The optics of weight: expert perspectives from the panopticon and synopticon

Abstract

Objective: That we all weigh something is a fact of life, yet the material reality of weight is refracted through multiple layers of surveillance revealing contradictions in experience and understanding, depending on one’s vantage point. We explored the complexities of weight with the specific aim of furthering understanding of this multifaceted surveillance.

Methods and Measures: We used hermeneutics, the philosophy and practice of interpretation, as the method of inquiry. Ten experts by experience and seven professional experts participated in interviews, which were audio- recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Interpretations were developed through group discussions among the eight authors and reiterative writing.

Results: Using the metaphor of optics, we demonstrate how the interplay of the panopticon (the few watching the many) and synopticon (the many watching the few) help us gain a deeper understanding of weight through “fitting in,” being “captured by numbers,” “dieting: the tyrannic tower,” and “the male gaze.”

Conclusion: Monitoring and judging body weight have become so normative in Western society that “weight watching” practices are synonymous with good citizenship and moral character. This study offers insight about how weight is conceptualized in personal and professional contexts, with implications for body image, dieting, eating disorders, public health, and weight bias.

Keywords:

• Foucault
• Gadamer
• hermeneutics
• panopticon
• synopticon
• weight

Introduction

For many, weight watching is an obsession. Monitoring and judging weight have become normative in Western society and discontent with the number on the scale is standard and expected (Rodin et al., 1984; Tantleff-Dunn et al., 2011). The belief in one’s ability to control their weight is strongly tied to behaviors such as careful regulation of energy intake and energy expenditure, hypervigilance in the face of food, and self-monitoring calories and macronutrients (Roehrig et al., 2008). These “weight watching” behaviors have, in turn, become synonymous with good citizenship, (i.e. the neoliberal idea that it is the moral responsibility of individuals to attend to their health as to not burden society LeBesco, 2011; Harjunen, 2016). Particularly for women, Western society demands obedience in terms of how much space they take up in the world (Heyes, 2006; Saguy, 2012; Wray & Deery, 2008). When women deviate from norms by living in large bodies, they are punished through criticism, shame, judgement, and exclusion (Harjunen, 2019; Spratt, 2021). Given the extent of social and self-policing of weight, living in a large body becomes “deviant” behaviour or “disobedience” (Murray, 2007).

Weight bias is the negative attitudes, beliefs, and judgements held about an individual based on their weight status (Kirk et al., 2020). Weight bias can be expressed explicitly (overt words and actions), implicitly (unconscious negative attitudes), internalized, or any combination of the three (Carels et al., 2010). Internalized weight bias is self-directed and is the extent to which individuals endorse negative beliefs and stereotypes about their weight (Kirk et al., 2020). “Watching” our weight is so common that even individuals who more closely fit the Western ideal of beauty in terms of body size are not immune from preoccupation with their weight or internalized weight bias (Rodin et al., 1984; Wade et al., 2011). On the contrary, the social expectation that people “fit in” requires a certain amount of self-surveillance and demonstrations of personal responsibility in the form of exhibiting expected or desirable health behaviors. It may be that, regardless of body size, particularly for women in Western cultures, “watching weight” is a socially produced expectation and a way of “fitting in” to a weight-conscious society regardless of weight status. “Watching weight” pervades our media and social media under the guise of health promotion (del Rio Carral et al., 2022).

Although people have always been able to observe weight, the use of numbers as an indicator of weight has its genesis in the turn towards science during the enlightenment. The seventeenth century brought with it a new concept of science, “founded upon experimentation and mathematics, it was a new attitude focused on quantification that, in constant progress and lasting self-improvement, eventually transformed science into research” (Gadamer, 1988/2016, p. 35). This exalting of the primacy of numbers and counting has infiltrated into many aspects of our lives, including the measurement of weight. Today, people monitor body weight in numerous ways but, for many, the scale is the authoritative measure of weight gain or loss (Crawford et al., 2015). This dominant practice situates weight as a number that can be observed and acted upon. Quantifying or measuring weight in this way reflects practices in contemporary natural sciences, meaning the scale is given authority to explain body weight. This creates a seemingly impenetrable order, within which weight-related norms and deviations are established.

