THE WEIGHT OF BEAUTY: SPEECHES ON THE SUPPLY OF CLOTHING SIZES AND BODY DIVERSITY IN SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY, 2023

Abstract

This research arose from a first review of the scope and limitations of Law 27,521 or “Law of Sizes”, considering a theoretical framework transversal to the field of health and humanistic and social sciences.

Currently in Jujuy, Argentina, there are no legal regulations that regulate the offer of sizes in clothing stores. This lack of measures responds to internal issues in the design and production of clothing brands at a national and international level, generating limitations in the availability of large sizes, a situation that is outside the responsibility and possibilities of businesses. Faced with this situation, the public's demand for sizes of fat bodies remains unanswered.

Assuming a qualitative approach, we seek to hear voices from diverse bodies that express the limited availability of large clothing sizes as one of the many problems that affect groups systematically affected by forms of discrimination, including fatphobia.

The interest in understanding the reactions and behaviors of this population becomes relevant if we consider a contemporary context in which the ideal of beauty materializes in thin body figures, which could lead to the adoption of extreme behaviors, a substantial issue in the study of factors risk of eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression, social anxiety, among others.

In this way we were able to learn about the current situation of the supply and availability of large sizes in the capital of Jujuy. This project was contextualized as part of a set of different academic spaces that aimed to promote the construction of a discourse that positions body diversity on the agenda in addition to making visible and raising awareness about fatphobia and its negative impact on comprehensive health, thus recognizing new paradigms. that admit a diversity of bodies in equally diverse sociocultural settings.