Configuring bariatric bodies: exploring obesity surgery beyond the hospital

Abstract

Bariatric surgery (surgery for obesity) is, in many cases, the last resort for the clinically overweight. Drawing on ethnographic materials in a unit of morbid obesity, this article explores how "bariatric bodies" are configured so that bariatric surgery is a sustainable solution beyond the operation theatre. However, what medicine calls 'side-effects', are, in terms of body configuration, a new set of semiotic-material relationships which start, but do not end, in the operating theatre. The bariatric digestive system might not necessarily fit with the set of relations with which it has to deal on leaving the hospital: the person will have to cope with eating very little, and with being able to ingest only a very limited amount of nutrients.