Thousands of women wake up each day and find their day dictated by the number on the scale (Lerner, 2004). The desire to quantify worth and to neatly package its meaning is common because measurement simplifies and makes accessible constructs that are difficult to understand. Gadamer (1969/1976) stated “…it seems to be the way of science to recognize the objective facts and the objective laws and to make them controllable and at the disposal of everyone” (p. 189). In some ways, the act of measuring weight objectifies embodied experience; the number on a scale limits the way we can experience our bodies. Weight becomes a focus that overshadows other aspects of bodily experience for many, though this can be overcome through active reshaping of our social environments and self-cognitions (Poulter & Treharne, 2021). As Gadamer (1993/1996) wrote, “…modern science and its ideal objectification demands of all of us a violent estrangement from ourselves” (p. 70).

Understanding weight in all its complexities requires different perspectives and points of view. Weight is more multifarious than the number on the scale or calories in and energy out and our perspectives on weight might change depending on our vantage point. The visual nature of weight suggests that different points of view can aid in exploring its complexities. The root word optic refers to vision and sight as well as to seeing and being seen (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). Given that weight is experienced as a social-relational phenomenon, questions arise about what is seen, when, how, and by whom. In this paper, we offer reflections on how the concepts of panopticism (i.e. the few watching the many) and synopticism (i.e. the many watching the few) might offer important insights into the complexities of weight.

A panopticon is a watch or observation structure in the centre of a prison, first proposed by British social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18^th century. The effectiveness of the panopticon was derived from how it permitted observation of prisoners while also not allowing prisoners to know whether they were being watched or not at any given time. Theorising about the panopticon was extended in Michel Foucault’s extensive positing of societal discipline. In particular, Foucault’s (1975/1977) concept of panopticism described how external surveillance becomes internalized and how individuals police themselves. Consider, for example, the almost automatic checking of a car’s speed when driving through an area where traffic police are known to patrol. From the perspective of the individual, self-surveillance helps to avoid punishment for disobedience or nonconformity; for an institution or society, self-surveillance extends and ensures enactment of law, custom, norm, and convention.

The social dimensions of surveillance are further explicated in sociologist Thomas Mathiesen’s (1997) attempt to address a social dynamic that was absent from Foucault’s theory. Mathiesen argued that control through surveillance has moved beyond Foucault’s original conceptualizations alongside the growth of the “modern surveillance machines” of mass media, television and, more lately, social media (Couch et al., 2015; Mathiesen, 1997, p. 218). In addition to the few observing the many as occurs in a panopticon, Mathiesen described synopticism as the capacity for the many to watch and admire the few. As people in a society become socialized about desirable forms, that is, who to admire, we also learn to judge that which is undesirable. The recursive relationship between panopticism and synopticism produces both subtle and profound exercises of power that construct people in a society as conditioned observers and actors upon self and other, both watchers and the watched.

There is something universal about the human experience of weight: We all weigh something. Yet, experiences of weight are also nuanced, personal, and influenced by how other people view weight within particular social, cultural, and political contexts. The works of Bentham, Foucault, and Mathiesen are instructive in that they tell us the social, cultural, and political contexts of weight are suffused with self and other surveillance. That we all carry weight is a fact of human life, yet the material reality of weight is refracted through multiple layers of surveillance revealing contradictions in experience and understanding, depending upon one’s vantage point. These contradictions represent a “hermeneutic situation” (Moules et al., 2015, p. 15) in fields related to weight (i.e. obesity, eating disorders) that includes a history of intersecting and evolving beliefs, assumptions, and practices. These practices are pillars of human experience and influence our collective understanding of weight. Consequently, in this research, we sought to understand the elusiveness of weight through the lenses of: (a) expert professionals who work as researchers, practitioners, and/or policy makers in fields related to weight (eating disorders, obesity, weight stigma); and (b) people who have expertise through experiences of “weight issues” (e.g. body and weight dissatisfaction, disordered eating, dieting) to gain “common knowledge” understandings of weight and normative discontent (Rodin et al., 1984), recognizing that expert professionals bring personal experience inseparable from their professional expertise.

