A Future without Fat? Christian Eschatology and the Violence of Fat Phobia

According to Euro-American discourse, fat people, and fat women in particular, lack a future. Not only are fat persons more likely to die prematurely, fatness presents as a threat to the future of the nation comparable with Covid and the climate crisis. Within this narrative, fatness emerges as a ‘biopolitical problem’ (Evans, 2009) that takes shape in the present through the futurizing of fatness. Lurking behind such dreams of a fat-free future is a set of misogynist and racist assumptions as well as the entrenched fat phobic belief that fat people, especially women, are disposable. However, such a futurizing of fat is also resourced by Western Christian ideas about eschatological bodies. Through an engagement with Augustine’s presentation of fatness and future heavenly bodies, I explore how the theological futurizing of fat can incentivise a hearty celebration of fatness, opening up history to alternative possibilities to the fat-shaming present.