiled by the authors
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Although in both genders there are adjectives that convey a positive perception of fatness, the truth is that women use language
as an instrument of change to dene themselves, as pointed out by Guerrero Salazar: “It’s a matter of articulating a discourse of
resistance to sexism, which at the same time shapes their group identity with regard to social and cultural change” (Guerrero,
2020: 106).
On the other hand, overweight men are generally portrayed by others who are not directly involved, and their “positive”
image
drifts toward a stereotype rooted in popular culture, that of a rich, virile, and self-condent man, who just happens to be fat, as if
his body were merely another extension of his opulence.
Although women are the main focus of fatphobia, when it comes to intensifying the pejorative use of the word ‘fat’, the level
of creativity is equal. Racist prejudice appears in both genders, such as referring to “wretched Moors”, as well as metaphorical
images resorting to the association with all kinds of animals, such as “cow”, “whale”, “elephant”, “walrus”, and “little pig”. Some
of these terms also appear in a study that has analysed the animalisation of women as a form of misogyny (Lacalle et al., 2024).
If we add the lack of willpower and laziness that supposedly describes fat people, along with their insatiable appetite, the
stereotype is complete. is jaded view makes them solely responsible for their physical condition, which is considered not only
unattractive, but unhealthy as well.
Other terms such as obese, large sizes, overweight, and non-standard bodies are intended to avoid negative connotations, but
they are also subject to criticism, as pointed out by Baltasar Fernández and Balteriola (2012: 31): “By using euphemisms such
as obesity or obese people, to what extent is the aim of these terms to use politically correct language, or are they just a way of
including and justifying the treatment of fatness within the medical eld of disease”?
Likewise, for some anti-fatphobia activists, appealing to
curvy
models or talking about non-standard bodies is nothing more than
softening the language, which trivialises and hides the real scope of the problem. “I don’t like it when people talk about non-
standard bodies. Are they saying I’m not normal?” (Navas,
lavanguardia.com
, 19/06/2022).
5. Discussion and conclusions
e presence of fatphobia in
elpais.com
and
lavanguardia.com
, two of Spain’s leading digital newspapers, is an established fact.
It is also a true that their approach is supercial and is mainly associated with sections that have traditionally been considered
soft news
. is nding concurs with the conclusions of Jiménez (2008), with regard to the coverage of eating disorders by the
Spanish press. Ironically, despite the connection between fatness and public health, in which a pivotal consequence is the social
stigma and psychological repercussions suered by people with these characteristics (Camacho, Goikoetxea and Marauri, 2023;
Rubino et al., 2020), fatphobia is hardly mentioned in the Health section, yet it appears in other parts of the newspapers linked
to the entertainment industry. erefore, the rst hypothesis is partially conrmed. Related to this situation, the predominance
of the episodic approach in content that addresses fatphobia stands out (72% of the texts analysed), which refutes the second
hypothesis. Although fatphobia is on the agenda of the newspapers analysed, as these articles oer neither context nor in-
depth analysis, it can be concluded that these items are more like a succession of unconnected anecdotes than reporting on a
social problem, which coincides with other analyses of news coverage aimed at highly sensitive issues such as gender violence
(Gutiérrez, Notario and Martínez, 2009).
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Only 28% of the texts analysed oer thematic framing, which provides a broader context in which the consequences of
stigmatisation are expanded by introducing occupational and emotional discrimination, and even bias in education that results
from being perceived or self-perceived as a fat person. is imbalance is conrmed by the notable absence of expert sources, even
in texts with a thematic framework.
From a gender perspective, hypotheses three, four, and ve of this study have been conrmed. e image conveyed by the content
analysed is that fatphobia is a problem that mainly aects women. e gender factor is clear, not only as a result of the much
higher percentage of female authors (60% women compared to 15% men), which is common in the sections where they appear,
but most of all due to the fact that the focus of the information is also clearly female, as attested by the aforementioned 60% female
and 15% male.