Method and design

This study was constructed using hermeneutics informed by the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. As the philosophy, practice, and tradition of interpretation, hermeneutics was a fitting method for deepening our understanding of weight (Moules, 2002; Moules et al., 2015). To embrace the social complexities of weight faced each day in practice and in living, we approached experts in fields related to weight and individuals with expertise through experience of weight issues.

After obtaining ethical approval (REB18-0684) from the University of Calgary Conjoint Faculty Research Ethics Board (CFREB), we interviewed seven professionals each with over ten years of experience in a weight-related field, and ten experts by experience with personal experience with weight-related issues. Hermeneutic researchers source participants who will provide the best data as evaluated by their richness and depth; the self-selection of participants indicated that participants had a willingness and ability to speak to the topic. Professional experts were recruited through a professional listserv and experts by experience were recruited through social media advertisements and snowball sampling. Potential professional experts were all members of the only international listserv of interdisciplinary professionals, 24 of whom were directly contacted by the listserv director. Of those 24 professionals, nine responded to the inquiry and seven opted to participate. The experts by experience advertisement asked, “what is body weight? Is it a proxy for health? Is it a number on a scale indicating worth?” and invited any individual interested in answering these questions and engaging in a discussion about weight to participate. This advertisement was shared on Twitter and via lab member’s personal social media accounts. Semi-structured conversations of 60 to 90 minutes were conducted by telephone (n = 15) or in person (n = 2). Participants provided written consent with a verbal confirmation. Interviews with professionals were conducted by the first author while interviews with the experts by experience were conducted by two senior doctoral level research assistants. Experts by experience were students or had work backgrounds in physiotherapy, social work, office and administrative work, and online teaching. Though there were no restrictions placed on geographic location, all experts by experience were Canadian. Professional experts held between 10 and 37 years of weight-related experience in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, counseling, and public health from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Hermeneutic interviews have a conversational tone but are directed by the topic of inquiry (Moules et al., 2015). In alignment with the philosophical underpinnings of hermeneutics, interviewers did not use a set list of questions, but allowed the research conversation to unfold as directed by the topic and the insights and experiences of the participants. All interviews were audio-recorded for exact transcription of data.

In hermeneutic inquiry, “analysis is synonymous with interpretation” (Moules et al., 2015, p. 5), which takes place from the start of inquiry, and is at work during research interviews with participants, meticulous review of transcriptions, and the formation of interpretive memos which lay the foundation for formal interpretations. Unlike other qualitative research methods, the aim of hermeneutic analysis is not to develop themes or codes, but to look for unique and exceptional data while simultaneously exploring areas of commonality; this process brings the philosophical concept of the “hermeneutic circle,” an exchange between the parts (the unique insights into the topic provided by participants) and the whole (the topic of inquiry), into data analysis (Moules et al., 2015, p. 127). Interview transcripts were approached through careful reading and re-reading, looking for exceptional or provoking perspectives from the participants which form initial interpretations. Following the method as described by Moules et al. (2015), collected data were refined into initial interpretations which are then brought to the research team for deeper discussion and analysis, thereby elevating the interpretations through “rigorous, reflexive, and communal attention to the data” (Moules et al., 2015, p. 5). The process of iterative writing evolved into the refinement of these interpretations.

In this paper, we explore our interpretations about the optics of weight, panopticism, and synopticism. The interpretations are presented with data from the transcripts as indicated with direct quotes from the participants. As is consistent with hermeneutic research, participants are not individually named as the goal is not a representation of the participants stories but an explication of what is gleaned about the topic itself. It is indicated if the comment came from the Expert by Experience or the Professional interviews.

