NotNormativelyHuman 199
norms "is to impose a requirement on an existence.. ." (239). The
perceived mismatch between bodily norm (manifested in a given size)
and individual physicality has thus elicited a range of compensatory
strategies on the side of the person affected:^44 especially dieting for the
purpose of fitting into a certain size piece of clothing can be read as a
practice of "somatic surveillance" (Backett-Milburn and McKie 2)
which amounts to a full-scale internalization of a biometric norm.
Inversely, failing to "fit" a norm materialized in clothing sizes can thus
constitute an individual as well as a social pathology. Accordingly, an
element of (self-)stigmatization, of cultural culpability, is at work here
towhichIwillreturnlateroninaslightlydifferentcontext.
More and more aspects of human biology are coming under the
purview of norms. Another example of the "complex interplay between
physical and mental structures" (Laitala et al. 20), one that is related to
themismatchjustdiscussed,canbeobservedinthecontextoftheBody
Mass Index (BMI). Introduced in the 1970s, this new form of corporeal
oughtness intervened in the relationship of people toward their
embodiment by providing aseemingly objective,mathematicalmeasure
(Heyes68-69)forwhatcancountashealthyandinthissensenormative
bodies. The cultural prestige of science, and here especially medicine,
together with a veritable media barrage of diet literature and exercise
videos, as well as an overwhelming "fatphobic public health discourse"
(Heyes 20) broughtthe BMI norm "home" to Americans (and people in
other countries as well). Well in excess of its medical usefulness which
isitselfnotuncontested,^45 theBMIproducedyetanotherareaofcultural
schemesofself-validation,self-abnegation,andself-hatred.Atthesame
(^44) Davis Burns, Leslie, and Nancy O. Bryant.The Business of Fashion
Designing, Manufacturing and Marketing.New York: Fairchild Publications,
- Print. – The widespread practice of "vanity sizing," i.e., the clothing
industry'sassigningclothesasmallernominalsizethantheyactuallyareinorder
tobolstertheself-esteemofcustomersreflectsthatindustry'santicipationofand
calculationwiththehabitofself-blaming(cf.Hoeggetal.70,75).
(^45) For more material cf. Wehling, Peter, Willy Viehöver, Sophia Koenen, eds.
The Public Shaping of Medical Research: Patient Associations, Health
Movements and Biomedicine. London: Routledge, 2015. Print., esp. the article
by Lyson and Zavestoski, "Obesity, The Alternative Food Movement and
CompleteStreets"(89-107).