Women are the ones who suer the stigmatisation of their bodies rst hand, and this is by far the most obvious symptom of
control over women’s bodies, which are subject to a standard of beauty that caters to the male gaze as inscribed in a patriarchal
and androcentric society (Halse, CH., 2009; Bordo, S., 2003). In some of the content analysed, this bodily judgement is even self-
inicted, as attested by Berger, who states that “women see themselves in the way that others look at them. is determines not
only most relationships between men and women, but even women’s relationship to themselves. e supervisory voice within
women is masculine: those who are supervised are feminine” (2005: 55).
A total of 60% of these women are celebrities, women linked to the world of show business. us, celebrities have become the
benchmark of a problem that aects society as a whole, for which they act as a loudspeaker, sometimes through victimisation,
and to a lesser extent through empowerment. e latter is manifested through language, and these women are the ones who most
often (17%) use the term
fat
in order to vindicate the word.
Although it is still in the minority, the content that addresses this issue from the point of view of anti-fatphobia activism also has
a place, and this is where we nd the most positive approaches. If we construct reality through language, it is obvious that fatness
is a women’s issue, as they are the group most often described as overweight in 70% of the content. However, this should not
hinder either gender from ghting against the most degrading associations in shaping stereotypes of fat people, which are mostly
negative.
In the photographs that accompany these texts, the female image is also dominant, and depictions of fat women are much more
common than those of fat men. However, in line with the ndings of previous articles (Camacho, Goikoetxea and Marauri, 2023),
degrading photographs and the objectication/depersonalisation of fat people through images are clearly in the minority.
In conclusion, fatphobia is an issue that is mainly addressed in the Society section of newspapers, where these articles have a
lack of depth and diversity of opinion. e protagonists of these stories are generally famous or popular people, and although
they might become benchmarks for stating their demands, they polarise their criticism in the world of aesthetics and fashion,
thereby losing sight of the multiple consequences that this stigma entails. Women are portrayed as victims of this discrimination
throughout their lives compared to men who, despite being more vulnerable in adolescence, are less likely to be subject to bodily
prejudice in adulthood.
In light of the foregoing, there is a need for more content with a thematic approach, where expert sources are given a voice and
the situations are contextualized, thereby allowing the problem to be addressed in all its complexity (Camacho, 2023; Rodríguez,
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2024). ese recommendations concur with others, which have been established to combat devastating social problems such
as gender violence (Sánchez-Ramos, Zurbano-Berenguer and Edo-Ibáñez, 2024). In fact, some authors include fatphobia as
another manifestation of gender-based violence.
e scarcity of similar research, together with the social relevance of fatphobia, invite further exploration. Digital native media,
social sites, and audio-visual products, both ction and non-ction, are potential elds of analysis that we hope to address in
future studies.
6. Acknowledgements
is article has been translated into English by Charles E. Arthur, to whom we are grateful for his diligent work.
is study is part of two projects: e rst is
Tratamiento Mediático y Prevención de la Obesidad: Cibermedios, Redes Sociales
y Comunicación Institucional
[media coverage and the prevention of obesity: cybermedia, social networks, and institutional
communication], funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation in the 2020 call (PID2020-118090RB-I00); e second project
is
El papel de los medios de comunicación en el desarrollo de la gordofobia y la obesofobia en Bizkaia
[the media’s role in the
development of fatphobia and obesophobia in Bizkaia] (US23/08). e authors of this research are part of the
Mediaiker
group,
acknowledged in the 2021 call for applications to receive grants, in order to support the activities of research groups in the Basque
university system (IT1686-22).
e authors would like to give special thanks to Flora Marín Murillo, who is a retired
UPV/EHU
lecturer and researcher, for her
invaluable help.
7. Specic contributions of each author
Names and surname
Conception and design of the workIñigo Marauri-Castillo and María del Mar Rodríguez-González
Methodology
Iñigo Marauri-Castillo and María del Mar Rodríguez-González
Data collection and analysis
Iñigo Marauri-Castillo, María del Mar Rodríguez-González and
Yazmina Vargas-Veleda
Discussion and conclusionsIñigo Marauri-Castillo
Drafting, formatting, version review and approval
Iñigo Marauri-Castillo, María del Mar Rodríguez-González and
Yazmina Vargas-Veleda
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8. Conict of interest
e authors declare that there is no conict of interest contained in this article.
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