The research team brings a combination of professional expertise, methodological expertise, and expertise with weight by experience. We are a team of counselling psychologists, developmental psychologists, and registered nurses with programs of research in weight stigma, body image, hermeneutic inquiry, and terminal illness. We also have lived experience with body dissatisfaction and clinical eating disorders. These professional and lived experiences shaped and informed our analytic discussions.

Results and interpretation

During the interviews, participants used language pertaining to optics when discussing weight, such as: viewing, surveying, watching, eyeing, gaze, perception, illusion, blind spot, and lens. In each instance, weight itself was being watched in some way.

Essentially society does support the idea that watching your weight is good for you, it’s good for your health. You know that’s where Weight Watchers comes from, the whole idea of watching surveying your weight is considered to be of good value. (Professional)

Many participants discussed “weight watchers” in some form or another with the idea that we are encouraged to watch our weight at all times to survey, monitor, and police ourselves in relation to the number on the scale.

The optics of weight: the interplay of the panopticon and the synopticon

The notion of self-monitoring, an internalized form of surveillance, echoes Foucault’s concept of panopticism. As one participant explained, “I remember being kind of worried, I didn’t want my dad’s gaze to turn to me and hit me with that… Well, it felt like that kind of zzzzt like locking into you in a critical way”(Professional). This participant was describing her concern that her father’s gaze would be critical of her body as she grew up. The panopticon, or watch tower, ensured that our participants did the work of those with power, a constant, visible, and powerful sense of being watched results in careful actions related to body weight. The tower is ever-present even if there is no one actively watching; in essence, the body becomes the target as well as the perpetrator of its surveillance (Duncan, 1994). In the words of Foucault (1975/1977), “(a) body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved… to the body that is manipulated, shaped, trained, which obeys, responds, become skillful and increases its forces.” (p. 136). In Western culture, weight is linked to health and we are “watched” by medicine and related disciplines in a way that embeds self-observation and health-oriented weight-related behaviours. In fact, commercial weight loss organizations such as WW (formerly Weight Watchers’) exemplify Foucault’s writings on the form and function of power (Heyes, 2006). Prior to changing its name, WW acknowledged this implicit self-surveillance in its name (Lockford, 1996). In this way of thinking, professionals observe and manage the behaviours of the many. However, they are also subjects of the gaze of the few; supervisors, teams, and regulatory bodies all serve to ensure compliance with weight-related treatment regimes, best-practices, protocols, norms, and conventions of practice that become self-policed (panopticism). At the same time, professionals provide case studies to showcase success or complications in care (synopticism). This means there is no real cause and effect but a recursive enmeshed social construction and enactment of weight watching.

The concepts of panopticism and synopticism show a world in which one can never feel completely at ease. In the case of weight, the gaze from the many and the few is felt and experienced as ever-present. As one expert by experience noted, “It’s kinda weird we have in our staff room…it’s just like a scale there.” A weight scale can serve as a mechanism of self-surveillance and punishment. On the surface, the scale is a tool that measures and shows our weight; yet, over time, we learn to weigh ourselves to ensure compliance with prescribed treatment outcomes (e.g. weight loss for diabetes management) or conformance with social messages about appeal, desirability, and good citizenship. The numbers we see when stepping onto a scale can serve as both reward and punishment in a synoptical sense. A scale in a staff lunchroom serves as the watchtower over actions that relate to weight. While this is both an obvious and symbolic structure to encourage self-monitoring of weight, the expected vigilance is also present in less obvious and more abstract ways. We demonstrate the panopticon and synopticon in practice in relation to weight by addressing the notions of fitting in, numbers (more specifically, body mass index [BMI]), dieting, and the male gaze.

