Beyond Weight – Mapping the Medico-Moral Terrain of Youth Obesity Care

WEIGHYOUTH: New Obesity Treatments and the Social Meanings of Weight in Youth
The treatment of obesity among young people is undergoing a profound transformation. This change is being driven by novel medical interventions, including bariatric surgery and GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy. While these treatments have demonstrated considerable clinical effectiveness, they also raise important social, cultural, and ethical questions, particularly when used among minors.
Obesity is increasingly understood as a biologically and hormonally regulated disease rather than primarily as a consequence of individual willpower or self-discipline. In the case of young people, this shift is intertwined with parental involvement in treatment decisions, obesity-related stigma, cultural pressures concerning appearance, and questions of autonomy, agency, and informed consent.
WEIGHYOUTH will provide the first systematic sociological analysis of emerging obesity treatments among young people. The project is conducted in Finland, where both bariatric surgery and the use of GLP-1 medications among adolescents are becoming increasingly common. The study examines how global narratives, medical definitions, and moral understandings of obesity are translated, negotiated, and reshaped in the Finnish context, and how these processes unfold in the everyday interactions of young people, parents, and healthcare professionals.
The project addresses three key questions:
How do new obesity treatments redistribute responsibility among individuals, families, healthcare professionals, and society?
How do these treatments reshape cultural narratives, meanings, and representations associated with obesity?
What ethical questions do they raise concerning autonomy, informed consent, and care?
Through these questions, WEIGHYOUTH contributes to broader sociological debates on medicalization, responsibility, health inequalities, and the changing relationship between medicine, bodies, and society.