Fitting in

One effect of panoptic surveillance is that it locates weight regulation within the realm of self-control. As a result, relative value can be attributed to behaviors that reflect self-control or, conversely, that imply poor self-control. Couch et al. (2015) argued that, “(p)anoptic surveillance also promotes and extends self-discipline, encouraging people to fit within defined body weight norms and become themselves the main locus of social control” (p. 3). As one participant said, “…You had this perception of how you needed to be and you needed to be that way in order to fit in, in order for people to like you. So that’s what you did” (Expert by Experience). One might hope that, within the context of the watch tower, those whose weight falls within the cultural norms (i.e. “normal” weight) might be spared. However, it seems that regardless of weight status, practices of vigilance around weight are a requirement. As a participant noted, “…some people who look great and would fit the ideals are still seeing something wrong with their body” (Expert by Experience). People are highly aware of the social consequences of diverging from the ideal body size and many would prefer to give up years of their life rather than live in large body (Schwartz et al., 2006). Put another way, those who fit societal ideals of weight still experience the gaze and enact what they view as appropriate self-discipline. This serves to create a kind of social prison, in which people can experience constraint and a loss of freedom around their weight, while also being transformed into more docile and disciplined bodies (Foucault 1975/1977).

According to Foucault (1975/1977), the panopticon is “capable of making all visible, as long as it could itself remain invisible” (p. 214). In the context of weight, we keep ourselves in check, we keep others in check, and others keep us in check. Foucault introduced a relational idea, “disassociating the see/being dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; In the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen” (p. 202). In other words, the panopticon is an important form of social control (Couch et al., 2015). One of our participants described this process in relation to how she sees weight,

So, I think that makes it [weight] complex and then yeah, personal because we tie it to our identity and I think it’s how the world sees us too because of, how we’re meant to, like how society has kind of bred us to view people from that standpoint. (Expert by Experience)

In other words, social control is exerted in the interaction between the panopticon and synopticon because people are both the viewed and viewer. Often, the very same institutions or devices serve both purposes, like using your computer while it is monitoring, influencing, and tracking your actions. One participant describes the interplay between panopticon (medical institutions) and synopticon (social media):

there’s still a lot of judgement and bias around what individuals should look like. Both from the medical institutions and social media. Like who we’re putting on pedestals as celebrities. I think there’s still those messages but as well, being intermixed with new messages and new representation of people all body size and appearance. (Expert by Experience)

According to van Amsterdam et al. (2012), “[t]he Synopticon may therefore seriously impact the ways young people construct and experience their own and others’ bodies because it obstructs the process of critical reflection on dominant discourses that is crucial in challenging this often oppressing dominant imagery” (pp. 294–295). Many of our participants mentioned body ideals in the media, for example: “…So I think definitely seeing things in the media of a certain body type or even just seeing a certain body type glorified within my peers or just within society in general” (Expert by Experience). And from a Professional:

what people are socialized to think is beautiful. What people are socialized to think is acceptable. What people are socialized to think is healthy. And in reality, you know, it’s an illusion but they cling to that.

The interplay between panoptic projections of body ideals, where the few dictate the standards for fitting in, and the synoptic perspective where the many are socialized to idealize these standards and self-monitor to attain them, is helpful in understanding how these “illusions” (as our participant called them) influence body surveillance and also provide a means for the deconstruction of current social norms and expectations regarding weight.

Captured by numbers

By definition, weight is a unit of mass, an amount of heaviness, or a measurement of an object’s relationship with gravity (Dictionary.com, 2022). In practice, weight is a complex construct with meaning that cannot only be represented by numbers.

In a perfect world we’d be working them (clients) to get the number of the scales completely out of their strategy or their scheme of self-evaluation. But it’s been very firmly central for them, and it’s uniformly promoted, human nature, people get captured by numbers. (Professional)

Weight as a number is easy to capture; it is measurable and identifiable and thus affirming and reassuring. People know where they are on a spectrum of possible outcomes when clear indicators of gain or loss are centralized as data of interest. Weight is often normalized as a token of surveillance and discipline, an indicator of whether we are “doing well” or not, and a reward for “good” behaviour, yet it is none of these. If a person carries too much or too little weight, it invites surveillance and response from health services. Rewards are located in seeing a sought-after number on a scale and affirmations that accompany desired or required weight change. It is perhaps not surprising, then that, as one of the Professional participants noted, “…people get captured by numbers…they get quite obsessed and imbue them with more meaning than they should.” Professionals and recipients of health services imbue numbers with meaning, however, because of concerns with engaging in what is deemed to be “correct” and “moral” behavior. When considered from a population perspective, health, regulatory, and policy responses at the nexus of weight, health, and burden of care become population-based social control (Couch et al., 2015) that helps us to remain captured by numbers.

Attempts to determine what is a “normal” weight via BMI charts, which are not grounded in science but in insurance adjustment, reflect moral and aesthetic judgments regarding proper appearance (Czerniawski, 2007; Murray, 2009). Examining the trends of the “idealized” body over the past 200 years indicates that these judgments are both time and context dependent, yet are central to our views and attempts to manage weight across body sizes and types. According to Jutel (2001), “in Western society, values of homogeneity and visual aesthetics guide our judgments of what is good and healthy, and imprint themselves firmly on our approach to weight management” (p. 286).

…I think the obesity people would say “Oh yes, yes, BMI is such a rough population measure, doesn’t indicate the health of the individual” but then they would say “That’s the best that we can do when we do large studies.” Scientifically I would stop and say, “You can’t use a second rate measure, you have to do better.” (Professional)

Recently, Dr. Katherine Flegal outlined her decades-long struggle to have statistical analyses about BMI stand up to scrutiny when scientific findings do not support popular societal discourses (Flegal, 2021; Heid, 2021). “We treat this number (BMI) as being full of all this meaning that it doesn’t have,” she says. “This leads to a lot of arbitrary and not very helpful assumptions” (Heid, 2021). There is a general zeitgeist in healthcare of operationalizing numbers: measure, make the numbers go up or go down, and then link it (perhaps erroneously) to the articulation of a desired outcome. We are so committed to this we do it even when the measurement is imprecise (e.g. BMI) or when we know it does not correlate with the desired outcome (e.g. better health). We measure weight as if it is a reasonable proxy for health: Give the number exaggerated meaning and power, and when new data fly in the face of common societal discourses, the findings are discarded in favor of perpetuating social control through the obligation to self-monitor weight.

The BMI is, has become a bludgeon, but it actually contains some useful information for some things. The problem is it’s been applied in all these ways it wasn’t designed or was not appropriate to apply, that its become this big cultural bludgeon. One that I don’t want to have anything to do with. (Professional)

Dieting: the tyrannic tower

The North American diet industry represents another form of capture, in which weight loss or weight control situates people as both watchers and the watched. We describe this as a tyrannical tower in the sense that observation and resultant self-scrutiny traps people into self-perpetuating complexities associated with weight management. Bodies in society are being watched and studied by a diet industry that understands our behaviours and patterns as well as our concerns and anxieties about our bodies. The strategic timing of weight loss advertising (i.e. after the holidays and in the run up to summer) tells us that weight loss companies know when we may feel dissatisfied with eating patterns and more vulnerable about our bodies. The messages contained in diet industry advertisements align with other persuasive social messages about ideal bodies.

In relation to our discussion in this paper, these companies advertise in ways that encourage self-monitoring of weight. Heyes (2006) argued that weight loss dieting is not only a quest for an ideal body, but also a process of self-surveillance in the guise of self-care:

For feminists, weight-loss dieting has long been associated with the tyranny of slenderness and the enforcement, by patriarchal disciplinary practices, of an ideal body type that carries a powerful symbolism of self-discipline, controlled appetites, and the circumscription of appropriate feminine behavior and appearance. (p. 126)

Dieting is a practice played out on the body that reflects the idea of a woman being both a subject of bodily control and being subjected to bodily control (Heyes, 2006). The persuasiveness of the diet industry is such that bodily control becomes a means to correct an undisciplined body, sometimes in unreasonable ways. Advertising that introduces the possibility of losing × number of pounds in × number of weeks, for example, creates an impression that dieting is a legitimate way to, rapidly, lose weight. Dieting thus becomes about the numbers, whether they are the pounds on scale, the inches on the waistline, or the hours spent fasting between eating windows. Diet industry discourse focuses our attention on aesthetics, often disguised as a way to attain health or wellbeing, to drive self-surveillance and weight-management behaviours (Jovanovski & Jaeger, 2022). This means that how the body looks to self and others becomes the benchmark by which good eating behaviours are judged. As one participant observed,

…I guess like diet, culture and that kind of thing. Lots of fad diets that’s definitely impacted the way I’ve seen myself kind of always thinking “Should I be on a diet, should I be trying to be like these people that you see in the media?” (Expert by Experience)

Another participant noted the number of people who seem to be captured by the diet industry:

…My God my office, all I hear about is the Keto diet, or the Paleo diet, or the fasting diet. Those three diets, every single person in the office is on one of them. It’s just a bit exhausting. Haven’t we learned from all the previous diets that they’ve come out and “Oh actually people should not be doing that.” These fad diets… (Expert by Experience)

If people (the many) engage in dieting because bodies are being watched, then a question arises about who the watchful few are. Representations of idealized bodies in diet industry advertising offer clues about the few who watch and sit in judgment of undisciplined bodies. Celebrity endorsements of diet companies provide a roadmap for the idealized weight loss journey and a destination where success, admiration, and self-respect lay waiting to be claimed.

Although all genders are subject to weight management concerns, the diet industry tells us that women, especially, need to pay attention to their weight (Jovanovski & Jaeger, 2022). More generally, women are socialized to contain and internalize the effects of exposure to stressors, whereas men are socialized to externalize and act upon the stressor (Rosenfield, 2000). Women are disproportionately disadvantaged for living in a large body, judged more for their appearance, and are more likely to try to lose weight through a range of methods like restrictive eating, laxative use, and surgery than their male counterparts (Fikkan & Rothblum, 2012; Saguy & Riley, 2005).

The synopticon provides information about a desirable, successful body as well as about the unacceptable or deviant body (van Amsterdam et al., 2012). In terms of weight and women, the successful body is thin and the unsuccessful body is not. One participant put this succinctly, “It’s just a perception that’s out there that you know, skinny people are better than fat people” (Expert by Experience). With social media, the many can compare themselves to the few and in relation to weight, the visible nature has participants both being seen and doing the seeing.

…even in terms of social media. Like if I am scrolling through social media and all of a sudden I feel low about myself and feel like “Oh there’s something that I need to change about me or my appearance or my weight, what did I just see that made me think that?” And then almost re-evaluating, “Ok, do I need to be following somebody like this or do I need to be exposing myself to this way of thinking when I know that that’s where I came from and where I made such a transition from?” (Expert by Experience)

The male gaze

The male gaze is a specific gaze that describes the power differential between the male gazer and the person, typically a woman, being gazed upon in potentially harmful or objectifying ways (Mulvey, 1975). Participants discussed the relevance of “weight watching” and the importance of surveillance from self and others particularly at the onset of puberty when the pressure to obtain romantic relationships began to emerge. Specifically, given our heteronormative, cisnormative, romance-centric society, women participants felt pressure to pursue romantic relationships with men and believed that becoming physically appealing or attractive to men (i.e. thin) was necessary for success in this endeavor. One expert by experience explained that during puberty she viewed herself as a candidate on display competing for male attention, “going through young adolescence and having my first crushes on boys and comparing myself to other candidates of their affection.”

The ideal image and external gaze may be internalized, which then leads one to compare themselves to others, critique and monitor their weight (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Another expert by experience recalls an image that she came across during puberty, “three girls on the pedestals and in 1st place, it was a cartoon character of this girl who like was so skinny you could see her ribs and she was hanging on to a like a number 1 medal and the 2nd girl was a bit bigger and the 3rd place girl was a bit bigger.” The female body on display, ranked in terms of weight status for male consumption is a striking visual in the context of the panopticon. In some cases, despite vigilant self-monitoring of weight, a woman gains weight and punishment is in order. “Gosh I remember going out with this guy… and he would say to me ‘If you get fat, I’m gonna break up with you’” (Expert by Experience).

Forbes et al. (2007) pointed out that, whatever the population-based beauty ideal of the time, articulated by anything from artwork of the female form to BMI charts, three factors remain constant over time:

First, ideal bodies, regardless of their specifics, have never represented the bodies of most women. […] Second, many women, arguably most women, have invested substantial amounts of time, energy, and emotional resources in the usually futile effort to conform to these standards. Third, both men and women have habitually scrutinized women’s bodies to see how closely those women approximate the beauty standards. (p. 265)

Therefore, in the context of weight, the panopticon serves to uphold patriarchal discourses that shape and constrain experiences of weight (Duncan, 1994).

Conclusion

The current study yielded multiple interpretations concerning the optics of weight, including monitoring and being monitored as a way of fitting in and the roles of numbers (more specifically, body mass index [BMI]), dieting, and the male gaze on the surveillance and self-surveillance we are subject to. Across the interviews of both professional experts and experts by experience, “weight watching” of both the self and others was pervasive and illustrated recursive relationship between panopticism and synopticism and the power inherent in each as related to weight.

The “hermeneutic light of aletheia” (McCaffrey, 2015, p. 22) allows us to see that weight is at once visible and invisible. Aletheia occurs when something that was concealed is seen or revealed; it considers the ordinary and taken for granted, and also the unusual or unexpected, both the familiar and the strange, and deconstructs our understanding of both so that a newness can be revealed. Weight is a complexity that exists in both hidden and obvious ways, as evidenced by the current hermeneutic analysis. Hermeneutics reminds us that we will never be complete with the task of seeing weight for what it is.

Based on weight, you may be exposed and scrutinized or erased and overlooked, sometimes simultaneously (Gailey, 2014). You cannot really hide your weight. It is difficult to disguise weight status. Concealing whether you are carrying too much or too little weight on your body is difficult, though many try. What does it reveal about weight itself? When and how do we decide that we can fully reveal our weight without self-censoring or self-monitoring? How would we be received or seen? Attempts to show or conceal drastic weight loss or gain, the attempt or responsibility to self-manage and self-monitor becomes something that holds people at a distance from both themselves and others. We reveal and conceal aspects of our identity in relation to weight. The ridicule and judgement about whether our weight is perceived as success or failure can come from others or ourselves but perhaps most often from both in a pattern of reciprocal paralysis. When we reveal weight gain or loss, there is no clear pathway toward or from our invisibility. Weight is in sight, and we are sighted.

Learning from participants who are professionals in the field and learning from those who have experience with weight issues was necessary, as hermeneutic inquiry provides what no number or measurement tool can tell us of these experiences. The results of hermeneutic research have practical utility at varying levels of instrumental, symbolic, and conceptual applicability (Moules et al., 2015; Sandelowski, 2004). In this study, the theoretical constructs of panopticon and synopticon provide a lens through which to understand weight from different perspectives. Women are simultaneously watched and the watchers, the guard tower renders control and correction of the female form, and the female form is a spectacle that defines both the successful and unsuccessful body. Together, the panopticon and synopticon provide an interaction that creates the perfect imposition of control and power over women’s weight – an optical illusion that has far-reaching and life-altering implications.

Geolocation information

For indexing in JournalMap’s geographic literature database, this study was conducted through the University of Calgary, Calgary, AB (51.0446° N, 114.0719° W).

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Isabel Brun and Emily Williams for interviewing the experts by experience.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Data availability statement

All datasets generated and analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to protection of participants’ privacy, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council under Grant 435-2018-0116.